Semi-Tough (18 page)

The final event of the halftime, he said, would be an induction into the pro football hall of fame of about twenty stud hosses out of the past, including our own Tucker Frederickson, the vice-president of DDD and F. United States Senator Pete Rozelle would preside, Shoat said, along with Camille Virl, the actress, and Jack Whitaker, the CBS announcer. When the induction ceremony was over, Shoat said, then Rozelle and
Whitaker
and Camille Virl would lead the inductees in singing a parody on the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," which was written by somebody in the league office. The title of it, he said, was "The Game Goes Marching On," and he understood it might make some people cry.

Shoat said CBS hoped the whole stadium would join in the singing, since all 92,000 people would have been given a printed copy of the lyrics.

The last thing in the halftime would be some more birds. While the stadium was singing this song, Shoat said, several thousand more painted-up birds would be released and they would fly in such a way overhead that the likeness of Vince Lombardi, the great old coach, would appear.

This was about all that was discussed at the meeting.

Shoat said for all of us to start getting our game-face on.

"When we take that field," he said, "I want you pine knots to be in a mood to stand them piss ants ever way but up."

I got a collect long-distance call from Fort Worth a while ago and of course it was from my Uncle Kenneth.

He just called up to thank me for the fifty-yard line seat I sent him along with a first-class round-trip plane ticket.

Uncle Kenneth said that as much as he wanted to be out here, he didn't rightly see how he could go off and leave an acquaintance he had made with an old boy who
thought he knew all about how to play gin.

I said I understood. That when a good business oppor
t
unity presented itself, a man had to act on it.

Uncle Kenneth said he would certainly be watching
the
game on color TV, however. He said he had four
large
bet on it
—
at pick
—
and how did I feel?

Perfect, I said.

I told him he could cash that plane ticket in for some whip-out, if he wanted to.

Uncle Kenneth said he had done that, already. But he said he was going to keep the game ticket as a souvenir, if I didn't mind.

"How's old Shake 'Em Up, Shake Loose?" he said. "He fit and all?"

Sure was, I said.

"And old Barber Jane?" he said. "Still prettier'n a crocheted afghan, I guess."

You bet, I said.

"Well, Billy, you have a good ball game now," Uncle Kenneth said. "Remember what I've always said to you. A lot of first downs'll take you to that land of six."

That's right, I said.

"First downs, Billy," he said.

O.K., I said.

"Comin' second ain't nuthin'," he said.

You got that right, I said.

"The YMCAs are full of all 'em that come second," he said.

Sure are, I said. Take care now.

"First downs, Billy," said Uncle Kenneth, hanging up.

All I wanted to do just now was clean up and be ready to go to Elroy Blunt's party. That's sure all I wanted to do but of course I didn't get to do that because I had me some visitors.

Burt Danby, the head of DDD and F (and therefore the head of the Giants) stuck his self in the door of our palatial suite and held up his hand.

"Got five?" he said. "I can come back."

I said he might as well come on in and get a seat before the Communist army got here.

"I just wanted you to meet a
super
guy," said Burt, who was wearing his go-to-southern-California outfit. His pink sports coat and pink scarf with white pants
and
white shoes that were tight and soft like little old white and soft gloves.

It was just my own self at home, I said. Shake Tiller was still over at
Sports Illustrated's
penthouse in the Beverly Wilshire, and the girls were down at the swimming pool.

"Saw the girls, saw the girls," said Burt. "They're in splendid hands down at the cabanas.
Hell
of a party going on down there. Christ, it looks like Manuche's at Monday noon after we've won a biggie. My God, it's like Shor's in the old days down there. Jesus, it looks like Weston's when Sinatra used to drop by. Fantastic! It looks like Elaine's when the King of Morocco's in town. The place is crawling with top guys.
Crawling
."

I said there wasn't any party going on up here unless somebody cared to watch me take a shower. I had on my shorts.

B
urt Danby came on in and behind him he brought in
this
tall, sunburned fellow who had a drink in his hand and was dolled up in such a way that nobody could ever have guessed that he came from Madison Avenue and had to be one of those Eastern, lockjaw motherfuckers who wouldn't know shit from tunafish.

Burt's friend had on some light-gray pants and a navy blue coat and some shiny buckled loafers and the last of the Brooks Brothers white button-downs and a green
-
and-gold striped tie. He also had on a big button, pinned to his coat, which said: ALCOHOLICS UNANIMOUS.

It only took me an instant to figure out that I had seen the guy before. He was that empty suit from the
Sports Illustrated
party that Shake Tiller had made sport of.

Burt Danby said, "Stud hoss, say hello to a hell of a guy. Put it in the vise with Strooby McMackin, the
president
of Kentuckian Cigarettes."

I said hidy.

"
President
," Burt Danby said. "As in who runs the store. As in how do I love thee,
let
me count the ads."

I said hidy again.

Strooby McMackin had a voice no louder than your average lift-off at Cape Kennedy. He said, "I met the stud the other night. Unfortunately
—
heh, heh
—
I was shit-faced and don't remember much. Hello again."

Burt Danby said Strooby McMackin was a hell of a good guy and a
super
client of DDD and F, even if he was sort of a sentimental Jet rooter.

"Oh, I like all football," said Strooby McMackin. "I guess I became a Jet fan a few years ago before I took over this company. You have to be Jesus Christ to get a Giant ticket."

Burt Danby said, "You've got 'em now, fellow. For next year. As many as you need."

Burt laughed heartily and patted Strooby McMackin on the arm.

"Get you a pop?" Burt said to his friend. "Another tightener? Just down the hall. Won't take a second. How about another train-misser? Want a little see-through?"

Strooby McMackin said no, he was fine.

He said, "Puckett, I saw those young ladies you were with at the SI party. They're down around the cabanas with your whole New York Giant gang. Mike was down there a while ago, and Jerry and Felix and Stanley. All the die-hards I see around midtown."

Good, I said.

"The whole goddamn gang," he said, "Danny's there, Susan, Norm, Jimmy, Teddy, Eloise, Jack, Crease. Goddamn place looks like the back room at Clarke's."

Burt Danby said, "Strooby walked up and said, 'Can Frankie get me a table here?'
Christ
, that was funny, Stroob."

I tried to smile.

Strooby McMackin said, "Anyhow, I apologized to your girl friends for all the language the other night.
Dynamite
girls, by the way."

Sure are, I said.

Burt Danby said, "By gosh, we'll convert Strooby yet. You
ought
to be in the Giant camp, Stroob. You
really
should."

B
urt looked at me and said, "He'd better go with a winner, hadn't he?"

I said, "It's gonna be semi-tough, but we're lookin' forward to it."

Burt Danby said, "Hey, Stud. Listen. Strooby here lias a couple of the niftiest damn teen-age boys you'll ever meet. Really a nifty couple of kids. Chip and Clipper. Thirteen and fourteen.
Terrific
sailors and
plenty good
at paddle tennis."

That was good, I said.

"Oh, hell, they're sports fans, all right," said Strooby McMackin. "They read
Sports Illustrated
from cover to cover every month, and of course they don't miss a Colgate game. I was Colgate 'Fifty-one."

No kidding, I said.

Burt Danby said, "Stud, I know you want to relax, and we're leaving. But take just a minute here and write something to Chip and Clipper on this menu from the Senor Sombrero Cafe. Just anything. 'Hi, Chip and Clipper, all the best, from the All-Pro himself, Billy Clyde Puckett.' Anything at all."

Strooby McMackin said, "Hell, they'll put that right up on their wall with the poster of Robert Redford."

Then he said, "Puckett, I really do feel badly about being so shit-faced the other night. I was totaled, believe me. And Burt knows that I can usually outdrink anybody at the Creek or Twenty-One or the Frog, or anywhere."

I wrote something fast on the menu to Clip and Chipper, or maybe it was the other way around.

"
Super
," said Burt Danby, slapping me on the bare
back. It stung, as a matter of fuckin' fact.

I couldn't resist asking the president of Kentuckian Cigarettes, since he hadn't mentioned it, if he recognized that girl with Shake Tiller the other night, the one down at the cabanas. Barbara Jane Bookman.

"Yeah," he said. "That was, uh, who was that?"

I took considerable delight in telling him that she was the girl in all of his Kentuckian ads right now, on all of the signboards and on the backs of magazines.

"The hell she is," he said. "Well, that just goes to show you how much a president knows."

"
Plenty
good-looking girl," said Burt Danby. "And the ad's a real winner, Stroob. Our creative guys just did a
super
job."

I said she worked a lot at what she does and that she might be the most familiar girl in advertising. I said she had been the Ford Fatigue Girl and the Chrysler Catastrophe Girl and the Mercury Malaria Girl.

Strooby McMackin said, "Well, I'll have to keep an eye out for her. Say, Burt. If this girl's working for me and she's a Giant fan, I guess I'll have to cheer a little for your guys tomorrow."

Burt Danby looked at me and said, "Is he a
top
guy? You're too much, Stroob. You
really
are."

They said they had to go.

"Have a good game, Puckett," said Strooby McMackin. "And may the best team win."

"As long as it's us." I smiled.

Burt Danby whooped. "Is that something, Stroob? Is that
positive
enough?"

As they left Burt Danby turned back toward me and gritted his teeth and made a gesture with his doubled-up list like he was hitting somebody in the stomach.

"Let's get 'em
good
," he said.

I said O.K. I'd get 'em if he would.

I think I've just heard Shake and Barbara Jane and Cissy come in. So I guess this is all the news for now from Walter Cronkite.

I'll try to get up early enough tomorrow morning to share a few experiences from Elroy's party with you before I go to get taped and eat breakfast with the team.

Might help me calm down some to get up early and do that.

Don't know as though I'll be able to sleep much anyhow.

As Shoat Cooper says about big games, "I believe I see in the papers where we got us a damned old formal dance comin' up."

We sure do, if there is any truth in all captivity.

And old Billy Clyde is gonna be asked to dance ever dance.

Hit them biscuits with another touch of gravy,

Burn that sausage just a match or two more done.

Pour my black old coffee longer,

While that smell in gettin' stronger,

A semi-meal ain't nuthin' much to want.

Loan me ten, I got a feelin' it'll save me,

With an ornery soul who don't shoot pool for fun,

If that coat'll fit you're wearin',

The Lord'll bless your sharin'
—

A semi-friend ani't nuthin' much to want.

And let me halfway fall in love,

For part of a lonely night,

With a semi-pretty woman in my arms.

Yes, I could halfway fall in deep
—

Into a snugglin', lovin' heap,

With a semi-pretty woman in my arms.

The stereo in our palatial suite is turned down fairly low so that nobody can get waked up by Elroy's singing, or my own humming. That's while I sit here in the early dawn on Super Bowl day and try to believe what I'm looking at, which I hope will cure my headache.

Reading from left to right on the coffee table in the living room here, we've got
—
let me see
—
a cold bottle
of Coors, a pot of hot coffee, a tall glass of milk, a tall glass of tomato juice, a pitcher of ice water and a small bottle of Anacin.

I have gone up and down the row a couple of times and it's beginning to help a little bit. Not much. But I'm not dead, at least.

I ought to be, however. Dead, I mean. I ought to be dead for drinking up a young Pacific Ocean full of Scotch. And I ought to be dead from being shot, for having drank it the night before the Super Bowl.

When this book comes out about seven or eight months from now, Jim Tom old buddy, nobody is going to believe what they read about the things which happened the night before the biggest sports event of the year.

It was stronger than a used-up high school date is all it was.

As parties go, I suppose Elroy's would have to rate right up there with Hurricane Carla.

When the four of us got there it was just about dark and the party obviously had already started. We had to park about two blocks away but we could hear some music and hollering without any strain.

Elroy had rented one of those semi-castles in Bel Air, up there near the golf course. It was one of those old stone mansions that look like somebody in the family went crazy and got sealed off in one wing.

It had a big old hedge all the way around it, and a big old yard, and a big old swimming pool, and a lot of big old eucalyptus trees, and it was all lighted up.

The first thing we noticed when we walked into the yard was about two hundred people we had never seen before. It probably would have looked like a costume party to most people from Fort Worth.

The guys were dressed like everybody from Jesus Harold to John Wayne. And the girls who weren't dressed like Indian princesses or bathing beauties or rodeo trick riders were dressed like light hooks. Which was with short, tight skirts, high heels, squeezed together lungs and sullen faces.

Pretty visible through it all, however, was an awful lot of southern California witch wool
—
stewardi, semi
-
starlets, or whatever they were
—
who were running around acting like Elroy's hostesses.

The reason they were visible is because they weren't wearing anything but man-sized white T-shirts with some blue and red printing on them. The T-shirts said: GIANTS 28, JETS 17.

What I mean by nothing on underneath the T-shirts, is nothing but skin and wool. Which a man could easily tell when one of them bent over or sat down, or when a man simply stared at the various feasts of lungs which jiggled and poked around in the semi-thin T-shirts.

At first, we just kind of explored. We were looking to see where everything was.

Food and drinks were almost everywhere, indoors and outdoors. A big old buffet of barbecued ribs
—
Texas style, which means smoked and not chinked
—
was stretched all across a part of the back lawn. A slightly smaller one was in the living room.

The living room looked like some kind of fuckin' cathedral with a big old pointed ceiling and paintings hanging everywhere of a bunch of guys who looked like they used to be Popes but weren't. Or some kind of Frenchmen.

There was a bar with a bartender in every room, including the semi-huge bathroom off of what I think was a master bedroom upstairs in one wing.

It must have been the master bedroom because it was about fifty feet long with a fireplace across one wall, a lot of bookshelves, and a big old desk with several Academy Award statues on it. There was also a big painting of a pretty lady. And a bed the size of Fuller Junior High.

The bathroom off of it looked like Greece, or what I guess Greece looks like. It had a big old step-down marble tub, a waterfall, two or three basins, a stereo, a color TV, a leather chair, some statues of studs and goddesses, thick carpet, a balcony, and a fishing stream.

A few times while we were milling about, some of those T-shirted little dandies with the no-panties and the dinner lungs came up to us and chatted.

One that came around was about twenty-two, I'd say, and had long black hair and big blue eyes. She also had a big, blue homemade cigarette in her hand about the size of a pregnant Winston.

She said we could all find one for ourselves if we would lift up the tops of the silver trays next to the ribs on the buffet tables.

She said the name for this kind of anti-God cigarette was a "Waimea Rush," but in New York they probably called it a "Village Lunch." Or used to, she said.

She was pretty enough to make our traveling squad, I thought. Not the team's. Ours. Me and Shake's.

She said her name was Linda and she mostly skied at Aspen and mostly surfed at Waimea Bay and mostly danced at the Ho Chi Minh Trail. She said she flew for Pacific Basin Airlines and she lived at the Sunset Boulevard Towers
—
five four two, eight six three one
—
and that she mostly liked to smoke dope and talk nasty and fuck athletes.

"What do you do for fun?" Barbara Jane asked her.

There was another one who came up to us and had blond hair going off in different directions and a pair of funny glasses on her nose and was eating a rib.

She said her name was Felicia and that she had gone a year to UCLA, a year to the University of Texas, a year to Radcliffe and two years to a lettuce farm in Salinas.

She said Zebba Den Karab had a better idea about things than Jesus Christ or even Hitler, who was grossly misunderstood, she said.

She said she didn't like Europe any more because it was trying too hard to "catch up." She said Rippy, Iowa, had it all over Europe.

She said the best thing about the South Seas was to go there and get tremendously sunburned and have somebody beat on your back with long, wet leaves.

She wanted to know if Barbara Jane or Cissy wanted to eat her. She said she had chocolate candy, marshmallows, peanut butter and buttered popcorn in her "fun kit."

She wasn't bad-looking for an intellectual.

Shake Tiller asked her, "Where'd Zebba Den Karab wind up after he lost his kickin' foot and the Cowboys traded him?"

Felicia just stared at all of us and shook her head and wandered off into the night with the rib in her mouth.

There was another one that was real healthy-looking. She was a bit meatier than the rest, and taller. Being taller, her T-shirt didn't hang down quite far enough to cover up her wool more than halfway.

She had strong thighs and strong arms but she was semi-inviting for the man who sometimes gets in the mood for a gold medal swimmer.

She said her name was Nancy and she was studying to be a nurse.

Nancy said the party seemed pretty dull to her. Nobody wanted to do anything, she said, but eat and drink and smoke dope, which was corny. Or stand around and pose and make silly talk. There was nobody "alive," she said. "
Nothing
is happening."

I couldn't help but ask Nancy what was wrong with dope and booze and music and sex.

"Easy for you to say," she said. "What about the rest of us?"

What about them, I said.

"Like me," she said.

What about her, I asked, in all seriousness.

"Look, I've been here maybe three or four hours, right?" she said. "And there are, maybe, fifty or a hundred guys around, fair? Fifty or a hundred?"

O.K., I said.

"Well, I must have asked at least half of them to come have some fun with me, and not one has taken me up on it," said Nancy.

Me and Shake asked about the same time what Nancy had wanted those chaps to do.

"Just something that would please
me
, that's all," she said.

Shake said he didn't see how that ought to be a problem at all. I didn't, either.

I do remember at this point that Barbara Jane was smiling at us and saying, "Boy, you guys are dumb."

Nancy went on, "Nobody knows where it's at. Nobody."

Shake said, "I can see part of it."

Nancy scoffed and said that figured. We were just like all the others. Selfish. Crude. Insensitive. Unimaginative.

She looked at us and said, "Don't you know what's
fun
for a woman? Look, I'll tell you. Have you been up to the master bedroom?"

We said yeah.

"Have you seen the bathroom off of it?" she said.

We said yeah.

"The thing that would
most
turn me on," she said, "would be to get naked and stretch out in that marble tub and have six guys come in and do the number."

Could she be a little more explicit, Shake said.

"
Christ
," she said. "The world is really a goner. I'll spell it out, O.K.? Look, I want to get in that marble tub and simply stretch out and let six guys piss on me. What else?"

Barbara Jane busted up and clapped her hands like a gospel singer and did a kind of little old spook-rhythm dance step.

"
All right
," Barb said.

Me and Shake looked at Nancy. I guess I was thinking what a shame it was to see that gold-medal body wasted.

Shake finally said, "I think we can turn this party around for you if we can find a friend of ours here named
T.J.
Lambert."

I just had to run off to the phone there for a minute. It was that Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Jim Tom Pinch who said he wanted to know how I felt and what was going through my mind on the morning of the big game.

"I was only trying to remember what color the dog-ass Jets wear," I said. "Don't they wear green?"

Jim Tom said he thought so.

"I believe that's Baylor's color, too, isn't it?" I said.

Jim Tom said it was last week.

"Well," I said, "how in the hell can anybody expect Old Twenty-three to get worked up over a team that wears the same goddamn color as Baylor?"

Jim Tom Pinch said I sure sounded like I got a lot of rest last night.

"Hey, Stud," he said. "Can't you get somebody around there to draw you a warm tub of Visine?"

I asked Jim Tom how it was going in Fort Worth with Crazy Iris and the Port Lavaca Sandcrabs and the lovely and charming Earlene Padgett.

"I'm more concerned about the book," Jim Tom said. "Have you got lots of stuff on tape?"

I said I was the most prolific mother he'd come across since Big-un Darley.

"How's the detail?" he asked. "Got lots of insights?"

I said that I had paid a particular mind to detail. That I had made absolutely certain that whenever I had a young Scotch and water it was either J&B or White Label.

"Paschal win big in last night's semi-final against the Corbett Comets. Astronaut Jones got thirty-two wearing dark glasses with a bandana tied around his head," Jim Tom said.

I asked who Paschal played tonight.

"Paschal plays Astronaut Jones. Jones plays the Port Lavaca Sandcrabs, who beat the Itasca Wampus Cats like they were fags," Jim Tom said.

Paschal got a chance, I wondered.

"About as much chance as they'd have against Africa," Jim Tom said. "Port Lavaca took the precaution of bringing along some seven-foot Mau Maus."

No chance, I said. Right?

"Did a one-legged man ever win an ass-kickin' contest?" Jim Tom said.

My collaborator said his home life was going along pretty smooth. Earlene had only broken a clock radio lately, throwing it at him, and broken a window pane in the bedroom, throwing a jar of cold cream at him.

"Sounds like you might have been seen in the company of Crazy Iris," I said. "I don't think you ought to go on those midday picnics down there in Forest Park where everybody in the world can drive by."