it's the freakin weekend baby i'm about to have me some fun
I've been downloading a ridiculous amount of punk and eighties music. And, on occasion, eighties punk music. It's all very awesome and rageful.
Anyway. I don't get to go to North Carolina, sadly, but I do get to go home for Thanksgiving. I'ma be watching *61 and Angels in America, smoking like a fucking leper on back patios and in alleys, getting my drive on, attacking my brothers, getting some batting practice in because the grass is always greener in California, and oh yes, not gonna take my compute with me. For I am cutting the cord! For five days! From . . . my computer, not computers in general. Hey, man, you gotta start somewhere.
Anyway. I won't be 'round, so much. I'll get part two up either tomorrow or Monday, depending on whether I sleep here tomorrow night. But then, no more! Until after turkey. Mmmm, turkey.
Anyway. The fuck is up with all the anyways? Like everything's secondary. Tangents, hmm. Someone spoke with concern about whether the epic would stem production of classic retro pairings, and I roll my eyes! As if anything could stem production of that which is classic and retro.
They end up in Las Vegas, sometime in November, because the off-season is pretty fucking boring. And maybe they’re all of them trade bait, now. It was better when it was just Zito.
Zito drives out to Scottsdale from Hollywood, and they spend one night at Mulder’s place, Zito awake in the guest bedroom and Mulder awake in his own, and leave the next afternoon. They take Mulder’s car because Zito’s still driving his beater of a Dodge Durango with the sticker on the side panel and the film of dust on the back windshield. Mulder wouldn’t be caught dead riding shotgun in that piece of shit, and anyway, the passenger seat is fucked up and doesn't move back any, his knees are always jammed up against the dash.
They stop for lunch just outside city limits, sandwiches wrapped in white paper from a driftwood market, which they eat sitting on the top of a green-painted picnic table, Zito cross-legged with his sunglasses on.
Jermaine’s meeting them in Vegas, they’re gonna play golf and mock Zito’s incredible inability to play golf, and they’re gonna gamble because they can all afford it. Chavez’ll probably show up just to prove that he’s not as whipped as they all say. Crosby was gonna go up to B.C. and drag Rich down for the weekend, but he got distracted by Canadian girls or something, got real lazy and blew them off. Hudson said maybe he could get away for a night, but they’re not really expecting him to make it.
Zito invited Byrnes without asking Mulder if it was okay, and it’s not really okay. Byrnes makes Mulder antsy, the way he can never just sit fucking still. His taste in music sucks and he’s always throwing stuff at Mulder’s forehead, grinning like he thinks he’s just the most endearing thing on the planet. And his girlfriend is way too pretty. Byrnes and Zito get along like gangbusters. But Byrnes said he doesn’t like Vegas, so it’s not a problem.
In the car, Zito wears his headphones and stares out the window, beating his fingers on the door. Mulder drives very fast, and keeps his window open a crack so that he can hear the whistle. He’s kinda glad that Zito isn’t one of those passengers who thinks it’s their responsibility to keep the conversation going for hours on end. Mulder doesn’t like to talk that much while he drives.
They buy sodas and gum at the Hoover Dam, the parking lot full of cars with Michigan plates, tour buses, WWJD bumper stickers. Zito snaps his gum like a girl from Sun Valley and blows pink bubbles that pop all over his chin and nose. He spits it out as soon as it loses its flavor, starts working on another piece, and after forty minutes, he’s out and asking if he can have some of Mulder’s.
A couple miles into Nevada, Zito starts talking about the last time he was in Vegas. There’s no preamble, because that’s not how Zito’s mind works. He just says, “So, it’s, like, three in the morning, and we’ve hit half the casinos in town. I musta been down probably five hundred dollars, but I was hammered, man. And we’re talking about going back to Caesar’s, because Jess, that’s Jessica, that’s the chick I was with, she’d won two hundred or something at craps there, figured it was pretty good luck. We’re on the street, okay. Real drunk. I’m about to fall asleep, fall over, right. And Jess is talking about how her feet are hurting. You shoulda seen these shoes she’s wearing, man, fucking torture-device-looking things, with these straps and fucking dagger heels, man, coulda killed me easy. Insanely hot. But very painful. Not that I’d know. But, well, you know. She stops and she’s all leaning against me so she can lift her foot up and get the strappy things undone. She’s got her hand on my arm and I’m trying not to lose my balance, right. ‘Cause I’m bombed. Head spinning, eyes all blurry, everything. You know how I get. So, she gets the strappy undone and her foot, it’s actually bleeding, dude, not even playing around. Just a little bit, but yeah. Blood. Crazy stuff. And I said, like, “ew,” and she gives me this look, like, guess who’s not getting laid tonight, so I figured I oughta do something about that, right. So I went ahead and picked her up, and she’s all surprised and laughing and hanging onto my shoulders. Her shoe’s dangling off her fingers and she barely weighs anything, at least not that I can feel. And I can tell she’s thinking this is so sweet or whatever, so I’m thinking maybe I get laid tonight after all, and I carry her down the Strip like that, all the way back to the hotel. There’s a little bit of glitter on her eyelids and her cheeks, ‘cause, I don’t know, she was that kinda girl, and it got on my shirt. Her hair’s over my arm, I can feel it. And she’s smiling up at me, foggy ‘cause she was pretty drunk too, though that chick could hold her liquor like a fucking linebacker, and nobody we pass even gives us a second glance, like, Vegas, right, Vegas, that shit probably happens all the time.”
He stops abruptly.
Mulder looks over at him, and Zito’s gone back to staring out the window. Maybe that’s how the story ends. Mulder can see it pretty clearly, Zito in the neon and a girl in his arms like he just got married. Blood dripping off her foot, her head tucked into the hollow between his shoulder and his chest.
Mulder exhales, and the car breaks over the hill and funnels down into the valley.
They find J.D. and Chavez in Circus Circus, on the midway, throwing rings at long-necked bottles. The ranks of stuffed animals all around them are freaking Mulder the fuck out, they look like they’ve been lynched. They tease Jermaine and Eric for playing at being kids, and then Mulder and Zito give the rings a shot. Zito’s very good at this game. He wins a good-sized stuffed Tigger and gives it to a random little boy with bright orange hair and freckles.
They check in at the hotel (not Circus Circus, thank god), and go for dinner, making plans about how they are not, repeat are not gonna bet more than ten thousand, no matter how good the cards are falling. They shoot their cuffs and gangster-talk out of the sides of their mouths and act like they actually know what they’re talking about, trying to be hard.
Back up to the rooms to change, and Mulder always takes too long. Zito’s banging on the connecting door before Mulder’s even got a shirt on, shower-wet and waiting for his second wind, ‘cause it was a long drive and he didn’t so much sleep the night before.
Zito comes in and he’s wearing a blue silk shirt with black dragons on the shoulders, silver-gray buttons. His pants have pinstripes, and his hair is so artfully and meticulously tousled that Mulder wants nothing more than to push his hands through it and mess it up for real.
Mulder says, “I’m almost ready, swear,” and goes back into the bathroom. He can hear Zito slumping onto the bed and turning on the television, singing along under his breath to the Saved by the Bell theme song.
Mulder’s shirt is on a wooden hanger on the back of the door, and he’s dealing with his hair. He makes it stick up into spikes in the front, curved around his fingers and the gel tacky. He can’t really make fun of Zito for the time and attention he gives to making sure he looks like he just rolled out of bed, not considering how much time and attention Mulder gives to making sure he looks the opposite.
And Zito’s in the doorway, tilted on his shoulder and smirking at him. Mulder didn’t hear him moving, but Zito can be stealth like that.
“You’re basically just a big girl at this point, I hope you know that.”
Mulder scowls at him in the mirror. “Go away.”
Zito doesn’t leave, though. Not that Mulder really expected him to. He comes over and stands just behind Mulder, holding his eyes in the mirror. Mulder’s hands are still up, hovering near his hair. He can feel Zito’s shirt brushing slippery-cool on his shoulder blades. Zito’s face is above his shoulder in the mirror, and Zito’s hand is on Mulder’s side, sliding around to his stomach.
Zito leans in, his breath hot on Mulder’s ear and Mulder’s eyes fluttering closed. He waits for Zito’s teeth or Zito’s mouth or something, Zito’s hand flat on his stomach and Zito’s watch digging into his side. He feels Zito draw in a breath, and Mulder waits, and Zito whispers, “Hurry up, motherfucker,” and then walks out.
Mulder puts both hands on the counter, the hair gel between his fingers and pasting to the tile, and breathes for awhile before getting on with it.
They meet the others in the lobby, and walk down the Strip with Chavez yelling into his cell phone about Crosby being a fucking punk who said he was coming, said he was bringing Harden, but if they just want to suck each other’s dicks up in Canada, fucking whatever, man.
Hudson calls Mulder to confirm that, no, he’s not going to be able to come out, and Mulder rags on him but only for a little bit, because Zito’s flapping his hand and bugging his eyes, wanting his turn. Hudson and Zito talk for longer than Hudson and Mulder did, and Zito keeps snickering and saying, “Funny guy, Huddy, laugh fucking riot.”
Zito hooks a finger in Mulder’s belt loop outside the Mirage and tucks the phone back in his pocket for him. The other two don’t notice; they’re watching the pirate ship burn.
They go to casinos indiscriminately, and hang around based on the ‘vibe,’ as Chavez keeps saying despite Dye smacking him upside the head every time he does. If a waitress lady smiles at them, that’s a good vibe. If Zito finds a five-dollar chip on the floor, that’s a really good vibe. If some drunk girl who looks about fifteen years old stumbles into Mulder and gets her leg half-wrapped around his as her hand goes crawling up into the opened vee of his shirt, that’s a creepy vibe and they have to leave immediately.
Chavvy and Jermaine play Texas hold-em and seven-card stud, but Mulder never learned anything except five-card draw, and that’s the punk version of the game. Zito’s got absolutely no ability to bluff, his eyes light right the fuck up when he gets anything better than a pair, so they play blackjack for awhile, till Zito gets bored and lured away by the flashing colors of the slot machines.
Mulder plays grimly until he’s twenty bucks up, then stops while he’s ahead. He’s never been much for taking risks.
He goes to find Zito, and Zito’s feeding quarters into a slot machine, patterned by red and blue lights. Zito’s chewing on a skinny cocktail drink straw, and there are trails of smoke around him because someone left a cigarette burning in the ashtray to the left of his machine. Zito shakes his plastic cup of quarters and his eyes flick from the blurring wheels to the coin drawer.
Mulder sits on the stool at the next machine over and watches Zito win steadily for awhile, lemons and cherries and thunked black bars, green dollar signs and the jangle of quarters waterfalling into the drawer.
Zito must have won sixty dollars, the cup in his hand sagging and heavy, when he notices Mulder, grins at him with his teeth clenched on the straw. Zito looks tired and kind of crazy, his eyes bloodshot. He reaches out and pats his hand on Mulder’s head, the spikes of Mulder’s hair crinkling and close to snapping under Zito’s palm. Mulder jerks his head away and Zito’s hand smells like silver.
“I’m rich, dude,” Zito tells him, and pours out a handful of quarters. Mulder is going to tell him that he was already rich, but Zito’s reaching for him again and spilling the quarters down the front of Mulder’s shirt.
Mulder jumps up, cursing but not all that much, metal on his stomach and getting caught in his belt. Zito’s laughing, the straw falling out of his mouth. Coins ring down around Mulder’s feet, rolling away and getting picked up by people walking by.
Mulder takes one quarter out of his shirt pocket and thumbs it into the slot, yanking the handle down and he’s already turning away when the quarters start to rattle down, a lot of quarters.
He says to Zito, over his shoulder, “Look at that, you’re good luck,” and goes to the restroom, sticks his head under the faucet and gets all the gel and stuff out of his hair, scrubbing dry with paper towels and his hair resting damp and limp high on his forehead. There are water spots on his shoulders, trickling down the nape of his neck to seep into his collar, and he smooths his hair forward, makes the back lie flat. He always looks a hell of a lot younger when his hair’s not fixed.
He goes over to the poker area and Chavez and Dye are sitting out a hand, their arms folded on the padded runner along the lip of the table. They’re talking with their heads tipped towards each other, and Mulder’s about to clap his hands on their shoulders when he hears them, rumbled low, Dye who’s already not coming back and Chavez who’ll never leave:
“It’ll be Barry. Beane could get half the roster taken care of on what Barry’ll go for.”
Chavez shakes his head. “Nah, it’ll be Hudson. If Billy can scare up someone not spooked by the injury thing-”
“Every fucking team in the game wants Tim Hudson.”
Chavez shrugs. “You could say that about Zito too.”
“Yeah, two years ago.”
Mulder leaves. Nobody thinks he’ll be the one to go. Billy Beane never tells them nothing, because Zito talks too much and his game is almost entirely mental and if he does end up sticking around, he doesn’t need that kind of memory in his head. And Mulder can’t keep a secret, not when it’s Barry Zito or Eric Chavez asking him what he knows. And Hudson doesn’t really care about trade rumors, he won’t care until the moment he signs a new contract for a different team, because that’s how Tim Hudson is.
He finds Zito again, quarters still on the maroon carpet under his feet, glinting like sunlight off a watch face. Mulder puts his hand on the back of Zito’s neck.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Zito looks back at him. His eyes are worse now, red-laced and shadows on his eyelids. He blinks slowly, raises his hand to touch Mulder’s hair.
“You fixed it.”
Mulder shakes his head, jars Zito’s hand loose. “I unfixed it.”
Zito smiles. “I’ve won, like, a million dollars.”
Mulder twists his hand in Zito’s collar, tugs him away from the machine. “You know it’s bad luck not to spend found money.”
“Bad karma,” Zito corrects him, letting himself be led across the casino, everything frantic and printed across their faces.
“Whatever. Hippie.”
Zito stops at the barred money window and gets his cup and pockets full of quarters changed into bills. It’s not a million, but it is more than a hundred. They fall out of the casino, back onto the Strip, and Zito doesn’t even ask about Chavez and Dye.
Mulder takes him back to the hotel and kisses him in the elevator with his hands up on the mirrored walls, though there’s a surveillance camera in there, there are surveillance cameras everywhere, it can’t be helped.
He lays Zito down on the bed and Zito is easy and it’s been awhile. It’s a long off-season. Mulder opens Zito’s dragon shirt up and licks his way down the center of Zito’s chest and Zito holds onto the back of his head and jerks around when Mulder uses his teeth.
Mulder slides his hand under to go into Zito’s back pocket and take out his wallet, Zito squirming and his teeth pressing into his lower lip, but Mulder doesn’t give in. There’s a mess of twenties and fifties in Zito’s wallet, bulging it out, because, although Zito doesn’t really buy much, he likes to travel with a roll. He’s begging to get mugged, but Mulder’s not too worried.
Mulder peels bills off and sticks them to Zito’s chest and stomach where Mulder’s tongue left wet streaks. Zito’s skin is shuddery and the money flickers, trembles. Mulder bites his neck and gets one hand in Zito’s perfect hair, whispers in his ear as Las Vegas soaks like daylight through the curtains, “You’re a rich man, you’ve got everything.”
THE END
Endnotes: it is straight-up accurate that Zito drives a ’99 Dodge Durango. It’s in the Sports Illustrated article. Eric Byrnes has been dating a fucking, like, Miss California beauty pageant winner for like three-four years now, which is weird for everyone. The story Zito tells about carrying the chick is true as well, it’s in the Zito Files. Or so I’m told, anyway.
Written very very quickly, and mainly because apparently Mulder and Jermaine Dye really went to Vegas for golfing and gambling and I can only assume they didn’t go alone. Also ‘cause I am fierce in my worry that one of the three (please don’t do it, billy, think of the children) will be gone next year, and I have had way too many conversations recently about Barry Zito and Mark Mulder’s hair.
Everything, fucking everything is making me think about baseball. Not that that's not usually the case, if I may rock the double negative on y'all. I can't go two steps, man. Can't swing a dead cat in this city without knocking over a Yankee fan. Not that I've . . . been knocking over Yankee fans with dead cats or nothing.
I spend half my life in goddamn airports. But hey, home. San Francisco, baby! Knocking back and I'm finally legal and if I stay clean it'll be a fucking miracle.
Anyway. I don't get to go to North Carolina, sadly, but I do get to go home for Thanksgiving. I'ma be watching *61 and Angels in America, smoking like a fucking leper on back patios and in alleys, getting my drive on, attacking my brothers, getting some batting practice in because the grass is always greener in California, and oh yes, not gonna take my compute with me. For I am cutting the cord! For five days! From . . . my computer, not computers in general. Hey, man, you gotta start somewhere.
Anyway. I won't be 'round, so much. I'll get part two up either tomorrow or Monday, depending on whether I sleep here tomorrow night. But then, no more! Until after turkey. Mmmm, turkey.
Anyway. The fuck is up with all the anyways? Like everything's secondary. Tangents, hmm. Someone spoke with concern about whether the epic would stem production of classic retro pairings, and I roll my eyes! As if anything could stem production of that which is classic and retro.
They end up in Las Vegas, sometime in November, because the off-season is pretty fucking boring. And maybe they’re all of them trade bait, now. It was better when it was just Zito.
Zito drives out to Scottsdale from Hollywood, and they spend one night at Mulder’s place, Zito awake in the guest bedroom and Mulder awake in his own, and leave the next afternoon. They take Mulder’s car because Zito’s still driving his beater of a Dodge Durango with the sticker on the side panel and the film of dust on the back windshield. Mulder wouldn’t be caught dead riding shotgun in that piece of shit, and anyway, the passenger seat is fucked up and doesn't move back any, his knees are always jammed up against the dash.
They stop for lunch just outside city limits, sandwiches wrapped in white paper from a driftwood market, which they eat sitting on the top of a green-painted picnic table, Zito cross-legged with his sunglasses on.
Jermaine’s meeting them in Vegas, they’re gonna play golf and mock Zito’s incredible inability to play golf, and they’re gonna gamble because they can all afford it. Chavez’ll probably show up just to prove that he’s not as whipped as they all say. Crosby was gonna go up to B.C. and drag Rich down for the weekend, but he got distracted by Canadian girls or something, got real lazy and blew them off. Hudson said maybe he could get away for a night, but they’re not really expecting him to make it.
Zito invited Byrnes without asking Mulder if it was okay, and it’s not really okay. Byrnes makes Mulder antsy, the way he can never just sit fucking still. His taste in music sucks and he’s always throwing stuff at Mulder’s forehead, grinning like he thinks he’s just the most endearing thing on the planet. And his girlfriend is way too pretty. Byrnes and Zito get along like gangbusters. But Byrnes said he doesn’t like Vegas, so it’s not a problem.
In the car, Zito wears his headphones and stares out the window, beating his fingers on the door. Mulder drives very fast, and keeps his window open a crack so that he can hear the whistle. He’s kinda glad that Zito isn’t one of those passengers who thinks it’s their responsibility to keep the conversation going for hours on end. Mulder doesn’t like to talk that much while he drives.
They buy sodas and gum at the Hoover Dam, the parking lot full of cars with Michigan plates, tour buses, WWJD bumper stickers. Zito snaps his gum like a girl from Sun Valley and blows pink bubbles that pop all over his chin and nose. He spits it out as soon as it loses its flavor, starts working on another piece, and after forty minutes, he’s out and asking if he can have some of Mulder’s.
A couple miles into Nevada, Zito starts talking about the last time he was in Vegas. There’s no preamble, because that’s not how Zito’s mind works. He just says, “So, it’s, like, three in the morning, and we’ve hit half the casinos in town. I musta been down probably five hundred dollars, but I was hammered, man. And we’re talking about going back to Caesar’s, because Jess, that’s Jessica, that’s the chick I was with, she’d won two hundred or something at craps there, figured it was pretty good luck. We’re on the street, okay. Real drunk. I’m about to fall asleep, fall over, right. And Jess is talking about how her feet are hurting. You shoulda seen these shoes she’s wearing, man, fucking torture-device-looking things, with these straps and fucking dagger heels, man, coulda killed me easy. Insanely hot. But very painful. Not that I’d know. But, well, you know. She stops and she’s all leaning against me so she can lift her foot up and get the strappy things undone. She’s got her hand on my arm and I’m trying not to lose my balance, right. ‘Cause I’m bombed. Head spinning, eyes all blurry, everything. You know how I get. So, she gets the strappy undone and her foot, it’s actually bleeding, dude, not even playing around. Just a little bit, but yeah. Blood. Crazy stuff. And I said, like, “ew,” and she gives me this look, like, guess who’s not getting laid tonight, so I figured I oughta do something about that, right. So I went ahead and picked her up, and she’s all surprised and laughing and hanging onto my shoulders. Her shoe’s dangling off her fingers and she barely weighs anything, at least not that I can feel. And I can tell she’s thinking this is so sweet or whatever, so I’m thinking maybe I get laid tonight after all, and I carry her down the Strip like that, all the way back to the hotel. There’s a little bit of glitter on her eyelids and her cheeks, ‘cause, I don’t know, she was that kinda girl, and it got on my shirt. Her hair’s over my arm, I can feel it. And she’s smiling up at me, foggy ‘cause she was pretty drunk too, though that chick could hold her liquor like a fucking linebacker, and nobody we pass even gives us a second glance, like, Vegas, right, Vegas, that shit probably happens all the time.”
He stops abruptly.
Mulder looks over at him, and Zito’s gone back to staring out the window. Maybe that’s how the story ends. Mulder can see it pretty clearly, Zito in the neon and a girl in his arms like he just got married. Blood dripping off her foot, her head tucked into the hollow between his shoulder and his chest.
Mulder exhales, and the car breaks over the hill and funnels down into the valley.
They find J.D. and Chavez in Circus Circus, on the midway, throwing rings at long-necked bottles. The ranks of stuffed animals all around them are freaking Mulder the fuck out, they look like they’ve been lynched. They tease Jermaine and Eric for playing at being kids, and then Mulder and Zito give the rings a shot. Zito’s very good at this game. He wins a good-sized stuffed Tigger and gives it to a random little boy with bright orange hair and freckles.
They check in at the hotel (not Circus Circus, thank god), and go for dinner, making plans about how they are not, repeat are not gonna bet more than ten thousand, no matter how good the cards are falling. They shoot their cuffs and gangster-talk out of the sides of their mouths and act like they actually know what they’re talking about, trying to be hard.
Back up to the rooms to change, and Mulder always takes too long. Zito’s banging on the connecting door before Mulder’s even got a shirt on, shower-wet and waiting for his second wind, ‘cause it was a long drive and he didn’t so much sleep the night before.
Zito comes in and he’s wearing a blue silk shirt with black dragons on the shoulders, silver-gray buttons. His pants have pinstripes, and his hair is so artfully and meticulously tousled that Mulder wants nothing more than to push his hands through it and mess it up for real.
Mulder says, “I’m almost ready, swear,” and goes back into the bathroom. He can hear Zito slumping onto the bed and turning on the television, singing along under his breath to the Saved by the Bell theme song.
Mulder’s shirt is on a wooden hanger on the back of the door, and he’s dealing with his hair. He makes it stick up into spikes in the front, curved around his fingers and the gel tacky. He can’t really make fun of Zito for the time and attention he gives to making sure he looks like he just rolled out of bed, not considering how much time and attention Mulder gives to making sure he looks the opposite.
And Zito’s in the doorway, tilted on his shoulder and smirking at him. Mulder didn’t hear him moving, but Zito can be stealth like that.
“You’re basically just a big girl at this point, I hope you know that.”
Mulder scowls at him in the mirror. “Go away.”
Zito doesn’t leave, though. Not that Mulder really expected him to. He comes over and stands just behind Mulder, holding his eyes in the mirror. Mulder’s hands are still up, hovering near his hair. He can feel Zito’s shirt brushing slippery-cool on his shoulder blades. Zito’s face is above his shoulder in the mirror, and Zito’s hand is on Mulder’s side, sliding around to his stomach.
Zito leans in, his breath hot on Mulder’s ear and Mulder’s eyes fluttering closed. He waits for Zito’s teeth or Zito’s mouth or something, Zito’s hand flat on his stomach and Zito’s watch digging into his side. He feels Zito draw in a breath, and Mulder waits, and Zito whispers, “Hurry up, motherfucker,” and then walks out.
Mulder puts both hands on the counter, the hair gel between his fingers and pasting to the tile, and breathes for awhile before getting on with it.
They meet the others in the lobby, and walk down the Strip with Chavez yelling into his cell phone about Crosby being a fucking punk who said he was coming, said he was bringing Harden, but if they just want to suck each other’s dicks up in Canada, fucking whatever, man.
Hudson calls Mulder to confirm that, no, he’s not going to be able to come out, and Mulder rags on him but only for a little bit, because Zito’s flapping his hand and bugging his eyes, wanting his turn. Hudson and Zito talk for longer than Hudson and Mulder did, and Zito keeps snickering and saying, “Funny guy, Huddy, laugh fucking riot.”
Zito hooks a finger in Mulder’s belt loop outside the Mirage and tucks the phone back in his pocket for him. The other two don’t notice; they’re watching the pirate ship burn.
They go to casinos indiscriminately, and hang around based on the ‘vibe,’ as Chavez keeps saying despite Dye smacking him upside the head every time he does. If a waitress lady smiles at them, that’s a good vibe. If Zito finds a five-dollar chip on the floor, that’s a really good vibe. If some drunk girl who looks about fifteen years old stumbles into Mulder and gets her leg half-wrapped around his as her hand goes crawling up into the opened vee of his shirt, that’s a creepy vibe and they have to leave immediately.
Chavvy and Jermaine play Texas hold-em and seven-card stud, but Mulder never learned anything except five-card draw, and that’s the punk version of the game. Zito’s got absolutely no ability to bluff, his eyes light right the fuck up when he gets anything better than a pair, so they play blackjack for awhile, till Zito gets bored and lured away by the flashing colors of the slot machines.
Mulder plays grimly until he’s twenty bucks up, then stops while he’s ahead. He’s never been much for taking risks.
He goes to find Zito, and Zito’s feeding quarters into a slot machine, patterned by red and blue lights. Zito’s chewing on a skinny cocktail drink straw, and there are trails of smoke around him because someone left a cigarette burning in the ashtray to the left of his machine. Zito shakes his plastic cup of quarters and his eyes flick from the blurring wheels to the coin drawer.
Mulder sits on the stool at the next machine over and watches Zito win steadily for awhile, lemons and cherries and thunked black bars, green dollar signs and the jangle of quarters waterfalling into the drawer.
Zito must have won sixty dollars, the cup in his hand sagging and heavy, when he notices Mulder, grins at him with his teeth clenched on the straw. Zito looks tired and kind of crazy, his eyes bloodshot. He reaches out and pats his hand on Mulder’s head, the spikes of Mulder’s hair crinkling and close to snapping under Zito’s palm. Mulder jerks his head away and Zito’s hand smells like silver.
“I’m rich, dude,” Zito tells him, and pours out a handful of quarters. Mulder is going to tell him that he was already rich, but Zito’s reaching for him again and spilling the quarters down the front of Mulder’s shirt.
Mulder jumps up, cursing but not all that much, metal on his stomach and getting caught in his belt. Zito’s laughing, the straw falling out of his mouth. Coins ring down around Mulder’s feet, rolling away and getting picked up by people walking by.
Mulder takes one quarter out of his shirt pocket and thumbs it into the slot, yanking the handle down and he’s already turning away when the quarters start to rattle down, a lot of quarters.
He says to Zito, over his shoulder, “Look at that, you’re good luck,” and goes to the restroom, sticks his head under the faucet and gets all the gel and stuff out of his hair, scrubbing dry with paper towels and his hair resting damp and limp high on his forehead. There are water spots on his shoulders, trickling down the nape of his neck to seep into his collar, and he smooths his hair forward, makes the back lie flat. He always looks a hell of a lot younger when his hair’s not fixed.
He goes over to the poker area and Chavez and Dye are sitting out a hand, their arms folded on the padded runner along the lip of the table. They’re talking with their heads tipped towards each other, and Mulder’s about to clap his hands on their shoulders when he hears them, rumbled low, Dye who’s already not coming back and Chavez who’ll never leave:
“It’ll be Barry. Beane could get half the roster taken care of on what Barry’ll go for.”
Chavez shakes his head. “Nah, it’ll be Hudson. If Billy can scare up someone not spooked by the injury thing-”
“Every fucking team in the game wants Tim Hudson.”
Chavez shrugs. “You could say that about Zito too.”
“Yeah, two years ago.”
Mulder leaves. Nobody thinks he’ll be the one to go. Billy Beane never tells them nothing, because Zito talks too much and his game is almost entirely mental and if he does end up sticking around, he doesn’t need that kind of memory in his head. And Mulder can’t keep a secret, not when it’s Barry Zito or Eric Chavez asking him what he knows. And Hudson doesn’t really care about trade rumors, he won’t care until the moment he signs a new contract for a different team, because that’s how Tim Hudson is.
He finds Zito again, quarters still on the maroon carpet under his feet, glinting like sunlight off a watch face. Mulder puts his hand on the back of Zito’s neck.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Zito looks back at him. His eyes are worse now, red-laced and shadows on his eyelids. He blinks slowly, raises his hand to touch Mulder’s hair.
“You fixed it.”
Mulder shakes his head, jars Zito’s hand loose. “I unfixed it.”
Zito smiles. “I’ve won, like, a million dollars.”
Mulder twists his hand in Zito’s collar, tugs him away from the machine. “You know it’s bad luck not to spend found money.”
“Bad karma,” Zito corrects him, letting himself be led across the casino, everything frantic and printed across their faces.
“Whatever. Hippie.”
Zito stops at the barred money window and gets his cup and pockets full of quarters changed into bills. It’s not a million, but it is more than a hundred. They fall out of the casino, back onto the Strip, and Zito doesn’t even ask about Chavez and Dye.
Mulder takes him back to the hotel and kisses him in the elevator with his hands up on the mirrored walls, though there’s a surveillance camera in there, there are surveillance cameras everywhere, it can’t be helped.
He lays Zito down on the bed and Zito is easy and it’s been awhile. It’s a long off-season. Mulder opens Zito’s dragon shirt up and licks his way down the center of Zito’s chest and Zito holds onto the back of his head and jerks around when Mulder uses his teeth.
Mulder slides his hand under to go into Zito’s back pocket and take out his wallet, Zito squirming and his teeth pressing into his lower lip, but Mulder doesn’t give in. There’s a mess of twenties and fifties in Zito’s wallet, bulging it out, because, although Zito doesn’t really buy much, he likes to travel with a roll. He’s begging to get mugged, but Mulder’s not too worried.
Mulder peels bills off and sticks them to Zito’s chest and stomach where Mulder’s tongue left wet streaks. Zito’s skin is shuddery and the money flickers, trembles. Mulder bites his neck and gets one hand in Zito’s perfect hair, whispers in his ear as Las Vegas soaks like daylight through the curtains, “You’re a rich man, you’ve got everything.”
THE END
Endnotes: it is straight-up accurate that Zito drives a ’99 Dodge Durango. It’s in the Sports Illustrated article. Eric Byrnes has been dating a fucking, like, Miss California beauty pageant winner for like three-four years now, which is weird for everyone. The story Zito tells about carrying the chick is true as well, it’s in the Zito Files. Or so I’m told, anyway.
Written very very quickly, and mainly because apparently Mulder and Jermaine Dye really went to Vegas for golfing and gambling and I can only assume they didn’t go alone. Also ‘cause I am fierce in my worry that one of the three (please don’t do it, billy, think of the children) will be gone next year, and I have had way too many conversations recently about Barry Zito and Mark Mulder’s hair.
Everything, fucking everything is making me think about baseball. Not that that's not usually the case, if I may rock the double negative on y'all. I can't go two steps, man. Can't swing a dead cat in this city without knocking over a Yankee fan. Not that I've . . . been knocking over Yankee fans with dead cats or nothing.
I spend half my life in goddamn airports. But hey, home. San Francisco, baby! Knocking back and I'm finally legal and if I stay clean it'll be a fucking miracle.