Read Online Rules for Becoming a Legend by Timothy S. Lane - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Timothy S. Lane
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Fred Meyer and she chose her own.
âWhich one do you like, honey?â Genny Mori had asked.
Suzie ran down the aisle and stopped in front of a bright blue one. âBlue, blue!â
Todd came up behind her. âOK, blue, we get it, OK.â He pickedthe tag, looked at the price, and then let go as if it were hot. âJesus.â He showed it to Genny.
âThink this is bad, just wait till high school.â They shared a laugh at that. Not much, but no matter. Sometimes enough really is enough.
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
There was a big driftwood log shifting and half-caught in the water. The tide had come in a ways since they arrived and the ocean seemed intent on sucking that big log out to sea. There. Blue. Todd saw so clearly. A bright blue sleeve pinned by the log. It floated as lazily as the seaweed around it. He started running. There was her handâsmallâsticking out of the end of the sleeve. So electric white it could have been plugged in.
Todd âFreight Trainâ Kirkus ran faster. The watery pain in his knee spread to his heart.
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
They had the funeral the next weekâa rainy Thursday. The Flying Finn disappeared shortly after. Todd found all his tapes in the garbage, their gutted ribbons pooling, tangled, around them. Todd called the police and they found him three days later south of town, in Cannon Beach, walking along 101. He didnât want to come home, so they let him be.
Meanwhile, the Flying Finnâs restaurantâFinnâs Kitchenâout on Pier 11 was shut down, the lease taken up by someone opening a place called the Crab Shack. Todd sold his fatherâs kitchen equipment in one lot. The buyer made out like a thief.
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
The memory stayed with Todd forever. As vivid as if it had always just happened. Her little blue sleeve in the water, the huge gray log lolling back and forth on top of her, playing or lustful. Close his eyes for a second and he had his own private hell. It left him broke-hearted and Genny Mori cracked-but-not-broke-hearted.
And that was the big difference between the two parents. Todd was shattered completely. The very conception of himself as a good man, a good father, destroyed. This void invited filling, and so Todd focused himselfâwith the coming of a new baby boyâon building himself back up from ruin into a workable, though paranoid father. Genny Mori on the other hand, because she wasnât there when her daughter died, because she had an easier time dissociating herself from the blame, only had her heart cracked. Badly, but still structurally sound. Over time she knitted emotional scar tissue over it to make do. And make do kept on until it was status quo.
It seemed to her in the first few weeks after Suzie died that she had lost a part of her own body as real as any limb or organ. Suzie was of her own flesh so that when she laughed, Genny felt it too. Then suddenly her little child, a piece of her, was gone forever. Things like her remembered laugh became phantom limbs that ached just as much and as real as any of her own.
An awful pact with life
, she thought. You divide yourself so this little child can have a chance, but then itâs not like any other part of the body. You can never keep this part of you close enough and safe enough. Life was a puller by nature, and it pulled and pulled and pulled until that little part of you, that little child that was the best part of you, was pulled away. And there was nothing you could do to really protect that little best part of you because even though it felt like a piece of you and looked like a piece of you, it wasnât you. And if Genny Mori was learning one thing, it was this: only count on what is truly you, because thatâs the only thing you have total control of.
And so with Jimmy on the way, Genny Mori withdrew as far into herself as she could, hoping
âWhich one do you like, honey?â Genny Mori had asked.
Suzie ran down the aisle and stopped in front of a bright blue one. âBlue, blue!â
Todd came up behind her. âOK, blue, we get it, OK.â He pickedthe tag, looked at the price, and then let go as if it were hot. âJesus.â He showed it to Genny.
âThink this is bad, just wait till high school.â They shared a laugh at that. Not much, but no matter. Sometimes enough really is enough.
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
There was a big driftwood log shifting and half-caught in the water. The tide had come in a ways since they arrived and the ocean seemed intent on sucking that big log out to sea. There. Blue. Todd saw so clearly. A bright blue sleeve pinned by the log. It floated as lazily as the seaweed around it. He started running. There was her handâsmallâsticking out of the end of the sleeve. So electric white it could have been plugged in.
Todd âFreight Trainâ Kirkus ran faster. The watery pain in his knee spread to his heart.
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
They had the funeral the next weekâa rainy Thursday. The Flying Finn disappeared shortly after. Todd found all his tapes in the garbage, their gutted ribbons pooling, tangled, around them. Todd called the police and they found him three days later south of town, in Cannon Beach, walking along 101. He didnât want to come home, so they let him be.
Meanwhile, the Flying Finnâs restaurantâFinnâs Kitchenâout on Pier 11 was shut down, the lease taken up by someone opening a place called the Crab Shack. Todd sold his fatherâs kitchen equipment in one lot. The buyer made out like a thief.
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
The memory stayed with Todd forever. As vivid as if it had always just happened. Her little blue sleeve in the water, the huge gray log lolling back and forth on top of her, playing or lustful. Close his eyes for a second and he had his own private hell. It left him broke-hearted and Genny Mori cracked-but-not-broke-hearted.
And that was the big difference between the two parents. Todd was shattered completely. The very conception of himself as a good man, a good father, destroyed. This void invited filling, and so Todd focused himselfâwith the coming of a new baby boyâon building himself back up from ruin into a workable, though paranoid father. Genny Mori on the other hand, because she wasnât there when her daughter died, because she had an easier time dissociating herself from the blame, only had her heart cracked. Badly, but still structurally sound. Over time she knitted emotional scar tissue over it to make do. And make do kept on until it was status quo.
It seemed to her in the first few weeks after Suzie died that she had lost a part of her own body as real as any limb or organ. Suzie was of her own flesh so that when she laughed, Genny felt it too. Then suddenly her little child, a piece of her, was gone forever. Things like her remembered laugh became phantom limbs that ached just as much and as real as any of her own.
An awful pact with life
, she thought. You divide yourself so this little child can have a chance, but then itâs not like any other part of the body. You can never keep this part of you close enough and safe enough. Life was a puller by nature, and it pulled and pulled and pulled until that little part of you, that little child that was the best part of you, was pulled away. And there was nothing you could do to really protect that little best part of you because even though it felt like a piece of you and looked like a piece of you, it wasnât you. And if Genny Mori was learning one thing, it was this: only count on what is truly you, because thatâs the only thing you have total control of.
And so with Jimmy on the way, Genny Mori withdrew as far into herself as she could, hoping
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