Rules For Becoming A Legend Part 13

"Are you sure hes our grandpa?" Jimmy asked.

Before Todd could answer, the Flying Finn had both boys in headlocks and was pulling them out into the yard. "Is your grandpop, Im so strong!" he was shouting. It was a game they used to play often when Todd was small. Strongest Man in the World. The Flying Finn threw first Jimmy and then Dex out into the gra.s.s. "Is just so strong, Is the strongest man in the world."

"Man, you are crazy," Jimmy said as he stood up, wiped at some of the mud now streaking his pants.

He looked at Todd for help and Todd shrugged, smiling. "Hes the strongest man until you prove otherwise." It was strange seeing this version of his father playing at joy. Todd saw that the years out on the streets had got their knocks in as they pa.s.sed by. Finn was missing three of his bottom teeth on the right side. There was a scar from above his right eyebrow running to just below his cheekbone. He moved in a glitch-heavy way. Steps down seemed to give him trouble. And yet still. Here he was, the crazy f.u.c.k, wrestling.

Jimmy turned back to the Flying Finn, red-faced. "There is something seriously loose in your head." Todd could tell his kid was being pushed out of his comfort zone with this. He wasnt entering on his terms. There were no rules or boundaries and he hadnt practiced his moves ad nauseam beforehand.

"If you looks where I am, you only sees where Is been, cause Is so fast, Im the Flying Finn!"

Still, Jimmy would not bite, tried to play it cool. "Man," he said, rubbing at the gra.s.s stains on his jeans. "You got them all dirty."

It took Dex to get things started. "Youre not that strong, and youre old, too!" he took a running charge at the gangly suit hanger, bulleted him in the chest, and they fell in a mess of limbs, Dex mostly on top but it was hard to tell with the flapping suit coat.

"Is not old, Is so strong!"

Dex was laughing and trying to get the Flying Finn pinned, but the old man was full of tricks and before long he was on his feet again, strutting back and forth, crowing, literally, like a rooster. "c.o.c.k-a-doodle-do!"

"Come on, Jimmy," Dex said.

Jimmy looked at Todd once more, and Todd nodded his head. He wanted his boy to get messy.

"All right, OK," Jimmy said, and this time both boys pummeled into their grandpa. All three fell into the muddy gra.s.s laughing and boasting about their strength. Todd went back in the house, shaking his head in joy. Just like that . . .

Those visits from the Flying Finn were hard though. Todd had to willfully not think about the day of Suzies funeral every time the old man came, which of course made him think of it all the more. He remembered how they were all dressed in black-even the Columbia City sky was dark with thunderclouds rolling in from the ocean-to put to rest this tiny box, painted white. It seemed too small to hold anything of substance. That box. Especially an entire person, especially a little girl who had hidden depth enough in her smile to hold a happiness so big it swallowed up two accidental parents.

At the funeral, Todd folded his arms high and tight on his chest against the wet, Oregon cold. He was shaking, vibrating, like at any moment he would come unraveled. Genny Mori beside him, slack and out of it. Eyes blurry, unfocused, but put together in a neat dress. The Flying Finn in a suit, old, dusty, and elegant. A used-to-be black, some of the color burned off. Todd turned to his father. Old man acted like he knew everything else under the sun, he should know what to do now for G.o.ds sake.

"Dad?" Todd spoke overloud. "Dad, what do I do?"

The Flying Finn turned away.

"Todd, stop it," Genny Mori said. She was huge, pregnant with Jimmy, and concerned he was going to make a scene. That was Genny in a nutsh.e.l.l, anti-scene.

Todd grabbed his fathers shoulder and turned the old man around. It wasnt difficult. Todd was still solid and the Flying Finn had more or less turned to paper. He expected to see tears in the old mans eyes. But there were none.

"Tell me what to do."

"Get the hold on yourself."

"Tell me."

"Nothing-nothing-nothing." Voice a pile of dried-out wood shifting on itself.

Todd had the man by both of his shoulders. The priest was watching. He was crying at least. The Bergs, father, son, and pregnant new wife were there, even though no one asked them to be.

"Todd," Princ.i.p.al Berg said. "Come on now."

"Todd . . ." someone else. James? "Todd, buddy, come on. Come here."

Todd kept squeezing his father. He could feel the structure of the old mans bones beneath his hands. He felt like he could crumple him entirely. Fold him into a paper plane. Let him fly.

"Todd, honey, let go," Genny Mori said in that whisper that meant, Other people are watching, youre embarra.s.sing yourself.

Then the Flying Finn said the thing that Todd had to willfully un-remember every time the old man came over to visit: "She lucky to die so young, see none of this bad place."

Todd let go of this man. He didnt understand. This man wasnt his father. Not the same man who pushed so hard for him to be the best basketball player he could be. The man before him was a fraud.

"Lucky?" Todd turned as if he were walking away, Genny turned too, but then, with a quickness that electrocuted his bones, a speed that the Flying Finn had so long honed in him for basketball, Todd turned back and pushed his father in his chest. Old man flew back and slid across the wet cemetery gra.s.s. In the process, Todds knee popped. He buckled to one side, limped around cussing.

On his back the Flying Finn looked up at the sky. Storm was threatening for real. He was breathing fast, shallow breaths. "I cant get no protection!" he shouted. "Even my own flesh and blood."

Princ.i.p.al Berg walked over. "Here," he said, and offered him a handkerchief.

"No, you the worse of the lots. All of yous." He scrambled up, his back a cake of mud and gra.s.s, and ran off in a slippery trot that would have been comical in other circ.u.mstances.

Todd meanwhile became concerned with finding out who had been in charge of setting up the burial. "They did such a fine job," he said between sobs, "I want to give a tip, they did a fine job."

"Whos in charge here?" James said desperately, trying to help. "Who?"

Todd looked at him, closed his eyes, and sat in the gra.s.s.

Now, with Todd allowing the Flying Finn to visit, the old man took his second chance seriously. Each day before he came, he washed with palm-cupped water in Normas restaurant bathroom like the giant, bony, wingless bird hed become, humming to keep his mind off the cold. He showed up at the house reeking of antibacterial hand soap, skin pink, almost red, because of how hard hed scrubbed.

On these visits, the Flying Finn did most of the talking, Jimmy and Dex did most of the listening, and Todd sat way back in his chair, watching.

"You know why I called the Flying Finn?" He liked to ask the boys. "Its the soccer team. In Finland. Is the fastest son of the dog of the whole bunch." He puffed out his boney chest. "Move my feets so you only see where Is been, and there he goes like hes a flying Finn!"

Sometimes Todd interjected. "Oh, you made that up yourself."

"Me? No! It was the fans. My fans."

"You never had any fans."

"Yes, I did and they called me Flying Finn. I already told all about that."

The Flying Finn stayed for hours on his visits, wearing out his welcome, but the boys were nice to him, even as their mother strangely ignored him. He cracked them up. He used the bathroom to "Conduct Official Business," and ran the water full blast the entire time, singing, "We will, we will ROCK YOU," at the top of his lungs while he stomped his feet from where he sat on the toilet-cla.s.sic grandpa. And then on his way out of the door, the Flying Finn asked Jimmy and Dex to help him pluck the flowers from Gennys garden. He was always in love with one waitress or another at Normas Restaurant. "FLOWERS FOR MY LOVEYS!" hed yell at the top of his lungs. And then, in a nudge-nudge whisper, hed tell the boys, "Maybe you twos will be lucky to have a lady like my Lovey. She has Jesus tongue."

"What?"

"Tongue move so good you say, PRAISE JESUS!"

If Genny Mori caught him picking flowers, there was h.e.l.l to pay.

"You get back here Finn, those are my tulips!"

"Too quick for you, Mori!" the Flying Finn shouted back, running down the sidewalk suit coat flapping. "I need tulips to kiss the lips!"

During that summer, fighting the mood of nothingness that descends on small-town streets for three months each year, people went out of their way to shake Jimmys hand, offer him a free slice of pizza, an ice cream cone. Next year he would be a freshman and all expected him to carry the Fishermen back to glory. Dex thought it was hilarious. He liked to stir the pot by shouting, "The great Jimmy Kirkus is here, live and in person. Five bucks a handshake, ten an autograph."

"d.a.m.n, Dex, Im not signing anything. People are going to start asking you to put your money where your mouth is."

Dex thought on it a second. "People shouldnt be putting money where their mouths are. Its disgusting-you know where moneys been?"

Sometimes Pedro would chime in, "We got two for the price of one. Thats right, two Kirkuses today, so act quick, supplies are limited!"

The truth was, Jimmy was hopped up on the attention. It filled a need he hadnt known was there. He liked the way the girls smiled at him, how the boys gave him confident high fives. It didnt seem to matter that he never had anything to say, hated holding eye contact. And all this because of ball. If he could just never let them down, then all the love would keep coming. It was a simple equation and though it seemed ridiculous, for our kid Jimmy, whod only experienced basketball success so far, it was entirely plausible.

Toward the end of the summer, Todd let the Flying Finn move into the house. He was staying longer and longer on each of his ever more frequent visits anyway so it made sense. He slept in the pantry. It was barely big enough to fit the green cot that Genny Mori put in. He slept among jars of jam and cans of vegetables. Some mornings hed emerge, chin stained with jam or peanut b.u.t.ter, complaining of stomachaches.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Finn," Genny scolded. "You can be eating all night, making a mess of it, sticking your fingers straight into the jars."

"A midnight snack is how they say this," the Flying Finn responded. "Its so very common where I come from."

"This is where you come from, you old goose," Todd said.

Sometimes Jimmy and Dex would come down early in the morning, their mom already gone for the day, and find the two men sitting in the kitchen, be looking out the big, river-facing windows, talking about old times. Drank pot after pot of coffee while they waited for Todds shift to begin in the afternoon.

One morning Dex asked for coffee too.

"Ah, youd hate the taste," the Flying Finn said. "Asides, itll stump your growing."

"Its stunt, not stump," Todd said.

"I dont believe it. You pulling on the foot?"

"Grandpa, Im already tall," Dex said.

"Ha-ha!" the old man cackled. "I think you right. Youre too tall! So go, drink coffee. You a tree, not a stump!" Then he gripped Jimmys shoulder. "But you stay off the stuff. Youre too short!"

On those mornings, Todd and the Flying Finn spoke as though the boys werent there. Of where he went in the years after Todd lost his knee, future, and Suzie Q.-"South, south, south. Figured I didnt need much if I were warm at night!" Why when he came back to town hed worn that ridiculous helmet-"I was afraid someone would see me. Then there is the answer! I find a green motorcycle helmet that covered my ears, my eyes. A disguise!"

Other than Suzies funeral, the one thing they never spoke about was the night Todd went wandering off drunk before the state championship game. But it was there, just under the surface and the boys had no clue about any of that.

That summer, the Flying Finn learned about the Tour de France. During the day hed take over the TV for hours so he could see if Lance would win.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n thats my sport!" hed shout above all the normal household noise. "I was never one for my hands or my feets, but in my legs, I got the cla.s.s."

"Isnt the Finnish thing like bobsled or something?" Dex asked.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it! Its in our legs. We show them smug Euros!"

"The Finnish are European."

"Just listen to your grandpa when he talks!" He threw the remote at Dex, chunked him in the side of his big head. The Flying Finn clapped. "Get me a bike, get me a bike and Ill show you!"

"Ouch, Jesus," Dex said, rubbing the spot. "Youre insane."

At the local thrift store he picked up used bits of cycling gear until by the final few days of the tour, he was watching in a hodgepodge cycling uniform that advertised about a hundred different companies and seemed composed exclusively of neon Spandex. Hopping up and down in the living room, the big, glowing, skinny man-made all the skinnier by Spandex-watched Lance Armstrong win the tour again.

"Just get me a bike, you knuckleheads, Ill show you, Ill show you so good."

When Jimmy and Dex found a rusted old Schwinn in the thick blackberry bushes behind the elementary school one day, they took it to Pedros house that always smelled of motor oil and fried food. His uncle Flaco fixed it up in no time.

"What you need a bike for, Jimmy?" Pedro asked.

"Its not for me."

When the Flying Finn saw the bike, he broke down crying.

"You little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," he wailed, "You cant just let an old man live proud to his boasts? Its all I gots after all!"

"But Grandpa," Jimmy said. "We wanted to see how fast you could go."

Then the Flying Finn leaned in close to the boys and whispered, "Its sorry to say, boys, but I never learn how to ride."

So there were the Kirkus boys, running next to the Flying Finn in his neon biking gear and his bright green motorcycle helmet-both with a hand on the bike frame somewhere to prop up his terrible balance, while he screamed and giggled. Pumping his legs, knees angled out, like a maniac.

"I feel like flying," the Flying Finn yelled.

Meanwhile, for Genny Mori, the house started to feel like a foreign country she didnt have a pa.s.sport for. She could find ways in, sure, but it was always with the fear that shed be discovered at any point and deported. All boys and then her. All old stories, and somehow no mention of her. A whole decade of Todd slowly shutting down to her, but somehow still this light for his loudmouth father? She started lingering at work with the one person who always seemed to be around, Doc McMahan.

The affair started because Doc and his wife lost a child that summer. Happened after a long, painful fight where the little girl put up with all kinds of stuff little girls shouldnt have to put up with. Tubes down the throat, needles, and blood samples. An autoimmune disorder Genny Mori hadnt heard of before. They started meeting up after work to trade notes on grief. Commiserate and laugh over the stupid things people said in order to show you that they cared. Im so sorry for your loss. I was shocked when I heard. You have our condolences. Well keep you in our prayers.

Doc McMahan and Genny Mori laughed over the responses they wished they could say. Me too. So was I. Thanks, but no thanks. Was I in them before? She appreciated that he let her be angry when she felt like being angry. Not like Todd who either exploded right back at her, or told her to cool off, think about it from the other persons point of view. For Genny this was the thing about Todd. She was never entirely sure he was on her side. With McMahan she could let loose. There was no doubt.

And in talking about Suzie with this wet, little man with the beautiful eyes, something happened to Genny Mori that should have happened fifteen years before. Her heart broke where before it had only cracked. Here was someone else who had lost the most important thing in their life without any fault of their own. So instead of building from the ruins with her husband when it had happened, she did it much later in a beachside condo with little, tanned-dark Doc McMahan. She found all sorts of reasons to believe he was the right man come along. Finally.

Tough luck for her, that one.

McMahan didnt actually live in Seaside, the small town where the hospital was, just down 101 from Columbia City; he commuted there three times a week. Whenever he talked about his life in Portland, all Genny saw were differences she had no hope of competing with. Back in Portland was his wife and their two other kids. Soccer practices and community softball. Potluck dinners and hikes in the Gorge. Big games and barbequed meat. The wife worked as an account manager at some ad agency. They had a huge house in the right neighborhood. They could afford to eat extravagant Sat.u.r.day brunches at restaurants with two, sometimes three, accent markers in the name. They traveled to Europe when the kids were on break. He owned a small sailboat-the reason for his constant tan. However, on days McMahan worked in Seaside, always three- or four-day stints strung together, he stayed at a condo he owned on the beach.

This condo made the affair too easy to start and too difficult to end. Genny Mori would swear it off and then find that she had left something of hers at the condo. She would return to pick it up and then . . . One Thing, and Another-they liked to play follow the leader.

McMahan was such a welcome relief from Todd, the only man shed ever slept with before in her life. Todd Roll-Over-You Kirkus. Todd Get-It-Done-Then-Saw-Some-Logs Kirkus. Bang, bang, snore. A man who had put on the pounds since high school and became soft in the middle. Meanwhile McMahan was ropy with the muscle of an active leisure life and a dedicated personal trainer. He was affectionate in just the right way. He always made sure she was taken care of first. He liked to laugh in the bedroom. Wasnt offended when her body made strange noises, when a weird gasp escaped her lips. He seemed determined to consume every part of her. In his eyes she was the s.e.xiest thing in existence, and so she began to feel this way too. He said he liked the way she tasted and smelled. She could see that he was telling the truth by how eagerly he traveled down, and so she became relaxed and started to come on a regular basis for the first time in her life. And yet he was always with her because she let him. He never pushed the issue, which made her want to push it for him. Jump all over him. He was sweet, but pa.s.sionate. He always asked, each and every time before he entered, May I? but he also had ripped a fair amount of her blouses in frenzied backseat hookup sessions that seemed almost comical in their headlong pa.s.sions. He was the perfect mix.