Life Its Ownself Read Online Free PDF Page A

circulation, but when I have a facial massage, I make sure I tell the masseuse Do not pull the skin! It's the worst thing you can do!"
    "Really?"
    "Oh, yes," Veronica said. "The idea is to keep the skin taut and firm."
    Burt beamed at me as they were leaving.
    "Got one for you, big guy," he said. "Pal of mine at Doyle
    Dane goes with this actress on The Guiding Light . He thought they'd done all the sperm capers but he made a hell of a discovery the other night. Eyelashes on the clit. Says he can blink her off in no time."
    I had a while to think about that before the phone started ringing.
    Dreamer Tatum called. T. J. from Fort Worth. Ex-teammates like Hose Manning and Puddin Patterson. Jim Tom Pinch, an old newspaper buddy. Others. Hang in there, they all said.
    Shake Tiller phoned from Houston. He was swinging through the South on a promotional tour for the paperback release of The Art of Taking Heat . His book had been a non- fiction best-seller the previous year.
    The book had been published in hardcover by Viva Press, a subsidiary of Quillam, Dupe & Strike. Silvia Mercer, Shake's agent, had peddled the idea to an editor friend named Rosemary Compton, arguing that The Art of Taking Heat would appeal to that mass of readers in the Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous category who might be fed up with diets, exercise, and money-managing.
    Shake's book sold over 200,000 copies in hardcover, though it never dislodged Get Rich in 30 Seconds as the No. 1 best-seller on all of the heavy lists. Still, the book's success had turned Shake Tiller into a semi-known author. This not only meant he'd had to appear on drive-time radio shows and early-morning TV shows around the country, he'd been obligated to fuck Silvia Mercer again, and then Rosemary Compton.
    He had once said that Xeroxing was the toughest part of writing, but he had changed his mind.
    Paperback tours differed from hardcover tours, Shake had discovered. You didn't sell books or autograph many of them on either tour, but there was drastically less literary pussy on the paperback tour—unless a man had a weakness for the pudgy girls who ran the checkout counters at supermarkets.
    On hardcover tours, Shake had spent most of his time apologizing to the cultivated owners of bookstores because his book had been published and theirs hadn't. Occasionally, he would sit and smoke at a table in the store and point out to a browsing customer where the bird books could be found. On the paperback tours, he would mill around the grocery stores, occasionally be recognized as an ex-football star, and be asked to autograph twelve slices of Virginia ham wrapped in butcher's paper.
    Now on the phone from Houston, he said, "Hi, gimp. Luckiest thing ever happened to you, B.C. You can go into TV. Rob everybody's ass."
    "You're the second person who's told me that tonight."
    "You went out perfect, man. A wounded warrior whose career was struck down by tragic fate. Fuck 'em. Football's not the same anymore, anyhow."
    "There's still eleven men on a side."
    "Not on the Giants," he said. "Go for the slick, B. C. Sit up there in the booth with Summerall. Tell everybody how the quarterback wants to isolate on the linebacker. Hell, you might wind up in a beer commercial."
    "I drink Scotch."
    "We'll do some of that when I get back."
    "How's the book going?"
    "Selling like salami."
    The conversation with Shake didn't necessarily boost my spirits.
    For the next hour, I squirmed in the bed. I was half- rooting for the painkillers to get with it, half-wondering if I would ever play football again.
    Was it really possible I'd never climb into another uniform, never trot into another stadium, never blow another one in there for six, never hear the crowds again?
    Football was the only thing I'd ever done.
    I was in a fairly miserable state of mind, feeling a terrible sense of loss, when the phone rang for the last time that night.
    I fumbled for the receiver and greeted the caller with a weak