Angry White Male

by Steven Travers

The firing of Stan Taylor did not escape Billy Boswell’s attention.

  “The Times finally gets a guy,” he was quoted, “who tells the truth because he knows what it is and has the balls to say it, and somebody just can’t handle that, so he’s gone.”

  Stan did not call his parents to tell them he had been fired. They were at their cabin in Lake Tahoe. He sent them a letter. He did not answer the phone for a couple of days, avoiding their inevitable phone call. Dan was the man who would yell and scream and call him a “cocksucker” at the drop of a hat. He was also the man who would back his son in times of trouble.

  “Stan,” he said on the answering machine, “I know you don’t want to talk to us right now, but we just want to let you know that we believe in you, and love you, and back you all the way.”

  The day after the firing, Stan lay in bed until 11. He opened up the Times’ sports section, which for the first in his life made him feel sick to his stomach, and saw that Billy Boswell had hit three home runs at Turner Field in Atlanta the previous night. He had 56 home runs.

  He had predicted in his column as early as May that Boswell would break McGwire’s record, and right now it was looking pretty good. He was going to break Aaron’s career record not next year, but this year. Indeed, his 71st homer of 2001 would be the 756th of his career. It would be the mother of all sports records, breaking the single season and career mark on the same swing. It would be the biggest sports story of the year. Of the decade.

  It took a few days for Stan to get himself together. He did not work out. He barely left the house. He just sat around watching television. Michelle had to leave for “work.” God only knew where and what she was doing. Stan could care less at this point.

  We need the money, he reasoned.

  After stewing in a funk, he finally picked himself up off the mat.

  The kid stays in the picture, he told himself, quoting Robert Evans. A light went on in his head.

  Stan picked up the phone and called Matt Hobli, who handled Billy’s media from an office in Beverly Hills.

  “I’ll cut right to the chase,” he told Matt. “Billy’s gonna break McGwire’s and Aaron’s record this year. Matt, I want to co-write his autobiography. It’ll be the biggest best seller of the year. I’m not with the Times any more. I got blackballed. I’ll get the sons of bitches who fucked me on that deal, but for now, I have the time to work with Billy on this book. An autobiography of a sports star is always biggest when he’s still playing, when he’s at the top of his game, while he’s still generating heat. I asked McGwire about a book and he just told me he’s gonna wait `til he retires, and then it’s gonna be some kind of self-help bullshit. I want people to know what’s on Billy’s mind while he’s breaking these records. Not a look-back, but right now, today. His words, about everything. His chance to get all the feelings off his chest, about the press, about his marriage, the fans, everything.”

  Matt told Stan he would pass on his message to Billy, and get back to him.

  A week later, Stan called Matt back.

  “Billy says he doesn’t wanna write a book now,” said Matt. “He’s gonna wait until he retires.”

  Stan thanked Matt, and that was that.

  I’m fucked, he thought to himself.

  A week passed, and Billy kept hitting home runs. When he hit his 60th, Stan called Matt again.

  “Matt,” Stan said, “I’m tellin’ you, this guy’s gonna break McGwire’s and Aaron’s record this year. I know he said he wants to wait, but the hottest time for an athlete to write a book is in his late 30s, while he’s still a hot commodity. Not when he’s retired and fans are rooting for somebody else. You gotta get him to think it over.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me,” Matt said. “I think a book on Billy would be great. Let me bring it up with him again. I’ll get back to you before the end of the week.”

  On Friday afternoon, Stan went to Gold’s Gym and worked out. It was 100 degrees that day, and he needed to do something to get his mind off of Larry Wishborn, the L.A. Times, and Billy Boswell. When he got home, there was a message on his machine.

  “Stan,” came the voice, “it’s Matt. I talked it over with Billy. We’ve decided to

  go with you.”

  Stan called Lon Robertson. Robertson was normally very negative about books.

  “Nobody reads books,” he always said. This time, though, he felt Stan had all the

  ingredients to land a big advance from a large publisher that would result in a best seller.

  He congratulated him on getting Boswell, and offered to light up a stogie in celebration.

  Stan felt like Bud Fox in “Wall Street” after landing the “big elephant,” Gordon Gekko.

  Stan stared out the window at the Pacific Ocean and was convinced that he saw

  his ship coming in.

  Stan went to Beverly Hills and spent time with Boswell, putting the proposal together. Robertson told Stan he expected to get $500,000 up front from a publisher, and Stan told Boswell this. They would split everything 50/50. Robertson put together a contract that would give Stan Billy's life story rights.

  “Now Billy," Stan told him, “I know a million bucks, $500,000, it’s not a big deal to you, but it’s a big deal to me. But the point is not the money, it’s the investment the publisher makes. A million to them is a very big thing. The margin between making and losing money in the book biz is narrow. It's major for them to say yes to this kind of project, you have to understand that. I know people've been sayin' yes to you all your life, but this is not the same thing.

  "So look, what they want is for you to assure them that you'll do the interviews, that you'll promote the book. They'll want you to commit to goin' on Leno and Letterman and even Charlie Rose. They'll want you to spend a lotta time with me. They'll want the shit, bro, the inside stuff, the stuff you don't give the everyday press. Like what you gave me at Score’s, but major details, enough to fill 300, 400 pages.

  "So what I'm saying' is that we have to put a proposal together, Billy. I'll write it, but I'm telling you it's got to be hot. It's got to have some really juicy stuff in it. It can't be bland. It can't just be from me. It's got to have stuff that makes these guys say, 'Whoa, Nellie, Billy's gonna talk about that?"

  "Dude," said Billy, "I'm willing to do this. Definitely. But I'm in the middle of the season. I can give you time when the year's over, but I don't have time to spend hours with you."

  "Fair enough," said Stan. "Maybe if you can give me some time now and gimme more when the World Series is over. That makes sense. In the mean time, maybe I can talk to your family, friends, stuff for research."

  "I don' know," said Billy. "I don't wanna commit to nothin' 'til we have a contract. I'll have to talk to lawyers."

  "Of course you will," said Stan. "Look, take this contract. Show it to your people. But we have an agreement in principle, right? I mean, you're authorizing me to go after a deal with a publisher and if a deal is a good one, to co-write your book."

  "Definitely," said Bos. Stan offered his hand and Billy shook it.

  "Hey Billy," said Stan. "I'm going to get married."

  "No shit," said Billy.

  "Yeah," said Stan. "Want to meet her?"

  "Bring her 'round after we get back from San Diego," said Billy. "We'll go to dinner."

  When Michelle returned from her “modeling shoot,” Stan took her to dinner with Matt and Boswell in Santa Monica.

  "Hey Billy," Stan said when they arrived at his house, "this is my fiancée, Michelle."

  Boswell's eyes almost went out of his sockets. Michelle was pored into a tight little dress, and her breasts seemed more mammoth than usual.

  "Dude," Billy said when he recovered, "little Stanley Taylor been doin' alright for hisself."

  Boswell flirted outrageously with Michelle. Stan kept staring at them. He was sure that Boswell knew that Michelle was a porn star, and almost as sure that they had had sex with each ot
her in the past.

  Man, he thought to himself, I do get myself into some pickles.

  Stan told one of his cousins, who did not read the newspaper, that he had landed Boswell for a book.

  “Why would Billy Boswell sign with you?” his clueless cousin asked. “Why wouldn’t he go with a top writer?”

  “The answer to your question,” Stan replied patiently, “Is that Boswell did go with a top writer. That writer’s name is Stan Taylor.”

  His cousins never seemed to understand what he did. Ever since he had become a writer – of stage plays, movies, freelance articles, an L.A. Times column, and now a book – they asked him what he was “doing now.”

  “Just working,’ Stan always replied.

  “Oh, doing what?” they would ask.

  “Writing,” Stan would say. “I work as a writer.”

  Stan continued to go to Dodger Stadium, where the club agreed to give him a press pass based on his proposed Boswell book, and managed to get a good deal of personal information about Boswell that no other writer had ever gotten. He would see Wishborn, who studiously avoided him. Stan told the writers who knew him that he was working on Boswell’s autobiography, and everybody congratulated him on this coup.

  Stan and Robertson tried to put together a proposal. It was good stuff, based on Billy’s responses to the questions at Scores, but Lon told Stan that the publishers would want Billy locked up contractually, and they needed to be assured that Boswell would be willing to promote the book. Until that happened, a major New York house would not part with a million bucks. Stan fashion his exclusive interview with Boswell into stories that he freelanced to Rolling Stone, Penthouse, and Sports Illustrated.

  Robertson sent off the proposal to every major New York house. AOL/Time Warner. Putnam. Simon & Schuster. Random house. Then they flew to New York together. Stan thought it would be a coronation. Instead, it was an ambush. They all told them the same thing. Their answer was the one Michael Corleone gave to the Senator in the famous Tahoe scene from “Godfather II”: “Nothing.”