Charlie St. Cloud Page 0,2

market on Washington Street. The boys had come home from school with mischief on their minds. They had no homework to do until Sunday night. They had already gone spying on the Flynn twins down the block. They had jumped a fence and snuck onto the property of the Czech refugee who claimed to have invented the bazooka. At sunset, they had played catch under the pine trees in their yard on Cloutman’s Lane, just as they had done every night since Charlie had given Sam his first Rawlings glove for his seventh birthday. But now it was dark, and they had run out of adventures.

Sam might have settled for crashing and watching Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” video on MTV, but Charlie had a surprise. He wanted action and had just the plan.

“How ’bout night fishing on Devereux Beach?” he asked Sam, setting his brother up perfectly.

“Boring,” Sam said. “We always do that. How ’bout a movie? Terminator 2’s playing at the Warwick. Nick Burridge will sneak us in the back.”

“I’ve got a better idea.”

“It’s R-rated. What’s better than that?”

Charlie pulled out two tickets from the pocket of his jeans jacket. Red Sox tickets. They were playing the Yankees. Boston was on a roll, and the evil Bronx Bombers had lost eleven of their last thirteen.

“No way! Where’d those come from?” Sam asked.

“I have my ways.”

“How we gonna get there? Fly?”

“Don’t you worry about that. Mrs. Pung is on vacation. We can borrow her wagon.”

“Borrow? You don’t even have a license!”

“You want to go or not?”

“What about Mom?”

“Don’t worry. She’ll never know.”

“We can’t leave Oscar. He’ll freak out and mess up the house.”

“He can come too.”

Sure enough, Charlie, Sam, and their beagle were soon driving to Boston in Mrs. Pung’s Country Squire. Without their neighbor Mrs. Pung, that is. The police report would make considerable mention of two unlicensed minors, a dog, and a white stolen vehicle with red interior. But Mrs. Pung dropped the auto-theft charges when she got back from Naples, Florida. They were good kids, she said. They only borrowed the car. They made a terrible mistake. They more than paid the price.

The drive took thirty minutes, and Charlie was especially careful on Route 1A where the Swampscott and Lynn cops patrolled. The boys listened to the pregame show on WRKO, talked about the last time they’d been to the ballpark, and counted their money, calculating they had enough for two Fenway Franks each, a Coke, and peanuts.

“This is our year,” Sam said. “The Sox’ll win the Series.”

“They just have to break the Curse of the Bambino,” Charlie said. It was the superstition of every red-blooded Boston fan: Trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees had put a hex on the Sox.

“You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?”

“Think about it. The Sox haven’t won the Series since 1918. The Yanks have done it twenty-two times. You do the math.”

“C’mon, the Babe didn’t make Bill Buckner boot that ground ball in ’86.” Buckner was the reviled first baseman who let an easy dribbler through his legs in the World Series, costing the Sox game six and, many swore, the championship.

“How do you know?”

“He just didn’t.”

“Well, I think he did.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

A standoff.

“Draw?” Sam said reluctantly.

“Okay, draw.”

And with that, the argument was done but not over. A draw was their way of stopping a dispute that would have gone on all night. It would be dutifully recorded in Charlie & Sam’s Book of Big & Small Arguments. And after the proper procedural motions, it could be started up again at any point. Ignoring their age difference, Sam threw himself into these arguments with passion, and the two brothers often spent hours in the Abbot public library on Pleasant Street gathering ammunition for their battles.

Now, with its red bricks and shimmering glass, Boston was waiting across the Charles River. They turned down Brookline Avenue and could see the hazy lights of the stadium. Biting at the chilly air, Oscar leaned out the window. With his red and white coat, he was the perfect mascot for the adventure.

In the parking lot, the boys stuffed their beagle into a backpack and took off for the bleachers. As they reached their seats a thundering cheer rose for Roger Clemens, #21, throwing his first rocket. The boys laughingly bowed left and right to acknowledge the crowd. A stadium guard would later testify he saw the two unaccompanied youths, wearing caps and carrying mitts, but did not stop or question them.

Their seats were in right