Rules For Becoming A Legend Part 25

Hes bone tired and sitting uncomfortably on the couch. Slouched so far half his back is off the cushions. Hes still not used to how big hes become. He thinks of himself as a smaller kid. A Keebler Elf, Dex would say. He is constantly racking up bruises by underestimating his size and running into things. Hes awkward anywhere off the court. He shot up to a six-foot-eight beast of muscle and power in his year alone.

His soreness is a deep, rasping thing. As if each one of his muscles was taken out and stretched to the point of breaking and then put back into his body. Any movement might snap them. Leave him limp.

He stands up with the idea of eating something. He goes slowly toward the kitchen, moving with the exaggerated motions of a child pretending to be blind. He wishes he had turned on the light when he first came in, but now he doesnt want to risk finding the switch and knocking something over, waking the whole house, having to talk.

In the kitchen, Jimmy opens up the fridge and finds leftovers. Plain cheese pizza: fair enough. He remembers how his mom used to always make them get half the pizza BLT, which Jimmy didnt mind so much until he was in situations like this-eating cold pizza in the dark. The T in the BLT pizza always let out the rest of its water into the pie as it waited to be eaten in the fridge. Then, when you went for a bite, you got all this ice-cold, watery tomato juice dripping on you. Cheese pizza, well h.e.l.l, that wasnt so bad. Cheese pizza held its own. Locked up tight.

From in his popss bedroom, he hears the bedside lamp click on. Jimmy stops trying to be quiet-the Flying Finn would sleep through a bombing-and sc.r.a.pes a chair out from the kitchen table. He sits down and waits.

Big Freight Train Kirkus comes into the kitchen scratching his bed-messed hair. He flicks on the lights. Both men squint. His pops stares at him for a few moments. Jimmy feels it on the top of his head. Brightness like rain. He doesnt look up though. Hes staring at the congealed yellow topography of his pizza.

His pops goes to the cabinets over the kitchen sink and takes down a bag of breath mints. Hes been cracking them nonstop to keep his mind off drinking. He stopped for good on that flashing-light day he lost Dex and Genny more than a year before. Going to rot out his teeth because of it.

His pops is so big around the middle these days, he has to sit down first and then pull the table in after. The chair creaks and Jimmy watches his plate move out with the table, and then come back in. His pops settles, yanks on his shirt so its better spread over his ample body.

"You played good tonight, kid, real good." He cracks a peppermint. "At least from what the radio told me."

Jimmy finishes his fourth slice of cheese. He nods.

"Thought the announcer was going to lose his voice." His pops cracks another peppermint. Sound crisp like a gunshot. "Let me think. h.e.l.l, I remember, fifty-six points, twenty-three rebounds, and eleven a.s.sists, I mean, Jim-my." He says his sons name in two pulled-apart syllables, hoping he can put some G.o.dd.a.m.n joy in it. "Thats something else!"

"Thanks," Jimmy says quietly.

His pops drums his fingers on the table. "Hey, let me drive you somewhere, get you some warm food or something."

"No, this is fine."

"I mean it. Lets get you something special. What does a father buy a son to eat after hes just won the state championship?"

"Really, no."

Jimmy yawns and the two men consider the sound for a long while. His pops changes his position in the chair, and then Jimmy does the same. These chairs are too small for these large men. Everything in this house is too small for them, even their beds. They have to sleep diagonally with their toes off the end.

When he get so big? thinks the pops.

Am I so big? thinks the son.

"Wish I could have been there, Jimmy. Grandpa too. Would have loved to have been there."

Jimmy catches something in his throat. Hes coughing and he needs a gla.s.s of water, so Todd jumps up and gets some for him. He watches his son drink, his Adams apple leapfrogging the water as it glug-glugs down his throat.

"You got a lot of basketball left in you, Jimmy. Guys on the radio said youre the top recruit in the country. Said youd be drafted right now to the NBA." Todd pauses. Indeed the phones have been ringing off the hook. College coaches from all across the country. "Cant expect me and Grandpa to stay away from every game till kingdom come." There, wrapped inside this man-child, are elements of the kid he used to tell stories to, tried to protect. He wonders when was the last time he picked his kid up. Held him, kissed him on the forehead? There had to be a last time. There had to be. He wonders if on that day he had any idea how different the future was going to be. Had he any idea how sacred that last time was?

"Dad . . ."

"Listen, kid, what happened to Mom and Dex, was an accident, plain and simple."

"Dad."

Outside thunder cracks and a great rain rips down. The storm the news has been going on about for the past three days has finally come. Its raining cats and dogs-if cats and dogs were lions and bears. It smears itself onto the big river-facing window, water pulsing in the gusts of wind as if they were inside a chamber of the storms heart. Todd uses the weather to pause, to gather himself because, h.e.l.l no, hes not going to cry this night. He speaks louder over the rain and wind outside. "Were going to be safe when we drive. We just want to see you play. Nothing will happen. Well take a bus even, if it helps. Next year, I just want to make this clear, were coming to your games. Were not taking no for an answer."

Jimmy gets up and puts his dish away. He comes back to the table and sits. Tomorrow will be the best day in a long while. But it isnt tomorrow yet.

His pops tries a different tack. "Coach called but that was over an hour ago. You took your time coming home. I meant to stay up but . . ." He chuckles, trying for levity-no go. "Anyway, Coach said you left your medal on the bus. You can pick it up tomorrow." Todd lets out his breath. "Although I bet the way youre playing, h.e.l.l gift wrap the thing and bring it up to the house on his knees."

"Naw, me and coach got it good. He dont care if I get the medal or not."

"Oh?"

"Dad," Jimmy says with those serious, dagger eyes hes picked up from somewhere, "how come you drank that night in Eugene?"

Todd is surprised by this, and yet, not at all. Its too small town in Columbia City. It was a secret, sure, but one he never meant to keep. "Jimmy, its a long thing and . . ."

"Just tell me." Jimmy stands up. His size is impossible.

So Todd tells him, in words more ready than he ever dared to hope. "You know how it is, Jim, you get so good at something that its like no one can ever know, you know? And then youre alone because of that, and so its nice to just stop feeling for a second, for one G.o.dd.a.m.n second."

"But youd been good for a while, Pops. Youd already won the t.i.tle once. Why drink on that night? You could have been playing D1. Gone to the NBA."

Todd remembers something. This guy Chuck from work came in pale and shaking because the night before he dreamed he had died with his best friend and they both went to h.e.l.l. The devil came to them and said, Each night you will die a new way, until youve died all the ways there are to die. So the first night Chuck died falling off a cliff and his friend died being stuck in a car, fighting for air as it sank into the ocean. It was as terrifying and sad as if they were dying for the first time. On the second night, Chucks friend had an idea. They would take turns dying twice so the other person could get a day off. Chuck went first. He died being stretched apart by horses and also choking on a piece of steak. It was terrible, but he looked forward to his night off when his friend would do the dying. However, when Chuck went to find his friend, he was gone. Chuck had been tricked and each night he had to die twice.

Todd shakes his head. The dream has stuck with him: Try and do right and you get the short end of it. Better to just do yours. "Look, its just . . . see, I had this argument with your grandpa. He wanted me to get drafted, go to the NBA. Get the money. I dont know if you know this, but the Nets called." He looks up into his sons eyes, sees if this impresses him. Jimmys eyes are blank. "And Coach Kelly kept pushing for me to take the scholarship to Oregon, cause hed get a coaching job out of it. But it wasnt only that. Jamesd be on the team too . . . I got into an argument with Dad about it. And you know. Going to Oregon wasnt just going to Oregon, it was helping coach and James too. And Dad didnt understand, wanted me to take the money and go pro, and he was kind of the one guy I wanted to understand me, you know? Your own father?"

"Were you running? From Mom? Cause she was pregnant?"

Todd tilts his head. How can he answer this? He was scared, sure. He was just a kid. Can he even remember how he was feeling that far back? He wasnt running from Genny, nope, hes almost sure of that. Even if he had been running from Genny at the time, it wouldnt have stuck. No way it would have lasted. "No, Jimmy, thats not what it was."

He sees his son swallow, getting ready to say something. "Pops, I want to get my GED. Go to college early."

He chuckles-relief-and stands up too. Rubs his eyes. "I dont think it works that way, kiddo. The NCAA is tough. You got to be a certain age for playing basketball. You cant just jump to college and play early. There are rules. I know this new league will be easy and all, but you got to wait. Youre only a junior."

His son stares at him for a long, hard time. The thing about Chucks dream is that Todd would rather die once than twice. Finally he gets what Jimmy is saying and has to look away from his son. Not playing ball-thats the whole point.

Rule 24. Facts Rarely Help.

Spring and Fall, 2007.

JIMMY KIRKUS, SIXTEEN YEARS OLD-SEVEN MONTHS UNTIL THE WALL.

The Fishermen team bus had tooled by the wreck at two miles an hour. Jimmy had done what the rest of the kids did. He looked, he pointed, he said, "s.h.i.t," and then he got back to the business of going too far with a girl. He hated himself for it but who could blame the kid? How the h.e.l.l was he supposed to know what he was seeing? He didnt recognize the car. It was McMahans after all. It never crossed his mind that maybe . . .

When he did find out, Jimmy didnt go back to school or the team. One night, he snuck out and threw a rock through Naomis window. Then he sat in the bushes and watched her father patch the hole with cardboard. He listened to her crying. He waited there, his breath visible in puffs, until the coldness had infiltrated the deepest part of him.

From home he caught on to a rumor going through town that everyone knew but no one would tell Jimmy. Thats what rumors are, after all, secrets kept from only one person. Hed heard a part of this rumor from a neighbor lady talking overloud on the phone with her window open. Finally, one day, he cornered Pedro behind the gym, sniffing deeply of a sandwich bag full of crumbly green.

"Pedro," Jimmy said.

Gla.s.sy-eyed and slack-faced, Pedro literally jumped at Jimmys voice. "Jesus and Mary, my man," he said, barely able to get the words past his relief, giggling, his ragged draws of breath. "What. What you doing here? You dont go to school."

"I came to find you."

"Yo. Check it, Jimmy, check it," Pedro poked around in his plastic bag and came away with a small lump pinched between index and thumb. "This is a nugget." Pedro stuck it near his flared nostrils and sniffed so hard, Jimmy was afraid hed suck it up. "Look at this, Jimmy, its like a little corn on the cob. I just want to put some b.u.t.ter on it and nibble."

Jimmy leaned in. Uncomfortable but feeling he had to play along. "Thats big?" he asked. To him it looked like a cat t.u.r.d.

"h.e.l.l yeah." Pedro pinched off a little into his palm, peppered it into the opened corpse of an eviscerated cigarette, and set to work twisting it back up with some new paper. Produced a little splif that looked like it had aged in the cracks of a public bus seat. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Pedro apparently wasnt high enough. Clicked the lighter. Lit it up.

"Stinks," Jimmy said.

"Yeah, well. Smells good to me, so?" Licked the end of the joint tenderly. Inhaled again. "You know, you should really try this s.h.i.t, man." His voice got squished tiny, all the smoke crowded around it. "I mean, seriously, theyve done some studies and s.h.i.t. Medicinal as h.e.l.l. Works for, you know, depression."

"Im not depressed."

"Whatever, man, youre not in school anymore, so." Jimmy turned away but Pedro crab-walked around so he stayed in his line of sight. "Listen, you ever think about what Dex was thinking just before he-"

"No."

"-died? I do. All the time." Another toke, his voice squished up again. "Its like, what the h.e.l.l could he been possibly thinking in that little bitsy s.p.a.ce of time? But, he was thinking something. And its like, I dont believe in G.o.d as like a rule, but when I get thinking about what Dex was thinking, then Im thinking d.a.m.n, I hope there is a dog." Pause. Full stop. Then Pedro laughed frenziedly. "I mean G.o.d, not dog . . ." He laughed till it was unwound. Then in a whisper, "But holy s.h.i.t, what if G.o.d is a dog?"

The truth was, Jimmy almost constantly thought about what Dex had been thinking, feeling, just before. It was all he could do to keep it out of his mind.

"Pedro, whats going around about my moms, and that doctor, huh?"

Pedro waved him off, the little joint splashing out ash. "Naw, you dont want to know. Bad energy. Bad juju!" He started laughing again, more coughing.

Jimmy slapped the joint out of his hand. It sizzled in a puddle. "Just tell me."

"Little Jimmy making a big stink. You want to fight again, cabrn? That was good weed."

"Just tell me."

"Your mom was f.u.c.king the good doctor, that enough for you?"

His pops understood about him dropping school and basketball. Even supported the choice. Seemed to him that fate for the Kirkus family was to get everything ripped away and then some. The Kirkus Curse. His pops educated Jimmy at home for the rest of the year. Taught him best he could from a curriculum he ordered over the phone from a lady with a Texan accent, hoping his son would forgive him one day for any gaps in his education.

The Flying Finn never came back after the funeral for Dex and Genny Mori. He had been mumbling something about catching up on training when he rode off on his bike. Suit coat flapping. No one bothered looking for him. It wasnt the first time the man had disappeared.

Jimmy stayed in gym shorts and sweatshirts day in, day out. Slept whenever he could. Thought about his brother dying so young, about his mom sleeping with some doctor from Seaside. His whole life shed felt apart from him. Like it was a favor that she gave birth to him, nothing more. She pushed him away and yet died f.u.c.king some stranger. It was a bile-laced rage he felt toward her, made all the more acidic by the fact that he would never be able to call her out on it.

Day in and day out he felt himself sinking into a depression that was big and black and without a bottom. He felt as though each day was dragging him nearer to the edge and at any moment he could go over. And that would be a relief. But the edge always moved farther off. There was always a lower way to feel. He didnt touch a basketball. He ate, he slept, and he studied with his pops.

And, oh yes, he grew.

Grew huge. Enormous. A tree among gra.s.ses. A lion among cats. A Big-Gulp among eight-ounce cans. Wide like Dex but taller and quicker still. Those d.a.m.n Kirkus genes. Late to the party, but ready to party nonetheless.

Then, finally, seven months into this self-exile, his pops couldnt take it anymore. Couldnt bear to see his son drifting so much. Remembered about the pain he felt walking away from basketball and not looking back. All that trouble, and for what? He tried something he thought drastic. He told the kid, "I hear basketb.a.l.l.s starting up. You could go shoot around. Just go check out a practice. Just because. Just to see. Youre set to go back to school tomorrow anyway. And. Well. Dex would have wanted you to. I mean, cant just stay inside all day every day for the rest of your life, right?"

So Jimmy went.

Just to check it out.

Rule 25. Leave on Your Terms, Never Theirs.

Sunday, March 9, 2008.

JIMMY KIRKUS, SIXTEEN YEARS OLD-EIGHTY-THREE DAYS AFTER THE WALL.

The rains have been on for two days straight. Jimmys brought Columbia City their first championship in years and yet the town is threatening to slough off into the river. With good comes bad. Gray streaks across the atmosphere muddling everything the same color. Rumors are lighting through town that the Coast Guard could be called in soon to evacuate. Those alive who remember the 1938 flood prophesy doom. The rivers on both sides, Youngs and Columbia, are hopped up on rain and wind, giddy to take a stumble through town, pop off parked cars and houses like a drunk does trash cans on his walk home from the bar. Clouds that start in the sky dont end until theyre hovering over mailboxes.

Jimmy, his pops, and the Flying Finn sit in the living room and watch the downpour. Powers been out, so they just talk-or not. The phones been ringing off the hook and cars honk wildly as they drive slowly past, wading through the torrent of rain water washing down Glasgow Street. Sometimes the cars stop in front of the Kirkus house and people fire bottle rockets from the windows to explode damply in the gray air. They call out, shake their fists in pride, and blow off-key blasts from cardboard party trumpets-charge! Jimmy "Kamikaze" Kirkus is the toast of the town.

There was to be a party at Tapiola Park for all of Columbia City to celebrate the state t.i.tle-bonfire and a band, hundreds of hotdogs and generic-brand pop-but this is canceled due to the weather. Twenty or so people still show up. They end up dancing in the mud, drinking straight from bottles poorly hidden in paper sacks that melt away in the rain. The cops come to break it up a couple hours later. Find a handful of men and women drunk, in various states of undress, shivering and singing bits of the high schools song: "Hail to thee our alma mater . . ."

The rain doesnt quit until its fed Youngs River and her evil big brother the Columbia strong enough to swell up, swallow the high school and the Brick House too. Trees fall all over Peter Pan Court, and Tapiola Court simply disappears beneath the tongue of the river water. Cats are found on roofs, dogs dont stop barking, and some jokester has vandalized the sign on the edge of town so it says, WELCOME TO COLUMBIA CITY LAKE. The Kirkus house, on a hill, is spared, but there is a fear that its feet will be swept from beneath it. The sidewalk a rushing river. What a strange phenomenon. When Jimmy looks out his front window and sees all that moving water he feels as if he too is drifting.

Just three miles outside of town the clouds thin, the rain slackens, but here in town everything is veiled, drenched. As if Columbia City has finally grabbed a piece of the squirrely heavens and wont let go. She holds the clouds close to her chest and d.a.m.n the rains.

On the fifth straight day of rain, school cancelled, the cabin fever is too much, and Jimmy wades out into the freezing water in enormous yellow boots his pops once bought thinking he might take up clamming. He takes his old basketball and makes his careful way down to the high school. He finds a canoe abandoned, stuck, and choking in a swing set at Tapiola Park. He bails out the water the best he can with his stocking cap. Hes soaked now, shivering. He paddles on the shallow water the rest of the way to school. Surreal to glide over sidewalks and clogged storm drains. The splashing rain hitting the churned-up water is so constant in its roar it becomes an off-brand of silence. If he doesnt turn and paddles straight ahead, he would be in the Pacific Ocean before long and who knows how many days it would take to find him-catch on to a good current and be a hundred miles out before night-but he does turn in the end.

When he gets to the gym, the doors to the Brick House stand open. He has his battered, gray basketball with him, almost black with wetness. He paddles in. Each splash of his paddle echoes in this giant cave. The gym is gloomy, dim, also without power. It means there is no security camera to catch his private moment this time. The EXIT sign somehow still shines on.

He ties the canoe to the bleachers and wades into Coach Kellys office. Its a bathtub and some of his framed pictures, old trophies, and yearbooks are toys. There, still dry on Coach Kellys desk, is his medal. 6A Boys Basketball State Champions. He picks it up; its cold, and heavier than he thought it would be. On the bus ride home some of the other guys had been kissing their medals, grinning with them, wearing them into pit stop gas stations, waiting to be noticed. He hadnt wanted his. Told Coach to hold on to it for a while. Now. Here. This is it. Jimmy puts it on. It taps on his chest. He thought it would be different than this. More. He feels claustrophobic and needs to leave the office. Back into the gym glowing red from the EXIT light.

He gets back into his canoe and the light guides him well enough to get to the spot on the wall he stained. To the exact place he smashed his head. The red and undulating water cast a wobble over everything. He touches the wall with an open palm. He breathes in. Its still here. His blood. The blood-red bricks of Kamikaze Kirkus. Already the canoe is drifting. A longer reach to touch these bricks. He takes the medal off his neck. Drops it into the water. Then, in the next moment, he tips his old basketball overboard. It rotates so he sees the last name he wrote on it. Blacker, thicker than the rest. Three letters. D-E-X. It drifts slowly away, spinning, the name of his brother dunked; this time it will not come back.

Soon the rain will stop, soon the town will rebuild, but they will do so proudly. They were founded on the fur trade, built up by canning, and both have left them, but they dont stumble. Theyve had two fires, and two floods, and still they survive. "Is this it?" they will ask the sky. "This is all you got?" For their town is home to a champion once again-a legend.