Semi-Tough (5 page)

"I have done that, sir," Shake said.

"No you haven't," he said. "You haven't done a goddamn thing but catch passes."

"Only the ones they threw me," Shake said.

"Just run out there and catch the goddamn passes," the guy gestured. "Big football deal. The Giants, for Christ's sake."

"Yes, sir, most of the passes I catch are for the Giants," said Shake.

"If it weren't for pro football most of you heroes would be running a goddamn gas station somewhere. Tulsa or somewhere," the guy said.

"That's fairly close to it," Shake grinned.

"It is, huh?"

"Yeah, fairly close," Shake said.

"But not quite?"

"No, just fairly close," said Shake.

"And just how close is fairly close, hero?" the guy asked.

"I don't know exactly. I've been there, too. Fairly Close was the home of Martha Nell Burch," said Shake.

"Oh, that's cute," the drunk said.

"No, it's Fairly Close is actually what it is. Right out there near Not Quite. Good cattle country," said Shake.

"Jesus Christ," said the guy.

"He came around there some," Shake said.

"Jesus, you're an ass hole, you know that?"

"Yeah, but that was later," said Shake. "Back in Fairly Close all of her friends and Martha Nell Burch just thought I was a rascal, more or less."

The nitwit was getting dark pink in the face and kind of weaving back and forth.

"You're all wise guys, is that it? Big football deals. Holy fucking Moses, these goddamn football types," he said.

The guy made an effort to belch an excuse me toward Barbara Jane and Cissy. For the language.

But Shake was talking.

"Never saw Moses around much," Shake was saying. "Just Martha Nell Burch and her friends. Most of 'em were in the 4-H Club. Some people said you had to seek your fun elsewhere than in Fairly Close. That's what some people said."

"Ought to be running a gas station or something," the nitwit said.

"Of course, some people didn't know Martha Nell Burch as well as I did," said Shake.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about now," the guy said.

"That's what I've been meaning to ask you," Shake said. "What the hell am I talking about?"

"I don't have any goddamn idea," he said.

"Now, you see there?" said Shake.

"What?" said the guy.

"What you just said," Shake laughed.

"What's that?"

"You just said you didn't have any idea about something and here I've just been trying to explain to you about Martha Nell Burch," said Shake.

"Martha Nell who? Where the hell is she? Christ, get her in here. Is she a hooker? I got a lot of dough. Is she a spade? Goddamn I love a good-looking spade hooker." The guy spilled part of his drink.

And Shake said, "Martha Nell Burch is anything she wants to be."

"Get her in here. Jesus, I'd rather spend my time with a good hooker than a goddamn football hero," said the

guy-

"Well, that's the sad part. She wanted to be here but she phoned up to say that her cattle are sick," Shake said.

"You're full of shit," said the guy.

"No, sir. That's the cattle. They're all full of it, so Martha Nell says we'll have to wait a while before we can kill 'em and eat 'em," Shake said.

"Huh?"

"That's what you do with cattle. You kill 'em and eat 'em. That's called good government," Shake said.

"Jesus Christ," said the guy, turning up his drink.

Shake looked around and said, "Does anybody know if I'm finished? Billy C., am I all done here? Barb?"

Barbara Jane said she thought that about summed it all up. I agreed. I told the man that stud athletes like us had to get to bed pretty early. Cissy Walford just kept staring at Shake and frowning.

"Well, hero," the nitwit said. "I just hope you can make more sense in the LA Coliseum on Sunday than you did here tonight."

"Will you be there?" Shake asked.

"Hell, I didn't come all the way out to California to stand around with this bunch of drunks from New York."

"New York? Is there anybody here from New York?" Shake said.

"Greatest goddamn city in the world, New York," the guy said.

"That's sure what all the folks in London say," said Shake.

"New York's where it's at," the drunk said.

"I think you're right. That's where it was, anyhow. At least it was there the last time I saw it. We had it hidden pretty good. You don't have any with you, do you? No, I guess not."

Shake raised his eyebrows at us.

"Hell of a city, New York," the guy said.

Shake said, "Nobody ever called it Wanatchapee, Wisconsin."

"I'm from Noooo York City, hero. Home of the New York Jets," he said.

"Dog-ass Jets," Shake said.

"Goddamn live town, New York," said the guy.

"They tell me the Bronx is up and the Battery's down. You know anything about that?" Shake giggled.

"Center of every goddamn thing there is, almost," the drunk said.

"There's a broken heart for every light, too, somebody said," Shake went on.

"They give you this southern California bullshit. Hollywood, for Christ's sake. Bunch of goddamn weirdos in their swimming pools," said the nitwit.

"I'll sure take New York over a bunch of weirdos," Shake said. "The thing about weirdos is, you don't know who their families are."

"Listen, hero," the guy said, looking serious and squinting.

"Yeah," Shake said.

"Knock off the crap. You want to know something. You're a good-looking son of a bitch," he said.

Shake laughed sort of clumsily.

"You're a lippy son of a bitch but you're a good
-
looking son of a bitch," he said to Shake.

"You got me then," Shake said. "Sure did."

"No, it's all right. We're just talking a lot of crap here, right? You're O.K. You're an ass hole but you're O.K.," the drunk said.

"That's, uh, that's really keen," said Shake.

"You're going to get your cock knocked off Sunday but you're a good-looking son of a bitch," he said.

And he weaved a little.

"Good thing my wife's not here. She'd be after you like a goddamn starving hooker," he said.

"Now I wouldn't talk like that about old Hazel," Shake said. "She's one of the finest ladies that ever played paddle tennis."

"The wife's name is Dorothy, hero. And you're goddamn lucky you don't know her," said the guy.

"I don't see how you can talk about Alice that way," Shake said.

"Alice who?"

"Hey, sir. Listen. We've really got to be going," Shake said.

Shake took Barbara Jane's arm and started backing off. I did the same with Cissy Walford.

"All the best, hero," the nitwit said. "Watch out for your cock on Sunday."

"Been a real pleasure, sir," Shake winked.

"Get out of here, football deal, ass-hole hero," the guy said.

"You say hello to old Grace now," said Shake.

"Dorothy, you prick," said the guy.

"You say hello to old Dorothy, too," said Shake.

"Fuck the New York Giants," the nitwit said.

Shake laughed and said, "God love America."

And we left.

I'm afraid we made a bit of a spectacle of ourselves at Ugo's later on. We started making up stories about Martha Nell Burch in the middle of our lemon veal and fettucini.

We decided that if she had gone to TCU, she would have come from Floydada with big lungs and skinny calves and a lot of chewing gum.

She would have had Amelia Simcox for a friend, Barbara Jane said, and in their sophomore year they would have screwed the whole varsity three-deep chart.

Shake said she probably would have fallen hopelessly
in love with Bubba Littleton, who was our equivalent of
T.J.
Lambert.

Bubba Littleton was a second-string tackle from Odessa who once went one whole semester without bathing, shaving, combing his hair or brushing his teeth. He did it to get back at Honey Jean Lester for breaking up with him. Shake said Bubba smelled like Albania.

Bubba Littleton couldn't top
T.J.
Lambert for sheer, all-out filth but he had his moments.

Shake brought up the time we all went out on a varsity picnic at Lake Worth and Bubba got caught by his date, Honey Jean Lester, while he was beating off underneath the dock.

Honey had walked out on the dock looking to see if Bubba was among the water skiers. But when she accidentally glanced down between some cracks in the boards, there was Bubba in the shallow water and the shade staring at some loveli
es on the beach for inspiration
—
and flogging away.

At dinner Shake imitated Honey Jean Lester hollering at Bubba.

"Bubba Littleton! You done grossed me out for the last time."

When we got back to our palatial suite at the Beverly Stars Hotel, Shake and Barbara Jane were feeling romantic so they excused themselves.

First, though, Barbara Jane gave me a kiss and explained to Cissy Walford that she and Shake had to go study Sunday's game plan.

She said to Cissy, "Don't you and Billy C. do any foolin' around now."

I turned on the TV and tried to look at a fag cowboy for a while with Cissy Walford's dandy lungs resting on my arm. I tried to look at the TV while she looked at me.

It won't hurt anything, I guess, to say that old Billy Clyde finished off the evening by doing his manly duty.

I've got to say, however, that I could have done it a little better if Cissy hadn't asked me a question in the middle of some serious goings-on.

"I don't understand something," Cissy said. "Is Martha Nell Burch a real person or what?"

I want to say that I got woke up this morning by Cissy Walford handing me the telephone through her long yellow hair. She stretched and blinked her mile
-
long eyelashes and seemed to be saying that there was a man on the phone who wanted to know if I had heard his imitation of a cricket.

"Sumbitch." I smiled. "Elroy Blunt."

That's who it was.

When I first knew Elroy Blunt he was a semi-talented defensive back. In those days he certainly didn't have his handlebar mustache and his hair like Prince Valiant. Elroy had played ball when I first got to know him at Memphis State, and me
and Shake met him at the East-
West Shrine Game and the Hulu Bowl and the Coaches' All-America Game and the College All-Star Game, all of which is the post-season circuit that senior studs travel on.

Elroy played one season with the Steelers after that. But then he quit. He was always jacking around with a guitar anyhow, trying to pick and sing and write country songs. And he had finally made it pretty big.

Elroy, of course, was crazy. And he was no more predictable than what I hear about bad wives. Elroy Blunt was apt to call you up from Portugal or somewhere just to say he had set a new headache record.

On the telephone for a minute or two, of course, I didn't hear anything but cricket sounds.

Then Elroy said, "Clyde, this here's your favorite cousin, Bernice Lovejowl, and I just been busted in Paraguay for going down on the mayor. I need two thousand to scoop up and bail out."

I giggled a hello.

"Clyde," Elroy said. "I'd first off like an explanation about that lovely sound of young wool that answered the electric telephone at this early hour."

I explained that it was the utterly fantastic Cissy Walford.

"Who might that be?" Elroy said.

"That's the American name she chose," I said. "In reality, she's a gotch-eyed, hump-backed, clapped-up Cambodian hooker who stopped over to help me work a pornographic jigsaw puzzle."

Cissy pinched my thigh until it almost bled.

Elroy said, "Well, I'd like to sing that little jewel a tune."

I gave Cissy the phone and leaned over so I could listen in. Elroy proceeded to sing a medley of his biggies.
He sang "I'm Just a Bug on the Windshield of Life" and then he sang "Eight Killed at the Intersection" and then he sang "Slept All Day in the Lobby."

"That's incredibly marvelous," said Cissy.

She listened to Elroy for a moment and squealed and handed me the phone.

"He wanted to know whether I liked Hershey bars, running water or vibrators the best," she said.

I told Elroy it was good to know he hadn't changed.

"Clyde," he said. "Son, I have called you up on a matter of important business."

I said yeah.