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I have a recurring dream about my father and me, one of the few pleasant dreams I have about him. We're both in our late thirties, though he's in better shape than he's ever been. We're at Fenway Stadium, in the right field bleachers, a few rows from Ted Williams' red seat.
I see a pack of cigarettes bulging from his shirt pocket. Our square faces and hairless arms are similar. I have not wanted to be like him since I was a child, but in my dreams and for a short time after waking up, I do not mind looking like his son.
The stands are empty. No game, no batting, but we are watching something. It is as bright as day, though it feels like night, like late August. An invisible ball thumps against the hard plastic seats. My father jumps up and down the rows, using the benches as a ladder. He is light and agile – he moves in a way I have never seen him. I know he is going to take a souvenir for us. He disappears. I wait.
I spent a lot of time at Fenway when I was a kid. The house was bustling, and my brother David would tell me to grab a glove. At first, I thought we were going to play ball outside or my dad would take us to practice grounders and flyball. But when my dad said, “Get a coat because it might be cold,” I knew we were going to Fenway.
We would drive there in my dad’s amber ale Catalina with chrome bumpers and door handles. I don’t know what model it was, but it had a Pontiac nose and a black vinyl roof that looked like a crew cut. My dad never seemed to worry about traffic. He would drive slowly along the shoulder or race down side streets to find a place to park. If he couldn’t find one, there was always some secret spot he knew about or an old friend’s gas station nearby. He always tried to get “closer.”
I was four years old the first time I went to a game. It was the only time I remember walking in the park. It was a hot, foggy Saturday. My father, my brother, my sister and I drove east on Charles Street, cut across to Beacon Street, and finally turned left onto Lansdowne Street. On the hot pavement, through the smell of sausage grease, the hot and sweet green peppers and onions. In the shadow of the Monster. In the silent network above. The shouts of vendors: “Get your hats, get your books!” Through the turnstiles and tunnels. Bright sun at the end of the runway, a growing general hum, and then out.
We were sitting in the lower bleachers, just beyond the shade of the awning. The announcements over the PA sounded like one of Charlie Brown’s teachers chanting, “Wow, wow, wow,” but I felt it in my stomach, not my ear. The Red Sox were on the field. They were playing Milwaukee. Roger Moret was pitching—or maybe I’m confusing my memories—and we lost. But we didn’t lose to the Brewers at home that year, and Moret never started. Did it matter?
I was used to seeing the players through the lens of the center field camera, a Saturday night game with a homemade Italian sandwich on my lap and a cold grape Funny Face. But in person, the colors were astounding. Our RCA CRT console couldn’t even begin to do them justice: Yaz’s bright red 8; the players’ high, bright stirrups and white socks; the turf walls; the emerald-pine, double-cut turf. Everything black had turned blue.
I didn’t know what to do, so I watched my dad. Someone would get up, sit down, or walk out, but he would take his time, counting runs. He would go half an inning without writing anything down, then quickly draw those statistical glyphs that I still love to study. Most days, he would sit and smile and enjoy the sun, even when the Brewers were scoring and the Sox weren’t. If the umpire made a terrible call, he would grumble, “Hey,” or “Oh, come on.” But despite everything, he seemed incredibly happy.
We went to Fenway a lot that year. We usually sat near first base, sometimes in the stands, sometimes in the box, sometimes in those weird, not-facing-the-hell seats by Pesky's Pole. It was all the same: For the first three innings, my dad ignored the vendors and us. There was just the game. Before the fourth, he'd ask, “Are you hungry?” and then there would be hot dogs drenched in long streams of French yellow and Sprite, but never Coke. I'm sure he would have had a beer, but I can't imagine it.
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