Life Its Ownself (16 page)

Dreamer was already on strike, I thought. He just hadn't walked off the job.

The sound that ricocheted around my room before I lowered it was Larry Hoage crying out to his viewers that he had just witnessed the reincarnation of Tom Harmon.

"Incredible!" screamed Larry Hoage. "Unbelievable! What a move he put on Dreamer Tatum!"

"Flag," said another voice, quietly. "They're bringing it back."

Undaunted, Larry Hoage yelled, "Talk about your O. J. Simpson! Talk about your Walter Payton! Talk about your Franco Harris!"

"Holding," the other voice said. It was the voice of the color man, Don Avery, a former linebacker for Miami.

Larry Hoage forged onward.

"That makes it fifty to fourteen, Rams, with the extra point to come! But we've still got a ball game, Don Avery! These Redskins are a fourth-quarter team, remember! We'll be right back!"

Larry Hoage was calmer when the telecast resumed after a commercial.

"Don, it's amazing how these Rams have overcome so many penalties today. That was their eighth holding call, their sixteenth infraction of the game! But you sure can't tell it's hurt them when you look at the old scoreboard!"

The color man said, "We've seen a lot of mistakes. Referee Charlie Teasdale and his crew have been pretty busy. The Rams haven't been smooth at all, but the Redskins haven't been able to take advantage of those mistakes. It's definitely an off day for Washington."

"Golly, Miss Moses, the Rams have put the old soo-prise on 'em today!" Larry Hoage chattered.

On the next play, the Rams ran the same sweep as before, this time from Washington's 41-yard line. As deftly as on the previous play, Dreamer Tatum let the Los Angeles ball-carrier brush past him. Two other Redskins tripped over themselves. And the Ram loped for a touchdown.

Larry Hoage was incoherent for ninety seconds, after which Don Avery mentioned the flag that had once again been thrown. This time it was clipping. No score.

Just then, my phone rang. It was Shake Tiller.

"Turn on the game," he said.

"It's on," I said.

"Great, isn't it? Dreamer bet the Over and Charlie Teasdale's got the Under. It's a hell of a contest."

"I think it's mostly a case of work stoppage where Dreamer's concerned."

"Could be," said Shake, "but it looks like he's trying to build up the strike fund while he's at it."

I went around to Shake's room and watched the rest of the game with him.

Due to a grotesque combination of penalties and Washington ineptitude, neither team scored again. In all, the Rams had four touchdowns called back in the fourth quarter.

Shake couldn't have been more delighted with the final result. Rams 44, Redskins 14. This put the total points scored in the game at 58. The over-and-under betting number had been 58
½
, Shake said. Referee Charlie Teasdale had skillfully thrown enough flags to hold the Under.

"The guy's an artist," Shake said. "He doesn't usually have to resort to grand larceny, but fuck, he was up against the whole Redskin team!"

That was as good a time as any for me to ask Shake about the article he was working on.

"I'm gonna give the sport an enema," he said. "It's overdue."

"Why?"

"For its own good."

"That's the worst kind of shit. I read it in a book."

"Absolutely. That's why pro football deserves it. I'm gonna get even."

"For what? All the game did was make you rich and get you laid."

"You kidding? I made Burt Danby rich and got my ownself laid. It's a different game, man. It's a fucking bore. It's Wall Street football—a bunch of drones doing what a computer tells 'em to. Shit, B.C., you know how it was. We wanted to win every week. I might have acted casual, but I never played casual. We got after everybody's ass. We didn't take days off. Pride wouldn't let us. But I saw the poison coming. I didn't bitch about it? I didn't say they were using the rules and the zebras to make everybody equal? The competition's not on the field anymore. It's in the TV ratings. It's which owner has the best hors d'oeuvres in his luxury box. But you know what? They've tricked themselves. The greed's passed down. Now everybody's in on it. In a sixteen-game season, who'll remember those three or four games when the guys went south and bet the other side? The broadcasters will keep on saying how great they are—even when they hike their leg and call it a pass route. Don't be critical on the air, B.C. It won't sell. And I sure wouldn't want you to say a zebra can call holding on every play if he wants to, and isn't it curious how often it affects the game when he does call it? I've talked to receivers today, man. They come out of the huddle, they don't read defenses. They read zebras. Try to figure out which way they've bet!"

Shake poured himself a cup of coffee from a room-service table.

"I think the public's wising up. TV ratings are starting to drop. There are more no-shows in the stadiums. It's NFL roulette. There's six cylinders in the gun, right? Used to be, you had five chances to catch a bullet when they pulled the trigger. There was always one lay-down artist. Now you've only got one chance out of six. One bullet in the gun. One guy who wants to win the game. On the Giants before you got hurt, that was you. You know what's in the other five cylinders? You have a coke-head... a gambler... a labor organizer ... a millionaire who's too rich to care... and a zebra.

"Hey, we won a Super Bowl and it's great, man. Love my ring. I wouldn't take anything for it. But I gotta tell you something. Our last drive? We scratched and clawed and fought our ass off. You finally scored and the rockets went off, but I was a nervous wreck. I knew we had the best team. We deserved to win. That's what made it worse, especially when we got down close and could smell it. On every play from their thirty on in, I was thinking, Uh-oh, here it comes. Here's where Hose lays one up there for them instead of us. Turns out he bet the Giants."

"Hose Manning wasn't Dump McKinney."

"No, but I'm glad he never had a phone in the huddle."

"Uncle Kenneth said he talked to you."

"He confirmed some things."

"What are you trying to do to poor old Charlie Teasdale? He's worked some funny games, but so what?"

Shake did five minutes on Charlie Teasdale. Charlie was a housebuilder in Dallas in real life. High interest rates had almost buried him three years ago. He had been woefully in debt, but he had somehow worked his way out from under it although he hadn't sold any houses. Charlie Teasdale was also a degenerate old bastard who had whup stashed all over Dallas and Fort Worth. What did it add up to when you put all this together with the games he had officiated, games where the final scores had looked stranger than hieroglyphics?

"An unfortunate set of circumstances," I said.

"Try Charles Manson."

For the sake of argument, I said, "Some friends probably bailed him out of debt. Charlie's a dunce, Shake. He's inept. They ought to retire him. If you write what I think you're gonna write, you're liable to get your ass sued—and it'll be a hell of a lot easier for Charlie Teasdale to prove he's a fool than it will for you to prove he's a thief."

"He gave somebody a game," Shake said with calm satisfaction.

"To bet on?"

"Somebody we know."

"Who?"

"How was Fort Worth?"

Shake was savoring the moment.

"Not Uncle Kenneth," I said. "If Uncle Kenneth had hold of something that good, he wouldn't tell anybody, least of all you and me. He wouldn't trade it for a ticket to Heaven!"

"It wasn't Kenneth and it wasn't Jim Tom. It was a female acquaintance of ours."

Call me dense. I was stumped.

"She's a Minister of Mystical Theology."

"Kim Cooze told you Charlie Teasdale gave her a game?"

I didn't often sing soprano.

"She took it to the rack. Came back with a Camaro."

"Jesus Christ," I said, limply.

"Yep, tits finally got him," said Shake. "Now I've got him."

As a rule, I seldom created a disturbance in a restaurant when a waiter shattered me with the news that he was out of both the monkfish and the scallop mousse with dill and fennel.

But this was too much.

Rodney, our waiter at Enjolie's in Beverly Hills, was now apologizing to Shake and I because we were so late in ordering, he could no longer offer us the casserole with snails and chanterelles, or even the turbot with green peppercorns and hazelnuts.

"Rodney, you really know how to hurt a guy," I said.

We had been at the bar in Enjolie's for two hours. Barbara Jane, still at rehearsal, had got around to calling and telling us to go ahead and dine without her. She would be along as soon as she could, or, failing that, she would see me back at the hotel.

Enjolie's was the hottest new restaurant in Beverly Hills that month. It had blue Provengal wallpaper, dainty lace curtains framing impressionistic murals, Plexiglas dinnerware, and maybe not as many trees as the Black Forest but surely more shrubbery than the Everglades.

Shake and I had taken the precaution to wear conservative suits and ties. Experience had taught us to dress that way in Beverly Hills or else you ran the risk of being mistaken for someone in the entertainment industry.

Producers and directors wore sport coats with open-collared shirts unless they had come directly from a location, in which case they might feature a scruffy ensemble from Western Costume or a foul-weather sailing jacket and a cap with a braided bill.

Hollywood writers leaned toward windbreakers and fatigue jackets, occasionally an old crewneck sweater, although a writer had to be careful about the sweater and not have it thrust around the shoulders of his polo shirt like a junior studio executive.

Actors fell into the category of Formula One jackets, Dodger jackets, Laker jackets, Davis Cup jackets, anything sporting, with a two-day growth of fuzz on their jaws and sunglasses atop their heads. The idea was to look virile, athletic, and working.

An actress was less predictable. She didn't always find it necessary to rush into a bistro with a scrubbed face, looking as if she had just picked out any old raincoat and thrown it over her aerobic leotard and tights, and only had time for a squab salad and a little white wine because she had an early call tomorrow. An actress could look splashy, trendy, tempting, room-stoppingly beautiful, because it could always be assumed she had come from an exclusive party where she had mingled with the elite and powerful, men who had bravely put their artistic reputations on the line to produce such locomotives as
Porkula
and
Revolt of the Scumbags
.

Amid the shrubbery at Enjolie's, we were encompassed by three dozen of the most vibrant forces in the industry that week, but I had no way of being sure of it except to assume as much by the way they were dressed.

What I could be sure of was that I had no intention of letting Rodney pawn off the
Trois Petites Merveilles
on me.

"Goose liver sateed with what?" I asked the waiter, looking up from the menu he had wanted to snatch out of my hands.

"Xeres."

Shake and I exchanged looks over the tops of our menus.

Rodney said, "Goose liver sauteed in Xeres, delicately seasoned quail, and wonderfully flavored medallions of lobster. That is the
Trois Petites Merveilles
."

Shake finished off a young Scotch as Rodney tapped his foot impatiently.

"I
do
have the lamb. We coat it in bread crumbs," said Rodney. "I
do
have the escargot wrapped in a chicken breast. I can get you the venison. It comes with pears and creamed spinach on a puff pastry with
poivrade
sauce."

"How's the duck?" Shake wanted to know

"I'm afraid I
don't
have the duck, either. It's very popular. We smother it in papaya, blueberry, and kiwi sauce."

"Shit, Rodney, you're out of all my faves," said Shake.

"We've been extremely busy, as you can see."

"Tell you what," Shake said. "Just bring me two more J&Bs and a cup of coffee on the side."

"Me, too," I said.

Rodney performed an indignant pirouette and evaporated from our sight. But then Burrell came up to our table.

Enjolie's was one of those places that double-teamed you with Bad Witch, Good Witch.

"Has
anyone
taken your order?" Burrell said in a heartfelt tone with an apologetic look.

"Rodney's right on top of it," Shake said.

"Wonderful!"

"No joke intended," Shake said.

We drank another hour at Enjolie's. We might have left sooner if we hadn't become enthralled with the conversations at the tables around us.

Shake started writing on napkins when we heard a sport jacket say to a crewneck:

"Sidney's got the biggest balls in this town.
Becket's
ripe for a re-make. He'll get Pryor and Murphy
both
in it."