“No,” I replied. “He is going into training for the Honolulu Marathon. Perhaps we should stop drinking too.”
“Not today,” she said with a wink. “Today is the Devil’s day.”
She was right, of course—although some people will tell you that the Devil has had a lot of Days recently. They see him behind every bush. He lurks like an Evil spirit. He is terrifying.
And who is to say they are wrong? Which of us will hurl the first stone at these chickenheads? Not me, buster. I know these people. They are Devils.… Which may be true, but so what? Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.
Just then my phone rang. “Not that Freak again,” I muttered—but I was wrong: it was my old friend John Wilbur, calling from Hawaii, and his voice was very excited.
“You’ll never believe this,” he said. “Sean Penn wants to run in the Marathon. He just called Doc Barahal and confirmed it.”
“No!” I shouted. “That’s impossible. He’s asleep downstairs in my basement, and there is no phone in that room. Don’t you know what day this is? It’s Halloween, you jackass!” And then I quickly hung up on him.
“I can’t stand this crap anymore,” I said to Anita. “Let’s get out of here. We can watch the game at the Jerome. What do these swine think I am—a fool?”
“Who cares?” she said with a shrug. “Can I drive?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll do the driving tonight. We might run into the Saudi Ambassador along the way—and you know how he flies off the handle if he thinks he sees a woman driving a car.”
She agreed, and we drove into town without incident and got to the Jerome Bar just as the Knicks-Wizards game was getting under way.… But no. I was wrong again. All five TV sets, including the 50-incher in the back room, were tuned to the World Series. And the bartender laughed when I asked him to switch at least one of them over to the basketball game. “Are you nuts?” he jeered. “This is a men’s bar! We don’t watch no stinking basketball here.”
“You brainless animal!” I snarled at him. “You just lost the whole ESPN account. You’ll be fired for this!”
“Get out of here!” he yelled. “Or I’ll set fire to that rotten-looking turban you’re wearing!” He lit a book of matches and waved it at me.
So we left and went down to the county jail, where I knew the prisoners would be watching the NBA game, because I knew the jailer hated baseball. He was a Michael Jordan fan—so I gave him the Wizards and five points, and I was wrong again. They lost by only two, which completely ruined my night. I had to pay off all the prisoners too. I can still hear them laughing at us on our way out.
—October 31, 2001
The Yankees Are Dead: Long Live the Yankees
That evil warpo from up the road appeared at my door on Sunday night and asked if he could watch game Seven of the World Series with us. He said he wanted to bet big money on the New York Yankees because he felt so sorry for them. “They are incredibly brave men,” he said. “But there is no dishonor in losing to better and braver men.”
Whoops, I thought, Welcome to the night train. This is the same suspicious pervert I’ve been watching 24 hours a day for the past month with nothing to show for it—why is he suddenly knocking on my door and begging to gamble on baseball? “What do you want?” I asked him. “Why are you hanging around my house at night? Are you Omar?”
“Exactly,” he responded. “I am Omar and I want to watch the Yankees with my neighbors.”
I went into a knife-fighting crouch, although I had no knife—and just then a sultry-looking woman about 25 years old appeared beside Omar, and he introduced her as “Princess Omin, my little sister. She also loves the Yankees.”
Ye gods, I thought. This creep is more evil than I thought, and now he brings this Woman! I was confused. Princess Omin was extending a delicate little hand to me now, so I took it and kissed it nervously. She was wearing a light blue shawl that kept her face in shadow, but I sensed she was smiling at me, and I felt my fear disappearing.
“Wonderful,” I heard myself saying, “Come right in. Why didn’t you tell me you had such a beautiful sister, Omar? This changes everything. How much do you want to bet? Come inside and meet my other guests. Does Princess Omin also want to gamble?”
An odd mix of people had gathered in my lounge that day for the games. The County Coroner was there, along with the Sheriff, an extremely bigoted astrophysicist, and four elegant blond women looking to work out on somebody—but not necessarily Omar, who was viewed in the neighborhood as an extremely dark influence and they were not entirely ready to have him sitting behind them on a stool for the next four hours. All they knew about him was that he hung around the Post Office every afternoon, whistling at women and muttering to himself in a language that none of us knew. The Coroner said he was a dangerous creep who was pushing his luck and should probably be put to sleep.
“Stop talking like that,” I told him when we went out on the porch to speak privately. “That sister of his isn’t going to hurt anybody, as long as we give her a seat. Why don’t you ask her if she wants to sit on your lap.”
“Screw off,” he replied. “I’ll fry in hell before I let that woman sit on my lap! She is a lot crazier than Omar.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “They want to bet a Thousand dollars ($1000) on the Yankees and give three to one.”
“Well, that’s different,” he said quickly. “We know the Yankees are going to lose, don’t we?”
“You bet,” I said. “I guarantee it.”
“Oh?” he said with a slow nod, as if he were lost in thought. “Will you give 3–1?”
Just then Princess Omin came out on the porch and clapped her hands over the Coroner’s eyes, from behind. He screamed something incoherent and dropped to his knees, then he fell against the woodpile and passed out.
The girl rushed to help him, but I waved her off. “Never mind that fool,” I said with a cruel chuckle. “He is history.”
It was true. The Coroner had given up his chair, and he would never get it back. Princess Omin accepted it gracefully and quickly became the center of attention. Omar took a stance behind her, massaging her shoulders and looking more like a dangerous pervert than I felt I could tolerate.
“Get away from that girl,” I barked at him. “I thought you came here to gamble, not to fondle your sister in public!”
“Exactly,” Omar replied suavely. “We will bet ten thousand dollars on the Yankees. They are very brave men.”
“They are Losers,” I said. “You are nutty as a fruitcake, Omar, but I can’t resist gambling with you.”
“We will see,” he hissed. “I have plenty of money—and if I lose, I will leave my sister with you until I pay.”
Anita came into the room and slapped him sharply on the side of his head. He staggered momentarily but said nothing. The sight of it filled me with dread, so I quickly fell asleep and left the others to deal with him.
When I woke up four hours later, the Yankees were leading 2–1 in the bottom of the ninth. My friends were laughing greedily and Omar was gone. I felt queasiness in my stomach, but I refused to cave in to it—and just the Yankees made a horrible error that loaded the bases with only one out. Yes, I thought, this dynasty is ready to fall. Princess Omin was weeping softly, but I tried to ignore her. The whole room understood that whatever happened next was going to be awkward.
There was no time to brood on it, however, because the next Diamondback hitter looped a single into left center and the game was over.… And that’s how the story ends, folks. Omar’s little sister is living with us now. She sleeps in the attic and never talks. We are trying to take the situation one day at a time. Anita has come to like her, and I have abandoned all hope of Omar’s ever paying off. But so what? At least he is gone from the neighborhood, and that is what really matters. He was an evil freak, and I hope he never comes back. Life can be strange in the wilderness, especially when foreigners wander in and say unfortunate things for no reason at all. The Yan
kees are dead, long live the Yankees.
—November 5, 2001
The Man Who Loved Sport Too Much
There was not much gambling in the Rockies last week, but my own home was swarming with it. Sean Penn arrived just as the Sheriff was leaving for Las Vegas to endure harsh antiterrorism training—and I had a dark feeling, even then, that these two absolutely diss-connected events would somehow combine to cause trouble.… Which was true, although neither one of those things were as traumatic as the bizarre arrival of Princess Omin in my home. That changed things dramatically.
Our gambling situation went all to pieces, as it usually does when you start betting with strangers who have no sense of values and don’t mind losing heavily. People who don’t speak English and pay their gambling debts by selling relatives into slavery are always loaded bazookas. I could have handled Penn’s arrival and the Sheriff’s departure with no trouble, under ordinary circumstances, but when Fate added a fine young Arabian woman to the mix, my gears began to grind. I felt my brain wandering. A little confusion can be interesting, in the Oriental sense, but too much of it with no apparent end is demoralizing.
There was a time, not long ago, when I looked forward to the Sunday NFL games with a certain giddy expectation, like a vacation coming up. But no longer—not after the 49ers failed to cover and the Raiders blew up right in front of my eyes on Sunday night like swollen sheep. They were beaten and disgraced.
Whoops. Lighten up on the bombast, Doc. Stick with the facts.… Okay. The once-mighty Raider defense was ripped to shreds by a rookie running back from Alabama named Shaun Alexander who sliced and stomped through the fourth-toughest defensive unit in the NFL for 266 yards and utterly intimidated the Oakland linebackers. They were shamed like animals who urinate on themselves.
The Oakland offense played like a gang of drunkards, moving well enough at times to run up 388 yards in a baffling display of classic West Coast Offense and butterfingered sleaziness that made owner Al Davis beg to be taken out of the stadium in a bag at game’s end. Hall of Fame receivers Tim Brown and Jerry Rice dropped enough passes in the fourth quarter to throw the game away. It was a shoddy performance, at best, bordering on criminal fraud and cowardice. To see the proud Raiders disgraced like this caused my heart to fill with hate.
BOTCHED SURVEILLANCE
I was brooding on this and other systematic failures when Princess Omin came down from the attic and silently joined us as we bitched and whined and watched the football games on Sunday. I was not sure she even understood the game, if only because of her unrelenting silence, but I couldn’t help noticing that she took a decidedly focused interest in Mr. Penn, despite his spastic drunkenness. “Maybe she speaks your language,” I said to him. “Try to get her to talk to you.”
“Oh no,” he said quickly, “I’m not that drunk. Don’t deceive yourself.” He had been drinking a vile-smelling liqueur called Fernet-Branca for two days and nights, falling asleep frequently in the middle of conversations and fouling his pants when he got excited—but I sensed a sly duplicity in him, like a teenage girl acting drunker than she really is, so I gave him plenty of room.
“Princess Omin seems to like you,” I said casually. “Would you like to snuggle up with her and talk openly?”
He gave me the fish-eye and took another snort of that evil booze that he carries. “Is this the girl you got from the terrorist?” he asked. “Why are you keeping her here?”
“Don’t act paranoid!” I snapped at him. “I am not Keeping her. She’s waiting for her brother to come back and pay his debts.”
“That’s obscene!” he said. “She has been here for eight days and she has no intention of leaving! Don’t take me for a rubber-head. That smarmy bastard you fleeced on the World Series is never coming back!”
“Nonsense,” I said. “He is Omar, a prince of the royal blood.”
“You fool!” he barked. “He left her deliberately. She’s a human listening device. One of these days you will wake up with a bomb in your mouth. You should call the police and have her locked up.”
I stared at him, feeling a shudder in my spine. Ye gods! I thought. What if he’s right? Is it possible that I am willfully harboring a Terrorist? Could this woman be making a jackass of me? … “That’s ridiculous,” I said to Mr. Penn. “This is Princess Omin—little sister to Omar, who owes me $40,000.”
He sneered at me. “That’s rich,” he chuckled. “Isn’t Omar that creep you’ve been investigating for war crimes?”
I said nothing, struggling to digest it all. The mere possibility that Omar had run a game down on me was repulsive. “What are you saying?” I demanded. “That some foreign freak has bamboozled me?”
“Yes,” he answered. “He has planted a Mole in your life. This bitch will destroy you!”
Just then the Coroner came into the room and laughed brazenly in my face. “You are too dumb to live,” he cackled.
I swung a hockey stick at him, but he dodged away and slapped Princess Omin on the back of her head, which instantly changed her attitude. “Don’t touch me, you swine!” she screamed. “You are a dung heap!”
“Well, well,” said Penn. “She speaks pretty good English, for a deaf-mute.” He reached over and tweaked her throat. “Don’t worry, Princess—you’re Safe here.”
A wealthy man named “Cleverly,” known all along the Continental Divide for his outbursts of public lewdness, burst into laughter and hooted at me. “How about that $40,000, Doc? Why don’t you boys take this girl to Hollywood? That’s where she belongs.”
He was Right. They were all laughing at me. I grabbed some whiskey off my leather-covered icebox and went outside to be alone. My worst fears had come true. I was a public Dupe, soon to be jailed for crimes against the nation. How had it happened? Had I finally loved Sport too much?
—November 12, 2001
The Shame of Indianapolis
Indianapolis Colts owner James Irsay called me last week and demanded to know what I meant by calling the Colts “chicken crap.” He sounded very agitated.
“Nonsense,” I told him. “I would never say that, James. The term I used was chickenshit—as in dung, cowardly dung.”
“Oh God,” he moaned. “I thought you were my friend. We are a lot better than chicken crap!”
“Not for me, James,” I said sternly. “The Colts are a rotten team to bet on. You have fleeced me for the last time. Fortunately, I bet on New Orleans last week.” Which was true. I had bet on the Saints, Green Bay, San Francisco, and even the Washington Redskins to beat Denver—which was three out of four, and I still don’t understand what happened to the Packers. How can a solid team with Brett Favre at quarterback beat Chicago, Tampa Bay, and Baltimore, then lose to bums like the Vikings and the Falcons? It was embarrassing.
Those failures will hurt when January rolls around. Losing once to a Good team is not fatal in the NFL, but losing to a bad team is unacceptable. Indeed, don’t let this happen to you. Avoid Bad teams when you gamble, and never mind your powerful last-minute Hunches. Lay off bad teams—like Indianapolis, for instance, or Denver. They are downhill teams, because toward the end of the season they have a tendency to Lose important games. They are Losers.
Bugwa! Any half-bright Waterhead coach can win if he inherits a team that won last year’s Super Bowl. Look at George Seifert with the 49ers: they couldn’t lose—at least not until Crimes against the salary cap forced them to send most of their star players across the Bay to Oakland, where they continue to tear up the NFL, despite the sleazy greed of Al Davis.
Whoops. Never mind Al Davis. He is a swinesucker, but he does have a fine eye for bargains and overripe fruit. The Raiders’ roster has been stocked from the start by veterans and malcontents from other teams on the slide. That is what makes them a winning Team—or at least a Good team as opposed to piles of puss like Carolina or Buffalo. The Raiders may be Losers, individually, but as a team they are a reliable bet, most of the time. Let’s say 77.8 percent of the time, whi
ch is not a bad batting average.
Only St. Louis is better, at .889, and the Rams are clearly the class of the league. New Orleans beat them by two, San Francisco came Close, very close, losing by four.… The 49ers would be 88.9 percent right now, tied with the Rams for first in the NFC West—except for that horrible disaster in Chicago, when the Bears scored twice in 30 seconds and won in overtime.
Right, but that’s like saying, “I would have won all the sprints at the Sydney Olympics, except for this gosh-darn wooden leg.”
Ho ho. If is a big word, to sane people. Hell, the New York Giants would be Super Bowl champions today if not for the Baltimore Ravens. And Bill Clinton would be President if he could have run in 2000. If the queen had balls, she’d be King.
Yes sir, and if I hadn’t flipped out over Terrorism, I wouldn’t be having these hideous problems that plague me today, with this Woman stuck in my attic and Cops hammering on my door. It seems impossible, but it could happen to anybody. I was only trying to be a good citizen, to help my fellow man—or Woman, as it happened—but somehow things went sideways, and now my standing in the neighborhood is diminished. I am under suspicion of being an enemy sympathizer, a jackass, and a bigot.
That is why I don’t want to talk about Princess Omin and that skunkish Omar at this time. People started snickering at me when I went out in public. Obviously they don’t understand My side of the story. Every time I pick up a newspaper, I see grim headlines about Bombs, Economic disasters, and unknown foreigners being put on trial and even Executed by ad hoc Military Tribunals for secret reasons. The White House laughs it off, but we are creating what looks oddly like a police state in this country. Secret trials with secret evidence are not what George Washington had in mind at Valley Forge. He well understood the political meaning of Terrorism—and Anthrax, for that matter: it was a wool handlers’ disease.
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