Life Its Ownself

  I was told I would like Denise. Denise wasn't a raving beauty, but she was intelligent, artistic, "deep," a wonderful, unselfish person.

  Denise's father didn't know about his daughter's friendship with Kathy—and he could never know. It would cause too many family problems.

  I said, "I can see where he wouldn't want his daughter to know he's fooling around, but how long can you go on like this, Kathy? Are you in love with him? If he loves you, he'll get a divorce."

  "That's what he wants to do," Kathy said, "but I have to stop him. It'll be terrible."

  "Why?" I said. "It solves everything. People your age make things too God-damn complex. You love the guy, he loves you, you get married. He'll be happy you and Denise are friends, believe me."

  Kathy took my hand. She looked at me soulfully.

  "I'm not in love with him, Billy Clyde. It's.. .Denise."

  I had never been on a jetliner that lost 10,000 feet in altitude, but in that instant, I thought I could appreciate the sensation.

  "You're in love with Denise?"

  I didn't awaken anybody in the hotel. No one came out on the balcony to look down at us in the courtyard.

  Kathy was calm. She said, "Denise and I have something together that's truly inexpressible."

  I doubt that any man ever made a quicker decision. To prevent the possibility of my becoming the butt of some longstanding gag, I knew then and there that I'd never tell Shake Tiller or any other guy about Kathy Montgomery's sexual preference.

  Maybe someday when the statute of limitations was over, Shake and I would have a good laugh about the time I'd been mentally seduced by a dyke.

  Once again, I didn't sleep well. The bereaved person seldom does. Kathy would continue to be my friend, my trusty sidekick, but as I lay in bed that night, I couldn't help thinking about the tragic waste of that Nordic combined.

  Denise was a lucky girl.

  Whitey Duhon, the famous Cajun comedian-singer, sang his own special version of our National Anthem in the Louisiana Superdome. Four thousand school children dressed like Jean Lafite formed a circle around Whitey Duhon, who stood on the 50-yard line with his fiddle.

  Mike Rash went in tight on the entertainer, ignoring the balloons, doves, and giant mechanical crayfish, as the beloved Whitey sang:

  Oh, say you gonna see, boy,

  by dat old dawn's early light, what you think?

  You gonna proudly hail dat thing, boy,

  and the LSU Tigers,

  they be gleaming, too, I tell you dat!

  And those rockets red glare,

  filet gumbo, hey?

  The catfish swimmin' in air

  give proof to you guys

  in your Mardi Gras hats,

  our flag is still there

  in the French Quarter night,

  you better believe it, A1 Hirt!

  Oh, say does dat music wail, boy,

  o'er dat land by the coonie's Bayou.

  What you think of dat,

  Kawliga me-oh?

  The Super Bowl game itself was of less interest to me than the fact that the spectacle didn't start until six o'clock in the evening. This was by design of the NFL and CBS, a ploy to hog the prime-time TV audience. And what this did was put the game up against the premiere of Rita's Limo Stop—for thirty minutes, at least.

  For those thirty minutes, my wife and I were on rival networks. Me live, her on tape.

  Of course, by nine o'clock that night Barbara Jane's show on ABC was getting a bigger break from the Super Bowl than she and her co-workers could ever have imagined possible. I should say Barb's show was getting a bigger break from the Script Committee of the Players' Association.

  When Rita came on the air, it was late in the third quarter at New Orleans and the Seattle Seahawks were leading the Dallas Cowboys by 49 to 14. By then, nobody could have been watching CBS or listening to Larry Hoage and me but those among the nation's infirm who didn't have remote clickers.

  On the first play of the game, Seattle's Gary (Gun Mount)

  Gittings had thrown a bomb to Borden (Swinging) Vine, and the Seahawks had scored on a 75-yard touchdown pass.

  Describing the re-play, I said, "You can see the Dallas defense is confused here. Nobody's going with Vine, the man in motion. I don't know why Dallas only has nine men on the field."

  Dallas took the kickoff after that touchdown and made two first downs. But then Alvar Nunez, the Dallas quarterback, came under a heavy pass rush, retreated 30 yards, and threw the ball straight up the air. The ball floated down and into the arms of D. H. Peeler, a defensive end for Seattle. D. H. Peeler never broke stride and scored with the interception.

  Those two touchdowns had set a trend for the game. Gary (Gun Mount) Gittings kept throwing passes for touchdowns. Alvar Nunez kept throwing interceptions, except when he was throwing away pitchouts.

  We had Spivey Haws, a former defensive back with Buffalo, doing interviews on the sideline for us. Teddy Cole and Mike Rash went to him every chance they got as Seattle built its lead.

  When the score was 35 to 0 in the first half, Spivey Haws was lucky enough to steal a moment with John Smith, the Dallas coach.

  Spivey Haws said, "Coach, you're down by thirty-five points. Any chance you can get back in the game?"

  "We'll be all right," said John Smith. "We just have to turn up the volume a little."

  In the middle of the third quarter, with Seattle leading by 42 to 7, Spivey Haws cornered Turk Kreck, the coach of the Seahawks.

  "Coach, did you have any idea you'd get this kind of effort out of your team today?"

  "Football!" shouted Turk Kreck, spraying the interviewer in the eye with the f. "We came to play a game called football!"

  Spivey Haws had ducked the second f.

  The zebras weren't a factor in the game. They would have been helpless against the Cowboys, anyhow. Dallas' ineffectiveness was complete.

  But at Hoyt Nester's urging, by way of an index card on which he had printed "GAME OFFICALS NOW," Larry Hoage felt the time had come for him to comment on the zebra scandal.

  "Chilluns," Larry said on the air as the last seconds of the third quarter ticked away, "I've been hesitant to say anything before now, but I'd be remiss not to put in my two cents about the officiating in the National Football League. It's too darn bad we have some striped-shirt brethren who let their flags ruin the whole rhythm of a ball game! Look! By drat, they're doing it right this minute! They're stepping off another penalty against the hapless Cowboys!"

  "Uh, Larry?" I said, hoping to interrupt.

  "They're taking it back to the thirty, the thirty-five... the forty! It's a long one. Looks like half the length of the field!"

  "It's the end of the quarter, Larry."

  "Downright disgraceful how these whistle-happy dictators tamper with the flow of a game!"

  "The quarter's over, Larry. They're changing ends."

  "As if the Cowboys haven't been hog-tied enough today! We'll be back with more leather-poppin' Super Bowl action after this."

  Larry turned to Hoyt. "How was it?"

  "A-okay," said Hoyt.

  "On the button?"

  "Wilco."

  "Rrrr... oger," said Larry.

  The idea to break new ground in broadcasting occurred to me spontaneously. First, Teddy Cole suggested I try to liven things up as the fourth quarter began. Teddy said he could hear clicks all over the country because of Seattle's big lead. That's when I said to the audience:

  "If I were watching TV at home, I know what I'd be doing, folks. I'd switch over to that new comedy on ABC. I hear Rita's Limo Stop is semi-funny."

  From the control truck, Mike Rash said, "That's a no-no, Billy Clyde. Can't plug another network. Better disclaim it with a joke or something."

  "Why?" said the voice of Teddy Cole.

  "You don't pop the opposition, Teddy."

  "Screw it, Mike. Let him go with it."

  "Screw us, you mean."

  "Nobody wants to watc
h this bag of shit, Mike. Go, Billy Clyde. It's your wife's show. That gives you license."

  A noise came from the truck.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "Mike did a headset," Teddy sighed. "So far, it's a one-headset show. We normally do a three-headset show."

  Mike Rash had done that thing a director or a producer would sometimes do in the course of a live telecast. He had removed his headset and slung it against the control board, which was a way of saying, "Okay, fuck it, you do the show."

  Seattle had scored another touchdown during all this. The Seahawks were now ahead by 56 to 14.

  On the air, then, I said, "Larry, I can only think of fifty-six reasons why I'd like to be watching Rita's Limo Stop instead of this game. Wonder if we can get it on our monitor?"

  "Right you are, Billy Clyde Puckett," said Larry. "These Cowboys have flown apart like a two-dollar suitcase!"

  The phone rang in the broadcast booth. Kathy handed me the receiver. It was Richard Marks calling from the Hospitality Room back at the New Orleans hotel. He was watching the game from there in the company of clients, who were more interested in their commercials than anything.

  "Fantastic!" said Richard Marks. "Keep it up."

  "Keep what up?"

  "Plug Rita."

  "I was just trying to be funny," I said. "There wasn't much going on here."

  "Two of our sponsors bought time on Rita. They think it's great."

  "Mike Rash doesn't."

  "Mike Rash works for me."

  "He needs a new headset."

  Richard Marks said the clients in the Hospitality Room were watching Rita's Limo Stop on a separate TV set.

  "How is it?" I asked.

  "Quite amusing," said Richard Marks. "Barbara Jane is appealing. I think it has a chance."

  "Does it have a chance-chance, or just a chance?"

  "It has a very good chance."

  Teddy Cole demanded that Larry Hoage give me the mike. Larry Hoage did so by saying:

  "Well, Billy Clyde Puckett, what are your thoughts now on that Cowboy pick you made last night?"

  "Larry, I have an update on Rita's Limo Stop. With ten minutes to go in the second half, Barbara Jane Bookman has a two-touchdown lead on Kitty Feldman."

  "Absolutely! Some days, you just can't drive a train up a dirt road. But you gotta give these Seahawks all the credit in the world. They came in here loaded for bear!"

  "Right you are, Larry Hoage. I want to congratulate our friends at ABC for having the guts to put a comedy up against a serious event like this. Hi, Barb. If you're listening, good luck in the ratings."

  The Script Committee drew heavily on cynicism to account for Seattle's last touchdown in the Super Bowl's final minute.

  Sam Galey, Seattle's punter, booted a high one to Dallas' twin safeties, Kyle Lease and Doboy Mims. Lease and Mims took turns fumbling the ball until it wound up back in their end zone. Lease and Mims then got into a shoving match with each other, and Seattle's D. H. Peeler had no recourse but to recover the ball for the touchdown that made the final score 63 to 14 in favor of the Seahawks.

  As Larry Hoage went into his wrap-up on the game, I got another phone call in the booth.

  An exultant Dreamer Tatum was on the line.

  "Was it beautiful?" he said.

  "It was beautiful, Dreamer."

  "You can't say enough about the Cowboys," he said.

  "They didn't miss a single opportunity. Nunez was incredible, but he had a lot of help. It's bound to be the lowest-rated Super Bowl ever. Hell of a day for the union, man."

  "Never have so few done so much for so many," I said.

  Dreamer said, "You couldn't tell on TV. How many people left in the fourth quarter?"

  "About sixty thousand."

  "Great!" Dreamer was calling from Washington, D.C., from the Players Association headquarters in the Machinists & Lathe Workers Building.

  "Clyde, I want to let you in on a scoop. I just talked to the Commissioner. Some of the owners had a meeting in the second half down there. The Commissioner says they're ready to give in on free agents, the wage scale, everything we want. We beat 'em, baby."

  "It's a done deal?"

  "Pro football's alive and well again."

  "Congratulations," I said.

  "You, too."

  "I didn't do anything."

  "Moral support, man."

  "Won't it be dull next year without a cause?"

  "Oh, we'll have a cause," Dreamer said. "I've got some thoughts on revenue-sharing the owners aren't going to like."

  "You can always go Dixie."

  "I'm hip, but you didn't hear it from me, Clyde."

  I handed the receiver back to Kathy and listened to Larry Hoage sign off for us. He was saying:

  "So for all of us here at CBS Sports, this is the Old Professor saying so long from Mardi Gras Land, where the Seattle Seahawks are the champeens of pro football. The Cowboys stood tall in the saddle, fought their hearts out, but the Seahawks put the big lasso on 'em. That's the story of the best Super Bowl I've ever seen."

  Kathy put a promo card in front of Larry.

  "Now," said Larry, "coming up next over most of these CBS stations... Scuzzo! More hijinks and hilarity as three pockmarked teenagers find their own way to deal with the outdated value systems of their parents and teachers. In tonight's episode, Ross, Debbie, and Phillip set fire to their high school gymnasium, and..."

  "We're off," said Teddy Cole from the truck. "Good show, everybody."

  Rita's Limo Stop got a 26 share. In TV talk, that's a raging hit. Anything between a 26 and a 32 share of the viewing audience is cause for every bicoastal to claim as much personal credit as he or she can. It put the show among the ten most-watched programs of the week—which isn't as important as the share. Carving out a share of the night, the hour, the half-hour, is everything where television ratings are concerned.

  When the figures came in two days after the Super Bowl I was back in New York, awaiting word on my own TV future. Richard Marks had at one time mentioned that the network might use me on other sports during the winter and spring. The only other work I had planned was some banquet appearances. If CBS wanted me to hang around some other sports events, I was willing. Another town, another cocktail.

  While I was in New York waiting for Richard Marks to make up his mind, I trapped Barb on the phone at the Westwood Marquis.

  "Nice going on the share," I said.

  "Thanks."

  To say my wife's voice was cool would be like saying Alaska has polar bears.

  "How are you?" I asked.

  "Fine."

  She didn't ask how I was, so I said:

  "I'm fine, too."

  She didn't respond to that either. I said, "I popped your show on the air. Pretty funny, huh?"

  "I suppose."

  "Did you hear it?"

  "We were out."

  "We?"

  Nothing.

  I then said, "The apartment looks fine. A cleaning lady comes in."

  "Is her name Ken?"

  "Are you ever going to not be mad?"

  "I have to go now."

  "I miss you, Barb. I love you."

  "Good."

  And she hung up.

  A few days later I was summoned to Richard Marks's office in the CBS building on 52nd and Sixth. There, I was informed that I would be used on a spot basis as a regular sports broadcaster. I still didn't have an agent, but we agreed on a ridiculous, six-figure salary.

  Richard Marks said, "I wish you would get an agent before we negotiate your contract for football next season."

  "I'm doing okay without one," I said.

  My assignment for the spring and summer was to go to some golf tournaments, sit on a tower behind the 15th green, and say things like "Let's go to Sixteen."

  I thought I should be honest with my boss and tell him I didn't know anything about professional golf.

  "It doesn't matter," Richard Marks said. "You can't se
e golf on TV. The ball's too small. We don't expect ratings. It's a prestige buy."

  Richard Marks shook my hand. "You're a full-time announcer now, Billy Clyde. How does it feel?"

  "Words can't describe it," I said.

  Three words could have described it. Guilty as shit.

  The head of CBS Sports asked about my travel plans over the coming weeks. There were some speaking engagements, I said; otherwise, I'd be on a New York barstool.

  "I'll want my people with me at the Emmy Awards dinner in March," he said. "It's an industry night. Good occasion to show your strength."

  I said I would be more than happy to attend, thinking it would be an opportunity to see Barbara Jane. Her show had been on the air only two weeks, but it had already nomimated itself—or ABC had—for several Emmys: Barb for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series, Carolyn Barnes for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, Jack Sullivan for Outstanding Director of a Comedy Series, and Sheldon Gurtz and Kitty Feldman for Outstanding Writers of a Comedy Series.

  It had always seemed to me that they gave away Emmys as often as they gave away Grammys. Like once a month. Daytime Emmys, nighttime Emmys, local Emmys, News Emmys, Sports Emmys, technological Emmys. Like most people, I never knew when a year started or ended for television, exactly how and why anybody got nominated for an Emmy, who voted, or who won, except that every channel I ever watched in every city I was ever in had an "Emmy Award- winning Eyewitness News team."

  But this was a year in which all of the Emmys were to be given out on one big, black-tie evening in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf, an awards telecast on which three comics would fight over the microphone while a parade of rock stars eagerly opened the envelopes, hopeful of finding dread inside.

  "Do we have a chance to win anything?" I asked my boss.

  "I hope not," said Richard Marks. "The industry tends to vote mediocrity."

  Shake Tiller tore himself away from Priscilla and his novel, which was tentatively titled The Past. He flew down to Fort Worth with me for what T. J. Lambert called The Big Signing.