Rules for Becoming a Legend (14 page)

It's one of those “Hey you ever hear about”
things. Like
Hey, you ever hear about the time Kamikaze Kirkus ran his own fool self stupid into a brick wall and then three days later beat ten guys in a row, including the Johnston twins two on one? Yeah,
those
Johnston twins. They were all Cowapa League! Can you believe it?

Hey, you ever hear?

By the ninth game, the Flying Finn is still running as fast as his failing lungs allow him around the court. Hooting like some wizened, stretched-out monkey. He's giddy. He's always known deep down in his immigrant bones that him, or his son, or his grandson, was going to be great.

The crowd wants to take from Jimmy again, and poor Jimmy, he's still willing to give. They cheer and he nods his head. He wants to keep going. Keep this feeling alive. He's feeding on a love he thought he'd lost. That desperate “I need you more than you need me” love that is so powerful and full of poison. And even with nine pickup games under his belt, he could keep playing. Growing stronger with each step. Feet lighter. He could go on forever.

Sunday, October 22, 2000

JIMMY KIRKUS, NINE YEARS OLD—SEVEN YEARS UNTIL THE WALL.

J
immy was in the backseat of a luxury SUV, getting a ride to his ten-and-under tournament with the Johnston twins and their mother. Genny Mori had to work, as did, allegedly, his pops.

On the way to the tournament, Mrs. Johnston got lost in the large-numbered blocks of Southeast Portland. Everything looked the same. Huge grids of neon-topped stores, big glassy buildings, and too-perfect office parks. Jimmy sat alone in the very back, unsure of what to say.

“Don't look so serious,” Mrs. Johnston said, eyeing him in the rearview. “We'll find it.”

Jimmy smiled, didn't say anything, the car smelled of new plastic.

“Mom, Jimmy doesn't really, like, talk,” said one of the Johnston twins—Jimmy could never tell them apart.

“Brian, don't be rude,” Mrs. Johnston said. Her eyes cut to Jimmy again in the mirror. “We'll win the tournament. You're just like your father, Jimmy, I swear to God. Didn't think genes could pass down something like that, but . . .”

Jimmy put his head down between his knees. Breathed in and out. He was used to this. Whenever he was out with his pops, strangers came up to ask the big man if he was playing anymore, talk about how they remembered when. Been that way since forever. Pops always changed the subject, batted down the question
with a big paw like Jimmy did when kids at school asked him how come Dex—a second-grader—was already taller than him. It made him proud that people noticed his pops, respected how he had once played, but then if it were really true, why didn't Todd tell Jimmy about it? Or teach him some of his basketball secrets? He hardly ever came to watch either of his sons play and Jimmy had learned not to ask him about his balling days. Pops would button right up. “I was OK,” was what he'd say, then back to dinner, homework, bed. Other people's praise of Todd Kirkus up against the man's steadfast refusal to acknowledge it created a dissonance in Jimmy's mind he dealt with by settling on something in the middle. Sure his pops had played ball—who in Columbia City
didn't
—but people were probably exaggerating about him being a great.

It hurt, the feeling that everyone else knew more about your father than you did. Still, all those things they said, “Like father, like son,” or “Apple doesn't fall far from the tree,” made him full up, if only for a moment, an affection he somehow credited his father because he felt in on the secret. It was a shaky conveyance of love that went: His pops was once something, and he was like his pops, so he was destined to be something too, something his pops would be proud of even if the old man wouldn't say it.
And so his pops loved him.

Bottom line, though, the topic of basketball was a dead space between father and son.

Mrs. Johnston trailed off and Jimmy played a game with himself: if he didn't take his head out from between his knees once, if he just stared at the gray carpet, until the Yukon was stopped and they were at the game, he would do well again. He would win the game and people would keep talking about how he was just like his old man.

When they finally found the gym, the game was five minutes in
and our Columbia City boys were already fifteen points down. Jimmy and the Johnston twins rushed into the locker room, started changing. Jimmy unpacked his duffel, pulled on his uniform, listened to the crowd cheering, felt like this might just work. He could still get in there, will his team to a win. There was just one problem: Jimmy had forgotten his shoes.

Even from the locker room he could tell his team was getting beat down by the way his coach was yelling. It drove Jimmy crazy. He wanted to get out there and help. Our kid paced back and forth, tugging at his hair. If he couldn't do well here, then some chain would be broken, he was sure of it, bad things would happen.

The Johnston's mom came in, frazzled. “What's the problem, Jimmy? Get out there!”

“
Mom
, this the boys' locker room,” one of the Johnston's said.

“Forgot shoes, Mrs. J,” Jimmy said.

“Well, wear your street shoes.”

Jimmy looked down to his feet, Mrs. Johnston followed his gaze. He was wearing flip-flops.

“Brian, give him your shoes.”

“His feet are way big,” Brian said.

“Jesus, how big, Jimmy?”

“Tens.”

“What size do you wear, Chris?”

“You don't know?” Chris, the other twin, whined.

“Just tell me.”

“Sevens.”

The Johnston's mom tried to run her hands through her hair but they snagged—blocked because of the copious hairspray. Small-town fashion wisdom held that style and product were interchangeable. Her hair stuck up. “Small feet.”

“I'm only eight.”

“Well, so it goes with a father like yours.” Then an idea. “Look,
Jimmy, I'll run out and get you some shoes. Tens? Boys, go out there and see if you can help in the meantime.”

“Don't forget the ribbon!” Chris said. Ever since their coach's son had joined the army, everyone on the team had to tie red, white, or blue ribbon into their shoelaces on game day.

“Would you just focus, please?”

So Jimmy was left by himself, watching from the locker room doorway, waiting on shoes while his team got beat. Other team had this guy named Shooter Ackley. Some kid a year older out of Seaside. He was killing them and it tugged at Jimmy's stomach, his heart. So. So he went. Waited until coach called a time-out and then trotted onto the court barefoot, tapped one of the Johnston's on the shoulder and said, “I got it.”

I got it. He got it?
Who was this kid?

He started playing before the coach even knew he was in the game—wearing no shoes at all. Ran up and down, shooting, driving, passing. Tired the bigger Shooter Ackley out with his relentlessness. Confused him by showing no fear, attacking, attacking, attacking! Five toes vs. Nikes.

The ref, just a college kid looking to make some weekend cash, didn't notice at first. Then, when a parent from the other team—a tall, brittle mom with blouse and shoes that matched the color of her eyes—charged onto the court and yelled, “get some fucking glasses, ref; kid's not wearing shoes!” the poor ref was too tied up with issuing technical fouls to do anything about it. By the time he had everything calmed down again and the tall woman removed from the building, both head coaches ejected, he'd forgotten all about the issue that had started it in the first place—Jimmy's bare feet. The ref blew the whistle for the game to start and Jimmy promptly dropped a three. This led the opposing assistant coach to throw down his clipboard and stomp into midcourt during play where Jimmy's own assistant coach eagerly met him. Play
was again paused as the ref set about calming down both coaches. By the time things were in hand, Mrs. Johnston was back with a cheap pair of Payless sneakers and Jimmy was ready to go.

And there it was. Even though Jimmy only played a little more than a quarter barefoot, it was forever dubbed the Shoeless Game. Jimmy torched the nets for thirty-five points and led his team to victory. Holy hell he had sore feet to prove it. Jammed toenail bled red, medical tape holding ice was white, blisters all over the soles of his feet blue. Forget the ribbon, kid was an American hero on his own.

I got it
? Kid was well on his way.

You hear about
that
? The Shoeless Game?

•   •   •

The Flying Finn certainly did and it gave him an idea. He needed money though, so he went and begged for a job at Norma's Chowder House. Norma, the owner, made him a deal. He could sleep on a cot in the supply closet every night and get $10 a day so long as he picked the parking lot clean every morning and was gone before the lunch crowd came.

Finn sat in the parking lot, happy with a job well done, every bit of trash that had littered the cement now in a plastic grocery bag tied to his belt, ten one-dollar bills crumpled in his pocket. With his green motorcycle helmet on all sounds he made—breathing, grunts, even licking his lips—came back to him as echoes. He picked his teeth with a splinter and it sounded like cannons firing. Triumph. He didn't realize it, but this was the first step in his journey back. He hummed that favorite song of his.
We will, we will, ROCK YOU
.

•   •   •

By the time Jimmy got back to Columbia City from the Shoeless Game, word had already spread. It was October and everyone wanted to be Jimmy Kirkus for Halloween. Forget about Jimmy
being a chip off the old block, he might just be a block in his own right. Dex wrapped him up in a bear hug, his mom tapped his head.

“
You . . . are the champion . . . my fri-eennnnd
,” Dex sang, off-key.

Jimmy laughed, bit his medal like he was checking if it was real gold.

But when his pops got home, he wasn't happy. “What the hell, our kid doesn't get enough attention, he plays a game in NO SHOES?” A full head of steam, he glared at Jimmy. “What the fuck is that?”

“I forgot them,” Jimmy said.

“You, for. You forgot them?”

“Nice language, Todd,” his mom said. “Maybe if you'd go to a game once in a while you could.”

“I could what, I could what, I COULD FUCKING WHAT?” And Freight Train steamed out the front door. “Now it's my fault?” His question rolled off the neighbor's roof. He picked up a pumpkin, one they were planning on carving later, and smashed it down in the front lawn. It exploded on the stiff, frosty ground. Then he came back through the living room, knocking over a dining room chair on his way to the bedroom. Everyone breathed shallow in his wake. Maybe they'd choke if they took in too much.

“Come on, boys,” Genny Mori said quietly. “Let's go celebrate. Ice cream at Dairy Queen. I'm buying whatever you want.”

“Triple-fudge banana split!” Dex shouted.

But something was wrong with Jimmy. He was breathing hard, quick. Something rising in him, he couldn't tell what. Everything in the whole day was inside his chest—no shoes, hurt feet, winning the tourney, his pops, and the pumpkin—and only breathing could keep it down. So he did more of it, and more. His head grew light. There were a lot of things in the world he didn't understand—why Salisbury Steak was on the lunch menu, how spiders got into
every single room, how to grow taller—but his father's weirdness about basketball was top of the list.

“Jimmy?” his mom asked.

Jimmy was going to explode. He took his basketball and threw it after his pops with all his might. Shouted some wordless insult that came out as high-pitched as a girl. It knocked over a vase, which shattered on the floor.

“Oh,” Dex said and looked at his mom.

Genny Mori sighed, took Jimmy's hand, and walked him to the door. “Let's go eat ice cream.” He was too worked up to even feel a thrill at the rare gesture of his mom grabbing his hand.

•   •   •

Todd heard the crash. Heard the high-pitched scream. He winced.
Genny
. He stopped pacing the room and lay on the bed. His anger leaked out to make room for growing embarrassment. The scene replayed in his mind. He wished he could change it. Tweak the character playing Todd until he seemed fatherlike. What was he to do, though? It was all for them.

When he was absolutely sure they were gone, he left the bedroom. The last two months had been tough. Raising Jimmy right, protected, was his repentance for the loss of Suzie, but once his son joined a team, he hardly saw him. He was always at practices or games. Dedicated like Todd had once been. The talk of the town. And now everyone was going to think Todd couldn't even buy his kid shoes.

He went into the living room. There was Jimmy's old basketball among shards of broken vase. Scribbles covered it entirely: whenever Jimmy learned a new basketball legend, he added it onto his ball. Todd picked it up. He felt stuffed full of sand and he had felt that way for a while. He was tired of it. He set the ball on the table and swept up the broken vase. The basketball watched him work. He picked it back up. He ran his thumbs over the names written in Sharpie. Little-kid handwriting in some places, but Jimmy had
gotten older. Most of it was in neat block letters now. Clyde “The Glide” Drexler. Earvin “Magic” Johnson. Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain. Michael “Jumpman” Jordan. Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway. Gary “The Glove” Payton. Rasheed “Sheed” Wallace.

Todd left the house carrying the ball, ignoring the smashed pumpkin. Up the street away from Dairy Queen. He remembered this route from when he was a kid. The neighbors used to lean out windows and shout, “Hey Freight Train,” and “Choo-choo!” Little kids followed him, begging for autographs, sure his name on a piece of paper would be worth money someday.

Todd took a shortcut through the Lanes' backyard. Just like old days.
Hey, Freight Train. Choo-choo!
He wondered when exactly it had changed. When the adoration rotted and turned to jealousy or disdain. Probably when his father started pressuring him to skip preseason games to play in Portland for a tournament team, the Northwest Knights. A good way to increase his exposure—play against some real competition. And all in all, he enjoyed it. It was nice to throw his weight around with some players good enough to push back, even if it was just a little bit.

It hadn't gone over well in Columbia City, though. Small towns carry and distort news like a cave does noise.
Could Freight Train Derail Fishermen Basketball?

Nope, playing for the Knights hadn't gone over well at all.

•   •   •

Jimmy, his brother, and his mom came home sticky with ice cream to find a little man sitting in a black car outside their house. The driver's side window was open, the engine running.

“Genny,” the man yelled.

Jimmy noticed his mom light up red at the sound of that man calling to her, and though he didn't know what it meant exactly, he wished she hadn't done it.