Semi-Tough Read online

  He's trim like split ends are supposed to be, which is kind of like country club lifeguards. And his voice is soft and cool. As long as I've known him, which is forever, I've never been able to figure out his voice. He has this way of making things sound like you never know if he's truly serious. Even when he's serious.

  The main thing is, Shake is my good buddy for a lifetime, and I really guess that he's my family since I never actually had another one worth mentioning.

  Not that I'm complaining about it.

  I couldn't have had more fun growing up. Between Shake's parents and Barbara Jane's, and an uncle named Kenneth, I had plenty of folks concerned about me.

  Not that it matters any, but I guess you could say that I was from a broke fuckin' home. My daddy ran off before I ever knew him. He was a tool dresser in the oil field, and I guess a fairly good bad-check artist.

  My mamma was a waitress and maybe a couple of other things, and she ran off, too. Which left me with Uncle Kenneth, who was not much more than a golf hustler, a pool shark and a pretty good gin rummy stud.

  Anyhow, kids grow up. And once they get to be fourteen, it's out of everybody's hands about what might happen to them except their juvenile delinquent friends.

  I was lucky that I had Uncle Kenneth to take me to all the football games I wanted to see, and to teach me how to run the six ball in snooker and that the best thing to do in gin was hit the silk when you got ten or under.

  Uncle Kenneth always told me, "If you like sports and know how to gamble, then you'll always be interested in something and you won't come to no real harm."

  Me and Shake never had anything but good times. I can't think of anything that ever happened to us that we didn't think was funny, even some bad things. Really bad things, and not just losing the city championship once.

  Well, what's worse than somebody dying?

  It was really terrible one time but Shake's real mother — not his mother now, but his real one — got killed in a car wreck when we were about sixteen.

  She didn't die right away, where she got hit by a carload of drunk priests, but about three days later in the hospital. She died one night just after Shake and me had left her room and gone to the cold drink machine.

  We knew she was likely to die, though. She never had got conscious from the wreck, and Shake's dad, Marvin, Sr., a really good old boy, had prepared us for the worst.

  But what I'm getting at is that after Shake had sort of put his arm around his dad and strolled off down the hall with him, and after he had hugged his grandmother and his aunt while Barbara Jane and I just stood around, Shake came back and told everybody he just had to cut out. Move it on.

  The three of us left and didn't say anything to each other. We just kind of walked off in the general direction of Herb's Cafe, where we hung out.

  But as we were walking along, Shake said something that I didn't think I heard right — something that sort of summed up how he was, and still is.

  "Well, it's a wrap on the squash," he said.

  I muttered a huh, or something.

  And Shake said, "I've been trying to think of what good there could be in my mom dying, and the only thing I can think of is that I won't have to look at any more fuckin' squash on the dinner table."

  Shake Tiller has always had what some people might call a strange sense of humor.

  People themselves have always been the funniest things of all to him. He's a good imitator and he could always listen to somebody talk for just a little while and then sound like them.

  To this day, Shake can still imitate Big Ed Bookman so good it makes me and Barbara Jane collapse. Big Ed Bookman is Barb's daddy.

  Big Ed Bookman is in the "oil bidness," as Shake would say. Big Ed talks a lot about a "tax break for the oil bidness." He talks about "buyin' pipe," and all of his production out in Scogie County. Things like that.

  Big Ed is a big man in Fort Worth, which some people say is not so hard a thing to be. Fort Worth is not exactly Dallas or Houston. It's near Dallas, about thirty-five miles away on a toll road. But that's geography.

  In looks and money and getting things done, Fort Worth is about as far away from Dallas as I am from Shakespeare.

  I'm afraid my old home town is in that part of Texas which doesn't have the charm of the flat plains or the piny woods or the coastline or the mountains.

  The land looks like it could be almost anywhere in twelve or fourteen different states. The wind that sometimes blows across it is the same wind that blows across Oklahoma — untouched.

  We've played ball down there in ever kind of weather you can imagine. In October it can get as hot as summer. And there are days during the summer when you can see the heat in the air. It looks like germs.

  It can also get colder than a nun's ass. I don't know if many people outside of Texas know what a norther is, but a norther is when the sky turns the color of a battleship and you can feel the icicles stabbing you in the chest.

  We've played a lot of ball in northers.

  Fort Worth has some pretty parts. There are neighborhoods with little creeks running through them and lots of sycamore and oak trees. There's a river winding around called the Trinity, and this could add something to it if it wasn't always the color of meatloaf.

  My old alma mater of TCU — that's Texas Christian University, of course — doesn't have quite as much ivy covering its great halls of learning as your normal McDonald's. It is just a bunch of cream-brick buildings and parking lots but the buildings are not so ugly compared to some grain elevators rising up on the outskirts of town.

  The good things about the town are most of the people, who are honest, unpretentious and work hard. And the Mexican food and barbeque, not to forget the chicken fried steak and cream gravy. But I'm not sure this makes up for some kind of pride in ignorance that somebody like Big Ed Bookman seems to have.

  There's an old city slogan that Fort Worth is "Where the West Begins," and I suppose at one time there were a bunch of cowboys hanging around instead of used-car dealers and Jaycees.

  There used to be another slogan which went something like, "Dallas for Culture, Fort Worth for Fun." But none of us ever knew what fun they were talking about, unless it was trying to get on one of the thirteen roads leading out.

  Maybe they meant the fun we had to dream up for ourselves, which was always plentiful.

  We used to ask Barbara Jane why somebody as rich as Big Ed Bookman would stay in Fort Worth. She always answered the same thing. "Would a czar leave Russia if they weren't pissed off at him?" she'd say.

  It still bewilders me somewhat. Big Ed Bookman can live anywhere he wants to, but he stays in a town where you still have to stop your car for freight trains and look at signs which need repainting or have one neon light missing.

  Big Ed always said Fort Worth wasn't such a small town if you looked at it a certain way. If you took all the Jews out of Dallas, all the niggers out of Houston and all the spicks out of San Antonio, Fort Worth was a pretty good-sized place, he'd say.

  Big Ed is big in everything in Fort Worth, of course. Big in "bidness." Big in golf. Big at River Crest, his country club. Big in TCU football, having bought the AstroTurf for the stadium when TCU fired a couple of assistant coaches he didn't like. Big in what passes for society in Fort Worth.

  Big Ed Bookman is always flying down to Houston, where he keeps his "oil bidness" office, or he's flying out to Colorado to one of his ranches, or he's flying up to Washington, D.C., or he's flying to Acapulco.

  For as long as I can remember, Big Ed has always been on the board of a lot of banks. And he's talked about the governors, senators and Presidents he's helped elect.

  Doesn't seem like anybody — to this day — can do anything in Fort Worth unless they ask old Big Ed Bookman about it.

  Big Ed is married to Big Barb, and in her own way Big Barb is as big as Big Ed around Fort Worth.

  Big Barb has always been in charge of who got to be a Fort Worth debutante, as if there ever wa
s such a thing. She's in charge of all kinds of charities and theaters. She's in charge of redecorating the country club. She's always in charge of everybody's party and vacation and clothes and schools and voting.

  She's also some kind of history nut. I mean in the sense that she's always tracing the Bookmans back to Henry the Fuckin' Eighth or Sam the Fuckin' Houston.

  I've got to say that they're still handsome people. Big Ed is tall and most of his hair he's still got. It's gray but thick. He always has a tan and he wears a whole pile of cashmere and double knits and tricky loafers.

  Big Barb is pretty scenic her own self. She's still slender and fairly elegant of eyes and teeth. She can lay some hairdos on you, and some heavyweight jewelry. She goes around smiling most of the time and looking at herself in hubcaps, or whatever she can find that will cause a reflection.

  She's a semi-brunette.

  But I started out to say how Shake can imitate Big Ed, who has a deep, important voice.

  Shake's favorite line to imitate is Big Ed in a restaurant.

  "Uh, little lady," Big Ed will say, "I'll have one of your sixteen-ounce T-bones medium rare."

  This is Shake doing his Big Ed routine:

  "The thing that bothers the world today is a bunch of goddamn kids who don't have any respect for what made this the greatest goddamn country in the world.

  "This country is great because of what the white man did with it. There wasn't a goddamn thing but savages around one time, and they didn't know anything about schools or golf courses or any other goddamn thing.

  "But the white man came in and kicked the shit out of the blacks and the browns and the yellows and made the world a decent place that smelled better and had johns that flushed.

  "It was the white man who invented the electric light and the airplane and the television and the air conditioning and every other goddamn thing worth having.

  "If the white man had left it up to the black man or the brown man, we wouldn't have anything but a bunch of goddamn disease and lice and probably a hell of a lot of Communism.

  "Kids today ought to look at the white man and stop lookin' at niggers and spicks. That's where they find out about dope and screwing off.

  "If you don't mind me saying so, it's people like me — Big Ed Bookman — that made this country what it is. I employ about ten thousand people, one way or another, and I pay 'em good, too, as long as they work their ass off.

  "Hard work never hurt anybody. I've worked hard ever since my daddy found oil in Scogie County. I could have

  I list let our family fortune go to hell and played golf all the time, but I didn't. I only played part of the time, and there's not a goddamn thing wrong with recreation. It's American.

  "Let me give you an equation that affects today's kids. ()nc nigger plus one spick equals Communism and dope. It's all tied in together.

  "Uh, little lady, I'll have one of your sixteen-ounce I-bones, medium rare."

  I had to stop to answer the phone. It was Barbara Jane calling up to say that the place where they were at, something called the Macadamia Nut, had a comedian who was about as funny as a late night talk show and a singer who was at least as good as T.J. Lambert. She said they were leaving.

  I said for them to go on, and call me again. I was still writing.

  "I'm talking about your folks," I said.

  Barbara Jane said, "Oh, shit. Did you put in there that Big Barb's ancestors invented the spinning wheel and the hunting dog?"

  "And the hundred-dollar bill," I said.

  'Say, luv, this place is a wrap," she said. "We think we'll go take a look at a new club called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It's right there on Rodeo where everything else is. You can't miss it."

  "Is it near the caviar joint?" I asked.

  "Right," said Barb. "A block down from Nicholas and Alexandra's Caviarteria, and across the street from that sandwich shop where the out-of-work actors hang out. Poopoo and Ricky's Suede Cadillac. You'll see it."

  "I'll find it," I said. "Sure sounds like a swell name for a club. You can expect a vertical assault from old Twenty-three within an hour or so."

  "O.K.," Barb said. "You write that old book now, boy. You write that old book real good and we'll get you some quail and some brown gravy and some biscuits. That ain't no bad way to start off the day, is it?"

  "Got to go now," I said. "Bye."

  "Billy Clyde Puckett, you get down off that roof!" Barb said.

  "See you in a while," I said.

  "You come in this house right now before I take a switch to you," Barb said.

  "Bye," I said.

  "Love, luv," she said, and hung up.

  By now you may have figured out that Barbara Jane Bookman has a bit of a satirical nature. She has always been able to make me laugh, just like Shake Tiller.

  In terms of growing up, I'd have to say that Barb was most likely the first smart-ass I ever knew. Before Shake, even.

  I could give you a fairly good example by telling about the time the three of us got expelled from Fuller Junior High.

  It happened because the three of us were in old lady Murcer's music class one day in the high seventh, and old lady Murcer had to leave the room for a while and she let Barbara Jane, her pet, preside over the class.

  Barb's job was to stand up at old lady Murcer's desk and lead us in a few songs until old lady Murcer got back.

  Everything went along fine for a couple of songs, but I lien Shake Tiller held up his hand.

  "Yes, Marvin, what is it?" said Barb, snootily.

  Shake said, "Miz Bookman, I was wondering if we could sing something besides this daffodil shit?"

  Barb laughed like hell, along with everybody else.

  Then she said fine, we could sing whatever we wished, provided Shake and me got up in front of the class with her and helped lead the room.

  We got up there and proceeded to lead the class in what we thought was the funniest song we'd ever heard.

  What we sang was, "Down, Down, Down with R. E. Turner." R. E. Turner was the principal, naturally.

  The song went:

  Down, down, down with R. E. Turner.

  He's a dirty horse manure,

  Horseshit!

  They forgot to pull the chain,

  Consequently, he'll remain —

  Til they disinfect the Fort Worth city sewers.

  I don't recall how many times we sang it, or how far down the corridor anybody could hear it. But R. E. Turner heard it and when we finished it the last time, he appeared in the doorway of our room.

  Seems like the three of us sat in R. E. Turner's office for about an hour before Big Ed got there.

  Mr. Turner just sat there boiling and looking at some papers on his desk. We tried to sit quietly and not look at each other because we knew we'd giggle if we did.

  At one point, Mr. Turner told Barbara Jane, "Young lady, I hope you realize that this may cost you the state spelling championship."

  Shake blurted out, "Aw, gee. Not that. Anything but that."

  And Barbara Jane bit her lip to keep from breaking up.

  Mr. Turner told me, "It's not really your fault, Puckett. You've always been easily led."

  When Big Ed came in, he insisted that we be allowed to stay in Mr. Turner's office and listen to their conversation.

  "I don't have anything to say that I can't say in front of anybody in this great world. That's what it's like to be totally honest," said Big Ed.

  Mr. Turner nodded.

  Big Ed said, "Now, R. E., let's you and me try to remember our younger days when we got into scrapes of one kind or another. Thank God there was somebody around to help us out. That's my mission here. I'm here to stand by my daughter and these two young men that Mrs. Bookman and I know to be fine, clean, honest young men."

  Mr. Turner said he appreciated Big Ed's concern.

  "Now, R. E., I know that your immediate impulse is to expel these youngsters and teach them a lesson. But let's think about that for a minute."

/>   Big Ed leaned forward and said, "You know what that would accomplish? You'd lose a possible state spelling champion, and I know for sure you'd lose the city junior high track and field championship next week."

  Mr. Turner said those things weren't so important.

  Mr. Turner said what we had done was so bad that we ought to be kicked out for the rest of the semester and made to take the high seventh over again.

  Big Ed cleared his throat.

  "Now, R. E.," he said. "I think you ought to give some consideration to the fact that if we kick these fine youngsters out for the rest of the semester, they'll fall behind the other kids, and the next thing we know, they'll drop out of school altogether and get involved in dope and start hanging around with undesirables like some of these unfortunates you've been busing in here."

  Mr. Turner didn't say anything.

  "Now, R. E., you just give some consideration to your own youth," said Big Ed.

  Mr. Turner said he had never done anything like we did.

  Big Ed then said, "Well, R. E., why don't you give some goddamn consideration to who the hell I am?"

  Mr. Turner said we'd be out for three days. That was the best he could do, and Big Ed marched out like a winner.

  Big Ed decided to drive all of us over to his house on Bookman Lane, which was Barbara Jane's old home before Big Ed built the new one on River Crest's tenth fairway, which he made the club sell him, even though it left River Crest with a seventeen-hole golf course.

  The drive was fairly quiet until Big Ed said, "Well, Barbara Jane, could you tell me just what you think of these two punks here who got you into all this?"

  Barbara Jane said, "Mostly Dad, I think they're pretty rotten singers."

  Big Ed fumed the rest of the way.

  When we got there, he made us sit down in the den, where we could look at his golf trophies and his stuffed animal heads and his framed letters from various political studs, who thanked him for being for America.