Life Its Ownself (19 page)

Artis had gone home to Willow Neck in the sleek white Jaguar he had decided to keep. He was mostly just lolling around the house now, playing with the cur dogs and watching one of the 240 TV channels he could pick up from the satellite dish an SMU alum had had installed in the yard.

SMU's coaches couldn't very well complain about Artis' keeping the Jaguar. It would be an admission that he had received an under-the-table gift in the first place.

But the vital thing was that Artis Toothis hadn't played a single down of football for the SMU Mustangs. From the start of two-a-days, he had complained of a pinched ankle, thereby giving himself time to shop around for better opportunities. Under the rules, therefore, he could lay out a season—this one—and be eligible to play for another school next year. And the other school was going to be TCU.

I asked T. J. why he was so certain of it.

Big Ed Bookman was arranging it, the coach said. Big Ed had come to the conclusion that looking for chaparrals was more challenging than looking for dinosaurs. Big Ed had already proved himself in the oil bidness. Big Ed had realized that if he could bring the No. 1 college team to Fort Worth, it would be the crowning accomplishment of his life. They would probably re-name River Crest Country Club after him.

Any project this big had to have a solid foundation. Big Ed had begun laying the groundwork for it by hiring Tonsillitis' brother, Darnell, as his personal assistant at Bookman Oil & Gas. He was paying Darnell a whopping salary and he had given him a big office next door to his own. Darnell's job had nothing to do with oil or gas, of course. Darnell's job was to put Tonsillitis Johnson and Artis Toothis in TCU's backfield.

Only today, T.J. reported, Darnell had visited with Artis Toothis down in Willow Neck and it looked like they weren't that far apart in the negotiations. It was nothing Big Ed couldn't handle with Grovers. Grover Clevelands. Thousand- dollar bills.

"You know Big Ed," T.J. said. "Ain't nobody gonna out-Grover Big Ed when he gets that look in his eye."

T.J. let out a delirious hoot. Then he said:

"Can you imagine what it's gonna be like to have them two burners in my backfield? Good God a-mighty! I won't have to do nothin' but get out of their way and mastrebate!"

The head coach of the Horned Frogs couldn't wait for the present season to be over so he could start putting in his two-back offense for next year. Since the victory I had witnessed over Rice, the Frogs had beaten only one other foe, UT-Arlington. They were 2-and-4, and they still had to face Ohio State in an intersectional game along with the strongest teams in the conference, Houston, Baylor, Texas, and Texas A&M.

It looked like another 2-9 record for T.J.

"I done writ this sumbitch off," he said.

Of the gloomy prospect of having to go to Columbus, Ohio, T. J. said, "I don't know what pea-brain scheduled that cocksucker!"

Shake and I congratulated T.J. on his re-building job. We had never dreamed the day would come when TCU would start to operate like a big-league school. Now it was upon us.

"This thing could snowball," said the coach. "Big Ed wants Darnell to keep representin' athletes as a sideline."

"Sideline to what?" I said, laughing.

T.J. said, "Darnell is a geologist, in case anybody wants to know. We got a fuckin' scroll hangin' on his wall."

Shake said, "Coach, it looks like we could be good for years to come if we don't go to jail."

"I ain't worried about them NCAA phonies," said T. J. "They can come down here and sniff around all they want to. We'll strap some perjury on they ass and send 'em home!"

I owned up to T. J. that a thought was making me dizzy but giving me considerable pleasure at the same time. I said it was not easy for me to envision a black man—Darnell Johnson—sitting in an office in Big Ed Bookman's oil-and-gas building, not far from River Crest Country Club, right there on the fashionable West Side of Fort Worth, Texas, USA.

"Big Ed don't give a shit if he's polka-dot. All Big Ed wants is a winner."

Barbara Jane was a little edgy the following morning, but she had good reasons. The grand final
Rita
taping was set for that night at eight o'clock, and even before the cameras would roll, she faced a busy day. Something had to be done about her hair. Decisions had to be made about her costumes. Two dress rehearsals were scheduled during the day. And why had it turned into a Broadway opening?

No longer was the show going to be taped before an ordinary TV audience, the usual vagrants and loons they swept up off the sidewalks in front of the studio. I would be there. Shake would be there. A throng of bicoastal network executives would be there. Big Ed and Big Barb were flying out for it in their Lear. Burt Danby and Veronica were flying out for it in their Lear. And who could say how many real actors and actresses might be in the audience?

Barbara Jane had known it was going to be like this, but she had put it out of her mind until now. Other things had been more urgent, like stamping out the hated
moi
, and letting Sheldon Gurtz and Kitty Feldman know who had the fastest gun.

Now she was thinking about it as she changed the contents of a purse into another purse, and had cigarettes going in three different ashtrays.

"I'm not sure I could get through it without Jack," she said.

"Nicholson?" I was looking up from the sports section of the
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
.

"Sullivan, Biff. My director."

Biff was an old joke between us. Biff was how Barbara Jane addressed me on those occasions when I would get something wrong, say something dumb, or do something forgetful, like not stub a check or lose a dinner receipt.

By calling me Biff, it kept her from getting angry, but it also reminded me that I had been semi-negligent in some way.

Her use of Biff dated back to college days when we had only been friends.

The origin of it was a Jim Tom Pinch column in
The Fort Worth Light & Shopper
. My name had appeared in the opening paragraph of Jim Tom's column as "Biffy Clyde Puckett."

I was slightly surprised by the change in her attitude about the director, Jack Sullivan.

"I thought the director had to die?" I said to Barb as she snuffed out one of the three cigarettes.

"He did, but now he doesn't. He's been wonderful. He has taste... a great sense of timing. He's terrific."

"Why was he keeping it hidden?"

"It's his style," she said. "He was getting to know the people. He likes me—and he likes Carolyn Barnes. He knows how to work around all the crap, make it seem more intelligent."

"What's he ever done?"

"A ton of things. Features in England. He's directed on the stage. TV movies. All kinds of stuff."

"Why is he fooling around with a sitcom?"

"Money, Biff." A look sometimes went with Biff, too. "Mondo scratcho, as Burt Danby would say."

I saw Barb to the door.

"What does Jack Sullivan look like?"

"Oh, nothing special."

"I guess his crooked arm and clubbed foot only make him more sensitive, huh?"

Barbara Jane said, "He's handsomer than you, as a matter of fact. He's far more thoughtful, much better educated, and dynamite in bed!"

She kissed me and left.

That afternoon I kept an appointment with a bone specialist in Beverly Hills. It was time to see how my knee was getting along.

Dr. Tim Hayes was supposed to be the top bone guy on the Coast. Burt Danby couldn't have recommended him more strongly. "Hell of a guy," Burt had said over the phone. "Member at Bel Air... ranch in Santa Barbara. Married to a juicy broad I'd love to nail. Jesus, is she something! She used to pull the curtain on one of those giveaway shows. All legs and teeth. Tim'll take care of you, ace. He did Jimmy Caan's shoulder and I think he did Lee Majors' elbow."

I went to see Dr. Hayes anyhow.

His office was in the heart of the Beverly Hills shopping district. It was on the second floor of a narrow space in a block where the discerning ornament seeker could buy a silver-plated tennis ball for only $1,700, where the anorexic wife of a studio boss could find the $8,000 jumpsuit she had been trying to buy, and where ardent music lovers could spend up to $32,000 to correct the sound on their stereos.

In Dr. Hayes's wood-paneled anteroom I announced myself to Joan Collins, the receptionist. She was whispering into a phone as she pointed me toward a glass partition, behind which sat two nurses, the Linda Evans twins. They were both snickering into phones. One of the Linda Evans twins pressed a buzzer, a door opened, and I was met by Victoria Principal, another nurse. She led me around a corner, where I exchanged a hello with the Dyan Cannon nurse. Victoria Principal then rapped on a door, turned the knob, and I entered a room in which Tom Selleck held an old Tommy Armour putter and was stroking golf balls across the carpet.

"Billy Clyde!" the man smiled. "You are some kind of football player, fellow!"

"Dr. Hayes?"

We talked about the par-4s at Bel Air for a while, then about the Rams, Dodgers, and Lakers. He finally got around to giving me an examination.

The doddering old clowns in New York had done a pretty fair job on my operation, he said. My cast could be removed in about ten more days. I could stow the crutches. Just don't overexert myself. Too bad it hadn't been a cartilage. These days, they could zap a cartilage back into shape like magic. Put you right back in the lineup. Ligaments were different. Ligaments took time—and rehabilitation.

The doctor said, "Billy Clyde, it's a damn shame, but I wouldn't even consider playing football again, if I were you. Another bad blow on that knee and you'll be a mess."

"I'll just have to see how it goes."

"I'm quite serious," he said. "You want to ride on a rim the rest of your life? You don't need that. I know what I would do. If I were Billy Clyde Puckett? A guy your age? With your reputation? I'd rest on my laurels and ball myself into a stupor! I guess you have to beat 'em off with a machete, right?"

"I was thinking the same thing about you," I said. "I noticed one or two distractions when I came in here."

Dr. Hayes reacted with a look of pain. "The staff? Not hardly. I only keep those bitches around to dress up the office. No, sir. I learned my lesson about war babies a long time ago."

"War babies?"

Dr. Hayes explained that war babies were the storm troopers of the feminine population. It must have had something to do with being army brats. Their fathers had never been home and they'd watched their mothers get fucked over by guys with ducktails and long key chains. War babies ranged in age from, oh, 38 to 44, and their main thing was to get even with men.

"War babies can look terrific," he said. "But don't let that fool you. They're meaner than wild dogs, pal, and they can
slam-dunk
Rodeo Drive!"

Dr. Hayes's advice was to stick with the "smooth babies."

In fact, he knew of a smooth baby who could help with my rehabilitation. She was a bonafide therapist. Her office was in the next block.

"I know how to exercise," I said.

"Don't say no till you've seen her," he winked. "We're talking redhead, twenties, great tits...mouth like a crocodile."

"I have a knee," I said. "I don't need a prostate to go with it."

I left the bone specialist's office that afternoon thinking the world was badly in need of a treatment center for whup victims. But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized the world already had a treatment center for whup victims. It was called Beverly Hills, wasn't it?

Big Ed Bookman poured himself another glass of vodka and said he knew for a by-God fact that Lucille Ball was dead.

"Lucille Ball's not dead," said Shake, dealing with a convulsion.

"Damn sure is," Big Ed said, plunging his hand into the bucket of ice.

We were in our suite at the hotel. Big Ed and Big Barb, Burt Danby and Veronica, Shake and myself. I had ordered up some whiskey so that we might prepare ourselves properly for the
Rita
taping.

I, for one, was not about to go into that studio and watch my wife perform before a "live" audience of 500 people without getting keenly, not so prudently—and yet cunningly—shit-faced.

From what I could gather, Shake, Big Ed, and Burt had the same idea in mind.

Big Ed, Burt, Shake, and I were standing in the middle of the living room of the suite. Big Barb and Veronica were on a sofa, deploring the rising cost of Hermes handbags.

Big Ed now said, "You know so God-damn much, Shake Tiller, tell me why Lucille Ball's not dead."

"She just isn't," Shake said.

"You eat dinner with her last night or something?"

Shake laughed a no.

"That's because she's dead," Big Ed said. "I forget when it was... four or five years ago. She died about the same time as that old fat boy. There's another son-of-a-bitch who wasn't funny. What's his name? I can't remember. Don't matter. Show biz was all over for Ed Bookman when Gary Cooper died."