it's about shock and maybe i've not got round it yet. maybe i never will.
I’ve been thinking about the moments before it happened, you know? Not to get all terribly dramatic or anything, but well, baseball's what I got, okay. It's very important to me. It goes along with the beat of my heart. I feel it clearly in my blood. Something like this happens, happens twice in three days, and I'm terrified and kinda sick and confused beyond articulation and a lot of stuff. So I get dramatic. Because it's a way to deal.
The moment before, though.
Like, I came in, I’d just gotten home, out of the wind and the cold, and put the soda in the refrigerator, and opened up my computer and checked ESPN.com first thing like I always do.
I keep thinking about that moment while the page was loading and I was kind of idly chewing on my nails and setting the iPod up to play ‘God Only Knows’ on repeat, because I was gonna write about the repercussions of Hudson tonight, figured that’d be the song to do it to.
That moment when I wasn’t too worried, because it had already happened. Two days ago, it happened, and I’ve been dealing and getting over it, and the silver lining was that at least I knew now. I didn’t expect all three of them to be in Oakland in the spring, and now I knew who I’d be missing.
It wasn’t my boy, and I was shamefully happy about that, shameful because that’s not putting the team first and Hudson's the better pitcher, but happy because he's my boy, and he'd take away more than my heart. But I understood why Beane had done it, and still trusted him with all my heart. Billy Beane is the reason for everything, and I saw this coming, after Huddy’s ultimatum. I was torn up but not too surprised.
Then, you know. Saw it. Red square, ‘BREAKING NEWS,’ in the corner of the page.
I dunno. I’ll probably be writing about this for awhile. I don’t really have a grip on it yet. Can’t quite find the words. It’s just. Love baseball with this kind of force and the three of them were as perfect a reason for that as any I’ve known. The three of them, together.
We’ve been talking about how Zito disappeared right after the news about Huddy came out. How they got quotes from half the team, but Zito, who was a third of everything, was just nowhere to be found. Wondering where he’d run off to. Hazarding wild guesses, because that’s what we do.
But now, tonight, I keep thinking about that moment right before. I wrote this quickly. Wrote this brokenhearted and stunned. There will be more, I’m sure. This one is about the moment right before.
Broken Up
By Candle Beck
It’s like getting hit with a two-by-four.
Mulder, he’s thinking about that empty locker between his and Hudson’s in the clubhouse. He’s out on the back deck of his place in Scottsdale, his cell phone turned off and his house phone unplugged, because he’s tired of talking to reporters. Sitting in one of the fold-up plastic chairs that he’s been hauling around for five years now, one leg to each side, bare feet on the cement. It’s maybe four o’clock on Saturday the 18th of December.
He’s thinking about that empty locker. Enough room to move, to brace his hands and twist his back, Hudson’s face scrunching up when Mulder’s spine cracked. Hudson sitting on the little stool in his shorts and a T-shirt, talking on the phone, running his hand over his head and cupping it around the base of his skull, pulling to stretch out his triceps. Hudson staggering back over, wet from the whirlpool, slinging his soaked towel at Mulder. Not that far between them.
Nobody has heard from Zito, not since the Spike awards, which was before anything happened. His sister said he left the front door open, and hadn’t packed a bag. Just took the fuck off. Mulder is half-expecting him to pull up in the driveway, his hair all flat and unwashed, hanging in his eyes, his T-shirt wrinkled and his skin clammy. Zito isn’t answering his phone, it goes right to voicemail and Zito’s tinny voice singing a little song while Hatteberg snickers in the background.
Hudson talked to Mulder a couple of times, yesterday. They would talk to reporters, to teammates, then call each other and compare notes. Hudson told Mulder to call Chavez and tell him to stop second-guessing Billy Beane, who the fuck is that going to help? Mulder told Hudson that Mulder’s dad says good luck. They talked about how it was gonna be, but only a little bit.
Hudson talked about getting to bat again, talked about how at least nobody would make fun of the music he liked down there, unlike certain motherfuckers who shall remain nameless, cough-Mark Mulder-cough. His voice got tight and small, at one point, and Hudson had laughed roughly, said all hoarse, “Man, if I manage not to fuckin’ bawl at the press conference, I’ll be surprised as hell.”
That threw Mulder off. Tim Hudson, crying. Or at least, being in fear of it. What the fuck? Didn’t fit anywhere in his perception of the world.
Hudson asked him, “You hear from the kid?” and Mulder shook his head, forgetting that Hudson couldn’t see him. Zito’s mom had called Mulder, way too early Friday morning, just to check, and made Mulder swear to call her if Zito turned up at his place, no matter what Barry says about not wanting to talk to anybody, just call and let me know he’s all right, Mark, okay?
Mulder had promised, because what, he was supposed to refuse? He’s pretty pissed off at Zito, taking off like that, not telling anybody where he was going or keeping his phone on. Scaring the hell out of his mother, what kind of thoughtless asshole does something like that?
But Mulder kind of understands. He has a vision of Zito standing in his driveway with his eyes sunk back and no shoes on, flicking his head and saying, “hey let’s go, okay, let’s just get out of here.” Mulder would go, if that happened. Wouldn’t even turn off the lights. He fully grasps the appeal of running away.
One of the last things Hudson had said was, “Take care of him, all right?” and Mulder flushed, dim and hot up his neck. He isn’t sure he wants that kind of responsibility.
He wanted to say that Zito is twenty-six years old and doesn’t need a fucking babysitter, but he didn’t, because he knew what Hudson meant. Mulder knows what Hudson has been to Zito, for five years now with Zito growing up and getting lost and being found, over and over again. He just said, “’Course, dude,” and left it at that.
Mulder knows some stuff Hudson doesn’t, of course, about Barry Zito and the color in his eyes when he’s following Hudson around the clubhouse. It isn’t his place to tell Huddy about it, though. Isn’t his place to call Zito and sneer into his voicemail, quit acting like a fucking abandoned lover, and get out of your fucking head long enough to get over him.
Mulder is wondering about next year, who’ll get Hudson’s locker, if the empty one will stay empty. This new guy, Haren, or Blanton maybe. Mulder thought Blanton was okay, in September. Well, as much as Mulder was really thinking about anything in September. Figures they’ll probably get along all right, though.
Next year, Mulder will be the number one starter. Something he’s never been before, god. And Zito will be behind him, then Harden, then Haren and Blanton, if things shake out like they're supposed to. Zito will be right behind him, just like always, so it’ll be okay. He’ll live with Crosby again, and maybe Richie too. Maybe Kendall will need a place. Living together is the best way to fit your way into a team, or at least that’s how they do it in Oakland.
They’ve just lost one of the best pitchers of all time. Mulder keeps thinking about that, kept turning it over in his mind, polishing it like a stone. Keeps hearing Tim Hudson say, “Guess I’ll do all right. John Smoltz, right? Fuckin’ Leo Mazzone, man.” The Braves, Huddy has been a Braves fan since he could crawl. If he had to go, probably it’s all right that he went there.
Mulder is thinking about how different it will be.
Mulder pushes his heels forward to feel the hard rasp of the cement. He’s sitting in the sun, and there’s no wind. He wonders if Zito will show up. It isn’t like Zito can drive to Florida. Well, he can, but that would be crazy. Crazy like Mulder looking up cross-country routes on the Internet this morning. Crazy like something that will never happen.
Mulder turns his cell phone back on, because Zito might call. He might not, because Zito has a tendency to just sort of turn up, a bad penny, whether you’re expecting him or not, but he might call first.
His phone rings maybe thirty seconds later, making him jerk in surprise. He takes a look at the display and it’s Billy Beane.
A two-by-four, right across the lower back.
*
In Tampa Bay, Hudson is just getting the baby up from her nap, whistling her favorite Hank Williams song as he carries her into the living room and settles on the couch. The trip to Atlanta was quick, and pretty painful. They got back early this morning. It’s been a fairly awful few days.
Kim is out grocery-shopping with Kennedie, and she’s been kind of giving him a wide berth, ever since it happened. She gets that he doesn’t want anybody to talk to him or see him when he’s like this. He doesn’t like it when things show on his face.
He’s incredibly thankful for his eleven month old daughter right now. She just yawns with her eyes squeezed shut and her impossibly small hands opening and closing on the air, and doesn’t know anything about what’s happened.
Hudson wasn’t that surprised. They were in Auburn when Beane called, visiting family and friends and taking the girls to the university where Tim and Kim had met. Hudson had been expecting it, especially after he laid down a March deadline for an extension.
He had to. He’s got the third best winning percentage of all time. He can’t play for a team like Oakland, not anymore. They can’t afford him and he knows it. Everybody knows it.
Hudson has always figured that Beane will go after one of the three of them full-bore, base a new rotation around that man. He’s pretty sure that it will be Mulder, because Mulder’s got the kind of potential that takes a person’s breath away. As good as he’s been, it’s only the surface, and everybody knows that too. Zito is brilliant and inconsistent, Hudson is damned by the fact that his contract is up a year earlier, but Mark Mulder will die in Oakland.
So when Beane called him, in the middle of dinner in Alabama at Hudson’s folks’ place, Hudson knew right away, just seeing Billy’s number, before he stepped out onto the screened-in back porch and closed the door behind him, before he stared out at the thick southern night and saw the glow of a cigarette the next house over, the stream of pale smoke cut to pieces by the screen, a shadowy figure.
Hudson knew right away. All he needed to hear was what team. And the Braves, that was as good as he could have hoped. He’d even said to Beane, that if he had to go, going to Atlanta would make it that much easier.
The Atlanta Braves. As contending a team as there has ever been. Another team based on pitching. And ten year old Tim Hudson in the living room of this house, bouncing on the couch and doing the tomahawk chop, crowing in triumph.
The Atlanta Braves.
He’d called Zito first, but by that time the news had already broken on the Internet and television, and Zito had turned off his cell phone. So he called Mulder. They talked for a long time.
Tim Hudson is thinking about Georgia, the blank soaked heat and the fog of mosquitoes at Turner Field in August. He’s thinking that at least no one will mock the way he talks, down there. His drawl will probably get worse, the way it always does when he comes back. Get back to that point where he can barely be understood. He thinks that’ll be pretty cool. His children will grow up with southern accents, after all. He’ll teach his son, the bump in Kim’s stomach, to play catch under the Spanish moss.
He’s not sure if he’s gonna be okay down here, but he’ll give it his best shot. That’s really all he can do. The A’s will come to Atlanta in June, for interleague. He’ll stand there in his new uniform and shake their hands. Zito will probably hug him. Mulder will roll his eyes and pull Zito off by the back of his jersey.
Hudson has come home. It doesn’t feel like it yet, but he’s pretty sure it will soon.
Hudson’s cell phone is on the coffee table and there are two missed calls. Neither is from Zito, though Hudson’s lost track of the number of messages he’s left. That little motherfucker. Thinks he can just run away.
Hudson has always known about Zito’s tendency to ignore the bad things, focus the positive energy and all that hippie shit, but goddamn it. Zito’s just scared and angry and not dealing with anything, not acting like a man, and Hudson had more respect for him than that.
Chavez has been shooting his mouth off to the press and Scott Hatteberg’s been making jokes like he always does when shit gets heavy, and Tim Hudson has heard from most of the twenty-five man roster, as well as a bunch of guys who used to play in Oakland. He’s heard from Mike Venafro and Billy Koch. He’s heard from Art Howe. Hudson wonders if Zito just doesn’t want to call and end up crying on the phone. Such a fucking girl.
The thing with Zito, it just happened. And then it kept happening. It was weird. Hudson doesn’t like to think about it very much. He’s pretty sure Mulder’s got no idea about it, but he thinks maybe Mulder will figure it out if Zito shows up at the house in Scottsdale.
When Hudson does think about it, which isn’t that often, it’s very abstract and broken up. How Zito’s face was sunburned, one time, badly sunburned and when Hudson touched his cheek, those calluses hard on his fingers, Zito had winced, pulled back. And how Hudson would press his fists into the bed, one to either side of Zito’s head, and Zito would turn, lick at the tattoo on Hudson’s arm, lick fiercely like he could make it disappear.
Anyway.
Hudson checks the numbers of the calls he missed, and one is a reporter that he’s already talked to. The other is Mark Mulder, and something sinks in Hudson’s stomach. Someone else must be gone, because he just talked to Mulder. He and Mulder have talked several times in the forty-eight hours since it happened, because there was a lot to be said. They didn’t say most of it, of course, but they did talk a lot.
Maybe, Hudson thinks, maybe Zito has turned up at Mulder’s place, after all. Zito’s pretty good at replacement theory. Substitution. Zito will settle for his second choice, because he’s pretty lazy, and his second choice is still just five lockers down from him.
Hudson lays Tess down on the couch cushion and keeps one hand on her warm stomach. She’s blowing spit bubbles at him and laughing. The house is very quiet around him. Hudson calls Mulder back, wondering with half his mind if Zito has come around all fucked up and crazy, and wondering with the other half who else has been traded.
*
Zito’s not in Tahiti. He’s not in San Francisco or Hollywood or San Diego. He’s somewhere in California, away from the coast. He’s got no change of clothes. He’s got nothing, really, just this ratty old T-shirt with the AC/DC logo on the front and the collar frayed, his beat-up jeans with paint on them, his favorite pair of sneakers from high school.
He paid cash for the room. He keeps his sunglasses on and his plain blue baseball cap pulled down low whenever he goes out.
On his cell phone, clogging up his voicemail, there are six messages from his sister. He left the front door open, he’s pretty sure. Left a half a can of Coke on the coffee table. Left the television on, ESPN blaring. There’s a message from Susan Slusser and one from Mychael Urban. A bunch of numbers he doesn’t recognize, reporters, no doubt.
Mark Mulder’s cell phone, three messages. Rich Harden, one message. Eric Chavez, two. Bobby Crosby, one. Curt Young, one. Seven from his parents.
Fourteen voicemail messages from Tim Hudson.
The sun gets way high up in the sky and Zito’s in the street, sitting on the curb. He’s drinking a paper cup of coffee and watching the highway traffic. Big semis and flatbed trucks with huge pieces of lumber strapped down across the back. White RVs with stenciled blue waves curling up on the sides, driven by squinting old people wearing visors. Wagons with fake-wood paneling like a stereotype, stuffed with kids and toys and travel-sized board games. The smell of tar and rubber, smoked asphalt, diesel exhaust.
Zito’s been chewing his nails pretty badly. He always has, no matter how they tried to break him of the habit, the bitter-tasting stuff and the five strips of tape around the tips of his fingers. None of that stuff worked, and it’s pretty bad now. He’s bit them down past the quick, gnawed the skin along the sides of his nails, and three on his right hand are bleeding, two on his left. He sucks the blood off, gets kind of sick to his stomach.
He’ll stay out here for as long as he wants to.
It’s not a big deal, really. Huddy can go ahead and go to fucking Atlanta, and whatever. They’ve always said that they knew it would happen someday, that the three of them wouldn’t be together forever. Always knew it.
After that second-to-last game against Anaheim, when the Angels clinched the west, Zito was sitting there on the bench with his cap off, the towel up against his mouth, rough and dry against his lips. He was just sitting there, you know. With his eyes all thin against the sun. After the others had gone down into the clubhouse, so it was just him.
He was thinking, for awhile there in the dugout, with the stadium emptying and he could hear some little kid bawling over his head, he was thinking that he would probably never pitch in a white uniform in this stadium again.
He’d been trade bait all season. He got past the trade deadline and took his first easy breath in four months.
Zito has cut himself off, taken himself out of the loop. Tim Hudson got traded to the Atlanta Braves yesterday. Zito’s been one of three for so long. He thinks about Mulder for awhile.
They were, it was 2001 and suddenly three of the best pitchers in the game were on the same team. A rotation like that, man. It’s once in a decade. Once in a generation. It’s like having your heart torn out. It’s a lot of things that are all very painful and hard to think about.
It’s about brotherhood and a whole bunch of abstract concepts that don’t mean much, and Zito can hear how Hudson’s gonna sound, in his press conference this afternoon, when he’ll be choked up and pissed off at himself for showing it. When he’ll talk about how the Braves are his childhood team. So it’s a dream come true.
He’ll talk about how hard it is, of course, yeah. He’ll mean it, too, but that won’t make anything better. Maybe he’ll talk about that perfect world where the three of them would never have to be split up. But maybe he won’t. Not with Bobby Cox’s hand on his shoulder. Not with John Schuerholz calling him Timmy and smiling all big with waxy-looking teeth.
Zito doesn’t really care. The press conference is going on right now, as a matter of fact, behind Zito’s back on the television set in his motel room. He sips his coffee, burns the roof of his mouth. Blood smears on the cardboard from his ripped-up finger.
Mulder, leaving him messages on his cell phone. Probably bitching him out for running away, going into hiding. Probably saying something about how Zito wasn’t like this when Giambi left, wasn’t like this when Miggy went. Maybe something snide about, oh well, but I guess you never wanted to fuck Jason or Miggy, huh?
Like, whatever, Mulder. Fuck off.
Everybody deals with it different. Zito knows that he’s going to Scottsdale, pretty soon. Not today, probably not tomorrow. But he’s not going back to Hollywood, not yet. He doesn’t want to deal with the traffic, which is a good enough excuse. He’ll have to call his sister and assure her that he’s not dead. It wasn’t really fair, just taking off like that. The phone’s got to be ringing off the hook, and it’s not cool for him to have left her to stammer at the reporters that no, she doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t know when he’ll be back. His mom’s probably really angry at him.
Zito sits on the curb until he’s sure that Hudson’s press conference is over, then goes back in and turns off the television.
He lies back on the bed and cracks the whiskey. This is all kind of perfect. Heartbreak. Paying cash for a Central Valley motel room where no one knows his name or face. Drinking alone with the television off, the shades drawn. This could all be in a movie.
Zito thinks about Tim Hudson, but not for too long. Just, a moment, maybe. Chicago or Cleveland, something. Back when Zito was the best out of the three of them. Those first three years, jesus.
Hudson’s hand on his stomach and Zito’s back against the mirror. His shoulders sliding around because he still had a shirt on. Must have been a hotel room, must have been. The glass was very clean, squeaky. Zito kept thinking about how strange it must be for Hudson to be seeing his own face up close, or really just his eyes, his nose, over Zito’s shoulder. Hudson’s got these pale blue eyes that kinda turn silver sometimes.
Hudson’s chin on his collarbone, his hand working down, and down, and down, and Zito’s mouth open. His chest felt caved in. When Hudson smiled against his neck, the smooth hard ridge of his teeth, Zito was afraid he was gonna bite. Gonna leave a mark, or turn him into a vampire, or something. But Hudson just drew his tongue along the line of Zito’s pulse, long with his hand sliding up the back of Zito’s neck.
Fucking Mark Mulder doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Zito doesn’t just want to fuck Tim Hudson, he goddamn well did, and more than once, and Mulder doesn’t hide jealousy very well and what-the-fuck-ever, man.
That’s been done for awhile, though. Whatever was going on between them. Zito won the Cy Young and started dating people who were more famous than him and then a year passed and Hudson had another kid, got a new tattoo. Hudson pushed him away one night when Zito tried to press against him in the taxi, his hand on Hudson’s leg, Hudson’s spindly legs that he was all self-conscious about.
Hudson pushed him away, knocked Zito’s hand off, looking out the cab’s window. Zito was hurt, sorta drunk, wanting to slide back, rub up against Hudson like a cat, whine his name because Hudson had a good name for whining, huddeeee. He touched his hand to Hudson’s head, stroking his fingers and thought distractedly that he’d never found the whole bald thing attractive, but then there was Tim Hudson. A lot of Zito’s life could be summed up that way:
Zito wasn’t, but then there was Tim Hudson. Zito didn’t, but then there was Tim Hudson. Zito never had, but then there was Tim Hudson.
At some point he’d stopped worrying about it.
Hudson jerked his head away, and glared at him. “You know what?” Hudson said in that fucking accent of his that made Zito’s head spin. “Let’s not do this anymore.”
That was it. As quick as that, as final. And Zito had blinked, said, “Oh, um. Okay,” and slumped back against the door, pretending like he didn’t care, chewing on his thumbnail.
Zito gets pretty drunk in his motel room. He thinks he’ll probably head down to Arizona tomorrow, after all. He kinda wants to drive to Florida and sit on Hudson’s front lawn like something out of a fucking romantic comedy, but no. Bad idea, definitely.
Hudson has two little daughters, and the older of the two adores Zito, wrapped around his legs squealing his name with the r’s replaced by w’s. She'll probably forget him, though, because he doesn't think he's gonna see her again, not for a long time. Hudson's wife is pregnant with their son. Zito’s got no right to be feeling like this.
He’ll go to Scottsdale, he decides, bleary and his head on fire. He knocks the whiskey bottle over without noticing, spilling out a spreading, dark-scented lake on the carpet. He pulls the pillow over his head, still wearing his jeans, but his T-shirt thrown over the television set. He’ll go see Mulder, Mulder will take care of him.
They’ve got to stick together now, the two of them. They’re the only ones left.
THE END
um. ow?
The moment before, though.
Like, I came in, I’d just gotten home, out of the wind and the cold, and put the soda in the refrigerator, and opened up my computer and checked ESPN.com first thing like I always do.
I keep thinking about that moment while the page was loading and I was kind of idly chewing on my nails and setting the iPod up to play ‘God Only Knows’ on repeat, because I was gonna write about the repercussions of Hudson tonight, figured that’d be the song to do it to.
That moment when I wasn’t too worried, because it had already happened. Two days ago, it happened, and I’ve been dealing and getting over it, and the silver lining was that at least I knew now. I didn’t expect all three of them to be in Oakland in the spring, and now I knew who I’d be missing.
It wasn’t my boy, and I was shamefully happy about that, shameful because that’s not putting the team first and Hudson's the better pitcher, but happy because he's my boy, and he'd take away more than my heart. But I understood why Beane had done it, and still trusted him with all my heart. Billy Beane is the reason for everything, and I saw this coming, after Huddy’s ultimatum. I was torn up but not too surprised.
Then, you know. Saw it. Red square, ‘BREAKING NEWS,’ in the corner of the page.
I dunno. I’ll probably be writing about this for awhile. I don’t really have a grip on it yet. Can’t quite find the words. It’s just. Love baseball with this kind of force and the three of them were as perfect a reason for that as any I’ve known. The three of them, together.
We’ve been talking about how Zito disappeared right after the news about Huddy came out. How they got quotes from half the team, but Zito, who was a third of everything, was just nowhere to be found. Wondering where he’d run off to. Hazarding wild guesses, because that’s what we do.
But now, tonight, I keep thinking about that moment right before. I wrote this quickly. Wrote this brokenhearted and stunned. There will be more, I’m sure. This one is about the moment right before.
Broken Up
By Candle Beck
It’s like getting hit with a two-by-four.
Mulder, he’s thinking about that empty locker between his and Hudson’s in the clubhouse. He’s out on the back deck of his place in Scottsdale, his cell phone turned off and his house phone unplugged, because he’s tired of talking to reporters. Sitting in one of the fold-up plastic chairs that he’s been hauling around for five years now, one leg to each side, bare feet on the cement. It’s maybe four o’clock on Saturday the 18th of December.
He’s thinking about that empty locker. Enough room to move, to brace his hands and twist his back, Hudson’s face scrunching up when Mulder’s spine cracked. Hudson sitting on the little stool in his shorts and a T-shirt, talking on the phone, running his hand over his head and cupping it around the base of his skull, pulling to stretch out his triceps. Hudson staggering back over, wet from the whirlpool, slinging his soaked towel at Mulder. Not that far between them.
Nobody has heard from Zito, not since the Spike awards, which was before anything happened. His sister said he left the front door open, and hadn’t packed a bag. Just took the fuck off. Mulder is half-expecting him to pull up in the driveway, his hair all flat and unwashed, hanging in his eyes, his T-shirt wrinkled and his skin clammy. Zito isn’t answering his phone, it goes right to voicemail and Zito’s tinny voice singing a little song while Hatteberg snickers in the background.
Hudson talked to Mulder a couple of times, yesterday. They would talk to reporters, to teammates, then call each other and compare notes. Hudson told Mulder to call Chavez and tell him to stop second-guessing Billy Beane, who the fuck is that going to help? Mulder told Hudson that Mulder’s dad says good luck. They talked about how it was gonna be, but only a little bit.
Hudson talked about getting to bat again, talked about how at least nobody would make fun of the music he liked down there, unlike certain motherfuckers who shall remain nameless, cough-Mark Mulder-cough. His voice got tight and small, at one point, and Hudson had laughed roughly, said all hoarse, “Man, if I manage not to fuckin’ bawl at the press conference, I’ll be surprised as hell.”
That threw Mulder off. Tim Hudson, crying. Or at least, being in fear of it. What the fuck? Didn’t fit anywhere in his perception of the world.
Hudson asked him, “You hear from the kid?” and Mulder shook his head, forgetting that Hudson couldn’t see him. Zito’s mom had called Mulder, way too early Friday morning, just to check, and made Mulder swear to call her if Zito turned up at his place, no matter what Barry says about not wanting to talk to anybody, just call and let me know he’s all right, Mark, okay?
Mulder had promised, because what, he was supposed to refuse? He’s pretty pissed off at Zito, taking off like that, not telling anybody where he was going or keeping his phone on. Scaring the hell out of his mother, what kind of thoughtless asshole does something like that?
But Mulder kind of understands. He has a vision of Zito standing in his driveway with his eyes sunk back and no shoes on, flicking his head and saying, “hey let’s go, okay, let’s just get out of here.” Mulder would go, if that happened. Wouldn’t even turn off the lights. He fully grasps the appeal of running away.
One of the last things Hudson had said was, “Take care of him, all right?” and Mulder flushed, dim and hot up his neck. He isn’t sure he wants that kind of responsibility.
He wanted to say that Zito is twenty-six years old and doesn’t need a fucking babysitter, but he didn’t, because he knew what Hudson meant. Mulder knows what Hudson has been to Zito, for five years now with Zito growing up and getting lost and being found, over and over again. He just said, “’Course, dude,” and left it at that.
Mulder knows some stuff Hudson doesn’t, of course, about Barry Zito and the color in his eyes when he’s following Hudson around the clubhouse. It isn’t his place to tell Huddy about it, though. Isn’t his place to call Zito and sneer into his voicemail, quit acting like a fucking abandoned lover, and get out of your fucking head long enough to get over him.
Mulder is wondering about next year, who’ll get Hudson’s locker, if the empty one will stay empty. This new guy, Haren, or Blanton maybe. Mulder thought Blanton was okay, in September. Well, as much as Mulder was really thinking about anything in September. Figures they’ll probably get along all right, though.
Next year, Mulder will be the number one starter. Something he’s never been before, god. And Zito will be behind him, then Harden, then Haren and Blanton, if things shake out like they're supposed to. Zito will be right behind him, just like always, so it’ll be okay. He’ll live with Crosby again, and maybe Richie too. Maybe Kendall will need a place. Living together is the best way to fit your way into a team, or at least that’s how they do it in Oakland.
They’ve just lost one of the best pitchers of all time. Mulder keeps thinking about that, kept turning it over in his mind, polishing it like a stone. Keeps hearing Tim Hudson say, “Guess I’ll do all right. John Smoltz, right? Fuckin’ Leo Mazzone, man.” The Braves, Huddy has been a Braves fan since he could crawl. If he had to go, probably it’s all right that he went there.
Mulder is thinking about how different it will be.
Mulder pushes his heels forward to feel the hard rasp of the cement. He’s sitting in the sun, and there’s no wind. He wonders if Zito will show up. It isn’t like Zito can drive to Florida. Well, he can, but that would be crazy. Crazy like Mulder looking up cross-country routes on the Internet this morning. Crazy like something that will never happen.
Mulder turns his cell phone back on, because Zito might call. He might not, because Zito has a tendency to just sort of turn up, a bad penny, whether you’re expecting him or not, but he might call first.
His phone rings maybe thirty seconds later, making him jerk in surprise. He takes a look at the display and it’s Billy Beane.
A two-by-four, right across the lower back.
*
In Tampa Bay, Hudson is just getting the baby up from her nap, whistling her favorite Hank Williams song as he carries her into the living room and settles on the couch. The trip to Atlanta was quick, and pretty painful. They got back early this morning. It’s been a fairly awful few days.
Kim is out grocery-shopping with Kennedie, and she’s been kind of giving him a wide berth, ever since it happened. She gets that he doesn’t want anybody to talk to him or see him when he’s like this. He doesn’t like it when things show on his face.
He’s incredibly thankful for his eleven month old daughter right now. She just yawns with her eyes squeezed shut and her impossibly small hands opening and closing on the air, and doesn’t know anything about what’s happened.
Hudson wasn’t that surprised. They were in Auburn when Beane called, visiting family and friends and taking the girls to the university where Tim and Kim had met. Hudson had been expecting it, especially after he laid down a March deadline for an extension.
He had to. He’s got the third best winning percentage of all time. He can’t play for a team like Oakland, not anymore. They can’t afford him and he knows it. Everybody knows it.
Hudson has always figured that Beane will go after one of the three of them full-bore, base a new rotation around that man. He’s pretty sure that it will be Mulder, because Mulder’s got the kind of potential that takes a person’s breath away. As good as he’s been, it’s only the surface, and everybody knows that too. Zito is brilliant and inconsistent, Hudson is damned by the fact that his contract is up a year earlier, but Mark Mulder will die in Oakland.
So when Beane called him, in the middle of dinner in Alabama at Hudson’s folks’ place, Hudson knew right away, just seeing Billy’s number, before he stepped out onto the screened-in back porch and closed the door behind him, before he stared out at the thick southern night and saw the glow of a cigarette the next house over, the stream of pale smoke cut to pieces by the screen, a shadowy figure.
Hudson knew right away. All he needed to hear was what team. And the Braves, that was as good as he could have hoped. He’d even said to Beane, that if he had to go, going to Atlanta would make it that much easier.
The Atlanta Braves. As contending a team as there has ever been. Another team based on pitching. And ten year old Tim Hudson in the living room of this house, bouncing on the couch and doing the tomahawk chop, crowing in triumph.
The Atlanta Braves.
He’d called Zito first, but by that time the news had already broken on the Internet and television, and Zito had turned off his cell phone. So he called Mulder. They talked for a long time.
Tim Hudson is thinking about Georgia, the blank soaked heat and the fog of mosquitoes at Turner Field in August. He’s thinking that at least no one will mock the way he talks, down there. His drawl will probably get worse, the way it always does when he comes back. Get back to that point where he can barely be understood. He thinks that’ll be pretty cool. His children will grow up with southern accents, after all. He’ll teach his son, the bump in Kim’s stomach, to play catch under the Spanish moss.
He’s not sure if he’s gonna be okay down here, but he’ll give it his best shot. That’s really all he can do. The A’s will come to Atlanta in June, for interleague. He’ll stand there in his new uniform and shake their hands. Zito will probably hug him. Mulder will roll his eyes and pull Zito off by the back of his jersey.
Hudson has come home. It doesn’t feel like it yet, but he’s pretty sure it will soon.
Hudson’s cell phone is on the coffee table and there are two missed calls. Neither is from Zito, though Hudson’s lost track of the number of messages he’s left. That little motherfucker. Thinks he can just run away.
Hudson has always known about Zito’s tendency to ignore the bad things, focus the positive energy and all that hippie shit, but goddamn it. Zito’s just scared and angry and not dealing with anything, not acting like a man, and Hudson had more respect for him than that.
Chavez has been shooting his mouth off to the press and Scott Hatteberg’s been making jokes like he always does when shit gets heavy, and Tim Hudson has heard from most of the twenty-five man roster, as well as a bunch of guys who used to play in Oakland. He’s heard from Mike Venafro and Billy Koch. He’s heard from Art Howe. Hudson wonders if Zito just doesn’t want to call and end up crying on the phone. Such a fucking girl.
The thing with Zito, it just happened. And then it kept happening. It was weird. Hudson doesn’t like to think about it very much. He’s pretty sure Mulder’s got no idea about it, but he thinks maybe Mulder will figure it out if Zito shows up at the house in Scottsdale.
When Hudson does think about it, which isn’t that often, it’s very abstract and broken up. How Zito’s face was sunburned, one time, badly sunburned and when Hudson touched his cheek, those calluses hard on his fingers, Zito had winced, pulled back. And how Hudson would press his fists into the bed, one to either side of Zito’s head, and Zito would turn, lick at the tattoo on Hudson’s arm, lick fiercely like he could make it disappear.
Anyway.
Hudson checks the numbers of the calls he missed, and one is a reporter that he’s already talked to. The other is Mark Mulder, and something sinks in Hudson’s stomach. Someone else must be gone, because he just talked to Mulder. He and Mulder have talked several times in the forty-eight hours since it happened, because there was a lot to be said. They didn’t say most of it, of course, but they did talk a lot.
Maybe, Hudson thinks, maybe Zito has turned up at Mulder’s place, after all. Zito’s pretty good at replacement theory. Substitution. Zito will settle for his second choice, because he’s pretty lazy, and his second choice is still just five lockers down from him.
Hudson lays Tess down on the couch cushion and keeps one hand on her warm stomach. She’s blowing spit bubbles at him and laughing. The house is very quiet around him. Hudson calls Mulder back, wondering with half his mind if Zito has come around all fucked up and crazy, and wondering with the other half who else has been traded.
*
Zito’s not in Tahiti. He’s not in San Francisco or Hollywood or San Diego. He’s somewhere in California, away from the coast. He’s got no change of clothes. He’s got nothing, really, just this ratty old T-shirt with the AC/DC logo on the front and the collar frayed, his beat-up jeans with paint on them, his favorite pair of sneakers from high school.
He paid cash for the room. He keeps his sunglasses on and his plain blue baseball cap pulled down low whenever he goes out.
On his cell phone, clogging up his voicemail, there are six messages from his sister. He left the front door open, he’s pretty sure. Left a half a can of Coke on the coffee table. Left the television on, ESPN blaring. There’s a message from Susan Slusser and one from Mychael Urban. A bunch of numbers he doesn’t recognize, reporters, no doubt.
Mark Mulder’s cell phone, three messages. Rich Harden, one message. Eric Chavez, two. Bobby Crosby, one. Curt Young, one. Seven from his parents.
Fourteen voicemail messages from Tim Hudson.
The sun gets way high up in the sky and Zito’s in the street, sitting on the curb. He’s drinking a paper cup of coffee and watching the highway traffic. Big semis and flatbed trucks with huge pieces of lumber strapped down across the back. White RVs with stenciled blue waves curling up on the sides, driven by squinting old people wearing visors. Wagons with fake-wood paneling like a stereotype, stuffed with kids and toys and travel-sized board games. The smell of tar and rubber, smoked asphalt, diesel exhaust.
Zito’s been chewing his nails pretty badly. He always has, no matter how they tried to break him of the habit, the bitter-tasting stuff and the five strips of tape around the tips of his fingers. None of that stuff worked, and it’s pretty bad now. He’s bit them down past the quick, gnawed the skin along the sides of his nails, and three on his right hand are bleeding, two on his left. He sucks the blood off, gets kind of sick to his stomach.
He’ll stay out here for as long as he wants to.
It’s not a big deal, really. Huddy can go ahead and go to fucking Atlanta, and whatever. They’ve always said that they knew it would happen someday, that the three of them wouldn’t be together forever. Always knew it.
After that second-to-last game against Anaheim, when the Angels clinched the west, Zito was sitting there on the bench with his cap off, the towel up against his mouth, rough and dry against his lips. He was just sitting there, you know. With his eyes all thin against the sun. After the others had gone down into the clubhouse, so it was just him.
He was thinking, for awhile there in the dugout, with the stadium emptying and he could hear some little kid bawling over his head, he was thinking that he would probably never pitch in a white uniform in this stadium again.
He’d been trade bait all season. He got past the trade deadline and took his first easy breath in four months.
Zito has cut himself off, taken himself out of the loop. Tim Hudson got traded to the Atlanta Braves yesterday. Zito’s been one of three for so long. He thinks about Mulder for awhile.
They were, it was 2001 and suddenly three of the best pitchers in the game were on the same team. A rotation like that, man. It’s once in a decade. Once in a generation. It’s like having your heart torn out. It’s a lot of things that are all very painful and hard to think about.
It’s about brotherhood and a whole bunch of abstract concepts that don’t mean much, and Zito can hear how Hudson’s gonna sound, in his press conference this afternoon, when he’ll be choked up and pissed off at himself for showing it. When he’ll talk about how the Braves are his childhood team. So it’s a dream come true.
He’ll talk about how hard it is, of course, yeah. He’ll mean it, too, but that won’t make anything better. Maybe he’ll talk about that perfect world where the three of them would never have to be split up. But maybe he won’t. Not with Bobby Cox’s hand on his shoulder. Not with John Schuerholz calling him Timmy and smiling all big with waxy-looking teeth.
Zito doesn’t really care. The press conference is going on right now, as a matter of fact, behind Zito’s back on the television set in his motel room. He sips his coffee, burns the roof of his mouth. Blood smears on the cardboard from his ripped-up finger.
Mulder, leaving him messages on his cell phone. Probably bitching him out for running away, going into hiding. Probably saying something about how Zito wasn’t like this when Giambi left, wasn’t like this when Miggy went. Maybe something snide about, oh well, but I guess you never wanted to fuck Jason or Miggy, huh?
Like, whatever, Mulder. Fuck off.
Everybody deals with it different. Zito knows that he’s going to Scottsdale, pretty soon. Not today, probably not tomorrow. But he’s not going back to Hollywood, not yet. He doesn’t want to deal with the traffic, which is a good enough excuse. He’ll have to call his sister and assure her that he’s not dead. It wasn’t really fair, just taking off like that. The phone’s got to be ringing off the hook, and it’s not cool for him to have left her to stammer at the reporters that no, she doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t know when he’ll be back. His mom’s probably really angry at him.
Zito sits on the curb until he’s sure that Hudson’s press conference is over, then goes back in and turns off the television.
He lies back on the bed and cracks the whiskey. This is all kind of perfect. Heartbreak. Paying cash for a Central Valley motel room where no one knows his name or face. Drinking alone with the television off, the shades drawn. This could all be in a movie.
Zito thinks about Tim Hudson, but not for too long. Just, a moment, maybe. Chicago or Cleveland, something. Back when Zito was the best out of the three of them. Those first three years, jesus.
Hudson’s hand on his stomach and Zito’s back against the mirror. His shoulders sliding around because he still had a shirt on. Must have been a hotel room, must have been. The glass was very clean, squeaky. Zito kept thinking about how strange it must be for Hudson to be seeing his own face up close, or really just his eyes, his nose, over Zito’s shoulder. Hudson’s got these pale blue eyes that kinda turn silver sometimes.
Hudson’s chin on his collarbone, his hand working down, and down, and down, and Zito’s mouth open. His chest felt caved in. When Hudson smiled against his neck, the smooth hard ridge of his teeth, Zito was afraid he was gonna bite. Gonna leave a mark, or turn him into a vampire, or something. But Hudson just drew his tongue along the line of Zito’s pulse, long with his hand sliding up the back of Zito’s neck.
Fucking Mark Mulder doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Zito doesn’t just want to fuck Tim Hudson, he goddamn well did, and more than once, and Mulder doesn’t hide jealousy very well and what-the-fuck-ever, man.
That’s been done for awhile, though. Whatever was going on between them. Zito won the Cy Young and started dating people who were more famous than him and then a year passed and Hudson had another kid, got a new tattoo. Hudson pushed him away one night when Zito tried to press against him in the taxi, his hand on Hudson’s leg, Hudson’s spindly legs that he was all self-conscious about.
Hudson pushed him away, knocked Zito’s hand off, looking out the cab’s window. Zito was hurt, sorta drunk, wanting to slide back, rub up against Hudson like a cat, whine his name because Hudson had a good name for whining, huddeeee. He touched his hand to Hudson’s head, stroking his fingers and thought distractedly that he’d never found the whole bald thing attractive, but then there was Tim Hudson. A lot of Zito’s life could be summed up that way:
Zito wasn’t, but then there was Tim Hudson. Zito didn’t, but then there was Tim Hudson. Zito never had, but then there was Tim Hudson.
At some point he’d stopped worrying about it.
Hudson jerked his head away, and glared at him. “You know what?” Hudson said in that fucking accent of his that made Zito’s head spin. “Let’s not do this anymore.”
That was it. As quick as that, as final. And Zito had blinked, said, “Oh, um. Okay,” and slumped back against the door, pretending like he didn’t care, chewing on his thumbnail.
Zito gets pretty drunk in his motel room. He thinks he’ll probably head down to Arizona tomorrow, after all. He kinda wants to drive to Florida and sit on Hudson’s front lawn like something out of a fucking romantic comedy, but no. Bad idea, definitely.
Hudson has two little daughters, and the older of the two adores Zito, wrapped around his legs squealing his name with the r’s replaced by w’s. She'll probably forget him, though, because he doesn't think he's gonna see her again, not for a long time. Hudson's wife is pregnant with their son. Zito’s got no right to be feeling like this.
He’ll go to Scottsdale, he decides, bleary and his head on fire. He knocks the whiskey bottle over without noticing, spilling out a spreading, dark-scented lake on the carpet. He pulls the pillow over his head, still wearing his jeans, but his T-shirt thrown over the television set. He’ll go see Mulder, Mulder will take care of him.
They’ve got to stick together now, the two of them. They’re the only ones left.
THE END
um. ow?