Rules for Becoming a Legend (27 page)

Jimmy stopped.

“Get to work, Jimbo, I'll be down in a second,” Mr. Berg said. Our kid had never been called Jimbo before and it rang out untrue.

“Jimbo? Call him Jimbo now? Hey, let me ask you a question, Kirkus.” Super Berg took a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “What do they call David at school? My grandson, behind his back, what do they call him?”

Jimmy bit his lip. This wasn't about him.

“What are you talking about?” Mr. Berg asked.

“Call him Faggy Berg, don't they Jimmy?
Faggy Berg
. James, that's what your son is known as.”

Mr. Berg swallowed, looked away. “So?”

“So? This is about David, son, this is about him.” Super Berg
coughed. “If you would just pick up the phone we could have already been over this and I wouldn't have to go trolling through town, looking like an idiot, trying to fish up MY OWN GODDAMN SON!” His voice echoed in the football bleachers. He breathed deeply, made a show of calming himself. “We could have taken care of David right when this issue popped up.”

Jimmy looked at Super Berg's eyes, the true color hard to pin down behind the yellow lenses. It gave him a headache like wearing 3-D glasses outside the theater. Super Berg's eyes were a slightly off version of Mr. Berg's kind eyes. Jimmy didn't want any part of this. None of their fight, their fuss, their issues. A sense of unease curled up in a little ball at the pit of his stomach, kicking out, trying to carve more space in his life. He imagined it as a miniature sand toad that had infected him first in basketball but was now spreading into other parts of his life and the lives of those around him. Gray, rough skin. Breadcrumb tongue. Eyes big, sick, and yellow. He was carrying a very communicable infection.

Mr. Berg and his father were arguing louder, shouting.

“SO YOU THINK IT'S OK?” Super Berg bellowed. “Just let David fuck around, not join the football team, not join the
basketball
team for Christ's sake?” He held out his hands, pleading. “Not even something like
swimming
? It's good for the boy to do
something
.
Anything
. Builds character.”

Jimmy looked at the older Berg. Is that what sports were supposed to do? Out of everyone he knew, David Berg seemed like the person to want sports, need sports, the least. Basketball? Naw. That kind of pressure wasn't him. Jimmy didn't know what David needed, but it wasn't sports.

“If he doesn't want to, I won't make him.”

Super Berg kept talking. “Gives you chances you didn't normally have. Look at you. You got your chance to shine when Todd
was suspended. Because of that you went on to college, right? You got a degree! Imagine if.”

“YOU SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH ABOUT THAT!” Mr. Berg could not contain himself. He was spitting mad. First time Jimmy saw the competitor come out in the man. The real baller who had once been the second-best player on Columbia City's team when fact of the matter was, he'd have been the toast of any other team that didn't feature Todd Kirkus. Mr. Berg was standing, fist coiled to strike his flabby father who stood a bleacher row down.

Super Berg remembered Jimmy was still there, suddenly turned on him. “You know that, kid? My boy finally got to star in a game 'cause your father went out drinking the night before and got himself suspended. My boy finally showed everyone what I always knew—he was just as good a player as Todd ever was. Good enough to get to college for it. Good enough to get scholarship money, a degree in history.”

“Shut up,” Mr. Berg said. “Don't do this. Freight Train was heads and tails.”

“Be a man, James, won't you? You were just as good. And if you'd just
push
David a little more.”

“He'd what? Change overnight? Stop dressing in black, throwing rocks at kids? This isn't about Jimmy. Let's talk about this in private.”

Jimmy touched the scar above his right eye. Where was David Berg right now?

“Isn't about Jimmy? All worked up about a Kirkus, again, when it's your son, your David . . .” Super Berg laughed bitterly. “You're right, son. People don't change.” And then, to Jimmy, “Your pops got his knee busted resisting arrest. Drunk and looking to drive. Trying to run away from Genny. He was scared 'cause your
mamma was pregnant with that sweet little girl and he was looking to fly.”

“Jimmy, listen, listen to me kid,” Mr. Berg said. “It isn't all like that.”

Our kid felt like he was getting buried alive. What the hell was Berg defending anyway? His pops had a rot in him, Jimmy knew, and all this new information was doing was showing him how deep the infestation went. He'd heard these rumors before, of course, little pieces of the story here and there, but he didn't put much stock in it. Rumors grew in Columbia City with equal parts exaggeration, speculation, and malice.

“Tell him the truth, James.” Super Berg smiled, at least that was what it looked like to Jimmy. A little smile that carried more sorrow than a frown ever could. Jimmy hadn't known emotions to twist like that. “Todd ‘Too Big for the Team' Kirkus couldn't handle your mom being pregnant with that beautiful little girl. No real adult around to teach a man responsibility and that's what happens. James, you got to lay something down for David, some
structure
.”

Mr. Berg shot out with a little jab of his left fist and rapped his father on the forehead. Jimmy wished the punch would somehow hit him too, but physics don't work like that. The fat man stumbled backward and tripped over a bleacher seat. Super Berg rolled twice, comical and slow, making little high-pitched “oh” noises along the way.

Jimmy jumped to where the big man stopped three or four rows down. Furious and grateful all at once for the truth he'd just been told. He helped the pudgy man up while Mr. Berg ignored them. Super Berg looked past Jimmy to his son, the yellow glasses catawampus. Beneath the lens, Jimmy saw, his eyes were the same color as all the Bergs'.

“You know, Jimmy,” Super Berg said in a voice loud enough for
the fuming Mr. Berg to hear, “You tell me what a grown man with a history degree is doing as a janitor.” He rubbed his neck. “You clue me in on that, 'cause it sure beats me.”

“You should go,” Jimmy said. “We have work to do.”

Super raised his palms in protest and then brought both hands down in disgust, as though it wasn't worth the effort. He turned and stomped back down the bleachers to his car, unraveled the dust on his way out.

•   •   •

At Mona's restaurant in Tillamook—an hour and fifteen minutes just to have dinner—Genny Mori and Doc McMahan were having a conversation neither had had since they were in high school. A breakup over appetizers. Light low enough that they could risk being real. Real tears, real regrets, real ultimatums, and real failures.

“If you're with me, you're not with anyone else,” Genny said. She had insisted on driving herself should things go poorly. This fact alone had probably set McMahan on notice. Her original plan had been to get a glow going with a couple glasses of wine before wading in. As soon as she sat down, though, she knew it to be impossible. He was tense, eyes darting, not risking touching her knees beneath the table as he normally would. “Not anymore, at least.”

“Genny, you know it's harder than that. I have a whole family.”

“And me?”

“
Genny
, why now? We love each other, so, why now?”

“You love me?”

“I do.” Here he thought she was cracking. He reached across the table and found her hands. Cold, damp. She pulled her hands from under his and he was left with his fingers outstretched and alone like stars on the dark tablecloth. “I love you very much.”

“Why didn't you help me? In the parking lot? Todd was drunk and angry. He could have hurt me.”

He sighed, pulled his hands back into his lap. “You know why. That's not a fair question. It was so long ago.”

To Genny it was more than fair. They'd been seeing each other for so long and nothing, nothing,
nothing!
was changing. It was beginning to seem like McMahan would never leave his wife for her, no matter how many times he implied he might. Hints were hints until they were taunts. Genny stood up, no wine drunk, no appetizers eaten. “If you're with me, you're not with anyone else,” she said again because a rehearsed line, it couldn't change halfway through like something said from the heart. She waited for him to jump in, say something, save it. She needed for him to fight for her.

He shook his head though, whispered viciously, “You're not being fair.”

She left, heart still sitting at the table, aching with every step of distance she put between them on her way to the van. Swallowed hard. Burning tears pushed down. It was over. Her and the Doc. It was done.

•   •   •

That night after Jimmy watched Mr. Berg and Super Berg fight, he couldn't sleep. Thoughts of his pops boozing so much he'd busted his knee didn't seem too far from the man he knew, but running away from his pregnant mom? That was the rub. By all accounts the man had loved Suzie, the sister Jimmy had never met. Kept that creepy cow's skull on the dash of his work rig just because it was the last thing she had collected. Jimmy rolled back and forth in the tangled sheets and the more he tried to push away the thought of his father running out on his mom, the more he couldn't get it out of his mind. Finally, he gave in and took his gray ball to Tapiola.

The air was cool on the walk down. Summer, finally, had begun to turn. It cleared the stuffiness from his head. On the courts
someone else was already shooting, scooping his own rebounds, and shooting again. As Jimmy got closer, he saw it was Dex. He walked to midcourt and stopped. Watched him unveil move after move. Jimmy always knew his little brother was a solid player, but he gave most of the credit to his size. However, on that night he could see that Dexter Kirkus really was special. He'd been blind and stupid to have not noticed before. Also, it made him hungry to play.

On a long rebound, Dex noticed Jimmy standing there on the moonlit court, watching.

“Jesus,” Dex said.

“I scare you?”

He laughed, bitter. “Well, creepo, you sneak up on someone.”

“How you been?” The whole summer of not talking with Dex unrolled inside of him, and in his excitement he tacked on more words before his brother had a chance to respond. “You're looking good out here.”

His little—
huge—
brother walked closer. “You know, sometimes I come down here and watch you. Been watching all summer. Figured you might be out tonight.”

“Yeah?”

“I see you down here some nights,” Dex repeated. He took the ball and bounced it twice with both hands. Sound huge in that dying summer night. Couple of gunshots. “I mean, where you been, Jimmy? Where you been all summer?”

Jimmy started dribbling his own ball. Gray thing so fuzzy the sounds came muffled. He felt light. Something in finding the whole truth about his pops was what did it. “Ah shut up, Dex. Been working for Berg, you know that.” Jimmy laughed but found he did it alone.

“They call you Jimmy Soft now. You know
that
?”

Jimmy dribbled harder, went through his legs, behind his back.
Such control the ball might as well have been on a string. “You want to play?”

“With Jimmy Soft? No. 'Cause I know the thing about you. I see you out here all summer. You still got it sometimes. Been there all along. You aren't Jimmy Soft. You been tricking the rest of us with a bogus slump for shit knows why.”

Jimmy dribbled up to his brother. Huge Dex towered above him. Chest heaving. Sweating like a man while Jimmy still couldn't grow armpit hair. “I'll shoot for ball.” Jimmy took a step around him and let go a shot from five feet behind the three-point line. Nailed it midstride. He turned back, smiling. “Guess I get ball.”

Then Dex was there. Pushing Jimmy. Our kid tripped and tumbled. Bloody hands and knees. Rage out the ears but fear too, like an aftertaste that makes you worry about the food you just swallowed. Jimmy on his back. Dex stood over him, breathing harder than from any basketball game. Kid was backlit and so dark he looked like a shadow himself, a shadow for what Jimmy couldn't yet know, but it had to be enormous.

Jimmy went to sit up, but Dex was there too. Moving as fast as a chest pass. Down on him with full weight. Both knees on his chest. Squeezing out the air. Face a mystery with moon-glow behind it.

“Get off or—” Jimmy wheezed.

“Or what, Jimmy? What? You gonna fight me? You gonna show me something?”

“Get the fuck off.” Jimmy clawed with his free right arm. His left was pinned at the bicep under Dex's kneecap, getting the shit bruised out of it. All he wanted was to be strong enough to get out from under there, but he was nowhere near. He had the cold, ridiculous fear that someone was watching. He gurgled and slapped with his free hand. Tears coming to his eyes. Tried to scream, but it was tough going with the air being pressed out of him. Whole
summer of hard labor, muscles bigger every day, and still Dex moved him like food pushed around a plate. Just tried to breath.
In
and
out
were the only two thoughts in the world.
In
and
out
.

•   •   •

Dex grabbed Jimmy's slapping hand, grip was iron. “Jesus, Jimmy,” Dex said. He couldn't believe this wet, little, crying, breathless, spineless, lying, slumping, snakeskin kid was once his hero. He pushed off him. One last shove to take the remaining air from Jimmy's lungs. Left him mouthing like a fish.
Fish
. You could give a man a fish or you could teach a man to fish. Or, if you're really pissed, you could just give him nothing
and
not teach him a goddamn thing.

Dex walked off toward the river. With parents like Todd and Genny Mori, it didn't much matter when he came home. Maybe he'd go find Pedro, get high. Maybe he'd hit up that girl who'd been texting him. Some freshman from Seaside looking to live dangerous with the rival. Dex would get her alone someplace and see how far she'd let him go. He'd dry his eyes and see if one of the last summer nights had anything left for him.