Rules for Becoming a Legend (21 page)

•   •   •

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 title 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.

It's a detailed web of words that Jimmy imagines as a diagram of Columbia City's collective mind and how it thinks of him. He's 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 he's taking this too seriously. But that's 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 ass, the whole team cracking up. It was a joke, for laughs, and yet Jimmy couldn't get it. His teammates would yell to him,
“Jesus, just take it easy, Kirkus,” but he would try everything he knew to stop Joe's 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 couldn't take it easy. He couldn't slow down. Same as right now, with these words. No way they're as important as he's making them out to be, but he can't stop. He finds he likes it this way. Good to admit that.

He doesn't 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. Now's Todd's turn to be out and there's 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, it's still in him. And if he fails? Gets out on the court again, carrying the water for everyone's dreams, and he freezes up? Starts missing shots, turning the ball over, living up to that shitty little nickname they've all been calling his son—
Jimmy Soft—
what then? That chant. “
Dad-dy's bet-ter!
”

It's just rained and his shoes make little wet slaps on each step. Todd's running faster, Columbia River out to his right, a big barge delicately navigating the sand banks. There's a class 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, Todd's heard.

Now it hits Freight Train that he's 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 wasn't. 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 damn sure he's ready.

Tuesday, Jan 24, 2006

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

T
odd 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 didn't 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. Hell, even Dex thought his pops was working that night. After he met his wife out front with the game in progress, they'd 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 passenger seat of a black luxury car he didn't 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. “Can't just sneak up like that.”

“I didn't 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 wasn't out of the ordinary. She sometimes went out with Bonnie after shifts—
but she hadn't been with Bonnie
.

“You kiss a lot when you're 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 didn't 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.

“Let's go inside.”

“So you're finally getting me into the famous Kirkus Love Den?”

Todd didn't 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 weren't alone. James Berg. Todd's stomach clenched, but he couldn't 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, “
He's our fresh-man, he's 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 sophomore 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 anticipate, harass, pester the advantage away. Already pissed off at the ten points Jimmy had dropped, he defended him first with his body and second with his hands. Wasn't about to let Jimmy get anything easy.

First possession after the defensive switch—an inbounds pass—Jimmy turned to start up the floor only to find Shooter,
strangely, huffing alongside him, chest up into Jimmy's shoulder. This was something new. Teams didn't 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 Jimmy's shoulder again.

“You
small
for a superstar,” Shooter said in his ear. “Aren't you scared of getting hurt?”

Jimmy passed 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, it's best you pass. You ain't 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, I'd 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, that's right. Jimmy looked to the ref, begging for a call. Nothing.

On the way back down the court Shooter continued, “Don't that run in the family? Weak knees? Don't you Kirkuses truck in some kind of curse? It'll hit you, you know that right? Just a matter of when.”

“Hey man, shut the fuck up,” someone called from the Fishermen's 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. He'd never grow. The game
giveth and it taketh away. Shooter wasn't 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 spawned 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 wasn't a failure unless his team lost to the Seaside Seagulls.

But no. What the hell 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 wasn't 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 asshole actually name his son Shooter?
Suddenly, he could see that Shooter was in Jimmy's 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 hell was Coach Kelly doing, keeping him in the game? Kid should've been nailed to the bench for the way he was playing. No special treatment. He felt his ears turn red. He was
embarrassed that James was there behind him, seeing Jimmy choke; but then, there was more. He was embarrassed 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 fucking face
—then turned back to Genny Mori. He grabbed her elbow. “There's no room up here.” She was giving away his secret spot.

“Would you quit it?” she whispered viciously. “He's 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 Mori's 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 wasn't 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
fuck 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 fucking coincidence.”

“Relax, Todd, he's a basketball fan.”

By the time Doc McMahan found his way up to the balcony,
even the Seagulls' fans in the gym had caught on that Jimmy's famous father was in attendance. They started a new chant. It shook Todd's already reeling mind.

“
Dad-dy's bet-ter!
”

“
Dad-dy's bet-ter!
”

“
Dad-dy's bet-ter!
”

Todd's face flushed.
What in the hell is a freshman kid supposed to do with that?

•   •   •

Shooter played rough and was called for a few fouls, sure, but it was a better-than-even trade so long as he was able to carve out a spot in Jimmy's head. And he did. Shooter kept whispering aloud Jimmy's worst doubts. Used all the ammo he'd gathered from trolling the Oregonlive.com high school basketball chat rooms. Jimmy's arms felt watery. Eyesight blurry. Coach Kelly yelled louder from the bench and the refs called fewer fouls. The game became rougher. Something was wrong with Jimmy's shot. It wasn't going in. He couldn't understand it. This was the thing he'd always known how to do. Ever since kindergarten. Simple, easy, him. But. Not anymore. There was a hitch to it suddenly, too much thought in the mix.

Soon Shooter didn't even have to knock Jimmy around, all he had to do was taunt and our kid would miss.

“Your baby bro's bigger than you.”

Brick.

“Your Grandpa sleeps on the streets.”

Whiff.

“Your daddy was better.”

Air ball.

Jimmy clanked wide-open looks. Botched easy floaters and even missed a breakaway lay-in when the nearest Seagull was half the court away. His mouth was dry, but at time-outs, he couldn't swallow water.

He noticed Dex and Pedro in the stands. Laughing, high as kites, they'd smoked weed for the first time just before the game. Jimmy knew because Ray Atto had caught them behind the Brick House on his way to the locker room. Came in and told Jimmy how his baby bro liked to “puff-puff-pass that shit.” During one time-out, Jimmy saw Dex and Pedro giggling with a couple of freshman girls and all he wanted was to be where they were, be
who
they were. But no. Fuck them. They were a part of the problem too. Pedro wasn't any kind of friend—always drafting off him. And Dex, kid didn't work hard to be good like Jimmy did, just
was
that way. He wasn't a baller, this wasn't his life, he didn't know how it felt. And now, look at them, just laughing their asses off. Not even
seeing
this. One look from his bro, that was all he needed. But no, Dex and Pedro were leaving. Off to concessions again for something else to ease the munchies. Stoners.

“Jimmy, come on now, pull it together,” Coach Kelly shouted above the chant, above the noise of the crowd.

Jimmy snapped out of it. “OK?”

“OK!”

The whistle blew. Time-out over. Jimmy went back on the court to face Shooter. Legs trembling.

•   •   •

McMahan found his way up to the balcony. Sat down like it was just a coincidence, like
Wow, I just showed up and DID NOT give your wife a ride here.

“Sure nice to meet you, Todd,” Doc said as he leaned across Genny Mori. “I was going to have to watch the game by my lonesome.”

Todd reached out and shook the man's hand. Small and damp. How the hell could people trust this guy to do surgeries? He used words like “lonesome.” “Got a kid playing?”

“Nope, just a fan of Jimmy's.”

“So you just like watching adolescent boys sweat?”

The Doc giggled, uncomfortable. “Funny. Hey, I got a little something extra in my soda if you care to . . .” He held out his paper cup with the blue PepsiCo logo on its side. Todd had probably delivered that cup, one in a box of hundreds, to the high school. A single delivery in a long line of other deliveries. A life of deliveries. Work heavy on the back, light in the pockets. And now here was
this
guy—caramel leather shoes so soft they were in danger of melting onto the floor, chunky watch catching light, silky, well-fitting clothes—here in this hot, dust-mote gym.