The Prince of Fenway Park

by Julianna Baggott

  “That’s me,” Oscar said.

  His father went on. “Cross out: ‘We try hard to,’ and you’ve got the word ‘find.’”

  “Mmhm,” said Oscar. “Go on.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m going. Cross out: ‘Tough hearts,’ and you’ve got ‘baseball.’”

  “And so it reads, ‘Orphan, find baseball.’ Go on.”

  “All right. Cross out ‘Use your eyes,’” and you’ve got the word ‘to.’ And then cross out ‘His heart can,’ and you’ve got the word ‘break.’ And then cross out ‘And now I will,’ and you’ve got the word ‘curse.’”

  “That’s the message,” Oscar said. “‘Orphan, find baseball to break curse.’”

  His father was still holding the narrow scroll of paper. “‘Orphan,’” he repeated in a whisper, “‘find baseball to break curse.’” He gazed up at Oscar. “It’s been there all along. I just couldn’t see it.” He raised his fist in the air—as high as it could go in the crawl space. “You’ve done it, Oscar! ‘Find baseball to break curse’!” he shouted, and then he grabbed Oscar by the shoulders and pulled him to his chest, giving him a huge hug.

  Oscar wasn’t used to being hugged by his father like this. He closed his eyes. He drank it in. He knew what the Curse had been saying about being an orphan and having a heart as tough as a baseball but bruised, too.

  His father leaned over the ladder hole and shouted to the aunties, “The boy has done it!”

  The aunties snorted awake. “What’s that?” “Who?” “Come again!”

  “Oscar,” he shouted, “has broken a code in the Curse. We’ve just got to find a baseball!”

  “He did what?” Auntie Fedelma growled.

  “Auntie Gormley gave him a gift! He’s twelve! And it worked!”

  “You gave him a gift?” Auntie Fedelma shouted at Auntie Gormley.

  Oscar scurried to the edge of the ladder hole to look down and see Auntie Gormley’s answer. Would she stick up for him?

  She pointed up at Oscar and shook her fist in a kind of victory.

  “He’s the one who can save us!” his father shouted.

  “He is not!” Auntie Fedelma shouted back.

  “Is he?” asked Auntie Oonagh, pointing the funnel in her ear from one person to the next, hoping for a clear answer.

  “Maybe we won’t be saved by someone Born of the Curse but by someone who has Lived the Curse,” Oscar’s father said joyfully. “And the boy is cursed! He feels as cursed as the Red Sox! Don’t you?”

  Oscar had never seen it as a good thing before. “I guess so,” he said.

  “That’s what he said,” Oscar’s father shouted down. “It just might be him! Don’t you get it?”

  “Humph,” Auntie Fedelma muttered angrily.

  “Radio knows that you can’t break the Curse. Shaughnessy knows it! Everyone knows that you can’t break the Curse. Plus, the Sox are already losing to the Yankees. Down two! They’ll never come back. Never!”

  Auntie Oonagh ignored Auntie Fedelma. She clapped her hands. “Hooray! A baseball! That won’t be hard to find! We live in a ballpark!”

  There was more shouting among Auntie Fedelma and Oscar’s father and Auntie Oonagh. But Oscar was no longer following the conversation. He felt dazed, light-headed. He pulled on his father’s sleeve. “Not just any baseball,” he said. “It has to be the baseball. The one he used for the Curse. And how are we going to find that?”

  His father crossed his arms and blinked. “I have no idea.”

  Oscar stared down at the aunties blankly. “A hunt,” he said.

  “A hunt,” his father said, sitting back, staring at the model of Fenway Park.

  “Why even look? You’ll never find it!” Auntie Fedelma shouted to them. “Mark my words, Old Boy, you’re setting yourself up for a terrible disappointment. Remember 1948? 1967? 1975? 1986? Not to mention just last year, 2003?”

  Auntie Gormley rocked in her bleacher seat and softly whistled “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

  Oscar and his father sat there in the crawl space for a moment, dazed by it all.

  “What did Keeffe mean by ‘a big-handed boy learning to stitch seams’?” Oscar asked.

  “Ruth. His parents handed him over to an orphanage when he was little. St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. He wasn’t technically an orphan, I suppose, but he was abandoned, an orphan in the larger sense—the kind we understand in this family.”

  Oscar nodded. Of course.

  Auntie Fedelma was still shouting. “Mark my words! Failure! Loss!”

  Auntie Oonagh was trying to shush her but sounded as if she was simply losing air.

  “St. Mary’s was big on baseball and little else. Most of the boys were taught a skill and were sent out to work instead of to school. Ruth worked for a tailor.”

  Oscar stared up at the mound’s rubber. He thought of the look he’d gotten through the periscope. “I wish I could fit up through the pitcher’s mound,” Oscar said more to himself than to his father. “Squeeze myself right up through that hole.”

  “I don’t know why you’d want to do that,” his father said.

  “So that I could see the field!” Oscar said. “The way the greatest pitchers of all time have seen it. Right from the mound.”

  “I mean, why would you want to shove yourself up through the hole when you can just use the door.”

  “The door?”

  “Sure, the seamless trapdoor,” his father said.

  “By the spigot. There.” He pointed to the underside of a pipe. “Works the same way as the rubber on the pitcher’s mound but it’s a bit bulkier. May as well start the hunt right there.” He pushed up on the dirt ceiling halfway between the pitcher’s mound, and the spigot. The earth trembled a bit.

  “Good-bye, Aunties!” he shouted down to the living room. He picked up a sack marked SEED from the built-in shelf. “We’re off!”

  “Hooray!” shouted Auntie Oonagh.

  “You’ll regret this, Old Boy. You and the Other will only be terribly disappointed!” Auntie Fedelma called out.

  “My name is Oscar,” Oscar said.

  His father smiled at him, and Oscar smiled back.

  “Follow me quickly,” he said.

  His father pushed hard on the dirt ceiling, which was on an angle. In an instant, the dirt turned into a door, just as the door to their house had appeared in the tunnel wall covered in barbed ivy and nettle bushes. The door swung open and hit the ground with a thud. His father popped out, grabbed Oscar by the hand, and pulled him out too. As Oscar emerged from the opening into the crisp night air, Fenway seemed to rise up all around him, glowing in the floodlights.

  He walked to the top of the pitcher’s mound. At first he could only stare at his shoes on the rubber. He knew exactly where he was.

  His father flipped the door back, and it fell a little hastily and a bit crookedly. And then he stood next to Oscar and said, “Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Keith Foulke.”

  “I know,” Oscar said quietly.

  “Roger Clemens, Oil Can Boyd, Luis Tiant,” his father went on.

  Oscar’s voice was caught in his throat now. He could only nod.

  “Cy Young and Babe Ruth. All of them stood here, too. Probably even stared at their shoes in the dirt.”

  Oscar could feel his eyes fill up with tears, but not the same kind as under the awning at Pizzeria Uno. The greats had all stood here, and new greats were coming. Game 3 of the playoffs was just a day away. Oscar tried to imagine standing here with the whole team around him. It was too much.

  “It’s okay,” his father said. “I feel that way too, sometimes, still.” He patted him on the shoulder.

  “Take a look.”

  Oscar slowly lifted his eyes. There was a low green wall, red seats rising to blue seats in the grandstands. It was all much closer than he’d imagined, much closer than it seemed on television.

  There was a small green box, open-air, suspended above the grandstands behind home plate
like the carriage under a blimp—the broadcast booth from which Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano announced the games. Above it stretched a huge bank of windows—the .406 Club, where the organist played during the games. And then, in red letters on a white board: FENWAY PARK. The sign towered over him. Oscar looked down at the circle of dirt on which he was standing, and another in front of him, and, within that one, home plate.

  “David Ortiz,” Oscar said. “Manny Ramirez.”

  “Mo Vaughn, Rice, and Yastrzemski,” his father said.

  “Ted Williams,” Oscar said.

  “Yes, yes, Williams.”

  Oscar had revered these players all of his life, and now, reciting their names felt like a prayer whispered in a quiet cathedral. Without these names, Fenway Park would be empty, barren. But these names made it alive and holy.

  He glanced at the Red Sox dugout, the empty seats hovering above, and looked down the first baseline. Oscar peered out into right field. Across the grass there was the warning track and the bull pens. There was Pesky’s Pole—the only place old Johnny Pesky could hit a homer.

  Oscar looked toward second base and right field. His head was flooded with more names: Griffin, Doyle, and Walker.

  His father pointed to right field. “Evans, Nixon.”

  Above the green center field wall, a triangle of blue seats tapered toward a giant television screen that was blank. He looked out to center field and shortstop. “Lynn, Burke.”

  “Burleson and Aparicio,” his father said.

  And here Oscar hesitated. He knew that if he turned left, the Green Monster would be there—the massive, historic wall. He pivoted slowly, feeling humble.

  It was enormous, stretching from the red seats rising to the left field foul pole, where Carlton Fisk had hit a home run to win Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, all the way out to the flagpole in center. It was broad and tall, and seemed almost to tilt forward, over the field.

  Oscar’s eyes rounded third—Petrocelli, Boggs, Hobson—and headed home. Pena and Fisk. He drew in a deep breath, feeling very small. He glanced back at the doorway through which they’d come. The square of grass was still visible, but then his father bent down and ruffled the grass, and the seams disappeared.

  “I thought I’d never get to share all of this with you. It’s a magical place. But there’s so much sadness here, too.” His father walked over to the divots in the infield grass. “Hoof marks,” he said, “take a look. The Pooka.” His father took a handful of seed from the tin and sprinkled it on the pocks. Oscar thought of the third rule of the Curse. They had already crossed the point of no return—success, or the Curse will last forever. It made him feel cold.

  “This dirt has absorbed a lot of sorrow, and that’s what makes it so soft.”

  “Sorrow?” Oscar asked.

  “It started with Babe Ruth, but the Curse would have starved if it hadn’t been fed. And it was surely fed.”

  “Who fed it?”

  “Too many to list. You know what they said to Jackie Robinson when he tried out?” Oscar knew. He’d read all about Red Sox history. “Not Red Sox type, right? And they said Willie Mays wasn’t ready. We know what they meant.” He threw more seed on a hoof mark. “Because they were black, they weren’t good enough for the Boston Red Sox. This is the worst team in the history of baseball on race. You know that, though, don’t you?” His father knelt down to eye the field at ground level.

  “I know it,” Oscar said. “I just didn’t know that you knew.” His father never talked about race—not Oscar’s and not anybody else’s either, for that matter. Maybe this was part of the reason why. Oscar could tell that his father was uncomfortable.

  “Race shouldn’t mean anything. It shouldn’t be important. It shouldn’t matter.” Oscar’s father stood up and wiped his hands on his pants.

  Oscar wanted to say that it did matter and that it was important, but he wasn’t sure how he’d explain it if his father asked him why or how, and so he kept quiet.

  “Nasty sportswriters did their share, too.” His father pointed to the dugout. “And sometimes there was ugliness in there. Player against player.”

  “The players went against each other?” Oscar asked.

  “It’s a long season, and losing can make players lash out,” his father said, gazing around at the stands. “And don’t forget about them.”

  “The fans?” Oscar asked. “Not them.”

  “Some of them have kept the Red Sox going—their love is like an engine. But others…well, we all know Buckner deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Who do you think runs him down? Fans do! And after all the great things he did for the Red Sox and for the game!” He shook his head. “You should hear the ugly things some of those fans have shouted over the years, jeering and booing. Do you think that kind of meanness just evaporates into the air? It doesn’t. It’s all fed the Curse, Oscar.” He sighed. “Some people in the outside world have gotten close to understanding the Curse. Shaughnessy got a little of it in The Curse of the Bambino, but he’s really only fed the Curse too, with all of his cynicism and ugliness—more sorrow. And Bill Lee…”

  “The left-handed pitcher? Spaceman?”

  “Yeah, he gets part of it in that philosophical, kind of poetic, other way of thinking that he has. And Howard Bryant wrote about it the best in that book of his called Shut Out. He’s come the closest. But no one has ever understood the whole thing. No one has ever discovered us. Even if they tear this place down and the land turns back to swamp, we’ll be the swamp creatures stuck in it. Unless we can reverse it. Unless you can, Oscar.”

  “But how?” Oscar said. “Where will we find the baseball?” He looked up and let his eyes rove around the stands. There was a light on in the broadcast booth that he hadn’t noticed before. Had it just come on? He could see three figures huddled together, leaning toward the field. And, above them, in the .406 Club, a strange clump of glowing dots lit a gaunt face. The dots grew brighter and brighter, and then the face was lost in a whirl of smoke. “Someone’s watching us,” Oscar whispered.

  “The Cursed Creatures. Yes,” his father said.

  “Up there.” He pointed to the broadcast booth.

  “The Bobs and Stickler.” He pointed to the .406 Club. “And in there, Smoker, the horned organist. But worst of all…” He turned and pointed to one of the slits in the Green Monster. It was lit up too, shining fiercely. “The Pooka.”

  “‘Every Cursed Creature has a Position to Play,’” Oscar said, remembering Rule 2 of the Curse.

  “And…‘There can be only one Breaker of the Curse. Once he sets his mind to breaking the Curse, he must succeed or no one ever will,’” his father said, repeating the third and final rule. “Have you set your mind to it?”

  Oscar looked for the divots and pocks, but they had smoothed to nothingness. The glossy grass had filled them in. He was scared, but there was a stirring in his chest like his heart was a revving engine. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve set my mind to it.”

  “Good,” his father said. “You know, some things are easy to fix. But sorrow isn’t one of them. This is going to be harder than either of us can imagine. Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Oscar said.

  The air was cold. Oscar and his father stood there a moment. Everything was quiet, their breaths clouding and then disappearing in the night. A rough breeze kicked up and whipped through the stands. It gusted into a sharp wind and seemed to find its way over the grooves and reeds of the bleacher seats until it formed its voice; and in that breeze, Oscar heard a breath, and then a whisper—a voice that said, “Welcome….”

  The voice seemed as if it had come from every direction at once. It was a voice made of wind, but filled with emotion too. It was a voice that seemed to want something.

  In the next rush of wind, it said, “Home.”

  “Did you hear that?” Oscar asked.

  “Hear what?” his father said. “That crying moan? It was
the Banshee—the Lost Soul of the Lost and Found.”

  “But did you hear what she said?” Oscar asked.

  “What?” his father asked. “She doesn’t speak. She only cries.”

  “I guess it was nothing then,” Oscar said, though he knew, deep down, what he’d heard. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” his father asked.

  “To meet the Cursed Creatures,” Oscar said.

  “It’s what the Curse said. They each have a position to play, don’t they?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Auntie Gormley Dreams Her Soul Elsewhere

  WHILE THE VOICES OF OLD Boy and Oscar were muffled by the trapdoor, Fedelma stood up and marched in a tight circle.

  “What is it?” Oonagh asked.

  Fedelma grabbed her purse off of a side table and said, “I’m going out. I’ve got an appointment.”

  Gormley squinted at Fedelma suspiciously.

  Oonagh said, “But you haven’t gone out in ages! None of us has.”

  “Well, I am going out. I have to meet someone.” She tightened the frail wings on her back and shrugged on a heavy woolen coat—something retrieved from the Lost and Found in the 1940s. It was moth bitten and a bit short in the sleeves. “Have my arms gotten longer?” she said to herself.

  “Don’t go out there!” Oonagh shouted, suddenly all a-dither. “It’s too brutish!”

  “I must do what I must.”

  “You could be snatched by the Pooka!” Oonagh started to blubber then.

  Gormley simply kept a steely gaze.

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Gormley?” Fedelma asked.

  Gormley stared at her in a way that seemed to say: You’re up to no good, and I know it. She mouthed “Who?”

  Fedelma said, “Who what? Who am I meeting?”

  Gormley nodded.

  “It’s none of your business.”

  Fedelma took a deep breath and opened the door. She paused, but only for a second, and then walked out the doorway, shutting the door behind her.

  Oonagh started up with a nervous case of the hiccups—pacing and twittering and hiccupping. “That Fedelma! Why would she go out? What is she thinking? It isn’t safe! Hic!” She stopped and blushed and apologized. “Excuse me. My!” And then started over with her worries. “That Fedelma!”