Life Its Ownself

  "Rrr-i-g-h-t," said Darnell. "You know about that shit, baby."

  "What the fuck difference does it make, hummin' or chantin'?" T.J. said. "All I know is, the best football player in America is sittin' down there in Boakum, Texas, with his head out of whack, and I'm sittin' up here at TCU tryin' to pull a string out of a duck's ass."

  Big Ed came up with a plan. He wanted Shake and me to go to Boakum, make an effort to talk some sense into

  Tonsillitis. There was a chance he would listen to a couple of famous football players. If we had no luck with Tonsillitis, we were to meet with Swami Muktamananda.

  We were to offer the swami $500,000 to convince Tonsillitis that the only way to purify his soul was to play football for TCU. The swami could take the money all at once or in deferred payments; whatever his tax man suggested. This was Big Ed's final offer. The swami could take it or leave it.

  Darnell said he might need twenty-four hours to set up the meeting with the swami. The swami didn't live in Boakum. He was commuting from Austin.

  "It's all I know to do," Big Ed sighed. "If this don't work, we'll just have to find us another nigger. Excuse me, Darnell."

  Darnell had a good feeling about the plan. Five hundred thousand dollars was "mucho Dolores." Big Ed might have bought himself a swami, he said.

  Shake's article on pro football hit the newsstands that afternoon. We bought two copies of Playboy in the hotel gift shop and barricaded ourselves in the Hyatt Regency suite. We gave the hotel operator a list of the only people we would take calls from. We ordered two quarts of youngster, a gross of BLT's and French fries, and a vat of coffee from room service. We kicked off our shoes, pulled out our shirttails, turned on TV, and settled in for the night.

  The list of people who tried to reach us and left plaintive messages were Bob Cameron, the NFL Commissioner, Burt Danby, Shoat Cooper, Richard Marks, Kim Cooze, somebody from The Today Show, somebody from 20/20, representatives of The New York Times, the New York Daily News, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, The Dallas Morning News, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Miami Herald.

  Plus a man named Mort from the Coast who left word that he was an independent producer who knew a rich Arab.

  Barbara Jane's call was the first one the operator put through to us.

  Barb said she liked Shake's story. It had all the elements of a good movie. Boy meets flag, boy loses flag, boy gets flag.

  I asked how her backhand was coming along.

  Jack Sullivan's house in the Hollywood hills was marvelous, she said. He had a lovely pool near the tennis court. Everything in the house worked, as opposed to the continual problems of a New York apartment. Houses like Jack Sullivan's were so nifty, they almost made you think Los Angeles wasn't a penal colony.

  Progress was being made on Rita, so much so that everyone was beginning to feel good about the show. And this was making everybody nervous. What if they had a hit? What if she were to win an Emmy?

  "What if I win an Emmy?" I said. "They're talking about nominating me."

  "Dueling Emmys."

  Barbara Jane said the episodes were going more smoothly. Sheldon Gurtz and Kitty Feldman were easier to work with. The hours weren't as long anymore. There had been time to rest and relax, catch your breath.

  Strange, but these changes had taken place in the last forty-eight hours. Show biz was like that, Jack Sullivan had said. Somewhere, sometime, on every project that had any merit something clicked, visibility improved, and everybody started to "cook."

  Jack Sullivan's house had become a country-club hangout for the cast.

  "Are you talking to me from poolside?" I said.

  "Of course."

  "You're in a lounge chair with a cordless phone, right?"

  "Yes," she said. "And I have a plate of fried wonton beside me."

  "There's something I'll never understand about cordless phones," I said.

  "What?"

  "When they ring, how'd they know where you were?"

  Barbara Jane said to congratulate Shake on his article and ask him what country he planned to move to.

  I mentioned to Barb that I couldn't hear a lot of gaiety coming from Jack Sullivan's pool or the thump of any tennis balls, but perhaps it was the less-than-ideal connection on the cordless phone.

  "Carolyn's here but she's in the sauna," Barb said. "The others are on their way over."

  Barb said she was sorry I wasn't going to be there over the weekend. It looked like they weren't going to be working on Rita. We could have spent some time together, darn it.

  It was too bad, I said. She would just have to work on her serves and suntan without me, but she could think of me toiling away in a broadcast booth, trying to score a completed sentence against Larry Hoage's prevent defense.

  Shake took a congratulatory call from Dreamer Tatum, and another from Jim Tom.

  Dreamer predicted the Players Association would vote Shake its Man of the Year.

  Jim Tom said the photo of Kim Cooze had sold the story. Playboy had only used a two-column "accent" picture of Kim on the lower lefthand corner of a page, but the photographer had captured her bare 44s from a very flattering angle.

  Jim Tom also said the picture of Kim was going to turn Charlie Teasdale into a folk hero.

  He said, "The only thing a reader's going to wonder is why Charlie didn't give her two games—one to go with each of those things!"

  When Kathy called, she sounded like she was in a near- panic. "We have to find Shake Tiller," she said. "Richard Marks wants you to do an exclusive insert with him. We'll use it at the top of the show Sunday. Richard says we'll fly Shake to Dallas, pay all his expenses. We'll send a company plane for him! Do you know where I can reach him? I've tried everywhere. Billy Clyde, this is really important. Richard's going crazy. He can't get you on the phone. He's calling me every fifteen minutes to see if I've found you or Shake. If I don't set this up, he may fire me. If I do set it up, he may promote me! Where's Shake? Can you talk him into coming to Dallas?"

  Holding the receiver where Kathy could hear my voice, I said, "Shake, you want to go on TV with me Sunday?"

  He said, "I thought you'd never ask."

  "Oh, my God!" said Kathy. "He's there? Shake's in the room with you?"

  Yes, I said, but don't tell Richard Marks.

  Career-wise, I said, it would be better if Richard Marks thought it was going to take her three days of intense cloak- and-dagger work to arrange the interview.

  I said, "Tell Richard you have reason to believe Shake's on a sampan in Hong Kong harbor, but he'll come to Dallas as a personal favor to you because you're a friend of mine."

  She said, "I love you, Billy Clyde! I do!"

  "See you Friday."

  "I've never been to Texas. I'm excited."

  After I'd spoken to Kathy, I said to Shake, "Part of the joy of being a grownup is seeing young people get ahead in life."

  Shake was mixing us a cocktail as he said, "B.C., if you don't fuck her now, I'm going to."

  Shake's Playboy article was illustrated on the two opening pages by a wide-angle photo of a zebra reaching for his flag as an L.A. Ram carried a football into an end zone.

  I re-read parts of the story in bed that night.

  A NOT SO FOND FAREWELL TO THE NFL

  by Marvin (Shake) Tiller

  Once upon a time there was a great sport in America that brought pleasure and excitement to millions every week of every autumn. It was called pro football. I played the game in those days. Now I no longer play and it's just as well. The sport has turned to shit.

  Today you can't find anybody around the power structure of the NFL who doesn't look like they suck blood.

  The owners ought to walk with a goose step. The general managers should wear black cloaks. The coaches need to be locked up in rubber rooms. And the zebras—the game officials—belong in correctional institutions.

  Don't worry about the players. They've all gone Dixie, anyhow—which is w
here the fans are headed.

  It's about time for the playoffs to start this season, and I can't wait to see how the zebras are going to make a bundle on those games.

  Offensive holding is their old reliable. They can always lean on that. You can be sure they'll rely on it if a team looks like it's going to turn the game into a runaway.

  That's because the zebras who aren't crooks have been instructed by the league to keep the contests close for the TV audience.

  My favorite crook in the league is Charlie Teasdale, a referee whose bimbo is pictured on this page.

  For the past three or four years I've suspected Charlie of doing business in the games he worked because he could toss flags like a frycook tossed eggs.

  Charlie picked his spots, although he had a tendency to like underdogs. Not to win, just to "cover."

  I ran a check. Three years ago, 10 out of 12 dogs covered in the games he worked. Two years ago, 11 out of 14 dogs covered in the games he worked. Last year, 14 out of 16 dogs covered in the games he worked.

  To the sharp guys who could get a bet down before the kickoff in a game Charlie officiated, he was more fun than stock dividends.

  This season, back in late September, Charlie made a mistake. He gave a game to somebody I know, the lady whose homegrowns are dressing up this article. Her name is Kim Cooze. She's an exotic dancer at The Blessed Virgin, a strip joint in Fort Worth, Texas.

  I found out what Charlie was up to by accident. Kim told me. I have to confess that she told me after we had been intimate.

  Kim didn't know I was a writer at the time. She only told me about the fix because she thought I might want to get in on a good thing.

  She bet the game and won a new Camaro. As this was written, she was expecting to get other tips from Charlie. I'm sure she did. This is the only one I can prove, but one's enough. Or too many.

  Remember the Miami-Jets game on Sept. 28? Miami was favored by 6V2 points. The Dolphins only won by 6, so if you bet the Jets you won your money.

  That day, the Dolphins should have beaten the Jets by 30. But Charlie Teasdale called back three Miami touchdowns because of offensive holding—and he made that controversial call on the Miami fumble in the last minute. That fumble cost the Dolphins a field goal, 3 points that would have covered the 6-1/2.

  Kim had bet the Jets. Lucky girl. Good old Charlie had told her how much he liked the Jets with the points.

  I have Kim Cooze's sworn affidavit to this fact. I also have her voice on tape.

  Why would Kim go public with this information? Well, let's be honest. It wasn't out of love for the game.

  She wants the national publicity. She hopes it will help her career. She bills herself as a "mystical theologian who strips for God."

  Here's a tip from me. If you're ever in Fort Worth, Kim's act beats going to the Pancake House.

  Why would Charlie Teasdale, an established referee in the National Football League, a family man, give a game to a woman like Kim Cooze?

  Jesus Christ, man, have you looked at those tits?

  Shake went on to say in the article that he could predict how Charlie Teasdale would respond to his charge. Charlie would see no need to defend his holding calls in the Miami- Jets game. You can always call holding, he would say. He had only penalized the Dolphins in those instances where they had been guilty of "flagrant" holding.

  The Miami fumble, he would say, was strictly a judgment thing. It's possible he had blown it. If so, he was sorry. But he had seen the ball "come out" before Dwayne Arrick, the Miami runner, was down. And from his angle, it had looked like Lewis Shoop, the Jet linebacker, had gained "possession" of the ball before it wound up under a mound of Dolphins. Charlie would insist his whistle had stopped the action when the Jet had been on the ball.

  In the article, Shake said he had looked at films of the game carefully and you couldn't see the fumble. Charlie would say that Shake had seen the play from poor camera angles. The league would support Charlie rather than stoke the fire of a controversy.

  Charlie—and the league—would also wonder who would take the word of a publicity-seeking stripper for anything? And the league would let it get around that Shake Tiller, the ex-player who wrote the story, had experimented with "drugs."

  The Commissioner, Bob Cameron, would issue a statement reminding America that NFL officials, like the CIA, are "fair game" for writers. Writers know they can say whatever they please about the zebras because, like the CIA, zebras never dignify "malicious rumor" by commenting on it.

  The article had made Playboy's editors very nervous. The magazine's lawyers had nibbled on it like chipmunks, gnawed at it like wolves, hopped around on it like Siamese cats.

  In the days leading up to publication, Shake had been forced to sign a paper taking full responsibility for the content of the expose. In exchange for this, Silvia Mercer, his agent, had managed to have his fee doubled. Shake was getting a record $47,500 for the piece.

  "Milan Kundera wouldn't get that kind of money," Silvia Mercer had bragged to Shake.

  "He would if he worked without a net," Shake had said.

  Playboy's editors finally decided to run the story over the protest of their lawyers because Shake convinced them his documentation was unassailable.

  "Your documentation is a stripper," one of the lawyers had argued with Shake.

  "That's right," Shake had said. "Who wouldn't believe a stripper before they'd believe a fucking lawyer?"

  The NFL fan was further captivated by these excerpts:

  The players are my friends. For this reason I'm not going to use any names or quotes to verify the fact that the players have had a plan in effect this season that's designed to bring the owners to the bargaining table over the wage-scale and free-agent issues. You'll have to take my word for it.

  You, the fan, have known it simply as boring, sloppy, emotionless football, which is what the National Football League has come to stand for.

  Boredom began with overexposure on television. It reached its zenith with parity—

  and it looks like the only thing that will cure all of it is another Great Depression. That would bring everything back to reality.

  This season, the players are in a rebellion, quietly, underground. They may as well be on strike for all of the effort they're putting into the games.

  They know they could never win a strike against the wealthy owners, so they're trying to win their demands their way. They're giving the league total parity. No team is worth a damn.

  If you say you've watched the games and you don't believe me, that's your problem. Keep watching. You must like sick humor.

  As bad as things seem in the NFL, we aren't without remedies. Here are some ways to pump life back in the game:

  • Award bonus points for teams that recover their own spikes in end zones.

  • Award bonus points for all white guys who score touchdowns.

  • Eliminate the extra-point kick. It's a yawn. Make teams run or throw for their conversions.

  • Allow only one field-goal try per game—and if the kicker misses, he has to go back to Rumania.

  • No more holding calls. Let the weight- lifters fight it out in the line.

  • Outlaw the quarterback sneak, the draw play, the prevent defense, and the kill-the-clock incompletion.

  • Do away with the fair catch.

  • Take up the artificial turf. Tear the roofs off stadiums.

  • Find out what "encroachment" is and get rid of it.

  • Move the two-minute warning to the start of the game.

  • Shorten the regular season to 12 games.

  • Cut back to 16 teams in the league. When did Buffalo, San Diego, Denver, Atlanta, Tampa, Kansas City, Seattle, New Orleans, Foxboro, Indianapolis, Houston, and Minneapolis ever get the idea they were major-league in the first place?

  • Take periodic urine samples from the league's investigators.

  • Make all owners live in the cities where they own teams.

&n
bsp; • Shoot down the Goodyear blimp. Show more closeups of cheerleaders on television.

  • A team forfeits one game for every Hollywood celebrity who turns up in an owner's luxury box.

  A last word about Charlie Teasdale and his family.

  Not that it would have stood in the way of journalism, but one fact made this expose easier for me to write. Mrs. Teasdale is legally blind.

  I am told that Mrs. Teasdale will think the picture of Kim Cooze is an architectural illustration of the twin domes on a new stadium complex.

  I hope Mrs. Teasdale's friends, out of sympathy for her feelings, will use good judgment in what they tell her about the contents of this article.

  Finally, the reader is entitled to have the following question answered: why would a former NFL player like myself write these things about his sport?

  Because I used to love pro football and I want my game back.

  Shake's story was all over the newspapers. EX-PLAYER ACCUSES GAME OFFICIAL OF 'FIX.' EX-PLAYER SAYS NFL GAMES ARE 'JOKE.' NFL SHRUGS OFF EX-PLAYER'S ACCUSATIONS.

  It was front-page news in most of the league cities. The Fort Worth Light & Shopper even gave it banner play over the prominent state legislator who had confessed to operating a child-pornography ring in Austin.

  The story in Jim Tom's paper was compiled from wire reports. It pretty much covered all of the repercussions to Shake's piece.