The Franchise Babe: A Novel Read online

  I thanked her for the offer and said I might ordinarily be interested but I was still trying to clear up this darn rash I’d picked up on my last trip to Bangkok.

  That chased her, but I knew the incident could never compare with the Jim Pinch tale that had passed into journalistic legend.

  It seems that back when Jim was still writing for the Fort Worth Light & Shopper he’d covered this Cotton Bowl game in Dallas between the Texas Longhorns and the Ole Miss Rebels. After the game, with time to spare before his deadline, Jim returned to the press hotel downtown to work in the quiet and comfort of his room.

  But after he stepped into the elevator in the lobby with three other writers, an attractive whore lady slid into the elevator with them.

  As the elevator went up, the whore lady looked around at the four gentlemen, and said, “I’ll do anything any of you want for two hundred dollars.”

  History has it that only Jim Pinch spoke up. He said, “Can you write a lead, column, and sidebar?”

  Everybody showed up for the six-thirty call except Garrett Hicks, PGA Tour idol to the retarded. But nothing happened for a while other than makeup, hairstyling, and wardrobe for the “principals,” the performers. Ginger and the others. Nothing happened unless you wanted to count the sitting around and drinking coffee and eating sweet rolls and watching cameras and lights being moved around.

  There was a greenroom for the performers and their guests. It was across the hall from the “set,” the boardroom. It was where the performers could relax between takes. Crystal, the assistant director, had ordered a drone to make sure the greenroom was well stocked with coffee and tea and cookies and fruit and other snacks and bottles of water and soft drinks and functioning TV screens so the guests could watch and hear the “shoot” as it progressed, including the off-camera chitchat.

  Crystal ordered the drone to see that this happened or she would grip a sand wedge and dig one of the drone’s nuts out of a buried lie and feed it to the tilapia.

  Words to that effect.

  Thurlene and I sat in the greenroom and passed the time by reading the L.A. Times and USA Today and poking around at the delicacies and talking to members of the crew. Every now and then the mom would visit Ginger in the room where the kid was being fixed up and check on the progress.

  “She’s going to be a drop-dead knockout,” Thurlene said, returning from a visit.

  “She can’t help it,” I said. “Look who her mom is.”

  “Hit.”

  “A casual comment?” I said. “That’s a hit?”

  When Booty Grimmett emerged from makeup and walked over to select a sweet roll, I would have known it was a celeb for no other reason than the fact that he didn’t immediately speak to anyone in the room.

  Hefty, puffy-cheeked, and slit-eyed, Booty Grimmett was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and baggy shorts and sneakers. He was on his cell and laughing with someone on the other end of the conversation and sat down and turned away from the rest of us.

  The comedian’s TV series, Booty’s Gang, was a show in which he plays a man who gives up a successful insurance business to join a black L.A. street gang. His problems with learning their slang and trying to become a white rapper was the basis for the weekly humor. The series was juvenile and hideously unfunny, which explained why it was a raging hit.

  Happy Stoddard, a regular on the senior tour, was the next “principal” to turn up in the greenroom. The makeup person had done a good job of covering up the red splotches on his face, but there was little anyone could have done about his stringy hair—Oklahoma hair, as it’s known to some of us—and his stoop-shouldered posture. I’d always thought Happy looked like a senior golfer before he was a senior golfer.

  Happy’s awestruck brother was with him. Happy introduced his brother, Harold. Happy shared with us that Harold was a decorated retired army colonel, 82nd Airborne—Grenada, Panama, Kosovo, Afghanistan, three tours in Iraq, and the greatest golf fan in the world.

  When I thanked Harold for his service to our country, he said, “Aw, I’m nobody. Golf pros are the ones.”

  I said, “Anybody who wears an American military uniform…that’s somebody to me, Harold.”

  “Aw, I’m not,” he said.

  “Yes, you are,” I said.

  “Naw, I’m not either.”

  “You certainly are.”

  “Naw, I’m really not.”

  “Indeed you are, Colonel. Afghanistan, Iraq…”

  I paused to wonder why I was having this argument.

  “I’ll tell you who’s somebody,” Harold said. “Garrett Hicks.”

  “What?”

  I didn’t intend to say it so loud. Heads turned.

  Harold went into this story about a wonderful thing that happened to him. Happy took him to a tournament shortly after he retired. He was privileged to see all of his golf heroes up close. People he’d only watched on TV and read about. One night during the tournament he and Happy went to dinner at a Red Lobster, and right across the room—right there, by golly, having dinner with business associates—was Garrett Hicks.

  Col. Harold Stoddard teared up as he came to the next part. He said that Hicks, on his way out of the restaurant, stopped by their table and said hello to Happy and shook hands with lowly him, Harold Stoddard.

  “He didn’t have to take the time to do that,” Harold said as a tear trickled down his cheek. “He didn’t have to act like I was even in the room. But he did. Garrett Hicks shook my hand!”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I went for more coffee.

  It was around eight thirty when Crystal poked her head in the greenroom, poked it out again, and went up and down the halls, bellowing into her walkie-talkie, “Garrett Hicks is IN the building!”

  With a glance at Thurlene, I said, “You’re going to love this guy. You’ll especially like his imitation of a human being.”

  Crystal made another sweep through the rooms on the mezzanine, announcing, “Garrett Hicks is IN the building! Garrett Hicks is IN the building. Hear me, people!”

  “Roger that,” I said, and picked up the L.A. Times again.

  I wanted to reread the heartwarming piece about the Hollywood producer and his activist wife who were going to do their part to fight the catastrophic threat of global warming. For a whole year they weren’t going to drive their Hummers anywhere but to their second home in Santa Barbara and the occasional premiere.

  16

  That old debonair matinee idol, Garrett Hicks, came barging into the greenroom reciting parts of the Spoiled Rotten, Accidentally Wealthy PGA Tour Player’s Bill of Rights. He was leveling it at Larry Silverman, his agent, one of the most respected in the business, a partner in International Sports Corp., ISC, and a man who didn’t need this shit but had learned to put up with it over the years from clients who could bring in wheelbarrows of coin.

  “I ask for a limousine and what do you get me?” Garrett was saying. “A sedan. A fucking four-door with no TV! I want bananas in my room and what do I find? A basket of fag fruit! I ask for bottles of plain drinking water and all I find is some fizzy French crap, or it’s that pelly-ginny greaseball shit. I want the TV in front of the bed, but no. It’s over in a corner. Larry, what do you fucking DO? I know you’re good at taking your cheating thirty percent out of my hard-earned money, but what else do you do?…I come on the tour, smart guys tell me I gotta have my own Jew. Okay, I get my own Jew. He’s the best, they tell me, but what’s the Jew good for? He can’t hit a golf ball. He’s not good for the limo. He can’t handle the bananas. He can’t arrange drinking water. What’s he good for?”

  Garrett saw the snack table and interrupted himself. “This shit for us?” Not waiting for an answer, he grabbed a banana and took a bite and chewed with his mouth open. I’d have won that one.

  He said, “You sold me out too cheap on this fucking deal, Larry. If you can’t bump these people up to three big ones, I’m walking. I’m outta here. You tell me two bills is twic
e as much as anybody else gets, but who the fuck is anybody else? I know who Garrett Hicks is. Maybe you’ve forgotten who Garrett Hicks is. Maybe you’ve forgotten how much Garrett Hicks is worth to you.”

  I always enjoyed it when a sports star went third-person on himself.

  Larry Silverman pretended to look interested and concerned, but I was sure he’d heard it all before, or something similar.

  Four years ago Garrett was a big handsome guy who came on the tour fresh out of college with some big amateur titles in his satchel. He had all the shots and he could put a tee ball into the galaxy, but he didn’t waste any time establishing himself as the most arrogant, ignorant, charmless crud who ever roamed a fairway.

  Even the point-missers realized Garrett was a terminal shithead, although they continued to glorify him in print.

  I, however, had taken a certain amount of pride in not glorifying him. Even when I’d covered tournaments he won, even the three majors. I’d skillfully found a way to write about who lost or who should have won instead of his sorry ass.

  This might have annoyed Garrett if he’d ever read any of it, but it had long ago become clear that he never read anything above the intellectual level of a scorecard.

  Garrett saw me in a chair against the wall. I was sitting next to Thurlene, but even though she was a looker she must not have resembled anyone famous, thus he ignored her.

  “You look familiar,” Garrett said to me.

  “So do you,” I said, “but I can’t get the name.”

  Larry Silverman fought off a grin and said, “Hi, Jack.”

  “Hi, Larry,” I said. “Say hello to Thurlene Clayton.”

  The agent came over and shook her hand. “We’ve spoken on the phone. You do have my proposal, right?”

  She said, “I do. I’ll let you know something soon.”

  Larry said to his client, “Garrett, you know Jack Brannon, I’m sure…with SM…the golf writer.”

  “Golf writer,” Garrett said with a smirk. “I knew you looked useless for some reason.”

  “Hold it,” I said, faking surprise. “You’ve read something?”

  Thurlene had been staring at Garrett. She looked as if she were sniffing spoiled meat.

  She said to him, “Did I hear you say you’re getting twice as much money as my daughter today?”

  Garrett said, “Who’s your daughter?”

  “Ginger Clayton.”

  “Who’s Ginger Clayton?”

  “She happens to play on the LPGA Tour.”

  Garrett said, “Well, lady, I guess that’s the difference between us and the bitches, ain’t it?”

  I edged over next to Garrett and said, “There you go, dude. Being yourself again.”

  He said, “Be what…? What the hell you talking about?”

  Larry Silverman led his client into a corner for a private conversation. During the lull, Happy and Harold Stoddard loaded up plates with snacks, and Booty Grimmett put away his cell phone and turned his chair around to face the room.

  Then the next thing we knew, Booty Grimmett, celebrity comedian, toppled out of his chair and scrambled back up on his knees and spread out his arms in a come-to-Jesus fashion, yelling, “Sugar pie honey bunch! Hit me, beat me, hurt me!”

  Ginger Clayton had appeared, is what had happened.

  She stood in the doorway in spiked heels, hand on her hip, playfully striking a model’s pose. Eyelashed up, with her blond hair flowing down to her shoulders, wearing a form-fitting pale yellow tank-top spandex minidress. Lot of curves, lot of skin. The franchise babe.

  It was a spill-your-drink moment.

  17

  Everybody was in place for the shooting of “Gone With the Titleist.” Or perhaps it was “The Maltese Callaway.” Or it could have been “The Treasure of Sierra Graphite.”

  We could see and hear all of it on the TV monitors in the greenroom. The “we” consisted of myself, Thurlene, Larry Silverman, Col. Harold Stoddard, retired, and the occasional drone who came in to nab food and drink.

  The director, Rick, placed the four of them in the boardroom—the set—the way he wanted them. Ginger and Garrett sat next to each other on one side of the table. Across from them were Happy and Booty. Notepads and pens and coffee mugs were in front of each of them. Set decoration.

  There were guys with cameras on their shoulders in all four corners of the room, creeping, rising, kneeling, zooming, not zooming.

  The director’s voice could be heard off camera.

  Rick said, “Booty will lead. He’ll throw out the questions I tell him to ask. You talk, we shoot. That’s the plan. We hope to lift out three-fifteens and three-thirties that’ll run through the spring and summer. You’re talking golf. All of you are experts. Prove it to me. But keep your answers short. One word will do. One sentence at the most. That’s the ticket. We don’t have any Hamlets in the crowd, do we? Show of hands? I thought not.”

  Crystal added a word.

  “Relax, stay loose,” she said. “You want to stretch, move around, grab something to drink, fine. Cough, sneeze, yawn, belch—it doesn’t matter. You want to lift your butt and let one go, have at it. We’re editing.”

  Garrett said, “What’s this fifteen and thirty shit?”

  “Commercials,” said Booty. “They’ll be editing commercials to run fifteen seconds and thirty seconds.”

  Happy said, “Is what we’re doin’ gonna be like those commercials where guys sit and talk about you-don’t-know-what-the-product-is?”

  “I hope not,” said Rick.

  Crystal turned up in a corner of the screen and said, “Booty, could you look a little less like you’re in a produce market?”

  Booty was having trouble keeping his eyes off Ginger’s breasts, which were straining at the tank top of her spandex minidress.

  He said, “It’s not easy, darling. I’m torn between the honeydew and the cantaloupe.”

  “Try, please,” Crystal said.

  Ginger said, “I can change into something else.”

  “You’re perfect,” the director said.

  “Boy, you got that right,” Happy Stoddard said.

  “Can we get started?” Garrett said, “I’m on a three o’clock flight this afternoon whether this shit’s over or not.”

  Crystal yelled, “Okay, people! We’re rolling.”

  “Wait!” Ginger blurted out. She was fanning her face with her hand. She turned to the director and assistant director, who were standing at the far end of the boardroom. “Can I change seats? Sit over there?”

  “Why?” the director asked.

  “Why do you think?” she said, still fanning the air.

  Garrett said to Ginger, “You never smelled a fart before?”

  Booty Grimmett jumped to his feet.

  “Change with me, dear,” Booty said. “I’ll sit there.”

  He walked around the table and pulled the chair out for Ginger. As she gladly changed places with him, Booty said, “I love that smell in the morning. That smell…it smells like…victory.”

  And he howled with laughter.

  When none of the others laughed, Booty said, “Nobody saw the movie? You’re joking, right? Duvall? He’s in ’Nam…?”

  “Uh, folks,” the director said, coming into view, but in that instant all the screens went dark and the sound went off on our monitors.

  Pacing in the greenroom, Thurlene said, “I’m sorry, but I have to have a cigarette. I’ll go outside if anyone objects.”

  She was digging the pack and lighter out of her purse as Larry Silverman said, “Smoke in here. It won’t bother me.”

  Col. Harold Stoddard said, “Me neither.”

  “Here’s an ashtray,” I said, handing her my coffee saucer.

  After lighting up, she said, “Jack, be honest. Is Garrett Hicks not the most loathsome, insufferable, vomitous person you’ve ever been around in your whole life?”

  “He’s not contagious,” I said. “That’s the good news.”

  Sh
e turned to Larry Silverman. “How can you put up with him? Represent him? I don’t care how much money he makes for you.”

  The agent shrugged. “If I may quote a movie line myself, ‘It’s the business we chose.’”

  I said, “There’s a line from an old movie I like to fall back on. ‘Some of them will be dancing at the Savoy tonight and some of them will still be in Germany.’ Clark Gable…Command Decision…war movie.”

  Thurlene stared at me.

  I said, “He’s counting B-17s coming back from a daylight bombing raid over Schweinfurt.”

  Thurlene was still staring at me, only more so.

  I said, “I’ll have to get back to you on what that has to do with anything we’re talking about.”

  Larry smiled at Thurlene. “Feasting my eyes on your daughter today, I’d like to suggest something regarding the proposal I’ve sent you. Feel free to put a three in front of every number I’ve written down.”

  She said, “You’re a nice man, Larry, but we’re not going to make any decisions until after the Nabisco.”

  The first go-round of the shoot produced one or two moments you wanted to take home and tell your friends about, but I wasn’t sure they could be used in a commercial.

  It went like this:

  BOOTY: Greatest golf course. Happy?

  HAPPY: Augusta National.

  GARRETT: Riviera.

  BOOTY: Riviera? Surely you jest, my good fellow.

  GARRETT: I won there, pal.

  HAPPY: You really think Riviera is a great course?

  GARRETT: Okay, Doral.

  HAPPY: Doral? You must have won there too.

  GARRETT: I did. What about it?

  BOOTY: Ginger? Your favorite?

  GINGER: Colonial.

  GARRETT: Colonial? Geeah. What do women know?

  BOOTY: Everything. They’ve got all the pussy.

  GINGER: Tell me I didn’t hear that.

  DIRECTOR’S VOICE: Yo, gang. Can we stick to things we might be able to use? Appreciate it. Lead on, Booty.