Searching for Candlestick Park (12 page)

I blinked fast and nodded. “I was supposed to meet my dad, but I think I missed him. He must have gone in.”

The man handed me the ticket he had been trying to sell. “Here,” he said. “You can have it. It will go to waste otherwise.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot!” Then, remembering the fourteen-and-under rule, I added, “Could I go in with you?”

“Sure.”

We entered together and the ticket taker didn’t give me a second glance.

“Play ball!” The call resounded through the park as we walked in. The man who gave me the ticket headed for a refreshment stand; I headed straight into the seating area. I didn’t bother to look at the aisle number on my ticket because I didn’t intend to sit in the seat, anyway. I wasn’t there to watch baseball; I was there to find Dad.

I started down the aisle, looking at the people to my right. Halfway down an usher stopped me. “May I see your ticket, please?” he asked.

I held out my ticket.

“You’re in the wrong section,” he said. “You want Section Ten, not Section One.”

“Sorry,” I said, as I turned and climbed back up the steps.

I saw ushers posted partway down most aisles. How could I search the seats if I couldn’t get close to them?

At the top of the next section, I followed a group of six people down the steps, and the usher assumed I was with them. When they sat down, I continued down the aisle to the end and then walked slowly back up again, scanning the faces on both sides.

I continued around the stadium, stopping at the entrance to each section. A few times, there was no usher and I walked slowly, looking carefully at the people on both sides of the aisle. At other sections, I stood in back and let my eyes rove back and forth, searching for the one face in all the world that I needed to find.

I had gone through half the lower level when it occurred to me that Dad would probably buy a less expensive seat, especially if he came every day. I walked up to the second level, where I knew seats would be cheaper. By the bottom of the fourth inning, I had strolled through every upper-level section where anyone was sitting.

It would be easy to miss him, I told myself. Maybe
he was in the bathroom when I passed his seat, or out buying a hot dog. Just because I didn’t see him the first time around, doesn’t mean he isn’t here. Or maybe he
does
sit in the lower level.

I went back to the lower box seats and started where I had left off. The ushers didn’t seem to be checking tickets anymore. Maybe by that time in the game, they didn’t care whether people were in the right seat or not.

I was near the Phillies’ dugout when I heard his voice. “To your right,” he said. “Second aisle down.”

I whirled around. He wore gray slacks, and a jacket that was black on the bottom, and half orange and half white on top. A photo
ID
hung around his neck and his black and orange baseball cap said “Guest Services.” Dad was an usher!

I stood only six feet away, and saw him direct an elderly couple to their seats. Then he turned to watch the game.

My throat felt tight. Although I wanted to rush over and fling my arms around him, I was suddenly shy. Dad was shorter than I remembered—or was I just taller? He was thinner, too. But the face was the same and I realized with a jolt how much I resemble him.

He must have sensed someone staring at him, because he looked away from the field, directly at me. Surprise flashed across his face. “Spencer?” he said.

My shyness evaporated. I ran to him, and hugged him hard.

He laughed, stepped back, and looked me over from head to toe. “I almost didn’t know you,” he said. “You’re nearly as tall as I am.” He looked over my shoulder, as if expecting someone else. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Where’s your mother?”

“She isn’t with me. She’s still in Seattle.”

We moved to the top of the aisle, where we wouldn’t block anyone’s view.

“Who brought you here?”

“Nobody. I came alone, to find you.”

“What? You ran away?”

“Mama didn’t have the rent money, and we had to move in with Aunt May, and Mama said I couldn’t keep Foxey.”

“Foxey? You still have that orange cat?”

“Mama said Foxey had to go to the pound, so I took him and left.” I talked faster and faster. “I knew I’d find you here,” I said. “I knew if I could just make it to Candlestick Park, you’d let me and Foxey live with you.”

“You came alone? All the way from Seattle?”

I nodded.

“How did you get here?”

“I rode a bike part of the way, and then a man gave me money for bus fare.”

“Whoa,” Dad said, and rubbed his chin. “Does your mother know where you are?”

“No. But she knows I’m okay. I sent her a letter, and I called her once.”

He shook his head. “Leona must be having fits,” he said. “She probably thinks you’re lying in the gutter, hacked to death by an ax murderer.”

I laughed. It felt good to laugh again.

“How did you know where to find me?” Dad asked.

“You sent a postcard of Candlestick Park. Remember? So I knew you’d be here. And I knew you’d let me keep Foxey, because you let me have him in the first place.”

“Where’s the cat now?” Dad asked.

“My friend, Hank—the man who gave me bus money-is keeping Foxey until we send for him.”

Just then a foul ball dropped into the seats ahead of us. Three fans scrambled to catch it, falling over each other as if the ball were solid gold. Dad hurried forward to make sure that nobody had been hurt in the scuffle.

When he returned, he said, “You took me by surprise, you know.”

“I tried to call you; there wasn’t any number listed. And I didn’t have an address, so I couldn’t send you a letter.”

“Well, look,” Dad said. “I need to keep working. You sit down and watch the rest of the game.”

“Great,” I said. I got out my ticket and looked to see where my seat was.

“There are empty seats in this section today,” Dad said. “Sit right there.” He pointed to a seat not far from where we stood.

I sat down, but I couldn’t concentrate on the game. I was too happy, and too relieved. I felt as if I had just hit a tie-breaking grand slam. I wanted to clench my fists and shake them over my head, or give high fives to everyone around me. When it was time for the seventh-inning stretch, I sang, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as loudly as I could.

I watched as Dad helped people who were lost, and again when another foul ball came into our section.

Pride surged through me as I looked at him. Dad was living his dream; he spent every day at Candlestick Park, just as he had always wanted to do. It didn’t matter that he was an usher, instead of a player. He was still here, still important. He had done what he set out to do.

And so had I.

Sunshine burned the fog away; flags fluttered over the center-field seats; a small airplane with an advertising streamer behind it flew across the blue sky beyond the stadium. I felt more alive than I ever had before, as if I could see and hear more clearly. I smelled the hot roasted peanuts; I felt the hard orange seat beneath me; I heard the sharp crack of the bat as it met the ball.
I will never
, I thought,
forget this afternoon
.

When the game ended, Dad stood at the bottom of the aisle, watching people leave. When our section was empty, he said, “I have to do what we call a ‘clean sweep’ before I leave. That means I walk up every row
in my section, and gather what people left behind.”

He let me help by walking the row next to his. We found an umbrella, a diaper bag, two seat cushions, and a purse-all of which Dad turned in to the Lost and Found. While we worked, he told me about one day when there was a minor earthquake during the ball game, and so many frightened fans rushed away that when the game ended, Dad found seventeen pairs of binoculars in his section!

Another day he found a wallet containing two hundred dollars. Every time I come with Dad, I decided, I will help him do the clean sweep.

We left the ballpark at Gate B because Dad had come by bus. Since he was an usher, he had arrived earlier than I had.

We took a different bus than the one I had come on. As we boarded, I planned to ask Dad to tell me more of the interesting things that had happened to him as an usher.

Instead, as soon as we were seated, he said, “It’s great to see you, Spencer, and I want you to spend the night with me, but I’m afraid it won’t work for you to live here.”

I couldn’t answer.

“I don’t live alone,” he said. “I share an apartment with my girlfriend, and we only have one bedroom. I’d like to have you stay with us, but it just isn’t possible.”

I
stared down at my hands.

“You couldn’t find my phone number,” Dad said, “because the phone is in Sharon’s name.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” I said. “I can’t take Foxey back to Aunt May’s. Cissy is allergic to him.”

“Even if we had room for you to stay here, you wouldn’t be able to keep the cat,” he said. “Our landlord doesn’t allow animals.”

I wanted to ask, can’t you move? Isn’t your son important enough for that? But I already knew the answer.

“When we get home,” Dad continued, “I’ll call your
mother and tell her you’re here. Then tomorrow, you can take the bus back to Seattle.”

“What about Foxey?” I said.

“He can stay where he is. Let the guy who’s taking care of him keep him.”

I felt sick to my stomach.

I felt even sicker when I met Sharon. She listened to Dad’s explanation of who I was and how I got there.

“So you ran away from home,” she said to me. “What an idiotic thing to do. Where’s your brain, boy? In the seat of your pants? Do you know how many perverts and thugs are on the streets?”

At least she didn’t say ax murderers. As Sharon yammered on about how stupid I was, I knew Dad was right; it would never work for me to live with him, even if he wanted me. And the sad truth was, he didn’t want me.

I took a much-needed shower and then Sharon and Dad ordered a pizza delivered for dinner. It was a pepperoni pizza. Dad doesn’t know I am a vegetarian; Dad really doesn’t know me at all. I picked off the meat and said nothing. I wasn’t hungry, anyway.

Dad called the Greyhound station and found out what time the bus leaves for Seattle, and how much a ticket cost.

“We can’t afford this,” Sharon complained.

“Knock it off, Sharon,” Dad said.

“I’ll pay you back, after I get a job,” I said.

“No,” Dad said, glaring at Sharon. “You don’t have to.”

I felt a tiny bit better to have him stand up to her about the money. He must care for me a little, or he wouldn’t bother to pay my way back to Seattle.

“Do you have May’s phone number?” Dad asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you want to talk to your mother, or do you want me to?”

“You can.”

He dialed the number. “Hello, May,” he said. “It’s Jerome Atwood. Spencer is here with me.”

He made a face and held the phone away from his ear; I could hear Aunt May screaming. Then Mama apparently got on the line, because Dad said, “Hello, Leona. Yes, he’s here. He is fine. We’re in San Francisco.” There were brief pauses between each sentence, and I knew Mama was asking questions.

“He came alone,” Dad said. “No, I didn’t know he was coming, but I’m sending him back first thing tomorrow morning on the bus.”

I listened as Dad told Mama when I would arrive. There was no regret in his voice, no hint that he was sorry I had to leave. He might have been making arrangements to ship a package via UPS.

After he hung up, he said, “Your mother will be there to meet the bus when it gets in.”

Sharon started putting purple nail polish on her toes.

Dad asked me about school but there wasn’t much to say. He asked again how I had managed to get to San Francisco by myself and this time I told him about sleeping in the park, and the boys who took my money, and about eating leftovers at McDonalds.

“Oh, gross!” Sharon said. “You should never eat a stranger’s food. You could get
AIDS
.”

I was glad when it was time to go to bed.

Dad gave me a blanket and pillow, and I slept on the living-room floor. I could hear him and Sharon talking in the bedroom, but I couldn’t make out the words.

I stared at the ceiling. The idea of me and Dad living together, and going to watch the Giants play baseball, had been a wonderful dream. But in order for it to come true, Dad had to want me with him always, no matter what. The trouble with my dream was that I had to count on someone else to make it happen, and other people don’t always act the way we want them to.

I realized that the Candlestick Park I had struggled to reach isn’t a real place; it was only a ballpark in my mind, where everything was okay again. There is no more Candlestick Park; there is only 3COM Park. And I needed a new dream, something I could make happen by myself.

Early the next morning, Dad drove me back to the Transbay Transit Terminal building in downtown San Francisco. He didn’t go in with me. He had to hurry
back so Sharon could have the car to get to work. He stopped where the city buses and taxis stop, and handed me some money. “This is enough for your ticket and a couple of meals,” he said.