make sure you get it right
please see the previous post, as it explains things a little bit better.
Fall
There was fog on the ground when they woke up, ankle-deep. Crosby and Harden went outside barefoot, the grass cold and wet, tripping on baseballs and waterguns. The water of the pool was warm enough to send steam into the air.
“This is weird,” Crosby said. Harden nodded, moving his foot through the fog experimentally. “You ever seen it like this before?” Harden shook his head.
The fog was thick enough that their feet were invisible. Harden was shivering, rubbing his arms with his hands.
“Fellas?” Street called from the doorway. Crosby waved at him; Street was kneading his shoulders, a troubled look on his face.
“Huston, look,” Crosby said, crouching to scoop his hand through the white.
“Yeah,” Street answered. “I saw it out my window.”
Harden studied him. “Are you okay?”
Street smiled and shrugged. “My back itches.” He couldn’t reach it, his arm twisted over his shoulder, his T-shirt pulled up to show a triangle of his stomach.
“Come play in the fog,” Crosby said, rolling an unseen baseball across the grass to chock against Harden’s feet, Harden yelping and scowling at him.
“Breakfast first,” Street said, leaning back against the wall and squirming around, trying to scratch himself like a cat. “I’ma make waffles.”
Crosby and Harden both decided that they were, in fact, starving. By the time they’d eaten, Street’s back had stopped itching and the fog had burned off.
But it was back the next morning.
*
Zito crashed on their couch and awoke to a shadow printed on his eyelids. He sat up and Huston Street was out in the backyard, standing in the fog, which was halfway up his shins. Street wasn’t wearing a shirt, his skin prickled and bumped from the chill in the air.
Zito pushed open the sliding door and said Street’s name quietly. Street turned and he looked asleep, his eyes most of the way closed, his face reposed. He smiled slightly.
“What are you doing?” Zito asked, checking the clouded night sky worriedly, because he could have sworn there was supposed to be lightning tonight.
Street shrugged, absently reaching back to scratch at his shoulder blades again.
“Come inside, willya,” Zito said, not liking how Street looked out there, the last six inches of him disappeared. Zito had lived here longer than any of them, and he’d never seen anything like this.
“It’s only fog,” Street told him. The moon shifted and crept out, tracing silver over Street’s body, catching up gold in the cross he wore around his neck.
Zito went to him, moving slowly because he couldn’t see what was under his feet. He put his arm around Street’s cold shoulders and led him back inside. As he followed Street through the door, he let his hand slip down the length of Street’s spine and could see for a moment two red slashes on Street’s shoulder blades, about as long as a pack of playing cards, as thick as the side of a hand.
*
Chavez went around the clubhouse giving everybody notes, his eyes big and pissed off and vaguely scared. I’ve lost my voice, the notes said.
They punched him in the chest and talked shit about his wife, and he hit them back, tore at their faces until they believed him and left him alone.
Zito was listening to music, his eyes half-open and glowing vaguely red.
On the field, Chavez’s voice came back, but he wasn’t speaking a language any of them knew. They met on the mound, Chavez babbling with his cap casting a shadow over his face.
Harden looked at him, twisting the ball in his hands. “What’s with him?” Chavez glared at him, talking faster and spitting.
Crosby shrugged, tightening the laces of his glove with his teeth. “He’s been like that all game.”
“What’s he saying? What language is that?” Chavez smacked Harden with his mitt for talking about him like he wasn’t there, a steady stream of elegant unknown words trailing from him.
Marco Scutaro touched Chavez’s shoulder and Chavez leaned into him gratefully, looking weary, his throat sore. “I think it’s Latin.”
“Huh,” Harden said. “Weird.”
They looked at each other for a moment, and then broke up. In the dugout, Chavez put his head in his hands and seemed on the edge of tears, unable to keep quiet. Street sat down beside him and curled his hand around the back of Chavez’s neck, and Chavez hiccupped, fell silent.
They kept playing.
*
The fog was up to their knees the next morning. Street was missing, his bed still neatly made up. They called him and his cell phone rang on the kitchen counter. Crosby wandered around looking for him in the closets and under the beds, and Melhuse checked to make sure his car was still parked outside.
Harden went to drink coffee on the patio and stumbled over him.
Harden screamed and spilled his coffee, and then Street screamed, and rolled away from him, bolted up, his head emerging from the fog.
“Jesus Christ, dude!” Harden said, his hand on his heart. Street wiped the coffee off his face, the fog covering half his chest.
“Sorry,” he said, scalded spots appearing on his shoulders. “I was asleep.”
Harden cocked his head. “Thought we lost you.”
Street smiled and shook his head.
Crosby heard them talking and came out, called Street crazy and worried his fingers over the burns on Street’s skin. Melhuse joined them, bringing toast and more coffee. The patio chairs stuck up out of the fog, and they couldn’t see any farther than their own back fence, everything hidden.
“How much longer do you think this’ll last?” Melhuse asked. Nobody answered, and eventually Street got cold and went to get a shirt, wet grass plastered on his back, his hair shining in the porch light.
*
Coming into the players’ lot, each of them saw the fire and pulled over, parking on skewed angles. They congregated by the fence and watched the fire, not speaking. It was one of the little scrub bushes near the train tracks, snapping and popping.
Zito squinted through his sunglasses, scratching his head. He put his hand on the fence and the metal was hot, pressing long skinny strips into his fingers. The fire was too far away to be heating the fence, so he didn’t know what was going on.
Most of the team was there by the time Street showed up, and he walked through them. He placed his hand on top of Zito’s on the fence and Zito’s skin cooled, his chest aching. He let his hand fall and watched Street peering through the fence, his face lit up and flickering orange.
“We should call somebody?” Haren asked, nervously fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.
Street shook his head, and cracked his knuckles. He was staring at the fire like he could put it out with his mind, his eyes as cold as snow.
“Go inside,” Street said. “It’ll burn out.”
“It’s been burning for, like, an hour,” Chavez pointed out, and pushed Crosby into Harden. “Kinda freaky.”
Street shrugged, looking back over his shoulder at them. “It’s happened before.”
“Where?” Zito asked. “This is common in Texas?”
Street looked at him until Zito began to feel pressure behind his eyes, the fire cut up by the chain-link diamonds and framed around Street. Some of the players started to drift away, casting backwards glances.
“Can you fix it?” Zito asked Street. Street gave him a surprised look.
“No. Why would you think that?”
Zito shrugged, pushing his hands into his pockets. “Dunno.”
Crosby pulled Harden’s shirt out of his belt, tugging him back towards the clubhouse door. Crosby started telling a dirty joke and the others tagged along, wanting to hear how it would turn out. Street and Zito were left alone.
With his back to the fire, Street licked his lips and leaned against the fence. Zito imagined his hair crackling and frying, his shirt charred in linked diamond shapes.
“You think this is a good sign?” Zito asked.
Street looked up at the sky, blue on his face and his hands seeming bigger than Zito remembered. “Yeah,” he said. “Think so.”
*
Zito was drunk, and following a light. The street was black, the streetlamps blown, shards of glass on the pavement. There was no moon, and the shop windows showed his reflection, sweaty hair and loose mouth, nothing more. The light was maybe a block up, bobbing faintly, amber-colored.
They’d gone out drinking, and on the way to the third bar, Zito had turned around and the others had disappeared. He backtracked and got even more lost.
He called out for them and kept his balance against a wall. The light hovered like a coin; he started to run.
The light grew and solidified into a familiar shape. Huston Street, in a white T-shirt and blue jeans, undeniably glowing with his back on the bricks. Zito stopped short of him and stared. Huston saw him, gave a tired smile. He didn’t seem to notice that there was light bleeding out through his skin.
Zito touched him hesitantly, expecting that he would be bright-hot, but Street just felt normal, warm and hard. He blinked up at Zito, and Zito could see where the light threw a circle on the wall behind his head.
“Dude,” Zito said softly.
“Hi,” Street said back easily. “Where’d you go?”
Zito shook his head, his hand moving from Street’s arm to his chest, checking for a heartbeat. “Got lost.”
Street twitched under his hand, the tap of his heart stuttering for a moment. His eyes were very dark, which seemed strange. “Well. Now you’re found,” Street said with a quick little jerk of his eyebrows.
Zito couldn’t see anything but the light. He was so drunk he feared he would die. He closed his hand in Street’s shirt and pulled him into a hug, thinking that he wanted to be lit up too. Street’s arms came around his waist, Street’s face tucked into his neck. He breathed steadily against Zito, and Zito could feel something flood through him, the gates inside opening up.
He laughed, and pulled back, pressing a hard kiss to Street’s forehead. “Look what you did,” Zito said happily, and kissed Street’s cheeks, his nose, his ears, his mouth, and Street tipped his head to the side curiously, kissed him back. A few minutes passed.
They broke apart, gasping, and Street said with his voice astonished, “You taste like salt,” staring up at Zito with his eyes wide and his mouth wet. Zito licked Street’s cheek, just because he could. Street shook, and held him tighter.
*
It was raining sideways in Chicago, and Street had his arms around Zito’s neck, hanging down his back. Zito knew that Street was both shorter and lighter than what he was listed at, but he couldn’t feel the weight of him at all, just his heartbeat and the pressure of Street’s forearms on Zito’s collarbones. He was giggling, rubbing his face on Zito’s shoulder.
Zito hooked an arm around his waist, and swung him around, placing him on his feet again. Street had rain all over his face, his hair matted and coppery. The wind threatened to fly Zito into traffic, but Street kept him still.
“See, can you see?” Street said, bunching his hands up in Zito’s shirt. He wasn’t drunk; it was something else.
Zito pushed his hand through Street’s wet hair. Everywhere Street touched him, he felt born again. “Yeah.”
Street kissed his throat, and Zito pulled them into a doorway, into a puddle deep enough to seep through his shoes and dampen the cuffs of his jeans. He held Street up against the stone and put his fingers under Street’s jaw, lifting his face.
“Everything’s so new,” Street mumbled against Zito’s mouth, drawing Zito’s lower lip between his teeth and twisting his hand onto Zito’s clammy stomach. Zito sucked in a hard breath and kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, needing to get inside, any way he could.
The rain came in and Street slipped through his hands, slick-smooth and gleaming like money. Street wasn’t cold, though his shirt was hiked up to his ribs and Zito’s hands felt like ice. Street pushed against him, hips, arms, one leg winding around Zito’s, buckling his knees and curving him into Street’s body.
Zito tore himself away, sparks trickling off his fingertips, and said hoarsely, “C’mon, c’mon,” shivering until he was sure he’d break into pieces, his skin frosted and Street so warm and pretty, smiling up at him.
Stars fell overhead; they only barely made it back to the hotel. Zito laid Street flat on the bed, his legs over the side, and knelt before him, forcing his hands to stay steady as he worked Street’s belt open, unbuttoned his jeans. Soaked denim peeled off and Street had an arm thrown across his face, praying brokenly. His other hand clenched in Zito’s hair.
Zito noticed absently that Street’s shoes weren’t wet, though they’d both been standing in that puddle, and he would have paid more attention to that, but Street’s legs were over his shoulders and his mouth was streaking across Street’s stomach, and he forgot to care.
*
They got home and found that the fog was almost to their waists.
Crosby went to the sliding door and stared out, one hand up on the glass. “Scared yet?” he asked over his shoulder.
Harden slumped down on the couch and took the beer Melhuse offered him. “It’s just the weather.”
“Nobody’s ever even heard of weather like this, Richie.”
Harden rolled his head to the side and called, “Huston!”
Street came out, a few days unshaven. Harden waved his hand at Crosby standing by the window, looking out worriedly.
“Will you tell him not to be afraid of the weather?”
Street cocked his head to the side. “Don’t be afraid of the weather, Bobby,” he said agreeably.
Crosby scowled at him. “Explain the weather to me, rook, and then I won’t be afraid.”
Street scratched his back. “Faith is blind, man.”
Crosby rolled his eyes, turned back to the window. Harden studied Street and asked, “Your back still fucked up?”
Street shrugged, and nodded. He went back into his bedroom and packed a change of underwear and his toothbrush in his backpack, and said goodbye to his roommates, drove to San Francisco and called Zito from the street outside his apartment building. Zito ran down nine flights of stairs to meet him, panting and grinning.
*
Street went to take a shower and Zito said, “hey.” Street turned back with a smile, but Zito had a serious expression on his face.
“What the fuck is on your back?”
Street craned around, trying to see, and Zito had to laugh at him. “Come here.” Street came over obediently, sat down on the edge of the bed and let Zito slide his hand up to the nape of his neck and bend him forward. Zito’s fingers brushed lightly over his shoulder blades, where two ridges pushed out like animal spines. The ridges were clean and carved, too precise to be anything but bone.
“Um. Have these always been here?” Zito asked, though he knew they hadn’t, months of watching Street lounge around the clubhouse shirtless cutting across his mind.
Street glanced over his shoulder, his eyelashes flickering. “I don’t think so.” He squirmed. “It itches, it’s been itching for weeks.”
Zito scratched the ridges and then lowered his head, raking his teeth. Street gasped, moaned a little bit, so Zito did it again. He could feel something moving under Street’s skin, something soft. He slipped his arm around Street’s waist, the tendons flexing on Street’s bare stomach, liking the feel of muscle and the taste of something rising to the surface on his tongue.
Street was breathing shallowly, his head dropped forward. “Keep doing that,” he said faintly, digging his nails into Zito’s arm. Zito scraped his teeth, over and over again, though he was terrified of breaking the skin.
*
Danny Haren was stupid, and stoned, and tripped getting out of the cab. He twisted his knee, and fell hard on the sidewalk. His knuckles were raw and bleeding, and he pulled his leg to his chest, his face tilted up to the sky, eyes huge and black.
Zito and Crosby hovered above him. “Dude. Motor skills,” Zito said, and Haren made a high-pitched laugh.
“You’re really funny,” Haren said, his mouth pursed to show that he was in pain, even if he wasn’t acknowledging it.
Crosby nudged him with his shoe. Haren sighed, sounding sad. He covered his knee up with his hands and a single tear leaked out of the corner of his eye. Zito, who was stoned too, crouched next to him.
“You’re not getting up,” he pointed out conversationally.
Haren looked at him with his heavy eyebrows pulled down, his face badly lined. “I think. Maybe. I fucked up my knee.”
Zito put his hand on top of Haren’s, Crosby whistling off-key over his shoulder, and Haren hissed as Zito felt around, imagining torn muscles and tendons, bruises rising under Haren’s jeans.
“Hurts, man,” Haren whispered. Zito nodded, told him to stay right there, told Crosby to stay with him.
He went into the club, pushed through the crowd four or five times before he found Huston Street. Zito’s mind was a million different colors and when he laid hands on Street, he forgot why he’d come to find him, and just grinned idiotically and tossed back a few shots, his hand under Street’s shirt.
Crosby was suddenly at his elbow, consummately pissed off. His lips said, ‘what the fuck,’ and Zito remembered, led Street outside, Crosby snapping at their heels.
Haren was still sitting on the sidewalk, oddly small with the streetlight flickering across his face. His hands were over his knee and he was very pale. He didn’t look that stoned anymore.
“Where’d you go?” Haren asked, his voice breaking. Zito shook his head, biting his lip, tequila burning the back of his throat. He pushed Street towards Haren.
“Make him better, Huston,” Zito said.
“What the fuck,” Crosby muttered behind them, his mantra for the night. “What’s he supposed to do about it?”
But Street was kneeling beside Haren, his shirt tightening over his back and showing off the ridges, starkly outlined in the guttered streetlight. He moved Haren’s hands carefully away and put his own hand there, breathing out white, though it wasn’t cold. Zito could only stare, Crosby cursing at his back.
Haren gazed at Street, blue as anything, and blinked slowly, his mouth falling slightly open. Street looked back at Zito, raised his eyebrows and asked, “Is that it?”
He took his hand away and Haren straightened his leg. Street stood up, and offered Haren his hand. Haren got to his feet and no one spoke for a moment until Crosby said, “I’m too fuckin’ drunk for this,” and went inside.
*
The day went the way of the ocean, and Zito slept on the plane, dreaming of arson and flight. Street and Crosby and Harden and Melhuse all got into the same minivan cab, and Zito told his cabbie to follow them.
He waited on the street, hiding behind the bushes until the lights were snapped off. The fog was already beginning to build, snaking around the tires of the cars and climbing the trees. Zito got cold, and fear grew in his heart. The moon was a speck, the stars even worse.
He crept around to the side of the house and carefully peeked in Street’s bedroom window. But it was dark and still inside, the bed made. There was noise from the backyard, and Zito trailed his hand on the stucco, poked his head around.
Street was standing in the grass, talking to the air. He had his hands in his pockets and no shoes, a smile on his face.
Zito looked and looked, but there was no one else out there.
Street said, “This is what you call giving me strength, huh?”
Zito slid back around the wall, his throat closing up, because Street was either crazy or something else, and it was impossible to reconcile either. He leaned back, his hands pinned behind him, and stared up at the sky.
“Mainly it’s just that I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Street told his imaginary friend. “I’d appreciate, like, a game plan or something.” He paused, and then laughed softly. “Right, mysterious ways, sure.”
Something clutched in Zito’s chest. The fog twined around his ankles like a cat, frost coating the blades of grass.
“I’ll be whatever you need,” Street promised. “I’ll be here when you come back.” He was quiet for a moment, listening, and then laughed again. “Amen, man.”
Zito heard Street’s footsteps moving across the lawn, and took the chance to step out from around the house, saying Street’s name. Street turned to see him, and smiled brilliantly.
“Hey.”
Zito echoed it, and struggled to keep his voice even as he asked, “Who were you talking to?”
Street tipped his head to the side. “I, well, see, I used to do it inside, but Adam, he said he could hear me through the wall. It was keeping him awake. So now I come out here.”
Zito shook his head, digging his teeth into the inside of his lip. “But who were you talking to?”
Street moved his hand slowly through the air, his face sleepy and his shoulders fallen slack. “Look, you can see it coming.” He kicked at the fog. “It rises like this every night.”
“Huston-” Zito tried, his mind dry and intent of getting some kind of an answer.
But Street was coming towards him, cutting passages through the fog, and he smiled so nice at Zito, pressed his hands into Zito’s stomach and fit their mouths together like he’d lived his whole life for this moment. Zito groaned and let himself fall back against the wall.
Street whispered against his lips, “You followed me home. I’m gonna see if I can keep you.”
And Zito threw his head back, lifted his face to the sky, his breath caught up in his chest and the next-day world clearing the way into his heart.
*
Street felt his way into the kitchen, his hands in front of him, running along the wall. His eyes were open and feather-white, and he shuffled, moving slowly.
“Hello?” he said curiously.
Harden and Crosby, sitting at the table with bowls of cereal in front of them, exchanged a look, and then Harden said, “Morning, Huston.”
Street smiled. “Rich. Hi.” He fumbled his way across the room with his hand on the counter, knocking a glass into the sink, jumping as it clattered.
Crosby gnawed on his spoon and asked, “What the hell are you doing?”
Street’s head snagged around, his blank eyes trailing over them. “Bobby, hey.”
Crosby waved at him. “Hey, freakshow.”
Street laughed and bumped into the table, catching himself. Crosby and Harden steadied their bowls, watching him with suspicion. Street sank gratefully into a chair, sighing.
“Huston?” Harden said. Street turned in his general direction. “The fuck is up with your eyes?”
Street shrugged. “Oh, I can’t see.”
Crosby and Harden looked at each other again, and then Crosby held a finger up to his lips, shhh, and silently ripped open a packet of sugar. Harden hid a smirk behind his hand. Crosby leaned over and carefully poured the sugar into Street’s hair.
“Is that right?” Harden said casually, the sugar trickling down around Street’s ears, making him flinch and rub at the side of his head with his hand, his nose scrunching up. Crosby sat back with a huge grin on his face.
“I woke up like this,” Street said, sugar shining high on his forehead. “Ever happen to you guys?”
“No, can’t say it has,” Crosby said, barely holding back laughter. Street was still scratching at his ear, his mouth drawn small with confusion, grains of sugar under his nails.
“Um. So, this isn’t normal, then?”
Harden kicked Crosby under the table. “No, kid, it’s not normal. But that’s old news as far as you’re concerned, right?”
Street smiled happily and blushed, his creepy bleached eyes spinning. “Guess so. I’m pretty sure it’ll go away, though.” He paused. “But would one of you mind, like. Making me breakfast?”
Crosby got up and left the room, and Harden rolled his eyes, saying, “Sure, man,” and stood, fixing another bowl of cereal, looking back over his shoulder to see Street sniffing his fingers and then hesitantly licking them, blind as night and sweet all over.
*
Zito hung around outside, watching the moon arch upwards. Eric Chavez fell out through the back door of the bar, white patches like scars on his face where his stubble was uneven. His shirt was on inside-out and untucked, his hair all messed up. Zito caught him and held him up.
“Slow down, hey,” Zito said, Chavez jerking and shivering against him.
“Christ,” Chavez said, lifting his face and his lower lip was chewed almost all the way through. “What day is it?”
Zito shook his head. “I don’t know, man, why do you care?”
“I don’t, I don’t. I’m. God, Z. Drunk.” He leaned into Zito, heavily without balance. Zito hummed in understanding and kept him on his feet, still idly following the moon, thinking about Huston Street.
“There’s all this stuff,” Chavez mumbled, pressing his face against Zito’s arm. He was hot, and Zito checked his forehead for fever, but couldn’t really tell.
“It’s okay.”
Chavez shook his head, making a little moan, and grabbed hold of Zito’s wrist, his fingers tightening until he cut off the circulation.
“Ease up, dude,” Zito told him, wriggling his hand. Chavez blinked, and raised Zito’s hand up into the light.
“Did you.” Chavez squinted. “You stopped biting your nails.”
“Nah.”
Chavez rattled Zito’s hand. “You did so. Look, it’s all better.”
Zito looked and his fingers were healed, his nails smooth. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and looked again, hardly recognizing it.
It wasn’t right; he’d bit through to bleeding the night before, he remembered clearly. Bad television and a long game, twelve innings in the dugout, his hand at his mouth, his teeth working. Slick copper-tasting blood in the back of his throat, and a Band-Aid crookedly affixed so that he wouldn’t bleed on his jersey again.
But now his hands were perfect.
“No way,” he breathed out, pulling out of Chavez’s grip and turning his hand one way, then the other, staring in astonishment.
“Never knew you to have will power,” Chavez slurred, and passed out, slithering down Zito’s body and crumpling at his feet. Zito stared at him, and then wrenched his head around towards the door, screaming Street’s name, his throat torn open.
*
The skin of Street’s back finally split, and Zito saw it happen.
The back of Zito’s car, with the surfboard blanket spread out beneath them, loose sand chafing Zito’s knees and face. Moonlight and streetlight flattened through the windows; they were in some alley somewhere, sirens riding past, a place you could look for forever and never find. Zito had a vision of his future, skulking around the streets of the city, trying to recreate this.
Street moved and his teeth flashed over his shoulder, Zito’s hand on his lower back as he rose and fell. Zito’s feet jammed against the door, and he was on his side, half-covering Street, who was on his stomach, braced on his elbows with his head hanging down. Zito had searched and searched, but there wasn’t a single scar on Street’s body, and that was impossible. Street had spent his life on green fields.
Zito opened his mouth on the side of Street’s throat, where a pulse beat clean and steady, and slid one hand into Street’s shorts, slid the other up to Street’s shoulder blade, digging his nails into the ridge to hear Street moan. Street twisted his head and his nose banged into Zito’s, and Street kissed him at a strange angle, slick and tasting of cinnamon candy. Zito pushed a leg in between Street’s, and started working his shorts off, his fingers clutching at the tight skin over the ridge.
And it gave way silently, pulling apart like wax, and suddenly Zito’s hand bloody, the hard ridge at once soft.
Zito went still, watching the blood seep from under his hand, Street’s hair shivering in the dim light. Street said, “please, man,” pressing his forehead into his upper arm and his back lifted, taut and Zito could see a brush of white between his fingers, the same color as Street’s teeth.
He took his hand away and there were small feathers coming out of Street’s back, red-streaked, both ridges broke open along drawn lines. There was structure under there, run and curve and rise, and Zito stared as Street flexed his back and the feathers whickered.
Street said his name curiously, but Zito’s voice wasn’t working. Street looked back at him, shuttered eyes like trainwrecks and his teeth biting into his lower lip. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Zito pressed his hand to the small of Street’s back to keep him from rolling over, and said haltingly, “You’re. I think I know what’s been happening to you.”
Street’s eyes lit up like candles, and Zito swallowed acid, slowly moved away from Street, until he was against the side of the car. There was a bloody handprint between the wings pushing out of Street’s back, little tracks of red snaking down his spine.
*
They didn’t sleep that night. They drove back to Zito’s apartment and cleaned the blood off, and Zito took pictures of Street’s back with his Polaroid, because Street couldn’t see clearly enough in the mirror. Street stretched his arms out and lowered his head, and the flash beat across his body, painting his outline on the wall.
Street kept laughing, taking the photos out of Zito’s hand and blowing on them to make them dry faster.
“Can you believe this?” Street asked, and Zito hadn’t said a word since they climbed out of the back of his car. He just shook his head, biting his lip.
Feathers dotted the floor. Zito was trying to figure out how the fuck Street was gonna pitch if the things on his back got any bigger.
Street waved a Polaroid in front of Zito’s face. “This is the best one yet.”
Zito looked, and it was like something out of a medical textbook, Street’s face turned in profile, his hair caught out gold, the white of the feathers and a curl of smile barely visible on his mouth.
“Yeah, this is the best,” Zito said hoarsely, and he sank down on the couch, buried his face in his hands.
“Hey?” Street said, his voice concerned. His hand brushed over Zito’s hair.
“Fuck, Huston,” Zito said into his palms. “I mean. Fuck.”
Street sat down beside him, his arm slicing across Zito’s back, leaning into him and Zito still couldn’t feel his weight. Street’s breath blew warmly on the side of Zito’s face, and he smelled of snow and pollen, his skin twitching with every heartbeat.
“Don’t worry, man,” Street told him, kissing his temple. “I’m gonna fly all over the place, it’s gonna be great.”
He kissed the side of Zito’s head again, and then nipped Zito’s ear, his hand tracing the bare skin of Zito’s side under his shirt. Zito jerked away, huge-eyed and shaking his head.
“You, you shouldn’t do that,” he managed.
Street cocked his head to the side and licked his lips. “Why not?”
Zito shoved Street away, fans of light arching out in his mind. “Look at you. Don’t you. Don’t you get it? What you are now?”
Street smiled close-mouthed and touched Zito’s face with his fingertips. “I’m just the same.” Zito made a choked-off laugh, but Street was calm and the muscles in his stomach moved seismically. Polaroids skidded under Zito’s feet, and Street wound a hand in his hair, pulled him in and kissed him until Zito was shirtless too, his jeans open and Street lying on top of him, mouthing his neck.
And Zito peeled Street’s shorts off and angled them together with his hands on Street’s hips, wanting to fuck Street with such force it shook inside him like caffeine, thinking without pause, ‘if you are what you seem, what’s that make me?’
*
Street got home and the fog was halfway up his chest. Adam Melhuse waved at him cheerfully from the porch, where he was talking on the phone. Street had to measure each step, because there could be a bike in his way and he’d never see until he’d tripped and scraped up his face on the concrete.
The blood was marked on the back of his T-shirt, but he was wearing his coat. Harden and Crosby were sitting cross-legged on the carpet, playing videogames. Street fell onto the couch, his joints popping, nice soft pressure on the protrusions.
“And where the fuck were you all night?” Crosby asked without taking his eyes off the screen.
“Shut up, motherfucker,” Harden said, scowling. “You’re not allowed to talk, I already told you.”
Street smirked and rubbed his fingers on the tear at the knee of his jeans, watching casually as the thread wove back together, easily repaired.
The television blared colors, all the shades drawn and all the lights off, as if there was a hurricane on the way. Harden and Crosby grunted and cursed at each other, their players dying gruesome deaths.
“You shouldn’t just disappear, man,” Harden said, looking back over his shoulder at Street, who was half-asleep, covered in fingerprints. “We were worried.”
“You were worried,” Crosby muttered, and Harden punched him on the arm. Crosby jolted and his player died again. “Fuck. That doesn’t count, bitch, replay.”
“Sorry,” Street said, his face smooth and his body loose. “Shoulda called.”
“Shoulda come home,” Harden said back, and effortlessly killed Crosby’s guy.
Street let his head fall back, his wings growing, digging into the couch. “I did come home.”
*
There was no moon, and no stars, the sky unbroken, and they played twenty-three innings beneath it, until the stadium lights were the only real thing in the world. Around the seventeenth, Zito would have given everything he had for an end to this.
Street didn’t pitch, because he’d come in the last two games, and at least nobody was going to notice the change in him with his team jacket on all night long. You could see them, if you knew to look, but nobody was looking.
It was long past midnight before they left the park. Zito couldn’t remember if they’d won or lost; he might have slept through it. He made Street wear his cap pulled down tight and his hands in his pockets, because Street was still limned in gold, picked out of the shadows between the parking lot lights.
Street drove them over the bridge, sitting forward, and Zito knew it must be getting uncomfortable to lean back. He reached over and put his hand inside the collar of Street’s shirt, down past the smooth skin to the silky feathers and the drag of hard bone underneath. Street made a happy noise when Zito closed his hand, rubbing his thumb into the underside of the wing.
Zito stared out at the dark water, not believing in a thing.
He pulled Street into his apartment and said without turning on the lights, “You won’t be able to play.”
Street looked at him in surprise, tipping his head up so that the light blurring through his skin broke free from the shadow of his cap brim. “No, better than ever,” he said, teeth sparking.
Zito shook his head. “They’ll see. They’ll take you away, put you in some white room somewhere.”
Street blinked innocently, and something in Zito cracked like a pencil. He grabbed hold of Street and spun him, shoved him up against the wall and ripped the shirt off his back, the cotton shredding in his hands.
“How can you not understand,” Zito said fiercely, fitting his hands over the wings, which were gaining a clear and graceful shape, arcing southwards. “This is not fucking normal, dude, they won’t let you live like this.”
Street pressed his forehead into the wall and took a deep breath. Zito watched, amazed, as the shirt began to stitch itself back together, weaving around his wrists. His hands disappeared, as did Street’s wings, and Zito was trapped, tight soft fabric clinging to the veins on the undersides of his wrists.
“It’s not up to anyone else whether I live or die,” Street said, his voice steady. “Nobody can touch me now.”
Zito tried to pull his hands loose, but the shirt was whole again and he was just a part of it.
*
Street said he couldn’t lie, and Zito believed him, so he was the one who called Street in sick. Macha wanted to know why the fuck Street couldn’t speak for himself, and Zito stuttered, “He lost his voice, skip,” thinking of Eric Chavez handing him a note in the clubhouse, the many signs that he had refused to acknowledge.
Macha tried to order Street in to see the team doctor, but Zito lied swiftly and with all the charm in him, he just needs to rest, he’ll be fine in a day or so.
Then Macha wanted to know why Street was with Zito anyway, and Zito looked back over at his shoulder, at where Street was sitting on the couch with his hands over his ears, the wings rising over his bare shoulders. He wouldn’t ever be able to wear a shirt again, much less a jersey.
“He felt too bad to drive home,” Zito said, watching Street’s lips pressed together, a low hum because Street couldn’t listen to a lie, either.
“If the fucking kid is just hungover, Zito, don’t think I won’t find out.”
“He’s not, I swear to god he’s not,” Zito replied, and hung up. He waited for Macha to call back, but Macha didn’t.
Zito went over to Street and pulled his hands down. “Okay. I bought us a day.”
Street looked at him, a stunningly naïve expression on his pretty face. “I can still pitch, you know.”
Zito rested his head against Street’s. “I know you can. But not today, okay?” He could see the wings flutter in his peripheral vision, and swallowed hard. It was only one day.
Zito got ready to go and Street said, “I’ll probably go back to my house.”
Shaking his head automatically, Zito sat down on the floor to tie his shoes. “Stay here. I mean. Bobby and Rich and Adam. They’ll come looking for you.”
“So maybe I’ll let them find me.” Street was standing in front of the hall mirror. He was practicing, Zito recognized, experimenting. The wings lifted and fell, stretched outwards. Zito could see them getting bigger, casting pale shadows around Street.
He came up behind Street and held his eyes in the mirror, wrapping an arm around Street’s waist. He fit perfectly in between Street’s wings, and he could feel them moving against his sides, warm and soft.
“Do me a favor and just lay low, all right?” Zito said into Street’s ear, licking his jaw to make a better impression. The wings tightened their hold on him, and Street’s eyes in the mirror were dark like the end of the world would be dark.
“I’m not meant to hide myself from the world,” Street told him, his hand skimming along Zito’s arm.
Zito turned his face into Street’s throat. “You don’t know what you’re meant for.”
And Street laughed, and Zito suddenly realized that they were floating three inches above the floor.
*
Street wandered around Zito’s apartment, sometimes in the traditional way and sometimes without letting his feet touch the carpet. He went up and ran his fingers across the ceiling, and the wings beat in perfect time, the wake blowing magazines off the table.
He repaired everything broken in the place, Zito’s old Walkman and his mitt with the snapped stitches, the corner piece missing from the mirror and the dent in the wall. He tore pages out of books just to press them back in place, and it got easier every time he did it.
It got very dark in the middle of the afternoon, a black cloud elbowing its way in front of the sun. Street went to the window and the breeze skittered neatly across his chest. It was like night out there, all of a sudden. Street became faint, holding himself up with both hands on the windowsill.
He said, “Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
The wings folded open, stretched up and out until they brushed the ceiling. The muscles in his back tightened and held on under their weight. It was dark outside and everything around Street was covered in light. Street pressed his hands to the glass and watched the sky fade away to white and gold, an open path neatly delineated before him.
He smiled; he knew a sign when he saw one.
*
Zito got home after the game and Huston Street was standing at the window, backlit by the blue city. All Zito could see was the long slow curve of white, the rustle of feathers in the breeze from the air conditioner. He said Street’s name rustily, and Street turned, smiled at him.
“Take me home, will you?”
Zito nodded, and he gave up. They would be saved no matter what he did. He couldn’t stop it. He felt like his blood had turned to dirt.
Street had to ride in the back; he couldn’t fit in the front seat. He lay on his stomach and hummed gospel songs under his breath. Zito blinked back tears, wiped his eyes roughly on his forearm. It was late, and they were the only ones on the highway.
Zito parked on the street, because the fog was too high to see the other cars. Street took his hand and led him into the white, finding his way effortlessly. They went around back, where voices laughed sightlessly, Harden, Crosby, Melhuse, Chavez and Haren, Swisher and Blanton, god only knew how many of the others. Zito clung to Street’s hand and didn’t care what was gonna happen.
The boys had flashlights, but all that did was blur the fog with pockets of yellow mist, and Zito could hear them bumping into each other, saying, “This is the craziest fucking thing I have ever seen.”
Street pulled him close, his breath warm on Zito’s ear, and said, “I’m going up now, man. I’ll see you.” He kissed Zito sweetly, and then let go of his hand and Zito was lost.
He heard Street going around to the others, their voices falling silent one by one as Street said goodbye. Eventually, it was completely quiet, not even the pat of Street’s shoes on the cement, because Street didn’t walk on land anymore.
Zito looked up, into the fog, and he wished for a punchout of sky, anything he could direct his heart to, please don’t take him away, please please.
There was a quick wind, a flurry of movement by the fence, and then a spot of clean-white lifting slowly into the air, and Zito ran forward, leapt blindly and touched for an instant the tough denim of Street’s jeans, and fell back to earth, crashing to his hands and knees.
He threw his head back and screamed motherfucker, until the breath tore out of his lungs and the fog was sinking down around him, diffusing on the ground.
His vision cleared and he could see his teammates, standing motionless with drinks in their hands and wide shining eyes, open mouths, brand new with the fog falling off their shoulders, rolling down their bodies.
And Huston Street was irretrievably gone.
THE END
Fall
There was fog on the ground when they woke up, ankle-deep. Crosby and Harden went outside barefoot, the grass cold and wet, tripping on baseballs and waterguns. The water of the pool was warm enough to send steam into the air.
“This is weird,” Crosby said. Harden nodded, moving his foot through the fog experimentally. “You ever seen it like this before?” Harden shook his head.
The fog was thick enough that their feet were invisible. Harden was shivering, rubbing his arms with his hands.
“Fellas?” Street called from the doorway. Crosby waved at him; Street was kneading his shoulders, a troubled look on his face.
“Huston, look,” Crosby said, crouching to scoop his hand through the white.
“Yeah,” Street answered. “I saw it out my window.”
Harden studied him. “Are you okay?”
Street smiled and shrugged. “My back itches.” He couldn’t reach it, his arm twisted over his shoulder, his T-shirt pulled up to show a triangle of his stomach.
“Come play in the fog,” Crosby said, rolling an unseen baseball across the grass to chock against Harden’s feet, Harden yelping and scowling at him.
“Breakfast first,” Street said, leaning back against the wall and squirming around, trying to scratch himself like a cat. “I’ma make waffles.”
Crosby and Harden both decided that they were, in fact, starving. By the time they’d eaten, Street’s back had stopped itching and the fog had burned off.
But it was back the next morning.
*
Zito crashed on their couch and awoke to a shadow printed on his eyelids. He sat up and Huston Street was out in the backyard, standing in the fog, which was halfway up his shins. Street wasn’t wearing a shirt, his skin prickled and bumped from the chill in the air.
Zito pushed open the sliding door and said Street’s name quietly. Street turned and he looked asleep, his eyes most of the way closed, his face reposed. He smiled slightly.
“What are you doing?” Zito asked, checking the clouded night sky worriedly, because he could have sworn there was supposed to be lightning tonight.
Street shrugged, absently reaching back to scratch at his shoulder blades again.
“Come inside, willya,” Zito said, not liking how Street looked out there, the last six inches of him disappeared. Zito had lived here longer than any of them, and he’d never seen anything like this.
“It’s only fog,” Street told him. The moon shifted and crept out, tracing silver over Street’s body, catching up gold in the cross he wore around his neck.
Zito went to him, moving slowly because he couldn’t see what was under his feet. He put his arm around Street’s cold shoulders and led him back inside. As he followed Street through the door, he let his hand slip down the length of Street’s spine and could see for a moment two red slashes on Street’s shoulder blades, about as long as a pack of playing cards, as thick as the side of a hand.
*
Chavez went around the clubhouse giving everybody notes, his eyes big and pissed off and vaguely scared. I’ve lost my voice, the notes said.
They punched him in the chest and talked shit about his wife, and he hit them back, tore at their faces until they believed him and left him alone.
Zito was listening to music, his eyes half-open and glowing vaguely red.
On the field, Chavez’s voice came back, but he wasn’t speaking a language any of them knew. They met on the mound, Chavez babbling with his cap casting a shadow over his face.
Harden looked at him, twisting the ball in his hands. “What’s with him?” Chavez glared at him, talking faster and spitting.
Crosby shrugged, tightening the laces of his glove with his teeth. “He’s been like that all game.”
“What’s he saying? What language is that?” Chavez smacked Harden with his mitt for talking about him like he wasn’t there, a steady stream of elegant unknown words trailing from him.
Marco Scutaro touched Chavez’s shoulder and Chavez leaned into him gratefully, looking weary, his throat sore. “I think it’s Latin.”
“Huh,” Harden said. “Weird.”
They looked at each other for a moment, and then broke up. In the dugout, Chavez put his head in his hands and seemed on the edge of tears, unable to keep quiet. Street sat down beside him and curled his hand around the back of Chavez’s neck, and Chavez hiccupped, fell silent.
They kept playing.
*
The fog was up to their knees the next morning. Street was missing, his bed still neatly made up. They called him and his cell phone rang on the kitchen counter. Crosby wandered around looking for him in the closets and under the beds, and Melhuse checked to make sure his car was still parked outside.
Harden went to drink coffee on the patio and stumbled over him.
Harden screamed and spilled his coffee, and then Street screamed, and rolled away from him, bolted up, his head emerging from the fog.
“Jesus Christ, dude!” Harden said, his hand on his heart. Street wiped the coffee off his face, the fog covering half his chest.
“Sorry,” he said, scalded spots appearing on his shoulders. “I was asleep.”
Harden cocked his head. “Thought we lost you.”
Street smiled and shook his head.
Crosby heard them talking and came out, called Street crazy and worried his fingers over the burns on Street’s skin. Melhuse joined them, bringing toast and more coffee. The patio chairs stuck up out of the fog, and they couldn’t see any farther than their own back fence, everything hidden.
“How much longer do you think this’ll last?” Melhuse asked. Nobody answered, and eventually Street got cold and went to get a shirt, wet grass plastered on his back, his hair shining in the porch light.
*
Coming into the players’ lot, each of them saw the fire and pulled over, parking on skewed angles. They congregated by the fence and watched the fire, not speaking. It was one of the little scrub bushes near the train tracks, snapping and popping.
Zito squinted through his sunglasses, scratching his head. He put his hand on the fence and the metal was hot, pressing long skinny strips into his fingers. The fire was too far away to be heating the fence, so he didn’t know what was going on.
Most of the team was there by the time Street showed up, and he walked through them. He placed his hand on top of Zito’s on the fence and Zito’s skin cooled, his chest aching. He let his hand fall and watched Street peering through the fence, his face lit up and flickering orange.
“We should call somebody?” Haren asked, nervously fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.
Street shook his head, and cracked his knuckles. He was staring at the fire like he could put it out with his mind, his eyes as cold as snow.
“Go inside,” Street said. “It’ll burn out.”
“It’s been burning for, like, an hour,” Chavez pointed out, and pushed Crosby into Harden. “Kinda freaky.”
Street shrugged, looking back over his shoulder at them. “It’s happened before.”
“Where?” Zito asked. “This is common in Texas?”
Street looked at him until Zito began to feel pressure behind his eyes, the fire cut up by the chain-link diamonds and framed around Street. Some of the players started to drift away, casting backwards glances.
“Can you fix it?” Zito asked Street. Street gave him a surprised look.
“No. Why would you think that?”
Zito shrugged, pushing his hands into his pockets. “Dunno.”
Crosby pulled Harden’s shirt out of his belt, tugging him back towards the clubhouse door. Crosby started telling a dirty joke and the others tagged along, wanting to hear how it would turn out. Street and Zito were left alone.
With his back to the fire, Street licked his lips and leaned against the fence. Zito imagined his hair crackling and frying, his shirt charred in linked diamond shapes.
“You think this is a good sign?” Zito asked.
Street looked up at the sky, blue on his face and his hands seeming bigger than Zito remembered. “Yeah,” he said. “Think so.”
*
Zito was drunk, and following a light. The street was black, the streetlamps blown, shards of glass on the pavement. There was no moon, and the shop windows showed his reflection, sweaty hair and loose mouth, nothing more. The light was maybe a block up, bobbing faintly, amber-colored.
They’d gone out drinking, and on the way to the third bar, Zito had turned around and the others had disappeared. He backtracked and got even more lost.
He called out for them and kept his balance against a wall. The light hovered like a coin; he started to run.
The light grew and solidified into a familiar shape. Huston Street, in a white T-shirt and blue jeans, undeniably glowing with his back on the bricks. Zito stopped short of him and stared. Huston saw him, gave a tired smile. He didn’t seem to notice that there was light bleeding out through his skin.
Zito touched him hesitantly, expecting that he would be bright-hot, but Street just felt normal, warm and hard. He blinked up at Zito, and Zito could see where the light threw a circle on the wall behind his head.
“Dude,” Zito said softly.
“Hi,” Street said back easily. “Where’d you go?”
Zito shook his head, his hand moving from Street’s arm to his chest, checking for a heartbeat. “Got lost.”
Street twitched under his hand, the tap of his heart stuttering for a moment. His eyes were very dark, which seemed strange. “Well. Now you’re found,” Street said with a quick little jerk of his eyebrows.
Zito couldn’t see anything but the light. He was so drunk he feared he would die. He closed his hand in Street’s shirt and pulled him into a hug, thinking that he wanted to be lit up too. Street’s arms came around his waist, Street’s face tucked into his neck. He breathed steadily against Zito, and Zito could feel something flood through him, the gates inside opening up.
He laughed, and pulled back, pressing a hard kiss to Street’s forehead. “Look what you did,” Zito said happily, and kissed Street’s cheeks, his nose, his ears, his mouth, and Street tipped his head to the side curiously, kissed him back. A few minutes passed.
They broke apart, gasping, and Street said with his voice astonished, “You taste like salt,” staring up at Zito with his eyes wide and his mouth wet. Zito licked Street’s cheek, just because he could. Street shook, and held him tighter.
*
It was raining sideways in Chicago, and Street had his arms around Zito’s neck, hanging down his back. Zito knew that Street was both shorter and lighter than what he was listed at, but he couldn’t feel the weight of him at all, just his heartbeat and the pressure of Street’s forearms on Zito’s collarbones. He was giggling, rubbing his face on Zito’s shoulder.
Zito hooked an arm around his waist, and swung him around, placing him on his feet again. Street had rain all over his face, his hair matted and coppery. The wind threatened to fly Zito into traffic, but Street kept him still.
“See, can you see?” Street said, bunching his hands up in Zito’s shirt. He wasn’t drunk; it was something else.
Zito pushed his hand through Street’s wet hair. Everywhere Street touched him, he felt born again. “Yeah.”
Street kissed his throat, and Zito pulled them into a doorway, into a puddle deep enough to seep through his shoes and dampen the cuffs of his jeans. He held Street up against the stone and put his fingers under Street’s jaw, lifting his face.
“Everything’s so new,” Street mumbled against Zito’s mouth, drawing Zito’s lower lip between his teeth and twisting his hand onto Zito’s clammy stomach. Zito sucked in a hard breath and kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, needing to get inside, any way he could.
The rain came in and Street slipped through his hands, slick-smooth and gleaming like money. Street wasn’t cold, though his shirt was hiked up to his ribs and Zito’s hands felt like ice. Street pushed against him, hips, arms, one leg winding around Zito’s, buckling his knees and curving him into Street’s body.
Zito tore himself away, sparks trickling off his fingertips, and said hoarsely, “C’mon, c’mon,” shivering until he was sure he’d break into pieces, his skin frosted and Street so warm and pretty, smiling up at him.
Stars fell overhead; they only barely made it back to the hotel. Zito laid Street flat on the bed, his legs over the side, and knelt before him, forcing his hands to stay steady as he worked Street’s belt open, unbuttoned his jeans. Soaked denim peeled off and Street had an arm thrown across his face, praying brokenly. His other hand clenched in Zito’s hair.
Zito noticed absently that Street’s shoes weren’t wet, though they’d both been standing in that puddle, and he would have paid more attention to that, but Street’s legs were over his shoulders and his mouth was streaking across Street’s stomach, and he forgot to care.
*
They got home and found that the fog was almost to their waists.
Crosby went to the sliding door and stared out, one hand up on the glass. “Scared yet?” he asked over his shoulder.
Harden slumped down on the couch and took the beer Melhuse offered him. “It’s just the weather.”
“Nobody’s ever even heard of weather like this, Richie.”
Harden rolled his head to the side and called, “Huston!”
Street came out, a few days unshaven. Harden waved his hand at Crosby standing by the window, looking out worriedly.
“Will you tell him not to be afraid of the weather?”
Street cocked his head to the side. “Don’t be afraid of the weather, Bobby,” he said agreeably.
Crosby scowled at him. “Explain the weather to me, rook, and then I won’t be afraid.”
Street scratched his back. “Faith is blind, man.”
Crosby rolled his eyes, turned back to the window. Harden studied Street and asked, “Your back still fucked up?”
Street shrugged, and nodded. He went back into his bedroom and packed a change of underwear and his toothbrush in his backpack, and said goodbye to his roommates, drove to San Francisco and called Zito from the street outside his apartment building. Zito ran down nine flights of stairs to meet him, panting and grinning.
*
Street went to take a shower and Zito said, “hey.” Street turned back with a smile, but Zito had a serious expression on his face.
“What the fuck is on your back?”
Street craned around, trying to see, and Zito had to laugh at him. “Come here.” Street came over obediently, sat down on the edge of the bed and let Zito slide his hand up to the nape of his neck and bend him forward. Zito’s fingers brushed lightly over his shoulder blades, where two ridges pushed out like animal spines. The ridges were clean and carved, too precise to be anything but bone.
“Um. Have these always been here?” Zito asked, though he knew they hadn’t, months of watching Street lounge around the clubhouse shirtless cutting across his mind.
Street glanced over his shoulder, his eyelashes flickering. “I don’t think so.” He squirmed. “It itches, it’s been itching for weeks.”
Zito scratched the ridges and then lowered his head, raking his teeth. Street gasped, moaned a little bit, so Zito did it again. He could feel something moving under Street’s skin, something soft. He slipped his arm around Street’s waist, the tendons flexing on Street’s bare stomach, liking the feel of muscle and the taste of something rising to the surface on his tongue.
Street was breathing shallowly, his head dropped forward. “Keep doing that,” he said faintly, digging his nails into Zito’s arm. Zito scraped his teeth, over and over again, though he was terrified of breaking the skin.
*
Danny Haren was stupid, and stoned, and tripped getting out of the cab. He twisted his knee, and fell hard on the sidewalk. His knuckles were raw and bleeding, and he pulled his leg to his chest, his face tilted up to the sky, eyes huge and black.
Zito and Crosby hovered above him. “Dude. Motor skills,” Zito said, and Haren made a high-pitched laugh.
“You’re really funny,” Haren said, his mouth pursed to show that he was in pain, even if he wasn’t acknowledging it.
Crosby nudged him with his shoe. Haren sighed, sounding sad. He covered his knee up with his hands and a single tear leaked out of the corner of his eye. Zito, who was stoned too, crouched next to him.
“You’re not getting up,” he pointed out conversationally.
Haren looked at him with his heavy eyebrows pulled down, his face badly lined. “I think. Maybe. I fucked up my knee.”
Zito put his hand on top of Haren’s, Crosby whistling off-key over his shoulder, and Haren hissed as Zito felt around, imagining torn muscles and tendons, bruises rising under Haren’s jeans.
“Hurts, man,” Haren whispered. Zito nodded, told him to stay right there, told Crosby to stay with him.
He went into the club, pushed through the crowd four or five times before he found Huston Street. Zito’s mind was a million different colors and when he laid hands on Street, he forgot why he’d come to find him, and just grinned idiotically and tossed back a few shots, his hand under Street’s shirt.
Crosby was suddenly at his elbow, consummately pissed off. His lips said, ‘what the fuck,’ and Zito remembered, led Street outside, Crosby snapping at their heels.
Haren was still sitting on the sidewalk, oddly small with the streetlight flickering across his face. His hands were over his knee and he was very pale. He didn’t look that stoned anymore.
“Where’d you go?” Haren asked, his voice breaking. Zito shook his head, biting his lip, tequila burning the back of his throat. He pushed Street towards Haren.
“Make him better, Huston,” Zito said.
“What the fuck,” Crosby muttered behind them, his mantra for the night. “What’s he supposed to do about it?”
But Street was kneeling beside Haren, his shirt tightening over his back and showing off the ridges, starkly outlined in the guttered streetlight. He moved Haren’s hands carefully away and put his own hand there, breathing out white, though it wasn’t cold. Zito could only stare, Crosby cursing at his back.
Haren gazed at Street, blue as anything, and blinked slowly, his mouth falling slightly open. Street looked back at Zito, raised his eyebrows and asked, “Is that it?”
He took his hand away and Haren straightened his leg. Street stood up, and offered Haren his hand. Haren got to his feet and no one spoke for a moment until Crosby said, “I’m too fuckin’ drunk for this,” and went inside.
*
The day went the way of the ocean, and Zito slept on the plane, dreaming of arson and flight. Street and Crosby and Harden and Melhuse all got into the same minivan cab, and Zito told his cabbie to follow them.
He waited on the street, hiding behind the bushes until the lights were snapped off. The fog was already beginning to build, snaking around the tires of the cars and climbing the trees. Zito got cold, and fear grew in his heart. The moon was a speck, the stars even worse.
He crept around to the side of the house and carefully peeked in Street’s bedroom window. But it was dark and still inside, the bed made. There was noise from the backyard, and Zito trailed his hand on the stucco, poked his head around.
Street was standing in the grass, talking to the air. He had his hands in his pockets and no shoes, a smile on his face.
Zito looked and looked, but there was no one else out there.
Street said, “This is what you call giving me strength, huh?”
Zito slid back around the wall, his throat closing up, because Street was either crazy or something else, and it was impossible to reconcile either. He leaned back, his hands pinned behind him, and stared up at the sky.
“Mainly it’s just that I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Street told his imaginary friend. “I’d appreciate, like, a game plan or something.” He paused, and then laughed softly. “Right, mysterious ways, sure.”
Something clutched in Zito’s chest. The fog twined around his ankles like a cat, frost coating the blades of grass.
“I’ll be whatever you need,” Street promised. “I’ll be here when you come back.” He was quiet for a moment, listening, and then laughed again. “Amen, man.”
Zito heard Street’s footsteps moving across the lawn, and took the chance to step out from around the house, saying Street’s name. Street turned to see him, and smiled brilliantly.
“Hey.”
Zito echoed it, and struggled to keep his voice even as he asked, “Who were you talking to?”
Street tipped his head to the side. “I, well, see, I used to do it inside, but Adam, he said he could hear me through the wall. It was keeping him awake. So now I come out here.”
Zito shook his head, digging his teeth into the inside of his lip. “But who were you talking to?”
Street moved his hand slowly through the air, his face sleepy and his shoulders fallen slack. “Look, you can see it coming.” He kicked at the fog. “It rises like this every night.”
“Huston-” Zito tried, his mind dry and intent of getting some kind of an answer.
But Street was coming towards him, cutting passages through the fog, and he smiled so nice at Zito, pressed his hands into Zito’s stomach and fit their mouths together like he’d lived his whole life for this moment. Zito groaned and let himself fall back against the wall.
Street whispered against his lips, “You followed me home. I’m gonna see if I can keep you.”
And Zito threw his head back, lifted his face to the sky, his breath caught up in his chest and the next-day world clearing the way into his heart.
*
Street felt his way into the kitchen, his hands in front of him, running along the wall. His eyes were open and feather-white, and he shuffled, moving slowly.
“Hello?” he said curiously.
Harden and Crosby, sitting at the table with bowls of cereal in front of them, exchanged a look, and then Harden said, “Morning, Huston.”
Street smiled. “Rich. Hi.” He fumbled his way across the room with his hand on the counter, knocking a glass into the sink, jumping as it clattered.
Crosby gnawed on his spoon and asked, “What the hell are you doing?”
Street’s head snagged around, his blank eyes trailing over them. “Bobby, hey.”
Crosby waved at him. “Hey, freakshow.”
Street laughed and bumped into the table, catching himself. Crosby and Harden steadied their bowls, watching him with suspicion. Street sank gratefully into a chair, sighing.
“Huston?” Harden said. Street turned in his general direction. “The fuck is up with your eyes?”
Street shrugged. “Oh, I can’t see.”
Crosby and Harden looked at each other again, and then Crosby held a finger up to his lips, shhh, and silently ripped open a packet of sugar. Harden hid a smirk behind his hand. Crosby leaned over and carefully poured the sugar into Street’s hair.
“Is that right?” Harden said casually, the sugar trickling down around Street’s ears, making him flinch and rub at the side of his head with his hand, his nose scrunching up. Crosby sat back with a huge grin on his face.
“I woke up like this,” Street said, sugar shining high on his forehead. “Ever happen to you guys?”
“No, can’t say it has,” Crosby said, barely holding back laughter. Street was still scratching at his ear, his mouth drawn small with confusion, grains of sugar under his nails.
“Um. So, this isn’t normal, then?”
Harden kicked Crosby under the table. “No, kid, it’s not normal. But that’s old news as far as you’re concerned, right?”
Street smiled happily and blushed, his creepy bleached eyes spinning. “Guess so. I’m pretty sure it’ll go away, though.” He paused. “But would one of you mind, like. Making me breakfast?”
Crosby got up and left the room, and Harden rolled his eyes, saying, “Sure, man,” and stood, fixing another bowl of cereal, looking back over his shoulder to see Street sniffing his fingers and then hesitantly licking them, blind as night and sweet all over.
*
Zito hung around outside, watching the moon arch upwards. Eric Chavez fell out through the back door of the bar, white patches like scars on his face where his stubble was uneven. His shirt was on inside-out and untucked, his hair all messed up. Zito caught him and held him up.
“Slow down, hey,” Zito said, Chavez jerking and shivering against him.
“Christ,” Chavez said, lifting his face and his lower lip was chewed almost all the way through. “What day is it?”
Zito shook his head. “I don’t know, man, why do you care?”
“I don’t, I don’t. I’m. God, Z. Drunk.” He leaned into Zito, heavily without balance. Zito hummed in understanding and kept him on his feet, still idly following the moon, thinking about Huston Street.
“There’s all this stuff,” Chavez mumbled, pressing his face against Zito’s arm. He was hot, and Zito checked his forehead for fever, but couldn’t really tell.
“It’s okay.”
Chavez shook his head, making a little moan, and grabbed hold of Zito’s wrist, his fingers tightening until he cut off the circulation.
“Ease up, dude,” Zito told him, wriggling his hand. Chavez blinked, and raised Zito’s hand up into the light.
“Did you.” Chavez squinted. “You stopped biting your nails.”
“Nah.”
Chavez rattled Zito’s hand. “You did so. Look, it’s all better.”
Zito looked and his fingers were healed, his nails smooth. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and looked again, hardly recognizing it.
It wasn’t right; he’d bit through to bleeding the night before, he remembered clearly. Bad television and a long game, twelve innings in the dugout, his hand at his mouth, his teeth working. Slick copper-tasting blood in the back of his throat, and a Band-Aid crookedly affixed so that he wouldn’t bleed on his jersey again.
But now his hands were perfect.
“No way,” he breathed out, pulling out of Chavez’s grip and turning his hand one way, then the other, staring in astonishment.
“Never knew you to have will power,” Chavez slurred, and passed out, slithering down Zito’s body and crumpling at his feet. Zito stared at him, and then wrenched his head around towards the door, screaming Street’s name, his throat torn open.
*
The skin of Street’s back finally split, and Zito saw it happen.
The back of Zito’s car, with the surfboard blanket spread out beneath them, loose sand chafing Zito’s knees and face. Moonlight and streetlight flattened through the windows; they were in some alley somewhere, sirens riding past, a place you could look for forever and never find. Zito had a vision of his future, skulking around the streets of the city, trying to recreate this.
Street moved and his teeth flashed over his shoulder, Zito’s hand on his lower back as he rose and fell. Zito’s feet jammed against the door, and he was on his side, half-covering Street, who was on his stomach, braced on his elbows with his head hanging down. Zito had searched and searched, but there wasn’t a single scar on Street’s body, and that was impossible. Street had spent his life on green fields.
Zito opened his mouth on the side of Street’s throat, where a pulse beat clean and steady, and slid one hand into Street’s shorts, slid the other up to Street’s shoulder blade, digging his nails into the ridge to hear Street moan. Street twisted his head and his nose banged into Zito’s, and Street kissed him at a strange angle, slick and tasting of cinnamon candy. Zito pushed a leg in between Street’s, and started working his shorts off, his fingers clutching at the tight skin over the ridge.
And it gave way silently, pulling apart like wax, and suddenly Zito’s hand bloody, the hard ridge at once soft.
Zito went still, watching the blood seep from under his hand, Street’s hair shivering in the dim light. Street said, “please, man,” pressing his forehead into his upper arm and his back lifted, taut and Zito could see a brush of white between his fingers, the same color as Street’s teeth.
He took his hand away and there were small feathers coming out of Street’s back, red-streaked, both ridges broke open along drawn lines. There was structure under there, run and curve and rise, and Zito stared as Street flexed his back and the feathers whickered.
Street said his name curiously, but Zito’s voice wasn’t working. Street looked back at him, shuttered eyes like trainwrecks and his teeth biting into his lower lip. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Zito pressed his hand to the small of Street’s back to keep him from rolling over, and said haltingly, “You’re. I think I know what’s been happening to you.”
Street’s eyes lit up like candles, and Zito swallowed acid, slowly moved away from Street, until he was against the side of the car. There was a bloody handprint between the wings pushing out of Street’s back, little tracks of red snaking down his spine.
*
They didn’t sleep that night. They drove back to Zito’s apartment and cleaned the blood off, and Zito took pictures of Street’s back with his Polaroid, because Street couldn’t see clearly enough in the mirror. Street stretched his arms out and lowered his head, and the flash beat across his body, painting his outline on the wall.
Street kept laughing, taking the photos out of Zito’s hand and blowing on them to make them dry faster.
“Can you believe this?” Street asked, and Zito hadn’t said a word since they climbed out of the back of his car. He just shook his head, biting his lip.
Feathers dotted the floor. Zito was trying to figure out how the fuck Street was gonna pitch if the things on his back got any bigger.
Street waved a Polaroid in front of Zito’s face. “This is the best one yet.”
Zito looked, and it was like something out of a medical textbook, Street’s face turned in profile, his hair caught out gold, the white of the feathers and a curl of smile barely visible on his mouth.
“Yeah, this is the best,” Zito said hoarsely, and he sank down on the couch, buried his face in his hands.
“Hey?” Street said, his voice concerned. His hand brushed over Zito’s hair.
“Fuck, Huston,” Zito said into his palms. “I mean. Fuck.”
Street sat down beside him, his arm slicing across Zito’s back, leaning into him and Zito still couldn’t feel his weight. Street’s breath blew warmly on the side of Zito’s face, and he smelled of snow and pollen, his skin twitching with every heartbeat.
“Don’t worry, man,” Street told him, kissing his temple. “I’m gonna fly all over the place, it’s gonna be great.”
He kissed the side of Zito’s head again, and then nipped Zito’s ear, his hand tracing the bare skin of Zito’s side under his shirt. Zito jerked away, huge-eyed and shaking his head.
“You, you shouldn’t do that,” he managed.
Street cocked his head to the side and licked his lips. “Why not?”
Zito shoved Street away, fans of light arching out in his mind. “Look at you. Don’t you. Don’t you get it? What you are now?”
Street smiled close-mouthed and touched Zito’s face with his fingertips. “I’m just the same.” Zito made a choked-off laugh, but Street was calm and the muscles in his stomach moved seismically. Polaroids skidded under Zito’s feet, and Street wound a hand in his hair, pulled him in and kissed him until Zito was shirtless too, his jeans open and Street lying on top of him, mouthing his neck.
And Zito peeled Street’s shorts off and angled them together with his hands on Street’s hips, wanting to fuck Street with such force it shook inside him like caffeine, thinking without pause, ‘if you are what you seem, what’s that make me?’
*
Street got home and the fog was halfway up his chest. Adam Melhuse waved at him cheerfully from the porch, where he was talking on the phone. Street had to measure each step, because there could be a bike in his way and he’d never see until he’d tripped and scraped up his face on the concrete.
The blood was marked on the back of his T-shirt, but he was wearing his coat. Harden and Crosby were sitting cross-legged on the carpet, playing videogames. Street fell onto the couch, his joints popping, nice soft pressure on the protrusions.
“And where the fuck were you all night?” Crosby asked without taking his eyes off the screen.
“Shut up, motherfucker,” Harden said, scowling. “You’re not allowed to talk, I already told you.”
Street smirked and rubbed his fingers on the tear at the knee of his jeans, watching casually as the thread wove back together, easily repaired.
The television blared colors, all the shades drawn and all the lights off, as if there was a hurricane on the way. Harden and Crosby grunted and cursed at each other, their players dying gruesome deaths.
“You shouldn’t just disappear, man,” Harden said, looking back over his shoulder at Street, who was half-asleep, covered in fingerprints. “We were worried.”
“You were worried,” Crosby muttered, and Harden punched him on the arm. Crosby jolted and his player died again. “Fuck. That doesn’t count, bitch, replay.”
“Sorry,” Street said, his face smooth and his body loose. “Shoulda called.”
“Shoulda come home,” Harden said back, and effortlessly killed Crosby’s guy.
Street let his head fall back, his wings growing, digging into the couch. “I did come home.”
*
There was no moon, and no stars, the sky unbroken, and they played twenty-three innings beneath it, until the stadium lights were the only real thing in the world. Around the seventeenth, Zito would have given everything he had for an end to this.
Street didn’t pitch, because he’d come in the last two games, and at least nobody was going to notice the change in him with his team jacket on all night long. You could see them, if you knew to look, but nobody was looking.
It was long past midnight before they left the park. Zito couldn’t remember if they’d won or lost; he might have slept through it. He made Street wear his cap pulled down tight and his hands in his pockets, because Street was still limned in gold, picked out of the shadows between the parking lot lights.
Street drove them over the bridge, sitting forward, and Zito knew it must be getting uncomfortable to lean back. He reached over and put his hand inside the collar of Street’s shirt, down past the smooth skin to the silky feathers and the drag of hard bone underneath. Street made a happy noise when Zito closed his hand, rubbing his thumb into the underside of the wing.
Zito stared out at the dark water, not believing in a thing.
He pulled Street into his apartment and said without turning on the lights, “You won’t be able to play.”
Street looked at him in surprise, tipping his head up so that the light blurring through his skin broke free from the shadow of his cap brim. “No, better than ever,” he said, teeth sparking.
Zito shook his head. “They’ll see. They’ll take you away, put you in some white room somewhere.”
Street blinked innocently, and something in Zito cracked like a pencil. He grabbed hold of Street and spun him, shoved him up against the wall and ripped the shirt off his back, the cotton shredding in his hands.
“How can you not understand,” Zito said fiercely, fitting his hands over the wings, which were gaining a clear and graceful shape, arcing southwards. “This is not fucking normal, dude, they won’t let you live like this.”
Street pressed his forehead into the wall and took a deep breath. Zito watched, amazed, as the shirt began to stitch itself back together, weaving around his wrists. His hands disappeared, as did Street’s wings, and Zito was trapped, tight soft fabric clinging to the veins on the undersides of his wrists.
“It’s not up to anyone else whether I live or die,” Street said, his voice steady. “Nobody can touch me now.”
Zito tried to pull his hands loose, but the shirt was whole again and he was just a part of it.
*
Street said he couldn’t lie, and Zito believed him, so he was the one who called Street in sick. Macha wanted to know why the fuck Street couldn’t speak for himself, and Zito stuttered, “He lost his voice, skip,” thinking of Eric Chavez handing him a note in the clubhouse, the many signs that he had refused to acknowledge.
Macha tried to order Street in to see the team doctor, but Zito lied swiftly and with all the charm in him, he just needs to rest, he’ll be fine in a day or so.
Then Macha wanted to know why Street was with Zito anyway, and Zito looked back over at his shoulder, at where Street was sitting on the couch with his hands over his ears, the wings rising over his bare shoulders. He wouldn’t ever be able to wear a shirt again, much less a jersey.
“He felt too bad to drive home,” Zito said, watching Street’s lips pressed together, a low hum because Street couldn’t listen to a lie, either.
“If the fucking kid is just hungover, Zito, don’t think I won’t find out.”
“He’s not, I swear to god he’s not,” Zito replied, and hung up. He waited for Macha to call back, but Macha didn’t.
Zito went over to Street and pulled his hands down. “Okay. I bought us a day.”
Street looked at him, a stunningly naïve expression on his pretty face. “I can still pitch, you know.”
Zito rested his head against Street’s. “I know you can. But not today, okay?” He could see the wings flutter in his peripheral vision, and swallowed hard. It was only one day.
Zito got ready to go and Street said, “I’ll probably go back to my house.”
Shaking his head automatically, Zito sat down on the floor to tie his shoes. “Stay here. I mean. Bobby and Rich and Adam. They’ll come looking for you.”
“So maybe I’ll let them find me.” Street was standing in front of the hall mirror. He was practicing, Zito recognized, experimenting. The wings lifted and fell, stretched outwards. Zito could see them getting bigger, casting pale shadows around Street.
He came up behind Street and held his eyes in the mirror, wrapping an arm around Street’s waist. He fit perfectly in between Street’s wings, and he could feel them moving against his sides, warm and soft.
“Do me a favor and just lay low, all right?” Zito said into Street’s ear, licking his jaw to make a better impression. The wings tightened their hold on him, and Street’s eyes in the mirror were dark like the end of the world would be dark.
“I’m not meant to hide myself from the world,” Street told him, his hand skimming along Zito’s arm.
Zito turned his face into Street’s throat. “You don’t know what you’re meant for.”
And Street laughed, and Zito suddenly realized that they were floating three inches above the floor.
*
Street wandered around Zito’s apartment, sometimes in the traditional way and sometimes without letting his feet touch the carpet. He went up and ran his fingers across the ceiling, and the wings beat in perfect time, the wake blowing magazines off the table.
He repaired everything broken in the place, Zito’s old Walkman and his mitt with the snapped stitches, the corner piece missing from the mirror and the dent in the wall. He tore pages out of books just to press them back in place, and it got easier every time he did it.
It got very dark in the middle of the afternoon, a black cloud elbowing its way in front of the sun. Street went to the window and the breeze skittered neatly across his chest. It was like night out there, all of a sudden. Street became faint, holding himself up with both hands on the windowsill.
He said, “Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
The wings folded open, stretched up and out until they brushed the ceiling. The muscles in his back tightened and held on under their weight. It was dark outside and everything around Street was covered in light. Street pressed his hands to the glass and watched the sky fade away to white and gold, an open path neatly delineated before him.
He smiled; he knew a sign when he saw one.
*
Zito got home after the game and Huston Street was standing at the window, backlit by the blue city. All Zito could see was the long slow curve of white, the rustle of feathers in the breeze from the air conditioner. He said Street’s name rustily, and Street turned, smiled at him.
“Take me home, will you?”
Zito nodded, and he gave up. They would be saved no matter what he did. He couldn’t stop it. He felt like his blood had turned to dirt.
Street had to ride in the back; he couldn’t fit in the front seat. He lay on his stomach and hummed gospel songs under his breath. Zito blinked back tears, wiped his eyes roughly on his forearm. It was late, and they were the only ones on the highway.
Zito parked on the street, because the fog was too high to see the other cars. Street took his hand and led him into the white, finding his way effortlessly. They went around back, where voices laughed sightlessly, Harden, Crosby, Melhuse, Chavez and Haren, Swisher and Blanton, god only knew how many of the others. Zito clung to Street’s hand and didn’t care what was gonna happen.
The boys had flashlights, but all that did was blur the fog with pockets of yellow mist, and Zito could hear them bumping into each other, saying, “This is the craziest fucking thing I have ever seen.”
Street pulled him close, his breath warm on Zito’s ear, and said, “I’m going up now, man. I’ll see you.” He kissed Zito sweetly, and then let go of his hand and Zito was lost.
He heard Street going around to the others, their voices falling silent one by one as Street said goodbye. Eventually, it was completely quiet, not even the pat of Street’s shoes on the cement, because Street didn’t walk on land anymore.
Zito looked up, into the fog, and he wished for a punchout of sky, anything he could direct his heart to, please don’t take him away, please please.
There was a quick wind, a flurry of movement by the fence, and then a spot of clean-white lifting slowly into the air, and Zito ran forward, leapt blindly and touched for an instant the tough denim of Street’s jeans, and fell back to earth, crashing to his hands and knees.
He threw his head back and screamed motherfucker, until the breath tore out of his lungs and the fog was sinking down around him, diffusing on the ground.
His vision cleared and he could see his teammates, standing motionless with drinks in their hands and wide shining eyes, open mouths, brand new with the fog falling off their shoulders, rolling down their bodies.
And Huston Street was irretrievably gone.
THE END