Part 3 (1/2)

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 flas.h.i.+ng.

”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-s.h.i.+rt anywhere in the bundle and there snaps back to him a memory of ripping it off in the gym. He whimpers and pulls his sweats.h.i.+rt 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, pus.h.i.+ng 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 sweats.h.i.+rt. ”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 sweats.h.i.+rts 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.