Semi-Tough

by Dan Jenkins

  She looked at us and said, "Don't you know what's fun for a woman? Look, I'll tell you. Have you been up to the master bedroom?"

  We said yeah.

  "Have you seen the bathroom off of it?" she said.

  We said yeah.

  "The thing that would most turn me on," she said, "would be to get naked and stretch out in that marble tub and have six guys come in and do the number."

  Could she be a little more explicit, Shake said.

  "Christ," she said. "The world is really a goner. I'll spell it out, O.K.? Look, I want to get in that marble tub and simply stretch out and let six guys piss on me. What else?"

  Barbara Jane busted up and clapped her hands like a gospel singer and did a kind of little old spook-rhythm dance step.

  "All right," Barb said.

  Me and Shake looked at Nancy. I guess I was thinking what a shame it was to see that gold-medal body wasted.

  Shake finally said, "I think we can turn this party around for you if we can find a friend of ours here named T.J. Lambert."

  I just had to run off to the phone there for a minute. It was that Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Jim Tom Pinch who said he wanted to know how I felt and what was going through my mind on the morning of the big game.

  "I was only trying to remember what color the dog-ass Jets wear," I said. "Don't they wear green?"

  Jim Tom said he thought so.

  "I believe that's Baylor's color, too, isn't it?" I said.

  Jim Tom said it was last week.

  "Well," I said, "how in the hell can anybody expect Old Twenty-three to get worked up over a team that wears the same goddamn color as Baylor?"

  Jim Tom Pinch said I sure sounded like I got a lot of rest last night.

  "Hey, Stud," he said. "Can't you get somebody around there to draw you a warm tub of Visine?"

  I asked Jim Tom how it was going in Fort Worth with Crazy Iris and the Port Lavaca Sandcrabs and the lovely and charming Earlene Padgett.

  "I'm more concerned about the book," Jim Tom said. "Have you got lots of stuff on tape?"

  I said I was the most prolific mother he'd come across since Big-un Darley.

  "How's the detail?" he asked. "Got lots of insights?"

  I said that I had paid a particular mind to detail. That I had made absolutely certain that whenever I had a young Scotch and water it was either J&B or White Label.

  "Paschal win big in last night's semi-final against the Corbett Comets. Astronaut Jones got thirty-two wearing dark glasses with a bandana tied around his head," Jim Tom said.

  I asked who Paschal played tonight.

  "Paschal plays Astronaut Jones. Jones plays the Port Lavaca Sandcrabs, who beat the Itasca Wampus Cats like they were fags," Jim Tom said.

  Paschal got a chance, I wondered.

  "About as much chance as they'd have against Africa," Jim Tom said. "Port Lavaca took the precaution of bringing along some seven-foot Mau Maus."

  No chance, I said. Right?

  "Did a one-legged man ever win an ass-kickin' contest?" Jim Tom said.

  My collaborator said his home life was going along pretty smooth. Earlene had only broken a clock radio lately, throwing it at him, and broken a window pane in the bedroom, throwing a jar of cold cream at him.

  "Sounds like you might have been seen in the company of Crazy Iris," I said. "I don't think you ought to go on those midday picnics down there in Forest Park where everybody in the world can drive by."

  Jim Tom said that what happened was, he'd been with Crazy Iris and got home at four in the morning, drunk, and that Earlene had got up ahead of him and found his underwear stuck in the pocket of his sports coat.

  I asked what his explanation had been.

  "I said they weren't mine and I didn't understand the question," Jim Tom said.

  "Well," I said, "that certainly would have satisfied me if I'd been your wife."

  Jim Tom said, "Stud, don't let anybody ever tell you that marriage isn't the greatest thing there is. By God, it beats being blind and crippled any time."

  I said I had to go hold my head. Besides that, I was writing on a book. And, oh, yeah, I had a game to play.

  "Keep in mind that it's a whole lot better book if you studs win that game," said Jim Tom.

  Glad he reminded me, I said.

  "You think you'll just bring all the tapes down here or something after the game?" he asked.

  "Not immediately after," I said. "But eventually."

  "Then you're definitely coming down to Fort Worth?" he said.

  "After I rest," I said. "I got some things to do and some places to go, but I'll get down there and we can go over everything and you can type it up and we'll get it to the publishers in time for it to come out next season."

  Jim Tom said, "By the way, did some goofy woman interview you out there?"

  I said yeah.

  "She called me and interviewed me, too," Jim Tom said. "Sounded like some kind of semi-intellectual or something."

  "She thought," I said.

  "What's that for?" Jim Tom said.

  "I don't know," I said. "Some fuckin' women's magazine. I gave her a lot of shit."

  Jim Tom said, "Did she ask if you ever had any bestial tendencies off the field?"

  I said, "Aw, she wanted to know what went through my mind when I took a handoff and what sign I was born under and what I thought about the condition of the athlete's mind. That kind of shit."

  Jim Tom said, "I think she might be well known around New York. In those literary circles and so forth."

  "She was a cunt," I said. "I met her in the Polo Lounge over at the Beverly Hills and she had a cup of tea and said hello to a whole bunch of hebes with tans."

  "Was her name Cynthia Harnett?" Jim Tom asked.

  "Maybe," I said.

  "Hard-hitter," Jim Tom said.

  "Just a Stove with a lot of lip," I said.

  "Big timer," he said. "Books and everything. Hope you came off O.K."

  I said, "Well, she did seem a little disappointed that I wasn't more impressed with her. She seemed to throw out a lot of first names of guys that I wouldn't have known their last names. She kept saying she didn't know anything about sports. I think she said something about sports being the intellectual enema of Western Man."

  Jim Tom said, "So you fucked her, right?"

  I laughed.

  "No, I just breathed heavy and looked off a lot and acted weary and concerned about the ball game," I said. "She felt my arm once, though, so I guess that was an indicator."

  Jim Tom said he had to go rewrite some of Big-un Darley's headlines and I said I still had to hold my head. He said good luck in the game and I said we needed thirty-five points more than luck.

  To get back to the party, we finally found Elroy under a tree with his guitar in the middle of a runaway monologue.

  "And I say to you again, friends, that it's entirely possible for a man to experience an orgasm with his eyes open despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary," Elroy was saying.

  "Now you take these two volunteer couples that have just joined us," he said. "I've asked these kind people to be here tonight at their own expense to prove my point.

  "I'd like for you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Harless Wilburn from Boise, Idaho, on my left, and Mr. and Mrs. Pervis MacAdoo from Hiroshima, New Mexico, on my right," Elroy said.

  "No applause, please, until they've finished the demonstration," he said. "Too many things in this world go easily rewarded. But that's another story. Maybe not. Maybe it's part of this one. We'll see."

  Elroy played a chord on his guitar and said, "Now, then, Mr. and Mrs. Wilburn and Mr. and Mrs. MacAdoo, before you demonstrate the all-important warming-up process, I'd like to explain to the audience a little something about how important food is to being able to have an orgasm with your eyes open."

  "A proper diet might be the most important thing of all." Shake grinned.

  Elroy said, "Would you care to rephrase that?"

&nbs
p; "Not at the time being," said Shake.

  "May I continue?" said Elroy.

  "Only if you want to," Shake said.

  "I thought you'd see it my way," said Elroy. "I certainly thought somebody would. I knew it probably wouldn't be the Texas Rangers or the FBI, but I thought somebody would."

  Shake said, "Your well-taken point before you were interrupted, sir, was food."

  Elroy said, "Yes, food. And about goddamn time, too. Where in the hell are all the pork chops and where's the biscuits?"

  Barbara Jane held up her hand.

  "Who's that?" said Elroy. "Is that Mrs. MacAdoo with her hand up? You're a pretty thing, Mrs. MacAdoo. Ever fool around?"

  Barb said, "Sir, I was wondering if you wanted us to demonstrate the warming-up process with or without props?"

  Elroy took an inhale of a pregnant blue Winston and strummed a chord on his guitar.

  "That all depends on what the props are," he said. "Props differ around the country. In some cities I lecture in, barbed wire is considered a prop. In other cities, barbed wire is only considered to be wire, with barbed on it."

  Barbara Jane said, "Yes, I think we've all had the same basic experience. It's the same thing you find with thirteen-year-old nymphomaniacs."

  "Not quite," said Elroy. "With thirteen-year-old nymphomaniacs, you find many, many more men who can't stand up straight. That's one of the myths of thirteen-year-old nymphomaniacs."

  Barbara Jane said, "Would you care to elaborate, sir?"

  Elroy said, "Not in the least. I'd be most happy to elaborate because I think this subject is grossly overlooked in most of our classrooms today. It's a subject that America has been silently brooding over far too long, and it's groups like this one, which are forming all over the country, that will help to educate the broader pockets of misunderstanding that you find in the Midwest, the North, the East and parts of Louisiana. Thirteen-year-old nymphomaniacs ought to be eat more."

  He said, "Now then. What exactly was my original subject?"

  "Food." Shake laughed.

  "Little girls," said Barbara Jane.

  "Swallow 'em both," said Elroy.

  I'm afraid that as we all sat there on the grass some of those homemade cigarettes made the rounds.

  We partook of some, I'll have to confess. Mainly, I believe, because we felt they would enhance the flavor of the barbecued ribs. It turned out that Elroy didn't have any steaks. Not by the time we got there, anyhow. Somebody said the debutantes ate them all, or stole them for their kids and dogs.

  Incidentally, I only smoke that trash every now and then. Dope, I mean. Not kids and dogs.

  I would like for the youth of America to understand that old Billy Clyde prefers a young Scotch any old time to what you call your joints, although I think joints are fairly harmless and won't make you any kind of major league A-dict like the State of Texas says.

  Of course at Elroy's party I had both. What happened was, I started out on a young Scotch and decided I hadn't ought to drink so much before a game. Seeing as how it was a party, however, I wanted to enjoy myself to take my mind off the game. So I went to joints. But that only made me hungry and I didn't want to log up on too many ribs, so I went back to Scotch to keep from eating. And by that time, I was fuckin' high schooled. So I just drank myself into a street rummy, which is how I am now with my hang-over.

  If a stranger walks through the living room in a minute, I'll try to borrow a quarter and go downstairs and lay down on the curb. Shit, I feel awful.

  But back to the party.

  I guess we sat around with Elroy under the tree with those other folks for another hour or so before it got so rowdy, and these curious things happened that nobody might believe.

  I think it was after quite a while, and all of us had started to get tired of listening to Elroy, that this photographer came up.

  Elroy said he wanted a photographer there to take some pictures for his den, and maybe something for an album jacket.

  Anyhow we were all still sitting there on the lawn and jabbering and giggling when we noticed that one of the supposedly straight girls at the party — meaning a non-debutante or somebody without one of Elroy's T-shirts on — had gone over to pose for the photographer.

  She was one of the Indian princesses who was wearing a headband and a lot of suede stuff with fringe on it. Good-looking sumbitch. Black hair. Kind of tiny. Smartass looking. Semi-mean.

  Anyhow, the next thing we knew the Indian princess had slipped out of all but her hip-grabbing suede pants and her headband. Which meant that she was displaying her lungs for the photographer and smiling.

  Apparently she was drunk or stoned. What she would do, anyway, was hold her suede top in front of her lungs and then she would drop it down and reveal her lungs to the crowd — and the photographer — like it was a big deal for anybody to see her lungs.

  A lot of dumb-asses gathered around and applauded and shouted when the Indian princess dropped the top of her suede deal down, and tried to look sultry.

  We watched for a few minutes and Barbara Jane, who by now had jacked her own head around a little, said, "If I could stand up I'd give 'em a better show."

  Me and Shake laughed.

  Cissy Walford said, "Damn right. Me, too."

  Elroy Blunt said, "Yeah, I'm always hearin' that big talk in my travels but nobody ever backs it up."

  Barbara Jane said, "Yeah, well, if I could stand up, you'd see, boy."

  I said it was a good thing she couldn't.

  Elroy said, "What would you do for us, little lady? Would you do your panty hose commercials, or just what?"

  "You'd see," said Barb, kind of giggling.

  "Damn right," said Cissy. "Barbara and I could outlung that girl, anytime. Did I say that right, Billy? Outlung?"

  That was about the best thing I'd ever heard Cissy say.

  Elroy said, "Well, I been on six or eight continents, even some nobody knows about. I been to a shrub-judgin' and seen a queer there and I been to a football game in Dalhart. I been to Floyd's Tote-It Grocery in Sumpter and I've stepped across the Main Street of Selma with niggers on it. But I ain't ever seen no New York model show her dandy old lungs in public. And I ain't ever seen a society girlie from Long Island do it. That's somethin' I'd like to see."

  He said, "Of course, I don't know about ever-body else."

  Barbara Jane said, "If I could stand up, you'd see plenty."

  Elroy said, "Maybe we got some volunteers around here to help these two lovelies get up on their feet. How 'bout it? Anybody else want to look at some new titties?"

  Nobody said anything. Just chuckled.

  "Oh, well," said Elroy. "It's probably not important. I guess a society girlie's lungs and a New York model's lungs are pretty much like everybody's."

  Barbara Jane had been lying down on the lawn with her head propped up on her hand, which was supported by her elbow. She started trying to sit up.

  "I tell you what," said Elroy. "Why don't we just get old Clyde and old Shake 'Em Up, Shake Loose here to describe to us what the lungs of these servin' wenches look like in the shower?"

  "Nope," said Barb, struggling up to her feet with a young Scotch in her hand.

  "It's something we really ought to share with the world at long last," she said. "Right, Cissy?"

  Cissy Walford said, "Terribly absolutely. Goddamn right."

  Barbara Jane was wearing a flowered semi-Western shirt that fit tight and had long sleeves and buttoned up the front, and she was wearing snug, faded Levi's that clung to her hips without a belt. Cissy was wearing an apron, more or less, so far as I could tell, that was covered with real jewels over a pair of pants that looked like bikini bottoms, or fit like it. She also had her long yellow hair tucked up underneath a head scarf and she had on great big funny-shaped dark glasses and rawhide boots that came up to her knees.

  As Barbara Jane got up to her feet she said, "Ha!"

  Cissy said, "How'd you do that?"

  "Just another o
f my many tricks," said Barb.

  Shake and me exchanged some kind of look which didn't mean much except wonderment about how far our women folk intended to carry on their joke.

  Barbara Jane stuck her hand in her mouth and whistled two or three times, pretty loud, like men do, as if she was calling a New York taxi or a little niece who'd pissed her off.

  She giggled to herself and whistled again, to get the attention of whoever was in range.

  "Fifties and hundreds over here," Barb said, looking down at me and Shake to see if we appreciated her wit. Fifties and hundreds over here is what Burt Danby is known to say when he takes a client into an action bar in New York and is looking for hooks.

  Some people began to meander over to where we were at. Those who didn't mind leaving other parts of the lawn where the rock combos were playing. And those who didn't mind leaving the Indian princess, who had started talking to a couple of Elroy's guests who wore suits and drank beer.

  "Help me up," Cissy said.

  I said, Why?

  "Because I have to take off my clothes," she said, seriously.

  That's right, I said. I forgot.

  Cissy got up with my help and stood next to Barb with her hands folded behind her back and looking out across the yard at nothing in particular, I think.

  Barbara Jane said, "I would like everyone's very close attention because it's show time."

  Elroy played two or three chords on his guitar.

  "What the show consists of," said Barb, "is mostly just Miss Earthquake and Miss Volcano, who happen to be smashed, trying to slip out of their duds."

  Barb said, "I, of course, am Miss Earthquake. You probably all guessed that. At least you should have. I don't actually give a shit. Anyhow, this over here is Miss Volcano. Say hello, Miss Volcano."

  Cissy Walford smiled and waved at everybody.

  Barb said, "Now before we start, I want to know who stole my drink?"

  Elroy strummed a chord on his guitar.

  Shake handed Barb her young Scotch.

  "You did that very nicely," Barb said, glancing down at Shake Tiller. "Remind me to put in a good word for you with Obert Tatum."

  Barb took a sip of her drink.