Rules for Becoming a Legend (16 page)

•   •   •

This is too much for Todd. He pulls off the road, almost tipping the van with the sudden yank on the steering wheel. The car stops and shivers in its place. “You don't call him that name. He's Jimmy, that's all he is. I bet you want him to rush back in? Like those people who say he's got to prove himself in 6A? He's played them all before, coming up, and ran circles on them. Even with what happened his freshman season, he doesn't have to do nothing for no one and his name—god
damn
it—is Jimmy.”

“Todd, you know, every star needs good a nickname as you had.”

“No son of mine.” He slams the steering wheel again. His voice trembles with rage. “No son of mine.” He's gritting his teeth. He's remembering that night wandering the University of Oregon campus, lost and looking. His father had said the same words to him.
No son of mine.

“Get out,” he tells his own father who's been homeless almost a year with sightings of him as far south as Ashland. “Get out of my fucking car.”

But the Flying Finn is already moving. He looks tired. So tired. There is a tug inside Todd, but he fears himself evil because it's easy to ignore.

“Sleep well, both you,” the old man says, holding the sliding door open.

The exhaust from the idling engine wafts in like a ghost looking for haunting. Smells poisoned and good. Todd could breathe it all night. There's the cold of the night, too, muscling in late.

“Thanks for food, Jimmy. I's hungry.” He slams the door shut; he's already shivering. He blinks his milky eyes.

•   •   •

His pops puts the car into drive and starts off down the road. Jimmy is unsure but sure all at the same time. They drive in silence. He's trembling now, same as his pops. Some of that crackling bigness from the basketball court before is back inside him. Two blocks back, Grandpa is stumbling in the side-view mirror, still visible. Green helmet looks too heavy, a weight that's squishing his self down into his greasy shoes.

Jimmy punches the dashboard. Busts through the gray textured coating. It's yellow foam beneath. It's been enough. He's tired of his pops making him do what he thinks is best. Pops's life turned out a wreck, why's he get to steer Jimmy's too? Plus there's something in what his pops said about proving himself at 6A that Jimmy's been chewing on. 6A. Division with Shooter Ackley out of Seaside, Ian Callert over in Canby, Danny Rubbe down in Cape Blanco—all going to be NCAA Division I athletes. A bumper crop of talent rounding into fine form. Talk is already brewing about how the state tourney will be one for the record books. Jimmy doesn't want it, not yet he doesn't. But if he doesn't have it this year then next year it will be gone. He'll be up against the also-rans, the semi-goods. Why is his pops so pissed the Flying Finn is aware of this stuff? Shouldn't he be too? Shouldn't Jimmy? “Stop the car,” he says. “We're bringing Grandpa home.”

“You listen to me,” his pops starts, rage threatening everything about him, but it's not enough, not anymore. Jimmy slams his left leg down next to his father's and hits the gas pedal. The car lurches forward, engine flooded in gas, trying not to drown.

His pops has no choice but to hit the brakes. Van makes a terrible noise. Smell of melting and metal. Tires squeal. Then Jimmy takes his foot off the gas but his pops is still stomping the brakes
and the van is stopped. His pops's head cracks the steering wheel. He isn't wearing his seat belt. There'll be a bruise on his forehead tomorrow for sure. Like son like father. Jimmy's brains slosh around in his skull. How boring. He doesn't care about his pops's mood. He wants to lie down. He could sleep for ten years straight. He could die. He opens his door and vomits milky stomach acid onto the sidewalk. Then he turns back to his father, eyes open, unflinching.

•   •   •

Todd looks at his kid.
When he get eyes fierce as that?
His head pounds. He can't imagine himself ever standing up to the Flying Finn like this. Or rather, not unless he was drunk. What is it in this kid, a sign of the times? The rap on the head? The rap music in the ear? He touches his forehead where the steering wheel hit. He might be bleeding. His eyes bulge. He feels his anger deflating around him—Jimmy's eyes popped it—until it's big and floppy, fits him poorly. It's a puddle he's splashing in. He's embarrassed by everything. He looks away from his son.

“You could of got us killed,” Todd finally says, feeling deep inside that he should say something.

“Well, good thing you hit the brake.”

Todd cuts eyes back to his son. This comment, to him, shines light on every corner of how Jimmy's changed. Kid's got deeper hallways, little trapdoors, secret rooms, and all inside him, hiding a man who could come out tough, or angry, resilient, or looking for a score. He's got to be careful. He'll have a hand in this.

When the Flying Finn catches up to the van, he has a small cough in his lungs as if ball bearings are loose in his throat, eating away at him on each breath. He climbs in, and for once, has no words to say.

The three men drive the rest of the way home in silence, and Columbia City colludes—dropping a thick curtain of ocean-laced
mist over their route. Sticky, beading rain glues together cars and houses, trees and telephone poles, until all shapes are parts of even larger shapes. Behind the curtain are hideous monsters made haphazardly from the normal parts of Columbia City's life. This magical rain gathers on the van's windows in covens of liquid until they are too heavy and race down with abandon. Todd burns through as much of the rainy soup as he can with his yellowed headlights and hunched forward he drives on.

Thursday, February 3, 2005

JIMMY KIRKUS, FOURTEEN YEARS OLD—THREE YEARS UNTIL THE WALL.

T
odd Kirkus looked up from the afternoon's
Columbia City Standard
, cleared his throat, and proceeded to surprise his whole family. “I guess the Fishermen are playing tonight,” he said. He snapped shut the paper and stood from his chair. “Maybe we should go.”

“Scappoose Indians?” Jimmy asked.

Todd looked to his son. Of course Jimmy would know exactly what team they were playing. He probably had the schedule memorized. “Yeah. Want to go?”

Kid looked him up and down, like there could be a trick in it. “Um, OK?”

“Todd?” said Genny Mori. “Whole town's going to be out.”

He looked at his wife, annoyed that she didn't think him man enough to handle it. Also that she was showing it in front of his sons. He tried to brush it off, affecting a light tone. “Who cares; let's go. We'll have to get going, though. Probably missed first quarter already.”

“Wait, really?” Dex asked from where he lay on the couch, dropping potato chips one by one into his mouth. He sat up a little and the next chip bounced off his lower lip and down to the floor.

“Dex, goddamn it, throw that away,” Genny said.

“Whoa nelly, easy there, easy,” Dex said in a cowboy accent.
“It's like I always say, if we had a dog, he'd just eat this up. Dropping chips on the floor is a
protest
, Mom, you ever hear of
that
?”

“Just get your coat.”

Dex picked up the chip from the floor, blew on it, and then, just to get his mom revved even higher, popped it in his mouth—three-second rule—and stomped off, Jimmy following.

“Can't our family ever just be in peace?” Todd said, peeved.

“You tell me,” his wife said.

•   •   •

And so Freight Train took his wary family to the Brick House. It was the first time he'd been back since high school. They were late and had to wait for a stop in play to find their seats. Shoe squeaks, the smell of gym—Todd closed his eyes. Tracked the feeling as it reached his toes. Not relief, exactly, but a close cousin. The whistle sounded. When he opened them, play was stopped. A Fishermen time-out. Heads turned. People poking neighbors and pointing. A whole gym's worth of eyes. First one person clapping, and then another. Popcorn coming to full heat, it became one sound. Only sound. The crowd threatened to pop the roof right off the Brick House.

These were young kids who'd only heard of him in story and parents who remembered him play firsthand. Old classmates, fans, teachers, and teammates who had one of the best nights of their lives back when Todd led the team to the first championship and all of Columbia City went delirious. Two-for-one drink specials at Desdemona's, free soft-serve at the Dairy Queen. Dancing in the streets and car horns gone hoarse from being leaned on. These were the same people laid flat when Todd was suspended from the team the day of the championship game the next year. Their boy done good crashed up on the rocks of alcohol and injury. A hero wallowing, an ugly sight, Freight Train spent the years since trying to be as scarce as can be. Finally here he was,
cornered with the whole town giving praise. Refs clapping too, players and coach on Scappoose looking on, calm, giving the moment the respect it deserved, the game could wait. People shouted, “Hey Freight Train!” and, “Go choo-choo!” Just like the old days. Hell, it was something to see. They still remembered him for all he'd been sixteen years before.

Todd nodded his head, bit his lip. “OK, now,” he said, “all right.” Waved his hand, like
You're too kind
. Crowd even louder. Feet stamping bleacher seats. The old chant: “
Hey, hey—down the lane. Hey, hey—it's Freight Train
.” Water in his eyes. Noise didn't stop until the Kirkus family found seats. And then when they sat, it settled down, but for the rest of the game, people kept stealing glances.

Todd felt as if he were floating. Jimmy, Dex, and even Genny Mori were balloons.

•   •   •

On the way home, Jimmy's mom gave up on being bitter for a little bit and his pops was talking ball. Stories about his glory days that he rarely told, and never with this energy. There was a light rain. It studded the windows with water. For a night at least his mom didn't care she'd got pregnant with a doomed little girl and married too soon to a sure thing that turned out to be anything but. His pops forgot that he became a townie, a Van Eyck PepsiCo lifer, who had let his daughter die and screwed up his basketball chances.

“Let's play that tape you like so much,” his pops said. He rubbed his mom's knee.

“Which one?” she asked, surprised. He usually preferred silence to anything else—and, he didn't really like that either.

“Paul Simon.” Jimmy saw the way he smiled slyly in the rearview mirror, and it made him smile too. “Whose gonna get that girl diamonds on her shoes? Lose them walking blues?”

“You know what I like,” she finally said, and laughed and it was all so odd, and peaceful and dark, that Jimmy felt a soft sleepiness drift over him. He felt young in the best way. He felt young and protected. Finally.

“You guys live in the Stone Age,” Dex said. “Get a CD player already.”

“Shut up,” Jimmy whispered.

Dex shrugged, and as the music started, Jimmy watched the rain. Then his brother poked him on the shoulder, whispering.

“Hey, Jimmy, you gotta beat this fire plant for me. Level eleven.”

Jimmy took the Game Boy. “Yeah, sure.”

A, over, A, down, A, B, A
. No problem. Got Luigi out right quick. Couple of Italian brothers dodging fire-breathing plants. Jump the problems till there weren't any problems left. Both of them blessed with real vertical leaps. They'd probably make pretty good two-guards.

“That's the tough part,” Dex said when he took the Game Boy back.

“Yeah, that's the tough one.”

Paul Simon sang on and on. Diamonds and shoes.
People say she's crazy
. Mom and Pops sometimes looked back at them through the rearview mirror. Dex played his Game Boy, kept his snide comments bottled up. The whole town had stopped everything for his pops. It had been amazing and unexpected. Filled him up. Filled his whole family up. Brake lights of other cars lit up raindrops on his window. A better night-light he'd never known. Jimmy closed his eyes—he could
swear
he felt the Earth turning—and fell asleep quick and easy.

•   •   •

What happened was the day before the Scappoose game Todd had switched shifts at Van Eyck to help a coworker out. He'd worked the night before, and then did the day too. Basically eighteen
hours of work with a nap in between. He got home before the boys were even out of school; around the time he would typically be leaving for work. He parked the van in the usual spot, in their little inlet, behind the pine. Thick branches hid the van. He had the window open, arm out. Engine ticked and cooled. Air—through some trick in the jet stream—warm enough on this day to bathe in. He reclined the seat. He felt worn in the best way and so he lingered there. He drifted to sleep.

Dex's voice—teasing Jimmy—was what woke him. He peeked out the window, wiping dried spit from the corner of his mouth.

“Man, if this whole ball thing doesn't work out, you can go make toys for Santa.”

Through the leaves, Todd saw Jimmy hanging from one of the maple limbs. He had soup cans tied to his shoes. He swung back and forth slightly, shaking the limb, trying to stretch himself. Recently, his son had become terrified of staying short and taken it upon himself to help nature out. In the last month, Todd had caught him walking around on his tippy-toes, making himself sick by drinking whole cartons of milk, whispering over and over to himself, “I will be tall, I will be tall, I will be tall.”

“Shut up, Dex,” Jimmy said, out of breath.

“Or cookies in the tree house? I hear Keebler's got an opening for a good elf.”

“Yeah, yeah, keep talking.”

“I would, but you're so short I ran out of things to say.” Dex pulled out of his pocket a wrinkled page from a magazine. He held it up to Jimmy. “Look, it's cute.”

Even though it was too far away to see, Todd knew exactly what it was. A month ago, after Jimmy led his team to a second undefeated season in a row and then was named MVP of an elite Nike basketball tournament,
Sports Illustrated
had published an article entitled
Jimmy Kirkus, The Next Larry Bird?
In the photo
Jimmy stood with his marked-up basketball on his hip. He didn't look much like Celtic great Larry Bird. In fact, with the hoop towering behind him, it was painfully clear just how small he was. He looked better suited for a spelling bee than a hardwood court. Dex had drawn a little elf hat on Jimmy's head in Sharpie. Written
Santa's Little Helper
in cursive over the top. He'd been tormenting Jimmy with it ever since.

Jimmy dropped from the tree. He undid the soup cans from his shoes and threw them one by one at Dex. “Shut the. Fuck up.” His brother danced away. Then Jimmy stormed about ten feet off, dropped to the ground, and started doing push-ups.

Todd watched, fascinated as Dex took in his brother's rage. One thing about Dex was he simply couldn't handle it if Jimmy was upset. He walked over to the small pumpkin patch that sprouted on the edge of their yard every fall since Jimmy's famous barefoot game five years before when Todd had lost it. The pumpkins reminded him of basketballs—being blown up by the earth, turning from green to orange. Over the years he was always finding them mysteriously smashed just when they were the ripest.
Goddamn teenagers
.

Dex picked up one late bloomer—now half rotten and slimy—and lifted it over his head. Todd was worried he was going to walk over and bring it down on Jimmy. He went for the door handle.

Then, instead, Dex called out, “Hey Jimmy!”

Jimmy looked up. Todd could see his older son's smile already growing.

Dex slipped his voice into a pitch-perfect imitation of Todd from that day he'd smashed the pumpkin in a fit of rage. “You played without shoes? I could, I could, I COULD WHAT?” Dex threw the pumpkin down where it exploded into an orange, goopy mess.

Jimmy started laughing, and Dex continued stomping around. A big, huffing caricature. Todd felt the urge to scream. Spring open
the door, shock his boys,
I've been watching the whole time you little bastards
. Then he stopped. Embarrassed already. This was who he was to his sons. Blowing up now would only make it worse. He'd chewed on it all that day and the next. Then an idea sprang to him while he read the
Standard
's sports page.
Columbia City Fishermen Face the Scappoose Indians, Tonight at the Brick House
. It was something unexpected from him—he could be better, he could surprise them all.

•   •   •

Taking his boys to the Scappoose game couldn't have gone better. As the winter and then spring waned and summer shifted in for its brief turn playing Columbia City, it was clear the standing ovation he received at the game had changed Todd Kirkus. He was more open, laughed easier. He even reached out to his father—who had first spurned Todd's help repeatedly when he took to the streets after Suzie died, and then, years later when he had been set up sleeping in the supply closet of Norma's and tried to come back home, been rejected in turn by Todd. In the intervening years Todd and the Flying Finn had seen each other on the periphery, but hadn't spoke more than a sentence or two. Then in the summer before Jimmy's freshman year, finally, Todd invited him over to officially meet his grandsons.

The first time he came, white hair ironed down the sides of his great dome, lost in a thrift-store suit made for a shorter, fatter man, the boys didn't believe it.

“Good afternoon,” the Flying Finn said in a careful politeness that was laughable. “I's gonna come sooner but it's so long to walk. I'm the Flying Finn, I'm Grandpop.”

“I've seen you down on the road,” Dex said. “With the green helmet.”

The Flying Finn grinned his big jack-o'-lantern grin, same one he used when he used to pretend he liked eating brussels sprouts
just so Todd would give them a try, and snapped his fingers. “That's my hat!”

“Are you sure he's our grandpa?” Jimmy asked.

Before Todd could answer, the Flying Finn had both boys in headlocks and was pulling them out into the yard. “I's your grandpop, I'm so strong!” he was shouting. It was a game they used to play often when Todd was small. Strongest Man in the World. The Flying Finn threw first Jimmy and then Dex out into the grass. “I's just so strong, I's the strongest man in the world.”

“Man, you
are
crazy,” Jimmy said as he stood up, wiped at some of the mud now streaking his pants.

He looked at Todd for help and Todd shrugged, smiling. “He's the strongest man until you prove otherwise.” It was strange seeing this version of his father playing at joy. Todd saw that the years out on the streets had got their knocks in as they passed by. Finn was missing three of his bottom teeth on the right side. There was a scar from above his right eyebrow running to just below his cheekbone. He moved in a glitch-heavy way. Steps down seemed to give him trouble. And yet still. Here he was, the crazy fuck, wrestling.

Jimmy turned back to the Flying Finn, red-faced. “There is something seriously loose in your head.” Todd could tell his kid was being pushed out of his comfort zone with this. He wasn't entering on his terms. There were no rules or boundaries and he hadn't practiced his moves ad nauseam beforehand.

“If you looks where I am, you only sees where I's been, 'cause I's so fast, I'm the Flying Finn!”