Semi-Tough Read Online Free PDF Page B

in Denmark doing some swell things to each other? I'll level with you. It's better than that."
    I said she was a real inspiration.
     
    As for last night, there isn't much to say about what happened except that it was semi-exhausting. We all went to the Sports Illustrated party. Most of the Giants went but none of the Jets. The Jets are all still hot at the magazine because none of them made a cover during the regular season. Not even Dreamer Tatum.
    Maybe that would make me mad, too. Me and Shake have both been on their cover several times in the past, starting with TCU. And I'm not even counting the one they did of the two of us when we were All-America our senior year and dough-popped Arkansas thirty-seven to twenty-one. I don't count that one because as far as I could tell, it wasn't us. It was a painting, I think.
    Shake said he thought the cover looked like some kind of polka-dot linoleum that was all twisted around a goal post with birds circling.
    What was primarily funny about the party was this nitwit who was fairly drunk and got into a conversation with Shake.
    I never knew who he was. Just one of those striped-tie, Ivy League, midtown, semi-lockjaw, Eastern motherfuckers you run into.
    For one thing, he turned out to be a dog-ass Jet fan, and that was a dead giveaway right there that he wasn't too heavy to anybody outside of Queens.
    Everybody knows the Giants are Manhattan's team, which means New York City. And like Shake says, Queens is in Russia, except with less glamour.
    Anyhow, this nitwit comes up to Shake and first off he wants to know how Shake is going to feel on Sunday when Dreamer Tatum shuts him out on catching balls.
    Shake thought at first that the nitwit was joking, like some of our friends do. You know. We've got some pals who are always saying things to me like, "There's old Number Twenty-four, we'll never forget him." And my number of course is Twenty-three. Things like that.
    But the guy was serious. And his voice had a bit of a belligerent tone, seeing as how he had put a whole pile of gin down his neck.
    "Marvin (Shake) Tiller," the guy said, sort of loud. "Big deal."
    Shake just stood there with a young Scotch in his hand, grinning, and brushing his red-blond hair up on his forehead when it would fall down, like it does.
    The conversation, as Barbara Jane and I have tried to remember it for the book, went something like this.
    "Marvin (Shake) Tiller," the guy said. "Hero."
    "That's me," said Shake.
    "Tell me something, hero. Have you ever thought what you'd be doing if you didn't make a lot of dough playing a kid's game?" the guy said.
    "Once or twice," Shake said.
    "And what did you decide, hero?" said the nitwit.
    "Oh, I thought I might get into conglomerates," Shake said.
    "Conglomerates, huh?"
    "Yeah, big ones," Shake said.
    "Great big conglomerates," said the nitwit.
    "Just a whole bunch of 'em," Shake said.
    "Conglomerates of what, may I ask?"
    Shake said, "Well, my idea was that I'd have some great big conglomerates of money."
    The nitwit stared at us all.
    He said, "Of course, that's a joke."
    "Yeah, that's what bothers me," Shake said. "All these ideas I have about business only make people laugh."
    We all kind of stood there awkwardly for a moment and tasted our drinks.
    The nitwit said, "Well, it's good to know that a hero like yourself has given some thought to his future."
    "I have done that, sir," Shake said.
    "No you haven't," he said. "You haven't done a goddamn thing but catch passes."
    "Only the ones they threw me," Shake said.
    "Just run out there and catch the goddamn passes," the guy gestured. "Big football deal. The Giants, for Christ's sake."
    "Yes, sir, most of the passes I catch are for the Giants," said Shake.
    "If it weren't for pro football most of you heroes would be running a goddamn gas station somewhere. Tulsa or somewhere," the guy said.
    "That's fairly close to it," Shake grinned.
    "It is, huh?"
    "Yeah, fairly close," Shake said.
    "But not quite?"
    "No, just