Note # 15 – Starsky and Hutch Ride Again

I don’t know what you were doing in the summer of 1975, but I can tell you what I was doing:  if the sun was up, I was probably riding my bike at an insane speed down a gravel hill with my best friend, Bruce.  We were ten at the time and we would put hockey cards into the spokes of our bikes to try to approximate the sounds of an engine, or maybe just to make the maximum amount of noise possible as we catapulted ourselves down the steep incline of the road behind my parents’ house.

My grandmother had given me walkie talkies for my birthday that year and they were army green and had detachable microphones and were pretty much the coolest thing I had ever owned.  We would tape them to our bike handlebars and radio instructions to each other, peppering our messages with lots of “10-4” and “Copy that,” as we acted out scenes from our favourite show that summer, the police drama Starsky and Hutch.  We even made ourselves badges with school pictures and lots of Scotch tape and we would flash them at the bad guys right before we shot them with our cap guns.

Bruce was Starsky and I was Hutch and I think that was the only thing we ever argued about because we both knew Starsky was the cool dude and Hutch was just his soulful back up, yet Bruce always got to be Starsky when we played.  (I realize now that Bruce was the cool dude and I am totally the soulful back up, so I guess it worked out okay.)

When it got too hot or we got tired of flinging ourselves down that gravel hill, we would pedal our way to his house – his family had a pool – and then we would be pirates or Navy SEALs or sometimes we would just dare each other to do ridiculous things, like stack all the air mattresses together and then jump off the diving board onto them.

There must be a separate God who looks out for little children who do such stupid things because we never got too badly hurt.

We were pretty much inseparable for our whole childhoods, Bruce and I.  We walked to school together every day from Grade Three, when his family moved to town, until we graduated high school, including the very long year when we were 14 and his parents got divorced and he didn’t want to talk much and was angry all the time.  I just kept showing up.  Later that year, when I had a big surgery, the first thing I saw when I woke up was his puffy green parka, pacing back and forth at the foot of my bed, and I knew we were going to be all right.

Eventually, as always happens, our lives changed and we didn’t see each other for a long time. I moved away to go to school and then took a job in a city far away, and Bruce worked hard and raised three terrific kids.

But a few years ago, the fates (and his very clever sister) conspired to get us back together one holiday weekend when I was in town visiting my mother.

Of course, it was like no time had passed.

We have a ritual now, whenever I visit my home town.  He picks me up in his red Corvette – the top is already down, the tunes are already on – a carefully curated playlist of all the good stuff since high school. We drive out of town and down the concession roads to the beaches, and the sun shines on us and it is glorious.  We talk about work and families and relationships and our blood pressures and how we’re not 14 any more and as we talk, we slowly put each other back together. He cranks the volume as we drive the strip past Wasaga Beach, which looks more and more like Atlantic City to me every year, and we drive fast on the empty straightaways, arms in the air as if we were on a roller coaster. We stop at Starbucks and I don’t think I’ve ever felt as urbane and cool as when we swagger back to his convertible with our iced lattés and Americanos.

We always drive along the water, following the beach roads, low and slow, taking in every slant of light, every breeze off Georgian Bay. We never run out of things to talk about and I never feel as listened to as when Bruce listens to what I’m saying. Life has knocked us both around a bit but I know he’s got my back, and I’ve got his, no matter what.

Like Starsky and Hutch.

The day we took this picture, as he drove me back to my mom’s house, the sky was watercolour washes of blue and orange and pink and he told me that we haven’t ever changed because our spirits are forever the same.

I’ve known this man for 45 years; he is my brother now.

P.

P.S. Call your best friend.  They would love to hear from you.