Rules for Becoming a Legend

by Timothy S. Lane

  “But you, see you didn’t hurry up,” Todd was smiling. “You just took your time. I always liked that about you.”

  Was this how he said sorry? It wasn’t enough. “Yes, Todd. My dad liked to yell at me. Just like you do.”

  And she left.

  • • •

  Meanwhile word on Jimmy spread.

  Worried about the kid with the killer shot? Don’t bother. Just knock him around a little bit, just talk in his ear for a while, and shit, he can’t hang anymore. Runs off to the bathroom like a little girl.

  Nothing like his pops, huh?

  No, nothing like Freight Train. Now that cat could roll. Jimmy Kirkus? He’s afraid to take a hit. They call him Jimmy Soft now.

  Rule 17. Trust in a Miracle

  Wednesday, January 2, 2008

  JIMMY KIRKUS, SIXTEEN YEARS OLD—SEVENTEEN DAYS AFTER THE WALL.

  Video clips of Jimmy’s exploits at Peter Pan Courts rack up hits across the country. Fans cut and recut the footage to make highlights, putting different songs to it, making some shots in slow motion. One version racks up more than five hundred thousand hits on YouTube.

  Meanwhile, in a more clandestine distribution, the grainy footage of Jimmy in the gym, running at the wall, picks up steam as it’s passed from one student to another. Finally, somewhere in the process, it gets e-mailed to Principal McCarthy. McCarthy ramps up his investigation into the stolen security tape. The entire AV club is put into detention—a first. He sends home a flier to parents, offers a reward, corners suspicious kids in the hallways. Decrees that any student caught watching the footage will be considered an accomplice. And because of his efforts, seeing the footage is all the more important for every student in school, and also for the parents at home. It becomes a rite of passage.

  Talk of Jimmy flies through town. Aside from the overarching issue of whether Kamikaze even wants to play himself, there is the shuffling of feet regarding whether Jimmy will be allowed to play, and it is all infuriating. This tough new version of Jimmy with the feathery throwback shot is intoxicating. He’s obviously a baller again . . . so . . . put him in, coach.

  It’s up to Coach Kelly, high school principal McCarthy, and Superintendent Berg to make the call. People say McCarthy’s in, Superintendent Berg is out, and Coach Kelly’s on the fence. At least that’s what Coach Kelly needs everyone to think.

  In truth, he was in the crowd at Peter Pan Park that night. He’s racked up hits from his computer too. Reloading Jimmy over and over to prove to himself that it really happened. The Nine Games. And conversely, the inky shadow to that gleaming display of greatness, he watches the clip of Jimmy and the wall almost as many times. Sickening to know what Jimmy went through once he got past the bottom of the frame. He thought he could hear the crack of skull on brick even though there was no sound with the clip. Sickening and sad, and yet, he couldn’t stop himself. He’d right-clicked the video, downloaded it to a folder named PLAYS, which his wife would never open. Whenever he had a chance he watched it again. And again. A weird admiration for the kid rising in him alongside the ache in his heart. He unplugged the Internet cable whenever he was about to watch. He was convinced that otherwise someone would find out how many times he’d seen it and send him to jail. Like there was some FBI agent on the lookout for such a thing.

  He sees the obvious ways Jimmy has changed since freshman year. He is someone called Kamikaze Kirkus now who has a full seven inches, forty pounds, and grit-teethed toughness over the Jimmy Soft version who had first drifted into his dreams. The night Coach Kelly stupidly left the kid behind in the gym to shoot on his own sticks in his mind. Oh, how he’d argued with his wife after they heard the news. Jimmy Kirkus bashing himself silly against a wall in the Brick House.

  “You left him behind, Paul?” she’d demanded, the thick wooden spoon she was using to mash the poor potatoes held out in front of her, their guts dripping.

  Coach Kelly flinched. Although he wouldn’t even admit it to himself, this woman he’d been married to for over twenty-five years was beginning to terrify him. He was increasingly an older man, and he didn’t trust his soft hip if she were to make a charge at him. A large part of his latent dream to get the hell out of Columbia City on the wings of coaching a prodigy of Jimmy’s caliber, was that among the flotsam he’d rid himself of would somehow be his wife. He hadn’t fully thought that part out yet, but he knew there was no way in hell she was going to leave Columbia City. She was born there, and she’d kill to die there too.

  He’d missed his chance to escape on the coattails of Todd all those years back with the drinking scandal and the busted knee. A handshake deal with the University of Oregon disintegrated. If Todd played for the Ducks instead of entering the draft—something Todd had assured Coach Kelly he didn’t want anyway—then there’d be a spot on the Ducks coaching team for Paul Kelly. Then there was no telling. He’d work hard, work smart, move his way up. New suits every night. Taking chartered planes to away games.

  When Freight Train’s knee went out, so did the air on his plan. But maybe, just maybe, with this new version of our kid Jimmy, he’ll be able to work something out anew, catch a ride to a college bench on Jimmy’s success. Sure he is older now—in his sixties—but it isn’t too late.

  Then, as soon as the thought bubbles up, it’s popped by the context. Only reason Jimmy’s like this is because of how low-down his life—and basketball—had gotten him. Jimmy knocking himself silly, it twisted Coach Kelly’s gut. There wouldn’t be any coaching bench for him other than Columbia City’s, and that is exactly what he deserves.

  Then a thought comes to him. To see Jimmy off the court was to see a kid made up of negative spaces. People saw him walking with jocks, so they called him a jock. People saw him with messy hair, so they said he slept too much, he was lazy. People noticed his quietness and so mistook him for slow. People filled in those spaces that Jimmy didn’t seem to be able to fill in on his own. Then, to see him on the basketball court—when he was playing well—was to see him for him. He defined the pace of the game, he exercised mastery.

  Thing was—and Coach Kelly was a terrible offender on this count—only thing people really cared about when it came to Jimmy was ball. He remembered with a cringe the relief he felt when Jimmy had missed the team’s after-season pizza party. Kid had been useless to him once he became Jimmy Soft. Now Coach Kelly is seeing it is much the same with Jimmy himself. When ball isn’t clicking, the kid has no chance to be himself.

  Coach Kelly sees it clearly. Jimmy Kirkus needs basketball, just a little while longer, until he’s able to do what his potential set him up for, and then he can be done with the game forever. Coach Kelly promises himself that. Let the kid go. But first, knock the cobwebs off the idea that Jimmy could be great—just prove that he is—and then he’ll have a chance to fill out those negative spaces on his own, become who he needs to be. Whoever that is.

  • • •

  Coach Kelly finds Kamikaze Kirkus down on Tapiola courts one clean-skied afternoon at the tail end of Christmas Break playing an elbows and knees game of ball with a bunch of Mexicans. As Coach walks across the soggy grass, he hears Jimmy’s awkwardly accented Spanish drift over the play. Benga, tío, benga, cabrón. He’s laughing, playing simple sweat-it-out ball and this delights Coach Kelly. Odd how his mouth waters. As if this moment were edible. He swallows. That night at Peter Pan was no fluke, no hoax. Jimmy’s back and better than ever.

  When the game finishes, Jimmy trots over. “Coach?”

  “Jimmy. God. You look good out there.”

  “You coming on to me, Coach?”

  Coach Kelly is taken aback. Sure it’s been many years since he was able to catch all the references his players make, but still this is strange coming from Jimmy. Coach is used to him being so earnest, so obedient, and yes, if he allows himself to be honest, a little dim too. This comment has the smacking of snotty. Inappropri
ate. It’s something he could have expected from Todd so long before, or even from young Dex, God bless him, but not Jimmy. Then again, this Jimmy standing before him isn’t like Todd or Dex at all. He’s not even like himself. It’s a difference in the inflection. A full stop between some words as if he’s tasting them before spitting them out. It’s in his afterward stare. That dark look that just won’t turn away. Like there’s something heavy to bear and he’s done with it and now it’s your turn.

  “I’m wondering how you feel,” Coach Kelly says. “After everything that. You know. All that’s happened to you.”

  Jimmy shifts his weight but never breaks eye contact. “Didn’t happen to me, Coach. I did it to myself.”

  Coach Kelly coughs. Again, he’s caught off guard. He is beginning to feel the same sort of nebulous fear he so often feels at home with his wife. Did Jimmy blame him for what happened? “If I’d’ve known, I would have stayed. In your . . . well, time of need. I would have been there for you. I just thought, you know son, that it might be a sort of therapy, to well, you see, I was a gym rat back when I was a boy and I know when I was going bonkers from some tough day, then there’d be nothing I’d want more than to get into the gym and . . . therapy. I thought it would be a sort of therapy for you. Or I would have stayed. I never thought that you’d hurt . . .” he trails off. The kid makes him nervous, at the heart of it. He’s so big now. Coach Kelly remembers a rumor going around: Bob’s Market got broken into a couple nights back and the only thing taken was two dozen eggs. There were shells leading down the sidewalk. Kamikaze got so he needed food so bad, he just . . .

  This isn’t going at all as planned. Jimmy stares at him for quite an impolite amount of time, and Coach Kelly hates it, but he breaks eye contact first. He’d read you should never do this because it reveals you as a subordinate. It was an article on dog training, but he’s always thought it applied to humans too. From behind Jimmy, an older Mexican guy who has sweated through his collared shirt, calls out—the j soft—“Yimmy, you play next game?”

  Jimmy waves him off and a new game starts without him. The only person on the court Coach Kelly recognizes is a kid from Jimmy’s grade. Kid who used to come to all the games and sit with Dex, obviously high on something. Called Pepe or Pedro or maybe even Manuel. He’s one of those potheads Coach Kelly catches from time to time cranking all the showers to full blast in the locker room and smoking marijuana in the steam. Pedro, he thinks his name is. But maybe not. But definitely something with a P.

  Finally, Jimmy answers with a sick, slow smile. “You were right. Staying behind in the gym was therapy, is all.”

  Coach coughs. “Be that as it may, Jimmy. I mean, whatever it was you think hurting yourself was. I don’t think anyone would agree with you that it was. Well. Therapeutic. Irregardless, the reason I came to find you today is because I want—”

  “’Cause your team’s two and three and floundering? And now you want me to play, maybe pull you out of the gutter? ’Cause the ‘blossoming’ of the Johnston twins is a no go? ’Cause you need me to get where you want to go? You need Jimmy Soft, huh Coach?”

  A joke. Ha ha. There is sweat on Coach Kelly’s brow even though it is freezing outside. He wonders, Does Jimmy know about the pact with Todd so long ago? Coach and star player package. Does he know about that? He raises the volume of his voice. He’s almost shouting. “It’s because I want to see if you’re ready. Listen to me,” now the coach is hitting his stride, those feelings from the night before are back in his bloodstream. He can truly help the kid. He knows he can. “I don’t care if you never play ball again outside this year. Next year you’ll do fine. 4A? Easy. Everyone knows that. But this year is your last chance to go up against 6A. Guys playing in 6A this year? They’ll be in Sprite commercials in five more. You’ll regret it if you don’t play against them. I’m being honest on that. So, see, this year, this year, it’s all I ask of you.”

  Coach Kelly expects Jimmy to interrupt him again, but Jimmy stays quiet. Clearly the kid is picking up the tone in his voice. Or maybe the kid hears something he himself has been thinking. Coach clears his throat. He’s talking too loud. The Mexicans have stopped their play. He feels a dribble of sweat trickle from his armpit down his side. “I know firsthand what all this can do to you. It’s tough. Here’s the thing, though, we all think you’re great. The whole town does. And you’ll be fine if you play next year. There will still be recruiting letters. College coaches will call. The secret is out. You are a great player. But if you don’t go out there and show what everyone suspects now, this year, against the best of the best—that damn Shooter Ackley and all the others—you know what’s going to happen? Ten or twenty years down the road you’ll look back and wonder, just think, what if? Everything you ever do will be compared with what you could have done.”

  Coach rubs the stubble on his neck. Jimmy’s staring at him, wide-open eyes, and there’s something almost unhinged in it. This kid might have something knocked out of whack from that night with the wall. Jimmy shifts his weight.

  “So anyway, here’s what I suggest. We get you back on the court. You do what we all know you can do. You win a state title. Then, after that, you do whatever you want. You walk away from the game, or you don’t. I won’t say one peep either way. But at least then you’ll know what your choices are. You call the shots.”

  Coach Kelly can see Jimmy wants back on the court with the Mexicans from the way he keeps glancing behind him. That cement rectangle is his safe zone. Kid needs counseling. He makes a quick promise to himself to guide the kid toward therapy if he ever gets him back on the team, his wife’s idea. Someone more qualified than Mrs. Cole.

  Then Jimmy pounds his famous ball against the concrete two, three times. “I’ll play, Coach.” Jimmy pats him on the shoulder. “I’ll play.” And then he trots onto the court, yelling nonsense taunts he’s cobbled together in Spanish at the players. Pepe, or Pedro, or whoever the hell that kid is, giggles like a hyena, eyes red with fault lines. Kids these days, high all the time.

  Coach turns to leave when he hears Jimmy call out.

  “Hey, Coach Kelly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Gracias.”

  Kid Kirkus wants to play.

  • • •

  Later, Coach Kelly tells Principal McCarthy and Superintendent Berg that he has sat down with Jimmy for a real heart to heart, counseled the boy, and Jimmy is ready to become a contributing member of Fishermen basketball again. In fact, Jimmy’s participation, in Coach Kelly’s humble opinion, will be therapeutic.

  Not surprisingly, Principal McCarthy gives his approval gift wrapped in a tearful pat on the back, saying, “You do so much for these kids, Paul, really above and beyond.”

  It’s Superintendent Berg’s approval that Coach Kelly is nervous about. The man is famously strange in his feelings toward the Kirkuses. He remembers when he coached his boy, James, same years as Freight Train. Little athlete who could shoot, but the real gem in his play was his out-and-out hustle. Superintendent Berg was always pushing for more playing time, more touches for James. It was hard though, what with Freight Train being a true star. What was Coach Kelly supposed to do? James was just born the wrong year, destined to be eclipsed by his best friend.

  Seeing Superintendent Berg consider Jimmy’s fate reminds Coach Kelly of that cold, cursed morning before the state finals when James Berg and his father came knocking on his hotel room door. James looked like he’d committed murder—hands shaking and skin almost blue—and maybe he had. His father was behind him, standing straight, staring righteously, terrifying—and this was before his promotion, he was still just a grade school principal then. When they told him that Todd had been out drinking, Coach Kelly pleaded with them. “Let’s just wait, let’s just think this through.” But “No,” Superintendent Berg said, “I’ve already called the Register Guard and the coach for Madras.” So Coach Kelly got up. Had to. Put on
pants. Be the adult and get out there and discipline. Thinking, This is ridiculous, he’s the best player, why they want to get rid of the best player night before the big game? And then he saw it, clear as anything, the naked ambition to get James Berg more touches in the championship game, showcase him for any college scouts watching, and it infuriated Coach Kelly.

  He stormed down the hall and into Todd’s room, hoping with everything in him that the accusation was false. But. Freight Train was on the floor, naked. Smell of booze almost overwhelming. Reporters were going to be there soon. Oh, Jesus, son. Phones were already ringing. Todd “Freight Train” Kirkus was big news. So Coach Kelly did what he thought he had to do. Suspended Todd. Faced up to the ridiculous Flying Finn with refried beans smeared on his face. All because this jackass, this Superintendent Berg, wanted more touches for his own kid.

  Who cares that they won anyway because of timely shooting from James? The whole thing still gives him acid reflux. He’s felt for almost twenty years like an accomplice to Brutus.

  So here and now, with an easy choice that will be understood by everyone, Superintendent Berg has the chance to keep another Kirkus off the court. Say it’s the best for the kid that he doesn’t play. And Coach Kelly knows he’ll do it. Ban Jimmy. He just knows it. It won’t be the final say in the matter, but it’ll logjam the whole thing. There’ll be petitions to get signed, a whole new level—maybe even state—of authority to get involved. Drag it out further when that’s the last thing that Jimmy needs. The season will be through before anything is decided.

  Coach Kelly knows he’s going to get a no so he’s already rising from his chair to storm off when Superintendent Berg opens his mouth.

  And then the man says, “Well, if you think he’s ready, then let him play,” and Coach Kelly trips over his chair. Bangs his knee pretty good. Yells out in what Superintendent Berg and Principal McCarthy assume is pain.