Semi-Tough Read online

  "It's our kind of place, Billy C.," he said, nodding up toward the dance floor where the southern California witches were.

  I looked up behind me and didn't see anything but a cluster of fantastic thighs and calves.

  "I see what you mean," I said.

  Barbara Jane said, "You'd better look a little closer."

  I looked again. Well, sure enough, looking up there, if you looked close enough, you could plainly see that those lovely witches didn't have any undergarments on. So staring down at all of us was lots and lots of slow-moving, southern California witch wool.

  "It do get distractin', don't it?" Barbara Jane grinned.

  I was beginning to wonder if I might have to burn a flag or something to get myself a young Scotch when I sensed something warm and damp in my ear and something sort of nice pressing against my arm.

  "Aren't you Billy Clyde Puckett?" the waitress asked.

  "Same one," I said.

  "Your friends said you were coming," she said.

  "They were right," I said.

  She said, "Would you like something to drink, or would you rather just sit here and cuddle?"

  I said I might like both.

  But I would start with a young Scotch and water.

  "Groovy," she said. After which she pushed a whole blouse full of lungs against my arm and licked my ear again and left.

  I looked over at Shake and Barbara Jane.

  "Anybody got any idea what that dumplin' resembles in a better light?" I asked.

  Shake said, "Pure Dirty Leg."

  And Barbara Jane said, "Lower."

  I said, "Ain't no Runnin' Sore, is it?"

  "No," Barbara Jane said. "But you wouldn't race off and buy a whole pack of Binaca."

  I said, "Stove or Stovette?"

  Shake said, "In-betweener. A semi-Stovette, Dirty Leg, Kid at Home. You wouldn't put her on your arm and go just anywhere."

  Barbara Jane giggled. "That's not to say you wouldn't eat her," she said.

  A long time ago, way back in college at TCU, me and Shake and Barbara Jane to a certain extent had worked up this rating system for girls, or wool.

  Mostly, it was Shake's terminology and we had never forgotten it.

  Anything below ten was a Running Sore. That was something that only a Bubba Littleton or a T.J. Lambert would fool around with, but of course either one of them would diddle an alligator if somebody drained the pond.

  From the bottom up, our rating system went like this:

  A Ten was a Healing Scab. Had a bad complexion, maybe, but was hung and could turn into some kind of barracuda in the rack.

  A Nine was a Head Cold. Good-looking but sort of proper and didn't know anything at all about what a man liked.

  An Eight was a Young Dose of the Clap, but pretty in a dimestore kind of way, and not bad for an hour.

  A Seven was just rich.

  A Six was a Stove or a Stovette. A Stove was over thirty and preferably married. A Stovette was just under thirty, divorced, talked filthy, and tried to make up for all the studs she never got to eat because she got married so young.

  A Five was a Dirty Leg. She wore lots of cheap wigs, waited tables or hopped cars, was truly hung, might chew gum, posed for pictures, and got most of her fun in groups.

  A Four was a Homecoming Queen or a Sophomore Favorite and a hard-hitting dumb-ass. Fours married insurance salesmen and got fat and later in life stayed sick a lot.

  A Three was a Semi, which a Texan pronounces sem-eye. You had to beware of Semis because you might marry them in a weak minute. Threes had it all put together in looks and style and sophistication. They could drink a lot and dance good and hang around and make conversation.

  A Two was a Her. With a capital. If a Semi was tough, a Her was tougher. You might marry the same Her twice. Or three times. Barbara Jane was a Her, or a Two.

  And there just never had been a One. Ever.

  The day we made up the absolute grand majestic final list, we were sitting around Herb's Cafe drinking Pearl. Barbara Jane knew quite a bit about what a One ought to be, since Barb herself was in the running.

  A One had to be extremely gorgeous in all ways from the minute she woke up in the morning until she fixed a man his cold meatloaf sandwich after love practice at four A.M.

  A One never got mad at anything a man might accidentally do, no matter how thoughtless or careless it might be.

  A One didn't care about having a lot of money.

  A One had to be good-natured and laugh a lot and enjoy all kinds of people, no matter how boring they were. At least bores were funny, we said.

  Words like fuck and shit and piss and tit and fart and spick didn't bother a One. In fact, she used them, but not recklessly. Just natural.

  A One was a lady at all times.

  A One could cook anything a man wanted fixed, quickly, and good, such as biscuits and cream gravy, fried chicken, enchilladas, meatloaf, navy beans, tuna-fish salad with pecans in it, barbecued ribs and strawberry shortcake.

  If a One danced, she could cool out everybody else on the floor but she never asked to dance.

  She ought to tan easily and not have any sort of blemish on her whole stud body.

  Hair color and eyes were optional but streaked-butter-scotch hair and deep brown eyes weren't too bad, since that was what Barbara Jane had, along with a semi-sleepy look and the ability to sweat daintily.

  A One had to know, Shake said.

  "Know what?" Barbara Jane asked.

  "Whatever we want her to know at the time," Shake said. "She just knows and understands."

  A One was well-read and smart and witty but not as well-read and smart and witty as some guys she hung around with.

  It would help if a One had a great kind of laugh, sort of husky and boisterous at times, and highly appreciative of what a man said.

  A One was stylish in the way she dressed. Not fancy but semi-inventive. What she wore didn't detract from her physical beauty but made it better, and it frequently outbutted whatever was fashionable among women.

  A One didn't particularly care about ever getting married.

  She was a happy drunk and never aggressive.

  She was a talkative, funny high, but she probably preferred booze to dope.

  Finally, we decided, a One really and truly, and without any hangups, enjoyed every kind of normal sexual adventure under the proper circumstances.

  "Then she can come," Barbara Jane joked.

  Shake said, "About every other time when she's getting fucked, but just as regular as a faucet if you eat her."

  Barbara Jane finished off a Pearl, took a long drag on a Winston, looked at me and Shake across the table and said, "I'm a One."

  I had a giggle fit for a while, and it was catching, and we all giggled through the ordering of another round of Pearl in Herb's.

  And then Shake said, "Sorry."

  "What do you mean sorry?" said Barbara Jane.

  "Real close but you ain't a One," he said.

  Barbara Jane looked at me.

  "Missed by that much," I said.

  We were grinning.

  "I damn sure am," she said.

  Shake said, "Nope."

  I said, "You hit the tape at the same time. Probably both run a nine one. But you ain't a One because there's no such thing as a One that we know of."

  Barbara Jane said, "Well, if I'm not a One, then who in the hell is?"

  "Nobody," said Shake.

  Barbara Jane looked off for a while. And then she said, "I know who you all think is a One. You think that bitch Emily Kirkland is because she's been to Europe and has her own Porsche. I don't personally think she's so good-looking."

  We just laughed.

  "She's got a thick waist, did you know that?" Barbara Jane said.

  We didn't say anything. Just drank our Pearl.

  "If you two think Emily Kirkland is a One, then you two are just a couple of rat bastard pricks," Barb said.

  Shake laughed like hell and
so did I.

  Then Shake said, "Emily Kirkland is lighter than popcorn."

  I said, "Barb, you're the only Two we ever knew. What's wrong with that?"

  Barbara Jane said, "What's wrong with it is that I'm a goddamn One. That's what's wrong with it."

  Shake said, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll give you a one-week tryout as a possible One but if you flunk just one test, then you're gonna have to be content as a Two forever."

  "And if I pass?" said Barb.

  "Well, the test don't really ever come to an end," said Shake. "A One can stop being a One almost any time. Like if she would change in any way and start putting a lot of bad-mouth on a man for some reason. So if you're gonna get a One tryout, you're gonna have to stay hook-'em-up the rest of your life. Or not be a One, of course."

  Barbara Jane said, "Since I'm a natural One anyhow, I don't imagine it'll be too difficult."

  Shake grinned and said, "I just thought of something. If you're truly a One, then I don't suppose you'd mind doing me and Billy C. a favor right now, would you? All you'd have to do is get under the table for a few minutes."

  Barbara Jane said, "Gee, it would sure be fun, guys. Right here in Herb's. But as a One, of course, I have to be well-read and smart and witty. So I gotta go to class."

  She slid out of her chair, stood up, and swallowed the last of her can of Pearl.

  "See you around the campus, as they say. Is that what they say?" she said.

  Going toward the side door of Herb's, she stopped to say hello to old Herb, who was behind the bar.

  "Listen, Herb," she said. "There's a couple of fur traders sitting over there who just blew in from the Yukon. Set 'em up with some of the good liquor. I'll be back after I do my next song and dance."

  Then she slinked out, like one of those old dolls in one of those old movies.

  Shake and me and old Herb, from across the small bar-type room where we were at, all shared a mutual grin for Barbara Jane Bookman.

  We sat silent for a minute and Shake said, "You think I'm not about half in love with that sumbitch?"

  "Always were," I said.

  We kept on sitting there, sort of looking out the window at the parking lot, and across the street at the Esso station.

  Shake said, "She's the strongest sumbitch I ever knew."

  "Stronger than rent," I said.

  Shake said, "I guess I really do love her, don't I?"

  I said, "Old buddy, any time you decide that you don't, I know an old boy who'd like to try out for the part."

  And Shake said, "Hell, Billy C., if you didn't love old Barb too, then you and me wouldn't have anything at all in common. We wouldn't even be fur-trading partners in the Yukon."

  The name of that waitress dumpling at the Ho Chi Minh Trail was Carlene.

  I found that out after she brought me three or four young Scotches and let me check out her lungs to make sure they were real. When my eyes had got used to the dark in there, I found out that Puddin Patterson and Rosalie were in the bunker with us, except they were asleep. I would have known they were there at first if they had been awake because they would have said something and I could have seen their teeth in the dark.

  Things get into a man's mind when he sits in a place like that and looks up at a whole pile of southern California witch wool and also has a Dirty Leg licking on his ear and pressing her lungs against him.

  Cissy Walford didn't seem to mind it too much since she was busy talking to Boke Kellum about the fascinating world of show business.

  I hesitate to talk much about what eventually happened last night. I'm afraid we had us one of those occasions that me and Shake normally reserve for our New York apartment after a home game.

  We all came back to me and Shake's palatial suite here at the Beverly Stars Hotel and eventually worked ourselves into a group portrait.

  I guess Rosalie Patterson might have been the rookie star of the night after Puddin went to sleep. Boke Kellum didn't do anything but watch, which figured.

  Barbara Jane was only involved to a physical extent where Shake was concerned, but she was sure an inspiration to everybody with her NFL body. And she kept Cissy from getting too mad about the fact that Carlene was a bit of a hog. Carlene, by the way, was everything we hoped she would be, a semi-wild sumbitch.

  She sure knew how to spread the wealth around, even as far as Rosalie. They did a duet on the vibrators.

  I've got to say that Rosalie was an awful good sport when it came to playing some of Shake's favorite games, such as Unhitch the Box Car, Flaming Cartwheel, Denmark Love Book and Down Range Target Practice.

  I'm sure glad Puddin was asleep.

  Barbara Jane remembered something funny in the middle of one of our better heaps.

  She said she thought she'd seen this kind of thing before in a magazine called Climax, back in the fifth grade. "Let's get Miss Lewis on the phone," Barb said.

  Miss Lewis was one of our fifth-grade teachers, and she had once caught all of us looking at Climax and snickering. Instead of writing our book reports on Babe Ruth or somebody.

  Barb told Miss Lewis that day, "I don't see how people can eat things like that without ketchup and fries." And me and Shake laughed so hard and fell down so many times we broke a desk.

  I guess Barb was born funny and semi-grown up.

  We didn't get expelled or anything that time back in elementary school. Miss Lewis was ashamed to show the picture to the principal. She wanted to keep it, I think. Miss Lewis wasn't so bad for a teacher, and the miniskirts she wore suggested that she might have had a little bit of hell in her.

  Anyhow, we had us a semi-skate last night, is what we did. We got some of the crescendos on tape, but I don't think they'll be any good for the book, Jim Tom.

  It's just a lot of laughing and semi-ecstasy words that nobody can spell.

  Man, you can always tell when it's getting close to game time. That's when everybody from Big Ed Bookman to Hitler's nephews start asking for extra tickets that don't exist.

  Here it is Thursday, and between our meeting of the offense this morning and our practice at UCLA this goes out afternoon, I guess I got five calls for tickets.

  There'll probably be some more while I'm writing this. Downstairs in the lobby and in the bars, it is getting awfully crowded with Giant fans who have flown out for the big day.

  Shake and Barbara Jane are down there with Big Ed and Big Barb, who have just arrived. Cissy Walford isn't back yet from going to a studio to watch Boke Kellum kill another fag in an episode of his TV series, which is called McGill of Santa Fe.

  All we have to do tonight is something fairly quiet, thank the Lord. We have to stop by a cocktail party that CBS is having here in the hotel and then go to early dinner with Big Ed and Big Barb.

  Big Ed and Big Barb don't normally arrive this early for our games. They usually hop in Big Ed's Firestream Two, his six-seater jet, and flog it in on Saturday night and then flog it back to Fort Worth on Sunday night in time for some drinks and boring talk at River Crest.

  But since this is our first Super Bowl, Big Ed thought it was a special enough occasion that he and Big Barb had to be on hand early so he could tell us how to whip the dog-ass Jets.

  There isn't anything that Big Ed doesn't know all about, especially football.

  I think that if he had a loose sixty million that he wasn't "puttin' in the ground," as he says, he would buy the Giants from DDD and F just so he could sit on the bench and fire Shoat Cooper.

  Which wouldn't be so bad an idea, to fire Shoat.

  Big Ed thinks the only reason we're undefeated this season is because of the inside tips he's given us.

  Big Ed's idea of strategy is to devise your game plan so that you run and throw at the other side's niggers.

  Me and Shake have bust our butts laughing at some of Big Ed's serious ideas about football.

  This is how Shake imitates Big Ed discussing football:

  "Now if the other side has a fast goddamn nigger,
you've got to get to him early in the game. Hit that black bastard a good lick on his big toe and he won't run so fast.

  "Never give the ball to a nigger on third and three when you're behind and need the yardage. Goddamn it, they'll dog it on you ever time. It's too bad they've been raised that way, in Africa and Brazil and Philadelphia and Detroit and everywhere, but that's the way it is. One of these days when they've educated themselves better and shown some goddamn initiative at inventing things like — oh, I don't know, the offshore rig or the diamond drillin' bit, or something useful — then goddamn it, you can give a nigger the ball on third and three. But not now.

  "I just wouldn't trust a nigger to make a big play for me any more than I'd trust a spick to fix a flat tire.

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

  Shake and me have pointed out to Big Ed that there are some fairly stud spooks on the Giants, such as Puddin Patterson and Sam Perkins and Euger Franklin in the offensive line, and Henry Knight and Perry Lou Jackson and Varnell Swist and Jimmy Keith Joy and Story Time Mitchell on defense, not to forget Randy Juan Llanez, our all-purpose stud who returns kicks, fills in at cornerback and behind Shake Tiller at split end, and is all kinds of mixed-up spook and spick blood.

  Big Ed has said, however, "There are some goddamn exceptions to everything and as far as I'm concerned those boys are damn near as white as us because they've paid the price."

  Speaking of our ball club, regardless of what colors we are or what Big Ed the Brain Trust thinks, this seems like a good time for me to go through our line-up and tell you a little something about each stud that you might find interesting.

  I enjoy talking about these studs, anyhow, because I'm proud of what we've accomplished, both as a team and as what you might call your human beings.

  At tight end, of course, we've got old Thacker Hubbard who just walked into camp one day. He'd been drafted and cut by Detroit and nobody wanted him. Granted, he's slow. But he'll catch it if Hose Manning doesn't make him reach too far, and he can block.

  Thacker keeps to himself and does his job. He's from Idaho and likes sheep. He's about six three and two thirty-five.

  Seems like Thacker said something funny back during the season but I can't remember what it was.