Life Its Ownself

by Dan Jenkins

  Kathy Montgomery tapped me on the shoulder. I looked around to see her thumbs-up sign.

  The last two minutes of the game took an eternity, as usual. More often than not, this is because the zebras call extra time-outs so the networks can get all of their commercials in.

  Green Bay was going to win the game, 21 to 0. Hoyt Nester was packing up his statistics and reference material as he said, "Looks like the hay's in the barn."

  Hoyt yawned and unwrapped a homemade tunafish sandwich.

  I heard Teddy Cole tell Larry Hoage to surrender the air to me. The producer wanted me to deliver some expertise on why Green Bay had dominated the second half.

  "Throw it to Billy Clyde, Larry. We may have to go with a panic close," Teddy said.

  "Right you are, Ted," Larry Hoage said over the air, leaving what viewers we had left to wonder who "Ted" might have been.

  Larry then said, "Well, Billy Clyde Puckett, the old Green Bay Packers lived high on the hog today—Wade Hogg, that is! Yes sir, it looks like the Pack is back! They came out of the chute with fire in their eyes and a tiger in their tank and turned this old-fashioned, gut-bustin' sidewinder into a cakewalk! They'll be singing and dancing in the streets of Green Bay, Wisconsin, tonight! The pesky Washington Redskins came in here to play a good football game, but they got crawled on, climbed on, and laughed at by a bunch of angry Green Bay Packers who look like Super Bowl contenders if I know a thing or two."

  Hoyt held up an index card to Larry. The card said: "TEETH AND CLAWS." Larry acknowledged it as he kept talking.

  Still at the mike, Larry said, "The Redskins were lucky to get outta here today with their teeth and claws. That's how it looked to me. So, Billy Clyde Puckett, you're a man who knows what it's like down there in the trenches where the mayhem is, where it's muscle on muscle, what's the story behind the story of this Green Bay verdict? How'd the Pack tie a knot in 'em today?"

  "Larry, it all came down to one thing. Green Bay scored more points."

  TWELVE

  Clandestine activity was a course I had flunked as far back as high school. You could drop me behind enemy lines and the first farmer who came at me with a pitchfork could find out the location of our airfields and all the schedules of our troop trains. No man ever caved in to torture any quicker than I did. I would confess to things I hadn't even thought of if it would prevent an argument.

  Normally, Barbara Jane only had to look at me suspiciously when I would come home from a road trip with the Giants, and I would blurt out the names of everybody I had been with in every bar, even if some of the names were Micki, Misty, and Trixie and I hadn't gone anywhere near the little dumplings.

  It was astonishing, then, that I handled the Kathy Montgomery problem as craftily as I did over the next two months. To the West Coast delegation, my stage manager's name was still "Ken Montgomery," if the name came up at all, which it rarely did.

  In the meantime, and by necessity, I lived the life of an airline pilot. I was Barbara Jane's bicoastal husband on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday every week, lounging around the suite at the Westwood Marquis, whereupon I would leave for my next TV assignment on Thursday. This meant that on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, or for most of those days and nights, I would be with Kathy Montgomery, my trusty sidekick.

  But if I was with Kathy more than I was with my wife, my wife was with her director more than she was with her husband. The only way we could have changed this would have been for one of us to give up what we were doing, but we both liked what we were doing, and it would have been foolish to turn down the money on top of that. So I didn't know who, or what, to blame for the situation we had worked ourselves into, other than life its ownself.

  Modern living is what some people call it.

  After my first telecast in Green Bay, I had received relatively high grades from everyone at the network. Mike Rash and Teddy Cole said I ought to be nominated for an Emmy simply for not talking too much. About a thousand letters came into CBS in New York that said the same thing. Comments in newspapers around the country were generally favorable. Jim Tom Pinch's column was naturally a rave.

  Jim Tom wrote:

  Billy Clyde Puckett is living proof that action speaks louder than words, even when the action is as rancid as it was in the Green Bay-Washington game. The proper words to describe that game could never win the approval of Standards and Practices. Much to the pleasure of any intelligent viewer, Billy Clyde shut the hell up as often as he could, save for his shrewd line about Referee Charlie Teasdale's flag, which must have made everyone wince in the Commissioner's office.

  Two days after my debut, the head of CBS Sports called to give me his professional opinion of it.

  "I thought you brought a lot to the dance, old man," said Richard Marks. "Not to be picky, but in my view, you ought to speak up more. People want to hear what Billy Clyde Puckett thinks. I'm sure you were being cautious your first time out, but don't be afraid to jump in. You have an open mike."

  "Larry doesn't let you in much," I said.

  "I don't have the same negative feelings about cross-talk that some of my predecessors did. Cross-talk often adds to the excitement of a telecast."

  "Cross-talk?"

  "When you both talk at once. For instance, if you jump in, but Larry keeps spinning a yarn. I say let it play."

  "Mike and Teddy want me to avoid that."

  "Mike and Teddy work for me."

  "More cross-talk. Got it."

  "I'm not saying it's something you should plan. I'm only suggesting you address yourself to the audience more often. Look, Larry Hoage isn't the best announcer in the business, but he's far from the worst, and he brings an enthusiasm to a broadcast the sponsors like."

  "They do?"

  His statement shouldn't have surprised me. I'd known a few agency guys in my day. They could derail an elevator.

  Richard Marks said, "Oh, yes, Billy Clyde. With our friends who buy time, Larry Hoage ranks right up there. Larry doesn't give you much dead air, you see."

  Like none, I thought.

  "That's why sponsors love him," Richard Marks said. "Don't place too much importance on what Larry says. Keep in mind that his words are only a bridge from the last commercial to the next."

  I said, "You guys know more about it than I do, Richard, but I wonder if there aren't some people out there who might like a quiet stroll from one commercial to another?"

  "No such animal," he said. "Our surveys would have turned them up by now."

  My talk with Richard Marks convinced me of only one thing: I had to get as much money out of the networks as I could before they were doomed to oblivion by their own surveys—and movies on cable.

  My cast came off that week, which was the same week Dr. Tim Hayes's right foot was in a bandage.

  I didn't notice his foot at first. I was in such a good mood at the prospect of being released from prison, I was busy dropping witticisms on the Dyan Cannon nurse who assisted the bone specialist in removing my cast.

  "You're from Texas, aren't you?" the Dyan Cannon nurse had asked.

  "Yep."

  "What part?"

  "Just about all of me."

  Dr. Hayes said my leg looked pretty good, by gosh, considering those decrepit New York butchers had worked on it. I should start exercising slowly, he said. Walk whenever possible. Climb stairs.

  "It'll be a while before you can break into a dead run," he said.

  "I'd better not run into a war baby, then."

  "Not the one who chased me out of the house," he said.

  That's when I saw him limp across the office on his bandaged foot.

  "What happened to you?" I said.

  "Oh, it's just a little strain on the metatarsal-cuneiform ligament," said Dr. Hayes. "Unfortunately, it's the ligament that connects the first metatarsal to the mid-foot area. It's the, uh... ligament you use to push off on... to walk or run."

  "Sorry," I said. "You were running from a war baby?"

 
"My wife, actually. Phyllis."

  "You're married to a war baby?"

  "Why do you think I know so much about them?"

  "He married three war babies," said the Dyan Cannon nurse.

  The nurse looked at Dr. Hayes.

  "Tell him how you hurt your foot," she said.

  "I'm sure he's not interested," the doctor said.

  "I am now," I said.

  "They got in an argument," the nurse said. "He called her a war baby. Phyllis went after him with a steak knife. He strained the ligament trying to keep from falling in the pool."

  Dr. Hayes said, "You can't joke with war babies. That's another thing, Billy Clyde. I kidded Phyllis about the plastic sandwich. I said it was the only thing she liked to eat."

  In the doctor's terminology, a plastic sandwich was an American Express card between a VISA and a MasterCard.

  "Is everything okay now?" I asked.

  "It will be, as soon as I get my things out of the house," Dr. Hayes said. "It'll probably take a week or two. War babies don't simmer down too quickly."

  "I'm glad they never had a team in the NFL," I said as I left that day.

  By the end of October, Barbara Jane had done two more episodes of Rita, neither of which was satisfactory as far as she was concerned. Sheldon Gurtz and Kitty Feldman were still the executive producers. They had written both of the episodes themselves. Between Barb and Jack Sullivan, nearly every line of dialogue had been changed, but there hadn't been enough time to re-work the storylines.

  In one episode, Barbara Jane had been expected to become romantically entwined with a foreign race-car driver, a handsome dumbbell with a French accent.

  "If I'm going to have a love interest, why does it have to be a jerk?" Barbara Jane had said to Kitty.

  "Paul is attractive," Kitty had said. "Women are intrigued with men like Paul."

  Barb had said, "Beverly Hills women, maybe. Rita lives in New York. Rita wouldn't let Paul sell her a pair of shoes."

  Sheldon had stepped forward and said, "Barbara Jane, you haven't studied the great films. Paul always gets the girl."

  "Paul doesn't get the fucking girl." Barb had raised her voice. "Paul gets the luggage!"

  The character of "Paul" stayed in the script, and"Rita" did act somewhat taken with him, but through the efforts of Barbara Jane and the director, it became clear that "Rita" had only acted interested in "Paul" because she wanted to hire him as a waiter for Rita's Limo Stop.

  In the other episode, Sheldon and Kitty had scripted a story in which "Rita" was talked into seeing "Amanda's" shrink and ended up almost having an affair with him.

  "Rita hates shrinks," Barbara Jane had argued.

  "Why does Rita hate shrinks?" asked Kitty.

  "Because I hate shrinks," Barb said. "There's never been a shrink that somebody didn't go to high school with!"

  The shrink had stayed in the script—and so had that line of Barbara Jane's. "Rita" used it on the shrink after telling him that her parents weren't responsible for the time she broke her Susie Homemaker oven.

  One morning in the Marquis suite in late October before I had to leave on another assignment, I asked Barbara Jane some questions about Jack Sullivan. I found out he was separated from his wife and two kids, who were in London. He was, in fact, British, but he had lived in California for a number of years, long enough to have become de-cricketed.

  "Does he date anybody besides you?" I said to Barb.

  She gave me a hard look.

  "That's a funny choice of words," she said. "We call it work."

  "All those dinners?"

  People in show biz often have to eat, she said.

  She then asked me why I had found it necessary to leave town on a Thursday for a Sunday broadcast.

  "Moi?"

  I explained to Barb that Thursday was only a travel day, and it took all of Friday and Saturday to familiarize myself with the personnel on the ball clubs, and to do all of the inserts, to spend enough time with the coaches to feel confident about the things I would be saying or not saying when we did the game on Sunday.

  I said, "In broadcast journalism, we don't do a lot of playing around like you people in the entertainment division. We're live."

  I didn't say I got spun when we were live.

  She said, "Well, I don't suppose there's anything wrong with our marriage that a faith healer can't fix."

  "We have a good marriage, Barb—if you look at the total universe."

  She had smiled, then, and we had been drawn into an embrace. We had kissed with a warmth and passion that had been missing lately because of our lifestyle.

  In that moment, we were reaffirming something besides love. A devotion of some kind that reached far back in the past.

  As I left her in the hotel that day, she had said, "See you next trip, Biff."

  The absurd thing about the deal with Kathy Montgomery was that nothing had developed between us but friendship.

  I considered myself a grizzled veteran at spotting indicators. But while Kathy had littered the countryside with adoration for me as a human being, and while she knew how to make a man feel like he was the nicest, wittiest, most charming and talented person who had ever entered her life—I had even been saddled with the responsibility of becoming her "best friend"—she had not given me the slightest hint that she wanted her body molested.

  So we had settled into a friendship that was fun but, well—let's be honest—frustrating. I mean, two months of lunches, dinners, relaxing, work sessions, of constant companionship, with one of the most delicious creatures I had ever been around was getting to be a strain. Like all lookers, Kathy had some temptress in her.

  What I really wanted to do, as I told Shake Tiller, was make the discovery that Kathy had this disgusting birthmark on her hip; then I could put her in perspective.

  Shake had met Kathy by now. We had spent a couple of Sunday nights with him in New York when we had bailed out early after a telecast in Philadelphia and another in Atlanta.

  "Face mask," Shake had said when he was introduced to her.

  We drank away those evenings showing Kathy our Manhattan, the old trudge up and down Second and Third Avenues—the quest for the perfect jukebox.

  Shake recognized right off that Kathy, aside from her stunning looks, had other things in common with Barbara Jane. Like Barb, Kathy knew how to sit around, she could hold her whiskey—drank Scotch, of course—didn't fancy dope, and laughed infectiously at all the right things.

  Kathy lived in a Manhattan that was unfamiliar to Shake and me. It was the Manhattan of inexpensive restaurants, of neighborhood taverns where the biggest celebrity to walk in the door was the bar owner from across the street, the Manhattan of tiny apartments in which the top of the dinner table had to be lifted off before the occupant could bathe.

  I had taken Kathy's word for these things. I hadn't been invited to her apartment, and I hadn't asked her over to see mine.

  On those Sunday nights when we had been with Shake, we had done nothing but laugh at life its ownself and damage our brains with alcohol.

  Kathy had never broken through and stayed with us until dawn. She had gone home at the reasonably sane hour of 2 A.M.

  It was on the second of those evenings, after Kathy had left us in a back booth at Runyon's, that Shake alerted me to what he called a neon indicator.

  Earlier that night, we had spent five or six hours at a table by a plate-glass window in T.J. Tucker's. Kathy had monopolized the conversation with a discourse about the splendors of Barbara Jane.

  "She's my idol, really, " Kathy had said more than twice. "I can't wait to meet her."

  Shake had looked amused by this, a fact that wasn't lost on me. Kathy had gone on to pronounce Barbara Jane the most beautiful girl she had ever seen in a magazine or a TV commercial. And she was certain Barb had to be the most incredible person in the world, marvelous in all ways, or, I, Billy Clyde Puckett, wouldn't have married her.

  "It's so neat," Kathy had sai
d. "You three guys all growing up together and being so close and everything."

  She said she still had some good friends back in Sioux

  Falls, but they were nothing like us. They hadn't "been anywhere," or "done anything." The Zip Feed Mill was their favorite skyscraper. And as for her chums at Berkeley, well, who could say what they were up to now. Melissa had gone pre-med, Christina had gone punk, and Eric had been locked in his bedroom since his junior year with a buffalo head, black window shades, and blue light bulbs.

  "I wouldn't want to be anywhere near South America when Eric busts out of there," Shake had said.

  Now it was only Shake and me at Runyon's. We were welcoming a serious last-call for youngster as Shake was telling me I'd blown the indicator.

  "What do you think all that shit about Barbara Jane was?" he said. "You think Kathy doesn't want to fuck the guy who's married to the most beautiful woman in the world? Forget the fact you've got some dough... that you're an 'older man,' but not that old... that you're a famous athlete... and you're on TV. She wants to make it with Barbara Jane Bookman's husband, man."

  "Why?"

  "To prove she can," said Shake. "She's a woman, Billy C. She knows God-damn well she's every bit as good-looking as Barb, and she knows something else, too, you better believe it. She knows she's got ten years on her!"

  What, I wondered, had Kathy been waiting for?

  "What are you waiting for? It's there, man."

  I liked her, I said. I genuinely liked her as a walkaround pal, a trusty sidekick. Kathy was fun to be on the road with. What was I going to do on the road, talk about the advances in hairspray formula with Larry Hoage?

  "If you fuck her, does that mean you can't like her anymore?"

  "It means I'd get involved," I said. "I need an affair like I need to take a shit and fall backwards."

  "Why do you think Kathy wants to have an affair? She's probably got a boyfriend with a guitar full of dread."

  "I don't think so. She's not a chemist. She seems older...more career-minded than most girls her age."

  Shake said, "She acts older around you, sure."

  "Why don't you fuck her?" I laughed. "That'll solve everything."