by Chris Fraser
* * * * *
Preston had to stop; tears were trickling down his cheeks, and Matador was clenching his hand tightly, red-eyed as well. I’m sure he’d heard this story before, but it still go to him.
“That’s enough,” Matador said.
“Sorry you had to see me like this, Trent. Seems I get worse every year on this day.”
“No problem, it’s a sad story. I’m so sorry about your sister, what a horrible way to go.”
“Yes, it was, and I made sure it didn’t go unanswered,” Preston said as a pall cast over his wet eyes.
“Okay, with that out of the way, is everything set, Preston?” Matador asked, trying to pick up the room. “Are we ready to celebrate? I could use a party.”
It was a celebration of Audrey’s life. An Irish wake—with the requisite booze, fond memories, and stories of her life. A large, gazebo-like structure was tucked away under some mighty oaks in the left-hand corner of the back lawn. It was more of an old-fashioned bandstand than a gazebo—quite large, sparkling white, and very southern. They called it the grandstand. Delotta, well aware of the day’s significance, had it decked out with a spread of cold cuts, fresh bread and fruit, and more important, a fully stocked bar complete with hard alcohol and ice cold beer. Matador and I helped Preston across the lawn; we were the first one’s there. Delotta was preparing the food while watching Tucker; Corynne was still at Ole Miss. Matador poured us some drinks and we sat in quiet reflection in the waning hours of the hot Mississippi afternoon.
Preston began to regale us with Audrey stories, eventually perking up. And when Delotta, Tucker, and finally Corynne arrived, it really did have the atmosphere of a celebration. Preston told yarns of the clever ways Audrey fought off suitors; how she was the only one who could talk back to their father, put him in his place, Preston said. I learned she entertained the idea of becoming a nun, but had settled on teaching as her calling. In particular, she wanted to help impoverished children get a proper education. This was, of course, until she started dating John. But we didn’t focus on the negative; the liquor flowed and the stories became louder and more idealized. Eventually I left the group as I felt I was intruding on family and didn’t want to over step my bounds. Tucker and I played out on the grass chasing each other, rolling around and laughing. Tucker really was a good kid. I rarely heard him whine or cry, he just wanted to play, and it was exhausting trying to keep up with him, but I can’t remember ever laughing so much.
12
Saturday morning came with the usual hangover. It could have been worse—I’d switched to beer while everyone else stayed with hard stuff. I knew my hangover wouldn’t be a problem for long—today was Saturday, game day, opening day. The Ole Miss—LSU game was an early start, and even if Preston had money, he was a typical fan, and I knew he’d want to tailgate. But first I had work to do. I had to get fifty spreads for all the college games going off today. Then the real work started—I had to analyze every line and fix where the line-makers went wrong, then adjust the lines to my client’s tendencies. As Sun Tzu said, “You must know your enemy.” I had to call Otto, and I was not looking forward to it.
“Well what the fuck…look who finally decides to check in,” Otto said in sing-songy sarcasm.
“I know, Otto, I know, I’ve been a flake. I’ve just been real caught up in what’s going on out here.”
“Whatever, kid, you ready for today? Big day, you gotta be prepared. I need you to work your magic on these lines—they’re all fucked up.”
“Yeah, I’m ready,” I said, lying through my teeth.
“Good news on this end—your boy Jay has really been coming through on the collecting; we got almost all that was owed to us. I’m holding about $7,500 for you right now.”
“Shit, that is good news,” I said. “Way to go, Jay.”
“Hey,” Otto said, getting back to business, “I’ve been up early busting out my usual research. I found a couple items most people won’t know.”
“Give it up,” I said.
“Michigan’s QB has a broken finger on his throwing hand—it’s taped up, but could pose some problems for them. Also, Notre Dame’s stud running back, Jackson, he’s got a sore toe they’re trying to keep quiet, but he ain’t gonna be the same.”
“Good shit as always, what else you got?”
“In the Texas—Rice game, take note that Rice has covered the number in nine of the last ten, and Texas is favored by twenty-five, you might want to move that down a little to entice some people. Oh, and FYI in the Florida State—North Carolina game, FSU is starting that twenty-six-year old sophomore, Weinke, not Outzen, so do what you want with that.”
“Nice work, you have been at it for awhile.”
“So you just about done down there? When you coming back kid?”
This is what I’d been dreading. “Yeah, we need to talk about that. I might be staying for a while longer.” I braced for his response.
“Motherfucker! We got opening day NFL next week, you gotta be here. You ain’t missed an opening day at the Grotto in years.”
“Yeah, I know, man, but I got a good thing going out here. The people are cool, the house and the town are unbelievable, and there’s a girl—”
“Aha, there it is, I knew it man; it all comes down to that with ole Trenty. Is she hot?”
“Shit, you have no idea. Actually, believe or not, it’s Marcus’s little sister, but she’s not anything like him. She’s truly amazing.”
“Marcus’s little sister, huh? Didn’t even know he had a sister. Well, it sounds like I ain’t gonna see you for awhile.”
“Don’t sweat it, Otto, nothing will change. I can work the lines and the phones out here and Jay is gonna do the collecting, that way you are in the clear, no ties.”
“I’m gonna trust you on this one T. I want it run just as smooth as before, and with Jay doing all of the collecting, Lord knows we’re good there. That boy’s got a gift.”
“Thanks, Otto, you won’t notice any difference, I promise. Let me go over these lines and I’ll call you in a few. Oh, and call me if you get any more inside info.”
“Okay T, talk to you later, and don’t get too caught up in your life out there. HB is your home, always will be, people already asking about ya.”
“No problem, Otto, I know my place.” I said and hung up relieved that it went better than I had anticipated.
The knock at the door a little after 9:00am was Preston—he wasn’t kidding about wanting to see me work this morning. He must have been serious, as he had walked the hundred yards by himself with just his cane to help.
“How ya feeling, Preston?” I asked, noting how spry he looked after drinking about fifteen scotches last night.
“Good morning my boy, can you feel it in the air? Feels different, don’t it? Football season is here. Now listen, the game’s at 1:00pm, I want to leave here at 11:00am, so be ready.”
“Oh, I’ll be ready,” I assured him.
“So you gonna show me a little of what you do this fine morning?”
“Sure am,” I said. “I’m just about to get started. Hey, do me a favor and grab a beer out of the fridge and get me one too.”
Once he got back with the bottles, he eased himself onto the couch and had an eager look on his face, ready for his lesson. I explained to him how the first step is calling a reputable source to get the latest lines and then repeating this every fifteen minutes so you can catch the changes and watch the line progression. The line movement brings more insight into the game than any announcer or pre-game pundit. Once I get the lines, then I go through them with a fine-tooth comb and make my own personal changes.
“Wait right there,” Preston said, “a couple questions. Now who did you call to get these lines?”
“I got a buddy who works for an off-shore book on an island off the coast of Venezuela, mostly Internet action. Their lines are extremely accurate and up to the minute. They have to be, or they’ll get killed by the savvy players. In
exchange for this, I layoff my excess play with them.”
“Layoff? Excess play?”
“Yeah, every now and then we get too much action on one side, or I don’t like the bet, feels wrong, or we just don’t want to handle all the action; so I make the same bet with these guys to hedge my play. The more we owe them at the end of the week, the better we did. Get it?”
“Yeah, I think so. You want to lose to the lay-off book because you will have won much more from your players.”
“Yes, exactly,” I said. “But it can become a problem when we do lose to them. Sure we won more from our players, but sometimes it’s like pulling teeth collecting from them, and we have to pay the Islands every Friday, no exceptions.”
“Okay, second question: you said you make your own changes to these lines you’re given?” Preston asked, sipping on his beer, now half empty. Mine was untouched.
“Yeah, it’s my gift. I get the odds, see where the experts are slightly off, and move the lines where I think they should be. But really, it’s just in anticipation of how I think my players are gonna bet. I call it fixing the lines; I consider them wrong until I fix them.”
“You’re an arrogant little shit aren’t you?” he said incredulously.
“Sometimes,” I said, taking a big first sip of my beer.
It went on this way for about an hour or so, sipping beers and talking about my craft and football in general. Preston sure had seen some glorious games in his time, and he knew how to capture the moment when he’d describe some of the more memorable games he’d witnessed. Then, as expected, an hour before the first kickoffs, the phone started ringing:
“Two twenty-four,” the voice said.
“Hey, Matty, so you want USC -2, Miami -4, Penn State +6, all for a buck? Got it,” I said and quickly hung up and answered the next call.
“Two forty-four.”
“Tony, I thought you weren’t gonna play anymore until you paid up…we’ll see how you do today. But after that, no more action until you pay up.”
“Two twenty-two.”
“Screw you, Joe, if you don’t like my lines. I don’t care what the paper has the line at; this is the line I’m giving out. Go ahead and call up the OC Register and see if they take your action.”
“Two twenty-six.”
“Hey, Mark, you want the under in the Ohio State game?” I cursed under my breath as he went the other way on my line, getting the best of me. “So you're gonna sit there and watch Ohio State at Wisconsin with your ass clenched the whole game rooting for punts? Have fun.”
“Two twenty.”
“Hey, Scott, you want a run-down on all the day’s games? But take good notes. I‘m only gonna do this once, this shit takes forever.”
“Two thirty-two.”
“What up, Frank, you want a Michigan, Florida State six-point tease and an Oregon, LSU tease, you got it. Remember, a push on a tease is a loss; they call ‘em teases for a reason. I don’t want any whining later, you know I hate taking these M-Fers.”
“Two fifteen.”
“Hey, Rob, yeah I take parlays, highest I go are four-teamers. They pay ten-to-one; three-teamers pay six-to-one, two-teamers thirteen-to-five. Okay, I got you for a $100 three-team par with Purdue-4, Florida-7, and West Virginia -4, which will get you $600 bucks if you win. Good luck.”
“Two twenty-seven.”
“Yeah, Smith, $50 on the Notre Dame over the 55 and $50 straight up on LSU-7.”
“Two eighteen.”
“No way, Pete, I told you I ain’t taking your shit anymore. Call Josh, he’ll hook you up, but you gotta pay first, no credit with him.
“C’mon, Trent, that guy’s fucking crazy, he gives out shit lines and half the time he don’t even pay out,” said Pete on the other end.
“Look, man, you’ve owed me money for months now, and I keep letting you play, and you get deeper in the hole. Tell you what, pay me a couple bucks and we’ll go from there.”
“All right, I’ll see you at the Grotto,” he said and hung up.
At 11:05am, I stopped taking plays as a slew of games had already kicked-off, and this always pissed people off as gambling and procrastinating go hand in hand. I always wondered why people waited—they always got the worst lines and had to worry about getting their bets off in the first place. Preston sat listening the whole time, taking everything in: the speech, the slang, the cadence, the banter, the abuse, he seemed to enjoy the process.
“Goddamn, son, I’m exhausted just watching you do that—you do this every weekend, both days?”
“Yeah, all day long during the football season, but it does give me the whole week off.”
“What was with the Two twenty-four, Two twenty-six, crap?”
“That’s their personal code. They’re given a code so they don’t have to use their real names, also so we know they are cool to take plays from. Their code is how we keep track of all their bets. We just tally all the action for 224 for a week and that’s what they owe us or we owe them. But what always happens is you get friendly with most of the guys and the code goes out the window, but if someone wanted some action and didn’t say their code first, I’d hang up on ‘em.”
“Okay, I don’t understand it all, but I’ve heard enough. Get your shit together and meet us at the front of the house in five minutes.”
“I’ll be there.”
He stopped at the door. “Oh, and hey, how ‘bout you let me make the game interesting, say $500 on Ole-Miss plus the seven?”
“Rule number one…never bet with your heart,” I warned him.
“Fuck that, rules fly out the window with Ole Miss, we gonna win outright.”
“You’re the boss; I’ll call it in with my lay-off book to keep things separate from my normal players, that way we can root for the same team.”
“Good deal,” he said, “by the way, people are loading up on LSU aren’t they?”
“Yeah, more than a few. That’s why I wanna keep your play separate.”
“Fucking assholes,” he said, slamming the door behind him.
Matador was behind the wheel of the largest car in the collection—the giant, shiny black SUV with tinted windows idled in front of the house. I hopped in the back, Preston was sitting shotgun. Both of them had Ole Miss jerseys on.
“That’s what you’re wearing, boy?” Preston said, turning around.
“It’s all I got,” I answered, feeling under-dressed as usual.
He shook his head and turned back around. “All right, we’ve given her enough time, we ain’t going to a goddamn wedding, give her a honk.”
Matador honked, and a moment later, Corynne came running out—in slow motion in my eyes—a vision in tight-fitting school pride. She filled out a snug Harvard-Red Ole Miss half-top tied back behind her and a short Yale-Blue skirt. Her long hair was pulled into a pony tail, allowing her beaming face to be unencumbered. She also had the Ole Miss mascot inked to her right cheek—the distinguished mustachioed rebel, complete with cane and top hat. I thought of Preston, but even more so I thought of Mark Twain. She jumped in the back next to me, and we were off.
We got onto University Avenue; went through the town and into the college, where we came upon a line of cars; and slowly made our way toward Vaught Hemingway Stadium. Even with the traffic, it didn’t take more than twenty minutes to get into the parking lot. Once Matador found his usual parking spot amongst other die-hard Rebel fans, we got out and he opened the back hatch and emptied out all the requirements for a great tailgate party: barbeque, table, chairs, and canopy, all emblazoned with Ole Miss colors and logos. The food was steak, bratwurst, and, of course, enough beer to get all of Mississippi drunk.
The last thing Preston pulled out was a box; he handed it to me and told me to open it. Unsure of what to expect, I opened an authentic Ole Miss Jersey, number eighteen, with Manning on the back.
“You like it, son?” Preston said as he and Matador looked on proudly while Corynne giggled at my discomfort.
/> “Yeah, it’s great, thank you.”
“I’ll tell you what, that there is the real deal—an authentic Arching Manning 1970 jersey. He finished third in the Heisman that year; should’ve won the whole thing if not for southern biases,” Preston said.
“This ain’t none of that fake K-Mart shit,” Matador added. “Put it on. Let’s see how it looks on ya.”
I wasn’t really the type to wear football jerseys, but I pulled it over my T-shirt—it fit well on me. Corynne couldn’t stop giggling and said I looked cute. She said it brought out the blue in my eyes. I’d keep it on.
Preston and Matador started on the grill and Corynne began introducing me to some other tailgaters, she seemed to know them all. They all looked like they came in the same car: sporting tight Ole Miss jerseys from all eras stretched over ample bellies as they pounded beer after beer, expounding on the virtues of Ole Miss football and all agreeing on one thing—this is our year. We walked farther among the growing throngs and came upon a group of similarly dressed black tailgaters. I thought we would walk right past them, but Corynne made a bee-line right for them.
She introduced me to a couple of big guys, maybe ex-players, then stopped on the third man and said, “And this is Darnell, Delotta’s son, he goes to Ole Miss too.”
“Another proud black Confederate Rebel,” he said, shaking my hand. “Mom told me you were staying with them.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said.
“Don’t worry, she said you were a nice boy, but she also said you and ole Preston were gonna get each other in trouble.”
Corynne made Darnell follow us to our tailgate where he was greeted warmly by Matador and Preston. He had a beer and a brat and started talking football.
Preston’s tailgate formed into a shifting sea of Ole Miss jerseys—an epicenter of beer drinking, red meat eating, and LSU Tiger bashing. Everyone knew Preston and Matador and were quick to stop by, grab a beer, and yell, “Go Rebels!” More like politicians than tailgaters, Preston and Matador held high court—this truly was their element. Everyone had to shake their hands, give them pats on the back, and rejoice in the greatness that was Rebel football. Corynne and I just sat in our reclining chairs, sipping beer; we let the old guys have the moment.