by Chris Lynch
But.
But.
I needed something different than I needed last year or the year before.
And after an hour of this, he appeared. Walking up over the hill that led to the field, I recognized Napoleon Charlie Ellis’s rigid upright stride from well off. I walked to meet him partway, and when I reached him on the left-field sideline, he looked serious. He smiled, but it wasn’t an easy smile.
Maybe it was the clothes.
“Why would you wear your school stuff to baseball, man? In fact, why would you wear your school clothes at all, since you didn’t go to school?”
“I went to the choir school today,” he said evenly. “And I have not been home to change yet.”
“Oh,” I said, and let that hang there. I sort of wanted him to do the talking. He owed me an explanation, after all. Going to that place without even telling me. He owed me an explanation.
“You don’t owe me any explanation,” I said finally, coolly.
“It is a very nice place,” he said.
He was doing the talking, but I had to bring him along. Had to get him to say what I wanted before he made the mistake of saying what I didn’t want.
“You gonna play in those clothes?”
“I think I won’t play today.”
“What?” I said. I looked up at the perfect baseball sky, the perfect baseball day, then at Napoleon. He knew what I meant.
“Come on, will ya?” Manny called from the field. “It’s your ups, Richard. You wanna hit, or no?”
“So what are you doing here?” I asked.
This time he smiled for real. He drew two tickets out of his pocket. For the Red Sox’ first Saturday home game of the season, against the Oakland A’s. First-base line. Right behind the coach’s box.
My mouth hung open.
“They were a gift,” Napoleon said. “It appears these people really want me to attend their school.”
“For this, I’ll go to their corny music school,” I said, still staring at the tickets.
“Actually I believe the deal is, they said I could give you one if you promised not to ever sing again.”
“Deal,” I said, snatching the ticket away.
But as soon as I did, I felt as if I’d traded something that I didn’t want to trade. There was now officially no such thing as a purely good thing.
Napoleon nodded. “So go back to your game now. I just wanted to tell you that.” He started walking away.
“There’s still time,” I said. “You could change and come back.”
I was looking at his back, then to the field, almost placing him there in the game with my eyes.
“I am just too tired,” he said. I watched his back as he walked. Looked like he was telling the truth.
And sounded like he knew what he was doing.
“So they really want you bad, huh?” I asked.
“Yes they do,” he answered. “It is a nice feeling, actually.”
I turned back toward the field, where somebody was trying to take my turn at bat. “Ya, I guess,” I said.
GOLD DUST
FENWAY IS CONSIDERED A small park. One of the smallest in the major league. A bandbox, they call it.
But Fenway was enormous to me. In every way. When you approached from the outside on Jersey Street on a game day, the size of everything was enough to blow you right over. The crowds of people could crush you, moving the way they do more in circles than in a straight line toward the entrances. The sausage sellers, themselves mostly pretty giant guys, had big voices on them that went over and through even the wildest fans. We stood there for a couple of minutes that day, me and Napoleon, and even though there was that constant fear that the movement of people could crush us or, at the very least, bounce us right out onto the Mass Turnpike if we weren’t lucky, we had to stop and stare.
The exposed green girders that held up the stands all around were about the most massive hunks of steel I had ever seen. There were loads of taller buildings around, especially the Prudential and the Hancock towers, which we could see just as well if we decided to turn a few degrees one way. But for my money there was nothing this big anywhere in the whole city. Fenway made a constant rumble and roar on a game day, and even seemed to be laughing, in a way a giant would laugh. It was scary, in a way. But a thrilling scare.
“I have not seen anything like this,” Napoleon said, as bigger people rushed past, bumping me into Napoleon, and him into me. “Carnival, in Trinidad, is a spectacle and very exciting. But that,” he pointed up at the highest bit of the grandstand and then at the huge mouth of the entrance dead ahead of us, “that is like a monster that swallows people and then hollers for more.”
I was pleased. There was the thing, right there, that kept us going. Whatever little things went wrong and whatever little signs came up that we were just too different... bam, he would come up with the goods and remind me that we were not that far apart at all, when you dug underneath and got to what was really in there. That was why I could keep knowing things would work out right.
Was the place magic, or what?
“So,” I said, “you want to let it swallow us?”
“Let’s.”
In we went, with the crush of people narrowing and narrowing through the gate until it felt like we would be squeezed through the eye of a needle eventually. But we got through, and ran up the concrete ramp that delivered us, like some kind of fantastic trick, into the inside/outside of Fenway Park.
The grass that spilled wide and far in front of us was the greenest grass you would ever see. And it led, like a carpet, out and out to the walls of the outfield, telling us when it got there just how far it had traveled. Painted in yellow on each bit of wall, three hundred and fifteen feet to the foul pole in right, four hundred and five to dead center, and, famously, a mere two hundred seventy-nine feet down the line in left. You would think almost anybody could hit a ball out of the park in Fenway’s left field. Except that at the end of the line was the Green Monster—a piece of wall that went up, and up and up, thirty feet up, and topped by the nets to catch balls that actually did clear it and keep them from konking heads out there on the street. And the old mechanical scoreboard was built right into that wall, with little squirrelly people inside working to post all the results from Fenway and every other game in the country.
It was impossible that anybody, anybody in the world, could stand here and not be swept totally away by it. That’s what I thought then, and I was sure Napoleon Charlie Ellis was thinking the same thing. I was dead certain of it.
“So they want you bad over there at that singing school,” I said, still looking off. “How soon?”
“Whenever. I can go next week, if I like. Though next September is probably what they are thinking about.”
That was a test. It was like Napoleon was a turkey in the oven and I had just poked him with a fork to see if he was done. If he was done, he would have said, Ah, what singing school. Why would I leave all this for some dumb old singing school? He would have said, I’m sticking with you, twin. He would have said, This is the dream, right here, us at Fenway Park, not warbling away in some church choir someplace.
He was not done yet. Not quite ready. But he would be soon. He had to be. Nothing else made sense.
Fenway Park, though, had to do the work. The Red Sox would do the work, better than anything I could say. “Hmm,” was all I did say. Then I let myself drift away from that again.
You could not avoid the smell of grass, and popcorn, and hot dogs, even if you held your nose. You could not avoid the music of John Kiley’s organ if you blocked your ears, because it would come up from the floor and travel through your legs and your whole body to reach your brain. And when Sherm Feller the announcer, with that voice so much deeper and thicker than any human sound I ever heard anywhere else, announced that it was time for us to stand for the national anthem, Napoleon and I scrambled, realizing that we had once again been caught flatfooted and staring, like a couple of yokels
up to the big city for the day. This was a new experience for Napoleon, but for me there was no excuse.
When we were finally seated, it was a thrill all over again. I had never had seats this good before.
“Can you believe how close we are to the players?” I said in his ear. “Look how white their uniforms are.”
“That is what cricket players look like all the time,” he said. “As if they do their laundry every time they leave the playing field. Actually I prefer Oakland’s uniforms.”
“Cripes,” I said. The A’s, because they had a nutty owner named Charlie O. Finley, who brought his pet donkey for a mascot and paid his players to wear waxed 1890s mustaches, wore the most bizarre outfits in the game. Dark green shirts and yellow hats. It was just crazy.
“And I like their mustaches,” Napoleon added.
I couldn’t help it. Maybe this was one of those moments Beverly likes to point out, where my baseball-mania is over the top and I lose perspective. But I was getting bothered. By the way Napoleon was looking at the A’s, and the way he was looking at The Game. The uniforms and facial hair were not the point. In fact, they were distracting from the point.
Baseball people didn’t love Charlie O. Finley and his quirks. Baseball people loved baseball.
And Boston people loved the Red Sox. Not the A’s.
But all this stuff fell gradually away once the game started. I wouldn’t really have noticed whether they were playing at Fenway, or Wrigley in Chicago with its ivy-covered outfield wall, or Kansas City with its fountain just beyond the fence in center. Luis Tiant was pitching, and the A’s—Billy North and Joe Rudi and Reggie Jackson and Sal Bando—were hitting.
Tiant was amazing. He was famous for his delivery, which had him spin completely around so that he was facing center field in the middle of his windup before coming in after the hitter. He was so good, and so fascinating to watch, that he was working on his third hitter when I was nudged by Napoleon and looked up. He had left and come back with two hot dogs and two Cokes.
“Wow, thanks,” I said.
He gestured toward Tiant. “He is really funny, the way he does that.”
I knew he bought me a hot dog and everything, but this was serious.
“He’s not funny. He’s a genius.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
We went back to watching, and Tiant finished off the side.
“This is when the good stuff starts,” I said, munching hot dogs with Napoleon. “The Sox hitters. Yaz and Burleson and Dwight Evans, and, of course...”
I was pretty obvious with my cue, but I wanted to be sure he got it.
“Right,” Napoleon said. “The... Gold Dust Twins.”
There was a slight hitch in there. Like the words didn’t quite leap to mind. Those words should have been leaping to mind.
I patted him on the back. He patted me on the back. I saw I had gotten mustard on his back, and I coolly took my napkin and dabbed at it without telling him. When he started doing the same move, we both laughed.
“All right,” I said when the game started up again.
Catfish Hunter was pitching for Oakland, which was good and bad. Good, because we got to see one of the all-time great pitchers. Bad because he would probably strike a lot of guys out, which means not a lot of hits, which can be a bummer. Not to mention he could win by doing that.
“Catfish,” Napoleon said. “That is a colorful nickname. Why is he called Catfish?”
I looked at him for a second. I started to talk, restarted. I was suddenly embarrassed, as if somehow this reflected badly on me. “Finley, the owner, gave it to him. Made it up out of nowhere, because he thought it sounded good.”
Napoleon nodded, but his face told it all. He smiled kindly on me like I was responsible and he felt bad for me.
I had known that story for a long time. It never mattered to me before. Now telling it to Napoleon made me hear how stupid it was. Why did I have to hear that? Why did I even have to think about that?
By the time I had taken the last sip of my drink, the great pitcher with the awful nickname had easily retired the first three Red Sox he had faced. The Twins would have to wait.
During the break I turned to make conversation with Napoleon, but he was staring off. I followed his line of vision out to the big neon Citgo sign outside the park, stretching up from the top of a building in Kenmore Square. It was this busy, moving, pulsating triangle of light that was so central to any Sox television broadcast, you would think the thing was sitting in the middle of the field.
“I like that sign,” Napoleon said. He looked half asleep.
“That old thing?” I asked. “I guess it’s all right. I personally think right-handed batters try too hard to jerk a ball into that sign. But I guess it looks okay.”
“My father works right over there,” he said, indicating the square, where Boston University was spread all up and down Commonwealth Avenue.
I hadn’t thought about this before, but as soon as he mentioned it, I felt like asking. “Ya,” I said, “about that. You think he’ll work there for a long time? Like, you’ll stay?”
Napoleon shrugged. “This position may be long-term,” he said, but without a lot of feeling. “No problem.”
The players were filing back onto the field, but I was not ready for them yet.
“What does that mean, no problem?”
“It means, I don’t mind. I have moved before. I can move again.”
No problem. He didn’t mind. No problem.
Maybe I was mistaken. All the way through. Maybe all those times I thought Napoleon just wasn’t understanding one thing or another I had it all backward. Maybe when I thought he was always cool, always trying to keep himself under control and all, maybe he wasn’t trying at all.
Maybe... maybe there was nothing to control in the first place. Maybe there was nothing there. Maybe he didn’t feel anything in the same way I felt it.
Maybe he didn’t care.
“From here? You wouldn’t mind leaving?”
I had to check. I somehow figured that by rewording it, he would see it more as I would.
“No, I wouldn’t mind, I guess,” he said, turning his attention to the field.
“Oh,” I said. Turning mine.
“Did you say ow?” he asked.
“’Course not,” I said. “I said oh.” Stupid thing to ask a guy. Ow means you’re hurt. Oh means... you really don’t care.
Jim Rice. I nudged Napoleon. He nodded. He had a power, Rice did, that was a lot more noticeable in person than on TV. Even though he was mighty powerful on TV. The crowd gave him a loud cheer, very excited. Very impressive treatment for a rookie. A knowledgeable crowd.
And Rice looked anxious to unleash his power for them. But Catfish wasn’t all about power, and he was a crafty vet to Rice’s eager rookie. It took exactly three pitches for him to send the first Twin back to the dugout. But it was a very powerful strikeout.
And then it was Lynn. And when Lynn came up, something happened. Half the crowd stood. A semi-standing ovation. The sound was thunderous, and John Kiley helped it along with some big fat organ chords he must have been playing with his feet. I stood. It was impossible to resist. Fred Lynn was the thing, the man, what we had been waiting for in Boston since the Sox’ last World Series victory in 1918.
Napoleon Charlie Ellis sat.
Three pitches later, we were all sitting again. Including Fred Lynn.
“Hunter pitched him really tough,” I said, sort of apologizing for my man. “How come you weren’t up on your feet?”
“These people love Fred Lynn,” he said. Not an answer.
“What’s not to love?” I said. “It’s okay to stand up when you get excited, you know.”
“He struck out.”
“Happens to the best of them sometimes.”
“So it does,” he said.
It went about like that for most of the game, a classic pitcher’s duel. Which is a great thing if you are a baseball purist.
But it’s deadly if you are trying to introduce a newcomer. Napoleon’s attention was constantly wandering, and once it hit him how expensive it was to kill time at Fenway by snacking, that too lost its attraction. He was having much less of a fine time than I thought he would. You could feel it, in the space between us. He was drifting away.
We were standing for the seventh-inning stretch.
“Is the game over?” he asked. He did not sound disappointed.
“No. This is just the point where they figure you need to loosen up a bit.”
“Oh,” he said.
“So what do you think, Napoleon?” I asked.
They say that baseball is a fine art, an acquired taste for the newcomer. One that takes time to learn to appreciate, and maybe I should have prepared Napoleon better. Because it must have been impatience that made him come out with the answer he did.
“I think maybe it is the boredom element which keeps black people from coming here.”
I did not even know where to begin to respond to that. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. So I considered the angles, considered the approach, considered Napoleon’s point of view, considered the sport, the park, the teams, considered Catfish Hunter’s unfortunately masterful day. And still nothing came out.
So I looked. Followed again Napoleon’s line of vision, up our side of the stands, into the right-field bleachers, across sun-bleached center field, over to the third base line, behind home plate, up into the grandstands, down into the boxes, rounding the final turn like a runner trying to score, and finally back, all the way up to us, up to where I met Napoleon Charlie Ellis’s face right up in mine.
“Is it always like that?” he asked.
I waited. We sat down again as the stretch ended. I started watching the game, even though the game had not yet started back up.