all things are possible!
i have this new computer! it is the greatest thing in the world. it can beat up any other computer on the block, and look good doing it. it is so quick--it cannot be seen by the naked eye.
crazy happenings. all these people kept passing out last night. indie music on my friend's busted speakers and legs strewn out the bathroom door into the hallway. this one kid was perfectly lucid and aware, but for some reason couldn't get up off the floor. she kept saying, "i'm fine, really, i just can't move." it was weird.
i managed to pretty much grift my way into graduating on time. it is all about forging professors' names on class credit sheets and using the university's own fuckhead bureacracy against it. my entire college experience has been running scams and talking my way out of shit. which, to be fair, is actually profitable experience for the real world.
i didn't intend to post this today, but then i did. go figure.
Sight to See
By Candle Beck
It must have been 2004, because Crosby is there at the corner seat of the table where they wedged an extra chair in. It must have been, because Chavez is pointing girls out but not going after them himself, and Rich Harden is subtly drinking everyone under the table. Which he wouldn’t normally be able to do, but Hudson’s driving.
Anyway, the fact that it’s 2004. The fact that pretty much all of them are out at the bar together, and this is the first time that’s happened in a coupla years at least. The fact that Barry Zito is, oh, so very drunk, and losing his hold on gravity in a strange, slouchy way, like he’s melting right out of his chair.
Lots of stuff like that.
And he’s thinking, in the idle hazy manner to which he is accustomed, with pieces missing and odd little tracks of music running brokenly in the background, the kind of thinking that makes him fear he had smoked too much pot as a kid, anyway, he’s thinking. So don’t make fun.
He’s thinking about all of them and how Chavez calls them the crew, kinda ironically, and Mulder calls them his posse, with a tragic lack of irony, and Hudson just says the boys, so that’s what Zito says too, because, you know. Hudson. A good example to follow.
Zito’s thinking stuff like, how fucking cool are we, man, seriously. And everybody’s good-looking when they’re young. This Zito firmly believes, and not just because he’s young and good-looking himself, though there does seem to be a consensus about that. Whatever. He’s just going through a phase of hotness (no matter what Hudson wants to say about Zito’s pretty mouth, he isn’t pretty, goddamn it, terrible word for it), just like everybody. All these guys too, it’s not like he’s the only one. And that shouldn’t matter, but kinda does.
It’s kinda cool to have everybody watching them, even when they’re on the road and no one knows their faces, when they’re just a crowd of good-looking guys in the back booth, college girls at the bar negotiating truces and reparations and who gets the tall one, who gets the guy with the accent, who gets the punk with the good hair.
Zito can see them with their glitter-wet mouths and uncomfortable shoes, sneaking looks at him and talking behind their hands. He feels objectified and it’s totally awesome.
Zito sighs.
He catches Harden’s gaze and the kid winks at him, his mouth covered by his beer. Zito squints at him in confusion, and Harden rolls his eyes and Zito loses his train of thought.
“Um,” he says, to no one in particular, but Mulder is close enough, so he leans over and makes a buzzing sound that is probably supposed to be Zito’s name.
Zito looks down at him. Which is unusual. But Mulder has melted even further than Zito, his arm folded on the table and his chin pushed down into the bend of his own elbow. He blinks up at Zito with his eyes looking watery and slightly bloodshot.
Zito puts his elbow up on the table and his chin in his palm. “Hi.”
Mulder grins, and Zito can see the one snaggly tooth on the left side of Mulder’s mouth, bottom side, all tough and pushing in front of all the other teeth like it wants the spotlight. The gangster tooth.
“Zito,” Mulder says in a thoughtful voice. His forehead is lined and he looks like he’s trying to remember something pretty important.
“You never call me Barry, what’s that about?” Zito asks, but it’s mostly rhetorical. Mulder doesn’t pay attention, anyway.
Chewing on his lower lip, rubbing his chin on the fabric of his shirt, Mulder tells him, “The kid’s bad news.”
Zito lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah?” He glances over at Crosby, who is frowning with concentration and nodding intently at whatever Chavez is saying, Chavez gesturing dramatically the way he does when he’s drunk and clipping Crosby’s face with the back of his hand.
Then Zito feels fingers crawling on his cheek, and looks back at Mulder, who is shaking his head. “Not that kid.”
Mulder grins at him again, his fingertips still on Zito’s face, the line of his jaw, sliding around and Zito listens to hear if they’ll squeak, but they don’t. Mulder pulls his eyes slowly over to where Rich Harden is smiling secretly at nothing, then looks back at Zito, whispering pretty loudly, “Stay away from the Canadian, baby.”
Zito’s face gets hot and he knocks Mulder’s hand away. He scowls at his beer, wrapping his hand tight around the glass and thinking about a bunch of stuff that he probably wouldn’t be thinking about if he wasn’t fucking plastered.
He doesn’t look at Harden, and he doesn't answer, because all he can think of to say is, “Fuck off,” and, well. He obviously didn’t get to this level because of his sparkling wit.
Zito doesn’t understand Mulder. He never has, not for years now.
*
Harden showed up first, in the middle of the summer same as when Zito first got called up. Zito thought it’d be like looking in a mirror, because Rich Harden was twenty-one years old in 2003 and Zito had been twenty-one years old in 2000, and Harden had torn through the minors in a year and a half and so had Zito, and Harden put his headphones on and closed his eyes in the clubhouse for hours, until someone would whisper conspiratorially, “I think he’s asleep, let’s fuck with him,” and Harden’s eyes would slide half-open like shades showing blue sky, and he would say mildly, “Fuck with me and I’ll fuck you up.”
Zito likes listening to music in the clubhouse before he starts too. He can’t pull off saying, “I’ll fuck you up,” and it’s weird that Harden can, but whatever.
Harden is so young he gleams like well-polished silver, and Zito feels the need to look for a price tag. He’s up here and by the second half of ’04, he is pitching better than anyone else in the rotation. Zito pretty much remembers every moment of this. It’s like living it again.
And Mark Mulder is around too, in the corners of things, smirking at Zito and having the balls to show Harden how to throw a curve, which, like, what the fuck, Mark. They were supposed to share the kid, he was gonna be molded in three different images like some kind of superhero. Zito would have got back at him by teaching Richie the slider, but, well. Not so much with the slider, Zito.
Mulder fucks around with Zito just because he’s bored, because it’s about that time in the season. Making Zito think stuff, or whatever. One second telling Zito a dirty joke while they’re both watching Harden pitch, and the next second leaning up from the backseat, bitching about not getting shotgun because everybody knows shotgun automatically goes to the tallest guy, what’s this ‘you have to call it’ bullshit, leaning forward with his arm on Zito’s shoulder, his breath warm on the side of Zito’s face.
Zito spends a lot of time thinking about the length of hallway between Rich Harden and Mark Mulder’s bedrooms in the Walnut Creek house. He wants to surreptitiously take Bobby Crosby’s place for a night (or two), steal Adam Melhuse’s passport and leave him on the other side of the border.
It’s a weird late summer.
One time, Hudson says to him, “You better know what you’re doing, man.”
Zito pops another piece of gum in his mouth. He buys this shit by the case now. At Costco, they know his face. He blows a bubble just so he won’t have to answer right away, then says, eyes front, “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll worry about it if I fucking well want, Zito.”
“Yeah yeah yeah. Good luck with that.” Zito slumps down on the bench, arms crossed over his chest. Mulder is pitching and Harden is down at the other end of the dugout with Kielty and Scutaro, mostly just listening because Harden still doesn’t talk much when it’s the whole team together.
Hudson knuckles him hard on the arm and says, “Don’t you fuck up my last season here, kid.”
Zito scowls and doesn’t answer. Hudson glares at him for a while, then sighs, turning away and muttering under his breath, “fucking soap opera around here.”
Zito woulda got mad, but, well. It’s not like he’s wrong.
*
In Baltimore, the wind comes first.
Five blocks away from the hotel, down on the waterfront with the closed stores and restaurants, ships out in the harbor like lanterns, Camden Yards around the corner, through a park.
Zito steals Harden’s Coke and drinks the last of it, then chucks the empty can at Harden, the back of his neatly-combed head. But the wind picks up and the can veers to the side like a third strike, and Zito’s hair stings at the corner of his eye.
Harden narrows his eyes and Zito can see his body bracing, shoulders set tight. He looks back at Zito and grins.
“Gonna see some weather tonight, California boy.”
Harden calls him that sometimes, when Zito calls him ‘Nuck or Dudley, and the way he says it always makes Zito picture a straight-up Valley girl from an eighties movie, and he snaps his gum appropriately in retaliation.
Zito bumps his shoulder into Harden’s. The wind is all over them, and maybe it’s starting to rain, very lightly, softening everything. “Let’s go get some lightning rods or something.”
“’Kay.”
It rains harder, and Zito’s shirt starts to stick to him. Harden’s wearing a light windbreaker, because apparently he knew about the rain in advance and just never bothered to share. Harden keeps looking at him, quickly smiling and looking away. Drops of water litter his face.
They end up racing the last two blocks to the hotel. They’re both pretty well soaked and Zito is close to shivering, but they sprint down the sidewalk side by side and he gets warm, gets flushed and panting by the time they crash into the lobby.
In the elevator, he grins at Harden and tries to catch his breath. Harden’s hair is plastered down, high on his forehead and around his ears. Harden grins back and says without even breathing heavy, “I totally won, man.”
So Zito decides to sleep with him.
It seems fairly harmless. No matter what Mulder says. Even if Mulder knows, like, first-hand, that sleeping with Rich Harden is a bad idea (something Zito does not really want to think about, Mulder’s hands and Harden’s back, and yet somehow it keeps coming back to him at inopportune moments), he still needs to shut up.
Because Mulder doesn’t know what it’s like.
Zito follows Harden back to his room, thinking abstractly that it’s good they’re doing this in Harden’s room, Hudson might come by Zito’s looking for him at some point. Harden doesn’t question him, just pushes through the door and holds it for Zito to come in.
Zito flops down on the bed and silently expresses his true affection for being a ballplayer and getting to stay in hotel rooms all the time, where the only place to sit is the bed and right next to the cable TV is a box full of liquor. And the box has candy, too.
Harden gets on the bed next to him and the plan is progressing nicely.
Zito waits till he sees lightning out the window, taking that as a good omen, before saying, “You know what, dude?”
Rich Harden slants a look at him, a particularly diagonal look that makes Zito blink in awe.
Zito figures surprise attack is his best move, and kisses Harden as quickly as possible, pressing up against him and sliding his hand around the back of Harden’s head.
Harden doesn’t seem all that surprised.
*
Mulder catches up to him at breakfast the next morning. Zito’s poking at the Danishes and bagels with a coffee straw, scowling because all the cinnamon ones are gone, and Mulder sidles up next to him, says into his ear:
“Who the fuck do you think you’re kidding, man?”
Zito jerks, splashing orange juice on his hand, and curses, glaring at Mulder. “Can I help you with something?”
Mulder grins and nudges into him. “No, it’s good. I’m very proud. Everybody needs to get some action sometimes.”
Zito blushes and looks down. Mulder’s always doing this to him.
“Whatever,” he mutters.
Mulder touches Zito’s watchband with his fingertips, tugging at it a little bit. “You got a real glow,” he says mockingly. “You wanna give me the recap, or what?”
Zito thinks, ‘oh right, we’re supposed to be friends,’ and of course friends talk about when they score. Or so he hears, anyway.
He flashes briefly and hysterically on a few choice bits of last night, mainly just a picture of Rich Harden stripping his shirt over his head and his hair sticking up in spikes on one side because it was still wet, Rich Harden with his shirt wrapped around both wrists, kneeling on the bed and leaning down to Zito. Mulder would just love hearing about that.
He shrugs. “Yeah, well. You know.”
Mulder rolls his eyes, pushes him into the muffin tray, and leaves his hand on the back of Zito’s arm for awhile, his knuckles brushing Zito’s back through his T-shirt.
He makes a conscious choice not to look for Rich Harden, and somehow ends up sitting next to him anyway. It’s that kind of a morning.
*
So they do that for awhile.
Zito doesn’t think about it with any specifics. He doesn’t even think with names, never says Harden’s name out loud during, it’s all strange and unwritten, mostly Polaroids behind his eyes showing a pale shoulder or stick-out ear.
Harden is just always there. Well. Zito is spending a lot of time over at their house, so it probably makes sense, Harden being around, but still. Zito’s life has reached a point of absurdity where he’s not even fazed by the fact that he eats breakfast four mornings a week with Mulder and Harden both not looking at him. He’s tired a lot, but it’s coming on late August, so. That’s about right.
Zito runs into Mulder one night in the hallway, like a fearful daydream come true. Zito’s on his way back from the bathroom (that’s the problem with all these fucking ranch houses, only the one bedroom has an attached bathroom, and of course Mulder claims it as his birthright every spring), and Mulder’s coming down from the kitchen, eating an apple.
It’s gotta be three in the morning.
They both stop and regard each other warily for a moment. Mulder sighs, leans his shoulder on the wall and asks, “What’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?”
Zito panics a little bit, his hand scratching at the doorframe. Of course Mulder knows-how could he not?-but this is different, this is a hallway when it’s just the two of them and Zito’s not wearing a shirt, which was a seriously stupid move on his part.
“Just. Bathroom.”
“Sure, sure.” Mulder smirks, bites his apple. He says, still chewing, “How’s that going, anyway?”
Zito cannot for the life of him read Mulder’s tone, but that’s probably because of the apple. Mulder’s a crafty son of a bitch.
He shrugs, wanting to cross his arms over his chest or something equally awkward, but holding back. “Fine.”
He looks at Mulder out the corner of his eye, fearing another plea for details. Thinking about Harden’s arm hanging off the edge of the bed, right behind that door, his hand almost touching the floor.
“You’ve been coming around a lot.”
Zito narrows his eyes. “Don’t mean to be a hassle.”
Mulder smiles sharply, shakes his head. “Nah, it’s cool. Fucking move in, man, what the hell.”
Zito looks down, unable to tell if Mulder is joking.
“Rich Harden,” Mulder says contemplatively.
Zito’s head jerks up, thinking maybe the kid just walked in or something, but Mulder’s just saying it to say it, half-grinning at Zito and telling him, “You and him, I mean. Who woulda thought, right?”
Zito’s got no answer, he could think for a month and still have no answer. Mulder laughs a little bit, and comes towards him, because his room’s at the end of the hall. Zito stops him, putting a hand on Mulder’s side.
“It’s not like that.”
Mulder tips his head slightly, looking curiously at Zito standing close to him, Zito’s hand and his thumb moving slowly. Mulder says, his tone weirdly even, “What’s it like?”
Zito closes his hand into a fist, balling up Mulder’s shirt. “You never did anything,” he says quickly. “I waited four years, okay.”
Mulder blinks at him in shock. It occurs to Zito that maybe Mulder was just fucking around. Maybe all Mulder has ever done is fuck around, flirting with him for years and touching him a lot whenever they got drunk, maybe this is all just the worst joke ever.
He drops his hand, blood rushing to his head. “So fuck you, anyway,” Zito says, his voice all torn up. “I’m going to bed.”
Mulder catches his elbow, of course he does, but Zito keeps his eyes down and pulls free. Mulder doesn’t really try that hard to hold him.
Harden’s head is under a pillow, the sheet pulled up to just below his shoulder blades, and all that’s really visible of him is his arm hanging down, white down to his elbow and then nicely tanned, his fingers curled and his knuckles brushing the carpet.
Zito gets dressed and counts to three hundred twice before he leaves. He drives over the bridge barefoot, and falls asleep on his couch, forgetting to even lock the door.
*
At the Oakland Coliseum, Chavez comes up behind Zito and whacks him hard in the arm with his glove. Zito yelps and flinches away, rubbing his arm and half-yelling, “No hitting for christ’s sake!”
“I was calling you for like a day,” Chavez says, showing no sympathy and even pushing Zito a little bit. “It was this or throw a ball at your head.”
They’re in short left, and Zito’s standing around watching Mulder run his sprints. Which is, okay, not the most normal thing to be doing, but the gates aren’t open yet, nobody can see.
He guesses maybe his mind had wandered.
“What’d you want, then?”
Chavez grins. “Just wanted to say hi.”
Zito rolls his eyes. “Everybody on this team is so fucking funny, god.”
Mulder gets back to them but only slaps Chavez on the shoulder as he goes past, breathing deep and steady, heading to the ‘pen.
Chavez says, “Also Bobby and Richie want you to come down and hang out.”
Zito rubs his chin. “I’m really quite popular.”
“Yeah, among the jailbait.” Zito looks at him quickly but Chavez is just watching Mulder taking his session.
Zito says, “Whatever,” and thinks that he’s been saying that a lot recently. He keeps his eyes on Mulder’s arm, the long turn of his body going through his motion, so that he won’t have to look at Mulder’s face.
*
Rich Harden, all twenty-two years of him, is entirely too steady for Zito’s tastes. He never panics and he never shows anger. It’s remarkable. Of course, he doesn’t have much to panic or get angry about, lately. He and Zito are both pitching pretty goddamn well, right about now. It’s maybe the first time that’s happened to both of them at the same time.
Nothing ever gets to Harden, and he doesn’t talk much, doesn’t smile much. Nobody will even play cards with him anymore, because he gives nothing away. Zito figures it’s got to do with being able to throw a hundred miles an hour. Harden seems, as much as anything, perfectly at home in his life, and probably if you can throw a hundred miles an hour, you don’t need anything else.
They start staying over at Zito’s place more often, where the hallway is empty and the second bedroom unoccupied. He starts carrying change again for bridge toll. Pacific Heights is gray and crystalline, and Harden stands in front of the picture window, drinking coffee in the dim sunlight off the ocean.
Zito pushes him back against the refrigerator in the morning, knocking off some magnets, a pizza delivery menu flapping at Harden’s shoulder. Zito presses his hands against Harden’s stomach, adding more and more pressure and waiting for Harden to tell him to knock it off. Harden doesn’t say anything. Zito kisses him perfunctorily and drops to his knees.
The linoleum will not forgive him, flattening his kneecaps, but Harden’s hand is clenched around the lip of the counter, so tightly that when Zito clutches Harden’s forearm for balance, he thinks for a moment that Harden is carved out of wood.
He’s real good at this now. He gets Harden off before the Pop-tarts are even done, which has got to be some kind of record.
Harden’s legs give out after, and he slides down, his eyes closed and his bare feet squeaking on the floor. Magnets and photographs rain down with him, and when he’s sitting on the floor, Harden finally smiles.
“It’s not like I mind being your second choice, man.”
Zito starts, and his eyes widen a bit. “The fuck are you talking about?” he asks, sitting down himself and hearing his knees crack when he straightens his legs.
Harden shrugs. “Just saying. You don’t need to, like. Suck my dick in the kitchen to prove that you want me.”
Zito’s voice gets progressively louder. “Look, if you’ve got a problem with me sucking your dick-”
Harden laughs, leaning his head back against the refrigerator. He’s just out of the shower, the way Zito secretly likes him best, with his hair washed and dried and his T-shirt with the torn-out collar holding onto his shoulders. When Zito gets the angle right, Harden looks like the kind of guy who’s ever the recipient of random blowjobs, he looks like this happens to him all the time.
“I haven’t been around that long,” Harden says, his mouth curled a little bit, one leg bent and his hand dangling off his knee. “But I know you and him is never gonna happen. So, you know. I’m cool with this, what we’re doing. You should be too.”
Zito’s face gets deeply red, and he pushes his thumb around the design of the tile, saying sullenly, “I’m cool. I’m fine. You’re just a fucking kid, you shouldn’t say that sorta stuff.”
He looks up and Harden grins once, there then gone again. “Barry, you are about five times more fucked up than anyone I have ever met. It’s, seriously, a fucking sight to see.”
Zito stares at him, mouth open a bit, floundering, but Harden just pushes up to his feet and goes to get the Pop-tarts, handing Zito his plate down there on the floor and touching Zito’s hair as he opens the fridge in search of orange juice.
*
At some point, Zito wakes up to punk music playing so softly it’s kind of disorienting. He stumbles out tying the drawstring on his pajama pants, and Harden’s sitting on his kitchen counter, eating cereal and tocking his heel against the cabinet door. There’s coffee on and bagels on a plate, a cinnamon Danish all smooshed like it spent the night in a backpack or something.
Harden waves at him with a spoon and for all the things he could possibly say at this moment, Zito chooses, “I thought you went home.”
Harden looks briefly hurt, his eyes shadowing a bit.
“I’ll go if you want me to.”
Zito shakes his head without realizing. He gets a bowl from the cabinet, and he’s standing there pouring cereal with his eyes down, and he says, “Stay.”
Harden doesn’t say anything to that, but when he walks past Zito to get some coffee, he kisses the side of Zito’s neck, real quick like he isn’t even thinking about it. Zito wonders how long you have to keep your eyes closed before it counts as being blind.
That afternoon, in the video room, Mulder comes in and stands close behind Zito’s chair. Zito keeps his eyes on the screen, his hand on the little mouse-remote control guy. They watch a few batters, and then Mulder says:
“I don’t know why it was my job to start shit.”
Zito rewinds a short bit of tape, watches the fourth pitch of the at-bat again. The way the ball tails in sharply just before the plate-how in God’s name did he throw that?
Mulder waits a moment, then says impatiently, “You were around too, you never did nothing.”
Zito turns to look up at him incredulously. “Excuse me. I seem to recall sticking my hand down your pants two years ago. Or was that not obvious enough for you?”
Mulder shakes his head, his hand tightening on the back of Zito’s chair. “That doesn’t count. You were so drunk.”
“I wasn’t that drunk.”
Eying him uncertainly, Mulder shifts back. “Anyway. No fair getting mad at me because you’re stuck with the fucking kid.”
Zito stands, knocking the chair so that it rolls away. “That’s what you think I’m doing?”
Mulder crosses his arms over his chest and smiles, eyes swollen a little bit because he just woke up from his pre-game nap. “Don’t really care, one way or another. This is your little drama for the season, that’s all right. I’m used to it. Makes everything real interesting.”
Zito sneers and wants to spit at him, but that would be awfully anachronistic, so instead he just tries to push past, storm out, cursing the non-slamming pneumatic door. Mulder doesn’t let him, though, his hand on Zito’s chest and pushing him against the wall smoothly.
Mulder leans in slightly, his hand sliding down over Zito’s stomach. “Zito,” he says quietly. He kisses Zito’s cheek, or not really, just these brief touches of his mouth, and Zito’s eyes close.
There are teeth on the line of his jaw, and Mulder asks, “So, what do you think, man? Should I start something now?”
Zito tips his head back, thinks about Rich Harden with rain on his face, Rich Harden who goes by his middle name and does not need Zito, does not need anyone. Mulder bites his neck, which is strange and perfect.
“Oh god, this is such a bad idea,” Zito says, and he presses his hands flat against the wall, not touching Mulder anywhere except where Mulder is touching him. He thinks about how hard it’s been just getting a straight answer from Mulder. The logistics of this make him want to just lie down and go to sleep.
Mulder fits against him and curves his hand around the back of Zito’s neck. Zito can see the game tape over Mulder’s shoulder, flickering and bright. He sighs, and figures that at this point, his best option is probably just to let Mulder do whatever he wants.
Mulder can be trusted. Zito’s pretty sure.
THE END
how many days left? how many? oh man.
crazy happenings. all these people kept passing out last night. indie music on my friend's busted speakers and legs strewn out the bathroom door into the hallway. this one kid was perfectly lucid and aware, but for some reason couldn't get up off the floor. she kept saying, "i'm fine, really, i just can't move." it was weird.
i managed to pretty much grift my way into graduating on time. it is all about forging professors' names on class credit sheets and using the university's own fuckhead bureacracy against it. my entire college experience has been running scams and talking my way out of shit. which, to be fair, is actually profitable experience for the real world.
i didn't intend to post this today, but then i did. go figure.
Sight to See
By Candle Beck
It must have been 2004, because Crosby is there at the corner seat of the table where they wedged an extra chair in. It must have been, because Chavez is pointing girls out but not going after them himself, and Rich Harden is subtly drinking everyone under the table. Which he wouldn’t normally be able to do, but Hudson’s driving.
Anyway, the fact that it’s 2004. The fact that pretty much all of them are out at the bar together, and this is the first time that’s happened in a coupla years at least. The fact that Barry Zito is, oh, so very drunk, and losing his hold on gravity in a strange, slouchy way, like he’s melting right out of his chair.
Lots of stuff like that.
And he’s thinking, in the idle hazy manner to which he is accustomed, with pieces missing and odd little tracks of music running brokenly in the background, the kind of thinking that makes him fear he had smoked too much pot as a kid, anyway, he’s thinking. So don’t make fun.
He’s thinking about all of them and how Chavez calls them the crew, kinda ironically, and Mulder calls them his posse, with a tragic lack of irony, and Hudson just says the boys, so that’s what Zito says too, because, you know. Hudson. A good example to follow.
Zito’s thinking stuff like, how fucking cool are we, man, seriously. And everybody’s good-looking when they’re young. This Zito firmly believes, and not just because he’s young and good-looking himself, though there does seem to be a consensus about that. Whatever. He’s just going through a phase of hotness (no matter what Hudson wants to say about Zito’s pretty mouth, he isn’t pretty, goddamn it, terrible word for it), just like everybody. All these guys too, it’s not like he’s the only one. And that shouldn’t matter, but kinda does.
It’s kinda cool to have everybody watching them, even when they’re on the road and no one knows their faces, when they’re just a crowd of good-looking guys in the back booth, college girls at the bar negotiating truces and reparations and who gets the tall one, who gets the guy with the accent, who gets the punk with the good hair.
Zito can see them with their glitter-wet mouths and uncomfortable shoes, sneaking looks at him and talking behind their hands. He feels objectified and it’s totally awesome.
Zito sighs.
He catches Harden’s gaze and the kid winks at him, his mouth covered by his beer. Zito squints at him in confusion, and Harden rolls his eyes and Zito loses his train of thought.
“Um,” he says, to no one in particular, but Mulder is close enough, so he leans over and makes a buzzing sound that is probably supposed to be Zito’s name.
Zito looks down at him. Which is unusual. But Mulder has melted even further than Zito, his arm folded on the table and his chin pushed down into the bend of his own elbow. He blinks up at Zito with his eyes looking watery and slightly bloodshot.
Zito puts his elbow up on the table and his chin in his palm. “Hi.”
Mulder grins, and Zito can see the one snaggly tooth on the left side of Mulder’s mouth, bottom side, all tough and pushing in front of all the other teeth like it wants the spotlight. The gangster tooth.
“Zito,” Mulder says in a thoughtful voice. His forehead is lined and he looks like he’s trying to remember something pretty important.
“You never call me Barry, what’s that about?” Zito asks, but it’s mostly rhetorical. Mulder doesn’t pay attention, anyway.
Chewing on his lower lip, rubbing his chin on the fabric of his shirt, Mulder tells him, “The kid’s bad news.”
Zito lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah?” He glances over at Crosby, who is frowning with concentration and nodding intently at whatever Chavez is saying, Chavez gesturing dramatically the way he does when he’s drunk and clipping Crosby’s face with the back of his hand.
Then Zito feels fingers crawling on his cheek, and looks back at Mulder, who is shaking his head. “Not that kid.”
Mulder grins at him again, his fingertips still on Zito’s face, the line of his jaw, sliding around and Zito listens to hear if they’ll squeak, but they don’t. Mulder pulls his eyes slowly over to where Rich Harden is smiling secretly at nothing, then looks back at Zito, whispering pretty loudly, “Stay away from the Canadian, baby.”
Zito’s face gets hot and he knocks Mulder’s hand away. He scowls at his beer, wrapping his hand tight around the glass and thinking about a bunch of stuff that he probably wouldn’t be thinking about if he wasn’t fucking plastered.
He doesn’t look at Harden, and he doesn't answer, because all he can think of to say is, “Fuck off,” and, well. He obviously didn’t get to this level because of his sparkling wit.
Zito doesn’t understand Mulder. He never has, not for years now.
*
Harden showed up first, in the middle of the summer same as when Zito first got called up. Zito thought it’d be like looking in a mirror, because Rich Harden was twenty-one years old in 2003 and Zito had been twenty-one years old in 2000, and Harden had torn through the minors in a year and a half and so had Zito, and Harden put his headphones on and closed his eyes in the clubhouse for hours, until someone would whisper conspiratorially, “I think he’s asleep, let’s fuck with him,” and Harden’s eyes would slide half-open like shades showing blue sky, and he would say mildly, “Fuck with me and I’ll fuck you up.”
Zito likes listening to music in the clubhouse before he starts too. He can’t pull off saying, “I’ll fuck you up,” and it’s weird that Harden can, but whatever.
Harden is so young he gleams like well-polished silver, and Zito feels the need to look for a price tag. He’s up here and by the second half of ’04, he is pitching better than anyone else in the rotation. Zito pretty much remembers every moment of this. It’s like living it again.
And Mark Mulder is around too, in the corners of things, smirking at Zito and having the balls to show Harden how to throw a curve, which, like, what the fuck, Mark. They were supposed to share the kid, he was gonna be molded in three different images like some kind of superhero. Zito would have got back at him by teaching Richie the slider, but, well. Not so much with the slider, Zito.
Mulder fucks around with Zito just because he’s bored, because it’s about that time in the season. Making Zito think stuff, or whatever. One second telling Zito a dirty joke while they’re both watching Harden pitch, and the next second leaning up from the backseat, bitching about not getting shotgun because everybody knows shotgun automatically goes to the tallest guy, what’s this ‘you have to call it’ bullshit, leaning forward with his arm on Zito’s shoulder, his breath warm on the side of Zito’s face.
Zito spends a lot of time thinking about the length of hallway between Rich Harden and Mark Mulder’s bedrooms in the Walnut Creek house. He wants to surreptitiously take Bobby Crosby’s place for a night (or two), steal Adam Melhuse’s passport and leave him on the other side of the border.
It’s a weird late summer.
One time, Hudson says to him, “You better know what you’re doing, man.”
Zito pops another piece of gum in his mouth. He buys this shit by the case now. At Costco, they know his face. He blows a bubble just so he won’t have to answer right away, then says, eyes front, “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll worry about it if I fucking well want, Zito.”
“Yeah yeah yeah. Good luck with that.” Zito slumps down on the bench, arms crossed over his chest. Mulder is pitching and Harden is down at the other end of the dugout with Kielty and Scutaro, mostly just listening because Harden still doesn’t talk much when it’s the whole team together.
Hudson knuckles him hard on the arm and says, “Don’t you fuck up my last season here, kid.”
Zito scowls and doesn’t answer. Hudson glares at him for a while, then sighs, turning away and muttering under his breath, “fucking soap opera around here.”
Zito woulda got mad, but, well. It’s not like he’s wrong.
*
In Baltimore, the wind comes first.
Five blocks away from the hotel, down on the waterfront with the closed stores and restaurants, ships out in the harbor like lanterns, Camden Yards around the corner, through a park.
Zito steals Harden’s Coke and drinks the last of it, then chucks the empty can at Harden, the back of his neatly-combed head. But the wind picks up and the can veers to the side like a third strike, and Zito’s hair stings at the corner of his eye.
Harden narrows his eyes and Zito can see his body bracing, shoulders set tight. He looks back at Zito and grins.
“Gonna see some weather tonight, California boy.”
Harden calls him that sometimes, when Zito calls him ‘Nuck or Dudley, and the way he says it always makes Zito picture a straight-up Valley girl from an eighties movie, and he snaps his gum appropriately in retaliation.
Zito bumps his shoulder into Harden’s. The wind is all over them, and maybe it’s starting to rain, very lightly, softening everything. “Let’s go get some lightning rods or something.”
“’Kay.”
It rains harder, and Zito’s shirt starts to stick to him. Harden’s wearing a light windbreaker, because apparently he knew about the rain in advance and just never bothered to share. Harden keeps looking at him, quickly smiling and looking away. Drops of water litter his face.
They end up racing the last two blocks to the hotel. They’re both pretty well soaked and Zito is close to shivering, but they sprint down the sidewalk side by side and he gets warm, gets flushed and panting by the time they crash into the lobby.
In the elevator, he grins at Harden and tries to catch his breath. Harden’s hair is plastered down, high on his forehead and around his ears. Harden grins back and says without even breathing heavy, “I totally won, man.”
So Zito decides to sleep with him.
It seems fairly harmless. No matter what Mulder says. Even if Mulder knows, like, first-hand, that sleeping with Rich Harden is a bad idea (something Zito does not really want to think about, Mulder’s hands and Harden’s back, and yet somehow it keeps coming back to him at inopportune moments), he still needs to shut up.
Because Mulder doesn’t know what it’s like.
Zito follows Harden back to his room, thinking abstractly that it’s good they’re doing this in Harden’s room, Hudson might come by Zito’s looking for him at some point. Harden doesn’t question him, just pushes through the door and holds it for Zito to come in.
Zito flops down on the bed and silently expresses his true affection for being a ballplayer and getting to stay in hotel rooms all the time, where the only place to sit is the bed and right next to the cable TV is a box full of liquor. And the box has candy, too.
Harden gets on the bed next to him and the plan is progressing nicely.
Zito waits till he sees lightning out the window, taking that as a good omen, before saying, “You know what, dude?”
Rich Harden slants a look at him, a particularly diagonal look that makes Zito blink in awe.
Zito figures surprise attack is his best move, and kisses Harden as quickly as possible, pressing up against him and sliding his hand around the back of Harden’s head.
Harden doesn’t seem all that surprised.
*
Mulder catches up to him at breakfast the next morning. Zito’s poking at the Danishes and bagels with a coffee straw, scowling because all the cinnamon ones are gone, and Mulder sidles up next to him, says into his ear:
“Who the fuck do you think you’re kidding, man?”
Zito jerks, splashing orange juice on his hand, and curses, glaring at Mulder. “Can I help you with something?”
Mulder grins and nudges into him. “No, it’s good. I’m very proud. Everybody needs to get some action sometimes.”
Zito blushes and looks down. Mulder’s always doing this to him.
“Whatever,” he mutters.
Mulder touches Zito’s watchband with his fingertips, tugging at it a little bit. “You got a real glow,” he says mockingly. “You wanna give me the recap, or what?”
Zito thinks, ‘oh right, we’re supposed to be friends,’ and of course friends talk about when they score. Or so he hears, anyway.
He flashes briefly and hysterically on a few choice bits of last night, mainly just a picture of Rich Harden stripping his shirt over his head and his hair sticking up in spikes on one side because it was still wet, Rich Harden with his shirt wrapped around both wrists, kneeling on the bed and leaning down to Zito. Mulder would just love hearing about that.
He shrugs. “Yeah, well. You know.”
Mulder rolls his eyes, pushes him into the muffin tray, and leaves his hand on the back of Zito’s arm for awhile, his knuckles brushing Zito’s back through his T-shirt.
He makes a conscious choice not to look for Rich Harden, and somehow ends up sitting next to him anyway. It’s that kind of a morning.
*
So they do that for awhile.
Zito doesn’t think about it with any specifics. He doesn’t even think with names, never says Harden’s name out loud during, it’s all strange and unwritten, mostly Polaroids behind his eyes showing a pale shoulder or stick-out ear.
Harden is just always there. Well. Zito is spending a lot of time over at their house, so it probably makes sense, Harden being around, but still. Zito’s life has reached a point of absurdity where he’s not even fazed by the fact that he eats breakfast four mornings a week with Mulder and Harden both not looking at him. He’s tired a lot, but it’s coming on late August, so. That’s about right.
Zito runs into Mulder one night in the hallway, like a fearful daydream come true. Zito’s on his way back from the bathroom (that’s the problem with all these fucking ranch houses, only the one bedroom has an attached bathroom, and of course Mulder claims it as his birthright every spring), and Mulder’s coming down from the kitchen, eating an apple.
It’s gotta be three in the morning.
They both stop and regard each other warily for a moment. Mulder sighs, leans his shoulder on the wall and asks, “What’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?”
Zito panics a little bit, his hand scratching at the doorframe. Of course Mulder knows-how could he not?-but this is different, this is a hallway when it’s just the two of them and Zito’s not wearing a shirt, which was a seriously stupid move on his part.
“Just. Bathroom.”
“Sure, sure.” Mulder smirks, bites his apple. He says, still chewing, “How’s that going, anyway?”
Zito cannot for the life of him read Mulder’s tone, but that’s probably because of the apple. Mulder’s a crafty son of a bitch.
He shrugs, wanting to cross his arms over his chest or something equally awkward, but holding back. “Fine.”
He looks at Mulder out the corner of his eye, fearing another plea for details. Thinking about Harden’s arm hanging off the edge of the bed, right behind that door, his hand almost touching the floor.
“You’ve been coming around a lot.”
Zito narrows his eyes. “Don’t mean to be a hassle.”
Mulder smiles sharply, shakes his head. “Nah, it’s cool. Fucking move in, man, what the hell.”
Zito looks down, unable to tell if Mulder is joking.
“Rich Harden,” Mulder says contemplatively.
Zito’s head jerks up, thinking maybe the kid just walked in or something, but Mulder’s just saying it to say it, half-grinning at Zito and telling him, “You and him, I mean. Who woulda thought, right?”
Zito’s got no answer, he could think for a month and still have no answer. Mulder laughs a little bit, and comes towards him, because his room’s at the end of the hall. Zito stops him, putting a hand on Mulder’s side.
“It’s not like that.”
Mulder tips his head slightly, looking curiously at Zito standing close to him, Zito’s hand and his thumb moving slowly. Mulder says, his tone weirdly even, “What’s it like?”
Zito closes his hand into a fist, balling up Mulder’s shirt. “You never did anything,” he says quickly. “I waited four years, okay.”
Mulder blinks at him in shock. It occurs to Zito that maybe Mulder was just fucking around. Maybe all Mulder has ever done is fuck around, flirting with him for years and touching him a lot whenever they got drunk, maybe this is all just the worst joke ever.
He drops his hand, blood rushing to his head. “So fuck you, anyway,” Zito says, his voice all torn up. “I’m going to bed.”
Mulder catches his elbow, of course he does, but Zito keeps his eyes down and pulls free. Mulder doesn’t really try that hard to hold him.
Harden’s head is under a pillow, the sheet pulled up to just below his shoulder blades, and all that’s really visible of him is his arm hanging down, white down to his elbow and then nicely tanned, his fingers curled and his knuckles brushing the carpet.
Zito gets dressed and counts to three hundred twice before he leaves. He drives over the bridge barefoot, and falls asleep on his couch, forgetting to even lock the door.
*
At the Oakland Coliseum, Chavez comes up behind Zito and whacks him hard in the arm with his glove. Zito yelps and flinches away, rubbing his arm and half-yelling, “No hitting for christ’s sake!”
“I was calling you for like a day,” Chavez says, showing no sympathy and even pushing Zito a little bit. “It was this or throw a ball at your head.”
They’re in short left, and Zito’s standing around watching Mulder run his sprints. Which is, okay, not the most normal thing to be doing, but the gates aren’t open yet, nobody can see.
He guesses maybe his mind had wandered.
“What’d you want, then?”
Chavez grins. “Just wanted to say hi.”
Zito rolls his eyes. “Everybody on this team is so fucking funny, god.”
Mulder gets back to them but only slaps Chavez on the shoulder as he goes past, breathing deep and steady, heading to the ‘pen.
Chavez says, “Also Bobby and Richie want you to come down and hang out.”
Zito rubs his chin. “I’m really quite popular.”
“Yeah, among the jailbait.” Zito looks at him quickly but Chavez is just watching Mulder taking his session.
Zito says, “Whatever,” and thinks that he’s been saying that a lot recently. He keeps his eyes on Mulder’s arm, the long turn of his body going through his motion, so that he won’t have to look at Mulder’s face.
*
Rich Harden, all twenty-two years of him, is entirely too steady for Zito’s tastes. He never panics and he never shows anger. It’s remarkable. Of course, he doesn’t have much to panic or get angry about, lately. He and Zito are both pitching pretty goddamn well, right about now. It’s maybe the first time that’s happened to both of them at the same time.
Nothing ever gets to Harden, and he doesn’t talk much, doesn’t smile much. Nobody will even play cards with him anymore, because he gives nothing away. Zito figures it’s got to do with being able to throw a hundred miles an hour. Harden seems, as much as anything, perfectly at home in his life, and probably if you can throw a hundred miles an hour, you don’t need anything else.
They start staying over at Zito’s place more often, where the hallway is empty and the second bedroom unoccupied. He starts carrying change again for bridge toll. Pacific Heights is gray and crystalline, and Harden stands in front of the picture window, drinking coffee in the dim sunlight off the ocean.
Zito pushes him back against the refrigerator in the morning, knocking off some magnets, a pizza delivery menu flapping at Harden’s shoulder. Zito presses his hands against Harden’s stomach, adding more and more pressure and waiting for Harden to tell him to knock it off. Harden doesn’t say anything. Zito kisses him perfunctorily and drops to his knees.
The linoleum will not forgive him, flattening his kneecaps, but Harden’s hand is clenched around the lip of the counter, so tightly that when Zito clutches Harden’s forearm for balance, he thinks for a moment that Harden is carved out of wood.
He’s real good at this now. He gets Harden off before the Pop-tarts are even done, which has got to be some kind of record.
Harden’s legs give out after, and he slides down, his eyes closed and his bare feet squeaking on the floor. Magnets and photographs rain down with him, and when he’s sitting on the floor, Harden finally smiles.
“It’s not like I mind being your second choice, man.”
Zito starts, and his eyes widen a bit. “The fuck are you talking about?” he asks, sitting down himself and hearing his knees crack when he straightens his legs.
Harden shrugs. “Just saying. You don’t need to, like. Suck my dick in the kitchen to prove that you want me.”
Zito’s voice gets progressively louder. “Look, if you’ve got a problem with me sucking your dick-”
Harden laughs, leaning his head back against the refrigerator. He’s just out of the shower, the way Zito secretly likes him best, with his hair washed and dried and his T-shirt with the torn-out collar holding onto his shoulders. When Zito gets the angle right, Harden looks like the kind of guy who’s ever the recipient of random blowjobs, he looks like this happens to him all the time.
“I haven’t been around that long,” Harden says, his mouth curled a little bit, one leg bent and his hand dangling off his knee. “But I know you and him is never gonna happen. So, you know. I’m cool with this, what we’re doing. You should be too.”
Zito’s face gets deeply red, and he pushes his thumb around the design of the tile, saying sullenly, “I’m cool. I’m fine. You’re just a fucking kid, you shouldn’t say that sorta stuff.”
He looks up and Harden grins once, there then gone again. “Barry, you are about five times more fucked up than anyone I have ever met. It’s, seriously, a fucking sight to see.”
Zito stares at him, mouth open a bit, floundering, but Harden just pushes up to his feet and goes to get the Pop-tarts, handing Zito his plate down there on the floor and touching Zito’s hair as he opens the fridge in search of orange juice.
*
At some point, Zito wakes up to punk music playing so softly it’s kind of disorienting. He stumbles out tying the drawstring on his pajama pants, and Harden’s sitting on his kitchen counter, eating cereal and tocking his heel against the cabinet door. There’s coffee on and bagels on a plate, a cinnamon Danish all smooshed like it spent the night in a backpack or something.
Harden waves at him with a spoon and for all the things he could possibly say at this moment, Zito chooses, “I thought you went home.”
Harden looks briefly hurt, his eyes shadowing a bit.
“I’ll go if you want me to.”
Zito shakes his head without realizing. He gets a bowl from the cabinet, and he’s standing there pouring cereal with his eyes down, and he says, “Stay.”
Harden doesn’t say anything to that, but when he walks past Zito to get some coffee, he kisses the side of Zito’s neck, real quick like he isn’t even thinking about it. Zito wonders how long you have to keep your eyes closed before it counts as being blind.
That afternoon, in the video room, Mulder comes in and stands close behind Zito’s chair. Zito keeps his eyes on the screen, his hand on the little mouse-remote control guy. They watch a few batters, and then Mulder says:
“I don’t know why it was my job to start shit.”
Zito rewinds a short bit of tape, watches the fourth pitch of the at-bat again. The way the ball tails in sharply just before the plate-how in God’s name did he throw that?
Mulder waits a moment, then says impatiently, “You were around too, you never did nothing.”
Zito turns to look up at him incredulously. “Excuse me. I seem to recall sticking my hand down your pants two years ago. Or was that not obvious enough for you?”
Mulder shakes his head, his hand tightening on the back of Zito’s chair. “That doesn’t count. You were so drunk.”
“I wasn’t that drunk.”
Eying him uncertainly, Mulder shifts back. “Anyway. No fair getting mad at me because you’re stuck with the fucking kid.”
Zito stands, knocking the chair so that it rolls away. “That’s what you think I’m doing?”
Mulder crosses his arms over his chest and smiles, eyes swollen a little bit because he just woke up from his pre-game nap. “Don’t really care, one way or another. This is your little drama for the season, that’s all right. I’m used to it. Makes everything real interesting.”
Zito sneers and wants to spit at him, but that would be awfully anachronistic, so instead he just tries to push past, storm out, cursing the non-slamming pneumatic door. Mulder doesn’t let him, though, his hand on Zito’s chest and pushing him against the wall smoothly.
Mulder leans in slightly, his hand sliding down over Zito’s stomach. “Zito,” he says quietly. He kisses Zito’s cheek, or not really, just these brief touches of his mouth, and Zito’s eyes close.
There are teeth on the line of his jaw, and Mulder asks, “So, what do you think, man? Should I start something now?”
Zito tips his head back, thinks about Rich Harden with rain on his face, Rich Harden who goes by his middle name and does not need Zito, does not need anyone. Mulder bites his neck, which is strange and perfect.
“Oh god, this is such a bad idea,” Zito says, and he presses his hands flat against the wall, not touching Mulder anywhere except where Mulder is touching him. He thinks about how hard it’s been just getting a straight answer from Mulder. The logistics of this make him want to just lie down and go to sleep.
Mulder fits against him and curves his hand around the back of Zito’s neck. Zito can see the game tape over Mulder’s shoulder, flickering and bright. He sighs, and figures that at this point, his best option is probably just to let Mulder do whatever he wants.
Mulder can be trusted. Zito’s pretty sure.
THE END
how many days left? how many? oh man.