Life Its Ownself

by Dan Jenkins

  "I could have gone my whole life without knowing these things," Kathy said.

  "I come from a pretty famous high school," I said. "You know who went to Paschal? Ginger Rogers. Ben Hogan, the golfer. Alan Bean. We had the third man on the moon. Who went to your high school?"

  "Ona Schulenberg."

  "Who's that?"

  "She was the first woman to walk three thousand miles backwards. I had her for English grammar."

  Kathy had arrived from New York that afternoon. She had checked into a room on the same hall as Shake and I at the Adolphus in Dallas. We had moved to another suite that was 35 miles east.

  Years ago, the Adolphus had been one of the swell hotels in Texas, like the Menger in San Antonio and the Driskill in Austin. It had a nightclub with an ice rink and a restaurant where Bonnie and Clyde used to go to dinner. It was in the heart of downtown Dallas, only a block or so from the original Neiman-Marcus. The Adolphus had fallen into a period of despair but it had been remodeled and furnished with fine antiques and it was a swell place again. Its elegance recalled a better time in our lives than the modern glitter of America's suburban hotels.

  Before going to dinner that night, I had spoken to Barbara Jane in California. I had filled her in on the Tonsillitis- Darnell-T.J.-Big Ed drama. She had screamed with laughter at her daddy buying a fake swami.

  "That's half a million out of your inheritance," I had reminded her.

  "The joke's worth it," she had said.

  Considering all the millions Big Ed had left, she may have been right.

  Barbara Jane had confirmed the fact that she was going to have the weekend free. She had been tempted to fly down to Dallas.

  I had talked her out of it. She wasn't going to miss anything but a lousy football game and dinner with Teddy, Mike, and Ken, I'd said.

  "Ken?"

  "My stage manager."

  "That's right. You still like him?"

  "He's okay," I'd said.

  Kathy and I had invited Shake to come to dinner with us at Casa Dominguez, but he had other plans. His plans had included a tour of the bars out by SMU and the hope of finding a Tri-Delt of loose morals who had been stood up by a Kappa Sig.

  Kathy was into her third frozen Margarita at dinner when I said, "Did you know the Margarita was invented in El Paso, Texas, in 1942?"

  "Stop it," she said.

  "It's true. The bartender's name was Pancho Morales. He was looking for a way to tame the tequila one night... to keep his customers from breaking so much furniture. That's when he came up with the idea of adding Triple Sec and lime juice."

  I was impressed with how adultly Kathy handled the Margaritas I ordered for her so quickly.

  All they did was give her a friendly glow.

  I had learned through experience that there was a fertile hour with Margarita drinkers. Smart money had to be alert.

  If you missed that hour, you were no longer with the lascivious harlot of a porno film, you were with an unidentified body that had been dredged up from the Hudson River.

  Kathy drank her Margaritas without salt around the rim of the glass, which was how salt crept into the conversation.

  She never ate salt, she said.

  I didn't accept that.

  "Everybody eats salt on something," I said.

  "Not me," Kathy said, tossing her golden hair and sipping her unsalted Margarita. "If food is cooked properly, you don't need salt."

  "Eggs," I said. "You can't eat eggs without salt."

  "I can."

  "I don't believe you."

  "Why not?"

  "How often do you eat eggs?"

  "I don't eat eggs every morning, but I eat them sometimes."

  "Fried or scrambled?"

  "Both."

  "Soft-boiled, too?"

  "Yes."

  "Without salt?"

  "Why do you find it so peculiar?"

  "Don't get me wrong," I said. "I love eggs. I'm an egg guy. But if I had to eat an egg without salt and pepper, you'd have to rush me to a hospital."

  "It must be how you were raised."

  "Yeah, I'm normal. I was raised on salt and pepper."

  She smiled at me.

  I said, "I'm gonna think of something you can't eat without salt."

  "You can't."

  "Give me a minute," I said, taking the challenge seriously.

  I inhaled a young Scotch and did the same thing to a Winston.

  "Honestly," she said, "You can't name anything I would put salt on."

  "I've got it," I said, believing I had it. "Popcorn."

  "I don't eat popcorn," she said with a look of apology.

  Back at the hotel, I steered Kathy to the lobby bar for a nightcap.

  We took stools at the service bar rather than sit in the cushiony sofas and chairs. A serious drinker never sits in cushiony sofas and chairs. If they don't put you to sleep, they make it impossible to stand up without tearing your coat.

  Except for the bartender and a waitress who were discussing auto repairs, we were the only people in the lobby bar.

  Our stools were close. We were almost touching shoulders. Kathy switched to Scotch when we ordered a drink.

  I said, "I tried to get you drunk on Margaritas, but I think I got myself drunk on Scotch. Seeing as how I'm drunk, I have an excuse for letting you kiss me right now."

  "You're lonely," she said—and startled me with a wet

  kiss.

  My response led to a longer kiss—and some clutching. In the history of moist kisses, these didn't deserve to be enshrined in a movie library, but they were interesting enough to make me motion to the bartender for the check.

  "Shall we go meet our destiny?" I said.

  In a whisper, she said, "Billy Clyde, I'm not going to bed with you. It's not like I haven't thought about it. I have. But...we can't do it."

  I suggested we talk about it upstairs.

  She said, "Your friendship means too much to me, it really does. I want to be friends with Barbara Jane, too. You guys are special."

  Where were the Jim Tom lines?

  I said, "What's a friend for if you can't count on 'em? You do know we're going to wind up in bed someday, don't you?"

  "Not if we don't let it happen."

  She initiated another kiss, but this one fell into the sister category.

  "There's something else," she said, softly. "I've been wanting to talk to you about it, but I could see you were getting interested in me—and I couldn't help but like that. You're Billy Clyde Puckett. I'm nobody."

  "We owe it to sports," I said. "We're not talking about a lifetime commitment here."

  "I'm in love with somebody," Kathy said. "I want the two of you to meet. I want all of us to be friends."

  "Tomorrow," I said. "Tomorrow, he'll be the best fucking friend I ever had."

  She laughed as I signed the bar tab.

  Kathy was aloof in the elevator. It was obvious that she had no intention of raping me.

  In the hall outside the door to her room, she gave me a long hug but only a kiss on the cheek, and she said:

  "You mean so much to me, Billy Clyde. You have no idea. See you in the morning, huh?"

  "I learned something tonight," I said.

  "That I have a lover?"

  "No, that doesn't surprise me. How the hell can a girl who looks like you not have somebody? I learned something about Barbara Jane."

  "What?"

  "She does mental telepathy."

  Feeling an indescribable sense of relief, even an odd pinge of pride at not having made a complete fool of myself, I walked to the door of the suite. I looked back down the hall. Kathy had waited to enter her room until she could wave goodnight to me.

  I smiled at her like a sophisticate, went into the suite, turned on the movie channel, and watched an idiotic romance I'd already seen three times on airplanes.

  At mid-morning on Saturday, we set up the Shake Tiller interview in the Adolphus suite. Lights, two cameras, lapel mikes,
Kathy directing.

  Kathy had to caution Priscilla not to walk in front of the cameras or make any noise at the bar once the cameras started to purr.

  Priscilla Handler, an SMU co-ed, was Shake's holdover houseguest from the previous evening. She was a willowy, olive-skinned, sleepy-eyed beauty of about twenty. She was wearing one of Shake's dress shirts as a bathrobe, and nothing more that I could tell. She had made a face when told to turn off the TV so that we might conduct the interview, but generally speaking, Priscilla seemed to approve of our suite. She also approved of Shake Tiller's stash. Priscilla looked like someone who intended to practice hedonism for the next thirty-five or forty years.

  "When will this be on TV?" Priscilla asked anyone who cared to answer.

  "Tomorrow before the game," I said.

  "Here in the room?"

  "Yes," said Kathy. "We aren't blacked out."

  "Dilly!" Priscilla said. She opened a can of beer, lit a joint, and made herself comfortable in an easy chair where she could watch us do the interview.

  Priscilla's shirttail scrooched up as she wriggled in the chair. Her bare legs and hips were exposed. There was even a glimpse of the whup thrown in. This didn't bother Priscilla, but one of the hand-held cameramen was distracted.

  "You want to go to the game?" the cameraman said to Priscilla. "I have an extra ticket."

  "I hate the Cowboys," Priscilla said. "Talk about stuck- up people!"

  She drew on the joint.

  "Y'all go ahead and do your deal," she said. "I'll keep still."

  Kathy had been staring at Priscilla. I couldn't have guessed whether Kathy thought she was looking at a reptile or just your average Tri-Delt.

  On camera, I introduced Shake Tiller by saying I had known him since the third grade when he had driven Old Lady Hedderman half-crazy with ventriloquism. I had known then he was destined for fame.

  I said he had the mementos to prove he had been a great football player—a Super Bowl ring, a wall full of plaques, an assortment of game balls. He had since become a successful writer—a noted author, I said—but the NFL wasn't too happy about this fact right now.

  Grinning as I faced him, I said, "I guess the first thing anybody wants to know is why you wrote that story and embarrassed everybody in pro football."

  "Had to," he said. "It got to where I couldn't sleep at night. I'd close my eyes and see zebras jumping over safety-deposit vaults."

  "One in particular," I said. "Charlie Teasdale, the referee."

  "No, I'd always see Charlie in Switzerland," Shake said. "He'd be opening numbered accounts."

  "Your story says Charlie Teasdale tried to manipulate the scores of games."

  "He didn't try, he did it," said Shake.

  "Your main source is an exotic dancer."

  "I have other sources I can't name."

  "What about the rest of the zebras? Any crooks?"

  "I don't have proof, but if you want an opinion, I'd vote guilty on some others. Too many games have looked like science fiction."

  "Aren't you relying on the word of gamblers and bookmakers?"

  "In part," Shake said. "Who's a better judge of reality?"

  "Your story says the players have been having a little fun of their own this season, like not putting forth their best effort. Why are they doing this, if it's true?"

  "It's true. Look at the records of the teams. Nobody's going to get to the Super Bowl with better than a 10-8 record. The winner of the Super Bowl will have an 11-8 record and call itself the 'world champion of pro football.' Are you kidding me? Contrast this to the 17-0 record that Don Shula's Dolphins had back in '72...to Lombardi's great Packer teams...to our 15-2 the year the Giants did it all. The pros have become the biggest boost to college football since Grant- land Rice named the Four Horsemen. In college, it takes a 12-0 or an 11-1 to be a national champion. What's happened is this. The players want a say in determining their wage scale and they want the right to become free agents. The owners won't give 'em these things, and meanwhile, the owners want parity. They're getting it, man. The players have gone Dixie."

  "What you're saying is, the players are intentionally giving America an inferior brand of football, and they're going to keep doing it until the owners realize what's going on and come to the bargaining table?"

  "Right," said Shake. "The players have the ability to turn every game into a comedy. I say they're already doing it. The owners ought to be worried."

  "I fail to see what good it will do to kill the sport," I said.

  "They won't kill the sport. They'll just kill the NFL. Some rich guys will start a new league and the players will be back at work."

  "There are thousands of fans who must not agree with you … They're excited about the season."

  "That's their problem," Shake said. "But I don't think there are enough fools out there to keep the league alive."

  "With all this in mind, what do you look for in the playoffs?"

  "I'd like to buy some pharmaceutical stock," Shake said. "There's no telling how much speed it'll take to keep America awake."

  "Who do you think's going to the Super Bowl, and who'll win?"

  "I like boredom over tedium by a fumble."

  Shake thought it better not to go to the Cowboys-Giants game Sunday. Too many people in Texas Stadium would want to ask him about the Playboy article—or assassinate him.

  He stayed in the Adolphus suite with Priscilla, a girl he liked in a curious way. Priscilla might be what he had been searching for his whole life, he said. She was certainly good- looking and had no shame whatsoever about the fact that she was only interested in eating, sleeping, fucking and doing dope.

  They had discussed the possibility of Priscilla going back to New York with him. She could keep him company while he worked on the novel. There would be no unreasonable demands on her. All she would have to do was eat, sleep, fuck, and do dope.

  Leaving SMU would be no problem for Priscilla. She would deal with the spring term the way most of her friends did.

  "Drop City" was the academic phrase she had used.

  "You know what's great about Priscilla?" Shake had said. "Nothing's complicated."

  Kathy Montgomery had never seen Texas Stadium, so I gave her a guided tour Sunday morning.

  We started in the big private club above the west end zone that was for drinking, dining, socializing, dancing to live country music, or even watching the game for those who were still sober when it came time for the kickoff. In many ways, the Cowboy Club was like being back at Mommie's Trust Fund.

  I led Kathy on a tour of the private suites in the stadium. Most of the doors to the suites were standing open, enabling us to glance inside at the decor and the revelers. An owner of one of these suites could decorate it as he or his wife saw fit.

  Kathy was fascinated with everything she saw, which included cocktail parties in progress in a French Provincial living room, an Art Deco patio, an Early American library, a harem, an aquarium, an exercise gym, an oyster bar, a bird sanctuary, and an unfurnished room in which we found six airline stewardesses drinking champagne.

  We stopped by the visiting owner's box for a drink with Burt Danby and Veronica. I no longer felt any guilt about having Kathy with me. She belonged to somebody else. She was my trusty sidekick and stage manager, that's all.

  Needless to say, Burt was taken with Kathy.

  "Jesus," he said, gaping at her from hair to ankle, "I knew broadcasting was a grimy, thankless business, but I didn't know it was fucking gutter work!"

  Kathy accepted Burt's unique flattery with a smile.

  "You're Billy Clyde's 'assistant'?" Veronica said to Kathy.

  "I'm the stage manager," Kathy said.

  "Hmmm," Veronica said, not believing it for a second.

  The Danbys were with two couples who had flown to Texas with them on the team plane. Their names weren't worth remembering. They looked as if they could tell you nothing more than where to shop for floral trousers or hand- knitted swe
aters in the vicinity of Greenwich, Connecticut.

  Burt said to me, "You're good on TV, ace. You don't drill a hole in me like that fucking Larry Hoage. Jesus, can he talk? He can say less in more words than six guys running for governor!"

  "I've been thinking about football," I said. "The doctors say I'd be crazy to try to play again. I like television. You were right, it's a souffle. Maybe my playing days are over, is what I'm getting at."

  "You want the truth, Billy Clyde? Once a knee, always a knee. You'd never be the same again."

  "What about the Gucci knee you promised?"

  "I'm an owner," he said. "I lie!"

  I asked Burt what he thought about Shake's expose.

  "Loved the broad," he said.

  "That's it?"

  "What else is there? It's print journalism, Billy Clyde. A week from now, it's history. And you know what? Our TV ratings will go up. Who's not going to watch pro football now? Jesus, it's like we've got our own game show. Joe Bob and Martha sit there with their Miller Lites and their Velveeta sandwiches and try to guess who the crooks are. 'There's one!' 'No, it's not!' 'Yes, it is, he dropped a flag!' It's dynamite. When you see Shake, tell him kiss on the lips from the big guy."

  "Do the other owners agree with you?"

  "We've got some assholes who worry about integrity," Burt said. "I was on a conference call with the Competition Committee. I said relax, guys, how many times have you seen integrity going to the bank?"

  "The quality of football doesn't bother you?"

  "With my team?" said Burt. "If we'd tried this year, we'd still be oh-for-fifteen!"

  "So you think the players are laying down—like Shake says?"

  "A few pinkos, big deal. It's nothing we can't cure with a checkbook."

  Kathy astutely asked Burt who was going to replace Billy Clyde Puckett on the Giants. They surely weren't going to stay with Amos Hixon, the rookie from Prairie View who had been filling in for me.