Rules for Becoming a Legend

by Timothy S. Lane

  Jimmy picks up the pace. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he can’t go to school and he can’t go home. He fades into the bushes. He hopes he sees no one and more importantly, no one sees him.

  • • •

  Even though Jimmy’s left the school, he’s still there, name on everyone’s lips. It’s too soon for details, but people still talk.

  “Marcy at the hospital told me Jimmy Kirkus came in last night with blunt-force trauma to the head,” Mr. Jackson says, holding court in the teacher’s lounge. “Twenty-one stitches. Get this, came in with James Berg. Then, then, when I was coming in through the gym this morning, I saw Berg scrubbing down the wall. Put two and two together.” He punches his fist into the palm of his other hand. “Bam. Jimmy Kirkus ran himself into the wall.” Mr. Jackson pauses a moment to give enough space to the off-color thing he’s about to say. “Just like he’s a fucking kamikaze pilot.”

  The other teachers are blank-faced, not getting it, or pretending not to. Twenty years ago being half-Japanese would be a just-under-the-surface topic of intrigue, and in some circles, scandal. Sometimes, it would openly boil out in racist comments. These days though, at least 10 percent of the student body is Mexican, and Jimmy isn’t the lightning rod his mother was. And so this joke of Mr. Jackson’s is so obvious, so on the nose, so blatantly offensive, that everyone is uncomfortable. Maybe in a bar, or at someone’s Christmas party, this line could be delivered with a ducked head, embarrassed laugh, and sail on by. Not now.

  Mr. Jackson forces out his own laugh. “Cause the kid’s half-Japanese? You know. Kamikaze pilots?”

  The other teachers did know, they did get it, and if Principal McCarthy wasn’t standing behind Jackson in the doorway, listening to him basically fill out his own temporary leave of absence slip, some might have given him a pity laugh. A few dart their eyes to signal to Mr. Jackson that his boss is behind him, but the man doesn’t get it and so jumps when McCarthy speaks.

  “Mr. Jackson. That’s quite enough,” he says. The security tape of the Jimmy Kirkus incident has gone missing and he’s in no kind of mood. And then, to top off his shitty morning, he has Sid Lang with him—caught the punk smoking this morning, fourth time this year—and he’s on his way to make the exasperating phone call to his libertarian parents. Now he’ll have to reprimand Mr. Jackson too. “You’ll see me in my office in half an hour.”

  Fifteen minutes later, sitting in the office and waiting to be taken home for the day, Sid sees Michelle Roberts, whom he’s always had a crush on, as she drops off the attendance for homeroom. “You hear about Kamikaze Kirkus?” he asks, and it’s off to the races.

  Jimmy’s new nickname spreads. Smokers are putting rings around it, girls lipsticked lips, and the teachers are shooting holes through it with their stares, showing how inappropriate it is, and then whispering details and rumors with one another when they think no one can hear. Kids are already trying to get into the gym to see the stain. Secrets in small towns don’t last. There isn’t enough space for them to hide.

  Kamikaze Kirkus.

  Mr. Berg catches kids tracing Jimmy’s stain on the Brick House wall with their fingers. He scatters them by clapping his hands. Spends the rest of the day trying to wash it off, again, but it remains. His eyes water from the chemicals in the air, and he wished he’d been there sooner. The stubborn stain that remains? That’s a little Kamikaze Kirkus right there. That’s the spot where basketball players, Fishermen and foes alike, will bounce the game ball against in warm-ups for luck. It will become a tradition. Go on for years and years. The Blood-Red Bricks of Jimmy Kirkus.

  Not yet, though. Our kid’s got a ways to go.

  • • •

  The Flying Finn is alone in the wet woods. He wishes he could go home and see Todd, but something feels too big around his son, like he wouldn’t fit in that life anymore. The Flying Finn shakes the thought.

  This is his second stint being homeless. He’s going on a year now. He knows how to survive and rule number one is to keep busy. He’s found that if he slows for even a moment, a heavy dread will build up in his veins, weigh him down. So it’s back to work. He’s looking for the mushrooms he knows are safe to eat. He’s out here, but he’s not really out here. “Got ghosts in the knees,” he whispers to himself.

  This reminds him of when he first moved to town. Summertime, 1960. Bumble Bee was still canning back then. He worked precooking tuna. Fish dangling on big hooks. Burned hands, close smell. He couldn’t stop for a second. He’d sink if he did. Then Todd born and his wife died in the process and he was moving even faster. Just stay above. By the time Todd was born Columbia City was in a serious rut. Bumble Bee plant closed down. Nowhere to work. He’d opened his restaurant by then. Working double shifts so he could keep his prices down, catch those shady after-bar drunks. The let-outs from the infamous triangle of bars: the Brass Rail, the Wreck, and the Driftwood. Town wanted to raze those bars for the shady characters they kept. But the Flying Finn had served them. Made it work. Scrappy, cheek-dirty cigarette bummers who’d clean him out of creamers and sugars: he started only keeping two creamers, two sugars on each table. A pain to reset each time, but better than the loss of cash.

  He didn’t stop moving then, wouldn’t stop now.

  • • •

  Carla Ferguson gets ready for her shift. Her hair a little out of style, her clothes a little out of date. She carries the cross of the homeschooled. Only reason she got the job at Peter Pan Market is ’cause she can work during the day when everyone else is at school. She ties her shoes, hands shaky. There’s still a weakness in her muscles from last night. She doesn’t know why she took so many pills. She told her father it was an accident and maybe it was. She begged to still go to work today—she wants to hear news about why Jimmy Kirkus was at the hospital last night—and finally her father relented. She pouts her lips in the mirror while she waits for her father to bring around the car. She pinches with her fingers to bring forth redness. She wishes she were allowed to wear lipstick.

  Really, she feels better than she has in weeks. Here she is, caught up in it. Something is finally happening to her. She makes sure to pack her journal.

  • • •

  Diane Kaiser—editor of the Columbia City Standard—has heard the rumors. Can’t decide if this is a brief or a news story. If it was a suicide attempt, then it’s a brief, with no name attached. If it’s an attack, then it’s a news story and she can tack Jimmy’s name to it. There needs to be something about it in the afternoon’s Standard though. Anything.

  • • •

  Coach Kelly stays home from school. He heard about Jimmy through a phone call from Mr. Jackson. He can’t help but feel responsible, even if he was just trying to do right by Jimmy. He shouldn’t have left him alone in that gym, he guesses. His wife doesn’t help much. His ears still ring with her screaming. He took it all, filed it away into an ever-growing section of his mind called I Should Have Known Better. He can’t see the next step. For the first time coaching basketball, a thing he’s guided his life by ever since they discovered Lucy couldn’t have kids, seems like the least important thing in the world.

  • • •

  “Who took the tape, Johnny?” Principal McCarthy asks the computer teacher.

  “How should I know?” Johnny Opel—Mr. O the kids call him—is leaning back in his springy chair, two bites into his customary morning McMuffin.

  McCarthy runs his hand over a nearby grease-shined keyboard, tickling the keys, and the machine beeps back at him. Everything in the computer lab is greasy because of Mr. Opel’s morning McMuffins. It’s disgusting, but there’s no one else in town qualified to teach computers. “I thought only you and I had access to that room.”

  “I know I have a key. I don’t know who else does.”

  “Put a new tape in, and change the locks. Let me know if anything else turns up.” McCarthy wouldn’t pu
t it past Mr. Opel to have stolen the tape himself, but then again, given the man’s tremendous slothfulness, there is no way he would have been at school early enough.

  “Aye-aye,” Mr. Opel says, the idiot saluting him ironically.

  • • •

  Johnny Opel can’t believe his shitty luck. Being the computer teacher meant he was also in charge of the surveillance cameras placed in five spots around school. In all the seven years he’s worked at Columbia City High, this is the first time he’s actually had anyone ask to see a tape. The cameras are on a twelve-hour loop. Anything more than half a day old is erased by the future. He only checks up on the cameras once every two weeks to clean the lenses and make sure all is running. He supposes the last time he checked, he left the door unlocked.

  He takes a pull on his Big Gulp, swishes the Pepsi around in his mouth, and finally swallows. He gathers Jimmy Kirkus—son of Todd, a guy who used to tell him he had a rock-star name when they were back in high school together—did something bad in the gym last night and now the tape is gone.

  Of all the shitty luck.

  • • •

  Jimmy spends the day on those backwoods trails that connect the town in startling ways. Kid’s so knowledgeable he could run a smuggling business. Through backyards and across the occasional road, but mostly in the woods, he goes from court to court like him and Dex used to. But it’s different now. Colder than he remembered it being. When he and Dex ran them—in all kinds of weather too—they were too hopped up on the prospect of hoops to feel cold. Now, the temperature takes up most of his awareness.

  Everything is dripping. The noise seems huge. He slips often, his mind still so fuzzy. He vomits ropey slime—Top Ramen he ate last night before he went down to the Brick House—and it slides into the fallen leaves, steaming wildly. Jimmy takes an orange leaf encased in ice and licks it to get the taste off his tongue. He slips again and mud streaks his sweats. Thankfully, he avoids landing in his own vomit. His knee will be bruised badly by tonight. Add it to the list. His head rings in pain. Headache? More like headbreak.

  He wipes his hands off on the front of his sweatshirt and feels something there. He reaches in and pulls out that card the nurse gave him in the hospital. Not as bad as it seems. Jimmy laughs aloud. Sarah Parson, RN. Pretty for an older lady. Weird, how she’s the daughter of his dumpy English teacher. Breath so bad you tasted it even before you smelled it. English class was the worst.

  So this was her daughter. Do nurses have business cards? Jimmy doesn’t know, but there’s something in it that seems a reach. Not as bad as it seems. He rips it in two, and then he rips it again. Let’s the flakes pepper the wet grass cupping his vomit.

  He’s talking to himself, under his breath. Just ordering my thoughts, not crazy, he tells himself. He really could hitchhike to Mexico. He imagines his life there like a beer commercial. Hammocks and hot chicks and lime crowning bottle tops—always dressed stylish, always headed to great waves or live music. Get away and stay away. Hell, they don’t even play basketball down there—all soccer. He practices the Spanish Pedro has taught him over the years. Cabrón, puta, señorita, mamá chula. Pedro. Where the fuck is Pedro?

  His imagination takes him to another place. He’s older, coming back to Columbia City for a ten-year reunion. Slick clothes, nice car, hot wife. All the other things checked off. Basketball? Naw, he could have ran with it, but he decided instead to start a company/be a lawyer/write a novel. He’s fit while Pedro’s put on a few pounds and lost his hair. At the bar he orders wine. Something with an accent in the name. Later, he corners his old best friend, or, better yet, catches him hitting on his wife. Then it’s all, what the fuck? But Pedro isn’t cool about it, so bang, a punch in the gut . . .

  Jimmy is shaken out of his thoughts by sounds. Dribbling and shouts. From the woods he spies people playing basketball in the middle of the day. People just shooting around. High school dropouts and overweight men on lunch breaks.

  And then he decides, all at once, a snap in his head that cracks his brain in two. Fuck ball.

  • • •

  At school his absence is adding weight to the rumors. Everyone has a theory. Kid was high. Kid was deranged. Kid actually was jumped. And finally: Kid just did it so there’d be no question of him playing this year—the Fishermen’s last in the talent-heavy 6A Division—and come back next year when he can push around the little guys in 4A, have an easier go. Jimmy Soft-cum-Kamikaze Kirkus never was good with pressure.

  • • •

  Principal McCarthy makes an announcement on the intercom. “For students upset by the recent events regarding a certain classmate”—he sounds on the edge of tears—“Mrs. Cole will be available during periods one, four, and seven in the guidance office, as well as all breaks, to talk.”

  Soon there is a line to see Mrs. Cole. All boys. She’s blond and she’s curvy and they swear to God that if you can get tears going she’ll put your head on her epic chest and hug you till the lights blink. Sure beats geometry.

  And all because of crazy Jimmy Kirkus.

  • • •

  Mr. Kirkus gets home and sits on the couch. He allows himself something he’s not had in all the months since the accident: time. For so long he’s been filling his head and his hands with whatever they come across that his real thoughts feel like ghosts to him.

  He stares straight ahead, puts his hands in his lap, and watches the frozen leaves still left on the trees outside drip, drip, drip. The heater is pinging. The refrigerator whirs to life. He has the state of mind that all good athletes have. Complete concentration. It comes in those too stupid to juggle more than one thought in their head at a time, or those so highly trained that thoughts levitate. Mr. Kirkus started as the first and has become the second.

  Then abruptly there are the memories he almost convinced himself were gone. They are huge and so skittish that if he tries to grab them, they’ll flee, bury themselves claws-up in the sand, wait until he’s weaker to strike. So he leans back into the couch and lets them come.

  He feels silly. Not a man to cry and here he is, crying for the second time this morning with the names Suzie, Dex, and Genny Mori running through his head. They jockey for space, they elbow and shout to be heard. Then the phone rings. It’s Teresa Hass from the high school.

  “Jimmy didn’t come to class today, Mr. Kirkus,” she says in that nasally whine of hers. “I have in the record that he was due back today.” When they were both in high school she used to always be snapping gum. Popped it like it was the punctuation on her sentences. She doesn’t do it now on the phone, but Todd imagines it anyway.

  He kicks over the coffee table. It skids and then stops. Where the fuck did Jimmy run off to? “Well, yeah, he’s sick,” he tells her. “So that’s why he didn’t come.”

  Before he was with Genny Mori, he and Teresa used to take lunches together and hook up in the van. It was how he got gum stuck on the hair around his scrotum one day. When he moved it pulled so painfully, he skipped practice. Pretended he had pulled a muscle. James had laughed himself blue when he heard the story.

  “He’s sick? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Kirkus.”

  She lets out a breath where Todd imagines the pop of gum. Gummy Hass, he and James started calling her after that day. Todd can’t help it now, he is too drained from the morning he’s had, so he laughs a little breathily as he remembers taking the scissors with him into the bathroom, giving himself a little below-the-belt haircut.

  “Are you laughing?” Teresa asks. “I don’t think that after all your boy put himself through you should be laughing. You should be getting him some professional help.”

  Todd stops because there it is. Gummy Hass already knows about what Jimmy’s done. Hell, the whole town probably woke themselves up by hollering down phone lines like, “You’re never gonna believe what that Kirkus kid did.” Worst part is that at the heart of it, th
ey’re probably talking basketball. About how with Jimmy crazy, the Fishermen aren’t gonna be any good this year. Last year in 6A and it’s going to be a fiasco. Like that’s the thing that matters the most.

  “He’s got a goddamned headache, Teresa, and NO, I can’t goddamn speculate on if he’s gonna play ball this season or not!”

  As Todd recalls, Teresa hated him after he stopped their lunchtime dates. He had started going with another girl and then after that, Genny Mori. That’s the way it always was for Todd—anyone who couldn’t have him, hated him.

  “I didn’t ask about basketball, Todd. You’re not the only one who cares about Jimmy. You should see the line we got here to see Mrs. Cole. Students are really taking this hard.”

  “The guidance counselor?” Todd’s voice is thin and bitter. “Kelly Cole? And I’ll bet she’s wearing a low-cut shirt too. Let me guess, it’s mostly boys lined up.”

  “Todd, that’s no way to talk.”

  “What’re you vultures gonna do when there aren’t no Kirkuses left? Huh?” And then more bitterly, “No way to talk!” He slams the phone down.

  • • •

  Later that day Teresa takes a concern to Principal McCarthy. The man is shocked by the accusation that what these boys are doing with Mrs. Cole is anything but profoundly mourning the almost loss of their dear friend. That is until he walks in on one counseling session to see that weird Pedro kid getting hugged fiercely into Mrs. Cole’s enormous chest, his boner making a micro tent in his sweatpants.

  Walk-in counseling is shut down.

  The next three days Jimmy doesn’t come to school. Teresa doesn’t bother calling the Kirkus household. She just fills in the forms herself. Absent—Jimmy Kirkus—headache.

  Rule 6. Have Something to Prove

  Monday, September 9, 1996

  JIMMY KIRKUS, FIVE YEARS OLD—ELEVEN YEARS UNTIL THE WALL.