my brain, so misguided
So, what, I've been without the internet at my house for three months or some such, right? Posting the filth became a serious endeavor, mans. Driving to my parents' house to take advantage of their wireless. Hauling my dumbass computer to Isaac's and Ben's. Hanging out in the parking lot of the Starbucks after it's closed because it's a hot spot and I've only got 24 hours.
Now then.
How long did it take for me to realize that my iPod can function as an external hard drive? How long did it take for me to realize that all my iPod is, is an external hard drive, capable of transporting things other than music (like DOCUMENTS) from place to place?
ahahahaha.
Deception and Break
Danny wakes up at four in the morning, and Zito’s gone.
The covers hold his shape, pushed back at the bottom because Zito likes to sleep with his feet sticking out. Danny fishes his boxers off the floor and puts them on, stumbles out in search.
Zito’s by the window in the living room, yesterday’s sports section spread out on the table in front of him. He’s got a ballpoint pen and city light, marking the hell out of the paper.
“Hey.” Danny yawns. “What’re you doing?”
Zito looks up sharply, the light behind him so that his eyes are way down like gouges. He taps his blackened fingers in a quick shuffle, smiling.
“Just keeping an eye on things.”
“Good.” Danny’s jeans are on the floor; Zito had been fast and hard against him, right through the door, burns on his knees. Pulling them on, Danny says, “I should go, anyway. It’s late.”
Zito’s head bobs, glancing back down at the paper and carefully underlining something. He scratches at the inside of his wrist with the pen, leaving lightning bolt shapes scrawled over thin blue veins.
“Billy’s sending me messages through the press,” Zito says, his eyes black-flashing.
“’Kay. Where’s my belt?”
“Stole it.” Zito’s dismissive, studying the paper intently. “I’m starting a collection.”
Danny rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”
Danny spots his T-shirt peeking out from under the couch and puts it on. He crosses to Zito and places his hand on Zito’s chin, tipping his face up. Zito’s skin is cool, goosebumps on his arms. The shadows fall out of his eyes with the change in angle, and Danny is able to kiss him goodbye without too much uncertainty.
“Get some sleep, man,” he says, licking across Zito’s lower lip and then drawing back.
Zito blinks up at him, painfully good-looking. Danny can’t believe his luck, sometimes.
“I gotta finish this.”
Danny pushes a hand across Zito’s forehead and it’s quiet enough that he can hear Zito’s wristwatch ticking. Zito only takes it off when he’s pitching; he wears it in the shower. Danny keeps that in his mind, easily navigating the dark apartment.
In the elevator, he notices that he’s got gray fingerprints of ink on his arm, just under his shirtsleeve. He wets his fingers and rubs it off, feeling his heart give a little bit as it disappears.
*
Danny remembers being stunned.
It had been in Phoenix last year, three official weeks into this new team. He’d been looking for fissures, cracks, places where he could get a handhold and wedge his way in. They were so tight, Chavez tackling Zito on the floor, Harden’s ankle hooked around Crosby's, jostling for space under the table.
Danny was keeping mostly quiet, a steady diet of energy bars making his vision fuzz at the edges. They were tearing the shit out of Mark Mulder’s house, which Crosby was subletting, and Zito was destructively mischievous, rearranging the furniture, chipping off paint and splinters of wood, writing in permanent ink on the walls.
Danny had come upon him out on the patio with one of Mulder’s golf clubs, whaling on the aluminum siding, each swing twanging a huge metallic burr into the air and leaving a heavy dent behind.
“Hey,” Danny had said helplessly, because this was far removed from his area of expertise. Zito had turned on him, panting and grinning like crazy. Danny thought that maybe this was just how the world worked out here. No one else seemed particularly concerned about Zito’s behavior, and then Zito was coming for him.
He dropped the golf club, wild sheen on his eyes, and pinned Danny up against the ruined wall. Took hold of Danny’s wrists and held him neatly down, fists tucked into the dents. Thin sweat shone on Zito’s throat, the porch light guttering and spinning, and Danny thought, thank god he noticed. He’d been waiting to sleep with Zito since approximately ten seconds after they met, and it’d gotten worse with each day.
He pressed up against Zito, felt how he was shivering from exertion. Zito, grinning and biting at his mouth, had been almost a stranger at that point, and when he’d finally let Danny go, Danny’s arms had immediately fallen around Zito’s shoulders, pulling him closer.
“Good trade, good trade,” Zito muttered against his mouth.
“You and him,” Danny tried to say, wanting somehow to place this in history, understand the things that came before to bring them to this point. Zito laughed and pushed his hand into Danny’s jeans.
“No, never.”
Zito’s hair was damp on Danny’s face. Danny was astonished, didn’t know then that Zito had a tendency to smile and lie.
*
Fifteen months later, Zito slumps down next to Danny on the plane and pushes white iPod headphones into his hand. Danny pulls out of a near doze and leans into Zito’s shoulder, liking the solidity of him and the rumble of the airplane around them.
“Listen to this,” Zito says, combing his hand quickly through Danny’s hair, trying to fit the headphones into his ears. Danny takes over and wedges them in place, sleepy and accepting of whatever Zito wants him to do.
Peter Gammons’s stuttery voice comes to him, talking about the trade deadline. “What is this?” Danny asks, because he’d been expecting music.
“Podcast,” Zito answers. He tugs his St. Christopher out of his shirt, winding the chain around his fingers. “Listen.”
Danny does, haphazardly, really only trying to hear one of their teammates’ names, watching Zito’s fingers twist and gleam silver. He wonders if he can convince Zito to go make out in the bathroom.
The podcast ends without mention of the Oakland A’s. Danny gives Zito a questioning look. Closing his hand tight on the medallion, Zito scowls at him.
“Didn’t you hear it?”
Danny shrugs, wanting to put his hand on the side of Zito’s neck.
“The thing, West Coast sources. You didn’t hear that?” Zito lets the medallion fall loose, and takes the iPod back, spinning the wheel to rewind it.
“Um. Wasn’t he talking about the Dodgers?”
“Read between the lines, Daniel. Here. Listen closer this time.” Zito presses his hand down on Danny’s ear, making everything echo. Danny sighs and listens to Gammons talking again, but he doesn’t know what Zito’s getting at. West Coast sources report that the Dodgers are talking to the Cubs, but that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with them.
Danny plays along, nodding. “Oh, sure. Right. Dude.”
Zito’s eyes are big and frightened. “You see? You see?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Zito’s hand slides back into Danny’s hair. “We’ve got to do something about this.” He pets Danny absently, his face blue-lit by the iPod’s screen. Danny wants to check his palm and see if the St. Christopher made an impression.
“Whatever you want, man.” Danny is slightly undone by the movement of Zito’s hand. He’s easily persuaded, talked into almost anything.
Zito’s fingers skip off Danny’s neck and he looks past to the window. There’s a jittering nervousness in the set of his jaw, the corners of his mouth. “Hate flying,” he whispers. “We can’t let them do this to us.”
Danny yawns. Zito looks at him with an oddly soft expression on his face. Trying to smile, Danny falls asleep.
*
Danny has lost three shoes and two T-shirts and a belt so far this year. He’s pretty sure that if he searches Zito’s apartment, he’ll find most if not all, this collection that Zito’s keeping. It’s a little weird, but Danny can forgive it because he wants souvenirs too. He carries one of Zito’s guitar picks around in his back pocket constantly, a note that Zito left him once, turns out that you are in actuality the best I’ve ever had, folded carefully into his wallet.
He goes over to Zito’s room through the connecting door, finds him by the window, little white packets in his hands.
“Hey. You ready to go?”
Zito whips around, startled. A spray of crystalline white flies from his hand. Danny lifts his eyebrows. “What is that?”
“Salt.” Zito clears his throat, resumes his work at the window. He’s pouring the salt in skinny lines along the sill. Danny looks around and sees a similar line in front of the hallway door. He looks down and sees another under his feet, salt ground into the carpet.
“Okay,” Danny says slowly. “Should I even ask?”
“Probably better if you don’t,” Zito mutters, not facing him. He rips open another packet with his teeth, spits out paper. “You’ve got a standing invitation; mustn’t affect you. Not you I have to worry about, of course.”
He’s talking under his breath, tapping out the salt. Danny sits on the bed, watching him with his hands woven between his knees. Zito absently swipes a hand across his cheek and leaves a wing of silvery white behind.
“The guys are waiting,” Danny tells him, his mouth dry.
“’m almost done.” Two more packets and Zito straightens, brushes off his hands. “All right.”
He’s barefoot, tousled, but Zito could roll out of bed and look fine in a club. He carries it with him, clean assurance from a lifetime of success in everything he ever tried. He studies Danny for a moment, his eyes lighting up.
“Hey.” Zito crosses and pushes Danny by his shoulders back on the bed. Danny’s breath catches, the light on the ceiling perfectly outlining Zito’s head. Straddling his hips, leaning down to him, Zito says conversationally, “You’re kinda stupidly hot, you know that?”
Danny grins hysterically. “Yeah, well.” He pushes up and licks the salt off Zito’s face, gets a long kiss for his trouble.
“Are they really waiting for us?” Zito murmurs, grinding against him and flattening his hands under Danny’s shirt. “Because we’re safe now, protected. Can’t touch us in here.”
Danny doesn’t understand what Zito’s talking about, but that’s nothing new. He can’t think about anything except the weight of Zito on him, Zito’s mouth on his throat, stray pieces of salt dissolving on Danny’s ribs. He fists his hands in Zito’s shirt and they can be late. Nothing’s more important than this.
*
“Lastings Milledge,” Zito snarls, and Danny wakes up. He jerks, Zito’s hand heavy on his shoulder, Zito’s teeth brushing his ear.
“What? What?” Danny’s blank with confusion, white-minded. He was dreaming of Zito going down on him against a mirror, perspective all fucked up, seeing Zito’s head duck again and again in the reflection. He’s still half-hard and Zito’s speaking in tongues.
“Lastings Milledge. Beane’s in love with him.”
Danny turns his head, moaning a little. Zito’s hard white smile cuts into him. “Right. Fucking time is it?”
Zito’s hand narrows into a point, poking Danny’s shoulder. Danny slides closer to him unthinkingly, gravitation and the magnetic field that surrounds Zito.
“Billy. Is going to trade me. For Lastings Milledge.” He punctuates with jabs, dime-sized bruises that Danny can feel forming.
“You’re talking shit,” Danny mumbles, pushes his arm over Zito’s side and sighs into his throat. Zito is trembling with energy, his pulse hammering like it can escape his skin.
“Danny. Listen to me.” Zito smooths Danny’s hair back, angling his face up. Zito’s eyes are shining, anger in the tight draw of his cheek and his hands cradling Danny’s head. “Do you want me to get traded?”
Danny narrows his eyes. “You know I don’t.”
“Okay. Okay. Don’t lie to me, Dan, I couldn’t take it.” Zito runs his hand down Danny’s face. “You, you’ve got to help me.”
Rolling over onto his back and pushing himself up to sit against the headboard, Danny takes in the fact that Zito’s wearing jeans again, which he definitely wasn’t the last time Danny saw him. His face is pallored, color shrunk back by hours in front of his laptop, which is glowing blue on the table by the window. Zito twines his hand in Danny’s hair, gazing at him plaintively.
Danny hums to settle him, thinking for a moment. “Mets prospect, right?” Zito nods quickly. “You heard this from somewhere?”
“ESPN.com.”
Danny rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Jesus, you can’t believe that shit. They’ll write anything, you know that.”
Zito tugs sharply at his hair and Danny curses him. Zito’s mouth curls in a sneer, which is a pretty good look on him, and Danny touches Zito’s hip, pushing his fingers under his jeans.
“Look. Billy can’t trade you unless he gets pitching back, real fucking solid pitching that’s pennant-ready right now. Which the Mets aren’t gonna offer. So fuck Lastings Milledge. And calm down.”
Exhaling, Zito presses his teeth into his lower lip and thumbs Danny’s ear. He puts his forehead for a moment on Danny’s collarbone, flat and warm, and then sits up again, blowing up to get his hair out of his eyes. They both need haircuts, Danny thinks.
“He’s been trying to trade me for years, man,” Zito says low. “I can’t keep living like this.” He looks hollow and washed out, his shoulders slumped.
Danny puts his arms around him, yawning into the perfect curve of Zito’s shoulder, vultures at the salted windows. He murmurs comforting things until Zito is motionless and quiet, but Danny is vaguely aware of Zito getting up again an hour or two later, feeling the scrape of denim along his arm, half-opening his eyes to see Zito framed by the city window and washed with blue light, his edges bleeding into the glass.
*
When they get back, Danny goes home to his fiancée, as always a little surprised to find her in his house.
He recaps the trip, omitting certain parts that would only cause her pain. She deftly talks trash about the New York Yankees and he grins foolishly, delighted by her. They eat on the back porch, twilight turning the sky into a day-old bruise.
It’s later, after they’ve turned off the lights, that Danny’s cell phone goes off, spitting chimes. Danny wants to ignore it, warm and comfortable in his own bed, but it presses like a headache behind his eyes and eventually he gets up.
Zito is talking fast, almost out of breath, “Danny, Danny, you gotta come out here.”
“What’s wrong?” Something spurs in Danny at the sound of Zito’s voice, all broken and frantic.
“Somebody broke into my place.”
“What? When?” Danny is already reaching for his pants, imagining broken glass, snapped deadbolts. His fiancée is far asleep; she’s slept through earthquakes, much worse than this.
“I wasn’t fucking here, Danny, I don’t know when.” Zito’s voice cracks. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah, yeah. Course I am. Be there in twenty.”
Zito’s door looks normal. When Danny knocks, the shadows of Zito’s feet appear under the door and he won’t let Danny in until he slides his driver’s license under to prove that he is who he says he is. Zito’s eyes are blacked out with fear.
“You don’t recognize my voice?” Danny asks, trying to inject some levity into the situation, hating the glazed plastic cast of Zito’s features.
“I don’t recognize anything. Come on, they might still be around.”
Zito’s got Danny’s arm held tight, dragging him inside. Zito huddles close to him, hooking his hands in Danny’s belt. Danny takes a look around but everything seems to be in place. “What’s missing?”
“I don’t know, it’s not, there’s nothing physical.” Zito rubs his face in the place between Danny’s shoulder blades. “I know someone’s been in here.”
“Wait a minute.” Danny turns and takes hold of Zito’s shoulders. “Nothing’s missing? Your door wasn’t jimmied. What makes you think somebody broke in?”
“I know,” Zito insists, thumping his fists on Danny’s chest. “I can feel it.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, dude.” Danny sighs in exasperation and runs a hand through his hair, tired and sick of Zito’s paranoia, how easily he was suckered. “You’re crazy.”
Zito’s face contorts, and he shoves Danny as hard as he can. Danny trips and lands solidly on his back, knocking the wind out of him in a whoosh. Zito stands above him with his fists clenched, his face flushed.
“Don’t call me crazy.”
“Jesus,” Danny gasps, trying to catch his breath. He’s suddenly afraid, because if Zito wants to hit him or kick him or beat him bloody, Danny doesn’t think he’ll be able to fight back. Some kind of sin, to hit a face like that.
Zito looks like he’s honestly considering it, and Danny suspects that his difficulty breathing is not entirely due to having the wind knocked out of him. Eventually, though, Zito’s hands loosen and regret flashes across his face. He sits down on the floor, taking his head in his hands.
“Danny,” Zito says softly. Danny can only see the bow of his head, his fine hands sliding through his hair. “I’m sorry I pushed you.”
Danny sits up, his heart jackrabbiting. “It’s okay.”
“I’m not crazy.”
Danny cautiously lays his hand on Zito’s head, tangling it with Zito’s own when Zito doesn’t jerk away. “I know. I don’t think you are, man, I just. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Someone was here,” Zito says to the floor. Danny nods, though Zito can’t see it, stroking his thumb across the back of Zito’s hand.
“Okay.”
“I didn’t have time to put the salt down.” Zito sounds absolutely heartbroken, and Danny can’t stand him like that, something elemental and powerful making it imperative that he fix this, as soon as possible, before he takes another breath.
“I’ll do it now, okay? You just. Just wait here. I’ll do it real quick.”
He stands, and Zito takes his hands away, looks up at him, sleepless red-rimmed eyes and slack mouth. Danny attempts a smile, trying not to think about how totally fucking bizarre his life has become, how normal has become the outlier, the stranger.
*
Zito tastes like rain or steam or something like that. He makes Danny daydream about drowning.
Last year, when Danny lived in San Francisco and wasn’t engaged, he spent most of his free time over at Zito’s place, chalk on the sidewalks, pretty sea views. Zito slept everywhere like a cat, and there were colorful radio station and surf shop decals covering the entire surface of his kitchen table.
Danny was half-obsessed with him for the first few months, before he’d mostly gotten over Zito’s jagged laugh and habit of blowing Danny when he got bored. Until then, though, he bought Zito books and records and calcium gummies from Trader Joe’s because Zito couldn’t abide milk.
Zito talked in his sleep and sometimes he talked to people who weren’t there, but Danny wasn’t overly concerned about that, figured Zito was the type of guy who needed to say things out loud for them to count. Zito lit matches just to watch them burn, dropping them into a water glass when they were black and curled.
He’d told Danny about being on Letterman and going up to the roof, pitching at a window on the building opposite, and it had taken him three tries before he’d shattered it.
Zito started throwing baseballs at his own windows after that, but Danny had stopped him after two, laughing so hard he almost passed out. They’d slept on the floor, cold in the stinging wind, pieces of glass falling in with small bell-like sounds. The next morning, Danny had stood beside Zito in front of the building superintendent, swearing that the broken windows were an accident.
He was impossible to predict. Weeks and months passed without rhythm or sense, until Danny felt like he was losing his grip on reality, his thoughts fractured and unbound, his hands shaking all the time. Danny became aware that Zito had managed to get in him like blood, and he panicked a little, backed right the fuck off.
Zito let him go, occupied with the voices inside his head and the thoughtlessly cruel pranks he liked to pull on Eric Chavez. Danny, wounded, sulked around for awhile with an ache like a muscle strain in his chest, slept with a lot of girls and found himself dating one seriously after the All-Star break.
Zito didn’t seem to care at all, so Danny cornered him in the video room and demanded answers. Guileless, smiling, Zito had shrugged and said, “I thought I did something to piss you off. I don’t know what, though, so I’m not sorry.”
Danny almost put him through the wall. Zito’s head snapped back against the cinderblocks, and his eyes went dazed and shocky. He locked his hands around Danny’s wrists, Danny gripping his shirt, said breathlessly, “Fuck, do that again.”
Second time around, Zito got progressively more erratic, coloring his palms with magic marker and leaving smeary handprints on Danny’s skin, dirtily kissing him in a club in front of the whole world. Once, Danny walked in on Zito having a screaming fight with whoever it was that he saw when he was alone.
Time never regained its structure. Danny moved in with his girlfriend and eventually asked her to marry him, and he keeps fucking around with Zito, ethically clean because he isn’t hurting anybody. Nobody knows.
Zito is a good secret to keep, and he salts the windows and doors of every room they sleep in, mumbling to himself. He tapes long Xs on the window glass, too, biting off strips with his teeth, telling Danny that the wind is dangerous. They have to be careful.
Danny has noticed the changes in him, the way that Zito doesn’t sleep much anymore and doesn’t call his mom and forgets what day he’s pitching until they get to the ballpark and he sees his name on the lineup card. Zito scratches at his arms until they’re red and raw, and Danny makes him stop.
A lot of things remain, though. Zito still puts his hand on Danny’s shoulder, guiding him through crowds. Zito gets drunk and explains to Danny that there’s no real difference between a splitter and a curve; it’s just deception and break. Zito says that he would walk through fire if Danny asked him to. Zito makes the best hot chocolate in the whole world. Zito is made strong by the parts of him that are shattering; if they survive this, they can survive anything.
There are spies in corner booths and alleys. Zito says that two guys in a black Cadillac have been following him around for weeks, city to city, hotel to ballpark to airport and home again.
Zito tells him one night, his face shadowed and solemn, “They’re watching us right now. They watch me all the time.”
Danny has always heard it said that Zito is a little nuts, even before he met him. He never realized that it was literal, though. Zito has a fault line in his mind, driven hard and deep, and the pressure grows by the day. All Danny can do is place his hand on Zito’s chest and swear to him, “If they want to get to you, they’re gonna have to go through me.”
*
Zito starts tracking Lasting Milledge’s movements. At considerable expense, he has the daily editions of the Virginian-Pilot couriered to his house, claiming uncertainly that there are differences between the physical pages of the newspaper and what’s posted on the website. Milledge is playing in the International League for the Norfolk Tides, and Zito tapes up articles about him, box scores, ads for white sales and ammunition.
The walls are being slowly colonized, covered over. Zito’s handwriting is cramped and scrawled in the margins, thick underlines seeping ink into the plaster.
He also collects anything that Billy Beane says, even when it’s only about the management group or the theorized new ballpark. Billy Beane is speaking in a code that only Zito can decipher. Zito’s fingers are worked hard by ballpoint pens, scruffing up the insides of Danny’s mouth.
Sitting on the floor, at least six different papers spread out on the coffee table, Zito chews on the pen cap and explains to Danny, “He’s more like Swisher than anyone else. More power. Can’t play first, or at least, he hasn’t tried yet. Can’t switch-hit. But he’s so fucking patient, man. Look at this.”
Zito jabs at a column of statistics. Danny leans forward on the couch, canting his head to the side, but the print is too small and anyway, Zito’s moved on to something else.
“That little theory of yours about pitching is bullshit, by the way.” Zito circles something, his forehead lined. “We went pretty fucking far on three pitchers, once upon a time. Now, there’s you, there’s Joe, there’s Rich. Three.”
“Tell me again about how far you went on three pitchers,” Danny says with a smirk, bending his fingers back to crack them. Zito darts a look up at him, the pen cap stuck out of the corner of his mouth like a short black cigarette.
“Don’t patronize me, Danny, people’ve killed for a team like we had.”
Danny lets that go, not particularly wanting to press Zito for specifics. “Nobody’s ready to rely on the three of us, anyway.”
“Of course not, but only because Richie’s disappeared. If he was a real person, if he was more than a figment of my fucking imagination, well.”
Danny smiles hesitantly. “Um. Richie’s real, dude. We just saw him today.”
Zito waves his hand as if the question of Rich Harden’s existence couldn’t possibly be less important. “Nothing’s real until it’s in the box score. You know, when Chavez broke his hand, Mulder used to call him ghost boy. And he was right too, it was like somebody’d scooped out everything inside him and we had this fucking puppet, walking around wearing Chavvy’s face.”
He spits out the pen cap and carefully dog-ears a corner of the newspaper, rolling it between his fingers until it’s soft as cotton. Danny wants very badly to take him to bed and force him to sleep. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone look as tired as Zito looks right now.
“Me and Chavvy, we used to fuck around, you know?” Zito says without looking at him.
Danny lifts his eyebrows. “Really.”
“Mmm.” Zito writes something down, chewing on the corner of his lip. “It was epic. I couldn’t breathe without him.”
Danny frowns. “What happened?”
“Ah. He cut me off. Murdered me. I was a wreck, felt like I was bleeding all the time.” He looks up, smiles strangely. “But then I got better.”
Leaning forward again, Danny tries to read what Zito’s been writing, but the letters are alien, crosses and scars. “I wouldn’t have thought. I mean, Chavvy’s so. Not.”
“Well, you don’t know, do you? You weren’t here, were you?”
Danny swallows, weaving his fingers together. He hates it when Zito throws that back in his face, the many years that they existed without being at all aware of each other. It seems impossible now, that he ever lived like that.
“No,” he admits. “It’s just surprising.”
He turns it over in his mind a few times, Chavez’s black hair against Zito’s untanned shoulder, the rough of Zito’s thumb on the scruff under Chavez’s lower lip. Chavez doesn’t seem to like Zito much, but if it ended as badly as Zito says, maybe that’s just a specific kind of broken heart.
Zito picks up his Swiss Army knife, slits it down the length of the newspaper, cutting out a long column. He folds the blade back against the underside of his chin, and stands. Danny hands him the tape, watches as Zito leans his knee on the arm of the couch and tapes the column up on the wall. Zito smooths the air pockets out of it, and sits back on his heel, one hand on Danny’s shoulder to steady himself.
Looking up at him, Danny is struck for probably the seven hundredth time how completely gone on Zito he is, terribly aware of the lengths to which he’ll go to make sure that Zito is kept safe. Zito’s eyes are tracking across the field of newspaper articles, jumping his fingers from one to another.
“There’s a pattern here,” he says quietly. “If I can just figure it out.”
Danny tips his head onto Zito’s bent leg, feeling the warmth of him and Zito’s hand carding absently through his hair. He thinks about patterns for awhile, knowing that the only thing properly ordered in Zito’s body is the beat of his heart.
*
onwards
Now then.
How long did it take for me to realize that my iPod can function as an external hard drive? How long did it take for me to realize that all my iPod is, is an external hard drive, capable of transporting things other than music (like DOCUMENTS) from place to place?
ahahahaha.
Deception and Break
Danny wakes up at four in the morning, and Zito’s gone.
The covers hold his shape, pushed back at the bottom because Zito likes to sleep with his feet sticking out. Danny fishes his boxers off the floor and puts them on, stumbles out in search.
Zito’s by the window in the living room, yesterday’s sports section spread out on the table in front of him. He’s got a ballpoint pen and city light, marking the hell out of the paper.
“Hey.” Danny yawns. “What’re you doing?”
Zito looks up sharply, the light behind him so that his eyes are way down like gouges. He taps his blackened fingers in a quick shuffle, smiling.
“Just keeping an eye on things.”
“Good.” Danny’s jeans are on the floor; Zito had been fast and hard against him, right through the door, burns on his knees. Pulling them on, Danny says, “I should go, anyway. It’s late.”
Zito’s head bobs, glancing back down at the paper and carefully underlining something. He scratches at the inside of his wrist with the pen, leaving lightning bolt shapes scrawled over thin blue veins.
“Billy’s sending me messages through the press,” Zito says, his eyes black-flashing.
“’Kay. Where’s my belt?”
“Stole it.” Zito’s dismissive, studying the paper intently. “I’m starting a collection.”
Danny rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”
Danny spots his T-shirt peeking out from under the couch and puts it on. He crosses to Zito and places his hand on Zito’s chin, tipping his face up. Zito’s skin is cool, goosebumps on his arms. The shadows fall out of his eyes with the change in angle, and Danny is able to kiss him goodbye without too much uncertainty.
“Get some sleep, man,” he says, licking across Zito’s lower lip and then drawing back.
Zito blinks up at him, painfully good-looking. Danny can’t believe his luck, sometimes.
“I gotta finish this.”
Danny pushes a hand across Zito’s forehead and it’s quiet enough that he can hear Zito’s wristwatch ticking. Zito only takes it off when he’s pitching; he wears it in the shower. Danny keeps that in his mind, easily navigating the dark apartment.
In the elevator, he notices that he’s got gray fingerprints of ink on his arm, just under his shirtsleeve. He wets his fingers and rubs it off, feeling his heart give a little bit as it disappears.
*
Danny remembers being stunned.
It had been in Phoenix last year, three official weeks into this new team. He’d been looking for fissures, cracks, places where he could get a handhold and wedge his way in. They were so tight, Chavez tackling Zito on the floor, Harden’s ankle hooked around Crosby's, jostling for space under the table.
Danny was keeping mostly quiet, a steady diet of energy bars making his vision fuzz at the edges. They were tearing the shit out of Mark Mulder’s house, which Crosby was subletting, and Zito was destructively mischievous, rearranging the furniture, chipping off paint and splinters of wood, writing in permanent ink on the walls.
Danny had come upon him out on the patio with one of Mulder’s golf clubs, whaling on the aluminum siding, each swing twanging a huge metallic burr into the air and leaving a heavy dent behind.
“Hey,” Danny had said helplessly, because this was far removed from his area of expertise. Zito had turned on him, panting and grinning like crazy. Danny thought that maybe this was just how the world worked out here. No one else seemed particularly concerned about Zito’s behavior, and then Zito was coming for him.
He dropped the golf club, wild sheen on his eyes, and pinned Danny up against the ruined wall. Took hold of Danny’s wrists and held him neatly down, fists tucked into the dents. Thin sweat shone on Zito’s throat, the porch light guttering and spinning, and Danny thought, thank god he noticed. He’d been waiting to sleep with Zito since approximately ten seconds after they met, and it’d gotten worse with each day.
He pressed up against Zito, felt how he was shivering from exertion. Zito, grinning and biting at his mouth, had been almost a stranger at that point, and when he’d finally let Danny go, Danny’s arms had immediately fallen around Zito’s shoulders, pulling him closer.
“Good trade, good trade,” Zito muttered against his mouth.
“You and him,” Danny tried to say, wanting somehow to place this in history, understand the things that came before to bring them to this point. Zito laughed and pushed his hand into Danny’s jeans.
“No, never.”
Zito’s hair was damp on Danny’s face. Danny was astonished, didn’t know then that Zito had a tendency to smile and lie.
*
Fifteen months later, Zito slumps down next to Danny on the plane and pushes white iPod headphones into his hand. Danny pulls out of a near doze and leans into Zito’s shoulder, liking the solidity of him and the rumble of the airplane around them.
“Listen to this,” Zito says, combing his hand quickly through Danny’s hair, trying to fit the headphones into his ears. Danny takes over and wedges them in place, sleepy and accepting of whatever Zito wants him to do.
Peter Gammons’s stuttery voice comes to him, talking about the trade deadline. “What is this?” Danny asks, because he’d been expecting music.
“Podcast,” Zito answers. He tugs his St. Christopher out of his shirt, winding the chain around his fingers. “Listen.”
Danny does, haphazardly, really only trying to hear one of their teammates’ names, watching Zito’s fingers twist and gleam silver. He wonders if he can convince Zito to go make out in the bathroom.
The podcast ends without mention of the Oakland A’s. Danny gives Zito a questioning look. Closing his hand tight on the medallion, Zito scowls at him.
“Didn’t you hear it?”
Danny shrugs, wanting to put his hand on the side of Zito’s neck.
“The thing, West Coast sources. You didn’t hear that?” Zito lets the medallion fall loose, and takes the iPod back, spinning the wheel to rewind it.
“Um. Wasn’t he talking about the Dodgers?”
“Read between the lines, Daniel. Here. Listen closer this time.” Zito presses his hand down on Danny’s ear, making everything echo. Danny sighs and listens to Gammons talking again, but he doesn’t know what Zito’s getting at. West Coast sources report that the Dodgers are talking to the Cubs, but that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with them.
Danny plays along, nodding. “Oh, sure. Right. Dude.”
Zito’s eyes are big and frightened. “You see? You see?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Zito’s hand slides back into Danny’s hair. “We’ve got to do something about this.” He pets Danny absently, his face blue-lit by the iPod’s screen. Danny wants to check his palm and see if the St. Christopher made an impression.
“Whatever you want, man.” Danny is slightly undone by the movement of Zito’s hand. He’s easily persuaded, talked into almost anything.
Zito’s fingers skip off Danny’s neck and he looks past to the window. There’s a jittering nervousness in the set of his jaw, the corners of his mouth. “Hate flying,” he whispers. “We can’t let them do this to us.”
Danny yawns. Zito looks at him with an oddly soft expression on his face. Trying to smile, Danny falls asleep.
*
Danny has lost three shoes and two T-shirts and a belt so far this year. He’s pretty sure that if he searches Zito’s apartment, he’ll find most if not all, this collection that Zito’s keeping. It’s a little weird, but Danny can forgive it because he wants souvenirs too. He carries one of Zito’s guitar picks around in his back pocket constantly, a note that Zito left him once, turns out that you are in actuality the best I’ve ever had, folded carefully into his wallet.
He goes over to Zito’s room through the connecting door, finds him by the window, little white packets in his hands.
“Hey. You ready to go?”
Zito whips around, startled. A spray of crystalline white flies from his hand. Danny lifts his eyebrows. “What is that?”
“Salt.” Zito clears his throat, resumes his work at the window. He’s pouring the salt in skinny lines along the sill. Danny looks around and sees a similar line in front of the hallway door. He looks down and sees another under his feet, salt ground into the carpet.
“Okay,” Danny says slowly. “Should I even ask?”
“Probably better if you don’t,” Zito mutters, not facing him. He rips open another packet with his teeth, spits out paper. “You’ve got a standing invitation; mustn’t affect you. Not you I have to worry about, of course.”
He’s talking under his breath, tapping out the salt. Danny sits on the bed, watching him with his hands woven between his knees. Zito absently swipes a hand across his cheek and leaves a wing of silvery white behind.
“The guys are waiting,” Danny tells him, his mouth dry.
“’m almost done.” Two more packets and Zito straightens, brushes off his hands. “All right.”
He’s barefoot, tousled, but Zito could roll out of bed and look fine in a club. He carries it with him, clean assurance from a lifetime of success in everything he ever tried. He studies Danny for a moment, his eyes lighting up.
“Hey.” Zito crosses and pushes Danny by his shoulders back on the bed. Danny’s breath catches, the light on the ceiling perfectly outlining Zito’s head. Straddling his hips, leaning down to him, Zito says conversationally, “You’re kinda stupidly hot, you know that?”
Danny grins hysterically. “Yeah, well.” He pushes up and licks the salt off Zito’s face, gets a long kiss for his trouble.
“Are they really waiting for us?” Zito murmurs, grinding against him and flattening his hands under Danny’s shirt. “Because we’re safe now, protected. Can’t touch us in here.”
Danny doesn’t understand what Zito’s talking about, but that’s nothing new. He can’t think about anything except the weight of Zito on him, Zito’s mouth on his throat, stray pieces of salt dissolving on Danny’s ribs. He fists his hands in Zito’s shirt and they can be late. Nothing’s more important than this.
*
“Lastings Milledge,” Zito snarls, and Danny wakes up. He jerks, Zito’s hand heavy on his shoulder, Zito’s teeth brushing his ear.
“What? What?” Danny’s blank with confusion, white-minded. He was dreaming of Zito going down on him against a mirror, perspective all fucked up, seeing Zito’s head duck again and again in the reflection. He’s still half-hard and Zito’s speaking in tongues.
“Lastings Milledge. Beane’s in love with him.”
Danny turns his head, moaning a little. Zito’s hard white smile cuts into him. “Right. Fucking time is it?”
Zito’s hand narrows into a point, poking Danny’s shoulder. Danny slides closer to him unthinkingly, gravitation and the magnetic field that surrounds Zito.
“Billy. Is going to trade me. For Lastings Milledge.” He punctuates with jabs, dime-sized bruises that Danny can feel forming.
“You’re talking shit,” Danny mumbles, pushes his arm over Zito’s side and sighs into his throat. Zito is trembling with energy, his pulse hammering like it can escape his skin.
“Danny. Listen to me.” Zito smooths Danny’s hair back, angling his face up. Zito’s eyes are shining, anger in the tight draw of his cheek and his hands cradling Danny’s head. “Do you want me to get traded?”
Danny narrows his eyes. “You know I don’t.”
“Okay. Okay. Don’t lie to me, Dan, I couldn’t take it.” Zito runs his hand down Danny’s face. “You, you’ve got to help me.”
Rolling over onto his back and pushing himself up to sit against the headboard, Danny takes in the fact that Zito’s wearing jeans again, which he definitely wasn’t the last time Danny saw him. His face is pallored, color shrunk back by hours in front of his laptop, which is glowing blue on the table by the window. Zito twines his hand in Danny’s hair, gazing at him plaintively.
Danny hums to settle him, thinking for a moment. “Mets prospect, right?” Zito nods quickly. “You heard this from somewhere?”
“ESPN.com.”
Danny rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Jesus, you can’t believe that shit. They’ll write anything, you know that.”
Zito tugs sharply at his hair and Danny curses him. Zito’s mouth curls in a sneer, which is a pretty good look on him, and Danny touches Zito’s hip, pushing his fingers under his jeans.
“Look. Billy can’t trade you unless he gets pitching back, real fucking solid pitching that’s pennant-ready right now. Which the Mets aren’t gonna offer. So fuck Lastings Milledge. And calm down.”
Exhaling, Zito presses his teeth into his lower lip and thumbs Danny’s ear. He puts his forehead for a moment on Danny’s collarbone, flat and warm, and then sits up again, blowing up to get his hair out of his eyes. They both need haircuts, Danny thinks.
“He’s been trying to trade me for years, man,” Zito says low. “I can’t keep living like this.” He looks hollow and washed out, his shoulders slumped.
Danny puts his arms around him, yawning into the perfect curve of Zito’s shoulder, vultures at the salted windows. He murmurs comforting things until Zito is motionless and quiet, but Danny is vaguely aware of Zito getting up again an hour or two later, feeling the scrape of denim along his arm, half-opening his eyes to see Zito framed by the city window and washed with blue light, his edges bleeding into the glass.
*
When they get back, Danny goes home to his fiancée, as always a little surprised to find her in his house.
He recaps the trip, omitting certain parts that would only cause her pain. She deftly talks trash about the New York Yankees and he grins foolishly, delighted by her. They eat on the back porch, twilight turning the sky into a day-old bruise.
It’s later, after they’ve turned off the lights, that Danny’s cell phone goes off, spitting chimes. Danny wants to ignore it, warm and comfortable in his own bed, but it presses like a headache behind his eyes and eventually he gets up.
Zito is talking fast, almost out of breath, “Danny, Danny, you gotta come out here.”
“What’s wrong?” Something spurs in Danny at the sound of Zito’s voice, all broken and frantic.
“Somebody broke into my place.”
“What? When?” Danny is already reaching for his pants, imagining broken glass, snapped deadbolts. His fiancée is far asleep; she’s slept through earthquakes, much worse than this.
“I wasn’t fucking here, Danny, I don’t know when.” Zito’s voice cracks. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah, yeah. Course I am. Be there in twenty.”
Zito’s door looks normal. When Danny knocks, the shadows of Zito’s feet appear under the door and he won’t let Danny in until he slides his driver’s license under to prove that he is who he says he is. Zito’s eyes are blacked out with fear.
“You don’t recognize my voice?” Danny asks, trying to inject some levity into the situation, hating the glazed plastic cast of Zito’s features.
“I don’t recognize anything. Come on, they might still be around.”
Zito’s got Danny’s arm held tight, dragging him inside. Zito huddles close to him, hooking his hands in Danny’s belt. Danny takes a look around but everything seems to be in place. “What’s missing?”
“I don’t know, it’s not, there’s nothing physical.” Zito rubs his face in the place between Danny’s shoulder blades. “I know someone’s been in here.”
“Wait a minute.” Danny turns and takes hold of Zito’s shoulders. “Nothing’s missing? Your door wasn’t jimmied. What makes you think somebody broke in?”
“I know,” Zito insists, thumping his fists on Danny’s chest. “I can feel it.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, dude.” Danny sighs in exasperation and runs a hand through his hair, tired and sick of Zito’s paranoia, how easily he was suckered. “You’re crazy.”
Zito’s face contorts, and he shoves Danny as hard as he can. Danny trips and lands solidly on his back, knocking the wind out of him in a whoosh. Zito stands above him with his fists clenched, his face flushed.
“Don’t call me crazy.”
“Jesus,” Danny gasps, trying to catch his breath. He’s suddenly afraid, because if Zito wants to hit him or kick him or beat him bloody, Danny doesn’t think he’ll be able to fight back. Some kind of sin, to hit a face like that.
Zito looks like he’s honestly considering it, and Danny suspects that his difficulty breathing is not entirely due to having the wind knocked out of him. Eventually, though, Zito’s hands loosen and regret flashes across his face. He sits down on the floor, taking his head in his hands.
“Danny,” Zito says softly. Danny can only see the bow of his head, his fine hands sliding through his hair. “I’m sorry I pushed you.”
Danny sits up, his heart jackrabbiting. “It’s okay.”
“I’m not crazy.”
Danny cautiously lays his hand on Zito’s head, tangling it with Zito’s own when Zito doesn’t jerk away. “I know. I don’t think you are, man, I just. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Someone was here,” Zito says to the floor. Danny nods, though Zito can’t see it, stroking his thumb across the back of Zito’s hand.
“Okay.”
“I didn’t have time to put the salt down.” Zito sounds absolutely heartbroken, and Danny can’t stand him like that, something elemental and powerful making it imperative that he fix this, as soon as possible, before he takes another breath.
“I’ll do it now, okay? You just. Just wait here. I’ll do it real quick.”
He stands, and Zito takes his hands away, looks up at him, sleepless red-rimmed eyes and slack mouth. Danny attempts a smile, trying not to think about how totally fucking bizarre his life has become, how normal has become the outlier, the stranger.
*
Zito tastes like rain or steam or something like that. He makes Danny daydream about drowning.
Last year, when Danny lived in San Francisco and wasn’t engaged, he spent most of his free time over at Zito’s place, chalk on the sidewalks, pretty sea views. Zito slept everywhere like a cat, and there were colorful radio station and surf shop decals covering the entire surface of his kitchen table.
Danny was half-obsessed with him for the first few months, before he’d mostly gotten over Zito’s jagged laugh and habit of blowing Danny when he got bored. Until then, though, he bought Zito books and records and calcium gummies from Trader Joe’s because Zito couldn’t abide milk.
Zito talked in his sleep and sometimes he talked to people who weren’t there, but Danny wasn’t overly concerned about that, figured Zito was the type of guy who needed to say things out loud for them to count. Zito lit matches just to watch them burn, dropping them into a water glass when they were black and curled.
He’d told Danny about being on Letterman and going up to the roof, pitching at a window on the building opposite, and it had taken him three tries before he’d shattered it.
Zito started throwing baseballs at his own windows after that, but Danny had stopped him after two, laughing so hard he almost passed out. They’d slept on the floor, cold in the stinging wind, pieces of glass falling in with small bell-like sounds. The next morning, Danny had stood beside Zito in front of the building superintendent, swearing that the broken windows were an accident.
He was impossible to predict. Weeks and months passed without rhythm or sense, until Danny felt like he was losing his grip on reality, his thoughts fractured and unbound, his hands shaking all the time. Danny became aware that Zito had managed to get in him like blood, and he panicked a little, backed right the fuck off.
Zito let him go, occupied with the voices inside his head and the thoughtlessly cruel pranks he liked to pull on Eric Chavez. Danny, wounded, sulked around for awhile with an ache like a muscle strain in his chest, slept with a lot of girls and found himself dating one seriously after the All-Star break.
Zito didn’t seem to care at all, so Danny cornered him in the video room and demanded answers. Guileless, smiling, Zito had shrugged and said, “I thought I did something to piss you off. I don’t know what, though, so I’m not sorry.”
Danny almost put him through the wall. Zito’s head snapped back against the cinderblocks, and his eyes went dazed and shocky. He locked his hands around Danny’s wrists, Danny gripping his shirt, said breathlessly, “Fuck, do that again.”
Second time around, Zito got progressively more erratic, coloring his palms with magic marker and leaving smeary handprints on Danny’s skin, dirtily kissing him in a club in front of the whole world. Once, Danny walked in on Zito having a screaming fight with whoever it was that he saw when he was alone.
Time never regained its structure. Danny moved in with his girlfriend and eventually asked her to marry him, and he keeps fucking around with Zito, ethically clean because he isn’t hurting anybody. Nobody knows.
Zito is a good secret to keep, and he salts the windows and doors of every room they sleep in, mumbling to himself. He tapes long Xs on the window glass, too, biting off strips with his teeth, telling Danny that the wind is dangerous. They have to be careful.
Danny has noticed the changes in him, the way that Zito doesn’t sleep much anymore and doesn’t call his mom and forgets what day he’s pitching until they get to the ballpark and he sees his name on the lineup card. Zito scratches at his arms until they’re red and raw, and Danny makes him stop.
A lot of things remain, though. Zito still puts his hand on Danny’s shoulder, guiding him through crowds. Zito gets drunk and explains to Danny that there’s no real difference between a splitter and a curve; it’s just deception and break. Zito says that he would walk through fire if Danny asked him to. Zito makes the best hot chocolate in the whole world. Zito is made strong by the parts of him that are shattering; if they survive this, they can survive anything.
There are spies in corner booths and alleys. Zito says that two guys in a black Cadillac have been following him around for weeks, city to city, hotel to ballpark to airport and home again.
Zito tells him one night, his face shadowed and solemn, “They’re watching us right now. They watch me all the time.”
Danny has always heard it said that Zito is a little nuts, even before he met him. He never realized that it was literal, though. Zito has a fault line in his mind, driven hard and deep, and the pressure grows by the day. All Danny can do is place his hand on Zito’s chest and swear to him, “If they want to get to you, they’re gonna have to go through me.”
*
Zito starts tracking Lasting Milledge’s movements. At considerable expense, he has the daily editions of the Virginian-Pilot couriered to his house, claiming uncertainly that there are differences between the physical pages of the newspaper and what’s posted on the website. Milledge is playing in the International League for the Norfolk Tides, and Zito tapes up articles about him, box scores, ads for white sales and ammunition.
The walls are being slowly colonized, covered over. Zito’s handwriting is cramped and scrawled in the margins, thick underlines seeping ink into the plaster.
He also collects anything that Billy Beane says, even when it’s only about the management group or the theorized new ballpark. Billy Beane is speaking in a code that only Zito can decipher. Zito’s fingers are worked hard by ballpoint pens, scruffing up the insides of Danny’s mouth.
Sitting on the floor, at least six different papers spread out on the coffee table, Zito chews on the pen cap and explains to Danny, “He’s more like Swisher than anyone else. More power. Can’t play first, or at least, he hasn’t tried yet. Can’t switch-hit. But he’s so fucking patient, man. Look at this.”
Zito jabs at a column of statistics. Danny leans forward on the couch, canting his head to the side, but the print is too small and anyway, Zito’s moved on to something else.
“That little theory of yours about pitching is bullshit, by the way.” Zito circles something, his forehead lined. “We went pretty fucking far on three pitchers, once upon a time. Now, there’s you, there’s Joe, there’s Rich. Three.”
“Tell me again about how far you went on three pitchers,” Danny says with a smirk, bending his fingers back to crack them. Zito darts a look up at him, the pen cap stuck out of the corner of his mouth like a short black cigarette.
“Don’t patronize me, Danny, people’ve killed for a team like we had.”
Danny lets that go, not particularly wanting to press Zito for specifics. “Nobody’s ready to rely on the three of us, anyway.”
“Of course not, but only because Richie’s disappeared. If he was a real person, if he was more than a figment of my fucking imagination, well.”
Danny smiles hesitantly. “Um. Richie’s real, dude. We just saw him today.”
Zito waves his hand as if the question of Rich Harden’s existence couldn’t possibly be less important. “Nothing’s real until it’s in the box score. You know, when Chavez broke his hand, Mulder used to call him ghost boy. And he was right too, it was like somebody’d scooped out everything inside him and we had this fucking puppet, walking around wearing Chavvy’s face.”
He spits out the pen cap and carefully dog-ears a corner of the newspaper, rolling it between his fingers until it’s soft as cotton. Danny wants very badly to take him to bed and force him to sleep. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone look as tired as Zito looks right now.
“Me and Chavvy, we used to fuck around, you know?” Zito says without looking at him.
Danny lifts his eyebrows. “Really.”
“Mmm.” Zito writes something down, chewing on the corner of his lip. “It was epic. I couldn’t breathe without him.”
Danny frowns. “What happened?”
“Ah. He cut me off. Murdered me. I was a wreck, felt like I was bleeding all the time.” He looks up, smiles strangely. “But then I got better.”
Leaning forward again, Danny tries to read what Zito’s been writing, but the letters are alien, crosses and scars. “I wouldn’t have thought. I mean, Chavvy’s so. Not.”
“Well, you don’t know, do you? You weren’t here, were you?”
Danny swallows, weaving his fingers together. He hates it when Zito throws that back in his face, the many years that they existed without being at all aware of each other. It seems impossible now, that he ever lived like that.
“No,” he admits. “It’s just surprising.”
He turns it over in his mind a few times, Chavez’s black hair against Zito’s untanned shoulder, the rough of Zito’s thumb on the scruff under Chavez’s lower lip. Chavez doesn’t seem to like Zito much, but if it ended as badly as Zito says, maybe that’s just a specific kind of broken heart.
Zito picks up his Swiss Army knife, slits it down the length of the newspaper, cutting out a long column. He folds the blade back against the underside of his chin, and stands. Danny hands him the tape, watches as Zito leans his knee on the arm of the couch and tapes the column up on the wall. Zito smooths the air pockets out of it, and sits back on his heel, one hand on Danny’s shoulder to steady himself.
Looking up at him, Danny is struck for probably the seven hundredth time how completely gone on Zito he is, terribly aware of the lengths to which he’ll go to make sure that Zito is kept safe. Zito’s eyes are tracking across the field of newspaper articles, jumping his fingers from one to another.
“There’s a pattern here,” he says quietly. “If I can just figure it out.”
Danny tips his head onto Zito’s bent leg, feeling the warmth of him and Zito’s hand carding absently through his hair. He thinks about patterns for awhile, knowing that the only thing properly ordered in Zito’s body is the beat of his heart.
*
onwards