Life Its Ownself Read Online Free Page B

fixed on my right leg. His whole offense lay in my bed.
    "Them niggers is gonna pay for this," Shoat said.
    Burt Danby kept moving around. "Get this," he said. "Know what I told the media about Twenty-three? I said, Whoa, assholes, my man'll be back next season with a Gucci knee, and it's look out, Super Bowl! Whammo-spermo! Right up the old anal! Listen, you got everything you need here? How's the food? Right in the shitter, huh? Let me order you some Chinese. How 'bout some minced pork with lettuce? Fuck it, I'll call Pearl, she'll bring it over herself!"
    Burt Danby was a wiry little man who had never stopped talking like an advertising executive. His old agency, DDDF, had purchased the Giants from the Mara family in the early Seventies. Burt had been named the club's chief operating officer. He had presided over our Super Bowl victory. He had suffered so much throughout the turbulent contest that he had sworn to God he would give up drinking and cheating on his wife if only we could win that one game. I later heard that after I scored the winning touchdown, Burt had jumped to his feet, shook his fist at God, and hoarsely screamed, "Fuck you, Skipper, if you can't make it in Big Town, go to Des Moines!"
    A year after the Giants won the Super Bowl, Burt had somehow gained majority control of the franchise in a mysterious stock transaction and left the agency. It was said Burt had a silent partner in the deal. It was also said he might wind up living in Costa Rica if the Justice Department ever took a close look at the stock transaction.
    "TV!" Burt said, brightly, feeling the need to cheer me up. "You'll go straight into television when you bust out of here! You got a season to jerk off; why not?"
    Burt said the networks were sure to offer me a job as a color announcer. CBS and NBC would get in a bidding war. Billy Clyde Puckett would be the only winner.
    "You serious?"
    "Does the Pope shit in the woods?"
    I laughed at that and Burt pressed on. "You think you make good dough from me? TV is God's way of telling you to rape, steal, and plunder. It's a fucking souffle! You know what those guys make? Gifford... Summerall... Madden? Cosell? Meredith? They can buy the Vatican and redecorate!"
    Burt went into a crouch. He stared at an imaginary object in front of him. "Here's the network, you're the Canadian sheepdog, okay?"
    He humped the thin air.
    "Uh... uh... uh!" he moaned, then straightened up. "Now you scoop the coin; see you later!"
    "I wouldn't be any good on television," I said.
    Burt looked astounded.
    " Good? You want to talk good? Good is who wears a blazer and has a microphone. Know how you make it big in
    TV, Billy Clyde? First, you're an athlete, then you go to makeup. All you gotta be after that is deaf, dumb, and blind!"
    Shoat Cooper's eyes were still misty. He said he guessed he'd better shove off.
    "Africa," Shoat said, taking another look at my leg. "You can trace the whole blame back to Africa."
    Burt's wife, Veronica, comforted me by commenting on how unattractive hospitals were.
    Veronica Danby was an ex-"fashion person," a cadaver whose dark brown hair had been styled into a shower cap. She was two-thirds cheekbones and one-third pout. She seemed disappointed that my room wasn't a boutique in which she might pick up a little something from Ungaro for $1,500.
    Veronica did ask if Barbara Jane had done anything to her eyes yet.
    Not that I was aware of, I said, but what did I know? Barb was out in L.A., working on a pilot for ABC. Anything could have happened.
    "She's thirty-four, isn't she?"
    "Will be," I said. "Is that the age when your eyes go?"
    "One never knows. Wrinkles are so treacherous."
    I accepted that piece of information with a nod.
    Veronica said, "I'm sure she doesn't use strong cleansers anymore. I've learned to stay strictly with non-alcoholic lotions."
    "Oh?" I said.
    "They refreshen the pores," said Veronica. "Occasionally, I put on a light cream to soothe the skin and increase