“Maybe we have no choice for a reason. Maybe this is all adding up to something. Do you believe in fate?” he asked Oscar, his eyes glistening.
“I don’t know,” Oscar said, but there was something about this moment that seemed completely different from any moment that had come before it.
His father held the duffel bag with the dusty box inside of it close to his chest. “Let’s go, Oscar,” he said; and, head down, he stepped out into the rain.
Oscar wiped his tears from his face, picked up his suitcase, and hustled after him.
The rain soaked them fast—their shirts, pants, hair. The comic strips on the newspaper-wrapped gift smeared and began peeling away, leaving only a white box and ribbon.
Oscar wiped the rain from his face so that he could see. They were walking toward the bridge over the Mass Pike, toward Fenway. The suitcase was heavy; and when one arm got tired, Oscar would put the suitcase down and switch hands. Then he would have to jog a little to catch up to his father’s long strides. They crossed the bridge onto Brookline Avenue and turned left onto Lansdowne. Fenway Park ran the length of the street, looming like a silent, green cathedral.
Oscar paused for a moment under the seats that jutted out over Landsdowne. These were the new Monster seats. They’d been put in just the year before so that people could watch the game from right on top of the Green Monster: the famous towering wall in left field, the highest wall of all Major League Baseball fields. He knew that the wall was exactly thirty-seven feet and two inches high. He’d seen it a million times on television. The scoreboard was built into it—a manual scoreboard; and Oscar had imagined the people who worked it put up the scores through the slits in the wall. He’d imagined the small, dark, mysterious room that existed inside of the massive wall. Occasionally, he could see the slits cut into the lower part of the Green Monster, where the people working inside had a view of the game—a view like no other. And, of course, he’d seen the powerful home runs that were hit over the wall.
Oscar knew that the enormous wall was called the Green Monster because of its intimidating size, but he also felt as if it were a monster of some kind, as if it were truly alive in some way—a living, breathing presence.
“Hurry up,” his father said.
Oscar jogged to catch up to him. At the end of Lansdowne Street they turned right onto Ipswich, past an empty Red Sox parking lot just down from a bus stop—all blurry from the driving rain—and they stopped in the middle of the empty street. Oscar’s father was standing near a long line of official Red Sox garbage cans all locked together. He was looking down at a manhole in the center of Ipswich Street. They were both drenched, their shirts and pants sticking to them. His father noticed the ruined wrapping job on the present. He unzipped the duffel bag, which had remained slightly dry, and stuffed the gift inside.
“Guess we can wait for your actual birthday now,” he said. He hugged the duffel bag to his chest again and hunched over it. “Okay,” he said. “Stand here a minute. Keep an eye out.”
“An eye out for what?” Oscar asked. But his father didn’t answer.
He pulled an orange safety vest from his pocket and put it on. It made him look official. Then he reached down, stuck his fingers into holes in the manhole cover, and lifted it with a groan, pulling it to the side and then letting go so that it made a heavy clunk. Oscar looked down into the dark hole.
His father said, “You first.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because I know how to cover the manhole back up after I’ve headed down. That’s why.”
“I don’t even know where we’re going!”
“I’m taking you home, Oscar. My home.”
“Down there?”
He nodded.
“You live down there?”
“No, this just happens to be the way I get in.”
“Where?” Oscar asked.
His father sighed. It seemed as if he didn’t really want to answer the question. As if he’d been avoiding it for years. But he couldn’t anymore. His father lifted his finger and jabbed it straight behind him, pointing quite clearly to Fenway Park.
“But you can’t live inside Fenway Park,” Oscar said.
“But I do,” his father said.
“It’s not possible. No one lives in Fenway Park!”
“Many live in Fenway Park.”
“But it’s not a rough neighborhood, you know; it’s not dangerous turf.”
“Dangerous turf?”
“You said you lived in a dangerous neighborhood!”
His father was confused. “I never said that.”
Oscar thought for a moment. He was right. He’d never said this, not exactly. Oscar wiped his face, but it didn’t do any good. The rain was coming down so hard that his face was soaked again. “You said you lived with tough customers. That you lived someplace dangerous! Too dangerous for me!”
“I live in Fenway Park. Trust me. It is the most dangerous place I know.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Underlife of Fenway Park
OSCAR CLIMBED DOWN THE LADDER connected to the edge of the manhole. His knees felt loose in their joints. His arms felt rubbery. Maybe it was the feeling of being drenched, but it seemed as if he hadn’t climbed down a manhole as much as into the blow-hole of a whale. He worried that a flume of water was going to force him up and out. He looked around at the cement walls, the dripping tunnel ahead, then back up at the hole where his father was waiting.
His father lived in Fenway Park?
It didn’t make sense.
Oscar was more than a little terrified; but it felt good, as if he wasn’t just trying to avoid being tormented by the likes of Drew Sizemore. No. He was heading into an adventure. It felt like waking up from a long sleep—when he hadn’t known that he’d been sleeping.
“Stand aside!” his father said. “Down she comes!”
The dim shaft of light and rain coming down through the manhole was blocked for a moment as Oscar’s father jammed the suitcase into the hole. Finally the bottom bent in enough so the handle could pop through, and it landed on the hard, cement floor at the bottom of the ladder.
There was light and rain again, and then his father shifted halfway into the hole and dragged the cover across the manhole. Once he’d dipped down and the cover had clunked into place, everything went dark. Oscar heard his father walk down the rest of the rungs, then a click, then another, then his father cursing a little under his breath; and then there was a spark, and finally Oscar could see his father’s face, the duffel bag, and his father’s meaty hand holding a small cigarette lighter.
“I don’t need the light. I know this route by heart, but I thought you might like some.”
“Are we in a sewer?” Oscar asked.
“Nope. This is an access to electrical services, phone lines, utility cables, that sort of thing.”
As he held up the lighter like a torch, his father looked tall all of a sudden, as if he’d grown a couple of inches. At first Oscar wondered if it were just an illusion—set off by his father being in such a tight space. But then he noticed that his father wasn’t slouching. He was standing up straight. It was strange. He’d never seen his father stand up straight. He walked ahead, taking long strides. Oscar picked up his suitcase and followed.
The walls were strung with wires and cords and cables of different colors. The tunnel twisted and turned. They went on and on. There were offshoots and jagged turns; and as they went, the wires turned into vines. Then they became barbed and grew thorns. The edges of the tunnel were lined with nettle bushes. The vines blocked some of the light from the bare bulbs, and the tunnels grew dim and overgrown like a jungle. One of the burrs snagged Oscar’s pants, tearing them.
“Watch out for that,” his father said.
“It’s a little late for the warning.”
“Well, if you like your warnings ahead of time, then I’d say watch out for weasels and the Banshee—the Lost Soul of the Lost and Found—and a lot o
f other Cursed Creatures. Hmm, and, let’s see…the mice come in waves. And if you hear hooves coming behind you, crouch down. It’s the Pooka, and it won’t be a good ride if he grabs you.”
Oscar stopped in his tracks. “What are you talking about?” He felt his heart thudding in his chest.
“I told you it was dangerous,” his father said.
“What’s a banshee and a pooka? I don’t even know what words you’re using.”
His father sighed. “Nothing to do about it except follow along.” His father started walking ahead. “C’mon. Keep moving. That’s best.”
Oscar ran to catch up. He was trying to remember the way—left, left, right, right, right. But it became too complicated. He was disoriented. He couldn’t tell if they were heading closer to the middle of the park or if they were skirting the edges.
Then there was some organ music. It seemed to be piped in from unseen speakers. Oscar recognized the tunes—rally songs, the same ones he’d hear in the background as an announcer was calling a game. But these were warped versions. The notes went flat. The tempo would speed up and then grind down; but it sounded purposeful, artistic.
“Where’s that music coming from?”
“The horned organist. He plays when the official organist isn’t around. You can hear it underground, though.”
“It doesn’t sound right,” Oscar said.
“He plays the only way he can; his heart is twisted, you know.”
“Did you say horned organist?”
“I did. Sad but true. Smoker.”
Oscar let this sink in. Did he really mean “horned”? Did he mean that the organist had horns on his head? And smoked?
His father stopped abruptly, and Oscar nearly ran into him.
“Do you hear that?” his father asked.
“Hear what?”
Then Oscar heard a distant whining, a little chorus of sad yips that seemed to go with the awful, warped organ music.
“That,” his father said.
“Is it an animal?”
“Not just one.”
“What is it?”
“Weasel-man,” his father said. “Hurry up. Let’s go this way. Maybe we can avoid him.”
But when they headed down the next chute in the tunnel, the whines grew louder.
“This way,” his father said, turning in the other direction.
But again the cries only got louder.
“He’s onto us,” his father said.
“Who’s Weasel-man?” Oscar asked.
“He’s not evil,” his father explained, now turning again, picking up the pace, getting a little breathless.
“He’s just…like…all of them. Good and…bad.”
“All of who?” Oscar asked. His suitcase was heavy. It was weighing him down.
“We’re the flip side of Fenway Park, the underbelly,” his father said, pausing at a T, then darting left. “Everything they have up above we have down below. They have an organist. We do, too. They have folks who work in Lost and Found. We have one, too. They have concession workers. We have one, too. Weasel-man is our concession worker—a thief, some would say. It’s how we survive.”
“Do they know that you all exist?”
“They could, if they were smart. But, no. They don’t. We take over when they’re not here. We roam mostly in the dark hours. Each of us has another place besides the one they share, a place we’ve dug out for ourselves. When the outsiders are here, we head underground to those spots.”
“Do you get to see the games?”
“Who would want to see the games? It’s hard enough to listen to Radio tell us the news. Heartbreaking.”
“I’d love to see them play,” Oscar said.
His father looked at him quizzically. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said, as if Oscar hadn’t heard him correctly.
The whining was growing louder, as if they were heading right toward it, and so his father turned again and walked around a corner, Oscar at his heels. They both collided with something massive.
Oscar bounced backward and fell down, his suitcase skidding across the floor, under a nettle bush. When he looked up, his father was brushing himself off, as was an enormous man. The man was bent almost in two, trying to fit in the small tunnel. He wore an old metal change maker on his belt and a grimy Red Sox baseball cap on his head, which was small compared to his body. He was holding a cooler and walking a pack of rodents on leashes. Weasels, Oscar guessed, as he supposed this was Weasel-man. The weasels poured over one another like fish. They pawed at Weasel-man lovingly and made soft, trilling noises now, as if whistles were caught in their throats. The leashes were tangled.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” Weasel-man said.
“Watch where we’re going? You were the one who was after us.”
“I wasn’t after you! I’m just walking the weasels and bringing Fedelma a cooler. I stole it from Concessions last night. She said she wanted a cooler.”
“I’m headed home now, so I’ll bring it to her,” his father said. Oscar stepped out from behind him.
“Who’s that?” Weasel-man asked gruffly.
“That’s my son. Oscar. He’s staying with me for a bit.”
“He is, huh? He doesn’t look like you.”
“No,” Oscar’s father said. “He doesn’t.”
“What I mean is, he don’t look like he’s yours…”
“Nope, he doesn’t.”
“What I mean is, he can’t be…”
Oscar’s father raised his voice. “I know what you mean, Weasel-man. I know what you mean!” He sighed and grabbed hold of the cooler, and Weasel-man let him take it. The cooler looked heavy, but Oscar’s father was strong. Oscar had always thought of his father as bony and weak, but his arms were actually quite muscular. “I’ll take it to Auntie Fedelma.”
“No need to get huffy. Be sure to tell her that Weasel-man got it for her. The weasels miss her.” He bent down and petted a few of them. They all jumped for his affection.
“I will. Don’t worry,” Oscar’s father said.
Weasel-man leaned in to look at Oscar more closely. “Nope,” he said. “Not a chance.”
Oscar wanted to say, A chance for what? But he was scared of the giant; plus, Weasel-man smelled so badly of weasels and fried food that Oscar’s voice caught in his throat.
“Knock it off,” Oscar’s father said to Weasel-man.
Weasel-man leaned in to Oscar’s father’s face. “Why don’t you like me?” he said. “You ought to. We’re all in this together, you know. We should make the best of it!”
Then both men froze. They whipped their heads around. Oscar’s father put his hand to the wall.
“A wave,” his father said. “Where’s it coming from?”
Weasel-man smiled. “Good-bye to you both,” he said. He tipped his hat, and Oscar saw two yellow nubs, slightly pointed, that poked up from the top of his head. Horns? Oscar sucked in his breath. Weasel-man smiled, and then he walked off quickly with his pack of whining weasels, his change maker jangling.
Oscar wanted to ask about the horns, but they couldn’t have been horns. No one has horns. But no one walks weasels on leashes either. Oscar cleared his throat to ask, but he stopped himself. He didn’t want to sound silly in front of his father. And it seemed as if there was something more urgent going on. The tunnel was shaking ever so slightly now.
“What is it?” Oscar asked.
“A wave!” his father shouted urgently. “Get your suitcase.”
Oscar had seen these on television: baseball crowds raising their hands so that a wave traveled around the stadium. But there was no game, so how could there be a wave? He would have been excited, but his father’s face looked terrified. Oscar reached under the nettle bush where his suitcase had come to its stop, and he pulled it out.
“Best thing to do,” his father shouted over the noise, “is to lie down in the dirt and let them pass over us.”
The tunnel was trembling even more violen
tly, and the organ was surging overhead with a grand finale of notes. “What?” Oscar said.
His father’s mouth kept moving, but Oscar couldn’t make out the words. His father had dropped the cooler and was down on the ground now, reaching for Oscar’s hand, still holding tight to the duffel bag. That’s when Oscar saw the wave. It filled the tunnel. It seemed at first like a large animal made of small, whirring body parts. Oscar’s father turned around and looked back. His face was red, his mouth moving urgently, the cords of his neck standing out. Oscar knew that his father was shouting. He knew that his father meant for him to grab his hand and that his father would probably pull him down to the ground, but Oscar was frozen. He could see now that there wasn’t one large gray animal but many small gray animals—mice, thousands of them—coming at him with the force of a river.
At the last moment his father leaped up from the ground and grabbed Oscar and his suitcase with one strong arm, holding the duffel bag with the other. It seemed as if his father was lifting him up higher and higher, but it wasn’t his father doing the lifting. It was the force of the wave of mice. Oscar and his father were buoyed up on the wave, bobbing violently, soaring down the tunnel. The cooler had been lifted up too. Faster and faster they rode. Oscar felt the mice, their small, furry bodies flowing all around him, the nips of their tiny nails, the snaps of their tiny, whiplike tails. The chorus of squeaks was almost deafening. His father’s arm held him firmly around his waist.
“Hold on!” his father shouted. Up ahead the tunnel came to a T. “We’re going to hit hard!”
Oscar threw his hands up to block his face. His father turned so that his body was between Oscar and the approaching wall. They did hit hard—the cooler making a loud crack—and fell to the ground. The mice split off in either direction, forming two smaller waves that roared on without them.
Oscar and his father stood up, brushing the loose fur and dirt from their clothes.
“Well,” his father said. “That one wasn’t so bad, was it?”