she would tell him that while his father was perfecting his skills as a tinkerer and swilling down black label with the rest of the boys in the back of emerson 's sunoco , sitting in piles of dead bald tires and telling frenchman jokes , jim brooks had been in law school , knocking his brains out to make grades , because when you made the grades you got the diploma , and the diploma was your ticket , you got to ride the merry-go-round .