Rules for Becoming a Legend

by Timothy S. Lane

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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  New York, New York 10014

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  First published by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by Timothy S. Lane

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Lane, Timothy S.

  Rules for becoming a legend : a novel / Timothy S. Lane.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-101-61776-2

  1. Basketball players—Fiction. 2. Gifted boys—Fiction. 3. Life change events—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. Sports stories. I. Title.

  PS3612.A54994R85 2014

  813'.6—dc23

  2013036974

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  for Tiffany Leigh, of course

  Like all legends, the legend of Jimmy “Kamikaze” Kirkus starts as an actual event and grows bigger than that. It grows like everything seems to grow in the Pacific Northwest rain. Tall and tangled. Slick and tricky. Changing all the time. Eating and rotting and molting—but always growing.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PART ONE

  Rule 1. Value Those Who Keep Your Secrets

  Rule 2. Come from Nowhere

  Rule 3. Neither Confirm Nor Deny

  Rule 4. Come from a Difficult Background

  Rule 5. Be Betrayed

  Rule 6. Have Something to Prove

  Rule 7. Never Flinch

  Rule 8. Be a Bit Off

  Rule 9. Blind ’Em

  PART TWO

  Rule 10. Get Help from Unexpected Places

  Rule 11. Be Bold

  Rule 12. Get Up When Knocked Down

  Rule 13. Don’t Talk Much, or, Talk Too Much

  Rule 14. When You Shine, Don’t Apologize for Your Sparkle

  Rule 15. No Press Is Bad Press

  Rule 16. If You Crack, Crack for the Whole World to See

  Rule 17. Trust in a Miracle

  Rule 18. If Push Comes to Shove, You Do the Shoving

  Rule 19. Let Their Imaginations Run

  Rule 20. When You Do Talk, Have Something to Say

  Rule 21. Don’t Get Too High, Don’t Get Too Low

  Rule 22. Know That Sadness, No Matter What, Will Come

  PART THREE

  Rule 23. Don’t Ever Stop

  Rule 24. Facts Rarely Help

  Rule 25. Leave on Your Terms, Never Theirs

  Rule 26. First Time Is Rarely the Charm

  Later. Time

  Acknowledgments

  Part One

  Rule 1. Value Those Who Keep Your Secrets

  Monday, December 17, 2007

  JIMMY KIRKUS, SIXTEEN YEARS OLD—MOMENTS UNTIL THE WALL.

  Look at this kid in the high tops. Purer kid you never seen. Pure in his intentions, pure in his eyes, and most important, oh top of the list for the 8,652 residents of Columbia City, Oregon: pure in his jump shot.

  Jimmy Kirkus, alone in this gym. This old sweat-soaked gym people call the Brick House. This basketball cathedral tucked away to be forgotten—like the loose hair gathered behind Jimmy’s ear before he shoots foul shots—in the hilly, green folds of his small town. Forgotten, that is, except during winter: basketball season. In those coldest months the Brick House really heats up. Pulls people from a fifty-mile radius to duck in from the rain and the fog. To scream and love their team. To stomp their feet in the detritus of past games: stale popcorn, sticky candy wrappers, and crumpled game-day programs. To GO, FIGHT, WIN. Ever since four kids from Columbia City High went on to lead University of Oregon to the NCAA championship in the 1930s—and earn the nickname the Tall Firs—this town has been all about the dribble, dribble, shoot. Basketball to Columbia City is mass to church: a weekly expression of faith.

  And Jimmy Kirkus was once anointed savior.

  Jimmy—look at him—it’s like he’s floating in the yellow light on the edge of the three-point arc. Outside the gym he’s a fish out of water, but here and now, kid’s in his ocean. Flashing out in sparkly jumps, splashing down ball after ball.

  Something’s wrong though. His eyes are filled to the brim. His nose is runny and his throat catches on every breath.

  He goes and finds the breaker box. Turns off all the lights. There are far-off clicks from within the walls. Goodnight, goodnight, they say, and the whirring of fluorescent light slows and then stops. Then darkness.

  The only thing lit anymore is the EXIT sign. Shines on and on. Enough light so he can still see the names he’s written and rewritten over the years on his gray basketball. One is darker and thicker than the others. Three letters. Painful to see. He grunts and throws the ball. It sails over the bleachers but bounces off something metallic. Stubbornly, it rolls back and stops a few feet away. Won’t leave him, not yet.

  Right under the hoop is thick blue padding, so Jimmy lines up to the left, where bare red brick wall starts. He kneels into sprinter’s position. Puts his fingertips on either side of the out of bounds line. It’s his runway and he’s cleared for takeoff. He explodes a few steps. Then slows, then stops. He turns around, hands on his head. Back at midcourt, every sound he makes—breath or step—echoes. It’s like someone is in the gym with him, whispering something, and he can never turn fast enough to catch him.

  He drops to the floor and does ten quick push-ups. He leaps to his feet. Once again into sprinter’s position. Once again an explosion of speed for a few feet and then let up, slow down, stop.

  He can’t do it. He’s crying now. Face is slick with water. The wetness catches the shiny red of the EXIT light. He’s coughing and his nose won’t stop running. He takes off his shirt. He rips it in two. Listen how he screams so the echoes of the gym rise up to join him. The cold air touching his chest helps. A little. So he takes off his shorts. Over his shoes. Just in his underwear he crouches to the gym floor. He’s shivering worse than ever but he’s breathing still. If kid’s got nothing else, he’s got determination.

  Up onto fingertips.

  Toes dug in.

  There he goes. Away from being Jimmy Soft and toward becoming Kamikaze Kirkus. Squeak, squeak, swish, swish, away with the old and in with the new . . .

  It takes him fourteen full-out strides at the fastest he can muster to get to that brick wall. He plans on meeting it with open eyes. But. Some things you can’t plan for. Sweat for one thing. Automatic reflexes for another. He closes his eyes at the last second, puts up his hands—the coward. Jimmy Soft. His head does hit the wall, but not full on. It hurts, but not enough.

  There’s a weakne
ss in him and he wants to shake it loose, bang it out. He stands back up. Dumb kid. Gonna try it again. Same spot he started from as before. Sprinter’s position. Just twelve long strides this time. Eyes open. Brick wall coming. He does it. Keeps them open the whole while. Hands down at his side, helpless to help. Amazing, his eyes stay focused on the wall as long as they do. Cracks and textures of it. From four feet, from one, from six inches.

  Crack.

  Boom.

  Light.

  Let there be light . . .

  Hit is something he hears and doesn’t feel. Or the other way around? He can’t tell. It scrambles his senses. Makes a shape in his head bone he thinks he can smell as metallic. He feels blinking white light rain from every eave inside his head. Like when his pops spent an entire curse-soaked Sunday cleaning out the gutters of their house. Everything that had ever been blown up there came down. Then, on accident, he knocked the Christmas lights down too. They blinked on their way to the ground.

  It all drops. And so does he. A knife of hurt thrusting into the front of his head so big his skull can’t hold it. Not even close. He rolls to his back and stares up into the blackness, vents some of the pain in a crying jag. There’s a security camera somewhere in the Brick House, but Jimmy thinks with the lights killed, it’s too dark to pick him up.

  After three times into the brick wall, Jimmy moves slower, but he’s figured it out. There is always a moment before he hits when he can still put up his hands. If he gets past this moment then bravery has nothing to do with it. The hit is coming. He gets good at getting past this moment. His head throbs and the blood hesitates at his eyebrows before mixing with sweat and running faster to his chin. Everything is red. He can’t focus. He’s singing to himself, a Paul Simon song of all things. He’s tuneless and spotty with the lyrics. “People say she’s crazy, got diamonds on her shoes. Lose them walking blues.” A teenaged dude singing Paul Simon? Must be something very wrong with him.

  Back at midcourt he spits bloody, mucus-filled saliva onto waxed wood floor. Lines up, runs again. Slips a few steps in and slides painfully on his bare chest. Worst Indian burn you ever saw. Turns the skin see-through to the blood and muscle beneath, some of his chest hair ripped off. Hurts in the same rhythm as his heart.

  He stands up and tries to blink his vision clear enough to see the brick wall. He’s only five or six steps from it. There’s something wrong with his balance though. He sways. He coughs but vomit comes up. He tries to keep it down by closing his mouth, and it erupts through his nose. Mixes with the blood of his chin and then dribbles to the floor.

  Oh damn, our kid’s a mess.

  He shouts up into the blackness. “With Dex Kirkus in the. Middle. Jimmy outside. The Fishermen, Fishermen are a lock for Clatsop title! And Jimmy Kirkus shoots. He shoots. He SHOOTS, he SCORES!” He’s crying harder. It’s for everything. For Dex, his mom, and even himself. “Fucking sand toads,” he murmurs, “all bitten up from sand toads.”

  He decides, fuck it. Runs from there. The wall is in the ether distance. He’s determined to give it the beat down. Give it the knowledge. He runs at it, as fast as he can. A dogged trot, he’s a pub brawler gearing up for a head butt. This wall. This stupid, fucking wall. He brings his head forward at full speed. Crunches into the red stone. Forehead, poor forehead, smashes the bricks and the cut grows bigger. Big enough to swallow. Jimmy falls for the final time that night. She’s got diamonds on the soles. His brain too haywire to instruct his hands to save him. He smacks the back of his skull. Feels like frayed wires are trying to pass electricity inside his head. Explosion of sparks. Jimmy gone down.

  Rule 2. Come from Nowhere

  Friday, December 20, 1985

  JIMMY KIRKUS NOT YET BORN—TWENTY-TWO YEARS UNTIL THE WALL.

  Todd Kirkus drove Genny Mori way out to Area C on the jetty and parked. They were young and it was a Friday. Out here, past areas A and B, they had privacy—and the starry sky. This far down the alphabet the beach was too hard-chewed by the Pacific to get any tourists outside the occasional treasure-hunter. And at night? May as well been Todd’s bedroom. The stars, meanwhile, were the excuse. It was how he got all his girls to come out here with him. “You’ve got to see the stars from the jetty. They’re beautiful. It’s like that swirly painting by the guy who lost his ear? You know.”

  After he parked, he climbed into the back of the minivan. “Check it out,” he said. He clicked the rear seats down until they were flat and he stared up at his personal sliver of sky through the rear window.

  Genny Mori was a notorious prude and stayed in the front, but Todd was wearing her down, as he was known to do. “I know this trick,” she said.

  “Oh come on, I just want to show you the stars.” The line came easy. It was well used. “More space than you’d think back here, Genny-baby.” And it really was big back there, and charming in a way, to be so warm and cozy with winter’s ocean so close.

  “I can see the stars fine from here,” she said, though Todd knew it was a lie. To see anything from the front seat, she’d have to lean uncomfortably over the dashboard and then crane her head up.

  “Genny-honey, come on.” Todd was whining, but he liked her reluctance—the one girl in school who hadn’t come easy. Bravely he pressed on. This was their fifth date. Usually by this point Todd knew his girlfriend’s favorite positions and was plotting his exit strategy—so goes life for a high school basketball star in Columbia City. With Genny though, all he’d got was enough heavy petting to start a campfire.

  Todd also liked that she looked different than everyone else. A full-blooded Japanese and simultaneously the hottest and strangest thing in town. Hot because she was a dusty, dark-eyed girl blessed with full lips and a sound little shelf of an ass perfect for eyes and hands to rest on. Strange because the Mori family, aside from the random Mexicans who worked their way through for fruit-picking season, was the one little splash of color in the Scandinavia-white gene pool of Columbia City. No, scratch “little splash,” more like cannon ball.

  Then there was the fact that she only had her mom around. A bond because he only had his dad. It was a connection that seemed obvious and trite on paper but meaningful in real life. He didn’t flinch with Genny while talking about his home life like he did with the others. She knew the language, her own experience rhymed with it.

  Todd heard Genny Mori blow out air and knew she was clearing her bangs from her eyes. It was a habit he’d learned to love in her. So cute. She started climbing back. “This van’s gross.”

  He helped her crawl over him to the space at his side and squeezed her ass on the way. She slapped his hand for it, which caused her to lose balance and tumble face-first into those utilitarian seats. She squealed.

  “Uh, I think there’s something wet back here,” she said.

  Todd knew his van was gross. It had been a place of countless hookups, impromptu lunchtime parties, and was a moldering mobile gym locker to boot. He spent all his time in that squeaky gray van because it was the one place his father, a man everyone knew as the Flying Finn, wouldn’t come.

  “I’ll get something nicer when I hit the big times,” he told her.

  So there it was, and he had been the one to say it. Everyone knew Todd was going to star in the NBA someday. He was that good at basketball.

  “What car will you get?” Genny was on her side, looking at him, and he could tell she was trying to keep something out of her voice. Her breath was hot with the rum he’d brought them.

  Todd traced her calves with his fingertips, all the way up to that gorgeous ass. “Something hot,” he said. “Mercedes, or Porsche.”

  A pause filled the close air between them and Todd wondered what she made of him. Everyone in this small town had an opinion and he was almost scared to hear hers. Maybe she was one of these girls who were frightened of him. Thinks he’s all bang, bang, boom, on to the next one. She wouldn’t be exactly wrong
to think this—his reputation for getting with girls was exaggerated, but only slightly—but she also wouldn’t be exactly right. Worse, she could be one of those chicks looking to hitch a ride. Willing to roll around with him as long as it got them somewhere. His father was always warning about girls spreading their legs to become part of the target. Todd was in the position of not being able to reassure Genny if she was the first type of girl, and being entirely uninterested in her—beyond the night—if she was the second.

  Then, as if she could read his mind, in a voice so soft it tickled him, “I didn’t believe that letter to the editor about you.” Here it was—what she thought of him. “It isn’t true. You’re good for the team.”

  She was talking about the anonymous letter that had appeared in the Columbia City Standard. The headline ran, Could Freight Train Derail Fishermen Basketball?, and it had become this burrowing worm in Todd’s thoughts ever since it was published back in November. Hadn’t he already brought the Fishermen a state title as a junior? Wasn’t he leading them to a second? If he ever found out who wrote it, there would be pieces of that unfortunate man all over town.

  “Thanks. It’s bullshit, you know?” Todd said, anger rising just talking about it.

  “I never did believe it,” she said.

  He let out a breath, settled. “Why do you like me, Genny?”

  “I never said I did.”

  “You’re funny.”

  And he was on her, and they were going. She was a river, her mouth, her tongue, and it was all rushing into him with drunken fury. Todd was surprised to feel her move in enthusiastic, if not expert ways, to have her take a certain amount of control. It was like nothing he’d had with her before—worlds different from the tedious stroking she’d reluctantly given him up until then. It thrilled him, pushed him on. Naked and without a condom—because Todd never guessed it would actually happen with Genny Mori, not so soon—he stopped, poised on the edge.