Rules for Becoming a Legend (32 page)

Monday, December 17, 2007

JIMMY KIRKUS, SIXTEEN YEARS OLD—TWO HOURS UNTIL THE WALL.

W
hen Jimmy finally left the house, cold air biting back on each breath, it was into what seemed like an impossibly big and crowded place. It was the first snow of the season. A white blanket spread over everything. All the cars just lumps in the snow. The Youngs River a thin, black ribbon tying the white day—down or together, no one could be sure. Snow wasn't common in Columbia City, and neither was Jimmy Kirkus anymore.

Jimmy wouldn't have been able to say how bad off he was. He was like a smudged, unclear word without the sentence written around it. He didn't know that spending almost a year in seclusion wasn't normal. It'd been bleak so long there wasn't another way. He was too young to know that no one is spared sadness or tragedy in this life and that going on, always going on, was expected. Our kid had basically spent a year—
a year!
—inside that house. Always in the same spot on the couch, trying to say as little as possible and mostly succeeding. Going over every detail of his last day with Dex and his mom. Looking for loopholes, hoping that through some technicality, it would be called back.

•   •   •

Snow brought people out in droves. The kids rode flattened cardboard boxes down rough hills to spill out at the bottom in jumbled messes of limbs and bruises. They wore blue jeans sprayed stiff with rain repellant. They called it good enough. Till next
year at least. And then when the next year came, it would be the same story. Just spray down the blue jeans, it'll work fine. And it never did. Snow always soaked through. That's so small town.

As Jimmy walked, the kids sledding, the couples making snowmen, the people walking their dogs, all stopped and stared at him.

Look, poor Jimmy Kirkus leaving the house finally.

They say he lives in the attic and won't talk to anyone.

Look! He's gotten so big.

Well, it's been a whole year . . .

In his every step, there was a scary amount of physical power right beneath the surface. Made people nervous just to see it. Like handing a loaded gun to a little kid, they were afraid some part of him might go off on accident. Take a head with it.

•   •   •

When he got to the door of the gym, he stopped and froze, hand midway toward the push bar. He had a brief, but thoroughly terrifying vision of something quick and violent, sandy and cold. A sand toad? He would've turned around right then and gone back home—what did it matter?—and there would never have been a legend of Kamikaze Kirkus, if it weren't for Mr. Berg taking out the trash. The door bust open from the inside and Jimmy jumped.

“Well, Jimmy, been a little while, now,” Mr. Berg said with a giddiness poorly hidden in his voice.

“Been a minute or two.”

“Well, you
grew
didn't you?”

Our kid Jimmy didn't answer and so he and Mr. Berg each looked off at the hungry Youngs River, running by the high school, on its way to the Columbia. Anyone else and Jimmy would have left without another word. It was Berg though. Guy who was always on his side.

“Well Jimmy, let me get the door for you,” Mr. Berg said, instantly vanquishing the universe where Jimmy just went home,
and there was no Kamikaze, no ten opponents beat in a row, no infamous YouTube clips.

“Thanks, Mr. Berg.”

“No problem.”

He held the door open and the warm air rushed out. Smells that gave Jimmy goose bumps. Rubber and sweat, Gatorade and dust. A little popcorn, maybe? From the last game of the last season?

He was late to practice and when he stepped into the gym, the noise stopped. Everything hung from where it was about to leap. Words clung to kids' lips, balls stopped bouncing and stuck to hands, Coach Kelly's whistle hung crooked in his teeth.

Then—movement.

“Well, hey, all right Jimmy!” Coach Kelly yelled overloud.

And the words dropped again, “Give me a pass, bro.” And the ball bounced,
thud
,
thud
. The whistle blew,
tweet
,
tweet
.

“OK, boys, OK,” Coach Kelly yelled awkwardly. Spit laced around his whistle. “We'll go one more.”

Jimmy took off his sweatshirt and boots. Sat on his gray ball and laced up a pair of Dex's old sneakers, the only ones in the house still big enough to fit him. He walked out on the court with shy steps. He'd grown a ton and it wasn't over, either. Our kid was bigger than Freight Train. A legitimate NBA-sized player.

“Jesus, Jimmy,” Brian Johnston said. “Grew like a madman.” And the others crowded around the big kid who they once had known as a tiny thing, scared to take a hit.

“Grow much, Jimbo?”

“You ate the old Jimmy, you monster!”

“Sasquatch is real!”

“You could change the lightbulbs in this place without a ladder.” The team looked up at the high ceiling of the Brick House and laughed, even Jimmy a little.

“OK, stop flirting, ladies, let's go,” Coach Kelly said happily. He
patted Jimmy's arm. “You are
huge
! You look just like—well, never mind.”

They played, but Jimmy was hesitant. Hands unsure. Feet slower than his thoughts. Worse than before, really. It was masked somewhat by his new size—kids were simply afraid to run into a guy big as he'd become—but it was still there. Jimmy was spooked about getting hit. Anytime contact might become involved, he held back, turned away, passed. He was the biggest on the court, but he still felt the smallest, the weakest. He wanted to scuttle away and hide. And this, just like before, infected everything else in his game: passing, shooting, even knowing where to be. The other team won, 11-6.

Afterward, Coach Kelly pulled Jimmy aside. “Look,” he told the kid, blinking his watery eyes. “Remember what I told you? Your body can take a lot of punishment and keep ticking. No reason to play scared. You're body's built for this stuff. The running and the banging, the falling and the, the skidding . . . all of it really. The other kids should be scared of you! You're so goddamn big now! You could run headlong into a brick wall and it wouldn't do a thing. Your body's built for as fast as you can go on your own feet. Trust me, I teach health class.” Coach folded his arms.

“I'll try, Coach.” And in Jimmy's head, the process had already begun. Maybe not the actual idea, but the series of cranks and levers, pulleys and switches, that would eventually create The Idea that would create Kamikaze were moving.

In the locker room the other kids asked Jimmy how he'd been. They gamely didn't bring up the fact that they hadn't seen him—hardly anyone but that stoner Pedro had seen him—in almost a year. They didn't talk about the mediocre season they'd had after Dex died and Jimmy left the team. They certainly didn't say anything about Dex and Mrs. Mori getting in that car crash with that
doctor from Portland—a fact that was still vibrating the gossip webs of Columbia City: AFFAIR! CHEATING! VIOLENCE! DEATH! They kidded him about his size and how they bet he had an easy time with his pops in charge of his home school. Easy As and all that. Talked about which poor freshmen kids got bushed and the seniors told him about the colleges they'd applied to.

Jimmy listened but said little as his mind worked. They were all being so nice. He couldn't really understand it. Then it came to him. He was a mess. They felt sorry for him. He was fragile. They wanted to try and protect him because he seemed like the sort that needed protection. They knew it just as he did: he was still Jimmy Soft.

He wouldn't care except for the power his failure gave them. Besides the team there was a whole town, a whole state, who had opinions on the fall from grace of the Kirkus house. If Jimmy couldn't do something to change their minds, then their opinions carried weight, no matter how falsely.

He undressed and showered slowly. The other kids left one by one until he was alone. He dried himself off in front of the mirror. He had avoided looking at himself during his time of solitude, and it surprised him now, what he saw. It was like looking at a movie poster of an action hero and then you realize that's
your
face. It's
your
goddamn face on the poster. Where'd the shoulders and muscles come from? And yet, it was still him. He found the scar where David Berg had thrown a rock at him the year before. Above his right eye. The scar was raised. He'd healed from that.

Coach Kelly came in, whistling softly, swinging the keys on his finger. Jimmy could see in his gait that he had places to go, people to see, and gossip to spread:
Jimmy Kirkus is back, bigger than life itself. But, get this: soft as ever
.

“Get outta here, Jimmy,” Coach shouted playfully. “Practice is over.”

“I'm going, Coach.”

“Come on then, hurry it up.”

Jimmy glanced at the door that led to the parking lot, and then over to the door that went back into the gym. “Go ahead, Coach, I'll be done in a minute.”

Coach looked at his watch. “What you trying to stay around for?”

Jimmy sighed, as though he'd been caught. “Just thought a few more shots is all. I want to get in a couple more. You know. Feels good to be back.”

Coach Kelly closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Wheels clicking in there, Jimmy could tell. Guy was a glory hound, that was first of all. If Jimmy could get him thinking he was going to get good again, then Coach would do anything for him. “Fine, fine. Just make sure you close the door all the way when you leave.” Coach Kelly opened the door to the parking lot. Cold air rushed in. He turned back. “And Jimmy, I'll see you tomorrow at practice.”

“Sure thing, Coach, you got it.”

“Close it all the way behind you, Jimmy, I mean it. I don't want any trouble leading back to me, now.” He winked at the kid.

“No problem, Coach. No trouble.”

So Coach Kelly left and Jimmy turned around.

The Wall was waiting.

T
here are coaches out there right now saying things like “Kid's got a Larry Bird shot.” Or, “There's a player on Central, with this incredible Olajuwon footwork.”
Or, “A Dwayne Wade leap, a Chris Bosh upside, a Steve Nash floor vision,” and on and on . . .

And then there are those young players who play with such guts and determination, such leave-it-on-the-hardwood drive, that coaches shake their heads, get that look in their eye and say, “Kid's playing with that Kamikaze heart.”

Ah, Kamikaze Kirkus. You ever hear the legend of Kamikaze Kirkus?

Kid once beat fifty players in a row without giving up a point.

One time he thought the game was too easy so he played barefoot and still ran circles around them fools.

Caught a ball headed for the back of his head without even turning around.

The very first time he ever picked up a basketball, he made seventy-two shots in a row, as a kindergartener, including the last one when four or five kids dog-piled him as he released. I'm telling you, it still went in.

And most of all:
You ever hear about the time Kamikaze Kirkus went head first into a brick wall over and over again? They say you can still see the stains on the bricks. I'm serious.

The legend of Kamikaze Kirkus grows and spreads as all true legends do. Carried close to the heart, told in whispers over campfires, in the close atmosphere of darkened cars. First it was common lore only in Columbia City, but over the years it has seeped
out and became adopted by other teams, other towns, and other states.

It's impossible that all the people who claimed to have been at his final game, or truly seen him in action, actually have. But does it matter? Don't legends belong to anyone who needs them? The Flying Finn told Jimmy that to see a legend was to believe in magic, even if just a little. While that's not quite it, it's something close, and sometimes close, if the distance is small enough, is just as good. Search Kamikaze Kirkus online. See if the legend is gone. See if people no longer care.

If you go to Columbia City now, and you attend a game at the Brick House, you'll notice each player on either team takes a moment out of their warm-up to run over and touch those famous bricks. Close their eyes and feel the very texture of a boy becoming a man, a man becoming a legend. In the end we are never measured by the times we got knocked down, bowled over, smashed in. We are measured by the other times. The times when we got back up, gathered ourselves together, undid the dents, walked away. To love something without faults is an easy love. To love something just limped in, just dragged through, just got up again, that is a love to know about, to tell about. The blood-red bricks of Jimmy Kirkus.

It's raining now in Columbia City. Basketball will soon be here in full force again. The warm Brick House packed to the gills with the whole town rooting for the Fishermen. “
We are the FISHERMEN, the mighty, mighty FISHERMEN.
”
What a thing! It's coming. Pump up the ball, lace up the sneaks.
Dribble, dribble, shoot
.

Y
ou ever hear of Kamikaze Kirkus? Basically wrote the rules for becoming a legend.

H
ere's the thing about this book. It's not the first one I wrote. It's not even the third. I failed my way to this book. More times than I care to admit. And it's a testament to the friends and family I've been blessed with that every time I failed—spectacularly in some cases—I never questioned if I would try again, only when.

Thanks to:

Rachael Dillon Fried. I know most authors say their agent is the best in the world. They all lied. You are.

Maggie Riggs. You are an editor of the highest skill and you made this book so much stronger.

Eva Bacon, for convincing me to send it to Rachael.

Hal Fessenden, an early reader, and the best boss I've ever had. Sorry you're fourth down. You can take it up with Maggie.

the Penguin marketing and design team: Carla Bolte, Paul Buckley, John Thomas, Noirin Lucas, Carolyn Coleburn, and Nancy Sheppard. It's an honor to work with you all.

others at Penguin who helped make this book real (even if they didn't know they were helping): Adina Gabai, Sharon Weiss, Draga Malesevic, Ritsuko Okumura, Lorna Henry, Leigh Butler, and Balie Keown.

Alexander James Humphrey. You're a dusty old rattlesnake but I tip my hat to you.

Chris Lang for being my creative partner, early and frequent reader, and friend since third grade.

Brian “Microwave” Alfonse for being an early reader and steadfast friend.

Story Syndicate. Scott Gabriel, Eliyanna Kaiser, and Felice Kuan. You three have helped this book grow from a little short story. Your critiques and friendship were invaluable. Still waiting on our Skype session.

Mrs. Patterson, my twelfth grade English teacher, who told me, “If this is what you want to do, I think you're good enough to do it.”

Mrs. Lilly, my fourth and fifth grade teacher, who let me put the stories I wrote in the school library.

those along the way who never balked and gave only support when I told them I wanted to be a writer when I grew up: Gina O'Looney, Glenda Turnbull, Brian Torres, Michelle Berny Lang, Dan Caccavano (the original Shoeless), James Pozdena, Joe Mansfield, Kathryn O'Shea Evans, Robbye Good, Alison and Steve Courchesne, and the Koval Clan (Randy, Laurie, Zach, Isaac, Nathan).

my brothers Ackley and Sydney for being my best friends and two of the most hilarious, loving people I know.

Cousin Mim and my sister, Abi, for being my earliest of readers.

my mother and father, Wendy Ackley and Scott Lane. With great love, you taught me the value and magic of story.

that girl in my Spanish class. You always believed in me, even when I didn't myself. Thanks for being my wife. I love you, Tiffany Leigh Lane.