Rules For Becoming A Legend Part 4

The beach was empty and surprisingly warm in that Oregon way-that is, only when the wind slacked for a moment. Todd thought he felt his spine aligning into a straighter form as he sank into the sand and the wind built banks of it at his side, working hard at covering him up. His little girl was safe, in his sight, scampering to driftwood logs, stealing the treasures caught in the little wet caves of their sides. His wife was home, pregnant with their second, probably studying at the kitchen table, going to be a nurse. Another child had been Todds idea. "Suzies lonely," hed said. Life was in order so he let his blinks linger a little longer. A little longer still. Small curtains of sand ran over his nose. In a day or two, h.e.l.l, hed become just another mysterious shape hidden by the beach. It was hard work at Van Eyck Beverages. Loading case after case. And soon he was asleep.

Some time later-how much he didnt know then, but would spend many years trying to calculate-he jolted awake. He stood. Blood stuck in his legs made way for his head. His whole body was tingling, asleep or dead. He looked out and saw an empty beach.

"Suzie?" he yelled. And then yelled again. Nothing. He scanned the beach. Empty. He had the sudden thought that shed been kidnapped so he rushed up the sandy dunes in the direction of the parking lot. His old gray minivan was there and nothing else. He felt his weak knee, watery with pain. He turned and was back on the ridge of the dune, looking down at the ocean and the sky and the harried little waves that came in. Gray, white, white. He looked far to the left and then to the right and it was the same. Gray, white, white. Gray, white, white. Then. Blue.

Her blue coat.

She had needed a new one growing as fast as she was, so they took her to Fred Meyer and she chose her own.

"Which one do you like, honey?" Genny Mori had asked.

Suzie ran down the aisle and stopped in front of a bright blue one. "Blue, blue!"

Todd came up behind her. "OK, blue, we get it, OK." He picked the tag, looked at the price, and then let go as if it were hot. "Jesus." He showed it to Genny.

"Think this is bad, just wait till high school." They shared a laugh at that. Not much, but no matter. Sometimes enough really is enough.

There was a big driftwood log shifting and half-caught in the water. The tide had come in a ways since they arrived and the ocean seemed intent on sucking that big log out to sea. There. Blue. Todd saw so clearly. A bright blue sleeve pinned by the log. It floated as lazily as the seaweed around it. He started running. There was her hand-small-sticking out of the end of the sleeve. So electric white it could have been plugged in.

Todd "Freight Train" Kirkus ran faster. The watery pain in his knee spread to his heart.

They had the funeral the next week-a rainy Thursday. The Flying Finn disappeared shortly after. Todd found all his tapes in the garbage, their gutted ribbons pooling, tangled, around them. Todd called the police and they found him three days later south of town, in Cannon Beach, walking along 101. He didnt want to come home, so they let him be.

Meanwhile, the Flying Finns restaurant-Finns Kitchen-out on Pier 11 was shut down, the lease taken up by someone opening a place called the Crab Shack. Todd sold his fathers kitchen equipment in one lot. The buyer made out like a thief.

The memory stayed with Todd forever. As vivid as if it had always just happened. Her little blue sleeve in the water, the huge gray log lolling back and forth on top of her, playing or l.u.s.tful. Close his eyes for a second and he had his own private h.e.l.l. It left him broke-hearted and Genny Mori cracked-but-not-broke-hearted.

And that was the big difference between the two parents. Todd was shattered completely. The very conception of himself as a good man, a good father, destroyed. This void invited filling, and so Todd focused himself-with the coming of a new baby boy-on building himself back up from ruin into a workable, though paranoid father. Genny Mori on the other hand, because she wasnt there when her daughter died, because she had an easier time dissociating herself from the blame, only had her heart cracked. Badly, but still structurally sound. Over time she knitted emotional scar tissue over it to make do. And make do kept on until it was status quo.

It seemed to her in the first few weeks after Suzie died that she had lost a part of her own body as real as any limb or organ. Suzie was of her own flesh so that when she laughed, Genny felt it too. Then suddenly her little child, a piece of her, was gone forever. Things like her remembered laugh became phantom limbs that ached just as much and as real as any of her own.

An awful pact with life, she thought. You divide yourself so this little child can have a chance, but then its not like any other part of the body. You can never keep this part of you close enough and safe enough. Life was a puller by nature, and it pulled and pulled and pulled until that little part of you, that little child that was the best part of you, was pulled away. And there was nothing you could do to really protect that little best part of you because even though it felt like a piece of you and looked like a piece of you, it wasnt you. And if Genny Mori was learning one thing, it was this: only count on what is truly you, because thats the only thing you have total control of.

And so with Jimmy on the way, Genny Mori withdrew as far into herself as she could, hoping the baby took little, or better yet, nothing of her because she didnt think she could stand to be divided, to be wrest of her own self again.

Her plan seemed to work with Jimmy. A little pale-skinned mouse of a boy who was more interesting than adorable. She was relieved and angry all at once that it had worked. Aside from size, the kid was all Todd. It was as though, through some biological impossibility, she had cuckolded herself.

Then, when Todd wanted another child, she agreed. When Suzie had been born, it brought them together in a way that patterned her skin in goose b.u.mps-corny, but true-and so there was a hope that with more children, they could reclaim that s.p.a.ce of being two people in love. And, if it didnt work out that way, it seemed Jimmy only got her slightness, and that wasnt so much to give.

Hot August, a ch.o.r.e to conceive Dex. A favor to the big, hulking man above her, inside her, everywhere. Everything close. Logic rebounding too quickly. She wanted it too, right? Then halfway through a mild May, Dex came. Huge like his father, he needed a C-section when he twisted in the womb and the umbilical cord wrapped. Left a scar on her belly. Braille she often read. And there was a problem she noticed from first sight. Hed taken in the womb when Genny wasnt looking. Here he was, dark like her father, eyes like her mother, and her own straight hair so black it was almost blue. "That hair comes from j.a.panese royalty," her mother used to tell her.

There was more. Dex had taken the way she smacked her lips while she drifted to sleep, as if it were tasty. He took her love of sly humor, her way of holding her fork as if it were a tree branch she was hanging from, and the little cough she always seemed to have in the morning. Also, she started to realize that while Jimmy hadnt seemed like her at first, she was coming out in him as he got older. He had her way of shaking his hair out of his eyes when it was too long in the front, her little curl in the upper lip that called his bluff when he was trying not to laugh, her love of staring out the window while it rained, and her crooked, double-jointed fingers.

She had been divided again. A part of her split into two boys, running full on into a life filled with sadness. They were like two arms she had no control over but still caused her pain when they flailed and b.u.mped and bruised.

Its a terrible deal with life, she thought.

Heart cracked, she applied local anesthesia-delving into the practical. It just didnt hurt as much, if you kept yourself busy. She picked up extra shifts at the hospital, became obsessed with the small flower garden at the front of her house, dreamed of how her life would be if she had married differently, or never married at all. And then sometimes she just got dripping drunk off economy-sized bottles of cheap white wine. Ignoring her boys, her vulnerability, she confused the wines fuzziness with the soft love she missed feeling from her time before, her time with Suzie.

Maybe it was here, with the death of Suzie on the heels of a basketball flameout of epic proportions, old Finn Kirkus off wandering the streets, that people first started talking about the Kirkus Curse. Or maybe that came later. It was a long, leaky life. Many more chances for tragedy to seep in.

Rule 5. Be Betrayed.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007.

JIMMY KIRKUS, SIXTEEN YEARS OLD-EIGHT HOURS AFTER THE WALL.

His pops is already halfway across the hospital parking lot to the road by the time Jimmys ready to go. Apparently the old man doesnt want to drive. Jimmy sees the Van Eyck delivery truck parked crooked, cow skull grinning out the window, and is almost relieved. These days he always prefers to walk. Jimmy looks back once more to the hospital, and then is off in pursuit.

The night is lit. Columbia City had its first and probably last snow of the season yesterday. A big deal. Snows all dirty and used up now, but still bright enough to make everything glow in a soft, blue-white way. The town is sleeping and Jimmy and his pops share this world with n.o.body. This is frightening for the kid and he tries to scrunch deeper into his coat. The cold air tickles the inside of his nose with its freshness. He sneezes and it threatens to implode his head. He cries out and it sounds like a much younger self. His pops, though? Big man just keeps moving. Doesnt even stop to ask if hes OK.

He follows him on Exchange and after a quarter mile, turns on Alameda. Everything is frozen, at rest. They come up to Tapiola Park and Jimmy watches his breath rise. Theres an outdoor court, place hed sneak off to with Dex to shoot some midnight hoops way back in the day when they still had curfews. Pretty good place to play if you dont mind the steep little hills on every side. Be careful or youll twist your ankle on a long rebound, swear to G.o.d. Mostly Mexicans play there during the day. Guys who cant shoot but will outhustle you. Some of them playing in collar shirts and jeans. Beat you eleven to seven on a bunch of put-back points. No style, but sweat in spades.

Dont think back now, he tells himself, and is just able to snuff out a mental vision of headlights drifting right.

Besides, theres no time. Not when pops is full steam ahead. Jimmys sense of dread is rising but it seems out of place with the stillness around him. Anything could happen with his pops at the helm, and none of the possibilities seem good. Maybe h.e.l.l send him off to military school, or a center for troubled teens, or some multiday hike in the woods where hed bond with kleptos and arsonists; or maybe his pops is just going to keep walking forever and Jimmy wont know when to leave off, when to stop. He keeps on past Sudsys Laundromat, Dairy Queen, and the baseball diamond where coach Steiner tried to get him to join the team and become the pitcher if basketball wasnt in the cards.

They turn on to Old Youngs River Highway and Jimmy knows where theyre headed-to the high school. A memory jumps up, raises its hand, has the answer: Todays the day they agreed he would start school again. Jimmy shakes his head; its not possible.

The river is just a few feet away. Its whispering threats all the time. Thats the problem with river towns. A real heavy rain and whos to say it wont just swell up and swallow everything? Flood. It happened in 1938. A week after the Tall Firs won the National t.i.tle for the University of Oregon and came back to Columbia City for a parade. Rain so thick people got lost crossing the street. The parade was postponed as the rivers-Youngs on one side, Columbia on the other-drank their gluttonous fill and waded in their girth over the roadways and buildings on the lower ground. Water sluiced down from the hills, eager to be swallowed. Sections of houses sank as their foundations trickled away beneath them. Entire docks washed out and the Brick House was turned into an aquarium. A single crab was found hanging in the basketball nets when the waters receded. Jimmys seen the pictures. A town dirty and bedraggled. Straight wrecked and years out from being fully fixed again-but victorious with their native sons, the Tall Firs, National Champions. Every person in those old photos has a gleam in their eye, a question to the universe. This your best shot?

By the time Jimmy gets to the parking lot of Columbia City High, hes huffing, out of breath. He pulls back his hood and the cold air feels good on his wound. He sits down next to his father and stares at his hands. They come in and out of focus. He wonders where hed be without them-possibly better off?

His father reaches out and pokes Jimmy softly on his cut head, right in the bandage covering the bruise crossed with st.i.tching. It brings the urge to vomit alongside pain. He yelps. Remembers the gushy way it felt inside his head. Worse after each hit against the wall. Like he was turning himself into mashed potatoes. Twenty-one st.i.tches, he thinks, thats all it was, a lucky number.

"Youre dead," his pops says and its hard to hear Freight Trains voice tremble like this. Mans supposed to be tough. "This sort of s.h.i.t could kill you."

"Sorry, Pops. Its just . . ." Speech is hard to come by. Words rotten at the edges.

"What were you proving? What were you thinking? Gone crazy or something? Thats what people are going to think-youre bonkers. Theyre gonna call Kirkus Curse on this one. Twenty-one st.i.tches, Jimmy? Thats my new least-favorite number."

"Was just seeing something and-"

"Theres no way. Just no way." The man is crying now. Big, outsized tears pattering down in his lap. "Theres just no f.u.c.king way, Jimmy."

Jimmy tries to put a hand on his fathers shoulder, but its hard to aim and he takes it away after hovering uselessly in the air.

His pops stands up, louder now. "Theres no f.u.c.king way." Words bounce off the outside wall of the Brick House, run full out across the parking lot.

Jimmy stands and big Mr. Kirkus wraps up his son tightly in his arms and Jimmy feels his flabby belly against him, the soft girth the man has put on in this last year, and the two sob together. It finally feels a little more right than it did the day before, the week before, the months. Seems closer to how its supposed to be-kid crying, dad hugging. A dam broken, they shudder, the cold creeping in minute after minute to crawl up in their bones and crystallize in their blood. Tired and strained sobs. Thick and wet ones. All manner of sadness finally given voice.

Out of the snowy darkness, they hear voices. Jimmy and his pops step apart from each other, embarra.s.sed. Like a kid and his pops got something to be ashamed of by hugging. They wipe their eyes with just their fingertips, as if theres something caught there, blinking like they cant see clearly.

"So Jimmy went nuts-o," somebody says.

This shocks our kid stone still.

"Thats not exactly." Its Mr. Berg answering, but hes cut off.

"Running into a f.u.c.king wall? Id call that crazy." Jimmy recognizes this as David, Mr. Bergs son. "Any day of the week, Id call that crazy. Man, even in Afghanistan theyd call that crazy and they have fools blowing themself up over there."

"Theres more to it."

Jimmy can see them now. Nuts how close they are. "No, no, no, I get it," Davids saying, walking in the lead, head down. "Jimmys an egg. Fragile. Got to be careful, or youll crack the sh.e.l.l. I get it. Im just saying: makes black lipstick seem like horses.h.i.t, huh?" Then David looks up and sees them. Jimmy feels Davids eyes on his cut. He and this kid, they go way back, and Jimmy cant think of a worse candidate to see him like this. Theres a scar just above his eye he got from David Berg. Dude looks like a Goth punk, but throws a rock like hes on the mound for the Yankees.

Mr. Berg, just behind, stops too. "Hi again, Todd. Morning, Jimmy."

"James," his pops says. "Morning, David."

David shrugs, plugs in some earphones, and walks past. Mr. Berg grimaces, and then nods his head once and walks to the gym door, unlocks it, and his son darts in. "David?" they hear him calling as the door creaks shut. "David, come back here."

Jimmy looks to his pops and sees hes studying him. Something in his eyes telling his son, Look, this is just how its going to be. No sympathy. "Well, have a good day at school anyway," he says.

Jimmy looks at the school, then back at his pops. Hes confused. Not thinking straight. His pops springing this on him? Bashed-up head, not even a backpack or school supplies. "Pops," Jimmy says. Yeah, they said today would be the day hed start cla.s.ses back up, but surely . . .

"Have a good day at school, Jim," his pops says louder, shortening his name like Jimmys just another guy he works with.

Jimmy breathes for a moment. All his teeth feel loose. Hes got to think about the words before he says them, otherwise they might not make it out. He remembers a time when they were all eating cherries, him, Dex, his mom, and his pops. Bought from a Mexican at a shed near the highway. They had been on a trip to a lake. Camping. All four in a row on the hot shoulder of the road, sitting in the gravel, watching the cars go by. Must have been the summer after kindergarten. Eating cherries and spitting the seeds. Fun to see who could spit the farthest. His mother getting drool all down her chin and his pops being like, "elegant as always," and then the both of them laughing. Jimmy had noticed that his mom said pit and his pops said stone for the hard seed in the middle of the cherries. Stone like rock or pit like hole. Pit from a story about a troll who lived inside of one. Stone like the things he and Dex used to throw to see who could knock a GI Joe off an overturned bucket first. Jimmy remembers how he wanted to ask his parents about this-stone or pit-but didnt because he wasnt sure how to express it. Nervous that he would do it poorly, or they would think him weird, and all of the dusty joy would blow away when his mom got silent and his pops made little comments out the side of his mouth like, "Real sense of joy in this family." So he hadnt said anything. Same as now. How to tell his pops that there isnt any way schools the right move today. This must be the old mans way of teaching him a lesson. Dumb. Head bashed up wasnt lesson enough for his pops, now make him do this? a.s.shole. The fluorescent lights, the tardy bell ringing, kids screaming, f.u.c.king around, asking him questions. All kind of questions. But old man thinks this will do him good. Old man doesnt know jack.

"Yeah, fine, OK," Jimmy says.

Todd nods once, presses a crumpled twenty into Jimmys hand. "Lunch," he says, gruffly, and goes.

He watches his father, big Freight Train, limp off across the snowy parking lot just populating with early morning students getting tutoring sessions or extra practice. Muddy trucks pulling in with Confederate flags pinned to their ceilings. Beat-to-s.h.i.t Civics or Corollas blasting Kanye West. Jesus walks. All of them cursing school for still being open on this icy day. Town hugged by water like Columbia City-rivers on two sides, marshes all around, and the oceans shoulder visible always-hardly ever gets cold enough for ice or snow. Now, here it is, snow all around and still they got school?

They watch Todd Kirkus limp by. Hes the man theyve heard of, the guy whose black-and-white photographs still dominate the trophy case and whose name tags along with basketball records, like an annoying kid brother. The early arrivers turn their heads back toward our kid, squint their eyes. Could that be Jimmy Soft? I thought he fled to Mexico.

Cla.s.s will start soon, but Jimmy isnt going. He hurts. Feels sick. He hates himself for the extra attention h.e.l.l have now. As if coming back werent going to cause talk enough, last night he had to go and make it worse. He isnt even wearing his school clothes. A scrub in his crusty old sweats and sweatshirt. Theres blood from the night before on his shoes. Pops could have at least let him go home to change. This is impossible, what his pops wants him to do.

Jimmy turns away from the school, walks to the track, and goes into the woods beyond the javelin pit. These are the paths he and Dex used to know so well from sneaking around town to each and every court, looking for a game. They were like street urchins of the woods, punks running the alleyways carved by deer and drunks, making their way to the courts and begging to be let into a game. Back then ball seemed like something important and meaningful. h.e.l.l, seemed downright holy.

Jimmy picks up the pace. He doesnt know where hes going, but he cant go to school and he cant go home. He fades into the bushes. He hopes he sees no one and more importantly, no one sees him.

Even though Jimmys left the school, hes still there, name on everyones lips. Its too soon for details, but people still talk.

"Marcy at the hospital told me Jimmy Kirkus came in last night with blunt-force trauma to the head," Mr. Jackson says, holding court in the teachers lounge. "Twenty-one st.i.tches. Get this, came in with James Berg. Then, then, when I was coming in through the gym this morning, I saw Berg scrubbing down the wall. Put two and two together." He punches his fist into the palm of his other hand. "Bam. Jimmy Kirkus ran himself into the wall." Mr. Jackson pauses a moment to give enough s.p.a.ce to the off-color thing hes about to say. "Just like hes a f.u.c.king kamikaze pilot."

The other teachers are blank-faced, not getting it, or pretending not to. Twenty years ago being half-j.a.panese would be a just-under-the-surface topic of intrigue, and in some circles, scandal. Sometimes, it would openly boil out in racist comments. These days though, at least 10 percent of the student body is Mexican, and Jimmy isnt the lightning rod his mother was. And so this joke of Mr. Jacksons is so obvious, so on the nose, so blatantly offensive, that everyone is uncomfortable. Maybe in a bar, or at someones Christmas party, this line could be delivered with a ducked head, embarra.s.sed laugh, and sail on by. Not now.

Mr. Jackson forces out his own laugh. "Cause the kids half-j.a.panese? You know. Kamikaze pilots?"

The other teachers did know, they did get it, and if Princ.i.p.al McCarthy wasnt standing behind Jackson in the doorway, listening to him basically fill out his own temporary leave of absence slip, some might have given him a pity laugh. A few dart their eyes to signal to Mr. Jackson that his boss is behind him, but the man doesnt get it and so jumps when McCarthy speaks.

"Mr. Jackson. Thats quite enough," he says. The security tape of the Jimmy Kirkus incident has gone missing and hes in no kind of mood. And then, to top off his s.h.i.tty morning, he has Sid Lang with him-caught the punk smoking this morning, fourth time this year-and hes on his way to make the exasperating phone call to his libertarian parents. Now h.e.l.l have to reprimand Mr. Jackson too. "Youll see me in my office in half an hour."

Fifteen minutes later, sitting in the office and waiting to be taken home for the day, Sid sees Mich.e.l.le Roberts, whom hes always had a crush on, as she drops off the attendance for homeroom. "You hear about Kamikaze Kirkus?" he asks, and its off to the races.

Jimmys new nickname spreads. Smokers are putting rings around it, girls lipsticked lips, and the teachers are shooting holes through it with their stares, showing how inappropriate it is, and then whispering details and rumors with one another when they think no one can hear. Kids are already trying to get into the gym to see the stain. Secrets in small towns dont last. There isnt enough s.p.a.ce for them to hide.

Kamikaze Kirkus.

Mr. Berg catches kids tracing Jimmys stain on the Brick House wall with their fingers. He scatters them by clapping his hands. Spends the rest of the day trying to wash it off, again, but it remains. His eyes water from the chemicals in the air, and he wished hed been there sooner. The stubborn stain that remains? Thats a little Kamikaze Kirkus right there. Thats the spot where basketball players, Fishermen and foes alike, will bounce the game ball against in warm-ups for luck. It will become a tradition. Go on for years and years. The Blood-Red Bricks of Jimmy Kirkus.

Not yet, though. Our kids got a ways to go.

The Flying Finn is alone in the wet woods. He wishes he could go home and see Todd, but something feels too big around his son, like he wouldnt fit in that life anymore. The Flying Finn shakes the thought.

This is his second stint being homeless. Hes going on a year now. He knows how to survive and rule number one is to keep busy. Hes found that if he slows for even a moment, a heavy dread will build up in his veins, weigh him down. So its back to work. Hes looking for the mushrooms he knows are safe to eat. Hes out here, but hes not really out here. "Got ghosts in the knees," he whispers to himself.

This reminds him of when he first moved to town. Summertime, 1960. b.u.mble Bee was still canning back then. He worked precooking tuna. Fish dangling on big hooks. Burned hands, close smell. He couldnt stop for a second. Hed sink if he did. Then Todd born and his wife died in the process and he was moving even faster. Just stay above. By the time Todd was born Columbia City was in a serious rut. b.u.mble Bee plant closed down. Nowhere to work. Hed opened his restaurant by then. Working double shifts so he could keep his prices down, catch those shady after-bar drunks. The let-outs from the infamous triangle of bars: the Bra.s.s Rail, the Wreck, and the Driftwood. Town wanted to raze those bars for the shady characters they kept. But the Flying Finn had served them. Made it work. Sc.r.a.ppy, cheek-dirty cigarette b.u.mmers whod clean him out of creamers and sugars: he started only keeping two creamers, two sugars on each table. A pain to reset each time, but better than the loss of cash.

He didnt stop moving then, wouldnt stop now.

Carla Ferguson gets ready for her shift. Her hair a little out of style, her clothes a little out of date. She carries the cross of the homeschooled. Only reason she got the job at Peter Pan Market is cause she can work during the day when everyone else is at school. She ties her shoes, hands shaky. Theres still a weakness in her muscles from last night. She doesnt know why she took so many pills. She told her father it was an accident and maybe it was. She begged to still go to work today-she wants to hear news about why Jimmy Kirkus was at the hospital last night-and finally her father relented. She pouts her lips in the mirror while she waits for her father to bring around the car. She pinches with her fingers to bring forth redness. She wishes she were allowed to wear lipstick.

Really, she feels better than she has in weeks. Here she is, caught up in it. Something is finally happening to her. She makes sure to pack her journal.

Diane Kaiser-editor of the Columbia City Standard-has heard the rumors. Cant decide if this is a brief or a news story. If it was a suicide attempt, then its a brief, with no name attached. If its an attack, then its a news story and she can tack Jimmys name to it. There needs to be something about it in the afternoons Standard though. Anything.

Coach Kelly stays home from school. He heard about Jimmy through a phone call from Mr. Jackson. He cant help but feel responsible, even if he was just trying to do right by Jimmy. He shouldnt have left him alone in that gym, he guesses. His wife doesnt help much. His ears still ring with her screaming. He took it all, filed it away into an ever-growing section of his mind called I Should Have Known Better. He cant see the next step. For the first time coaching basketball, a thing hes guided his life by ever since they discovered Lucy couldnt have kids, seems like the least important thing in the world.

"Who took the tape, Johnny?" Princ.i.p.al McCarthy asks the computer teacher.