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by-line.
    As I understand Jim Tom's job, his workday goes like this. He has to get up at five o'clock every morning, stop at the post office and get the mail, tear all the stories off the wire machine, write his column, write two or three other stories, write all the headlines, answer the phone, rewrite whatever Jerry Toby turns in, make up the pages of the sports section because Big-un Darley is drunk, and then go out in the afternoon to a high school or to TCU and try to find something else to write about the next day.
    One of the reasons it would be nice for this book to make some money is that it would help my friendly neighborhood typist get his pockets on the outside of some extra cash.
    That would sure make Earlene happy, and take some heat off a good old boy. Maybe he can buy Earlene a new shower-head, or whatever the hell it is that fat wives want for their homes.
    Earlene's maiden name was Padgett. She's one of those bitches who couldn't wait to get fat right after she got married.
    The best way I can describe Earlene Padgett is to say that she was a semi-fleshy clerk at the bank who had a nice ass that stuck out when she danced. She seemed to be a swinger at one time. At least she drank her share of whisky and said "piss" a lot. And over-all she had that racy kind of look that most men like.
    Barbara Jane once called her an eye-shadow junkie.
    But about ten seconds after Jim Tom married her, Earlene went out and got herself some fat arms, a big butt and turned dumber than a fundamentalist preacher.
    Are you there, Jim Tom? Mad Dog One to Mad Dog Two. Come in, Mad Dog Two. Sorry I had to gloss it over there about your marriage. Just felt kindhearted, I guess.
    Maybe you'll be divorced and fired before the book comes out, and then it won't make a shit what we say about your wonderful wife and your wonderful editor.
    At the risk of embarrassing my collaborator, I've got to say that he's a stud when it comes to knowing about football. He can tell you when a zone secondary bleeds and when it gushes. He knows a counterkey for the cornerback on the triple option.
    I don't suppose he's ever written much that would dazzle the literary geniuses at Sports Illustrated . But then he doesn't write so often about a lovable snow goose or kite-flying in Dark Harbor, Maine.
    As Jim Tom says, "In Fort Worth I don't get many chances to do my Grantland Rice number. If I could make my column read like a grocery ad, I'd be the biggest thing in town."
    He's managed to sell a few stories to some small magazines but Sports Illustrated keeps turning down his suggestions. One of their turndowns made him so hot once that he sent them what I thought was a funny telegram.
    It said something like:
    "If you folks ever decide to stop being a slick cookbook for the two-yacht family I will consider an assignment."
    I reminded Barbara Jane that anybody who knows how many touchdowns I've scored and how many yards I've gained from high school through five years in pro ball has got to be a better book writer than some Eastern dumb-ass who thinks football ended when Vince Lombardi went to the big power sweep in the sky.
    "How old is Jim Tom now?" Barb asked.
    "I think he must be about thirty-two," I said. "That's his body. His soul of course is over a hundred."
    Barb said, "Let's see. Thirty-two. Yeah, that's right. He was about four years ahead of us in Paschal and TCU."
    "Good guy," I said.
    She said, "I suppose he still makes it with every waitress and secretary in town."
    "They think he's a celebrity," I said. "They're overwhelmed by his checkered sports coats, his cigarette holder, the premature gray in his hair and the fact that they think he's single."
    I asked Barb to give me a little better book review than the fact that it sounded excessively vulgar, which it wasn't.
    She smiled and said, "Remember those magazines called Climax , or something, that you guys used to hand me under the table in the fifth grade? With the color photographs of people