Jimmys robe is twisted, riding high, and he scrambles to cover his half-hard d.i.c.k, listing solemnly to the side. He burrows his head into the pillows, clutching his junk with two hands.

Todd slaps a hand over his eyes. "Jesus, Jimmy."

The suddenness of cold air on his naked body makes Jimmys head hurt. But everything makes his head hurt. He curls into a ball at the top of the thin bed and hes sweating, can feel his heart beating in his tongue and his temples. He needs a gla.s.s of water, he needs a week alone. Jimmy gropes for the blanket that has been cast off him in the dim hospital half light, one hand over his stuff, head still beneath a pillow. The fog in his brain feels as though its draining from his nose. Strange. He sits up, sniffing, too confused to care what his pops sees.

"We got to go," his pops says.

"Its too early," Jimmy tries again.

"Too early for living too, since you already dead." His pops finds a wall-mounted exam light, flips the switch, and everything cracks into being. Gone, the grayness.

Jimmy winces in pain. Fireworks. A quick fear runs cold up his spine that he actually is dead and this is h.e.l.l. He grinds his teeth. So hard they might come out. Groans again.

For the first time his pops is seeing his head. Those great tree-trunk legs buckle, Jimmy watches him reach for support, grab hold of the back of a chair. He breathes out b.u.mpy. "And take care that b.l.o.o.d.y nose." His pops yanks the curtain back, casters screaming again. Jimmy puts a hand to his nose, it comes away red.

Sarah Parson meets Todd Kirkus as hes leaving Jimmys curtained-off bed, headed toward the waiting room. She stands before him and all manner of physics are violated when he slows and then stops instead of just running her flat. He rears up, eyes flashing.

"Mr. Kirkus, its the hospitals recommendation that Jimmy stay put for a bit longer," she says, voice calm. She clicks her pen to meter her words. A trick she learned in nursing school. "He should be seen by someone, make sure he doesnt do it again."

Todd laughs, gruff, unfunny. "Oh, hes not doing that again."

"Still its our recommendation."

Todd cuts her off-and this she hates. "Shouldnt a doctor be telling me this?"

"Dr. Maron has been called away, but has asked that I speak with you."

He leans in closer, breath thick with cheap mint. "Let me ask you something. How many people you already called about this? Prime gossip, all this."

Sarah has seen this line of thought coming. She knows Todd doesnt recognize her from high school-what use could he have for a short, pudgy girl who liked to spend her time in the library, rewriting her favorite scenes from books, word for word, just to see what greatness felt like-but she knows him, or at least his type. Everything leads back to his or his sons persecution. So center of the bulls-eye is he that he doesnt realize n.o.bodys shooting arrows. "Mr. Kirkus, it would be a breach of my personal moral code, not to mention the hospitals, not to mention the laws, to do any such thing."

"Can you keep him, legal?"

Officers Jones and Markham had already been through, cleared Jimmy on any criminal counts, and Dr. Maron signed off on his physical condition, so no, she couldnt, not legally. Still. She wished she could pull the brakes on the infamous Freight Train. No doubt he was going to try and ply his son with more "tough love," the exact same s.h.i.t that got him into this mess in the first place. There were times Sarah Parson thought of moving to Portland, or Seattle, or even somewhere on the east coast for a chance at love, happiness, and adventure (Columbia City being a terrible conduit for all three), but the prospect of leaving the idiots of this place to themselves made her linger.

She stepped aside and Todd barreled past.

Theres a small eddy of calm in being behind the curtains again. Its enough for Jimmys thoughts to get all the way through his swollen head. Its the day after and his pops knows. Blood pats down in Jimmys lap. Sticky. He pinches his nose high on the bridge, and guess what? It gives him a headache.

Jimmy gets up. Shaky, he holds on to the bed. The pain meds have been useless and what little effect they did have is waning as they are spreading their wings, flapping, ready to leave him but not yet sure of flight. Every movement sets his body afire in hurt and he knows it will be even worse once the last of the pills have flown the coop. He puts on his shorts from last night. Feels the small territories of stiffness where his blood had dried. Sweatpants over them. No T-shirt anywhere in the bundle and there snaps back to him a memory of ripping it off in the gym. He whimpers and pulls his sweatshirt on over his bare torso. Then his winter coat. Last his socks and sneakers. This is a challenge. Down on one knee, wobbly-weak with the burden of balance, tying the laces. A pair of white sneakers go by, visible beneath the hem of the curtains, pushing something with wheels. If peoples feet were portals into other lives, Jimmy would choose these. Simple, white, perfect for their world of hospital corridors and break rooms.

He stands up. Slow, steady. He pulls on his hood, careful of the radius of ache around the soon-to-be-famous wound. Puts that mess of black hair in check. Pulls the drawstrings tight, knots it in two bunny ears. He doesnt have that beautiful, straight-as-an-arrow j.a.panese hair like his mother and Dex did. Its got more of his pops in it. Curly shape at least.

He wonders how his pops found out, but then brushes the thought from his mind. Its a useless mystery to entertain. By now everyone in Columbia City must know; its too little to hide a secret this big.

Thats small town.

He leaves the curtained area and theres a nurse standing with her clipboard-someone he doesnt know. She looks up at him, smiles. "Jimmy, Im Sarah."

He blinks at her, not sure how to respond.

"I think my mother had you in English cla.s.s, Mrs. Parson? I was here when Mr. Berg brought you in. Quite the shock."

Our kid feels sick, sweaty, and ready to sit down. This nurse in scrubs printed with hundreds of fish all pointed the same direction is in the way. Big eyes ready to take everything in. She steps closer, reaches out and takes his hand. He lets her, though he keeps it limp. Hers is small, dry, but with an expert dexterity in her squeeze.

"Listen, its never as bad as it seems, do you hear me? I can tell you that for a fact, its never as bad as it seems."

Who the f.u.c.k is this woman? Hes hurt, clothes stiff with his own dried blood, and shes giving him this? What if its just exactly as bad as it seems? What if its even worse than hes letting on? He takes his hand away and Sarah the nurse smiles. Hes going to brush past her but she puts a hand on his chest so he stops and slaps down her clipboard. It clatters on the ground, outsized in its noise. She reaches down, all calm and easygoing like it was her fault. She straightens the papers and smiles at Jimmy again.

She tucks a card into the pouch pocket of his sweatshirt. "Im a good listener."

He goes down a stubby hallway and exits into the waiting room. His pops is there, hunched over the counter, signing some paper. The nurse behind the desk has pushed her chair back a few feet, watches him over this gap. A tall Mr. Cleanlooking dude stands back against a wall, arms folded.

Jimmy sits in one of the chairs. This room smells of coffee. Coffee in the morning used to be a thing him and his brother, Dex, joked about. Theyd come shuffling into the kitchen, noses leading the way, b.u.mping into things. You know, after that Folgers commercial. People waking up because of the smell of coffee brewing. Like s.h.i.tty coffee could bring a family together. It used to crack them up till they were laid out on the floor, his mom being like, "Cant I ever get some peace and quiet?" and his pops just trying hard as h.e.l.l not to smile in front of her.

The stink of coffee.

His pops is done with the papers. Comes to stand over Jimmy. Hes got a flimsy cup of the hospital coffee and is machining through mint after mint that he pulls from a bag in his pocket. He cracks a mint in his teeth, and then takes a noisy sip. Must be an interesting taste. He always has a big bag of those green candies wherever he goes these days. Cracking them habit enough to keep his mind free of the drinking. Theres a cabinet above the fridge stuffed with family packs. At about fifty a pack, Jimmy has it figured his pops goes through over two hundred candies a day. That amount of sugar could have killed an elephant. But h.e.l.l. Couldnt touch his pops. Freight Train himself. If his mom were around she would have been bugging him about switching to sugar free. She could be like that sometimes. Working in a hospital and all.

"Lets go," his pops says loudly and Jimmys head fizzes.

"Cant a kid get some coffee?" He wants to delay whatever his pops has planned for as long as possible. His heart pounds.

"You want coffee?"

"I always get coffee."

"Dead dont get coffee, and you already dead."

He didnt want coffee anyway, but this is too much too soon. Only been a few hours since the wall. He didnt die, did he? Cant this all just slow down? "s.h.i.t, Pops."

"Shut up. You run yourself into a f.u.c.king wall you dont get to speak neither." His pops is trembling, and Jimmy wonders, Am I gonna get smacked? Right here in front of some nurses? Dial up child services. Old mans losing it.

Instead the big man stomps over the waiting room tile and out the big automatic doors. That limp is there. Same as always. b.u.m knee. The boom, creak, slide. Boom, creak, slide. Jimmy follows him out the automatic doors and the wind is immediate. Its cold as h.e.l.l and he feels stipple designs up and down the back of his neck. Jimmy turns back to the hospital waiting room for shelter from the wind and zips his winter coat to the top, pulls its hood over his sweatshirts hood. The doors have closed again and he catches his reflection in the gla.s.s panes. Hood on and blood streaking down from his nose, bruise like a third, busted eye. Blooming, almost tropical in color and vibrancy, whitish bandages covering the epicenter. A beat-to-h.e.l.l movie monster. Doesnt recognize himself.

Its five in the morning and Jimmy hasnt yet been called the nickname that will dog him wherever he goes: Kamikaze Kirkus. Itll come soon enough though. By this mornings first cla.s.s, kids will be whispering the strange story of Jimmy Kirkus and the gym wall. Adults will be talking in hushed tones. Itll be on the lips of everyone. It will s...o...b..ll, include the basketball feats of his childhood, the drama of his parents lives, getting bigger all the time until it takes in things that have no relation to the things he actually did. Until its about someone who seems nothing like our kid Jimmy. Until its an avalanche.

And h.e.l.l never try and stop it.

Rule 4. Come from a Difficult Background.

Sat.u.r.day, December 1, 1990.

JIMMY KIRKUS NOT YET BORN-SEVENTEEN YEARS UNTIL THE WALL.

A weekend morning and the world was their lumpy, king-sized bed. Room happy in its disarray. Todds Van Eyck uniform flung over the door to the closest, a shed skin, while other things of all sizes-from a little girls shoe to a womans black stockings, strung out and runny on the windowsill-lay about. Comfort in the chaotic domesticity. Todd blinked his eyes, still somewhat sealed with sleep. He rolled over, slowly-his bladder full-and found Gennys hip with his palm. From this reference point he traveled northwest and found the beginning swell of her pregnant belly. Another baby on the way; a boy, Todd hoped.

"Quit it," Genny said. She waved back with her left arm and hit him in the side.

"Oof." A burning fullness swelled out from the impact. Todd hadnt peed the bed since he couldnt remember when, but just then, almost.

Genny leaned up, suddenly awake. "Are you OK?"

"My teeth are floating is what."

She laughed and lay her head back down. "I almost popped the balloon?"

Todd got up and shuffled through the drifts of his adult life-dirty laundry, coffee mug, small stack of bills-toward the bathroom. "It could have been bad for you, too."

"At this point, I wouldnt care."

The worst part of their house on Glasgow was that there was no bathroom attached to their bedroom. Todd had to scoot down a little hallway-always a chill here-and enter the bathroom via a swollen, likely to stick, impossible-to-keep-quiet door across from the pantry. It would take a miracle to use the bathroom without alerting the whole house that he was awake. And then it would be Suzie jumping up and down, singing whatever song shed picked up from the mornings cartoons, demanding a detailed itinerary of the days events. If not that then the Flying Finn would come in, probably just in his boxers, eating graham crackers or something, crumbs all over the place. They would be listening for the creak of that bathroom door, even if they didnt know they were. Todd had done the same thing when he was a kid and that room was Finns.

Out in the living room he heard the purring click of the Wheel of Fortune spinning on the TV in the living room. Todd was absolutely certain Wheel of Fortune didnt play at eight a.m. on a Sat.u.r.day. It had to be one of the Flying Finns tapes. Todd wondered how the old man had persuaded Suzie to switch away from Looney Tunes, or whatever.

Todd reached out and turned the k.n.o.b to the bathroom all of the way, antic.i.p.ating the latch clicking. Next he stepped forward and put his bare foot at the base of the doorway, so that when he pulled, the clear section, near the bottom, wouldnt come out before the swollen section nearer the top. Next he gave the door little jerks, easing it out centimeter by centimeter until, blessed be thee of wood and bra.s.s, it came away quietly. Todd stepped in, sat down for his p.i.s.s to minimize noise, and was back in the bedroom with no one the wiser.

The warmth around Genny was delicious, and the moment he settled in next to her he was able to regain the just-below-the-surface sleepiness that was the best part of waking up.

"Is the old goat watching Wheel of Fortune?" Genny asked.

"I think its one of his tapes."

"Why would anyone watch a game show more than once?"

"His name is, legit I mean, the Flying Finn, so watching game shows on tape is basically par for the course."

"Legit, like its legal?" She turned around to face him. She goosed his ribs so he shot out his arms and held her, brought her close, conformed to the curved shape of her body. "In a court of law?"

"You know what I mean."

Then the door burst open and Suzie came running in carrying something bleached white in each hand. "Look it, look it, look it!" she yelled.

Genny pulled away from Todd-the successful coup of sneaking into the bathroom all for nothing-and smiled down at their daughter. Todd rolled away, arm draped over his eyes, trying to dunk himself back under the waterline. "What is it?"

"Grandpa gave it to me if I didnt watch toons."

"Jesus," Genny said-and in this one word Todd heard the business end of his wife come out and was thrust onto dry land, totally awake. "Todd?"

He sat up and looked at what his daughter held. It didnt correlate with anything he recognized until he tilted his head to the left and saw the grin. His little girl, sweet chickadee of summer and light, was holding the skull and separated jawbone of a long-dead cow. "Whoa, Grandpa gave that to you?"

"Your father . . ." Genny was whispering savagely.

"Its for my white collection," Suzie said-the ct in collection coming out as an sh sound.

"Thats great, baby, but do you know what that is?" His daughter, ever since she had been able to get around on her own, had gathered things together that caught her eye. This magpie tendency had become color-coded in the last six months and the habit only seemed on course to get more sophisticated going forward.

"Moo-cows head," she said seriously. "Hes dead now."

Then the Flying Finn was in the doorway with a jar of peanut b.u.t.ter in one hand, scooping out the last bits with the other. Todd and Genny still in bed, people coming in, this felt like John and Yoko.

"Mori"-this was how his father always referred to his wife-"almost no peanut b.u.t.ter."

"A cows skull, Finn?" Genny said.

"Oh, so you want shes playing with the pink dolls!" He was mock-outraged, peanut b.u.t.ter caught in his whiskers. It was a joke between them. Whenever they saw little girls around Suzies age, all trussed up in ribbon and lace, they conspired about where else a bow could conceivably be tied-around the knee, on each ear?

"Get your own peanut b.u.t.ter!" Genny yelled, halfway ready to laugh, but not there yet.

"Get out of our room, Dad."

"This was my room one time!" he yelled back, already on his way out.

"Go watch your reruns!"

"Its practice for when Vannah calls. Then you see the laughing, and itll all be me!"

"Daddy, lets go to the beach! For collecting!"

Genny collapsed back into bed. "Can you take her? Maybe I can sleep a bit more."

"Yes, lets go, lets go!" his daughter said.

Todd kissed his wife on the cheek, tucked the sheets in around her. She smiled back, already sailing. "Wash the d.a.m.n cow skull," she whispered.

Beach was winter white. Bleached driftwood and white-capped waves. Blown-out sand sculptures formed around things washed up and forgotten. The littlest piece of trash, or stick, or turned-over cup grew in the drifts of sand until it seemed big enough to hide a creature. Some malformed thing waiting to scuttle forth and eat when the time was right. Pa.s.sing rain squalls dumped parts of their burden on their journey inland, patterns in many-cratered pointillism.

Todd watched Suzie run in the sand, so small she seemed unreal, collecting the things she found in the basket she made with the front of her T-shirt. She had her blue jacket unzipped and it flapped in the gusts. When she turned a certain way, the wind flipped it completely up, and it looked like his daughter was hanging by the armholes as her jacket tugged her into the heavens.

"You stay close," Todd called out on that last day.

"OK, Daddy," she yelled back, not even looking.

He chuckled to himself. Little, pretty, Suzanna. A startling thing he called Suzie Q. Baby girl born so cute n.o.body was safe. Even the most checked-out teenage boys stopped to coo at little Suzie.

It was the last day Todd was fully happy. Oh there would be other days of pleasantness, surges of positive feeling, but this was the final time he was filled all the way up. He lay back in the sand and crossed his ankles, a practice Genny Mori said would give him varicose veins. She was always saying things like this. It was how she told him she loved him. He crossed them anyway and sighed. What a luxury. The people of Columbia City had finally started seeing him for who he had become rather than what he could have. They asked him questions about little Suzie instead of rehab on his knee. There were no illusions of a basketball comeback. No pipe dreams of an NBA star hailing from their town. Not anymore.