hope we both freeze to death
first
Colorado Rockies at San Francisco Giants, 1-3 May 2009
Zito pitched tolerably well at home against the Dodgers, six shutout before allowing three runs swiftly, in exhaustion, and getting pulled. The boys picked him up in the bottom of the eighth, saved him from the loss, and everyone seemed pretty pleased with him. Zito went home that night rubbing a baseball between his hands, setting his fingers in their proper places. He was unwilling to let it go, the touch, the feel of his curveball right there, strumming in his blood.
The team was back at .500 and hadn't yet lost a series at home, and the Rockies had come to town. Everyone was feeling good, hardly used to it. Randy Johnson was just a couple wins away from 300. Tim Lincecum looked even younger than last year and might actually have been pitching better. Pablo Sandoval's bat had woken up and when Pablo was happy, everyone was happy. Zito was kinda swept up.
He was still talking to Rich Harden more than he likely should have been, because Harden still picked up every time. Zito quit talking about Danny because it wasn't nice to Rich, and let himself be distracted by Harden's dry Canadian manner, his weird little jokes, the hiccup in his laugh.
He told Harden about finding the curveball, how it dove and dropped and bit off the corner of the plate. Zito talked about it like it was somebody else's pitch, trying to analyze its spin and rate of fall. He wanted to explain to Rich, this is the single greatest thing I am able to do, but it was probably unnecessary: Rich had a pitch like that himself.
Harden said, "I know man, you get that shit working and it feels like getting pushed off a building, like, free fall but without being scared."
And Zito was caught off-guard a little bit, a kind of perfect phrasing of the feeling and he was quiet for a second, feeling it resonate.
"Just like that, actually," he said eventually. "That's exactly it, Richie."
He could almost hear Harden grinning. "What I'm here for, man."
"Now it's just, how to hold on to it," Zito said, thinking for a second about Harden under him in a hotel bed, his back bowed and his head thrust back, hips maddeningly slick under Zito's hands, sliding away. "That's the trick."
"You quit thinking about it," Harden told him. "Once you have it, you just let it be. That's how."
"Yeah," Zito said, kinda sighing. "You're probably right."
"I'm always right."
"Yeah," and Zito was smiling slightly, having wandered back into the simple and undramatic past. "I got pretty lucky the day you came along."
Harden made an aborted sound, kinda choked. Zito used to say that all the time. It used to mean something different. Harden stammered for a second, very much unlike him, and then ended the call, and Zito sort of appreciated that he'd fucked up, but he couldn't quite see how.
The Giants won the first game against the Rocks, lost the second, and Zito was on for the rubber match. It was overcast and misting as he went out to do his warmups a little after noon, the fog pouring and obscuring the highest seats. Everybody was talking about just getting the game in, five innings and then the rain could come, but Zito tried to set a higher bar for himself than that.
He was playing long toss with Steve Holm, moving back until he was most of the way into center field, the tops of his shoes shining from the wet grass. A Colorado player detached from where they were throwing on their own line, and started jogging out to Zito. Road grays made him the same color as the sky, and it wasn't until he was pretty close that Zito was able to identify him.
Zito hurled the ball the two hundred feet back to the bullpen, said, "Hey, Huston."
Street took off his cap, swiped his forehead with his arm. "Hey, Barry."
Holm's return toss pulled Zito away from Street, and after he sent it back, he waved at Steve, take a quick break, and saw Holm go to the bench for his water. Zito turned back, tugging his glove off his hand, wiping the sweat off his palm. Street was fidgeting with his cap, looking awkward. They hadn't actively avoided each other that weekend, but they hadn't sought each other out either, even though Zito seemed to remember Street being one of his best friends for a season or two there.
"How you been, dude?" Zito asked, taking pity. Street shrugged.
"Terrible, terrible," he said quickly, flicking his hand. "I'm dealing with it."
Being the closer at Coors Field was a pretty thankless job, but Street was having a worse year than altitude could explain. It was basic courtesy to change the subject, and Zito asked after his wife and brothers and parents, everyone still alive, still moving forward. He looked at Street sideways, noticing all these minute ways in which he'd aged, thinking that it had happened quicker to Street than any of them.
Street scratched the back of his neck, squinted at Zito as if it weren't so dim the lights were on, glowing steadily in the fog. "Also, I was talking to Rich earlier."
He stopped, looked at Zito like Zito was supposed to infer something deeply significant from that. Zito raised his eyebrows. "Yeah?"
Street was frustrated, turning his eyes to the whipping flags. "I don't. I don't know what you're saying to him, exactly. But he's taking it seriously."
"What-" Zito cut himself off. He pushed his fingers through the webbing of his mitt, licked his lips, kinda nervous. "I don't know what you mean."
"Dude." Street shot him a glare, hissed out a breath between his teeth. "He tells me some stuff, okay. I know how you guys used to, um. I know about that, and that you stopped it when he, he mighta kept on, but now you're talking to him like, like, I don't know."
Zito stepped closer to him, though they were a hundred feet from another player. Zito was paranoid about the wind, imagining that everything they were saying was being caught and borne away, carried to the farthest corners of the stadium. He was badly flushed, his skin itching and overhot under his collar, wanting to be pissed at Street but it wasn't quite that.
"You're right, you don't know," Zito told him, voice all low and dangerous and it probably looked more suspicious, him whispering with Street out here in no man's land, than anything he'd ever done publically with Rich Harden or Danny Haren. "You don't know anything about it, I can promise you that."
"Look," Street said sharp, chin tipped up so his eyes could snap at Zito. "None of us are exactly where we want to be, but you can't go fucking him up long distance, that's just, it's just mean."
Zito stared at him, then snorted a laugh. "What are you, seven?"
"I'm fucking serious, man-"
"Oh shut the fuck up, would you. What the hell is wrong with you?" Zito wanted to shove him, but there were too many people who could see. He felt kinda crazy and overwhelmed on the inside, his hand fisted in leather. "I know what you're doing, Huston, and it's fucked up. You don't get into it with a guy when he's about to start a fucking game."
Street's eyes widened, like he'd honestly forgotten, hadn't noticed Zito doing his long tosses or anything. "I, I wasn't trying to fight."
"Then go, just go. Get the fuck away." Zito turned his back on him, wrenching his eyes up to the huge lit scoreboard. His heart was racing, bizarre diving feeling in his stomach and he got it after a second, figured it out: this was free fall with being scared.
He heard Street leaving, the irritated hawk as he spat on the grass, and Zito folded his mitt between his hands, pressed hard to feel the resistance of the leather. He took deep breaths of the salt-tinged air, cool and damp and clean, waited for his pulse to settle down.
He got back into it with Holm, and with a baseball gripped tight in his hand, Zito felt better able to defend himself.
All he did that day was go seven shutout innings, just two hits and the crowd on its feet as he left the field for the last time, raining his own name down on him.
He still didn't get the win, still 0-2 on the year, but that was fine; he still had his curve so he was fine. Rich Aurilia brought in Holm in 10th, and as they mobbed him on the field, everyone kept shouting, "Hey Richie yeah Richie attaboy Richie," and Zito's head felt like it was about to explode, pounded from all sides.
It was getaway day; they were going to Chicago.
In the airport waiting for their flight, Zito dug out his computer and checked the scores. The Cubbies had won at Wrigley but lost Carlos Zambrano to a hamstring strain in the process, and Zito studied the pictures from sunny Chicago, finding Rich Harden in the line for high fives, the silver of his lightning bolt necklace gleaming in contrast to the blue alternate-Sunday jersey. Harden was smirking, his fist touching Geovany Soto's open palm, and Zito leaned close to the screen, trying to learn something new from the photo.
He came up empty. He packed his laptop away and went to get himself a Coke, screwed in his headphones to listen to the Sunday night game on ESPN Radio. The plane was ready and they boarded, everybody tired and waiting on their second winds.
Zito gazed out the window at the lit sprawl of the city as the plane lifted into the air. He listened without really registering anything as the Rangers steadily defeated the White Sox, fallen into a trance like watching a loop of a textbook-perfect pitching motion, the hypnotic fall of someone else's curveball.
Six years ago, Rich Harden had been called up to the majors at twenty-one years old, in July. Zito had met him for the first time in Kansas City, in a hotel lobby waiting for the bus to take them to the stadium.
He'd been sitting on a stiff lobby couch listening to Eric Byrnes read an issue of X-Men aloud, and his eyes were trained on the front, looking for the bus but instead a cab pulled up and this kid got out. He was disheveled, Zito could tell despite the blur of the revolving glass doors, dressed road-trip nice but with his shirt untucked and sneakers on instead of real shoes.
Rich Harden spilled into the lobby, struggling with his duffel bag. His face was flushed and his eyes looked kind of manic and Zito didn't take him for a ballplayer at first just because he didn't look anywhere near old enough.
But Harden spotted them slouched across the lobby chairs and couches, and came over, running a calming hand over his hair. When he dropped his bag, Zito heard the distinctive sound of baseballs clonking together.
"Hi," Harden had said, to Zito because Zito was the one staring at him the most openly. "My name's Rich. I play for the Oakland Athletics."
And Zito remembered liking him at once, irrevocably and totally without reason, the kind of snap judgment he almost always regretted making. He remembered smiling and saying, "What a coincidence," and seeing Harden's lip curl in its first devastating smirk.
They were sleeping together inside of three weeks.
The first time, they were in Detroit and after the win a bunch of the guys got drunk in Zito's room because he'd invited them. They fell out one by one, blinking thickly and grinning, saying yeah yeah good night good game get some sleep. Zito lounged on the bed with his minibar suicide in one of the bathroom glasses and his candy from the vending machines, necessities near at hand.
He hadn't let himself get too drunk, stayed sugar-high and articulate, because the new kid, the Canadian kid with cuts of muscle lining his chest and arms, those insane crackerjack blue eyes, that Rich Harden kid had been looking at him all night long. He was over there in the chair by the window, crumpled with his hand propping up his chin, gaze hooking on Zito over and over as he made no move to get up.
Hudson and Mulder were the last to leave, Mulder slumped on the shorter man like a massive cloak and Hudson bearing his weight without trouble, bitching up in an affectionate slur about how Mulder smelled like feet. The door swung shut behind them and the room got totally quiet.
Zito let himself look back at Rich Harden. Harden had straightened up, his eyes half-lidded and intent, just waiting for Zito's word. Zito smiled. He had a good feeling about this one.
Zito said, "C'mere," and Harden gave him the best smile he'd ever seen. It just blew the walls down, flooded the place, and that was how they got started.
It was good for a long time. It never stopped being good, really. They'd fit so easily Zito hadn't entirely trusted it.
Harden cracked jokes out of the side of his mouth in team meetings to make Zito snicker behind his hand. He brought Zito chocolate bars in the morning and sunflower seeds at the ballpark and girl drinks at the bar, made fun of him with steady inventiveness, went down on Zito in bathrooms all across the American League. Harden listened to Zito when Zito went off on one of his rants, and kicked Zito's ass at every videogame in the world, and told him in that matter-of-fact way of his, "I like you better than anybody else right now."
And Zito had loved the hell out of him. He was taken aback by how quickly permanent it had become, a basic fact about him like the color of his eyes, his last name, all of a sudden part of his bedrock. He was convinced they would have been best friends even if they were straight, the lifelong kind, the walk-into-traffic-for kind. Very young back then, unswervingly sure that his sub-par season was just a blip, an anomaly, and Zito had been naive enough to think that he'd done it, he'd won: he was a major league pitcher and he was in love with someone who was in love with him, and there wasn't anything left to achieve but a world championship.
Almost a year and a half they'd lived like that, neat and clean and not asking each other for anything too difficult--agree with me about the strike zone, act like a dork for my amusement, catch my eye when I look for you across rooms, be here when I wake up--the kind of happy where you didn't even notice how good it was, just that days passed like half-hours, and then they went to Phoenix for spring training in 2005 and Danny Haren had showed up.
Zito would never forgive himself for what had happened after that.
He pressed his forehead against the plane window, feeling small and shamed. He thought about how it had been so horrifically seamless, how he'd wanted Rich and wanted Rich and wanted Rich and wanted Danny, like it was all part of the same breath. Zito had never stopped being in love; it was just that the focus had shifted, and no one had ever told him that that could happen.
He'd screwed around behind Richie's back for a little while, stupid and fuck-drunk on Danny and almost drowning in the guilt, then told him on a New York City sidewalk, told him one night in early May stone-cold sober and clear-eyed. Harden punched him in the face and then collapsed, dropped to his knees. Zito had stood bent over with his bloody nose dripping, his teeth red and his voice cracked as he said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," until Harden begged him to stop.
Harden had explained to him all the ways he'd fucked up, toneless and shellshocked, and then hadn't spoken to him again until 2006, when Zito showed up in the spring ten pounds skinnier and with great hollows under his eyes, making him look sorta frightened all the time. Danny had gotten engaged over the off-season; nothing else had changed.
Harden had let him suffer on his own for a couple weeks, and then sat down beside him in the clubhouse one day, Zito shocked silent as Harden told him plainly:
"You need a haircut. And a triple cheeseburger."
It hadn't been absolution, exactly, but it was as much as Zito could have expected and better than he deserved.
Zito opened his eyes to see that the endless sea-black plains were starting to give way to clusters of civilization and the illuminated arteries connecting them. He thought about what Huston Street had said, wondering if it were true, if Rich Harden were somewhere down there in the dark, searching the sky for aircraft and listening to the rhythm of his steadfast heart.
*
San Francisco Giants at Chicago Cubs, 4-5 May 2009
Zito woke up in Chicago after a lousy night's sleep, all nightmares and waking up drool-stuck to the pillow. There was banging on his door, more than one person and if he had to put money on it he'd say Freddy and Lincecum, but as it was he hollered for them to quit, I'm up you motherfuckers get lost.
A shower helped, also coffee and an egg-white omelet and toast with butter and jam, and he felt near human by the time he was hanging around the pool whapping a rainbow-colored beach ball to the guys in the water. He had one hand cupped around his phone on his stomach, intensely aware of it and yet he still jumped when it buzzed to life with an incoming call.
Zito sat up, stood up, checked the display and cleared his throat. "Hey man."
"Dude, you're in town," Harden said, regular-sounding and pleased, and Zito was already moving for the door back into the hotel.
"I am, at that."
"And how're you findin' it?" Harden asked cordially.
"Not as windy as advertised. Getting on an elevator, if I lose you."
"Noted. You gonna come over?"
Zito looked at himself in the mirrored wall, the streaks of wet on his shirt where Lincecum had splashed him, his hair spiking up in front, the weary carry of his shoulders. In nine days he'd be thirty-one years old. He closed his eyes, trying not to wonder how much more of his life he was gonna spend on these guys.
"I just gotta put on shoes instead of flip-flops," Zito said, but he was talking to a disconnected call, eyes fixed on the counting floor numbers.
He texted Harden for the address from the hallway, turned on the bathroom light to dig a pair of sneakers and cleaner shirt out of his bag. He changed in the darkened room, some obstinate voice in his head trying to ask how fucking dumb he was for even considering Harden again, but Zito wasn't listening, stuffing his mind with a Coheed and Cambria song he'd learned playing Rock Band, blocking out all the evidence that this was a terrible idea.
Harden lived in a loft with a view of the water, a fifteen minute walk from the ballpark in a relentlessly hip part of town. The furniture all had a vaguely shady look because they were rentals and god knows where they'd been. There were posters up on the walls unframed, the refrigerator door flapping with photographs and postcards and baseball cards and season schedules. The whole wall facing the lake was windows.
Harden grinned when he opened the door to Zito, grinned showing him around, grinned when he opened the refrigerator to get them beers and a pair of concert tickets worked free of their magnet and fluttered to the floor. Harden wasn't really meeting his eyes, flicking glances at him like Zito was armed or something, but he kept grinning, even once he realized what he was doing and tried to stop, it kept breaking out on him.
Zito picked up the concert tickets, took a look. "Springsteen? Dude, cool."
"Right? Band's back together and everything."
"Until Conan steals his drummer away to L.A."
"Oh yeah, that's right." Harden leaned back against the counter, visibly wrestling his grin down to a smirk. "That's pretty soon, huh."
"June 1." Zito had always been good with dates, not in a trivia sort of way, but knowing what was coming, Zito always made it a habit to know that. "And we can finally put behind us the long tragic chapter in American history known as the Leno Years."
Harden snickered. Their deep and abiding hatred of Jay Leno could sustain them for weeks at a time. Zito grinned at him and like he'd been given permission Harden grinned back, just let it break loose across his face. Zito felt his stomach turn, a lump pressing up into his throat. Four years since Harden had looked at him like that. Four years and one betrayal and one trade and a hundred and twenty-six million dollars, and for some reason Rich Harden still looked at him in exactly the same way.
Zito looked away, walked into the living room trying to pull himself under control. He went to stand at the wide window, stare out over the lake. Blue, wild blue and running on so far it looked no different than the ocean back home.
He heard Harden come into the room, stop a few feet back from him. Zito could feel Harden's eyes on him, even and hot, a brighter shade of blue than Danny's, always had been, brighter than the water in front of him or any that came before.
"Barry?"
"What're you doing telling secrets to Huston fucking Street, by the way?" Zito asked quickly, not knowing he was gonna say that until it was out. He blinked at his barely-there reflection in the glass.
Harden took a moment, figuring how he wanted to play it, and his voice was casual enough, tense at the edges of words, "You used to like him, man, why so cold?"
"I don't not like him, I just, I don't like him getting involved in my highly personal shit without me even knowing."
"You obviously know, you're whining about it like nobody's business."
Zito turned to face him, glowering and ignoring the sharp warning light in Harden's eyes. "Dude."
Harden blew out a breath, flapped a hand through the air. His face was held taut and irritated, that quick closed-in scowl of his. "Helps to get some outside perspective, which you goddamn well know. You use me to get that about Danny, so how about you quit with the self-righteous bullshit and we'll just change the motherfucking subject."
Zito's mouth opened but nothing came out, and that was probably for the best. He shouldn't keep being so surprised to find himself in the wrong; he spent more time here than anywhere else.
Harden showed his teeth for a second, not a sneer but close, worry lines pulling across his forehead, suddenly second-guessing everything. Harden wasn't usually like that, blessed with faith in his convictions and that clever confidence that he took with him everywhere, but he looked briefly shaken, like a beloved dog had tried to snatch a bite of his hand.
Zito watched Harden turn away, fiddle with the television remote, his throat moving as he swallowed. Zito had wrecked his good mood, killed that creeping irrepressible grin, and he missed it already. He was always trying to turn back the clock with Rich; he always wanted it to be five minutes ago or five years ago, no interest at all in this moment right now.
"He said you were taking it seriously," Zito told him, weird and high. "Huston, I mean. He said. Said you were taking me seriously again."
Harden wasn't looking at him, staring down at the magazines and mail on the coffee table. His face was tinged red, the straight line of his neck disappearing under his shirt collar. Harden was absently scratching at the inside of his wrist, his favorite unconscious tic.
"I never stopped," Harden said without looking up. "Told you I wouldn't."
Harden had told him a lot of things, on that New York City sidewalk as Zito used his hands and shirtsleeves to stop his nose from bleeding, trying not to throw up. Harden had still been on his knees on the cement, slumped down with his shoulders slack, his face turned up in the filthy streetlight. He'd told Zito, nobody's ever gonna want you as much as I want you, and it's never gonna be over for me, and you're gonna wish you'd never done this, and every word of it had turned out to be true. Richie had seen the future; he'd always known.
"Rich-" Zito started to say, but Harden cut him off.
"Are you really done with him? For good?"
Zito said, "Yes," and then, "Wait." He stopped, rubbed his face. He was so tired of lying to Rich Harden. "I want to be."
"Not really the same thing."
"I know." Zito looked at him helplessly, not knowing how to explain it. Danny Haren affected him in unpredictable ways, took his legs out, crooked a smile at him and Zito was gone, conscience and all. Zito couldn't swear that it would never happen again.
Harden saw how Zito was floundering, and sighed, sinking down onto the couch and scrubbing his hands briskly through his hair. His head bowed, he said, "I think this is probably not a good idea."
"Which. Which part are you talking about?" Zito had to ask. He saw a joyless little smirk bend Harden's mouth.
"You're only thinking about me again because you don't wanna think about Danny. Which, whatever, that's understandable. Not really fair. But understandable. It means shit. End of the day, man, you still live in fucking California."
"It's not only 'cause of Danny," Zito protested, hearing how feeble it sounded and wincing. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me."
Richie kinda smiled. "Yeah, and what about me? What are you to me?" He shook his head immediately, covering his face with his hand. "Don't answer that."
Zito squeezed his hands into useless fists. He wanted to touch Harden, slide his palm across his soft short dirty-gold hair, bend his fingers to fit the angle of his jaw and draw his face up, see his eyes. He wanted to lay out a slate of reasons, we'll pitch better and we'll sleep better and we'll get through it together, but Harden had always been able to tell when he was lying.
"I'll do right by you," Zito said. His voice broke, and he cleared his throat, eyes locked on Harden's hand obscuring his lowered face. "I didn't the first time, but I. I've figured some stuff out since then. I don't care how far apart we are."
Harden let his hand fall to cup his chin, slanted a blue look up at Zito. He looked cautious and determined, like bases loaded with no outs and the rain falling hard. Zito had this odd lifted feeling in his chest, breath caught up high.
"I can't see any way this ends well," Harden told him. He didn't sound upset, really.
Zito shifted his weight, pushed his fist into his leg. "Well, you're biased."
That surprised Harden into half a laugh, little smile tossed up to Zito. Zito smiled back, wishing Richie would come over here already.
"You're just," Harden said on a sigh. "You're such a fucking mess, man."
"Aw." Zito came a few steps closer, heart going like crazy. "You love it."
Harden looked up at him then, his face dawning and his gaze snapping into Zito's. Zito tried not to twitch, biting on the inside of his cheek and keeping his eyes wide and open, seeming true.
"Yeah," Harden said. "It's a problem."
Then he stood up, reached out and grabbed Zito's belt, pulled him in. Zito fell into him, slouching to fit flush against with his arms tight around Harden's waist, Harden kissing him deep and hard and four years were gone in a flash, the time it took Harden to slide his hand up Zito's neck and onto his face.
It all came back in a torrent, the slightest details and angles, where Rich wanted his hands and where he wanted Zito's mouth, the rhythm between them. Half a decade ago they'd done this thousands of times, and suddenly there wasn't anything Zito knew better.
He pushed Harden back down on the couch and settled on top, his hands curled on Harden's shoulders. Harden was breathing hard through his mouth, squirming under him and more jacked up than he was letting on, trying to stay cool but he kept shaking, pressing his hips up restlessly.
Zito licked the corner of his mouth, bit his jaw. He rolled his forehead on Harden's cheek and closed his eyes. He saw flashes of black hair, broader shoulders, a dimmer blue, but he pushed them aside. This was what he could have. This was going to be enough.
They made out on the couch for awhile, re-accustoming themselves to each other. Zito got overheated and took off his shirt, and Harden wrestled him onto his back, hand spread out wide on Zito's bare chest. He found some old places, the lowest rib, the point of his hip, the line just under Zito's shorts where the skin changed shade and became ridiculously soft. Harden chewed on his lower lip, concentrating intently, mumbling in little snatches about how it was good, still good, and Zito could only nod, arching up into him.
It took them the better part of an hour, but eventually they managed to rub off on each other like kids, laughing in airless astonishment and halfheartedly making fun of each other for being hella easy. Harden let Zito use his shower and borrow a clean pair of shorts, and then Zito kissed him goodbye in the doorway, walked through the clear early summer afternoon to Wrigley Field.
The Cubs won the first game of the two-game set, and Zito loitered around the ballpark afterwards watching tape of the Dodgers, his next start, until the rest of the team was mostly gone and the crowds outside had had time to disperse. Hood up, hands buried, inconspicuous if faintly ominous in the night, Zito walked east from Wrigleyville, back the way he'd come.
Harden let him in, once more grinning stupidly against his will.
*
Atlanta Braves at San Francisco Giants, 25-27 May 2009
Three weeks later, their plane was delayed leaving Seattle and they didn't get in until past one in the morning. Zito had pitched the day game and he sacked out on the floor of the airport, the back row of the plane, his sleep mask on and his arms folded over his chest. He had to be shaken awake, supported by two teammates as he got to his feet and stumbled to the next place.
It put him in a drifting dissolved state of mind, recognizing things in scraps and shreds but missing the whole. He was dreaming, he was in the back of the car with Danny Haren's hands on him, bombs falling outside and the glass shattering inwards, and then he was awake, shadowy faces over him saying, c'mon man, we're home.
He got back to his apartment somehow and he was feeling jittery, uncomfortable between spates of unconsciousness, so he called Richie. It rang for a long time, and Zito huddled on his couch, all the lights off but the curtains open so that the smudgy light pollution could get in.
Harden picked up muttering, coughing. "Fuckin', almost four in the goddamn mornin' whafuck."
"Oh," Zito said, for some reason surprised. "'s really late there, huh. I forgot."
"What, you dumb fuck. Where are you?"
Zito checked the window, pretty houses and the lighthouse flipping across the bay. "Home, just got home." He paused, took a breath. "It's raining in Seattle."
"Stop the presses." Harden yawned audibly. "You should get some sleep, babe."
"Yeah. 'nother day game tomorrow for some stupid reason."
He let his muscles relax, sank back into the couch. Closed his eyes and it felt like the world was emptied out, draining beneath him. He was falling asleep again, brought down hard.
"I saw you pitch," Harden told him. He sounded hushed, careful with every word. "Went to Lou's office so I could watch your game instead of ours. You're. You're something else right now."
Zito flinched, scrunched down. It was so goddamn delicate, this shimmering haze of power and control that he was expected to grip like a tangible thing, a life-raft.
"Let's not talk about it."
Harden breathed out. "'kay. Whatever you want, man."
Zito smiled, pressed the heel of his hand against his teeth, fingers curled into his eye socket. He was almost crying for some reason, and he blamed the exhaustion, the dragging sick feeling all through his body.
"I wish you still played for the A's," Zito said, mush-mouthed and tripping over his words, not making much sense. "Then you'd be right over there."
Harden made a sound like a laugh. "If you're wishing for things, why don't we both play for the A's?"
"Because that already happened. You can't just go back."
Harden didn't saying anything for a second, and Zito could kinda sense peripherally that he wasn't explaining it right, it was coming out all wrong. He was just trying to say that he wanted Harden here with him now. He wasn't trying to fuck with the fabric of time anymore; this was something new.
"Anyway," Harden said eventually. "Oakland's still in last place, right?"
"Worst in the league," Zito confirmed, spooky phantom ache in him at the reminder, an old guilt. He flattened one hand over his heart. "But they've always been a second-half team."
"Go to sleep, Barry."
"Yeah." Zito let his eyes fall closed. "I was always gonna."
He woke up eight hours later when his phone started buzzing on top of his face. Zito was still on the couch, still fully dressed, still mostly asleep, and now he was running late, too.
The Braves had come in for three games and a cup of coffee, and the first day was designed for baseball, high blue sky with small solid white clouds that seemed like they would collide audibly, a huge clattering crash. There was a light breeze blowing the flags out, the people sitting in shirtsleeves in the sun.
Zito was screwing around in short left distracting Sanchez from his stretching routine, when he was abruptly tackled onto the grass from behind.
"Goddamn boy, slower'n fuck, aren't ya."
Tim Hudson was leaning his elbows on Zito's chest, grinning down at him with a wedge of gum clenched between his teeth. He rapped on Zito's skull and Zito squawked, wriggled away ungracefully. He got to his feet, shot Sanchez a glare.
"Thanks for the backup, there, Jonny."
Sanchez grinned, shrugged, and Hudson hopped up, slinging his arm around Zito's neck and hauling him down into a headlock.
"Oh for the love of--Huddy! Lemme go." Zito pushed at Hudson's ribs, wrenched his head free and held him off. "Did someone let you have sugar?"
"What, I can't be happy to see your ugly ass?"
They scuffled, moved a little ways off to leave Sanchez to his warmup. Zito affected an expression of long-suffering exasperation, but he was happy to see Hudson too. Tim had spent most of the first two months hurt, just started pitching a couple of weeks ago, and Zito knew how he got right off the DL, manic and motormouthed. Zito didn't mind. Hudson had changed the very least out of all of them, still treated Zito like the twenty-two year old rookie he'd first met, and Zito didn't know why that should appeal to him, but there he was.
Hudson pounded him on the back a few times. "How you been, kid? Hell, I know how you been, fuckin' dominance over here-"
"Yeah," Zito broke in quickly. "Been a nice run. How're your kids?"
That got Hudson going, hundred miles an hour hitting on every minor detail, and Zito nodded along, smiled and laughed at appropriate places. He let the tension fall out of his shoulders, because it was just Huddy, grabbing his arm in emphasis and rapping him on the chest, both of them too handsy with each other once they'd realized neither minded.
Hudson was another guy who'd been one of Zito's best friends, once upon a time. They were scattered all over the league like landmines.
"Oh, and you know who I met the other day?" Hudson said, poking Zito. "Koufax, baby."
"Oh yeah?" Zito perked up a little bit. He loved talking about Koufax. "How's he look?"
"Strong like bull, man, he'll outlive us all. I forget why he was in town, but the ballclub set him up, you know, introduced him to the team and all."
"He's hella cool, right? Didn't I tell you he was hella cool?" Zito's left hand unconsciously slipped into the shape of a curveball, the power of suggestion.
"Yeah man, definitely." Hudson started to say something and then kinda laughed, shook his head. "I, I thought I said something stupid, 'cause I was complaining about how the doc kept holding me back when I felt like I could go, and then I was like, what am I doing bitching about this piddling shit to Sandy Koufax, you know? He doesn't need me to tell him about how frustrating it is being hurt."
Zito nodded, squinting against the sun. Hudson pulled a baseball out of his back pocket and flicked it to him. Hudson was half-smiling, rolling his eyes. They tossed the ball back and forth, easy.
"And you know what he said to me, man? He said doctors told him to quit before the season in '66. You know what he did that year?"
"27-9, 1.23, and a pennant," Zito recited, grinning at Hudson and liking the immediacy with which Hudson grinned back.
"That's goddamn right. That's just, all it was was heart, you know what I'm saying? Guy's arm was barely hanging by a thread, but he didn't know how to pitch any way except with everything he had. It's, like, all I'm ever trying to do."
Zito nodded, hooked a tiny fading curveball at Hudson. Hudson caught it backhanded, laughing, saying, just like that, kid.
Zito stretched out his arms, hearing the joints in his elbows pop. He was still kinda sore from sleeping on the couch last night, still kinda muzzy-headed from the long trip home. He got the ball back from Hudson and pushed his fingers across the stitches, searching for a home.
He thought about how Sandy Koufax had been out of the game at thirty, something people were always forgetting about him. He wondered how many years, here at the tail end of his life, would Koufax trade to get another two or three on the mound. How many decades he'd give back for the chance to drop a pitch in on two-and-two, just one more time.
Zito's fingers came to rest, fit neatly against the stitches. Somewhere in there, Zito could feel his curveball, waiting to fall.
THE END
Endnotes: Um, totally random trash-talking of Wrigley Field is indeed totally random and not meant to cause offense. I've never even been! I hear I have to hurry, though, as it is on the verge of collapse.
Fun facts cos I feel like rambling: it was originally titled 'Senior Circuit,' and then briefly 'Free Fall,' but the words "take two" were written at the top the whole time I was writing it, because I'd gotten nine hundred words into a botched start, and this was my second try. Eventually its multiple connotations won me over, as multiple connotations tend to do. I was gonna have you guys vote, but then I decided that strikeouts are fascist and so am I. Hence, title.
Also, it is an old-school painstakingly accurate MLB fic, in which everything that happens on the field in this story actually took place (except for that futuristic end, of course). Because it is all going down as we speak! You know how long it's been that I wrote a fic taking place at this particular moment in time? I think, like, since Chavvy broke his hand, dude.
And you know what, if goddamn Mark Mulder were still pitching for the goddamn Cardinals it coulda been truly epic, because guess who the Giants will play immediately after the Braves? Ah, life.