life in half-innings
Drama tonight (drama always and forever!). Flat tire on the way to the pumpkin carving in the beer garden, raising the very good question: can two punk kids, one of whom was wearing a Zorro mask, and other of whom was wearing a baseball hat with claw marks and bloodstains, change a tire in a bad part of town with pumpkins in the backseat?
Y'all! Yes!
Still got grease under my nails, but hey. It's Halloween. I've been attacked by a sabertooth tiger while on my way to a game. This stuff is bound to happen.
Anyway. Last time I posted something other than fic, I was having such a goddamn good week, and now things have abruptly turned on their heels, capped by my boss, the best guy you'll ever meet, getting fired, to which I say, fuck. Fuckety fuck fuck. The debate about whether to quit in protest raged, but, fuck.
It's okay. It's Halloween. Can't go back to the Castro because the Man has cracked down and the Castro for Halloween now sucks balls, and anyway, my friend got arrested for a hip flask the last time we went; bad huju.
Also, the Cardinals won the World Series. The hell? Sick of this shit not going the distance. Sick of this fucking job that keeps me in the office until nine o'clock. Last two years combined, how many World Series games did I see? Zeeeeeero. How's that for being born under a bad sign.
My parents met in St Louis, you know. My dad used to play for a softball team called the Deadbirds, which had cross-eyed birds hanging off the bat, and goddamn but am I upset that he never kept a jersey.
Baseball season being over is a heart-crushing thing that I have to take a few weeks to accustom myself to. My boy, dear darling Zito boy, I'd like to live in ignorance of the rest of his life. Or, possibly, continue to exist within hope and delusion. He could stay! I'm due a good turn, goddamn it. My hands are filthy.
Not much to say, really. Good luck and see you in the spring.
Flying Kites in Traffic
By Candle Beck
House Stuff
1. Landlord is Jane Holloway.
2. Rent is due on the fifth, utilities on the first.
3. The breaker switches are behind the refrigerator in the garage.
4. Liquor in the icebox needs to be labeled or it will be drunk.
5. Richie is two rooms down the hall and
6. The lock on his door is broken.
Huston Street makes lists.
Too many little things. Planes to catch. Practices to make. Ballpark at three in the afternoon and trying to figure out who he should call first, Rich Harden or his girlfriend. Phone numbers, poison control and the home line of the vet, because Swisher and Blanton both have dogs and Harden tends to pet-sit for friends a lot. Restaurant addresses. Places to pitch on two-and-one.
It’s way more than he’s capable of remembering. Street has always been a big picture kind of guy.
The house in Pleasanton is a confusing place, girlfriends, wives, teammates coming in and out. There are grocery lists and the team’s itinerary stuck up on the fridge, and on the bulletin board in the front hallway. Swisher and Blanton leave early most days, so Harden and Street watch soap operas and order sandwiches from the deli, sharing a roll of Lifesavers until their tongues burn.
Harden enjoys long-lost twins and revelations that someone is the illegitimate child of someone else. They debate which is superior, Days of Our Lives or General Hospital, and Street wants to make a list for this too, reasons and support.
Lacey calls during the day a lot, because she’s two weeks from graduating college and is on a strange classless schedule. Street leaves the room to talk to her, not missing the smirk on Harden’s face. In the laundry room, where the walls are concrete, Street sits on the washing machine and talks to his girlfriend about the weather back home.
Why Oakland is better than Austin
1. The ocean.
2. No parents. No curfew.
3. Ability to breathe in June.
4. Better team. Better friends.
5. Nicer house.
6. Far less likely to get recognized on the street.
Not fair, really, to go back out into the living room and find Harden asleep on the couch. He’s half narcoleptic, even this early in the season. Naps in the clubhouse, passing out on hotel room floors, and he sleeps on the plane even when they’re only going to Anaheim.
Street keeps the television low and unfolds the fists that Harden’s hands are in. His watch is set to go off at two-thirty, because sometimes Street falls asleep too.
At the ballpark, Harden goes with the trainers and Street wonders how long before they send him back to Triple-A on a rehab assignment. Street has a hard time picturing Harden in the minors, though god knows Crosby’s told enough stories, painted Harden unhinged and vaguely suicidal, not matching up to the boy Street has known for seventeen months now.
Blow-out win. Street carefully makes note of the totals in the little book he’s keeping for that purpose. He didn’t get into the game, and is kind of irritated that it would look weird to keep score in the bullpen, but he still wants to.
Crosby collars them in the clubhouse, away from the spread, and they take one car to a restaurant in Walnut Creek, where they drink for awhile and talk about inconsequential things. Harden is far from asleep at this point, flushed and occasionally on painkillers.
Street sends a text message to Texas Christian. Lacey is studying for a final, but she had the game on radio through her computer. Street would have hoped to be more distracting, but she’ll ace the test, anyway.
Tricks Picked Up at the University of Texas
1. Always get a name.
2. Drink lots of water before going to sleep.
3. Don’t sleep with people who know your name before meeting you.
4. Don’t tell your parents everything.
5. No-Doze beats hangovers better than coffee.
6. The only guys you can trust are your teammates.
Crosby drops them off at the house, still pretty early by their standards, and they run around with the dogs in the backyard for awhile, until Blanton sticks his head out of the window and tells them to keep it the fuck down. Apparently their standards are not the same as other people’s.
They watch a movie, eating Cheerios right out of the box, in the basement rec room with the blue carpet, and Harden makes low jokes, speaks on cue with the actors and maybe they’ve done this too often. Street is of the opinion that nights spent with Rich Harden are generally good nights, though, so he’s all for it.
Harden fades, sinking into Street’s shoulder. Street leaves him there until the credits roll, numbering Harden’s breaths through his T-shirt. Jostles Harden awake and stands, offers him his hand. Harden’s warm tight grip around his wrist, dragging himself up as if emerging from wet sand.
At the door of Harden’s room, Harden gives Street a sleepy hug and then goes inside. Street taps his fingers against his leg for awhile, considering his next course of action.
Ways to Justify Cheating on Your Girlfriend
1. Half a country away.
2. Corrupted by years of stardom.
3. Absence of permanence in almost every aspect of life.
4. Doesn’t count because he’s a guy.
5. Doesn’t count because he’s on the team.
The problem with the lists is that they tend to throw more light on a given situation than Street is comfortable with. Weird things come out when he’s writing stuff down.
They leave for Canada in the morning, travel day. Harden wraps his lightning bolt necklace up in a red handkerchief and tucks it away inside his bag. He sits next to Street in the airport chapel, going through the motions effortlessly, though Harden had stopped going to church on a regular basis when he was thirteen years old.
No confession booth here, too nondenominational, so Street writes down the week’s sins in black ink on half a sheet of notebook paper, folds it three times and sticks it in the collection box. Somebody will read it, he’s sure. He’s got the penance all worked out for himself.
They watch DVDs on the plane, sharing one pair of headphones, their heads close together. Zito and Chavez are arguing in the back about something stupid, but Street knows that’s their preferred way to pass the time, so he’s not worried.
Thirty-nine degrees when they land in Toronto, and Harden triple-layered on the runway, heated and soft for Street to huddle near, converting the temperature to centigrade to make it seem even colder. They take their stuff to the hotel and they have a night to kill, terrible weather outside.
How Not to Die of Boredom in a Hotel
1. There is almost always a staircase to the roof.
2. Elevator races.
3. Alcohol and video games.
4. All night gym access.
5. Secret telling. Truth or Dare.
Rich Harden is on the floor of Street’s room, his feet under the bed. He’s going through a pack of photographs, the red and yellow envelope on his stomach, his fingers squeaking on the slick paper.
“See, in this one you look the most drunk.”
Street reaches down over the side of the bed and feels Harden press the photo into his hand. He doesn’t quite recognize himself, spooked stiff-faced kid, his hair closer to blonde than it’s been since he was eight years old and spent every day of summer at the community pool. There’s a beer in his hand and his eyes appear to spiral madly, but Street thinks he just caught the light wrong.
“What was that, St. Patrick’s Day?” he asks, tracing his finger along the string of green plastic beads around his neck in the photo. “I wasn’t too bad that night.”
He glances over the edge and finds Harden looking at him, his head bent to the side at a weird angle. Street would swear on every Bible he’s ever owned that Harden can light matches with his eyes.
“You jumped off the roof,” Harden points out.
“Into a bush.”
“Still.”
Street smiles. “You should go to sleep, Richie.”
Harden obliges him by yawning, pushing the photos back into their envelope and leaving the envelope inside Street’s sneaker. He stands, half-staggers, and takes off his belt and his T-shirt. Crawls into bed next to Street and murmurs, “Night, kid,” several feet of pure white sheets between them and Harden turned away.
Street lies on his side, watching Harden’s back move as he breathes.
Dreams You’d Do Well to Forget
1. Running until heart explodes.
2. Unable to run as wolves advance.
3. Childhood home on fire.
4. Pitching naked.
5. Richie’s mouth.
6. Drowning in maple syrup.
He is awoken by his phone. Reaching blindly, feeling Harden’s feet bump up against his own, Street claws across the nightstand, knocking a glass of water onto the carpet with a dull thud, and retrieves his phone, flips it open.
“Yeah?”
“Huston?”
Street fists a hand into his eye, checks over his shoulder to make sure Harden is still there, sleeping curled up around a pillow. “Hey, Lace.”
“Did I wake you up? Baby, you’re late,” she says, and Street grabs Harden’s wrist, pulling him over roughly. Harden mutters darkly, twisting as Street angles his arm to see his watch. Ten-fifteen and motherfucker.
He punches Harden in the ribs, covering the bottom of the phone. “Up, get up.” Harden’s eyes blink open, pissed off and destructively blue. “It’s quarter after ten,” Street tells him, and Harden swears, leaps out of bed.
Lacey is saying his name, and Street sits up, pushing a hand through his hair, “I’m late, honey, I gotta go. I’ll call you from the ballpark.”
Harden is holding two shirts in his hand, looking confused as water soaks into the carpet. Street stares for a moment at the appendectomy scar on Harden’s stomach, and then clears his throat. “That green one’s yours.”
Harden grins, tosses him the other. Fast with adrenaline and still more asleep than awake, odd paradoxical state of mind, Harden asks, “Did I come in here with shoes on?”
Street can’t remember. He throws the curtains open and the world whites out.
Why Austin is better than Oakland
1. Lacey.
2. Free drinks at campus bars.
3. Proximity to brothers.
4. Alamo Drafthouse.
5. Unconditional love and respect.
6. Bats.
Street doesn’t really believe in Harden. He’s never been around to see it. Harden was hurt almost all of last year, hurt again this year, though this year is only just begun, cellophane-shiny and jetlagged. Street’s been witness to Harden’s starts like ten-minute rain showers in the middle of a drought, trying to hold onto each one because nobody can say how long it’ll be before Harden pitches again.
The things they say about Harden, talking about him like he walked right across the bay, seem too outlandish, too extraordinary. A hundred and two miles an hour in the eighth. A pitch that no one had a name for, that buckled and disappeared and couldn’t be classified as anything other than christalmighty filthy. Everyone is in general agreement that when Rich Harden is right, he is the most dominating pitcher in the league.
But Street has no proof of that.
There’s something important that he’s missing, Street thinks, sixth inning and waiting in the freezing misty rain. Birds are flying overhead, black chevron formation against the gray sky. They seem confused, too cold for spring, too late in the year to head south.
Street’s knuckles have turned pale purple. He stares through the rain into the away dugout, long way off. They’ll stop the game soon, they’ve got to. They can’t be expected to play like this. He imagines that he can feel frost forming in his hair, on the tips of his fingers.
A phantom emerges from the dugout, jogs out to them, gaining features and details as he approaches. Street sits up straighter, recognizing Harden’s shoulders before he’s close enough to make out his face. Harden has his cap pulled down tight over his eyes, the sleeves of his jacket tugged over his fists.
He smiles as he comes into the bullpen, and Fischer snaps at him for running on the slick grass or being out in the weather or something. Harden is always getting in trouble.
Harden sits down next to Street, taking off his cap and little splinters of ice fall onto his shoulders, one piece slithering under Street’s collar, onto the bare skin of his neck, and Street shivers hard. Harden nods like he understands, telling Street kindly, “God, you look awful.”
Good Reasons to Freeze to Death
1. Numbness.
2. Hallucinations (lack of oxygen to the brain).
3. Body preserved for future technology to resurrect.
4. Takes at least six hours.
5. No blood.
Back in Oakland, Street has forgotten what day it is, and he and Harden and Zito are in some dive burger joint under the highway, a little too far north to be safe. Zito has something in the inside pocket of his coat, a flask wrapped in electrician’s tape. He nips at it when the guy at the counter turns his back, passes it to Harden under the table.
Harden is talking shit, getting so far ahead of himself. His stories make no sense, salt on his mouth, writing words on his plate in ketchup with a fry. Street reads from out of the corner of his eye, Once. There. Was, but then Harden runs out of space and abandons it.
Street makes note. This is his sixth favorite all-night burger place in a fifty-mile radius. If Harden gets drunk on whatever Zito’s got, maybe it will move up a notch or two.
“I think maybe you’re lying,” Zito says, slumped down against the wall, one foot up on the seat with his leg bent against his chest. Street spends a moment considering Zito’s apparent flexibility, then kinda gets grossed out.
Harden scowls. “I am not. That’s what happened.”
“Richie, it’s not physically possible.”
“So?”
Zito bangs his head on the wall and looks at Street beseechingly. Street grins and pushes at Harden’s knee with his own. Harden glances at him, smiling a little bit. He puts his hand on Street’s knee under the table. Street keeps very still.
Zito is muttering something about fucking insane people with nothing good to say, and Street’s phone buzzes in his pocket. Harden’s fingers tighten momentarily, and he looks so happy, his face smooth, smirking at Zito.
Street lets the call go, concentrating on Harden’s hand, and the one that comes fourteen minutes later, and the one nine minutes after that. The calls stop after that, and Street forgets, until later.
Later, they’re in the hallway of their house and Harden asks in a whisper, “Would it be okay if I, like,” and Street nods, pulls him into the room. Harden sleeps easier when he can hear someone else breathing, that’s all.
Harden’s already under the covers, and Street is brushing his teeth, listening to his messages. “Fuck,” he says in surprise as he hears his girlfriend’s voice, through a mouthful of plastic and foam. Harden pokes his head up and Street can’t look at him, goes back into the bathroom and spits and rinses and puts his forehead against the mirror for awhile.
Today, Lacey graduated college. And tonight, her fine clear voice is saying joyfully, “I can be out there by the end of the week, I can’t wait.”
Harden calls from the bedroom, “Kid?”
Street is staring at his reflection, trying to breathe.
Lies I Have Told
1. It was broken when I got here.
2. I can finish the inning.
3. I didn’t realize I was going that fast.
4. It’s just a phase.
5. I’d love it if you moved to California.
“Explain the problem to me,” Harden says, sitting up in bed. The collar of his T-shirt is pulled out, and Street fixes his eyes on the revealed line of Harden’s shoulder. “You love her, right?”
Street nods quickly. “Yes. Very much.”
Harden lifts his eyebrows. “She’s moving out here to be with you. That’s, like. Good news.”
Putting his hands up on his face, Street falls back against the wall. The distance between Oakland and Austin has taken up residence in his chest, stretching him out. His skin feels unnaturally tight.
“She’s supposed to be in Texas. It’s like, this is my life here and she’s my life there and there, there shouldn’t be any, like, intersection. These things should stay separate.”
“Didn’t you tell her she could come out here when she graduated?”
“I was lying, Richie, God. She always looks so sad when I leave.”
Street glances up fearfully, sees Harden yawning and rubbing the back of his neck. He’s so fucking pretty it hurts, and Street looks away again, swallowing with a click.
“What do you think will happen when she gets here?” Harden asks, trying to work this out so that Street won’t be so freaked anymore, and Street is terribly endeared to him, drawn as a thread through a needle and crossing the room, climbing into bed beside him.
Street folds his knees up, holding onto his ankles. “Things are gonna change,” he whispers. “I don’t want things to change.”
Harden slides closer and puts his arm around Street’s shoulders. Street’s breath catches, feeling Harden’s hand skim through his hair. Their house is beaten in and settling around them like dust, low whine of the floorboards over their heads; there is a ghost that they have yet to track down, always on the road when there’s a full moon.
Harden traces Street’s ear, kisses him on the cheek and pauses, waits. Street exhales, closing his eyes, stunned beyond belief by Harden’s skin on his.
“I could kill you, you know,” Street says quietly. “You really think this needs to be more complicated than it already is?”
Smiling against Street’s face, Harden licks the corner of Street’s mouth, quick and gone. “It already is,” he echoes, and turns Street’s face towards him, steady hand and warm and sweet.
Things to Remember
1. Multiplication tables.
2. Our Father.
3. Back up the throw.
4. June 18th (anniversary).
5. Keep the door locked.
Street pushes Harden’s arm off his stomach and turns on his side, flicking his ear. Harden’s forehead lines, his mouth twisting, making Street want to turn him onto his back and relearn the feel of it.
“What,” Harden says flatly.
“Our relationship has taken an unexpected turn,” Street says, tasting Harden in the back of his throat and loving that.
Harden opens one eye, glares at him balefully. “First of all, we don’t have a ‘relationship.’ Second of all,” he yawns, “it wasn’t unexpected.”
Street puts his hand on the small of Harden’s back. Harden moves so subtly, secret agent muscles shifting under Street’s palm. He’s as smooth as clean sheets.
“You knew this was gonna happen?”
Harden blinks, his eye half-closing. “You didn’t?”
Street thinks hard for a second, tracing his thumb in oblong circular patterns on Harden’s back. He considers Harden gripping him by the shoulders and pushing him down onto the bed, grinning above him like a saint. The appendectomy scar on Harden’s stomach was strange and slick on Street’s tongue, made Harden jerk when Street scraped his teeth.
“I wanted to. But I didn’t think we would. Because, you know.” Street lifts his hand to wave it around indistinctly, encompassing generally the whole world. “Stuff.”
“You were all conflicted and scared,” Harden mumbles into the pillow. “Figured, I could take advantage of you and then if we needed it, we’d have an excuse in the morning. Or you would, anyway.”
“Oh, great.” Curling his hand into a claw, Street draws four swift parallel lines, bright red and Harden hissing, arching into it as if he likes it. Street thinks that Harden is kinda crazy, most times. “Well-prepared for the fall, then.”
“Shut up. I don’t need to hear about the fucking end of days right now.”
Harden slides down suddenly, faster than Street would have thought him capable, and presses his open mouth to Street’s stomach. Street gasps and his hands find Harden’s head, soft dirty hair and the calm place at the base of Harden’s skull. Harden strokes carefully down Street’s side, treating Street’s body like something to be broken in over a period of years.
“I want to mess up your whole life,” Harden says into Street’s stomach. “I want to do unbelievable things to you.”
Street links his fingers on the back of Harden’s neck, breathing unsteadily. He turns his face up to the ceiling and voicelessly confesses each new sin, because it’s a couple of hours into Sunday and he has always been addicted to redemption.
Sexual History
1. Kate Delaney, sixth grade, first kiss.
2. Jamie Carter, sophomore year, second base.
3. Brigham Massener, summer after sophomore year, first boy kiss.
4. Brigham Massener, summer still, someone else’s hand.
5. Nicole Rettinger, fall semester of junior year, third base, loss of virginity.
6. Jonathan Tiao, Christmas break, someone else’s mouth.
7. Kelsey Burke, February to November, first real girlfriend.
8. Kelsey Burke, in the summer, all the things people can do with each other.
9. Conner Tassajera, orientation weekend at UT, someone else’s mouth.
10. Conner Tassajera, drunk in the far equipment shed, loss of other virginity.
11. Mary, Sam, Beth, Cameron, freshman and sophomore years, party hook-ups.
12. Lacey.
13. Lacey.
14. Lacey.
15. Rich Harden, May of the second season, a good reason to go to hell.
Huston Street spends the week suspended between terror and elation, weirdly pleased by how familiar it feels.
There are plans to be made. Order to be found. Beating back chaos is incredibly enjoyable, playing hard and coming home with Harden, falling onto the bed and quickly restoring sanity, sharp jolts as the world shifts and jams into place. He talks to Lacey with Harden’s head on his stomach.
She wants to know how much closet space he can spare and if they can just get a place of their own, but Street doesn’t want to talk about that. He writes down her flight information on the back of Harden’s shoulder, drawing spirals and hearts around it. Harden sighs, his rough cheek startling on Street’s skin.
Baseball brings him back, reminds him over and over again that California is only something to dream about forty years from now. Pitching in the ninth, slick-handed and unsteady, Street can distill his life down to one thing at a time. Get the sign, find his grip, straighten up, take a breath. Pattern and rhythm and Kendall set up on the outside corner. Silence in the moment before he steps back and his tongue inches out into the corner of his lip.
And Harden tells him that night, too hot and shivering with their stomachs pressed flush together, “You drive me crazy, can’t understand how good you look out there, breaks my heart.”
Street cranes up, mouth open, eyes closed. His hands are wrapped around Harden’s arms and his legs around Harden’s waist and they’ve got two days, the ink smearing on Harden’s shoulder.
Stuff To Get
1. Dr. Pepper in glass bottles.
2. Under-bed storage units (Ikea).
3. Coat hangers.
4. Condoms.
5. Apple Jacks.
6. Picture frames.
7. New set of keys.
8. Road maps.
Street meets Lacey at baggage claim, where she jumps into his arms and lets him swing her around, her legs flying out. He kisses her when her feet are still off the ground, deep and holding onto his own wrists. She’s laughing against his mouth, saying, “baby, baby.”
He’s asked for his autograph four times while they’re waiting for her bags, and she grins at him so big, the goofy kid-grin that is secretly his favorite thing about her. He grins back, sitting with his arm around her shoulders, trying to step on the back of her shoe as she kicks at him.
He forgets until they’re at the car, then says, “Oh, um, one of the guys rode out with me, by the way.”
Harden smiles and waves from the driver’s seat. Lacey looks in the window and Street puts his hand on her curved back, thin T-shirt and the sun spilling across the parked cars.
“Rich, right?” Lacey asks, having possibly met him a time or two last year when she came out for visits. Harden drawls something charming and meets Street’s eyes over his girlfriend’s shoulder, a crack that should be audible, Richie’s incredible blue eyes.
Street and Lacey get in the backseat, folded up together, and Street is so happy to have her here, to have both of them here, two favorite people in arm’s reach, forgetting for the moment all the reasons why this can’t but end badly. He can keep secrets. He can lead a double life. He can do this.
There’s a few moments of total mayhem when they get to the house, what with the dogs barreling down the hall at them, barking like hell, and a basketball slamming crazily off the walls and Swisher halfway down the stairs, hanging over the railing and shouting happily, “Hey! A new person!” but Street keeps Lacey well back from it. Harden slouches in the doorway and hollers at Swisher to quit being a fucking moron and come get the fucking dogs off the fucking bags.
“Home?” Lacey asks under her breath, looking faintly shocked.
Street grins again, his face sore, and gives her a sideways hug. “Home.”
In-Jokes Lacey Doesn’t Get
1. The rose goes in the front.
2. No more paint thinner for people who are left-handed.
3. The turtle knows all.
4. Green food coloring in the beer provides the ability to fly.
5. Studies show that Canadian people are fifteen percent dumber than Americans.
6. Monkeys in socks.
7. Careful, you could break a rib.
8. Go sleep with Zito, why don’t you.
9. Go fly a kite in traffic.
It’s surpassingly odd, Street quickly realizes. When he’s with Lacey, he finds himself talking about HEB instead of Safeway, Whataburger instead of In-N-Out, 6th Street instead of the Mission, Travis instead of Bishop O’Dowd, short bridges and hills that are nowhere near as steep as they should be. His accent gets worse by the day. He checks the paper before he’s fully woken up, looking for a University of Texas football game to take her to, before he remembers that it’s not football season and they’re not in Austin.
It’s sorta like getting kicked in the slats. Street is braced for it all the time.
They hang around the house all day, making pancakes and drinking beers, Swisher and Blanton and Street overruling Harden and playing mostly country. Lacey is astonished by the weather, standing on the back porch in the slight breeze, perfect sky, saying that it’s ninety degrees in Texas and rising.
“It was pretty bad last August,” Street tells her. “Hundred plus for like two weeks. Rich and me, we kept saying we were gonna sleep in the pool.”
He smiles at the memory, Harden wearing sunglasses and red trunks, drifting for hours on the inflatable raft, his hands trailing in the water. He’d looked too peaceful, too much like a magazine cover, for Street to have the heart to swim underneath and flip him off, so he’d had Bobby do it.
“I really like it here,” Lacey says, taking his hand.
Street doesn’t answer, because it seems like a given. How could anyone not like it here? This place is all the good parts rolled up together.
He leaves Lacey sleeping in his bed and goes down the hallway to Harden’s room, taking the desk chair and wedging it under the doorknob, because the lock is still broken and now they’ve both got more to lose. Harden peers at him from over the blankets, watching Street slip out of his shorts and shirt.
“See, now, this?” Harden says as Street crawls into the bed. “This is a little surprising.”
Street burrows into Harden’s neck for a minute, his hands moving on Harden’s chest and his skin starting to flare. Harden goes right through him like an electrocution, and Street’s thinking how lucky he is, the prettiest boy and the most beautiful girl and he’s got them both tonight.
“Why?” he remembers to ask, lifting his mouth off Harden’s collarbone. Harden shrugs.
“Didn’t think we would still. Once Lacey got here.”
“Hmm.” Street spreads his fingers in a fan on the hook of Harden’s hipbone, smelling toothpaste on his breath and tasting suntan lotion. Guilt like a hot little ball in his throat and he can’t even bring himself to care, as Harden stretches back and takes hold of the headboard. “You underestimate my capacity for deceit.”
Harden laughs, turns his face into his arm to muffle it. Street licks his way down Harden’s throat onto the easy path of Harden’s chest. Street can neatly compartmentalize and make dumb jokes and obscure his awareness of the consequences, as long as he still gets to have this. He thinks kinda brokenly that there should be no limit on the amount of love one person can give or receive, even if it hollows him out, even if it leaves him with nothing in the end.
How To Make Peace With God
1. Confess everything.
2. Wear a cross.
3. Help strangers.
4. Do all that you can to avoid irreparable damage.
5. Call your parents.
6. Follow your heart.
Several weeks pass in a dull sleeping-pill blur. Lacey comes to every game, wearing a dark green jersey T-shirt with Street’s name on the back, which she washes each night, worn and thready like they’re already twenty years down the road. She clips out bits of the real estate section and leaves them as bookmarks in Street’s Bible, Street all confused by two-bed, two-and-a-half baths in Leviticus, full-kitchened lofts in Philippians. He searches for some pattern in the verses, wondering if she’s trying to tell him something.
Street overhears Harden talking to the coaches, telling them he really feels like he should keep traveling with the team, he can do his rehab on the road just as easy. Street spends ten minutes in a bathroom stall, writing on the wall in small letters all the reasons that Harden might have for sticking around through the early summer. He carries a Sharpie in his back pocket to black it out afterwards. He’s quick and resourceful and scared out of his mind.
In Minnesota, Harden lets Street get him drunk, beer by beer, sprawling out on the floor in pieces, laughing. Street has had only one, wanting a show, wanting to see Harden just like this, grasping at him and mumbling, “Come on, come on.”
Harden pulls Street on top of him, pliant and hot as sleeping outside in August, grinning senselessly and warning of rug burn. Street trails the flush from Harden’s face to his neck to his chest to his stomach, fingers held out stiff and straight. They hide under their clothes like blankets, slow and stuck together in the dark, and Street thinks that this kind of trouble is going to leave bones broken inside of him, an ache when the temperatures climb.
In Oakland, they’re on Harden’s bed and Harden’s hands are down the front of Street’s pants, and Street is breathing hard into Harden’s shoulder. Lacey knocks on the door and calls, “Huston, you in there?”
Street freezes, his life passing swiftly before his eyes, but Harden shushes him and kisses his ear. “Yeah, he’s in here.”
There’s a pause, and Street is shuddering, pushing up into Harden’s grip, counting down seconds to the end of the world.
“Can I come in?”
“No!” Street shouts without thinking, and Harden bites him sharply, hissing, “Shut the fuck up, man.”
Lacey sounds wounded, calling to ask why not.
Harden pulls Street’s head up, manic eyes locked on Street’s panic as he calls back, “We’re watching porn.”
Street chokes, laughing so hard he might be crying, burying his face in Harden’s shoulder again. He faintly hears Lacey saying, “Oh, um. Okay,” and leaving, and he slams his forehead into Harden’s neck. “I’m gonna kill you,” he gasps.
Harden is grinning. “Lesser of two evils, son,” he says, and kisses Street blind and deaf and dumb, crazy with one hand cupped around Street’s face.
Regrets
1. Stealing dad’s watch for the night and breaking the face on the sidewalk.
2. Running away from home at age twelve.
3. Calling Brigham that horrible name and then never speaking to him again.
4. Throwing a fastball on two-and-two with the score tied.
5. Locking Bobby out of the house when it was raining.
6. Most of this.
Lacey shakes him awake, five hours after he’d gone to sleep. Street is so tired, his eyes like heavy static. Lacey tells him it’s time to go to church and Street groans, rolls over, his stomach twisting. He claims a fever, a killer headache, swears that he can’t move. Lacey puts her hand on his forehead and kisses his cheek and he promises they’ll go get breakfast together if he’s feeling better when she gets back.
Street listens to her showering and dressing, feigning sleep, a sick numb feeling sinking in his stomach. She brushes his forehead with her lips, white cotton touching his arm, and Street doesn’t move until he hears the front door close and his car starting up.
He might actually be ill, might not have told a lie. He stumbles down the hall with his head in his hands, falling into Harden’s bedroom shoulder-first. Harden barely mutters as Street crawls into bed beside him, shifting back into Street’s hands.
Street paints his palms across Harden’s shoulders and back, biting the inside of his mouth. He can’t shake this nightmare, sensation of smothering or being ripped to shreds, his feet glued to the ground.
Harden turns into his arms and kisses him sleepily. “Mm?” he says.
“Hey,” Street whispers, his eyes darting to the crack in the curtains, three inches of daytime Sunday world. Harden slings an arm around Street’s waist and goes back to sleep. Street stays perfectly still, waiting for his mind to settle down, thinking treacherously and without end, what kind of man lies and skips church in order to cheat on his girlfriend.
The bad things keep piling up. Street is not close to okay, metal-edge happy, terrified and waiting for the fall.
Harden wakes up again, looking surprised to see Street. “You okay?” he asks, eyes mostly closed.
Street shakes his head, but Harden can’t see that. He’s quiet for a minute before saying, “We’re going to look at places this afternoon.”
“Mm.” A beat, then two, and then Harden, off-rhythm, lifts his head. “Wait, what?”
“Apartment hunting.” Street shuts his eyes and tightens his hand on Harden’s shoulder, dizzy, and Harden is pushing a fist into his stomach, levering up.
“You’re moving out?”
Street bites through his cheek, blood in his mouth and he pulls away from Harden, swinging his legs out and sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s overwhelmed, all at once.
“I can’t do this.” He scrapes his hands over his head. “I’ve got to go to church.”
Long moment when nothing happens, and Street is watching the skinny bar of light on the floor, folding across Richie’s sneakers and the crumpled T-shirts that used to belong to Zito and Haren and Crosby, because Harden is a terrible thief and Street feels like crying.
Harden sighs, sits up behind him. “All right.”
They dress in silence. Street’s fingers don’t work and Harden has to do his tie up for him, his fingers rustling around at the base of Street’s throat. Harden knows where his church is, has picked Street up and dropped him off, heartbreakingly kind in such small ways. Across the street, choir music faintly audible through the wide church doors, Street waits with his hand on the door handle, sneaking little looks.
“Things change,” Harden says eventually, not looking back at him. Street focuses on his profile, clean run of his cheekbone. “You’ve got a decision to make.”
Street knuckles at his eye, breathing shallowly. He wants badly to grab onto Harden, hang onto the back of his neck and notch into him, because Harden fits him best.
He gets out of the car. Harden peels away, and Street crosses to the church doors with his hands in his pockets. As he steps inside, a sea of pale faces turns to see him, two seconds of humiliation before they turn away again, leaving only Lacey looking back at him, lovely in white and smiling, stained-glass sunlight making her glow.
Songs to Play at a Wedding
1. Crazy Love (Van Morrison)
2. Amazed (Lonestar)
3. In My Life (Beatles)
4. Big Blue Sea (Bob Schneider)
5. Bird in a Cage (Old 97s)
6. Fools Rush In (Elvis)
They find a nice place in San Ramon, half-hidden by trees, yellow-lit windows peeking out. Street’s fingers have been interlaced with Lacey’s for so long that he’s almost forgotten what it’s like to have two hands to use. Lacey likes the red carpets and the apple tree in the backyard. Street likes the potato-shaped pool and the crack that runs across the deck, snaking up the wall of the house, souvenir of an earthquake.
He goes over the list in his mind as they drive back into town, Swisher with his girlfriend, Blanton with his wife, Danny Haren moving with his fiancée to the East Bay. Bobby Crosby never comes out with them anymore, preferring to get drunk with Gina in the back of his car. Even Zito has stopped fucking his way through the club scene, narrowed down to a caustic dark-haired college boy named Mike.
Street knows well enough that this is growing up, moving on, but he’s younger than the rest of them and it doesn’t seem fair that this should have to happen to him at twenty-two years old. He should get a little while longer to fuck around and fuck up, but they’re gonna move in together and Lacey is laughing in the shotgun seat, skating her flat hand on the wind.
His parents will be so happy.
He gets out at the house and she comes around to take his place, going shopping for curtains and cleaning products and endtables and whatever else grown-up people need to buy. Street stands in the driveway for awhile after she’s gone, leaves around his feet, thinking about last year, when he’d somehow envisioned his whole career as rented houses and long hundred-degree days, scuffed walls and broken dishes, fearlessly living in peril.
Harden’s in Street’s bedroom, lying on the bed fiddling with a baseball. Street locks the door behind him, crosses to close the curtains.
“How’d it go?”
Street sits down next to him, pushes his hand up under Harden’s shirt for a moment. Harden’s stomach is tight and hard and blood-hot, and Street can breathe better like this.
“Found a place. Out in San Ramon. You’d like it, Richie, it’s got, there was an earthquake, it left this, this.” He trails off, realizing that it doesn’t make any difference. Harden is looking up at him with a strange flat shine on his eyes.
“We shouldn’t have done this,” Street whispers, shaky and unable to function properly with Harden before him.
Harden moves his head slowly, teeth pushing out his lip and then withdrawing again. “Little late for that kinda talk.”
Street shakes his head, his mind sluggish. He wants to put his hand back on Harden, physically painful to be so far removed. He wants to stay in here forever, and fuck the outside world. He doesn’t need it.
“It’s not my fault,” Street says a little desperately. “You knew I was taken, I’ve been with her since before I even met you-”
“Huston.” Harden lays his arm down across his eyes. “If you ever had any affection for me, please stop talking.”
Street swallows back whatever stupid thing he was gonna say next, and nervously runs his hands onto Harden’s stomach again, restless and cut up, thinking that affection’s not the half of it.
They’re quiet, and Harden doesn’t protest when Street pushes his shirt up higher, angles off the bed and lifts his shoulders so that Street can strip it off him. Street pauses with his face hovering above Harden’s, Harden’s eyes smooth and closed. He’s still got the ball clenched in one hand, knuckles matching the leather.
“Richie,” Street breathes out, seeing the lines of Harden’s ribs like notebook paper. “It’s not that I want to leave.”
Harden’s eyes come open. “I know that, man.” He sorta smiles, reaches up to briefly touch Street’s face. “I thought maybe having you once or twice would be enough. So. I’m not very smart. But it doesn’t matter.” He turns his head to the side. “You should go.”
“This is my room,” Street says idiotically, his fingers against the fast pulse in Harden’s hip, a wrung pain in his chest.
The corner of Harden’s mouth curls, his cheek hollowed. He looks on the verge of tears, but that can’t be right. “I think it’s gonna be my room now. I think I’m gonna bring all my stuff in here and just. Stay.”
Street thinks he might be dying. He draws his hand up and over Harden’s stomach, across his heart. There are things that he can push aside and lock away and give up, and never never never did he imagine Rich Harden would be one of them.
He reaches for the pen on the nightstand. He smooths his palm on Harden’s ribs and whispers to him, “Hold still,” taking the pen cap off with his teeth, feeling Harden inhale slowly as he touches down on skin. Street wants to cover him over with ink, see only blue eyes inside the black. He wants to tell Richie everything, his hand trembling so that the letters are crooked, the meaning obscured.
cheerios and lifesavers
that time i jumped off the roof
sleeping on hotel room floors
stealing t-shirts
you messed up my whole life and
i swear to god
i’m so sorry.
THE END
Endnotes: I’d like to totally absolve myself of that Lonestar song, by the way, because, though it is crap-country at its best, it was also definitely playing at Huston Street’s high school prom. Bob Schneider and the Old 97s are hometown Austin favorites; Loneyland is still Waterloo Records best all-time seller.