By
Jennifer Lynn
1987
7:23pm
“Aw, Hutch.” Starsky grumbled into the telephone. “I don’t care that you’ve missed dinner. AGAIN. God knows I’ve missed my share. But I want you here to watch this show with me. When it’s on. Not later, after. I’m taping it, but - ”
“I know, I know,” interrupted Hutch, on the other end of the line, as he wearily rubbed his hand over his forehead. “I’ll be there, I will. You know I can’t leave until all the paperwork is done here. That’ll never change, even if I make Captain.”
“When you make it you mean. You realize this show can help us relive a part of our youth.” Starsky tried to sound nostalgic, hoping to ignite some enthusiasm in Hutch.
“It was the 60’s, Starsky, I’m not sure I want to remember.”
He tried again. “But we met in the 60’s.”
“And that’s the only highlight I really care to remember. Look, you just get the popcorn ready and I’ll be there. Promise.”
8:54pm
Starsky was turning on the TV when he checked his watch for the fifth time that hour. “Six minutes, Blintz,” he muttered. Stepping lightly over to the refrigerator, he pulled out two cold beers and snagged the large bowl of freshly popped popcorn from the counter.
Starsky was really looking forward to a new documentary that was airing on TV that night. Usually it was Hutch who watched the Public Broadcasting channel. But tonight's show, about 1967 and the Beatles release of ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ had caught his full attention.
Settling down with his snacks and an afghan, he heard the front door open and then close. Starsky smiled outwardly as he recognized the footsteps coming up behind him. “Yer just in time, Blondie,” Starsky said, munching on popcorn.
He was blessed with a quick kiss on the top of his head. “I’ll just wash up and be right back.”
A minute later, Hutch returned. “Get comfortable. Here.” Starsky said, lifting up a corner of the afghan. Hutch tiredly slid in next to his partner. Starsky tucked both of them in comfortably, giving Hutch a pat on the knee and handing him a beer. “Shh, it’s starting now…”
The Narrator started: “Twenty years ago a social, sexual, and musical revolution engulfed millions of young people all over the world…At the heart of the whole thing were the Beatles, with their eighth album, Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band…”
Abbie Hoffman, political activists, comments, “A few events outside of my inner family circle that I remember in life. And one was Kennedy’s assassination, John Kennedy, and the other was where I was when I first heard Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
“Do you remember, Hutch? Where you were when you first heard the album? Remember?” Starsky asked.
Hutch tapped his fingers along his chin trying to remember twenty long years ago. “Oh, yeah!” Hutch snapped his fingers and straightened up. Looking over at Starsky, he relayed his story.
“It was the summer of ’67 and I had just decided to drop out of school, you know, graduate school. The decision felt great. Like a big weight being lifted off my shoulders. At least it did at first, before all the junk from my family and Vanessa started to weight me down again.
“That May I felt free, even being married to Van wasn’t terrible yet. We had these friends, a guy from my hometown, who was in the same graduate program as me. We would get together with him and his girlfriend. Van loved going over to their house. Yes, I said house – in grad school. They were the right kind of people after all. 'We should be spending our time with them,’ Van said. And she said it a lot, I’ll tell you.
“So one Thursday we get a call from them inviting us over for dinner and stuff. I specifically remember this because this was one of our first big fights. I didn’t want to go. Thursday I took private guitar lessons that I really enjoyed. I had a great teacher and I needed that time for me, myself. I could relax with my guitar and forget the stress of school and life for a while. I didn’t want to cancel my lesson just to send my evening with them. I really didn’t like them, right kind of people or not. But Van insisted. Everything felt, oh, I don’t know, so staged with them. I felt like we were all acting out the friendship and that we were all waiting for the show to end so we could all go our separate ways.
“Van got her way, that time. But I brought the incident up a time or two over the years. So, after we ate, Tom, that was the guy, brought out this album and said, ‘Hey, this is the new Beatles album. Heard it yet?’ We hadn’t, but I was interested in listening to it. God, Starsk. That album really talked to me. ‘Getting Better’ and ‘Fixing A Hole’ were great. And ‘She’s Leaving Home’, well, that was close to how I felt. I was leaving home too. Minnesota, my family, and Van. The details weren’t worked out yet. Hell, even I didn’t know the details. ‘We gave her everything money could buy’ go the lyrics. Looking around at Tom’s perfect house, at Tom’s life, all the money there, and then thinking about my life. I saw what I didn’t want it to become. I needed reality. Real relationships with real people. That’s something no amount of money can buy.
“Well, when the record was over, I sat there mesmerized while Tom said, ‘Not their best, but it’s okay I guess.’ ‘Okay,’ I said back. ‘You guess? Are you out of your fucking mind? That. Was. Art.’ We didn’t see much of Tom after that. Moved out here to California soon after and you know the rest.”
Hutch stopped to catch his breath and run his hand back through his hair. “So Starsk, where were you when you first heard the album?”
“Really don’t remember. Loved your story though,” replied Starsky with a grin.
Hutch punched him lightly on the arm and rolled his eyes upward. “Some day, Starsk…”
“What?”
The TV screen showed the words: “25th of June 1967,” “the first Global Satellite hook- up,” (featured the Beatles singing) “All You Need is Love”.
The Narrator asks many of the guests this question: “Is love all you need?”
George Harrison replies, “Yes. Absolutely. In fact got…I can give you a little quote on that if you like. Where’s that book?”
Paul McCartney replies, “Is love all you need. I don’t know really. I don’t know what you need, ya know? I’m just some fellow…”
Harrison reads, “’Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, the men below and saints above. For Love is Heaven and Heaven is Love.’* See…I certainty believe that – and I’m sticking to it!”
“Alright, George!” Starsky pumped a fist into the air. “I believe that, I agree with him, don’t you?”
“I’ve read that story, it’s a great one.”
“I mean,” Starsky continued, “some of the other people asked that question, Hoffman, Peter Cyote, Alan Ginsberg, they said some good things too, but I think if the love is there, really there, the rest they added, truth, justice, peace, awareness, come as a matter of course. Naturally. If the love is truly real, it is all you need.” Starsky’s eyes were shinning brightly as he looked over at Hutch.
Hutch looked back at him thoughtfully, his eyes full of love, the real kind of love.
“And you know somethin’ else, Blintz?”
Hutch could only shake his head in reply.
“I think I just described us…”