The Last Season

by Stuart Stevens

  What made New Orleans different was its Shangri-La quality: there, hidden behind natural barriers (water, not mountains), was a land where you could not only do different things but be a different person. There was the promise that you could be anybody you wanted to be. At home in Mississippi, our lives were defined ever so precisely by a universe of large and small realities not of our choosing: who our mamas and daddies were, where we went to school, how good we were at the sports that mattered, the fight behind the drive-in that we won or lost, how many times a week we went to church and where, was it a dry county or a wet county, or back when everything was dry from New Orleans to Memphis, did your family know a good bootlegger? Who are your cousins? How many did you have? Did you have every Sunday dinner at your grandmother’s?

  It’s easy to understand why my mother, who had grown up in New Orleans and now found herself in Jackson, always felt a part of her was missing. If you were raised on French bread, you can eat all the Wonder bread in the world and still feel hungry. I had grown up hearing that New Orleans was a magical place. Then, the first time I visited, for the 1964 Sugar Bowl, it snowed the day before the game. It was New Year’s Day 1964: my first Sugar Bowl, the first snow I could really remember, and my first trip to New Orleans since I was a toddler.

  “You remember that first Sugar Bowl you took me to?” I asked my father when we were sitting in the student union eating a post-corn-dog frozen yogurt. They had a Pinkberry just like the one on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Corn dogs and tart frozen yogurt had a nice symmetry.

  My father thought for a moment and smiled. “Ole Miss and Alabama. Johnny Vaught and Bear Bryant.”

  We both smiled at the memory. “The old Tulane Stadium,” I said. “You know what I remember about that place? How it would shake when everybody stamped their feet. I thought it was going to come down.”

  “Much more fun than the Superdome,” he said.

  For that first Sugar Bowl, we stayed uptown with a childhood friend of my mother’s. It was close enough to the stadium at Tulane to walk, which meant it was close enough to hear the crowd. “I loved when we walked to the games,” I said. “The way you could hear the crowd and the band in the distance. It was like in those Tarzan movies when he’d be in the jungle and hear the native villages in the distance.”

  “You can’t do that at the Superdome,” my father said.

  New Year’s Day, snow, the game—any one of these would have been a great excuse to party in New Orleans. Put all three together, and it was like a sign from the gods of excess that they must be honored. Of course there was a party at the house where we were staying. There were always parties before the games. People arrived hungover from the night before, desperate for Bloody Marys. I hung out in the kitchen, my normal place at parties. Billy, the college-aged son of my parents’ friends, was bartending. He was wearing khakis, beat-up penny loafers with no socks, and a madras button-down shirt. His blond hair was a touch longer than the norm, and he seemed to always have a wry grin.

  “You want to help?” he asked.

  I was stunned. No one had ever asked me to help make a drink. At my parents’ parties, if there was a bartender, he would always slip me the cherries used for drinks or drop one in a Coke for me for an instant Cherry Coke. But making a drink?

  “I don’t know how,” I said, but that didn’t matter to Billy. “Course you do. Not like you never seen a drink. You just haven’t done it. That’s not the same as not knowing how.” He talked to me as if he had confidence in me. I’d always wanted an older brother, and this was just how I imagined it would be. He would teach me how to make drinks.

  Billy showed me how to make a Bloody Mary, mixing the tomato juice and Worcestershire and lemon.

  “Some folks like some Tabasco in their drink,” he said, holding up a large bottle. “Give ’em a shot or two if they want it. Just don’t get it on your hands. You’ll end up rubbing your eyes, and that burns like hell.”

  He said “hell” casually, as though it were just us guys. “I know what Tabasco is like,” I said. I didn’t want him to think I didn’t know anything. “My dad puts Tabasco on everything.”

  “There you go,” he said, winking at me. “You know the drill.” It was like being admitted to a special club. A college girl came in and nodded at me. “Who’s your helper, Billy?” she asked.

  “Had to bring a pro in. Some serious drinkers around here.” They smiled at each other, and when Billy handed me her drink to add vodka, she said, “Go easy on that, hon. You know Billy just wants me to get drunk.” She giggled and took the drink, gliding off. She left a hint of perfume.

  “She’s pretty,” I said and was surprised I said it as soon as it came out.

  “Very,” Billy answered, as if he and I talking about pretty girls were a regular thing. “She has to beat guys away with a stick.” I thought about this and didn’t really understand the meaning but nodded.

  “We need some more beer,” Billy announced. “You hold down the fort. I’ll be right back.”

  “You’re leaving?” I asked. “What do I do?”

  “Just what you’ve been doing.”

  If I had been a little more worldly, I might have expressed astonishment that beer could be bought on New Year’s Day. But I suppose I just assumed it was coming from the bootlegger, that being the only world I knew. Partygoers, or what Billy called “customers,” started to come in and asked for drinks. No one seemed to think it odd that an eleven-year-old was tending bar. But then this was New Orleans.

  “Yeah, baby,” one man said to me after taking a sip. “Now we’re talking.” He smacked his lips approvingly. I had no idea how much vodka to add, but when I saw that the more I put in, the more my “customers” seemed to like it, I didn’t scrimp. There were a lot of red faces that seemed to get redder as they downed their Bloody Marys. They circled back to me like race cars in a pit stop.

  When Billy returned with beer, I was glad to see him.

  “We need more of this stuff,” I said, holding up a nearly empty vodka bottle.

  He laughed, then looked more closely. “What happened to the rest of this?” he asked, looking at the bottle.

  A woman I’d made a drink for came into the kitchen holding out her glass. “Can’t fly on one wing,” she said, looking like the happiest person in the room.

  “One?” Billy asked, laughing. “How many wings you had?”

  “Oh, just one real good one,” she said, giving me a wink. “He mixes a mean drink,” she said, and I felt a rush of pride.

  Later, when we walked to the game, a lot of people took what they called “go cups,” the first time I had heard that description. There was still snow on the ground and a melting, not very large snowman with a Rebel flag stuck in its head.

  “Are the Rebels going to win?” I asked my dad.

  “Today the Rebels are going to win. Yes, sirree.” I didn’t doubt it for a second.

  Ole Miss hadn’t lost a game all season, though they had tied two games, which seemed unlikely. This was the year after their undefeated national championship season, and I was young enough to think that there was some connection between me being in love with the team and their national championship. I was yet to experience the unrequited love of a failing team.

  Alabama was 8-2, but the big news was that Bear Bryant had suspended Joe Namath for drinking and replaced him with Steve Sloan, who had played mostly as a defensive back. With Namath out, no one, at least in our world, thought Alabama had a chance. It had been billed as the Battle of the South, and despite not having Namath, Bear Bryant had not tried to downplay the stakes of the game, telling reporters, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not the best football game in the nation.”

  With a wet field, snow pushed to the side, it started badly for Ole Miss, and they settled into a war of attrition. On their second drive, Alabama kicked a field goal, then followed with another field goal after Ole Miss fumbled. “All we need is one good drive,” my dad said, settling int
o his long coat. “They held ’em to three. Just need a solid drive.”

  But Ole Miss fumbled again in the wet, sloppy conditions, and Alabama got another field goal. “We just can’t get out of our own way,” Dad said, shaking his head.

  “We’ve got Weatherly,” I said, looking to be convinced.

  “That’s right. We’ve got Jimbo. We’ll be okay.” He unbuttoned a few buttons on his long coat and threw it over my legs. “That better?” I had been shivering. Weatherly was Jim Weatherly, the Ole Miss star quarterback. Namath got the national press, but Weatherly was tall and good-looking and had a quiet cool that inspired confidence. He played in a rock-and-roll band. Later he would go on to a career as a singer and songwriter, writing “Midnight Train to Georgia” among many hits. But for now, he was just the second-best and second-coolest quarterback in the SEC, not a bad distinction when Joe Namath was number one.

  But Jimbo Weatherly was having an off game. The cold seemed to bother him. He threw an interception that led to another Alabama field goal. Nothing was clicking with the Ole Miss offense; one fumble led to another, and by the end of the game they had fumbled eleven times, an unimaginably high number for any team but especially one coached by Johnny Vaught, who always stressed fundamentals.

  “Can’t catch a break,” my dad said. “Rebels just can’t catch a break.” I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. Even when Ole Miss finally got a first down on the Alabama two-yard line, they still couldn’t score. At the end, it was Alabama 12, Ole Miss 7. The Alabama student newspaper called it “the most important win of the Bear Bryant era.” All I knew was that the Rebels had lost the Big One. The scene was ugly leaving the stadium. A good portion of the 83,000 had woken up hungover and pumped themselves up for the game with Bloody Marys and other toddies, sustained through the game with smuggled flasks. Now the Alabama fans were still drinking in celebration, and the Ole Miss faithful, those who had a drop or two left, were drinking to console themselves.

  We shuffled down the crowded ramp of the old stadium surrounded by the sullen crowd. I had been crying, and my face was bright red from the tears and the cold. My father had his arm around me, and he was talking about next season.

  “They’ll be back next season. Better than this season. Jimbo Weatherly will be quarterback. They’ll be back.”

  In the far corner of the parking lot, a cluster of Alabama fans taunted with choruses of “Hotty Toddy.” One of the Ole Miss fans ran into the group, fists flying.

  Dad steered us away. “They’ll be better next year. You hungry? I’m hungry. You know somebody has to lose a game,” he said. “It’s easy if you win all the time. When you lose, it’s harder. That’s when fans have to stick with their team. We still love the Rebels, right?”

  I nodded. Of course we did.

  “That’s because we love them even if they lose. Things aren’t always easy. It’s hard to lose, but it’s a test.”

  “A test?”

  “If you really love a team, you still love them. And if you are on a team and it loses, that’s when you have to stick together. That’s important. Just work harder and come back next time.”

  But Ole Miss never made it to another bowl game undefeated and never won another national championship.

  —

  LSU played Ole Miss at Oxford this year, a not small advantage given the insanity of Tiger Stadium. The morning of the game, I got up early and went for a run from the campus into Oxford. It was always a little startling to see the Grove filled with the red tents of game day. The green open space of the day before was transformed into a tent city, like an overnight refugee camp for partiers.

  The university kept all tents out of the Grove until 9:00 p.m. the night before, and then there was a land rush to claim your space and set up tents. There was an odd etiquette that mostly allowed for groups to return to the same space year after year, though there was always some grumbling that every year it was harder than ever to get the right spot. This was no doubt true because the Grove scene seemed to grow more popular and there was only so much space.

  I passed a couple in their late twenties slowly pulling a large red ice chest to their tent. He had a cup of coffee, and she had a glass of white wine. They each pulled on the chest and took turns with the drinks: one sip of coffee each, then a sip of wine. She waved her wineglass at me as I passed. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said, laughing. “I recommend the combination highly.”

  Downtown, I circled the deserted courthouse square of Oxford. My mother had spent her first night in Oxford, fresh off the train that doesn’t run anymore, in a hotel right on the square. She had arrived a day earlier than expected and hadn’t been able to get in touch with the university sorority officials who were planning to meet her. She had tried to get a glass of wine at the hotel restaurant, and that’s when she learned for the first time that Oxford was dry. Now bars, restaurants, bookstores, and art galleries had transformed the town. Smithsonian magazine had named it one of the twenty best small towns in America. For years, the owner of Square Books, Richard Howorth, had served as mayor. There was something irresistible about a town that elected a bookstore owner mayor.

  When I got back on campus, my father was walking along Circle Drive around the Grove. “What are you doing up this early?” I asked. He was wearing a ski jacket and scarf and looked almost rakish.

  “We used to park out here,” he said, waving at the Grove. “Back then, you could park here before games. That was real tailgaiting.”

  “Y’all want some coffee?” a woman asked. She was middle-aged and elegantly put together in a red dress and heels. It was a sophisticated look for this early—even for the Grove, where dressing up was something of a competitive sport among some. She had a coffeemaker plugged in on the table. “How about a sweet roll?”

  We told her we’d love some. “You’re out early,” I said, diving into maybe the best sweet roll I’d ever tasted.

  “My daughter’s sorority is having a brunch. But it was our turn to set everything up at the tent. There’re five of us, five couples, and we divide who sets up for each game. We’ve been doing this since we graduated. I guess that tells you how old I am.”

  “I’m ninety-five,” my dad said.

  “Good God!” she said. “That’s amazing.”

  I was getting used to that shocked reaction to my father’s age. I wasn’t sure if it was that people thought he was younger or it was more the idea that anyone could be ninety-five. Whatever the cause, he seemed to enjoy the shock.

  “I never in all my life thought I’d be this dressed up this early on a Saturday. Normally, I’d be out here in my sweats. But I just don’t want to embarrass my daughter, you know?”

  “You look great,” Dad said.

  “You get another sweet roll for that,” she said, holding out a plate. I had the feeling that’s what he had been hoping would happen.

  We walked off licking our fingers. “You know,” I said, “if you don’t do campaigns, fall can be kind of nice.” I gestured out at the Grove. “I’ve been running around doing campaigns like they were the most important thing in the world, while people were still coming to the Grove, enjoying life.”

  “Some people like that,” Dad said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Enjoying life,” he said, with a smile. “But you enjoy campaigns, don’t you?”

  “I enjoy winning. No,” I said, correcting myself, “I enjoy not losing. I realized a long time ago that it hurts more to lose than it feels good to win.”

  “Can you imagine not doing campaigns?” he asked.

  “Today I could. Especially if Ole Miss wins.” We sat down on a bench overlooking the Grove. A couple of students were trying to hang a crystal chandelier inside a tent.

  “I’m not sure they’ve done that before,” my father said.

  “I’ll tell you what I always liked most about campaigns. It’s definite. You win or lose. You don’t have to wonder if you did
a good job. It must be like that with lawsuits.”

  He shrugged. “You’ve heard me say it before. A lot of being a good lawyer is avoiding lawsuits.”

  “I wouldn’t have been good at that. I would want to try every one, even if I lost. Just to fight and see if I could have won. But that’s why I would make a lousy lawyer.”

  We watched as the chandelier almost came tumbling down, caught at the last minute by a middle-aged man passing by with a red cup in one hand. He held it up like a trophy to applause.

  “Nice catch,” Dad said.

  “Why do you think somebody wants a chandelier in a tent anyway?” I asked.

  “To make it special,” he said. “All these tents out here, but these folks will have a chandelier. I bet they do it for every night game. Their friends think it’s funny, and they joke about it all year. It’s why people have parties.”

  “To have fun?”

  “To give themselves something to remember a special event. Memory works like that. You get older, you learn a lot about memory.” He paused with a bittersweet look. “Good and bad. You know what I worry about you?” he asked, and before I could answer, he said, “You’re too hard on yourself. You blame yourself too much if anything goes wrong in one of your campaigns. And”—he held up a big hand as I was starting to respond—“you’ve let work consume you too much. It’s what you care most about now.”

  He was right, and I knew there was no point in arguing. “When you think about what made you the happiest, what was it?”

  “Happiest? It was always family.” He paused. “But you know that. You, your sister, your mother.”

  I nodded. It wasn’t an unexpected answer, but there seemed to be no hesitation and not a hint of doubt. “And when you think about everything you’ve done, what makes you the most proud?”

  He looked at me, surprised. “Proud? Tried to avoid that.”