Semi-Tough Read online

  Sam Perkins is an offensive tackle on the right side of the line. Sam is just one of those spooks who never complains and gives you a whole lot of effort. He's about six feet and two fifty and he's been around long enough to know every kind of secret way there is to hold on a pass block.

  Sam played college ball at Oregon State but he comes from Los Angeles. That's where he lives in the off-season, somewhere around here, like Compton. He's got a real good off-season business designing women's clothes, they tell me.

  Some people say Sam might like boys better than girls, and that's why he's never been married, but I hesitate to believe something like this about a friend.

  Anyway, I don't see how the Lord would make somebody an interior lineman, and black, and a fag.

  Puddin Patterson is our right guard on offense, as you already know, and of course Puddin is simply one of the all-time immortals. He must be the fastest big man that ever was, and he's such a good buddy that if I ask Puddin to kill somebody for me, he wouldn't say anything except, "Where you want this cat's body shipped?"

  Because I like country music so much, Puddin calls me his "closet red neck," but he knows I love his big ass, and Rosalie, and his two little cousins, too.

  Through our connections, me and Shake helped Puddin get a beer distributorship in Lafayette, Louisiana, where he's from, and we also put his mamma in the pie-making business, in which she is about to get semi-rich.

  One of the things I think me and Shake will do one of these days when Puddin retires from pro ball is give his old school, Grambling, a ten-thousand-dollar scholarship in his name.

  Puddin says that won't make up for the fact that we're white.

  He says, "You cats know how much better ball you'd play if you didn't feel so much guilt?"

  We tell Puddin to go play the saxophone, or whatever it is spades do.

  At center we've got a peculiar old boy named Nobakov Korelovich from Notre Dame. He's got a monk's haircut, no front teeth, real white skin and a cross eye. Everybody calls him the Pope and he kind of grins.

  The Pope goes about six four and two sixty and one of the fascinating things he can do — for money — is drink a can of beer in four seconds. He just sucks it out in a giant inhale.

  The Pope broke in as a rookie last year, and I'm sure he would have made All-Pro if he hadn't beaten up a sports writer from Chicago when we were out there playing the Bears.

  It was on Saturday night before the game and some of us were in Adolph's having dinner and some drinks when the sports writer saw us and came over to our booth and started kidding the Pope about Notre Dame losing to Tulane.

  The sports writer found out that only two things make the Pope mad. One is the guy he's blocking on, and the other is a joke about Notre Dame football.

  The Pope vaulted out of the booth with a big steak bone in his mouth and grabbed the sports writer and lifted him up in the air by his neck. He held him up in the air near the piano bar and slapped him a few times, growling through the meat in his mouth.

  Then he took the poor old sports writer out on the sidewalk, right there on Rush Street, turned him upside down and shook him. He took the guy's money and threw it down the street, and took the guy's glasses and ate them.

  He just chewed all the glass out of the rims and swallowed it, growling some more, and went back in Adolph's and washed it down with some beer.

  We got him calmed down and the Pope just sat there the rest of the night and said, "Fuckin' literary fuckers."

  The sports writer didn't press any charges. In fact, he wrote what I thought was a funny story in the paper the next day about how to interview Nobakov Korelovich.

  What I mainly remember was the guy's opening paragraph.

  He wrote:

  "Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again last night. You remember them. Pestilence, Famine, War and Korelovich."

  Our other offensive guard is Euger Franklin. Euger is from Nebraska and he's about as close as anything we've got to what some people might call a troublemaker.

  There's no worry about Euger in a football game. He's a strong-shouldered old boy with a hell of a physique and he's quick as a turpentined cat. He weighs about two forty and stands about six one.

  Shoat Cooper refers to Euger as his "malcontent."

  Since I've been around Euger, which is roughly three seasons, he hasn't been overly friendly with the white studs on the team. He never hangs around with any of us, even when there are other spooks in the crowd. Even Puddin Patterson, who sort of keeps Euger cool.

  Euger is about the only spade on the team that you wouldn't get too funny with, in terms of race or anything. It's strange, too, because actually he's a lot lighter than the rest.

  Euger, in fact, could damn near pass as a Mexican or an A-rab.

  Euger was a No. 1 draft choice of the Giants, and also an All-American and a Lineman of the Year at Nebraska.

  He's married to a good-looking chick named Eunice, who's not a bad blues singer and who's been in the movies. He makes good money with the Giants. He's probably the highest-paid lineman we've got, next to Puddin. Or maybe higher, considering the bonus he got.

  But Euger Franklin's been right there with every kind of spook movement that's gone on in the league. Like the white-shoe movement, which was when all the spooks decided they would only wear white game shoes. Things like that.

  Shake Tiller somehow gets away with kidding him. A little bit.

  Like today at practice.

  We were working on a tricky reverse where Euger has to fake a pass block, then circle out and around and go downfield and try to get the safety.

  We ran it four or five times and messed up the hand-offs, and Euger, meanwhile, was going downfield and coming back.

  He just walked off and sat down, pissed.

  Shoat Cooper strolled over to him and said something and Euger said something back, waving his arms, and standing up and kicking his helmet.

  Puddin hollered at him, "Hey, boy. You get that mean and we'll whip them cats on Sunday."

  Euger took a few steps back toward our unit, cupped his hands, and shouted at Hose Manning. He shouted:

  "Say, baby. Why don't you let those cats back there fair-catch those handoffs, you dig?"

  Shake Tiller grinned and so did Hose Manning.

  And Shake called to him:

  "Come on, Euger. Get your white ass over here. A little extra running can't hurt anybody as mean as you."

  Euger said, "I don't get paid to take laps, baby."

  Everybody whooped and hooted.

  "Get over here, Euger," said Hose Manning. "Let's work, gang. Here we go."

  And Hose whistled loudly and clapped his hands.

  Euger Franklin started walking to the huddle, slowly, talking to himself.

  "Tell you what, Euger," said Shake. "When that big black tribunal takes over, your trouble-makin' ass is gonna be the first one they execute."

  Euger fastened his chin strap and spit.

  We ran the play a few more times and Euger dug out harder than anybody.

  Our other offensive tackle is just a big old country boy named Dean McCoobry from the University of Texas. He's a rookie who hasn't said anything that I know of since training camp when we made him try to sing "The Eyes of Texas" every night after dinner until he got the words right.

  The first time he sang it was just about the funniest thing I've ever heard.

  Dean's idea of the tune was semi-close but the words came out about like this:

  The eyes

  Of Texas were upon

  it.

  All

  the lifelong thing.

  The eyes

  Of Texas were because, if

  They thrilled me

  all their days.

  Do

  Not think you can despise it,

  From now

  Til every afternoon.

  The eyes

  Of Texas went behind them

  Til Garl
and goes back yet.

  Of course, nobody ever said an offensive tackle had to be able to sing or know the lyrics to his school song. He knows our plays, which is good enough. And he can blow me through a hole for five and six yards at a pop.

  Dean's six five and about two fifty-five, he's got buck teeth, wears glasses off the field, and has a bit of a puzzled look on his semi-baby face. We call him Baby Dean, and he collects match folders.

  Our split end is Marvin (Shake) Tiller, of whom you may have heard me speak. Shake Tiller. Pimp. Sex maniac. Dope fiend. Wanted for manslaughter in Joplin, Missouri.

  We have a flanker who can't do much except outrun everybody, but that's really all he's supposed to do.

  He's Al (Abort) Goodwin, the ex-Olympic hurdler.

  I'll tell you. If you ever need anybody to run three and a half miles over brush and timber, you'd better get Al (Abort) Goodwin.

  On a straight line, I don't think there's any doubt that Al Goodwin could outrun anybody in football. The thing he gives us is the deep threat. Real deep.

  Al runs so fast down the sideline that he very often gets sixty or seventy yards gone on a single pattern, but of course Hose Manning just can't throw it that far. Still, the defense has to assign one man to Al, basically on the chance that Hose will try to hit him once a game, he'll underthrow, and the defensive back can intercept.

  It must have been two seasons ago that Al Goodwin caught his touchdown pass against Philadelphia. I remember Hose had the wind.

  Al (Abort) Goodwin is a real nice fellow who lives in Boulder, Colorado, teaches history at the university, is married, and has four kids. He's never seen a day of the year when he didn't run some laps, or do some sprints, even in the snow.

  He usually flies in on Sundays for our games, wherever we are, and just suits up and goes out and runs his sideline sprints on every play. He doesn't really have to know the offense.

  Al will probably be getting in here tomorrow, or the next day.

  Long before now I should have mentioned our fullback, the guy who takes over some of my ball-carrying duties now and then and does a fine job of pass-blocking for Hose Manning.

  Our fullback is Booger Sanders from Alabama, and he's one of the best sumbitches who ever breathed air.

  In the eight years he's been up from Tuscaloosa, Booger's had a lot of bad luck with his career. He's had every physical thing happen to him from a broken back to the clap.

  Two wives have just hauled off and left him.

  Booger's kind of short and stumpy but he's run under more than one tackier in his day. This is the first season that things have gone smooth for him. No injuries. And he's come up with a nice girl friend who might not rob him.

  She's a cashier in the first Howard Johnson's you come to on the Jersey Turnpike after you go through the Lincoln Tunnel. Booger likes to drive her home after work every night. I think she lives in Hartford.

  Booger's prematurely bald and he's starting to get a belly on him, but he can still scoot, and there just isn't an ounce of give-up in him.

  Now we come to a fellow I just can't say enough about.

  This is our cerebral leader, Mr. Quarterback himself, otherwise known as Hose Manning.

  Shoat Cooper calls Hose Manning "the best milker on the farm," meaning he's the best quarterback in pro ball. I agree.

  It's a known fact that a football team can't go very far without a good milker, and in my five years with the Giants we didn't really start going anywhere until we got Hose from the Vikings.

  That was two years ago.

  We got Hose from Minnesota after a turn of very sinister events that spring. We got Hose because the Vikings thought he would never be able to play ball again after he was in a terrible car wreck back in his home town of Purcell, Oklahoma.

  The story behind the trade is semi-fascinating and I think I'll reveal it. It would make a damn movie is all it would do.

  Hose had gone home to Purcell, like he always does in the off-season. He'd gone home to look after his chain of filling stations. Purcell is a little town near Norman, which is where the University of Oklahoma is. Purcell is also where they have the annual Old Fiddlers' Convention and Contest.

  The Old Fiddlers' Convention and Contest is an event where old fiddle players from everywhere gather for a few days and fiddle their asses off.

  Down there that same spring to scout Oklahoma's spring training one week was Tom Stinnywade, the Vikings' chief scout. One day Stinnywade had nothing else to do but drive over to Purcell to hear some of the old fiddlers who were having their contest at the same time as Oklahoma's spring practice.

  By a strange coincidence Stinnywade happened to be passing along the highway just outside of Purcell at the exact time that Hose Manning's Cadillac got hit from the blind side by one of those old yellow-dog school buses. You've seen those old yellow-dog buses. The kind with the straight back seats. The kind junior college teams go to games in, and throw Kentucky Fried Chicken bones out the windows of.

  When Hose's car got hit, it turned over two or three times, they say, and rattled all the dishes in Grayford's Truck Stop Diner on the other side of the street.

  Tom Stinnywade actually saw the crash, hopped out of his own car, ran over and saw Hose laying on the ground, unconscious.

  What Stinnywade did next is the key to the whole thing.

  Instead of seeing how bad Hose was hurt, Stinnywade ran into Grayford's Truck Stop Diner and called the front office in Minneapolis and got hold of Herb Fanner-bahn, the Vikings' general manager.

  "Trade Manning," Stinnywade said. Or something like that.

  Now the plot thickens.

  Herb Fannerbahn phoned up Burt Danby in New York and asked him if the Giants had found a quarterback yet. Burt obviously said no. Fannerbahn asked if Burt would like to have Hose Manning. For the Giants' first four draft choices?

  Burt Danby is sometimes not so stupid and he put Herb Fannerbahn on hold and said he'd get back to him within an hour.

  Burt then phoned up Shoat Cooper, who was down on his ranch near Lubbock, Texas. The Vikings want to give us Manning, Burt said, but there must be something wrong. Could Shoat find out what it was?

  It just so happened that Shoat Cooper had a friend in Purcell that he could call. It was a waitress in Grayford's Truck Stop Diner named Louise the Tease.

  Shoat had done some scouting in his day and like most scouts he knew every beer joint and truck stop and waitress in America.

  Shoat called up Louise the Tease and asked her if she had heard anything about Hose Manning lately?

  "All I know is what I can see out the window right now," said Louise the Tease, "which is Hose Manning layin' in a ditch."

  Shoat asked Louise the Tease to do him a big favor, like run across the street and see if Hose was alive, and, if so, did he have all his arms and legs and hands, and, possibly, could he call an audible?

  "I'll go see," said Louise the Tease. "But personally I wouldn't give you two cents for him. He taken something from between my thighs once and now he don't never come around."

  Louise the Tease called Shoat back in less than five minutes and said Hose seemed to be all right. She said he even managed to smile and suggest something she could do that would make his crotch feel better.

  Shoat phoned this news to Burt Danby, who immediately phoned up Herb Fannerbahn and made the trade.

  And that's how we got our milker.

  I don't know whatever happened to Tom Stinnywade. Last I heard he was an assistant coach in a vocational high school on Chicago's south side. And Herb Fannerbahn is a tour guide now at Hoover Dam, I think.

  Hose Manning fit right in with us, of course. He not only gave us the arm we needed but he's a fine punter and field goal kicker. A real all-around stud who nearly won the Heisman Trophy when he played for OU.

  Hose is a tough leader. And he's not bad-looking for a guy with an Oklahoma face. He's got deep creases in his face and what's left over from a childhood case of semi-acne. He's
got black, stringy hair, and he's about the only quarterback left who wears high-top shoes. He's over six feet and weighs about two hundred. He's got a quick release and he throws what we call a light ball. The nose is up and it's easy to catch.

  The only thing Hose lost in that wreck was one kidney. But like he says, "If I'd lost it earlier in life, think how much less I'd had to piss."

  As for our defensive unit, I don't know so many personal things about very many of those studs, other than T.J. Lambert.

  In pro ball the offense and defense are like two separate clubs. We never work together. The defense is always down on the other end of the field figuring out its own problems.

  Shoat Cooper's number one assistant is an old fellow named Morgan Bujakowski and he handles the defense. Shoat calls Bujakowski "Ol Army" because he played at both West Point and Texas A&M during World War II.

  Most of the players call him the star-spangled Polack because he's still got a crew cut, keeps his shoulders reared back and wears an old Aggie cavalry hat to practice.

  The star-spangled Polack likes to kick players in the butt and tell us that we don't know what real football is. He says face-guards have taken fear out of the game.

  What I'll do, I think, is just run through the defensive line-up for you, sort of quick.

  T.J. Lambert of course is on one end, and you've already gotten acquainted with that great American poet. On the opposite end we've got F. Tolan Gates, who's from Stanford. He's a good fellow whose family is about half-rich.

  At one defensive tackle we've got Henry Knight from Arkansas AM&N, which the star-spangled Polack once said stood for Agricultural, Mechanical and Nigger. The other tackle is Rucker McFarland from North Carolina State, who met his wife on a float in the Peach Bowl parade.

  That's our down four.

  Our three linebackers are Perry Lou Jackson, Salter Bingham and Harris Jones. Perry Lou's from Texas Southern. You might have heard of Perry Lou's older brother, Bad Hair Jackson. He got famous a couple of years ago for killing four prison guards at Huntsville. Salter Bingham played at UCLA and his sister was a well-known actress named Stephanie something. Harris Jones comes from Michigan State, where some people might recall that he was better known as a basketball player.