Semi-Tough

by Dan Jenkins

  All I can truthfully remember is that I was so whip-dog tired and bruised up that I was just going along on what you call your instinct.

  Over and over in the huddles, Hose Manning would be panting and jabbering things like, "Gotta have it, bunch, gotta have it. Let's get it, let's get it. Guts up time now. This is a gut check. Gotta have it."

  I recall hearing Hose calling an audible at the line, now and then, like, "Blue, curfew, eighty-three," and at the same time I recall hearing Dreamer Tatum yelling defensive signals, like, "Brown, bruin, foxtrot," and then the Pope would snap the ball and I'd run somewhere and take another lick.

  I guess I ran where I was supposed to run.

  Somewhere along the way, Shake asked me, "You tired, Billy C.?" I remember that. And I remember Hose saying, "I'll tell him when he's tired."

  That was a hell of a call Hose came up with when we had fourth fucking down on our own thirty-seven and two to go. I knew we had to go for it, because of the clock. If we punted, we might never see the ball again.

  I didn't know what Hose would do. Run me, maybe. Try to hit Shake on a quick sideline, maybe. Just something to get the first down. I didn't expect what he invented and obviously the dog-ass Jets didn't either.

  In the huddle Hose said, "Bunch, I got to suck it up and pick a number. This might be the ball game so ever-body give me their best shot."

  Hose didn't make up a play so much as he made up a change of positions. He put Shake Tiller at tight end and he put Thacker Hubbard into a full-house backfield with me and Booger Sanders. The only guy he split out wide was Randy Juan.

  Then he called tight end deep, only man down. This meant that it was going to be a deep pass for Shake Tiller, out of a run formation. It was going to be that or nothing.

  "I got to have good boards on this one," Hose told Shake.

  "Just throw that sumbitch. I'll get there," said Shake.

  If Hose had thrown a real good pass, of course, it would have been a touchdown because the play had everybody fooled, including Shoat Cooper. Nobody was within ten yards of Shake.

  As it was, we only got thirty-five yards after Shake jumped up and caught the ball over his head and came down off-balance and toppled out of bounds. Instead of semi-dead, we were down on their twenty-eight.

  He caught the ball near our bench, and you would have thought he had just been elected Roman emperor, the way our bunch mobbed him.

  I want everybody to know that I was fairly astounded later on when I found out that I carried the ball six straight times from there.

  I don't at all remember the ten-yard sweep where they tell me I flat ran over Dreamer Tatum, cunt on cunt. And he had to be helped off the field for the first time in his career.

  That last carry wasn't Twenty-three Blast, by the way, like Sports Illustrated said. It was what we call Student Body Left, which is a play where everybody pulls left and I run a slant or a sweep, depending on how the blockers clear a path.

  We called time out before that last play but I didn't go to the sideline. I just sat down and tried to breathe. I did look up at the clock on the scoreboard behind the goal post and saw that there were only four seconds left in the game.

  I sat there and looked all around the stadium at those ninety-two thousand people and although there must have been a lot of roaring, I couldn't hear anything. It was weird. Really eerie. It was like I was swallowed up by this great movie, all around me, but it was a silent movie.

  They say I cut inside on the play and pretty much ran over Puddin Patterson's big ass again. All I can say is that I was so tired and numb that those three yards were the longest I ever tried to make.

  They say I climbed right up Puddin's big ass and then dived, headfirst like a silly damn swan, over the alumni stripe, and came down on my face-guard to win the game.

  What happened for the next few minutes is also pretty much of a blur. Let's see now. They carried me off the field, of course, and I damn near got stripped naked from little kids clawing at me.

  I can still hear Elroy Blunt rapping on my helmet and saying, "We done fucked 'em. We done fucked 'em."

  T.J. Lambert lifted me up in the air and said, "Remind me to buy you a sody pop."

  Burt Danby had tears streaming down his face and went so far as to kiss me on the goddamn lips.

  Shoat Cooper managed the one and only grin of his whole lifetime and said, "What I call what you done out there is football."

  Big Ed Bookman shook my hand and put ten one hundred dollar bills in it and said, "Spread this around among some of your blockers and tell 'em I don't just appreciate it by myself but the whole goddamned country does."

  It was pretty much after all the celebrating had died down in the dressing room — after everybody had stuck their heads under bottles of Scotch and champagne — that Shake Tiller came over and quietly shook my hand.

  "Ate their ass up is all you did, Billy C.," he said.

  Well, as happy as I am to be on the winning side in the Super Bowl, I can't brag that thirty-one to twenty-eight is much of a whipping. I think if we played them again it wouldn't be so close. And I surely don't agree with Sports Illustrated that it was "beyond question the most memorable sporting event of the century, apart from the most recent America's Cup."

  I'll say this. I think the sports writers made a good choice when they voted Dreamer Tatum the Player of the Game. I'd like to have had that trophy as well as the cabin cruiser and the year's supply of bubble bath. But Dreamer deserved the award.

  There wasn't anything in the newspapers about Dreamer coming over to our dressing room to congratulate us. After he had showered and got dolled up, and after the crowd had thinned out, he came over.

  It was semi-big of him, I thought.

  Dreamer went around and shook everybody's hand on our team.

  He was wearing a leather jacket with a belt, a pair of pink velvet knickers with riding boots that had spurs on them, and a bush hat made out of fur.

  "Nice goin'," he said. "Had you cats in the box but we let you out."

  I thanked him for coming over.

  "It could have been different real easy," I said. "A lot of things could have happened the other way."

  Dreamer smiled.

  "Say, I learned somethin' a long time ago about football, baby," he said. "What could have happened, did. That's what I know."

  Dreamer also said that me and him ought to get to know each other better in New York. Maybe chase some wool together.

  I told Dreamer that when we all got off the banquet circuit we'd sure do that.

  "You the champs, baby," said Dreamer, leaving. "Scoreboard done said so."

  I thought to myself that Dreamer Tatum was some kind of a stud, all right, and I hoped I could have that much class when I lost a big one.

  I think I must be getting pretty close to the end of my book because there isn't much more to tell about right here. I'd like to give Shake Tiller a semi-chance to turn up before I come to Fort Worth, Jim Tom.

  I hate to leave Shake hanging out there, wherever that is.

  But maybe the phantom old Eighty-eight will come riding up on a wave before me and Barb run a post pattern to the mainland.

  I'll be getting back to you, folks, in a few days. That'll be after I've gone to Fort Worth and met with my collaborator and tried to mend his life.

  Right now I got to go stick my toe in the Pacific Ocean. The noted author seems to have worked himself up a semi-lather here in the sun.

  My fellow Americans. I have come before you tonight as your Commander-in-Chief with a message of grave concern for all of us. It has been called to my attention by the head of the Federal Food and Drug Administration that certain professional football players smoke dope and drink whisky.

  It has also been called to my attention that there is poverty and rioting in several of our cities. This was called to my attention by television.

  I think both of these things are regrettable and I want to assure you this evening that if they don
't stop, I'm going to Palm Springs and get in a few rounds of golf.

  Now I'm going to dismiss the poverty and rioting issues because poverty is nothing more than a state of mind. And rioting, as I've said many times before, rioting, per se, is not a concern to any of us who don't like spade neighborhoods in the first place.

  To get down to the more important subject, I'd like for all of you to meet a good friend of mine, Mr. Billy Clyde Puckett. Say hello to America, Billy.

  Hidy.

  Billy, you were the hero of the Super Bowl, weren't you?

  Semi.

  You ran real tough in there, Billy, and I want to congratulate you.

  Thankee.

  Now then, Billy. As an athlete worshiped by millions of youngsters around this great country of ours, I'd like for you to tell all those watching and listening whether you think it's right to drink whisky or, as they say, to turn

  on. Just face the camera, Billy, and tell America what's in your heart.

  Is that the camera right there?

  Tell it like it is, Billy.

  Well, uh, this is Billy Clyde Puckett speaking, and I've got a lot of things on my heart. First of all, I don't think whisky drinking — to any excess, anyhow — is any good when you're alone.

  Excuse me, Billy, but —

  As for dope, I think it's the only thing you ought to use when you turn on.

  Uh, Billy, just a min —

  Something else is bothering me, too. I heard the other day that exposing yourself in front of little girls was against the law. I think that's a lot of shit.

  Billy Puckett!

  It's what I got on my heart. Also, I want to get me some pussy.

  Hi, gang. It's the real me this time. I was just having a little fun there, imitating the President and my alter ego. Actually I was trying to entertain a very dear, very warm, very old, very wonderful friend of mine, the lovely and charming Miss Barbara Jane Bookman.

  Take a bow, Barb.

  The deal is that I'm laying here on a sofa in me and Shake's palatial apartment in New York City, New York, with a young Scotch in my hand and my little old tape recorder.

  Miss Barbara Jane Bookman is sitting across the living room from me in her traditional pair of tight, faded Levi's and a whole blouse full of dandy lungs.

  Whoops. She just threw a Sports Illustrated at me.

  Missed though. Kid never did have an arm.

  Wait a second. She wants to say something.

  It wasn't too funny. She said, "Good tits, no arm."

  She's gone now — shopping or something — so that's good. Won't be any more interruptions while the noted author faces up to the chore of the last remaining paragraphs of one of the great books of the ages.

  It's later than I thought it would be when I thought I'd get around to this. It's almost spring in New York, which I think is a pretty stud time of year, especially when a man can walk down the street as the world champion of professional football.

  The trees are starting to take on a little green, and almost all the slush is gone. And all the little girlies around town have slipped out of their big old coats and slipped into not too much.

  It's kind of a pleasant sight as a fellow takes himself around from bar to bar.

  One or two fascinating things have happened since you last heard from me over in Hawaii.

  For one thing, it looks as if Barbara Jane was right about Shake Tiller. Right about Shake staying away for quite a while.

  It's been so long now that I'm beginning to think the sumbitch might make it a lifetime, but I don't really believe that.

  I suppose I'll never know what he finds so stimulating about spies or ceiling fans or mountain tops, but I don't think he'll ever know, either.

  Just before we left Hanalei we got another wire at Ching Yung's. This one was from Bangkok and it said:

  Pals. Have met a quinine hunter who can play the banjo and an escaped murderer from Hollis, Oklahoma. Have met a rich old stove who used to be married to an Argentinian general before she had him shot. Found a mystic who promises to tell me all the secrets of the Shriners. There are spies here and counter-revolutionaries and we have exchanged chili recipes. Your new split end ought to be a spook. You know of course how fast spooks are. Don't save me any meatloaf. Love both of you more than pickin' and singin'. Love. Eighty-eight.

  We weren't very amused.

  Barbara Jane said, "The key sentence is, 'Don't save me any meatloaf.' That means he won't be home for supper for a long time. He's really gone, you know. What do you want in the pool? I'll take five years."

  She read the wire again, standing out on the board steps of Ching Yung's, just by the road. She looked up at the big mountain with the waterfall, and then over at me.

  "Some people say Shake Tiller is a rat bastard prick," she said.

  I tried to get Barb to come with me to Fort Worth, and then maybe even go out on the banquet circuit with me. She said she needed to see Big Ed and Big Barb right then about like she needed a skin rash.

  She said she had a couple of jobs in New York, if she wanted to take them.

  "If I play my cards right, I think I can be the new Plus-White Pick-up Girl," she said, flashing her teeth.

  Fort Worth might be kind of fun, I mentioned. See some of the old joints. Some of the people. Eat some decent Mexican food. Get drunk, of course.

  "I thought we spent our life trying to get out of there?" Barb said.

  "It's only a stopover," I said. "I'll go over the tapes with Jim Tom. Earlene can throw a clock radio at us. And then we'll leave. Might be able to slip in and out without even calling your folks."

  Barb said it was tempting at that. But no.

  "I'll do my New York number, and you do your Akrons and your Denvers. Listen, I've got plenty to keep me busy for a while. For one thing, I'm a member of an organization which plans to blow up the World Trade Center. I've got meetings to attend."

  I guess I grinned.

  "After that," she said, "I'm starting a campaign to get all the dead Puerto Ricans and crates of brassieres out of the Hudson River."

  I took one of those overnight flights from Honolulu to Dallas, the kind where you can't sleep because you've got to get drunk twice, eat three times, see a movie, and make a run at a stewardess.

  We landed at six in the morning and I rented a car. I think I was at the stew's apartment until noon. Her name was either Shirley or Connie. Stovette, Dirty Leg. Not so great.

  I drove over to Fort Worth and got into a room out at the Green Oaks Hotel. I called Jim Tom and said he ought to come get the tapes so he could be transcribing them onto paper while I slept for the next day and a half.

  Then we could go over them, I said, and he could compliment me on the fine job I'd done.

  "Can I bring you a package?" Jim Tom asked. "I can probably scare up a friend of Crazy Iris or somebody."

  I said, "If you do, you'd better bring along somebody to fuck her. I'm whipped."

  It was the next morning when Jim Tom woke me up on the phone, laughing like hell.

  "Hey, Stud," he said, "I want to know a little more about that waitress Carlene at that place called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Sumbitch. She sounds like somebody who ought to be in the Dream Backfield."

  I yawned and coughed and groaned.

  "I'm about halfway through getting it typed. Sounds good. I guess the publishers don't mind a friendly and natural little fuck and shit now and then, do they?" he asked.

  "They're just words people use," I said.

  "Two people have been wanting to know when you're coming to town. Ed Bookman and your uncle. They've called a couple of times in the last few days," Jim Tom said.

  I asked how much more time Jim Tom needed to type up the book, read it, and think about some suggestions.

  "With some real good luck, we could meet tomorrow noon at Reba's Lounge and go over the whole thing," he said.

  I said that was good. I'd knock out Uncle Kenneth and Big Ed today and tonight, and then
I'd be free. I pointed out that I had a luncheon in Akron and a dinner in Denver coming up soon.

  "I don't want to have to come back here," I said.

  "But Fort Worth loves you," Jim Tom said.

  I met Uncle Kenneth that day at Hubert's Recreational Center, a combination pool hall and domino parlor downtown. It's been there for years. You can get a bet on most anything at Hubert's, including the up-to-the-minute price of grain. You can play gin, or moon, or bridge, or eight-ball, or six-ball-wild-snooker.

  Uncle Kenneth enjoyed showing me off to his pals, some of whom I remembered, like Puny the Stroller and Circus Face and Jawbreaker.

  "This here's my nephew that won me five large on the Super Bowl," Uncle Kenneth would say.

  Puny the Stroller, who is still fat and walks around town a lot, never looked up from a gin game when Uncle Kenneth took me over to him.

  All Puny the Stroller said was, "I don't know nuthin' about it, don't you see, but it looked to me like somebody done reached the zebras in that fuckin' game."

  Uncle Kenneth and I sat over in a corner and had us a couple of beers. He was dressed just like always — in a golf shirt, a sports coat, a pair of tasseled loafers and a little Tyrolean hat. And he wore his shades.

  "Billy, I want you to know that I'm real proud of you," he said. "You strapped it right on 'em there at the last."

  I asked Uncle Kenneth how he liked his bet when we were way down at the half.

  "Oh, hell, the damned old bet don't mean anything. You winnin' that game is all I cared about," he said. "I believe in winnin', Billy, as I've always tried to tell you about sports and things."

  Uncle Kenneth's hat was cocked down over his eyes. His shades, I mean.

  "It's like one of them old coaches — Bear Bryant or somebody — always said. Winnin' ain't the only thing in life but it beats the dog shit out of whatever's next."

  We talked on for a while, until Uncle Kenneth decided it was time for him to go to work. At snooker.

  As I was leaving, Uncle Kenneth was chalking his cue and explaining the rules of the game to two guys who looked like they sold insurance.