The Last Box Score

After baseball practice, Billy stood with the other kids, sucking on a grape ice pop, when the familiar rumble of his father’s cab pulled into the gravel lot. His dad whistled, leaned an elbow out the window, the stub of his pipe clamped between his teeth. “Gotta drop off near Fenway,” he yelled. “Wanna tag along?”

Billy tossed his glove onto the front seat and scrambled into the cab, grinning like he couldn’t get in fast enough. “Always,” he said, purple juice smeared across his face like a badge of honor.

The cab’s vinyl seats stuck to Billy’s legs as they crept through Boston traffic. The engine growled as his dad tapped the brakes, inching forward with a steady rhythm. Billy didn’t mind. The noise, the sticky air—everything about it felt familiar, like part of the ride.

The streets of Boston, still crammed with the buzz of summer, spilled over with life—bright and chaotic as ever, as Billy remembered. Outside, vendors shouted over the noise, hawking pizza and sausages, while kids darted between cars, their cries lost in the hum of the city. The greasy scent of food mixed with exhaust fumes, the traffic thick and slow, as if moving with the weight of the heat. But inside the cab, a world of calm, as if nothing could touch them.

Billy sat in the passenger seat, eyes flicking from window to window, the world blurring past like a series of half-remembered scenes. He could smell the sizzling sausages, the dogs on the grill, the faint tang of mustard carried by the breeze. And in the midst of it all—the scent of his father. Pipe tobacco and Dr. Pepper, a dash of aftershave. The scent hadn’t changed since Billy was young, a constant in the blur of everything else. His dad drove with one hand, the other tapping rhythmically on his thigh to a beat no one else could hear.

Billy’s dad didn’t speak often, but when he did, it was with a weight that pulled Billy’s attention, making him sit a little straighter. He spent his days behind the wheel, twelve hours at a stretch, picking up fares, the work steady but unremarkable. There was a gruffness about him that softened only in certain moments—like when he’d whistle. Low and tuneless, the sound seemed to swell between the dispatch calls and the soft rhythm of the meter’s click. Billy always knew his dad was in a good mood when he heard it. The whistle wasn’t a tune, just a sound that filled the cab, something familiar and comforting, like everything was alright.

“Look. Look,” his dad said, nodding toward the Citgo sign as it loomed above the skyline. “That’s a piece of Boston right there. Something bigger than yourself.”

Billy craned his neck, his eyes wide. “I’ll say! That’s huge!”

His dad chuckled, shaking his head. “Not just the size,” he said, glancing at the sign. “That thing’s been up there longer than most people. It’s part of the city, part of its story.” He trailed off, muttering something under his breath, as if it didn’t matter that Billy didn’t quite get it—not yet.

After the fare, his dad parked the cab on a quiet side street a few blocks from the park, slapping the OFFLINE sign in the window. They stepped out into the heat, the hum of the city still all around them, and started toward Fenway. His dad slipped into the crowd like he belonged there, nodding at vendors and chatting with scalpers as if they were old friends.

Inside Fenway, the grass was impossibly green, like it had been freshly painted just for the game. The dirt around the bases was smooth, as if someone had taken the time to prepare it, to make it perfect. Down by the third-base line, kids leaned over the railing, shouting for autographs. The Green Monster loomed in left field, towering over the stadium, its surface worn from years of use, yet still imposing. It seemed to hold the weight of countless games, its silent history dwarfing the chain-link fence Billy was used to pitching in front of.

They found their spot in the cheap seats, his dad handing Billy a hot dog wrapped in foil. “Careful,” he said, a sly grin creeping onto his face. “That thing’s hotter than a Sox fan after a bad call.”

Billy groaned, unwrapping the foil. “You been saving that one all week?” His dad laughed softly, shaking his head. Billy held the hot dog close to his nose, taking in a deep whiff of the warm, salty aroma before taking a big bite.

His dad always brought a game program, pulling it from his back pocket as they got settled. “Alright, kid. Every game tells a story. Let’s write it down.”

Billy scratched at the tiny boxes, tongue sticking out as he worked. Midway through the third inning, he stopped and frowned. “How do I score a double play?”

His dad leaned over, pipe between his teeth. “Start with the first out, then the second. Like this.” He pointed with his thumb, his voice low and steady.

Billy nodded and pressed down hard, the pencil tip snapping with a small crack. His dad chuckled, reaching for another pencil in his pocket. “Ease up, kid. You’re scoring the game, not carving it into stone.”

High school came and went. Billy pitched every season, hoping for scouts to notice, but they never did. His fastball lacked heat, and his curve never broke the way it should. By eighteen, he knew the dream was over. He took a job at a bank, and life filled up with other things. The trips to Fenway became fewer, the roar of the crowd fading into the background. Still, every now and then, he’d sit on the couch with his dad, watching the Sox on TV. They’d argue over bad calls and laugh when they both got it wrong.

After his dad passed unexpectedly, Billy couldn’t bring himself to watch a game. Even seeing the Citgo sign during a broadcast felt like a punch to the gut, a bright reminder of everything he’d lost.

One rainy afternoon, the sky a dull gray outside, Billy was sorting through his dad’s things, when he found a box tucked away under the bed, as though it had been waiting for him. The cardboard was soft, sagging at the corners, and smelled faintly of pipe tobacco. Inside were game programs and ticket stubs, the pages worn thin by time. He sat cross-legged on the floor, lifting each one carefully, the scrawl of box scores in his dad’s tight handwriting pulling him back. His fingers traced the lines, remembering how his dad had guided his hand with that quiet patience of his. At the bottom of the box, tucked beneath the papers, was a faded Polaroid of the two of them. His dad’s arm around his shoulder, the Citgo sign glowing faintly behind them, steady and unchanging, like the memories it held.

Billy closed the box, holding it in his lap for a moment, the weight of it pressing into him. His dad wouldn’t have wanted him to cry. What his dad would have wanted—what he would have understood—was another game, a fresh scorecard, and a hot dog in the cheap seats.

That weekend, Billy bought a single ticket to Fenway. The ballpark hadn’t changed. The grass looked as perfect as ever under the lights, the dirt smooth and clean around the bases. The air smelled of popcorn and charred hot dogs, mingling with the metallic warmth of the old bleachers. Kids lined the third-base wall, shouting for autographs with baseballs and pens waving in the air. Families filled the stands, dads teaching their kids to love the game the way his dad had taught him.

Billy settled into the bleachers with a hot dog in one hand and a fresh program in the other. He flipped the pages, the familiar weight of the pencil bringing it all back. He began marking the boxes, just as he’d done all those years ago. The motions came easy, like muscle memory. Every pitch, every play, every out went down on the page.

When the Citgo sign lit up in the fifth inning, its red glow cutting through the dark sky, Billy looked up. The hum of the crowd and the shouts of vendors seemed to fade, replaced by the low whistle of his dad in his memory. It wasn’t just Boston’s history shining above him now—it was theirs. The quiet afternoons spent scoring games, the bad jokes, the nights in the bleachers. All of it was there, wrapped up in the glow of that sign.

The game ended, and the crowd spilled out into the streets, their laughter and chatter filling the cool night air. Billy stayed for a moment, holding the program to his chest, feeling the weight of the night settle in.

As he started walking toward the exit, an usher, his uniform faded from years of service, nodded to him with a grin. “Great game tonight, huh?” he said, his voice friendly, but worn.

Billy nodded, offering a faint smile. “Yeah, it was.”

The usher’s eyes twinkled. “The kids had some fight in them tonight!”

Billy watched the man for a moment, then looked away. The game had been good, but it was more than that. It was the place. The history. The memory of the years spent with his dad, watching from the cheap seats, the sound of his dad’s whistle filling the spaces between innings. It wasn’t just about the game anymore. It was about everything that had led him back here.

When Billy finally turned to leave, he didn’t feel like he was walking away from anything. He was carrying it all with him, tucked in the quiet spaces between his thoughts, a part of him now—something that would be there, no matter where he went.