Masshole

I don’t know this Masshole. We met at a charging station behind bleacher section 41 at Fenway Park. It was my first time at the iconic field, my first time in Boston, and I’d snagged a cheap ticket at a bar across the street after watching my Trail Blazers get trounced by a Curry-less Warrior squad. I’d watched it alone, like the sorry western trash I felt like after that pummeling.

…

It’s been raining all day, and as the Baseball Tavern began to fill up everyone was asking the same questions.

“Is there a delay?”

“Are they going to call the game?”

The guy at the basement ticket desk assured me it wouldn’t rained out, but I was unconvinced.

“I’m here ’till 8:00. if they call it before that, come back and I’ll give you your money back. Other wise they’ll play ball.”

Deal. $20 is well worth the small risk they’ll wait to call the game for a chance to see the Red Sox take on the Yankees. And what’s a little rain anyways? It will take more than a light sprinkle to soak this Oregon-born skin.

Sitting at the basement level bar of this three story Boston establishment there’s exactly the type of discourse you’d expect 30 minutes before first pitch. “This asshole that” and “that asshole this” with plenty of “buddy” and “bro” thrown in. The few Yankees fans are prodded in good fun, and are sufficiently quick and well tempered in their responses. still, the tension is there. Everyone is waiting for an update, glued to the TV as they roll and unroll the tarp on the field.

“Any word yet?” I ask the older women next to me. My phones nearly dead and I’ve more than surpassed my data limit for the month. neither of these things is new to me.

“Nothing yet,” she says searching her bag for a phone charger for me.”And it’s almost 8:00, we’ll have to be heading in soon.”

The phone charger isn’t there, but Mary, that’s her name, mentions that there are places in the stadium to charge up. I file that away for later.

She and her husband James had taken the train into town for the game, something they do 6–8 times a year. James is a retired Boston Police Officer, and Mary does some sort of administrative work. Insurance or something like that to which I had no follow up questions once she told me. They graciously buy me a beer and engage me in a conversation free of the townie dialect taking place around us.

I ask them about their favorite Red Sox of all time.

“Ooohhhh I don’t know,” Mary says. “That’s too tough, probably one of the older guys from the 70s.”

“And I’m old enough to remember Ted Williams,” James grumbles, hinting it’s then a forgone conclusion who his favorite must be.

Not everyone in Boston has an accent, but their’s are heavy. Mary yammers away about how difficult it is to pahk in Boston while James nods silently in agreement. He’s reserved while she is bursting at the seams. These are good Boston people.

At 8:00 sharp the Sunday Night Baseball crew pops up on the screen. To my momentary surprise Jessica Mendoza is in the booth, she’s new to the broadcast this year and last season become the first women to call an MLB playoff game. I’m reminded that Curt Schilling used to have that spot, I wonder how these folks feel about all that. Perhaps best not to ask.

By the time Dan Shulman’s orotund voice finishes saying, “looks like we’re going to have baseball here tonight,” the bar has cleared out.

Entering a stadium is both the worst and best part of attending a sporting event. On one hand there’s the security and ticket lines, but on the other there is that overwhelming and all encompassing energy that lifts you up the moment you clear the bullshit. Eyes wide and intoxicated by a mix of emotion and 8 pints of bud, I step onto the concourse of Fenway Fahking Pahk. I literally text my mother to tell her I made it.

By the time I find another beer and my section it’s somewhere in the third, or maybe fourth inning. My ticket has me up near the top but I snag a random seat near the middle, whip out my camera, and start taking pictures. I’m soaking it all in. All of it. The steady rain, my beautiful view, the house lager I’m sipping on and the kindness of random strangers willing to banter a bit between pitches.

Shaw curls a home run around Pesky’s pole in the fifth. High Fives all around. This ties the game I guess. I don’t know, I wasn’t paying all that much attention, too lost in the moment to register the less important detail of winning or losing.

Now with an empty beer and dead phone, I head back under the bleachers to recharge both. That’s when I hear him.

“Babe, you gotta plug it in just like that, you know what I’m talking about? Yeah, yeah there you go. what’s your name? how you doin’ tonight? This fuckin’ game am I right, shit’s crazy. I flew all the way from San Francisco for this shit. Back home, against the Yanks?! Fuck yeah babe.”

That last part catches my attention. I hadn’t run into many other west coasters, and in my current state of intoxicated elation I’m willing and strike up a conversation with pretty much anyone sharing even the slightest connection.

“You’re from San Francisco?” I chime in. “I’m from Oregon.”

“Fuck yeah bro, that’s where I buy all my fuckin’ hash from bro!”

Somehow this Masshole runs a dispensary in Berkeley, and it’s expanding like crazy. He shows me videos of his grow-op and brags about all the money he’s making, pulling the gold chains from under his Red Sox shirt and holding up his watch.

“I rap too, my name’s Walter, but I go by The Real Homie Dun. Check me out bro.”

Insisting I follow him on Snapchat I snap a pic of his QR code. This is some serious new wave millennial bullshit type connecting. He offers me some cocaine and invites me to join he and his friends at their seats. I thank him and agree meet him there in a bit. Wandering away I’m overwhelmed by everything that has happened so far at the game.

Walter, or the Homie Dun as he requested I call him, was brash, forward, corny and so full of energy it left me hypnotized. While I knew this dude wasn’t someone to associate with if I wished to maintain any semblance of decency, I also wanted to be his friend. Maybe it’s because he was so eager to be mine, and because everyone had told me people in Boston were assholes, and because I’d spent the whole day wandering around Beantown alone just looking for shenanigans to get into, but a few minutes later there I was, standing in the second closest row to the field in bleacher 42 with my new homie.

…

I wake up the next morning to a text from Homie Dun.

“Last night was a movie. Miss you already babe.”

Regardless of the phrasing, he was right. To the ire of Fenway security and ESPN cameramen we turned bleacher 42 out. We cheered, danced, hit the G pen, got on TV, made more friends and entertained those around us. It was a helluva game, one the Red Sox won for the series sweep, and an experience unlike any other. I may not really know this Masshole, but Homie Dun sure made me feel like I did.