I do not believe in ghosts.
I don’t believe in the supernatural, in vampires or poltergeists or sasquatches1. I don’t believe that things exist unless I have some evidence that they do, and this includes ghosts.
But there are ghosts in Boston.
These ghosts aren’t the kind that Maurice experienced during his first visit after my father’s demise—I haven’t seen any familiar smiles on unfamiliar park rangers, or any park rangers at all for that matter—but they’re here. They take the form of nagging thoughts, of glances over my shoulder as I walk down the street, of desires to listen to songs that make no sense for the situation.
I could live here, I think as I wander down Newbury Street, in search of a coffee shop where I can sit and write a while, even though I know the thought isn’t true. This is my father’s home, not mine. I am too in love with Seattle, too in love with a place that is distinctly in tune with who I am. But here, now, on this street, I’m at least considering the possibility.
Boston does strange things to me. The last time I visited here, I felt compelled to repeatedly listen to Stars’ “Your Ex-Lover Is Dead,” a baroque pop duet which features violins that I’m certain are strung with my very own heartstrings. “And all of that time you thought I was sad/I was trying to remember your name,” Torquil Campbell sings at the conclusion of the first verse of the song, a tale about running into an ex through coincidence after so much time has passed and both people have changed so much that they only barely recognize each other.
I feel that way constantly about everything, and I am only 10% sure why.
That compulsion to listen to Stars struck me at night, though. Today, in the daylight, the musical mood has shifted in an illogical manner—right now, I just want to listen to LCD Soundsystem’s “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” on repeat, even though I’m indifferent towards Daft Punk, do not own a house, and am on the wrong end of I-90 from my abode.
My world and my father’s differ in this key way: No matter how many times he walked down Newbury, my father never did so while scrolling through several gigabytes of music on his iPhone with a laptop strapped to his back2. My father never settled down in a coffee shop to write, only to grow distracted by his browser’s Twitter plug-in popping up in the background.
This is my father’s city, but this is my world, and the two have less and less in common these days. There is one thing, one place, I’m glad to say remains prominent in both, and I’m even happier to say that I will spend tonight, my last night in Boston, within its beautiful green walls.
I do not believe in church or religion, but tonight, I will visit sacred ground: Fenway Park.
Baseball’s oldest ballpark lies a mile and a half from my hotel. I know the route, but even if I didn’t, I could find my way simply by following the others dressed as I am. Tonight, I am decked out in my Red Sox hat and a 2004-era Manny Ramirez jersey. As long as I don’t speak, I can pass for a native tonight.
Los Campesinos!’ We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed provides the soundtrack as I follow the crowd with headphones in my ears, and the album’s bleakly beautiful title track, about a long-distance relationship slowly failing, resonates far more than it should considering my perpetually single status. “You feel terrified at the thought of being left behind/Of losing everybody, the necessity of dying/Oh, we kid ourselves there’s future in the fucking/But there is no fucking future,” Gareth Campesinos! declares, as the whole band shouts along to the last two lines.
I constantly feel that way about everything, and I am only 90% sure why.
The sun remains high in the sky as I approach Fenway. I’m going to be early, but I don’t mind. It gives me time to pay my respects.
At this point, calling Fenway Park a cathedral borders on cliché, but Red Sox fandom is the closest thing to religion that I have left, my way of communing with the dearly departed. This 97-year-old structure, this place where Ruth and Williams and Yaz played, carries greater import than any other, because it’s one of the few places that I feel confident my father went, that I know he cared about. Tomorrow, I will visit the place where my father was buried, but today, I am visiting the place where he lived, where he screamed and clapped and perhaps even cried.
The last time my father ever saw the Red Sox in the World Series was 1986, a famously ill-fated matchup against the New York Mets. We lived in Morristown then, an hour(ish) drive from Shea, and, as a three-year-old, I wished to root for the near-hometown team, in direct opposition to my father’s loyalties. When I asked for his permission, he told me, “I don’t care what team you root for, as long as it’s not the God-damned Yankees.”
Years have passed, and I have never rooted for the God-damned Yankees. In 2001, after the horrors of 9/11, when many Boston fans were rooting for New York, I refused. Instead, I wandered the halls of my dorm pointing out that my father never said anything about exceptions. I screamed with joy when Luis Gonzalez hit that blooper, then dashed a few rooms down to taunt a girl who had a crush on Derek Jeter.
Tonight, I have yet another chance to fulfill my father’s wish. For the first time, I am watching the Red Sox take on the Yankees at the Fens, and the matchup looks like a great one: Noted drunk driver Joba Chamberlain gets the ball for the Yankees, while fellow Washingtonian Jon Lester starts for the Sox. I have faith in Lester—anyone who beat cancer can certainly beat New York.
In the bottom of the first inning, my prediction looks like a good one, as leadoff hitter Jacoby Ellsbury laces a single into right-center, advances to second on a balk, and then scores after an attempt to throw him out stealing third gets past Cody Ransom.
I’m at Fenway. The Yankees are losing.
All is right in the world.
My worldview has turned more bleak heading into the bottom of the ninth inning, and not only because the twentysomething woman behind me loudly declared that she hopes to be divorced three times before she’s 35. With three outs to go, the Evil Empire holds a 4-2 lead, and their all-time great closer, Mariano Rivera, awaits his prey.
Following a lead-off strikeout from David Ortiz (his third of the night), the Sox show signs of life. The next man up, Kevin Youkilis raps a grounder up the middle and advances to second on a J.D. Drew groundout.
With the score still 4-2 Yankees, one runner on and no outs to spare, Jason Bay strides to the plate for the Sox, and takes the first pitch for a strike. Bay pounces on the next pitch from Rivera, an 0-1 fastball, and sends the ball in the air to left-center. At first, Fenway deflates as we watch Brett Gardner, the Yankees’ center fielder, takes off after it, running towards the spot where the Monster meets the centerfield bleachers. Gardner keeps going, moving backwards and looking up, and I begin to hope that Bay has hit a double off the Wall.
But then.
Three nights ago, I stood in almost the exact center of Boston Garden, watching Bruce Springsteen. He played most of the songs I wanted to hear, including “Born to Run,” but he didn’t play “Thunder Road.” Bruce did not ask me to “show a little faith there’s magic in the night,” but here, now, as the ball keeps carrying, Fenway comes alive and screams the words that Bruce didn’t. There is magic in this night, and while the parabolic arc of the ball Jason Bay laced into the April air isn’t a beauty, it’s all right.
In this moment, everything is.
By inches, the ball clears the upper edge of the Monster, bouncing off a tiny wall that protects fans’ drinks and back down onto the field.
Home run.
Tie game.
The next two innings would be nail-biting, had I not stopped biting my nails shortly after my father’s murder, when my mom offered to buy me a Pee Wee’s Playhouse playset if I could make it through February with my fingernails intact. Instead, I stand, rocking back and forth as Jonathan Papelbon strikes out Mark Teixeira to get out of a jam in the 10th and Ramon Ramirez induces a double play to end the Yankees’ half of the 11th.
Big Papi comes up again to start the bottom of the inning, and strikes out for the fourth time of the night.
To the plate strides Youkilis, the non-Greek Greek God of Walks, who takes the first pitch he sees from Damaso Marte, a slider, low for a ball. Marte follows with another slider down the middle of the plate, which Youkilis watches go by for a strike. Youk watches the third pitch, yet another slider, miss low and inside, and then takes a fastball on the outside of the plate, which evens the count at 2-2.
Marte goes for the strikeout, hurling a second fastball, just up and in from where the last one entered the zone. It’s a minor difference, but it becomes a major one—Youkilis swings, and not a soul in Fenway Park has the slightest doubt as to where the ball is heading. Thirty-eight thousand voices scream simultaneously as 76,000 arms stretch upwards in celebration.
The ball’s arc proves majestic. On a night when the chilly spring air suppressed virtually every fly ball, this one springs off the bat with the energy of a fifth-grader fleeing school on the last day of class. From the crack of the bat, its destiny is clear: The ball flies over the Monster, onto Landsdowne Street. Youkilis tosses away his batting helmet on his way towards home, where his teammates mob the first baseman in celebration after he tags the plate. Some of Fenway’s spectators long ago departed, but mayhem reigns among those of us who remain, all to the tune of “Dirty Water,” the designated anthem of a Red Sox win.
“Love that Dirty Water!” I scream along with the rest of the crowd, but my voice departs from the din in time for the next line, because I don’t want to sing a lie: “Oh, Boston, you’re my home!”
From my seat, I can’t tell where the home run landed, but my best guess puts it on top of the parking garage next door to the Cask ‘N Flagon—the bar that, nearly four weeks ago3, Maurice told me that he used to drink at with my father when he visited.
Oh, there are ghosts in Boston.
Tonight, they are the benevolent kind.
- For what it’s worth, I do believe life exists elsewhere in the universe.
- In fact, I have reason to believe he never heard multiple words in this sentence.
- All the way back in Chapter Four.