by Peter Gent
“Somebody’ll have to help us get this around him,” he said, trying to back the calf into a corner of the corral. “I can’t throw a loop.”
Feeling silly and out of place, I ambled across the center of the pen to join David, who had cornered the calf behind the water trough. The young bull appeared to be four or five months old. As we stalked, it bolted directly at me.
Instinctively I dropped my shoulder, preparing to lock my arms around the neck and hold on until David could get the rope on him. The tackle was perfectly executed, my shoulder hitting the calf in the brisket. I had expected a shock, but this was like tackling a ’49 Hudson. Years of football training told me to hold on but my life instincts told me to let go. I let go and tumbled to a heap in the center of the corral.
I sat up, spitting out sand and cowshit, waiting for my nose to stop burning and my eyes to stop watering.
Except for a skinned bruise on the soft underside of my bicep, where the calf had stepped on me, and a numb cheekbone that had smacked into the animal’s shoulder with enough force to break the leg of an NFL back, I felt surprisingly fit, and devastatingly foolish.
While David and Charlotte alternately laughed, inquired after my health, smirked at each other, and then burst into laughter again, I began to compose myself. Finally I stood up, slowly but grandly, and casually dusted myself off.
“The sun got in my eyes,” I said, hitching up my pants.
Their renewed laughter brought a smile to my face that made my cheek hurt. I decided that calf needed his nuts cut off and I was just the man to do it.
Despite his claims to the contrary, David was a fair hand with a lariat and soon we had thrown and tied the calf. It lay struggling on its side with three legs bound. I was at its back with my knee on its neck, pulling on a rope rigged as a halter. Bending the head up and back. I tried to keep the animal immobile as Charlotte approached with the knife. I stared into a wild, rolling brown eye.
Milking the testicles into the top of the calf’s scrotum, Charlotte grabbed the loose skin at the bottom of the sac and quickly cut it off.
“You didn’t even say I love you,” David grinned.
Jesus ... Jesus, I thought, tightening my grip on the rope and watching the brown eye grow wilder.
Two large, milky-white blue-veined oblongs hung part way out of the gaping bloody hole that had been the bottom of the calf’s scrotum. Charlotte took one of the oblongs in her palm and carefully, with the point of the knife, slit the thin white sheathing; out popped a pink gonad the size and shape of a hen’s egg. It was still attached up inside by a cord the thickness of a lead pencil. Charlotte grabbed the pink testicle firmly, wrapped the cord a couple of turns around her index finger, then clenched her fist, and pulled as hard as she could. The calf lurched and made a frighteningly human groan as the cord tore loose with a pop somewhere inside. Eighteen inches of cord came away with the testicle.
“So much for foreplay,” I said.
She quickly repeated the procedure on the remaining gonad, then sprayed a bright-purple disinfectant into the empty scrotum, pushed the loose edges back up inside and untied the calf. It lay motionless for a moment, then scrambled to its feet and trotted off to the other side of the corral seemingly undisturbed.
“Jesus—Jesus—Jesus—Jesus!!” I moaned. “Jeeesus!”
David and Charlotte both smiled back at me as I followed them, shaking my head and moaning nonsense to the Savior.
The recently liberated testicles, cords, and miscellaneous tissues were in Charlotte’s hand. When we reached the house she tossed them at two cats who were sitting under the kitchen steps. I watched the cats sniff and paw at the balls. Then I followed the others into the house. Jesus.
The moon was up and we were sitting on the patio at the back of the house watching the shadows across the pasture. It was chilly and Charlotte had wrapped herself in a large Indian blanket. The plates from dinner were stacked beside her chair.
“I hope you didn’t mind my coming. I tried to call.”
I shifted uncomfortably in the canvas director’s chair, trying to ease the pain in my back. The deadness in my right foot and the pins and needles in the leg reminded me that I had forgotten to ask the trainers what the cause could be.
“I’m glad you came,” Charlotte replied. “It’s been a nice evening.”
Charlotte had cooked steaks outside while David and I had rolled joints and talked of Fuller, McLuhan, Cleaver, Nixon, Carlos Castaneda, and the upcoming New York game. The game was the only subject in which I was sufficiently versed to feel comfortable, although I found the others, with the exception of Nixon, profoundly more interesting.
After we ate David excused himself and returned to the bungalow to do some work.
Night sounds floated in from the shadows—an occasional night bird, dogs barking from distant farms and the rustling and snorting of animals in the nearby corrals and barn. Miles away a car door slammed. The wind picked up slightly and made a funny hissing sound as it eased through the needles of the big pine that rose above the patio. There were several gunshots. An owl hooted, its high-pitched “whoo” sounding like a Hollywood sound effect.
I fished a joint from my shirt pocket. We had run out of papers early in the evening and Charlotte had quickly solved the problem with unabashed pioneer spirit. I held up the exceptionally long joint and in the moonlight could make out the words super tampax. I snorted a small laugh and lit up, passing it to the slim hand reaching from beneath the blue-and-red Indian blanket.
“They sure make king-size joints,” Charlotte observed.
“Enough to rival the legendary Austin torpedo, I would say.”
Glowing brightly as she inhaled, the cigarette softly illuminated the dark depressions of her eyes. They were big, round shadows with a slight flash of light like catching a glimpse of the water at the bottom of a deep well.
My aching back and legs drew my attention and I shifted, searching a position that would strain as few nerves and muscles as possible.
“Nervous?” Charlotte asked, watching me fidget.
“No. Just sore.”
“Do you want to go inside?”
“Not unless you do. This is fine.” I made a sweeping gesture with my hand. “This here is a real fine universe.”
I pulled the collar of my sheepskin coat up around my neck, burrowing my chin down inside. The sound of distant music and laughter stilled our Hollywood owl. There was a loud yell and a door slam and the night was silent again.
“That’s the Bartlette kids,” Charlotte said. “Their place is six miles that way.” She pointed in the opposite direction from where I thought the sounds had come from. “The youngest son is engaged to a Mexican girl. It’s causing quite a community crisis. He met her at Methodist Youth Fellowship.”
I leaned back and smiled into the sky. The sky was filled with shining, flashing, changing little spots of light. They say you can never see more than five thousand stars with the naked eye. I didn’t see one less. A meteor made a desperate try for Dallas but disappeared in a green-red blaze. I took the joint from Charlotte’s outstretched hand, which immediately slithered back beneath the blanket.
“God, it’s beautiful here,” I said. I felt Charlotte turn to look at me. I took a long drag on the weed and turned to meet her gaze. “Would you please sleep with me again?” I asked.
Pulling the blanket up around her shoulders, she smiled, got to her feet and walked into the house.
“That’s Tchaikovsky, isn’t it?” I was lying naked across the bed, a pillow under my chin. Swan Lake drifted in from the den. It was one of the few pieces of classical music I knew.
“Did you see The Music Lovers?” Charlotte asked.
She was brushing her hair out and letting it fall down over her bare shoulders. She laid the brush down and arranged herself next to me on the bed with her arm resting lightly on my back. I could feel the warmth of her leg pressing against mine. Her fingernails scratched lazily on my arm, raisin
g chills. She pushed her other hand up the nape of my neck, lifting my hair away, and sliding across my back she kissed me warmly on the shoulder. I could feel her breasts, the hard nipples brushing along my shoulder blades.
“It was a grand movie,” she continued. “I loved Richard Chamberlain.” She gently pushed me onto my back and kissed me wetly on the stomach.
We made love carefully and with few variations, often stopping to look into each other’s eyes to try to read the feelings there. I watched her face and listened to her ragged breathing, trying to anticipate her climax. My back began to ache violently, distracting me enough to postpone my completion.
“Oh ... oh ...” was all she said, but she thrashed violently, gripping me tightly with her fingers and heels. As we ended, I was disconsolate, with a feeling of isolation.
“You know,” I said. I was sitting propped up on several pillows, scratching Charlotte’s head as she rested it on my stomach. “I have this theory. We all get this certain amount of energy each day and if we don’t use it, it drives us crazy. Eats away the prefrontal lobe.” I tapped my forehead.
“If we use too much energy we’re exhausted, burned out. Too little energy use, insanity. We must reach a balance and that balancing mechanism, if you’ll pardon the unscientific terminology, is fucking. Or, if you prefer, doin’ it.”
“I like doin’ it better. It sounds warmer.”
“Okay. Hunting used to be the way energy was balanced. A good hunt was a great combination of muscular and emotional energy. But now hunting just degenerates into butchery, which creates more energy rather than depleting it. Almost all human endeavor is that way. That surplus of energy is the cause of crimes of passion and spectator sports. Now fuck—ah—doin’ it is the natural energy depleter and the savior of human sanity. When everybody gets laid enough, the world will be at peace and I won’t have to play flanker.” I paused momentarily for effect. “So my dear, if you’ll just roll over.”
“Gladly,” Charlotte smiled. “If you think you can do anything with that.” She pointed below my waist.
“How do you feel about a dove hunt instead?”
“How would you get their little legs apart?”
We both lay silently exhausted but too excited to sleep, and after what seemed like several peaceful hours Charlotte sat up cross-legged on the bed.
“Are you happy?” she asked.
“I dunno.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Just that,” I said, sliding up against the headboard and drawing my knees into a triangle. “I don’t know what being happy is supposed to be. I always figured the secret to living was to find happiness. Do you agree?”
“Sure.”
“Well, what is being happy? Is it freedom from being hungry and thirsty and having a roof over your head?”
“That’s part of it.”
“Then I’m partially happy. What else is there?”
“It’s having somebody to love.”
“I’m wrestling with that.”
“But it’s mostly having somebody that you can make happy,” she continued, moving up to my feet and putting her chin on my knee. “Then their happiness is yours.”
“How do they know they’re happy?”
“Come on, Phillip, people just know.”
“Well, I’ve lowered my sights some in the past years. Happiness would be nice and it’s a swell goal, but all I want right now is to know. To know whether I’m happy or unhappy, it don’t matter which, I just want to know which I am.”
She dropped her eyes and I could see I had hurt her. I searched my mind for a kind thing to say.
“You’ve taken it personal, I’m sorry.”
“Well, what am I supposed to think? You’re in my bed telling me how unhappy you are.” She was on the verge of tears.
“I don’t expect you to understand but my confusion has nothing to do with you. My fear existed long before I met you. You’ve given me the only few minutes of peace I can remember. I feel safe in your bed. That’s more than I can say for mine.” I reached over and wiped a solitary tear from the end of her nose.
“Do you like it here?” she asked.
“Very much.” I tried not to think about the long drive home and the flight to New York. “I could stay here forever. I could stick around and help you cut the balls off everything on the place. No offense to David.”
“If you lived here,” she continued, “it might not help your football career.”
“Some career. Football’s about to give up on me, I think.”
“I don’t mean necessarily to quit playing. I mean to quit thinking and feeling like that. Playing in the game seems the least offensive of all.”
“What would I do? I’d have to do something. You don’t want some crazy dope freak around doing nothing.”
“I might. But there’s a lot to do on a place like this. Run right, this place could make a good profit if we bought momma cows and really turned it into a ranch.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“Well, it’s up to you. I don’t like what football makes you. You’re a very mean man. I know, I just made love to you.”
“Do you really want me to move out here?” It sounded interesting.
“Yes. You don’t even have to work the ranch if you don’t want.” Her voice rose with excitement and her eyes began to sparkle. “I’ve got enough money to last until we learn to do without.”
“Do without what?”
“Whatever is not worth suffering for,” she continued. “That’s my whole idea. We start off with everything we’ve learned to desire as twentieth-century children. All the perverse wants and needs that haunt this generation.”
“Amazing.”
“I mean it.” She was becoming insistent. “I have plenty of money and you have a measure of success. Instead of starting with a one-room flat and slowly growing apart in pursuit of life in the seventies, we start with everything and whittle it down to each other. That’s how we would live in this insane world.”
“You mean start at the top and work our way to the bottom?”
“Sort of. And along the way if either of us wants out, out they go.”
I was astonished by her logic. “I can’t help but think I’m gonna have some real warm feelings for you before this is all over.”
“Me too.” Her arms wrapped around my waist and she snuggled her face into my chest.
Friday
THE MORNING WAS COOL and crisp. The dew wet my boots as I walked to the car. The late fall sun was reassuringly warm as I guided the Buick through the front pasture toward the gate. Charlotte had looked beautiful on the kitchen steps, waving and telling me to come right back. I fought a melancholy premonition that told me not to leave but to stay there forever, raising cattle and watching the sun come up. First, though, I would have to deal with New York, Seth Maxwell, B.A., Clinton Foote, Conrad Hunter, fear, and me. Then I would stay there forever. I knew it the moment I stepped out the door, that was where I wanted to be. The new Brangus steer stared at me through the corral fence as I drove away.
The gate was open. As I drove through, a black fist shot out of the cottage window.
“Be cool, brother,” David’s voice rang out.
If I only could.
I waved and honked. What could I yell back? Power to the people?
I honked again as I turned onto the blacktop and sped toward the Look Magazine All American City.
The boarding gate was crowded with family, well wishers, and press people. Most of the team were milling around in the embarkation lounge drinking coffee and soft drinks served by brightly uniformed Braniff ground hostesses.
I had stopped by the house to change clothes and pick up some luggage, including my portable record player. I sat the record player down and looked around to see who else had arrived.
Art Hartman sat propped in the corner of the lounge. His head hung down on his chest and a gray 100X Resistol with a Fort Worth cr
ease covered his eyes.
“Art?” I said, standing directly in front of him and bending down to try and look under the brim of his hundred-dollar hat.
“Uh.” His body shook slightly from the effort of the grunt but he made no move to look up.
“Art?”
“Yeah ... yeah.” He raised his head slightly and pushed the hat back with his thumb. He was unshaven and peered up at me with one horribly bloodshot eye.
“God,” I said. “What happened to you?”
“I spent a week with Maxwell, last night,” he moaned, trying to sit straight up. He kept sliding back into a slump.
“We went out for a beer and met these two gals,” he continued, smacking his lips and running his tongue along the insides of his cheeks as though his mouth were full of peanut butter. “They turned out to be married to guys that worked the night shift at Texas Instruments. Christ! What a night. Look at this.” He pushed back the brim of his hat to reveal a scab the size of a postage stamp on his forehead.
“A fight?”
“Fight—” he snorted out a painful laugh, wincing at the throbbing in the skull. “She bit me.”
“What’d you do? Try to rape her?”
“Me?” he exclaimed. “She raped me. God almighty, she couldn’t get enough. She made so much noise her kids woke up.”
“Jesus, Art, that’s really second-rate.”
“Don’t I know it. You should see my back. I told Julia I’d been in a fight. I don’t know if she believed me or not.”
“What happened to Seth?”
“We left the gals about midnight and he took me to a country-and-western place down on Industrial. The next thing I knew it was three in the morning and he’d gone with the car. I had to get a cab home.” He slid back down in the chair with a pitiful groan and pulled the hat back over his sacred forehead and eyes.
“Welcome to the NFL, Art,” I said, and turned toward the girl with the beehive black hair and purple culottes who was serving soft drinks. I took a Coke and was walking to an unoccupied chair near the boarding door when “Scoop” Zolin stopped me for an interview.
Zolin worked for the morning paper and our team was his beat. His real name was Seymour Zolinzowsky and he was the worst reporter I had ever met. Maxwell and I had given him the name Scoop several years back, during the first year he traveled with us, because he was notorious for getting drunk before the game and missing the first three quarters.