Semi-Tough Page 3

  I mentioned to my friend this morning, "Old buddy, you keep talking like that in the papers and Dreamer's liable to take it out on me. You'll be sitting out there at split end with someplace to hide, but I've got to run right at his onery soul."

  Shake smirked.

  "Eat his ass up is all you're gonna do, Billy C.," he said.

  Cissy Walford asked if the two of us were actually, terribly, very, intensely concerned.

  "Shit," said Shake.

  I think I'd better knock off for a while now. We've got to go to practice over at UCLA in Westwood where the Giants are practicing. After that I've got an interview at the Beverly Hills Hotel with some kind of high-rent bitch from a women's magazine. On the phone she said she wanted to do "a full take-out" on me, and then print it in the spring if we won the game.

  She said she wanted to "rap with me" about the "underside" of the athlete's mind.

  I also have to go with Shake over to a TV studio. And then all of us have to go over to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for a Super Bowl cocktail party that the magazine Sports Illustrated is giving.

  Players really hate to go to shit like that party but our owners insist we show up. They think it's good that we mix it up from time to time with some of those big money spenders from the East who hang around parties like that.

  There's never anybody at those things but a bunch of freeloading writers who get high school drunk and a bunch of Madison Avenue types who get even drunker and tell you how they've always been with the Giants win, lose or draw.

  There's also some talk between Barbara Jane Bookman and Cissy Walford about going to Ugo's for dinner. Cissy wants to go because she thinks there might be some movie stars there to look at. Ugo's is where everybody out here goes now that they don't go to La Scala or Matteo's.

  Ugo's is all right with me. At least we'll get a good table from lovable old Ugo, as much as me and Shake have hit that phony fuckin' wop in the palm when he was a captain waiter at La Scala and Matteo's and the Isle of Sauce.

  I hope there'll be some heavyweights at Ugo's. Not for Cissy to be thrilled by, but for her to dazzle with her own self. When we go out on the town, Cissy has a habit of not wearing much except a lot of jeweled belts and necklaces, some little old panty bottoms and a variety of suede and rawhide boots.

  Barbara Jane calls it her "whip me, whip me" outfits.

  Anyway, this is Billy Clyde Puckett signing off for now. Tranquillity Base here. Shake Tiller and Billy C. Puckett have landed at the Super Bowl.

  Ten four.

  B ARBARA JANE SAID LAST NIGHT that she had listened to my first tape on the book while we were at practice. Barb said she hoped Jim Tom Pinch would give me a little help on the grammar, here and there, and maybe take out what somebody might consider to be "excessive vulgarities."

  I told Barb I had never heard or seen anything vulgar in my life, and I certainly wouldn't allow anything vulgar in my book.

  I also said I wasn't so sure Jim Tom was any great student of the English language, seeing as how he was just a sports writer for the Fort Worth Light & Shopper.

  Excuse me for introducing you as a character in the book, Jim Tom, but since you're the collaborator it won't hurt to give you a little credit and let the world know something about you.

  You can take out anything you think's semi-libelous, anyhow.

  "Jim Tom's a neat guy," said Barb. "He'll do a good job, if the Old Skipper's willing and the Scotch don't rise."

  I said Jim Tom didn't have anything to do but type up the tapes and not lose the manuscript at Reba's Lounge. I said if he changed very much of what I spoke he'd get his arm broken and he'd never play the Olivetti again.

  I'd like to say right here that it's a damn shame Jim Tom can't be out here for the Super Bowl. He could sure help me observe some things for the book.

  The reason Jim Tom's not here is because of that piece of Kotex he works for, the Fort Worth Light & Shopper. He only has a three-man staff, including himself. And the other two, from what 1 hear, are what you call your undependables. There's a desk man named Big-un Darley who eats cold green peas out of a can, and one other writer named Jerry Toby who, according to Jim Tom, spends most of his time trying to shake down the local bowling proprietors.

  On the phone the other day Jim Tom said, "Sure like to join you out there, Stud, but the Super Bowl happens to fall right in the middle of a very important event here at home. The Fourth Annual Fort Worth Light & Shopper High School Basketball Festival."

  I said I didn't see how anything could be more important than one or two old boys from Fort Worth being in the Super Bowl. Or one of the paper's famous columnists writing a book about it.

  "Our editor doesn't know about the book," Jim Tom said. "He only likes books about religion and soil conservation, anyhow. I'm gonna stick some soil conservation up his ass if this sumbitch sells any copies. The main thing, though, is that I've got to keep the official box scores and present the trophies at the festival."

  "I suppose teams are coming from all over," I said. "It's all very exciting, I'm sure."

  Jim Tom said, "Aw, you bet. We got the Itasca Wampus Cats coming in, and the Hutto Hippoes, and the El Campo Rice Birds."

  I said, "How about Coleman's Fighting Blue Cats?"

  He said, "How about Trent's Gorillas and the Port Lavaca Sandcrabs?"

  "Sounds action-packed," I said. "Can the Sandcrabs handle the Cuero Gobblers?"

  Jim Tom said, "Yeah. They got more niggers."

  I said, "Hey, you red necks down there better watch your language. Don't you know the Democrats can have you shot for saying nigger in public?"

  Jim Tom said he knew all about language, otherwise he wouldn't be writing a book. Anyhow, he said, I probably hadn't seen a basketball game lately, had I?

  I said I hoped not.

  "It's not like you may remember it, stud," he said. "There's not much defense or strategy. The high schools are like the NBA now. You've heard what a game in the NBA is, haven't you?"

  What was the joke, I asked.

  Jim Tom laughed and said, "Ever twenty-four seconds ten niggers jump up in the air."

  Then he said, "Listen, Paschal's got one now you'd really like. Astronaut Jones. Is that a good name? Last spring he won the hundred-yard dash in the city meet and when he crossed the finish line he released a small parachute from the back of his shorts. Funniest thing you ever saw."

  "Does he put the ball in the air?" I asked.

  "Hey, stud," said Jim Tom. "Does a bear shit in the woods?"

  I chuckled.

  "He crosses midcourt," said Jim Tom, "and down at the press table you can hear him holler, 'Tryin' one.' Then he fires. And he can hit. Schoom. Two. He say two."

  "Tryin' one," I mimicked.

  Jim Tom said, "He'll say, 'Tryin' one,' and when the ball's about halfway there and he knows it's in, he'll say, 'Yawl come on back now.' Is he great?"

  "Tryin' one," I said.

  "Astronaut Jones," said Jim Tom.

  I offered to pay Jim Tom's way out to the Coast and cover all his expenses, including hookers, in case he didn't choose to bring along his fat wife, Earlene. But Jim Tom said the paper still wouldn't let him come. And he couldn't trust Big-un and Jerry Toby anyway.

  He said, "Big-un would drink himself a lot of that Colorado Kool-Aid and go to sleep in the middle of a double overtime between Paschal and Port Lavaca."

  I said, "Does Big-un like his Coors?"

  "Oh, he'll drink that Colorado Kool-Aid," said Jim Tom. "He don't like it any more than he likes gettin' fed and fucked before sundown."

  I don't actually know very much about the newspaper business, other than what little I've heard Jim Tom complain about over the years. All I know is, he's got a fairly rotten job for a hundred and fifty a week and a by-line.

  As I understand Jim Tom's job, his workday goes like this. He has to get up at five o'clock every morning, stop at the post office and get the mail, tear all the stories off the wire machine, write
his column, write two or three other stories, write all the headlines, answer the phone, rewrite whatever Jerry Toby turns in, make up the pages of the sports section because Big-un Darley is drunk, and then go out in the afternoon to a high school or to TCU and try to find something else to write about the next day.

  One of the reasons it would be nice for this book to make some money is that it would help my friendly neighborhood typist get his pockets on the outside of some extra cash.

  That would sure make Earlene happy, and take some heat off a good old boy. Maybe he can buy Earlene a new shower-head, or whatever the hell it is that fat wives want for their homes.

  Earlene's maiden name was Padgett. She's one of those bitches who couldn't wait to get fat right after she got married.

  The best way I can describe Earlene Padgett is to say that she was a semi-fleshy clerk at the bank who had a nice ass that stuck out when she danced. She seemed to be a swinger at one time. At least she drank her share of whisky and said "piss" a lot. And over-all she had that racy kind of look that most men like.

  Barbara Jane once called her an eye-shadow junkie.

  But about ten seconds after Jim Tom married her, Earlene went out and got herself some fat arms, a big butt and turned dumber than a fundamentalist preacher.

  Are you there, Jim Tom? Mad Dog One to Mad Dog Two. Come in, Mad Dog Two. Sorry I had to gloss it over there about your marriage. Just felt kindhearted, I guess.

  Maybe you'll be divorced and fired before the book comes out, and then it won't make a shit what we say about your wonderful wife and your wonderful editor.

  At the risk of embarrassing my collaborator, I've got to say that he's a stud when it comes to knowing about football. He can tell you when a zone secondary bleeds and when it gushes. He knows a counterkey for the cornerback on the triple option.

  I don't suppose he's ever written much that would dazzle the literary geniuses at Sports Illustrated. But then he doesn't write so often about a lovable snow goose or kite-flying in Dark Harbor, Maine.

  As Jim Tom says, "In Fort Worth I don't get many chances to do my Grantland Rice number. If I could make my column read like a grocery ad, I'd be the biggest thing in town."

  He's managed to sell a few stories to some small magazines but Sports Illustrated keeps turning down his suggestions. One of their turndowns made him so hot once that he sent them what I thought was a funny telegram.

  It said something like:

  "If you folks ever decide to stop being a slick cookbook for the two-yacht family I will consider an assignment."

  I reminded Barbara Jane that anybody who knows how many touchdowns I've scored and how many yards I've gained from high school through five years in pro ball has got to be a better book writer than some Eastern dumb-ass who thinks football ended when Vince Lombardi went to the big power sweep in the sky.

  "How old is Jim Tom now?" Barb asked.

  "I think he must be about thirty-two," I said. "That's his body. His soul of course is over a hundred."

  Barb said, "Let's see. Thirty-two. Yeah, that's right. He was about four years ahead of us in Paschal and TCU."

  "Good guy," I said.

  She said, "I suppose he still makes it with every waitress and secretary in town."

  "They think he's a celebrity," I said. "They're overwhelmed by his checkered sports coats, his cigarette holder, the premature gray in his hair and the fact that they think he's single."

  I asked Barb to give me a little better book review than the fact that it sounded excessively vulgar, which it wasn't.

  She smiled and said, "Remember those magazines called Climax, or something, that you guys used to hand me under the table in the fifth grade? With the color photographs of people in Denmark doing some swell things to each other? I'll level with you. It's better than that."

  I said she was a real inspiration.

  As for last night, there isn't much to say about what happened except that it was semi-exhausting. We all went to the Sports Illustrated party. Most of the Giants went but none of the Jets. The Jets are all still hot at the magazine because none of them made a cover during the regular season. Not even Dreamer Tatum.

  Maybe that would make me mad, too. Me and Shake have both been on their cover several times in the past, starting with TCU. And I'm not even counting the one they did of the two of us when we were All-America our senior year and dough-popped Arkansas thirty-seven to twenty-one. I don't count that one because as far as I could tell, it wasn't us. It was a painting, I think.

  Shake said he thought the cover looked like some kind of polka-dot linoleum that was all twisted around a goal post with birds circling.

  What was primarily funny about the party was this nitwit who was fairly drunk and got into a conversation with Shake.

  I never knew who he was. Just one of those striped-tie, Ivy League, midtown, semi-lockjaw, Eastern motherfuckers you run into.

  For one thing, he turned out to be a dog-ass Jet fan, and that was a dead giveaway right there that he wasn't too heavy to anybody outside of Queens.

  Everybody knows the Giants are Manhattan's team, which means New York City. And like Shake says, Queens is in Russia, except with less glamour.

  Anyhow, this nitwit comes up to Shake and first off he wants to know how Shake is going to feel on Sunday when Dreamer Tatum shuts him out on catching balls.

  Shake thought at first that the nitwit was joking, like some of our friends do. You know. We've got some pals who are always saying things to me like, "There's old Number Twenty-four, we'll never forget him." And my number of course is Twenty-three. Things like that.

  But the guy was serious. And his voice had a bit of a belligerent tone, seeing as how he had put a whole pile of gin down his neck.

  "Marvin (Shake) Tiller," the guy said, sort of loud. "Big deal."

  Shake just stood there with a young Scotch in his hand, grinning, and brushing his red-blond hair up on his forehead when it would fall down, like it does.

  The conversation, as Barbara Jane and I have tried to remember it for the book, went something like this.

  "Marvin (Shake) Tiller," the guy said. "Hero."

  "That's me," said Shake.

  "Tell me something, hero. Have you ever thought what you'd be doing if you didn't make a lot of dough playing a kid's game?" the guy said.

  "Once or twice," Shake said.

  "And what did you decide, hero?" said the nitwit.

  "Oh, I thought I might get into conglomerates," Shake said.

  "Conglomerates, huh?"

  "Yeah, big ones," Shake said.

  "Great big conglomerates," said the nitwit.

  "Just a whole bunch of 'em," Shake said.

  "Conglomerates of what, may I ask?"

  Shake said, "Well, my idea was that I'd have some great big conglomerates of money."

  The nitwit stared at us all.

  He said, "Of course, that's a joke."

  "Yeah, that's what bothers me," Shake said. "All these ideas I have about business only make people laugh."

  We all kind of stood there awkwardly for a moment and tasted our drinks.

  The nitwit said, "Well, it's good to know that a hero like yourself has given some thought to his future."

  "I have done that, sir," Shake said.

  "No you haven't," he said. "You haven't done a goddamn thing but catch passes."

  "Only the ones they threw me," Shake said.

  "Just run out there and catch the goddamn passes," the guy gestured. "Big football deal. The Giants, for Christ's sake."

  "Yes, sir, most of the passes I catch are for the Giants," said Shake.

  "If it weren't for pro football most of you heroes would be running a goddamn gas station somewhere. Tulsa or somewhere," the guy said.

  "That's fairly close to it," Shake grinned.

  "It is, huh?"

  "Yeah, fairly close," Shake said.

  "But not quite?"

  "No, just fairly close," said Shake.

 
; "And just how close is fairly close, hero?" the guy asked.

  "I don't know exactly. I've been there, too. Fairly Close was the home of Martha Nell Burch," said Shake.

  "Oh, that's cute," the drunk said.

  "No, it's Fairly Close is actually what it is. Right out there near Not Quite. Good cattle country," said Shake.

  "Jesus Christ," said the guy.

  "He came around there some," Shake said.

  "Jesus, you're an ass hole, you know that?"

  "Yeah, but that was later," said Shake. "Back in Fairly Close all of her friends and Martha Nell Burch just thought I was a rascal, more or less."

  The nitwit was getting dark pink in the face and kind of weaving back and forth.

  "You're all wise guys, is that it? Big football deals. Holy fucking Moses, these goddamn football types," he said.

  The guy made an effort to belch an excuse me toward Barbara Jane and Cissy. For the language.

  But Shake was talking.

  "Never saw Moses around much," Shake was saying. "Just Martha Nell Burch and her friends. Most of 'em were in the 4-H Club. Some people said you had to seek your fun elsewhere than in Fairly Close. That's what some people said."

  "Ought to be running a gas station or something," the nitwit said.

  "Of course, some people didn't know Martha Nell Burch as well as I did," said Shake.

  "I don't know what the hell you're talking about now," the guy said.

  "That's what I've been meaning to ask you," Shake said. "What the hell am I talking about?"

  "I don't have any goddamn idea," he said.

  "Now, you see there?" said Shake.

  "What?" said the guy.

  "What you just said," Shake laughed.

  "What's that?"

  "You just said you didn't have any idea about something and here I've just been trying to explain to you about Martha Nell Burch," said Shake.

  "Martha Nell who? Where the hell is she? Christ, get her in here. Is she a hooker? I got a lot of dough. Is she a spade? Goddamn I love a good-looking spade hooker." The guy spilled part of his drink.

  And Shake said, "Martha Nell Burch is anything she wants to be."