Rules For Becoming A Legend Part 16

I had Jimmy back when he was in third, no I think it must have been fourth grade, and he wrote this most beautiful little poem about a caterpillar becoming a b.u.t.terfly. I think it speaks to what this poor kid is going through. Metamorphosis. Becoming that beautiful b.u.t.terfly and . . .

He doesnt deserve the purple and gold . . .

The kid is reeling. Cant anyone see that? I mean, I swear to G.o.d people are blind. Hes what, all of sixteen? This is not a grown man playing professional basketball, this is a high school kid. Does n.o.body get that? Oh, I forgot, just because . . .

h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo? This where Fultanos pizzas? I want one cheese, and, ha ha, two orders of . . .

Its embarra.s.sing, Ill tell you that much right now. Seasides got Shooter Ackley gunning through the league and were so G.o.dd.a.m.n, oh, excuse me, Chris. Didnt mean to cuss on your show. But were so desperate to put up a fight last year in 6A we gonna get a frickin head case suit up for us? We that desperate? G.o.d bless the kid, but we might as well go trolling for street people. I mean hes got issues. Kirkus Curse. That blog thing was right. Less we hear of Kamikaze Kirkus, the better . . .

You werent there, Chris. You might as well stop calling him Jimmy, cause that wasnt no Jimmy. That was Kamikaze, just like his nickname say. Cant deny it if you were there. Hes a player, boy, hes a player again. All people calling in who werent there should shut it. Cause if you were there, then ho-ly . . .

He needs help. Have you seen the video? Theres a part of him missing . . .

Carla turns off the radio. She leans back into the big, run-down couch that is as ugly as it is comfortable. A present from the parish. Her father and mother and siblings are out for the night service. Shes begged to stay in. Told them all that she was feeling ill. And maybe she is. She does feel a little warm.

Her dad was all, "Carla, honey, are you sure?"

And she snapped. "It was an accident, OK? I had a headache and I took too many, and it was an accident! Gosh!" Theyd slinked off after that. Taking too many pills and being admitted to the hospital has given her more power than shes ever known.

She gets up and checks her e-mail. Theres a new one come in with subject line: HOLY f.u.c.kING s.h.i.t. Her face blooms hot when she reads that. She curses herself and urges the blush to die. Hows she ever going to fit in if any cuss turns her into a tomato? She checks over her shoulder even though she knows shes alone. There, at the bottom of a litany of comments from the people it was forwarded to before, is a QuickTime video. She clicks it before reading anything.

Its Jimmy and the wall. Just as shes imagined it from what people have said. When Jimmy disappears below the bottom of the frame, it is as if she feels the hit. Every time he comes back on to camera, its a little slower, a little more wobbly. His blood shows up black on the monochrome security footage and this helps dull the reality, a little. Then again, theres so much of it that when she imagines it as its true red, she feels faint. She remembers his head in the hospital, and then later, at Peter Pan, his hand. Him on the phone. His voice didnt hold what she sees in this clip. Was whatever drove him to this still in him?

Seeing that grainy video wakes up something inside Carla, something she has to get out. She fights it for a moment, this urge, and then lets go. If she doesnt scratch, this itch will bug her all night. What she wants, more than anything, is to just tag on some generically shocked line similar to the others, just to get her in the game, and be done with it. Have the easiness the other kids she sees around live their lives by. A by-product of continuity, she a.s.sumes. But she cant do this. What shes just seen is too heavy to just flip off down the road. Shes cried at Dove soap commercials before, so this, this needs something more.

Plus, he asked her to write him something, and hes cute, kind of. So, whatever.

She gets out the stack of Columbia City Standard newspapers her father collects for sermon ideas. Shes looking through headlines. When she gets to one on Jimmy, she runs her finger through the article until she finds a word she likes, something that has enough weight in it to make this all seem more real. Then she carefully cuts it out. Then back to the newspaper. Soon she has enough. She arranges them on a white page, pins each in place with a bit of tape. Its a poem, of course.

She sits back in the couch. There was a time, when she was younger, that she didnt think of her family as the red flag theyve become. She didnt smell the mustiness on the hand-me-down clothes that the other kids seemed to be able to pick up at great distances. She didnt mind her mothers crisp, just-so hairstyle, and thought her fathers jokes were as funny as he did. Then something happened and she could see herself and her family how others must see them. A collection of ill-fitting, well-intentioned but not-to-be-taken-seriously spiritual vagabonds who would be rotated back out in three or four years-off to some other poor town to start all over with an awkward coffee-and-cake morning hour in a pink-aquarium room somewhere in the church bas.e.m.e.nt, smelling strongly of papier-mche from last years divinity play.

So for Carla, even more than other kids her age, fitting in is the big goal. She doesnt do well with the scattershot questions of beginning relationships. Little chip-offs of her self as she answers poorly, or says something stupid. People are scared of her earnestness, her immediate care. It takes months to ease past that. Get down to who she really is.

Jimmys in bed. Halfway through Christmas Break. Its raining outside. Too warm for snow, too cold for anything else, gray everywhere. Columbia Citys painters pallet smudged for sure. He has to avoid his pops and the Flying Finn and all their leading questions for seven more whole days before he can go back to school, ignore everyone, and just think. After the Nine Games, wandering the woods doesnt feel right, but home isnt exactly a sanctuary. All his pops and grandpa want him to do is talk. Like him talking is the only way theyll know if hes all right. Its too much. Hes quaking and stuffs the edge of the pillow into his mouth. He hasnt showered in days. He smells sour. Hes crying. Howling. A great emptying out that he tries to bite off on the edge of the pillow but it keeps coming. He doesnt feel an end inside him. Cars are imperfect machines. The risk that comes from getting from one place to another seems a bad one. And for a stupid payoff. Shallow. The world is a s.h.i.tty place. For as good as hed felt at Peter Pan Courts, its all gone now.

Last week he met twice with Mrs. Cole at her home, Pops waiting in the running van. Both times it was she who broke down weeping, swept him into her chest and gripped the back of his head, saying all the while how it would be OK. With time, all would heal. Strange, but both times he felt that just talking was helping.

His pops knocks on the door. "Hey Jimmy?"

Jimmy coughs. His pops heard him crying, for sure. "Yeah?"

"Can I come in a sec?" Even his pops thinks if hes left alone h.e.l.l start slamming his head into a wall again. Like he cant wait to do it. Like it hadnt been a last resort.

"Whatever." His voice is still husky from crying. He wishes it werent, it would make lying about how hes perfectly fine easier.

"Hey, buddy." His pops looks around his room. Its a mess. Jimmy in a tangle of sheets with dirty laundry flung about. His pops takes out another one of his peppermints. Cracks it in his teeth. Everything must taste the same to him for how often he eats those. Like peppermint must be the flavor on everything for him. Sweet even when he doesnt want to taste sweet. "You OK?"

"Im fine, pops. Coach call?" And while Jimmy doesnt care about basketball, or rather isnt sure if he does, he knows this question will set his pops back so he asks it. Because of the Brick Wall Incident, the school isnt sure he should play, his pops isnt sure he should play, even Coach Kelly isnt sure he should play. And Jimmy himself? Well, thats what all the thinking, and crying, is about. How much does it actually matter if he plays against the best? Its a game. A stupid one. And yet.

"No, Jimmy. n.o.body called."

Jimmy knows whats coming. He just directed the conversation there after all. But all he wants is to sleep all day. He rolls over in his bed so he doesnt have to watch his pops give whatever variation of the Basketball Might Not Be for You speech hes worked up to today.

He manages to ignore the first bit, but by the end, his ears cant help themselves. "But look, you shouldnt be waiting around. Could be better you dont play? Whole towns nothing but vultures, I can tell you that firsthand, why you want to play for vultures? A good life doesnt have to have basketball in it. Right?"

"Right."

"Right?"

Jimmy rolls back to look at his pops. "But. I still maybe want to play. So . . ." And its true and not true at all, and how is Jimmy supposed to make his pops understand both those things?

Looking at Jimmy in the eyes sends a chill through Todd. Those black hole eyes, he thinks, Jesus. Same eyes as when he told him to turn the van around. Get the Flying Finn. He couldnt say no to him then.

He sees in his son an echo of what he himself has battled ever since Suzie and the beach. This recognition makes him all the more desperate to snap the kid out of it. Depression is insidious because it clouds the ability to look upon oneself, take stock. If Jimmy isnt careful, h.e.l.l wake up and half his life will be gone.

A floor up, the Flying Finn drops a tin bowl. It clatters loudly. Todd imagines pancake batter spilled everywhere. The Flying Finn giggles wildly. "Order up, hot, hot, hot." Todd doesnt want to be stuck cleaning up again. He has to get up there and catch the old kook before he skips the house for the day to avoid the ch.o.r.e. He knows he should be patient, stay with his son. But h.e.l.l, the whole thing is shot through with holes. Hardened pancake batter, coating the cracks in the floor, no thanks. It would be easier if he could just have some time away from looking after his son, if he could just get a break. He cant. He has to keep constant watch. In the couple years before the wall, hed let his focus drift. Jimmy coming home with random cuts on his forehead, knees skinned through ripped holes in his sweats. Boys being boys. Not anymore. Those all added up to something terrible. Now he needs to keep track of all the information he can get from his son, do the arithmetic fast, and get out in front of the equation. "Well, look, the reason I came down is cause this girl Carla, you know her?"

Jimmy narrows his eyes. Todd sees the gears stick, and then roll again. His son is remembering. Hes noticed how his boys mind catches like this since the wall. Sad to see. A side effect of blunt-force trauma to the head, maybe.

Jimmys body becomes looser. He sits up. Wavers. "Yeah."

Todd smiles, a human reaction coming from his boy. Red-blooded. A girl. "She dropped this off." He holds up the poem. "Any idea what this is?"

"No, I-" Jimmy says quickly, a hand on his forehead.

"Its a poem."

"Well, give it." Hes already swinging his feet off the bed.

"Come up to the kitchen, itll be on the table," Todd says, turning away, happy with the hook hes set. "Grandpas cooking breakfast."

The poem is more a list of words than anything-"dazzle," "genius," "points," "rebounds," "crowd," "record," "Jimmy Kirkus"-but after each pasted-on word Carla has drawn a dotted line to a bubble on the margins. In each bubble is the date and t.i.tle of the article the word came from, a sort of bibliography. Carla. He is thirsty and drenched all at once. Puzzle pieces, every organ inside him. Like they need proper placement and she has the diagram to show exactly where each one is meant to go.

Some of the words are highlighted in yellow with a second line sprouting from them, leading to a definition: Col-li-s-ion noun 1. an instance of one moving object or person striking violently against another : a midair collision between two aircraft.

Its a detailed web of words that Jimmy imagines as a diagram of Columbia Citys collective mind and how it thinks of him. Hes got a cold sweat. There at the kitchen table, he thinks he can figure it all out, crack the code. He rereads the poem five or six times in a row. He realizes hes taking this too seriously. But thats his way. He remembers in practice back in freshman year, when Coach Kelly was done with the drills and the scrimmages, he kept the gym open for the guys to play around. Joe Looney liked to guard Jimmy just so he could post him up on offense, yell, "Mouse in the house, mouse in the house," get the ball and dribble his comet dribbles, BANG! BANG! BANG!, backing Jimmy up with his sizeable a.s.s, the whole team cracking up. It was a joke, for laughs, and yet Jimmy couldnt get it. His teammates would yell to him, "Jesus, just take it easy, Kirkus," but he would try everything he knew to stop Joes rumble to the hoop. Pushing back with all his strength, going for the steal, trying a defense move he saw Ron Artest do in an NBA game Dex used to call "pulling the chair." And when Joe would score, Jimmy felt a failure. Cussed himself out. Threw the ball down, stormed off. He couldnt take it easy. He couldnt slow down. Same as right now, with these words. No way theyre as important as hes making them out to be, but he cant stop. He finds he likes it this way. Good to admit that.

He doesnt know exactly what this girl-this amber girl, Carla-had in mind when she made this poem for him, but he remembers asking her for it. Now he needs to do something for her, something in response to show how he really is.

Later Todd Kirkus is out on a jog along the River Walk. The Flying Finn is back at the house with his bike propped in his old a spinning stand, watching a taped Tour de France, trying to get back into shape. This latest stint on the streets has left him pouchy, poorly fitted. He and Todd have split shifts so Jimmy is never alone. Nows Todds turn to be out and theres a freedom sprouting inside of him to finally be away from that morose house, and he feels guilty because of it.

It seems his son wants to start playing again. After everything, its still in him. And if he fails? Gets out on the court again, carrying the water for everyones dreams, and he freezes up? Starts missing shots, turning the ball over, living up to that s.h.i.tty little nickname theyve all been calling his son-Jimmy Soft-what then? That chant. "Dad-dys bet-ter!"

Its just rained and his shoes make little wet slaps on each step. Todds running faster, Columbia River out to his right, a big barge delicately navigating the sand banks. Theres a cla.s.s of people in Columbia City, barge pilots, whose job is to motor out to the ships taking containers of gypsum or coal up to Portland, and pilot them through the sand bars. Obstacles they know like the backs of their hands because they navigated them before. They make clear over a hundred grand a year, Todds heard.

Now it hits Freight Train that hes been going about this in the wrong way. Ever since he had his boys he thought that to protect them would be to keep them away from basketball. Really, what he should have been doing is teaching them ways to thrive. Balling was a given, but how they did it wasnt. Todd turns around and heads home. Faster now. Really pushing it. Feet pound. If Jimmy is going to come back to basketball, Todd will make d.a.m.n sure hes ready.

Rule 16. If You Crack, Crack for the Whole World to See.

Tuesday, Jan 24, 2006.

JIMMY KIRKUS, FIFTEEN YEARS OLD-TWO YEARS UNTIL THE WALL.

Todd Kirkus wanted to see his boy in action, but hesitated because the last time he was in the Brick House play had literally stopped for the fans to cheer him on. He didnt want to take any of the attention away from Jimmy, so he made a plan with Genny Mori to come and go swift and unseen. h.e.l.l, even Dex thought his pops was working that night. After he met his wife out front with the game in progress, theyd go in the back way and watch from a secret spot he had discovered in high school. A little balcony where the lights were set up when the gym served as a theater. Then his little Jimmy would make him proud and Todd and Genny would leave before the final buzzer. Home making dinner before his kid even left the court.

Todd parked in the very rear of the jam-packed parking lot under a dead light. He felt a giddiness at being secretive. He waited inside the van for his wife to be dropped off by Bonnie. Todd wondered if they ever talked about him. Was he ever the reason for those little giggles they shared over the phone?

Then he saw Genny Mori in the pa.s.senger seat of a black luxury car he didnt recognize. Driving was this little, handsome man with a vague smile, somehow overdone and undercooked all at once. The man dropped Genny at the back entrance of the gym. Then the black car slid away, smooth.

When Todd came up to her, she was startled out of checking her lipstick in the foldable mirror she took with her everywhere.

"Jesus, Todd!" Her face was clenched in real fear. Then this melted as she studied his face. She playfully slapped him. "You scared me," she grabbed a hold of his shirt and pulled herself toward him. She gave him these little bird kisses up and down the side of his face. Her breath hot cinnamon. "Cant just sneak up like that."

"I didnt mean to," he said, stunned.

She kept kissing him, up and down his face, even while he talked.

"Whoa, so many kisses."

She answered him between kisses. "Well. You. Scared. Me." She was probably a little drunk, but that wasnt out of the ordinary. She sometimes went out with Bonnie after shifts-but she hadnt been with Bonnie.

"You kiss a lot when youre scared? I never knew that about you." She was nervous and he was annoyed. Some little man driving her to the game? He could call her out on it, bring it all to a boil right here, right now, no matter who got scalded in the process. But. Still there was a universe where it was all explainable, where that little man was nothing more than a ride to the game because Bonnie had been sick or tied up at work or stuck with a flat tire. If he didnt confront her then that universe still existed and his wife was faithful and these little kisses were little signs that things were all right.

She kissed him one last time, pressed hard into his cheekbone, and he could feel the edge of her teeth pushing through her pillow lips.

"Lets go inside."

"So youre finally getting me into the famous Kirkus Love Den?"

Todd didnt laugh. An older him and a drunk Genny Mori. "I guess so."

They managed to sneak in unnoticed and up the stairs but when they reached the little balcony they werent alone. James Berg. Todds stomach clenched, but he couldnt go anywhere else. Instead, he nodded to him and James nodded back. Genny Mori noticed Berg. "James, how are you?"

"Fine, Genny, you?"

"Drunk."

Todd unfolded two metal chairs and placed them by the low handrail as far away from Berg as he could get them. The gym was packed. Fans wore their purple and gold for the Fishermen or their silver and red for the Seagulls. Todd gritted his teeth as the band broke into a sloppy but energetic "Sloop John B." The crowd clapped along.

On the court, Jimmy was ten points into another phenomenal night-Fishermen-faithful well into their favorite chant, "Hes our fresh-man, hes our fresh-man"-when the Seaside coach called a defensive switch. He put the heralded Shooter Ackley on him. Shooter was the same kid Jimmy had run circles around back in the Shoeless Game only he had grown. Tough bull-moose soph.o.m.ore with adult frame stacked thick with the preening, always-flexing muscles of someone obsessed with the pursuit of them. He was quick too. Good enough lateral movement to mostly stay in front of Jimmy, and when our kid really turned on the jets, enough savvy to antic.i.p.ate, hara.s.s, pester the advantage away. Already p.i.s.sed off at the ten points Jimmy had dropped, he defended him first with his body and second with his hands. Wasnt about to let Jimmy get anything easy.

First possession after the defensive switch-an inbounds pa.s.s-Jimmy turned to start up the floor only to find Shooter, strangely, huffing alongside him, chest up into Jimmys shoulder. This was something new. Teams didnt usually try and pull this on our kid, he was too fast. So Jimmy decided to make him pay. Behind the back, change of direction, all out speed. Weird though, Shooter seemed to know this move was coming, came right up into Jimmys shoulder again.

"You small for a superstar," Shooter said in his ear. "Arent you scared of getting hurt?"

Jimmy pa.s.sed the ball to Matty Kemper on the wing, kind of forced it. Kemper barely got a hold of it.

"Careful, Jimmy!" Coach Kelly yelled from the sideline.

Jimmy ran to the wing. Their two posts, Joe Looney and Marty Cole, were doing a little screen and pop set up. Jimmy was happy to be out of the play. Shooter lagged off him a little, but still, kept talking. "Yeah, its best you pa.s.s. You aint used to me."

Seaside got the rebound and on the way back down the court, Shooter demanded the ball. "I heard about your pops and his knee. If I was you, Id be scared of breaking mine," he said. Then he knocked Jimmy in the gut and drove past him for a bucket. Nodded his head, like, yeah, thats right. Jimmy looked to the ref, begging for a call. Nothing.

On the way back down the court Shooter continued, "Dont that run in the family? Weak knees? Dont you Kirkuses truck in some kind of curse? Itll hit you, you know that right? Just a matter of when."

"Hey man, shut the f.u.c.k up," someone called from the Fishermens bench.

Shooter held up his hands like "what, me?" but kept jawing. Something was happening to Jimmy. Memory of his fall on the river walk. Thought of how his pops lost his whole basketball career. The Sand Toad. He was small. Hed never grow. The game giveth and it taketh away. Shooter wasnt letting him get anything easy. Hounding him every step. Jimmy started to sweat. An unsure feeling soaked him, left him shaking. Changing him from the inside out. Jimmy took a shot. He missed.

Todd tried to take the anger sp.a.w.ned from his wife being dropped off by some curly-haired little puke and James Berg being in his secret spot and press it onto the silver and red of the Seagulls, the enemy. Coach Kelly used to tell him he wasnt a failure unless his team lost to the Seaside Seagulls.

But no. What the h.e.l.l did he care about high school rivalries anymore? Was that why James Berg was watching from up in the shadows? Some lingering, beating heat against the Seagulls? No. It was more than that now. It was about his son. It wasnt about beating Seaside, it was about beating everyone. Or no one. Just so long as Jimmy was happy. That was all he cared about-and he was happy to realize it.

Todd watched his boy, his little Jimmy, get knocked around something fierce by that tough kid from Seaside called Shooter. Did some a.s.shole actually name his son Shooter? Suddenly, he could see that Shooter was in Jimmys head, under his skin. His son hesitated before his shots, flinched easily, and was often confused. There was defeat in his eyes. Ironic because Freight Train had given that same look to plenty of players in his day, doing the same sorts of things Shooter was doing now. Got opponents to the point where they admitted they were beat even before they made a play. His son was playing like the type of player Todd used to call soft. Looking to the ref for bailout calls rather than stepping up. And what the h.e.l.l was Coach Kelly doing, keeping him in the game? Kid shouldve been nailed to the bench for the way he was playing. No special treatment. He felt his ears turn red. He was embarra.s.sed that James was there behind him, seeing Jimmy choke; but then, there was more. He was embarra.s.sed that James was seeing him and his wife at this particular moment.

"That Seaside boy sure is strong," Genny Mori said. Todd looked at her and was about to say something when she stood up and pointed at a man walking in front of the packed bleachers below, looking for a seat. "I know him," she said, "from the hospital." She cupped her mouth and shouted down from the balcony. "Doctor McMahan, Doctor McMahan, over here!"

James Berg shifted in his chair, coughed. Todd looked at him briefly-same f.u.c.king face-then turned back to Genny Mori. He grabbed her elbow. "Theres no room up here." She was giving away his secret spot.

"Would you quit it?" she whispered viciously. "Hes alone and needs someone to sit with."

People in the crowd began to look up at the balcony. The whispering started. "Todd Freight Train Kirkus was there to watch his son stink it up!" The gossip was brewing. Todd gripped Genny Moris elbow harder, about to yank her back into her seat when he recognized the man as the same one she had gotten a ride from. Todd let go.

Pretending there was a universe where everything was OK between him and his wife was getting harder. Why would Genny or the little man even want this if they were doing something shadowy? It was confusing. Maybe there really wasnt anything to worry about. Then again, maybe it was a thrill to sit together in front of the man behind whose back their love lived. Give him a solid f.u.c.k you.

Genny Mori sat back down with her cheeks burning and a big smile stretched across her mouth, rubbing her elbow. "What a coincidence," she said.

"A f.u.c.king coincidence."

"Relax, Todd, hes a basketball fan."