Semi-Tough (9 page)

He does O.K., by the way, which he says is not surprising because most everybody in real-life business is a dunce.

He likes to say, "I never knew a chairman of the board of anything that I'd let run an elevator for me."

Shake says one of his great ambitions is to meet a smart
guy
who's the boss of something.

I've heard him say, "Every time I'm introduced to
s
omebody who's supposed to know all about television
or
politics or Wall Street, he's a goddamn drop case."

H
e's said, "So far as I can figure out, the only three
ways
to get to the top in business is to get born rich, marry it, or be so fuckin' dumb they can't do anything but promote you to get you out of the way."

We do a couple of other things during the off-season
t
hat have helped Shake form this opinion. We have lunch a lot with dumb-asses who are "friends" of the
Giants
, and we spend a few random nights in places like "Twenty-one" talking to other dumb-asses.

I guess we like to drink and laugh at the drop cases or we wouldn't do it.

In fact, Shake once said he'd be perfectly happy if the whole world was semi-dark and indoors. That's a pretty funny line that's been quoted by a lot of other people around Clarke's and Manuche's.

Maybe if Shake wasn't a ball player he'd be a stud in public relations because he's handsome, a dude dresser, and has the gift of bullshit. I think he'd be good in television, if he wanted to do it, and from the money he's made for us in investments, I know damn well he could run a curl pattern on Wall Street.

Our apartment is pretty much known as a landmark around town.

It's the penthouse on the eighteenth floor of a semi
-
new building at Sixty-fifth and First. We've got a big living room and a bar, two big bedrooms, a kitchen with a bar, and a terrace. Shake has done it up pretty neat with thick carpet all over and comfortable furniture. And we've got a couple of fireplaces.

We've got stereo coming out of everywhere and color TV's built in here and there. We've got some paintings on the walls that Shake likes because you can make them out to be whatever you want them to be. There are a few blown-up photographs of us around, scoring touchdowns and getting our dicks knocked off.

There's a great big photograph of Puddin Patterson's little cousins, Albert and Bowie, sitting on our bench on a cold day at Yankee Stadium, sitting between me and Shake.

Oh, yeah, and we've got a Siamese cat named Martha Nell who's a rotten, surly bitch that hates us and tries to eat up all of our cashmere sweaters.

Mainly, our apartment is known as a landmark because we have a considerable number of parties there, some planned and some not. We always have one after a home game. Most of the guys on the team come up to see if we've discovered any new stewardesses in the building, or if Barbara Jane has any new model friends who might be half-horny.

When we first got up to New York we instituted the regular Monday afternoon all-skate during the fall. This was a thing where we got a few friends and a few light hooks to come in, get drunk, take naked, and have what we called an Eastern Regional Eat-Off.

Some of our TV friends that we met learned how to drop by for lunch, take part in the skate, and still make
the old five forty-seven to Greenwich.

T.J.
Lambert still holds the record for having performed the most formidable deed at a Monday all-skate.

One time there were these three spade hooks in attendance. They were hard-hitters and really good-natured. They let
T.J.
get them defrocked and boost them up on the mantel over the fireplace in the living room.

I can still see them sitting up there with their legs spread, singing like the Supremes, while
T.J.
took turns eating all three.

T.J.
still refers to our apartment as "Sperm City."

Well, I got to go off to the bright lights of Beverly Hills now. Probably ought to just stay here in our palatial suite and drink milk shakes since the dog-ass Jets are coming up for us Sunday.

But like Shake is prone to say at times, "Can't a man ever unwind? Is it all just work and worry?" That's his way of excusing a few young Scotches and a couple of drags on those anti-God cigarettes that a man gets handed to him now and then.

Might be some of that tonight, in fact.

So this is Billy Clyde Puckett's last mercy message of the evening. The port side is starting to list. Clear the rafts. Hymn singers and female impersonators over the side first.

Hope I don't need my I.D. card to get a drink in the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Which suddenly reminds me of what Shake Tiller used to say when we were kids and somebody would ask our age before selling us a cold Pearl.

Shake would have the collar turned up on his khaki shirt and he'd have his shades on and a cigarette in his teeth, and he'd say:

"Nobody ever asked us how old we were in the Mekong Delta."

When I think of all the men you must have killed

With those looks that you go lookin' at 'em with,

When I think of all the good homes that you've broke

With those promises you've whispered and you've spoke

Then I wonder why the Lord has gone and willed

That a Hard-hittin' Woman ain't no myth.

—
from "Hard-hittin' Woman,"

a song by Elroy Blunt

A
N APPROPRIATE TUNE TO BE FURNISHING back
-
g
lound music right now would be "Wore Out Mother,"
one
of Elroy Blunt's first big ones.

The point is, I'm just a little bit tired after last night.
It
might have to be a wrap so far as my night life is
concerned
until after we've dough-popped the dog-ass Jets.

That place we were at, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, was what you might call semi-O.K. if what a man has on
his
mind is drinking and smoking and fooling around with goddess women.

Cissy Walford ran about eighth and even Barbara lane would have been caught in a photo finish. That's how me and Shake gauged it at the peak hour in terms of sheer physical legs, lungs, asses, ankles and faces.

Now if you think that's not stronger than
T.J.
Lambert's underwear, then you can bust me.

Only the Old Skipper in the great beauty pageant in the sky could have known who most of these young things were. Or how they came up so glorious. It was just a whole pile of have bosoms, will travel; of long, tough legs; of extra-long, serious hair; and of soulful eyes.

Barbara Jane said they were what you call your southern California witches.

There isn't much to them, really, except physical stupendousness. They just sort of slouch around and toss their serious hair and do these slow dances by themselves, or with fags, with not too many clothes on. And if they speak at all, it is only something like, "Oh, hi. Didn't we meet at Screen Gems?"

We asked around who some of them were. We asked whether they were movie stars or semi-starlets or models, but you can't get any straight answers from people who live out here.

For instance, one of the persons we asked was the Western TV star, Boke Kellum, who sat with us, much to Cissy Walford's delight.

And all Boke Kellum said was, "They're all a bunch of silly pussies with
hideous
make-up."

Our general view was that the Ho Chi Minh Trail was a fairly nifty place, take away a few fags.

When you walk in, you go down some steps into a trench up to your waist and you begin to hear the muffled sounds of explosions and gunfire. And it seemed like we also heard some kind of serious voice reciting the Declaration of Independence off in the distance.

A fag spook in black pajamas comes up to you and asks if you're a member or anybody important. Then he leads you to a bunker where people are laying around on sandbags. The trench winds all around the place, to other bunkers, and other people. Everybody has to look up to the dance floor where the southern California witches are.

There are mosquito nets draped all around and everything is camouflaged in brown and yellow and green. It is sort of dark and there's a small spotlight that stays pointed at a portrait on the wall of Ho Chi Minh.

You don't hear the music so much in the bunkers because of the muffled gunfire and explosions and the Declaration of Independence. But up on the dance floor, you can hear it because it comes down out of the ceiling, out of guns mounted on the wing of an American jet fighter plane that seems to be halfway poked through the ceiling.

We thought the whole place smelled somewhat like grass.

This might have been because Boke Kellum didn't see anything wrong with lighting up a few times and passing the little darlings around. The waitresses didn't seem to mind taking a hit or two, which tended to have some effect on the service.

When I got to the bunker where my pals were, I couldn't tell for the dark who all was there at first. The first thing I saw was Boke Kellum sitting next to Cissy Walford. He stuck out his hand and said, "A real pleasure to meet a fellow athlete. I played a little football myself at Indiana State."

Like shit, I thought.

He had a real tough handshake like he was testing the stud hoss's grip, or trying to cover up the dicks he's swallowed.

Shake was propped up on a sandbag with his arm around Barbara Jane.

"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 unti
l 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.