There is a strong
tissue warning with this story. Read at your own risk.
Depraved Indifference
Born Too Soon
A child born too soon to a
mother who didn’t care
Lungs too small to draw a
breath
A tiny boy, trapped in a
world without sound
Two warriors stand together
shaking their fists at the heavens
Their hearts filled with
pain and despair
Soldiers trapped in a world
without justice
As one small life passes
from one level to the next
Two men huddle together in
an empty room
And shed bitter tears for the
child who couldn’t cry
*******************************************************************************
At seven o’clock in the
morning, Vinnie’s Gym was busy. The smell of sweat hung on the air like a pair
of week old socks and the sounds of fists hitting various sized bags
reverberated around the large room. Ken Hutchinson stopped pounding on the
small bag in front of him long enough to wipe his face with the towel draped
around his neck. Perspiration streamed down his cheeks and even his mustache was
dotted with beads of sweat. He could taste the salt as he licked his lips.
What was he doing here so
early on his day off? It wasn’t so much a desire to get back into shape, though
he admitted freely that he’d let himself go way too long, it was simply the
overpowering need to hit something.
At the moment, the bag was the safest target. After all, it wouldn’t do for a
Homicide detective to be arrested for assault and battery. So he patted his
face dry with the towel, dropped his hands and shook his arms to loosen the
muscles then hit the sparring bag with a steady rhythm.
As he struck out at the bag
with his fists, bits and pieces of the past flashed through his mind. The sight
of Starsky sitting on an examining table in Memorial Hospital’s ER, a piece of gauze
covering the knife wound on his arm, the result of breaking up yet another
domestic dispute. A small smile curved his lips as he remembered how many times
he’d slapped Starsky’s hand away from the wound while they waited for the ER
doctor to stitch him up. You could always tell how badly Starsky was hurt by
how vocal he was. Starsky had nearly driven him crazy whining about the pain
and grumbling about the time they were wasting sitting in the ER. The smile on
Hutch’s face widened as he remembered the lollipop the nurse gave Starsky when
the wound was finally sutured.
The humor in his eyes
vanished as Hutch remembered his first introduction to Tristan McCall. At
thirteen months of age, the tiny boy had already been through more pain and
torment then most adults ever experienced. Born almost four months early, Tristan
spent the first months of his short life in the neonatal care unit of LA’s
Cedar’s-Sinai hospital. Though, at the time, Hutch didn’t know that. All he saw
was a tiny bundle wrapped in a tattered blue blanket, and brilliant blue eyes
staring out of an angelic face. After catching his first glimpse of Tristan,
almost hidden by the bustling nurses and his family, Hutch wondered why he
couldn’t hear him cry. Then he saw the trachea tube trailing over the blanket,
leading to the small oxygen tank lying beside Tristan on the hospital bed, and
he knew. If Tristan was crying, no one would hear him. The respirator that
helped him breathe kept him from making any sound.
Tristan was trapped in a
world without sound, but his family certainly wasn’t. A voice that Hutch soon
learned was Tristan’s mother’s rose stridently over the noise of the busy ER,
complaining about just about everything to anyone that would listen.
The rhythm of Hutch’s fists
hitting the bag increased. His first exposure to Melody McCall was less than
auspicious.
“How much longer is Dr. Jones going to be? Billy
promised to take me to that new club that just opened and I still have to go
home and get ready. I mean, it’s not like they haven’t seen the baby before.
All they have to do is clean the trach and give Tristan some medicine. It’s
just bronchitis again. It’s not like he’s dying or anything.”
“Now Mel, you know they want to show you how to clean
the incision and suction the tube again. If you’d pay more attention to what
they’re doing, Tristan wouldn’t get sick so often. It only takes a few minutes
to do everything and he’s too little to fight you.”
“But momma, it’s gross! Those nurses can take care of
it in just a few minutes, but it takes me forever to get it done. Anyway, they
promised they’d take it out when he was a year old, and he’s thirteen months
now.”
“You can’t rush these things. It’s a miracle he lived
to begin with. You’re the one that couldn’t wait for him to come home. The
doctors made it plain that he would need a lot of attention and you know your
dad and I have to work. I know it’s a lot to take on, but he’s your
responsibility. Maybe it will be easier when he can breathe on his own. Until
then, you just have to deal with it.”
“I deal with it all of the time, mother! Billy never
helps, and his mom says she’s too scared to watch Tristan. I never get to go
out anymore! Tonight was supposed to be special and it’s not fair that I’m
stuck in this stupid ER waiting for the doctor.”
“Keep your voice down, Melody McCall! There are other
people in this room that need help. Your complaining isn’t going to make the
doctor come faster. Now you watch Tristan while I go call your brother and let
him know what’s going on. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Tell Seth that my front door is unlocked and to go
on in. We’ll be home as soon as we can. I still want him to watch the baby. I’m
not going to be stuck at home again on a Friday night!”
The cadence of his gloves
hitting rubber increased again. His first look at Melody McCall didn’t inspire
confidence, either. Stringy blonde hair with dark roots showing hung limply to
her shoulders. Lips that might have been full were thinned by the sullen
expression on her face. She had the same startling blue eyes as her son, but
instead of gazing at the world with wide-eyed innocence as Tristan did,
Melody’s eyes were filled with the flat expression of someone that had seen too
much too soon. She was fair skinned with a smattering of freckles on her
cheeks. A tank top that had once been red but was now faded to a lusterless
pink accentuated her breasts, and shorts that ended several inches above her
knees emphasized her legs. A pair of worn flip flops left her feet nearly bare
and showed toenails that were painted bright red. The word that immediately entered
Hutch’s mind was “slut”. For the first time, but not the last, he felt pangs of
pity for Tristan McCall. It was bad enough to be born with so many strikes
against him. To have a mother like Melody McCall was simply adding insult to
injury.
Against his own better
judgment, and Starsky’s advice, Hutch was soon immersed in the saga of Tristan
McCall’s short life. He wheedled, cajoled, and bribed the medical staff at
The sound of his fists
hitting the bag was like machine gun fire in the gym. If the doctors knew even
then that Melody wasn’t taking proper care of her son, why the Hell didn’t they
do something about it? How could
anyone look at that sweet little face and just throw him to the wolves? Tristan
McCall was innocent. He didn’t ask for any of this. How could they just turn
their backs on him? Finally, the strength in his arms gave out and Hutch let
his hands drop to his sides. He stood head down, panting with the exertion.
A familiar voice spoke from
behind him. “Do you feel better now?”
Hutch straightened but didn’t
turn around. “Vinnie called you.”
Starsky walked around the
bag so he could see his partner’s face. “Well, yeah. He just put that bag up a
few weeks ago and didn’t want you to beat it to shreds just yet.”
Hutch gave the bag one final
punch then walked away. “It’s better than hitting who I wanted to hit.”
He walked toward the showers
with Starsky trailing behind him. His back and shoulders were stiff as he
dropped the towel in the dirty laundry hamper and took a fresh one from the
stack.
Starsky laid a hand on his
arm. “You can’t save everybody, Hutch.”
Hutch hung the towel on a
towel rack and stripped off his sweat soaked clothes. “I’m not trying to save everybody.”
Before Starsky could say
anything else, Hutch turned on the water and stepped into the shower. Starsky
ran his fingers through his dark hair as he stared at his friend’s back for a
moment then slumped down on a long, white bench. He sighed and shook his head
slowly.
“Can’t
talk to you, Hutch. You’re just
not going to let anybody in on this one.”
Vinnie walked by and stopped
in front of Starsky. He glanced at Hutch then raised an eyebrow at Starsky, who
shrugged.
Vinnie echoed the shrug.
“Wouldn’t listen to you, either, huh?”
“Nope. I don’t know what to say to him. He’s setting
himself up for a great big fall.”
Vinnie watched Hutch as he
rinsed the shampoo out of his hair. His eyes filled with empathy. As he pushed
the dirty hamper in front of him, he gazed back at Starsky.
“Sometimes you just have to
do what your heart tells you to do, even if your head knows it’s not going to
help.”
Hutch finished his shower
then stepped out with the clean towel wrapped around his waist. He walked past
Starsky then opened his locker and took out his gym bag. Then he dropped the
towel and after taking his clean clothes out of the bag, he began to dress.
Starsky stood up and faced
his friend. “What are you going to do, Hutch? You can’t arrest her. Stupidity
isn’t a crime. If it was, there’d be more people inside the jail than outside.”
Hutch put on a pair of jeans
over his boxers then slipped a t-shirt over his head. Sitting down on the
bench, he put on a pair of socks.
“She’s not stupid, Starsky.
She’s negligent. She’s putting her son’s life at risk.” He picked up a shoe
then closed his eyes to hide the pain. “He can’t cry, Starsk. Babies are
supposed to cry when they’re hungry, or wet, or when they just want to be held.
All she has to do is turn her back and it’s like he’s not even there. How am I
supposed to walk away from that? Are the only victims we’re responsible for the
ones that are stabbed, or raped, or shot? Tristan is a victim just as much as
they are.” He put his shoes on then stood up and looked Starsky in the eye.
“She’s going to kill him if we don’t do something. There has to be an answer.”
Starsky sighed. “I love you,
Hutch. I love your big heart and the way you care for the underdog. I love the
way you keep fighting those windmills even when you know you can’t win. I wish
I knew what to say that would help you. I just don’t.”
Hutch slammed the locker
before grabbing his gym bag and stuffing his dirty clothes inside. “Somewhere,
somebody knows the answer. And I’m going to find it. I won’t let that baby
down, Starsky. I won’t.”
Over the next few months,
Starsky tried to protect Hutch as much as he could. Or rather, he tried to
protect Hutch’s heart from being broken by a child that neither one of them
really knew. The two detectives spent their days working, occasionally winding
down after shift at The Pits, a bar that was owned by a good friend of theirs
that went by the whimsical name of Huggy Bear. On their rare days off, they
double dated, or went for leisurely rides to the coast, or just hung around at
one of their apartments, playing Monopoly. It was business as usual for the two
men, except the issue of Tristan McCall stood between them like an invisible
wall.
On a sultry afternoon in
August, Starsky talked Hutch into going to the Monster Truck rally being held
at the huge arena just outside of town. All the big trucks, with colorful names
like Godzilla, King Kong, and Man Eater would be there, as well as a multitude of
attractive women, or so Starsky assured the blond. It wasn’t Hutch’s idea of
fun, but he gave into the childlike part of his friend, and promised to try to
have a good time. For the first part of the event, Hutch did enjoy himself,
until they decided to buy some refreshments during the intermission.
Starsky grumbled quietly as
they waited for their turn at the counter. “Man, I hope we get back before the
next show starts. Godzilla’s supposed to climb over a mountain of more than a
hundred cars. It’s supposed to be the biggest pile ever attempted by one of the
monster trucks.”
“Oh, well, let me get my gun
out and see if we can move this line along. We simply can’t miss that.”
“Ha ha, Hutch, very funny.”
Starsky was trying to peek
around the man standing in front of him to check the progress of the line when
he heard Hutch curse.
“Son of a
bitch! I can’t believe this! What
is she doing here?”
Starsky followed Hutch’s
angry look and saw Melody McCall standing beside a young man, holding Tristan
in her arms.
Hutch turned to Starsky.
“How can she bring that baby here? The dust is bad enough to choke a horse!
It’s gotta be killing him!”
Starsky grabbed Hutch’s arm
before he could move. “What are you going to do about it? She’s not doing
anything illegal. You can’t interfere!”
Hutch yanked his arm out of
Starsky’s grasp and took two long strides before Starsky pulled him back.
Hutch snapped at his friend.
“She’s being negligent by bringing him here! This isn’t the place for a sick
baby!”
Starsky put himself between
Hutch and Melody. “That’s not for us to decide. If you think she’s doing
something wrong then contact Family Services. This is their jurisdiction, not
ours.”
Hutch took two more steps
then turned back reluctantly. “They already know about it! Everybody knows what
she’s doing. Why am I the only one that cares?”
“If you care, you go about
it the right way. You go through channels and make them care.” He laid a hand on Hutch’s arm. “How are you going
to help him if you lose your badge?”
Hutch’s shoulders slumped as
the fight went out of him. He spoke softly, almost to himself. “She probably
couldn’t get a baby sitter again. It never occurred to her to just stay home.”
“You can’t wave a magic wand
and turn her into a good mother, Hutch. That’s not the way it works.” He pulled
Hutch back to the line. “Come on; let’s get something to drink and go back to
our seats. We’ve got the right to enjoy ourselves, too. Tomorrow we’ll talk to
Sheila Peterson and see what we can do.”
Hutch watched as Melody and
her boyfriend went into the arena. He gazed solemnly at Starsky. “This isn’t
your fight. You don’t have to get involved if you don’t want to.”
Starsky met his eyes. “I’m
already involved. You’re my partner, right? It’s me and thee, all the way.”
The next morning, Hutch was
in Sheila’s office, armed with good intentions. Starsky stood quietly beside
him, offering his support and ready to intervene if emotions got out of hand.
Sheila was looking at Hutch
with an expression of pity on her face. “I wish we could do something, Hutch.
Do you see this folder? It’s everything we have on Tristan and Melody McCall.
We’ve sent droves of people out to her home, showed her how to care for
Tristan, had nurses come in to care for him so she could get out of the house
for a while, and even threatened to take action if she doesn’t show an
improvement. The truth is there isn’t one single piece of evidence we can point
to that says she’s criminally negligent.”
“How can you say that? She
took that baby to a Monster Truck Rally, for Christ’s sake! The heat and the
humidity were in the double digits, the dust was so thick you could cut it with
a knife and the noise was off the scale. How could that be good for him?”
“It’s not good for anybody,
Hutch! As long as she had his oxygen and sat high enough in the stands so he
couldn’t get hurt, we can’t do anything about it. Look, I care for him, too.
You have to understand something. Tristan was born four months early. It’s
surprising that he lived more than forty-eight hours. His lungs weren’t developed
enough for him to breathe on his own. He may never get to the point where the
respirator can be removed. His bones may never develop enough for him to sit
up, or crawl or walk. There may even be severe brain damage. There isn’t any
way we can point to one specific event and prove that Melody McCall is
intentionally endangering the health of her child.”
“So you’re saying that what
she does is okay because the kid doesn’t have a chance at a normal life,
anyway?”
“You know that’s not what I
mean. The law ties our hands on this. He’s not being physically abused in a way
the courts would recognize. We have doctors in all the hospitals in the area
watching him. They’re gathering records and keeping track of the ER visits. If
something happens that we can take to a judge, we’ll yank him out of that house
so fast it will make Melody McCall’s head spin. I’m sorry. That’s all we can
do.”
Hutch looked down and laid
his hand on the thick file on the desk. He shook his head morosely then looked
at Sheila.
“And what if it’s not good
enough? What if he dies before you get the evidence you need?”
Sheila let the sadness show
in her eyes. “He wouldn’t be the first child the system failed, Hutch. And I
seriously doubt that he’ll be the last. Why do you care so much?”
Hutch moved toward the door.
As he laid a hand on the doorknob, he turned back.
“Because it feels like I’m
the only one who does.”
Starsky watched as Hutch
slammed the door behind him then gave Sheila an apologetic shrug.
“He’s not striking out at
you, Sheila. He’s hurting and he doesn’t know what to do about it.”
“He’s not the only one
that’s hurting, Starsky. Tristan’s the one that’s going to lose in this. He’s
the real victim here.” She smiled wanly. “You’d better go after him. It seems
like you’re the only one that he’ll listen to.”
“Yeah, right. I wish.”
Over the next few months,
Starsky and Hutch concentrated on protecting the citizens they were sworn to
protect. Gradually, the dog days of summer slipped into the coolness of fall.
Domestic disputes weren’t as frequent without the heat of the sun adding to
tempers that were already stretched to the breaking point. Unfortunately, the
drug dealers that escaped the heat by hiding in abandoned buildings came
slithering out in the cooler temperatures, and prostitutes that were just too
hot to be enticing stood on their usual street corners. All in all, business
was booming, and to Starsky, that had its good points as well as bad. The
busier they were, the less time Hutch had to spend worrying about Tristan
McCall. One evening, as Starsky drove the
“Sheila called last night. DCFS
and Home Health got together and now a nurse is staying with Tristan for a few
hours every day so Melody can go to work. She said he hasn’t been to the ER in
almost a month. They’re even sending a physical therapist in to work with him.
They’re trying to get his muscles in shape so he can learn to sit up and
stuff.”
“That’s great! Maybe all she
needed was some time away, Hutch. She’s what – barely 21? It’s gotta be hard
taking care of a baby with his problems. Maybe she’s finally growing up. Maybe
she’s not as scared of him now.” Starsky looked sideways at Hutch then grinned.
“Or maybe she got tired of seeing that rattle-trap you call a car driving by
her house every day.”
Hutch grinned back. “Hey, my
car isn’t the only vehicle that knows the way. If you put this thing on cruise
control and let it go, it would head straight for
Starsky laughed unabashedly.
“Guilty as charged. So I care about the baby, too. So sue me.”
Hutch smiled and reached
over to squeeze Starsky’s shoulder. “Thanks buddy.”
The weeks went by quietly
and soon it would be Halloween. Starsky decorated his apartment as he did every
year, with rubber spiders and silken webs hanging from his ceilings. Although
there weren’t many kids in his neighborhood, he still loved turning his
apartment into a mini hall of horrors. One morning, Starsky was experimenting
with his newest toy, a life-like spider that actually scuttled across the
floor, when the phone rang. He scooped up the receiver as he watched the spider
stalk his kitchen table.
“Starsky.”
“Starsky, this is Sheila
Peterson. I thought you should know that Tristan McCall was brought into the ER
a couple of days ago. At first, the doctors thought it was bronchitis again,
but he’s not responding to treatment. They just took him by ambulance to
Cedar’s-Sinai. He’ll be admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit. It
doesn’t look good. I thought it would be better if you told Hutch instead of me
telling him over the phone.”
“You’re right. Thanks for
letting me know, Sheila.”
Starsky hung up the phone,
letting his fingers rest on the receiver for a minute. “Damn.”
He grabbed his keys and
jacket and ran out the door, leaving the spider on the floor. When he got to
He took one look at
Starsky’s face and knew. “Something’s happened to Tristan, hasn’t it?”
“Sheila Peterson just
called. He’s back in the hospital and it doesn’t look good. I’m sorry, Hutch.”
Hutch turned and flung the
wet towel he was holding back into the bathroom. “Damn it! I thought he was
doing better!”
“He’s a fighter, Hutch.
He’ll beat this, too.”
Hutch gazed back at Starsky,
his eyes haunted. “He’s so small, Starsky. He’s two years old now and only
weighs eighteen pounds. How much longer can he fight?”
The two detectives kept
their own silent vigil for Tristan McCall over the next few days. As they clung
to their own routine like a life preserver in a sea of torment, Hutch gathered
all the facts he could about Tristan’s latest crisis.
“Well, it looks like Melody
McCall’s infatuation with motherhood didn’t last long. She’s still working, and
let’s the home care nurse in while she’s gone, but she ran the physical
therapist off two weeks ago. According to Sheila, Melody got into it big time
with the therapist because she accused her of never picking Tristan up. The
therapist said his head was becoming deformed because he was always lying in
his crib. And then Melody called and complained that one of the home care
nurses was abusing Tristan because she was trying to wean him off the
respirator. Then Melody said the alarm on the respirator was set wrong because
it kept going off. The nurse told her that the tube was getting dirty again and
he wasn’t getting enough oxygen and that’s
why the alarm kept going off. And do you know what the real kicker is?”
“I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“The night Tristan was
admitted to the hospital, Melody had to work. So she dropped the baby off and
went on to the restaurant. The admitting clerk had to call her and have her
come back so they could finish the paper work. The rumor is the doctors called
Sheila and were going to press charges because Melody hasn’t been in to visit
Tristan since he was admitted. Now he won’t have anything to do with her at
all.”
“I’m sorry, buddy. I know
that has to be hard for you to hear. Is he doing any better now?”
“No. The antibiotics aren’t
working, and he isn’t taking his bottle. If he doesn’t start eating soon,
they’ll have to put a feeding tube in. He’s already losing weight and he can’t
afford to lose even an ounce. The doctors have given him until tomorrow to
start eating on his own or they’ll put the tube in.”
“Then all we can do is wait
and see.”
“That’s not enough, Starsky,
not nearly enough.”
When Starsky’s phone rang
again two days later, he knew without a doubt that it wasn’t good news. He took
a deep breath before answering.
“Starsky.”
“Sergeant Starsky, this is
Dr. Jones at
“No, I haven’t. I was almost
out the door when you called. I’m supposed to pick him up for work. What’s
happened, Doctor?”
“Tristan McCall died at
approximately 4 o’clock this morning. Dr. Cummings at Cedar’s-Sinai called me
and said that the nurses were with him when he simply stopped breathing. They
tried resuscitating him, but it didn’t work. I guess his little body finally
gave out. I called Ken around six and gave him the news. I hated to do it over
the phone but we’re swamped here. This is the first chance I’ve had to get away
from the ER and call you. I figured you’d want to know.”
“Thanks, doc, for calling.
I’d better get over to Hutch’s.”
“I’m sorry, Detective. Oh,
and Starsky, the doctors in all the hospitals are getting together and pooling
information on Tristan. We’ve demanded an autopsy. If Melody McCall is responsible
for her son’s death, she’ll pay for it. It’s too little, too late, but it’s all
we can do.”
When Starsky arrived at
Starsky sat down beside his
friend and put an arm across his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Hutch.”
Hutch laid his head against
the wall, his eyes closed. A single tear ran down his cheek. “He just couldn’t
fight any more. He was just too weak.”
Starsky laid his head
against Hutch’s and spoke softly. “When I was in the first grade, there was a
pretty little brunette that sat in front of me. Her name was Christina Robbins.
Of course, I didn’t think she was pretty at the time, because she was just a
silly girl. Then in the second grade, she sat in front of me again. About half
way through the year, Christina got sick and stopped coming to class. She
visited once in a while at first, but after a while she stopped doing that.
Right after Christmas vacation, our teacher told us that Christina wouldn’t be
coming back to school, ever. She said that Jesus had called her home. I was too
young to understand what dying meant, but the teacher made it sound peaceful,
like she was happy then. It wasn’t so scary when I thought of it that way.”
Hutch leaned closer to
Starsky. “Did it help to think that when your dad died?”
“No, I was older then and I
knew what death was. I was angry at my dad for leaving us, and I was scared because
it meant Ma had to raise us by herself. But after a while, I stopped hurting
and I could imagine my dad doing all the things he never got to do while he was
alive. He could go fishing, or play pool, or just sit in the yard with his feet
up. There has to be some kind of reward, Hutch, or all this…”he motioned around
the room with his hand, “isn’t worth it.” Starsky put his fingers under Hutch’s
chin and gently turned his head. “Tristan’s in a better place now. They don’t
need respirators in Heaven, Hutch. He can breathe, he can sit up, and he can
laugh. And when he cries, there will be plenty of people that will hold him.
He’s not alone, anymore.”
Hutch smiled through his
tears then laid his head on Starsky’s shoulder. They sat there for a while and
mourned for a child they never really knew.
Two weeks after Tristan’s
funeral, Captain Dobey called Starsky and Hutch to his office. He gazed
solemnly up at Hutch as he handed him a paper.
“This isn’t really our
jurisdiction, but I figure you’ve earned the right to do this. Bring her in,
Hutch, for criminal negligence, felony child abuse, and depraved indifference.”
Hutch read the form in his
hands and smiled without humor. “With pleasure.”
Tag
Ken Hutchinson stood in the
cold December morning and gazed down at the tiny headstone in front of him.
“I’m sorry, Tristan. I let
you down, buddy. I just didn’t know what to do for you.” He sat the toy car
down gently on the grave then sighed. “Maybe Starsky is right. Maybe you’re in
a better place now. Good-bye, Tristan. Rest in peace.”
As he walked away from the
grave, deep in the recesses of his mind, he heard the sound of a baby’s cry. He
looked up at the clouds, his eyes shining. “At least now, somebody can hear
you.”
Pat L.
March 23, 2005
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