The third man in, p.29
The Third Man In, page 29
Hunts’s breakup was in no way as interesting. He wasn’t blameless. He fancied himself a lady-killer and maybe his act went a long way in Morden, Manitoba, but not in the pros and not in L.A. He had women on the side but, c’mon, seriously, the waitresses at a bar out in Malibu, a joint that practically stank of seagull shit. The pieces of ass out there were B-minuses. At best. And his wife, the line applies: find me an attractive woman and I’ll find you a guy who’s sick of the sight of her. In this case that guy was sitting on my living-room couch and I was cringing every time he dry heaved.
Stu Morris grabbed Hunts by the shoulder. “Junior, your problem isn’t the woman or the divorce,” he said. And then for the next hour he stared into Hunts’s eyes and told him what his problem was. And when Hunts broke eye contact, when he closed his eyes, when he looked away, when he looked up at the ceiling like there was help up there, Stu gave him a shake. Stu had huge grippers. He could beat every guy on the team in an arm wrestle. When Stu gave him a shake it looked like Hunts was having a convulsion. And at the end of the hour, Stu gave Hunts a couple of last shakes. “You’re gonna do this. You gotta change. Not a little. You got to do the hard thing. He…”
That’d be Me.
“…stuck his neck out. He could land in the shit. And it’s even worse for me. I’m doing this, I dunno why. Someone did it for me. I’ve done it for other guys. You’re not special. I’ll probably have to do it again. But I’m not doing it again for you. You screw up, you are on your own and I won’t let someone in management sink your boat. I’ll do it myself. You’ve got no margin for error. Looking at you right now, I don’t know if you’re going to be able to play a month from now, the state you’re in. You clean yourself up. You’re coming to the meetings with me. I’ll get you started. I’ll help you. But, Junior, it’s not a short leash. It’s no leash at all. You got a dog collar on and I got my fingers under pulling it tight enough to choke you.”
The dog collar reminded me of a photo Quincey flashed around the room. When I saw his missus at a party, I whispered “woof” in her ear. And she liked it.
Stu gave Hunts one last shake and then pushed him back. Hunts fell like one of those invalids who go up to feel the hand of a faith healer. He went reeling, landing on the couch and his head hitting the wall.
“Junior,” he said to me, “you take it from here.”
“What about the team doctor?”
“You’re on your own.”
* * *
I sat with Hunts all day and all night. He had the shakes so bad I was sweating it out.
I took another call from her. “I was standing behind Wilford Brimley and he farted,” she said. “It was awful.” I looked at Hunts. I told her old people have problems that way. She gave me the Burt and Loni update. I moved the receiver away to yawn. I had a practice to go to.
I took a call from Stu Morris. He asked me how Hunts was. I was square with him. I told him Hunts was pretty sick still. He gave me the bad news. “Junior, Doc Colford wants to see your boy, tomorrow,” he said. Stu gave me the doctor’s number. I left a message for him.
I had to go to practice. I didn’t feel like I could leave Hunts alone, not even to go to the 7-Eleven. Our next-door neighbour was a stuntman. Gus was a good guy. He was on the shelf with a broken arm at the time. I called him up and asked him if he’d babysit Hunts. He said he’s step in, no problem. He told me after the fact that the few hours of Hunts reminded him of the gigs when they set him on fire in the flame-retardant suit.
Before I left, Doc Colford called me back from the Hillcrest Country Club. He told me that he had just finished the front nine and was getting his game together for the Bing Crosby Pro-Am up in Pebble that weekend. He said last year his partner was Mike Donald. The other amateur in the foursome was James Garner and he drew Jack Nicklaus. He said he had a great time except when he almost got beaned by Jack Lemmon, who hit his ball into the wrong fairway. I did nothing to encourage his reliving these old glories but I was powerless to stop him.
I told him that Hunts was staying with me because his wife got called back to New Hampshire because her mother was sick. I told him that I was heading to practice and I’d be back in three hours or so. He asked me if I wanted to come out for dinner at the club, his treat. It was right out of the blue. I hadn’t ever talked to him except at the pre-season physicals to say that the old turn-your-head-left-and-cough made me uncomfortable and he had told me he wasn’t crazy about it either. He said he was running late, had a dinner engagement at the club, felt like he had to do something for the inconvenience, could offer me a swell meal, and would follow me back to my place. I called Gus to tell him that I was held up a couple of hours longer than I planned on and he said he’d spent half his life waiting on the set, what’s a couple of hours.
Doc Colford didn’t say so but I figured that he got off on the idea of being able to show off a pro jock at his club. I thought I had caught a break. I was in to do whatever it took to get the job done and I was willing to do stuff a lot dirtier than play the trophy acquaintance. I figured I was going to be able to buttonhole him and make a stab at convincing him to help us cover for Hunts.
Pulling up to Hillcrest I realized that one strategy I was thinking up was a non-starter: there was no way I was going to be able to bribe this guy. I saw a bunch of diamond-encrusted, cigar-smoking guys with orange skin climbing into Maseratis, limited-edition Jags, and, for the old-timers, Rolls Royces. I’m not sure I could even afford to bribe the members’ chauffeurs.
I was shown to Doc Colford’s table. He had two of the three members of his foursome at the table. The other guy, a neurosurgeon with a five handicap, got called back to Cedars-Sinai for emergency bladework. “Gents, this is Brad Shade,” Doc said. “One of the boys I look after down at the arena.”
“That hockey thing is a nice little bit of part-time work for you, Gregory,” the urologist said.
I did the exchange of pleasantries, did the Thumbnail This Is My Life, thanked God no one asked me for an autograph, and still wondered what the hell I was doing there. I don’t golf. At this club I felt less like picking up a club than ever. I wasn’t their people and I say that looking at me from their perspective.
The orders had been made, rare-medium-well had been sorted out, the wine list had been examined, the selection had been made, and the bottle had been taste-tested, and only then did Doc pop the big one and everything came clear.
“Boys, I don’t know if you know or not, but Brad is married to…”
The ah-ha. We had only made a small pass at the game I played. We had made short work of ninety-nine and the two other names in the league that Doc’s guests recognized. But my wife, that was an entirely different story. They couldn’t have been more up to speed on her career if they had been president and vice-president of her fan club and she did have one.
They asked me what Camille O’Brien was like. “Bad anorexic,” I said. “I look at her and my stomach growls.”
Dana Plato. “Train wreck. One of the guys on the team was banging her. He wouldn’t sleep over ’cause he thought she’d wake up in the middle of the night and stab him.”
Bob Saget. “Foul-mouthed asshole.”
Tom Bosley. “Prick.”
The fat slob on The New Hollywood Squares. She did the show as the top square on the right, right next to him. “A complete fruit–nut job, he squeezed my ass at an after-party,” I said. “Drunk or high, I don’t know. Security had to peel me off him.”
And they asked what it was like being married to a celeb. “I don’t know, you’d have to ask her,” I said and they guffawed. Too hard, I thought. “It’s overrated. I mean, I think being a celebrity is overrated. I never imagined the stuff that goes with it ’cause I never imagined that being a player made you one.”
I enjoyed myself less and less. Dessert rolled around and Doc’s guests soon left him to clear up the bill and me to try to clean up the complete mess that Hunts had landed us in.
“I’m going to come square with you,” I told him as he signed the bill. “Hunts doesn’t have pneumonia.”
“I know. Mr. Morris told me that.”
The fuckin’ rat. We’re completely fucked. Visions of Hunts getting released. Visions of a summer of bullshit low-ball negotiations, their bit of payback. “Okay, so what are you going to do?” I said.
“Brad,” he said, making a little steeple with his hands and fingers. “You get to a lot of parties.”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t see almost anyone on the team away from the arena.”
He took a breath. “Actually, I meant you and your wife must get to a lot of parties,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, now thinking that I could see where this going. Not as clearly as I thought, though.
“Brad, it would be a great opportunity to go to a couple of these parties. As a guest of yours or to make it on some sort of list. I mean, I see a few well-known people here at the club, but really my specialty…”
Orthopedics.
“…it’s really professional athletes who are a large part of my clientele. But my wife, she’d like to meet some of those people at the parties.”
“She’s a big fan, I guess,” I said. I imagined that she’d be a star-struck nuisance at a party that we brought the Drs. Colford to. The first autograph she asked for would have the hosts asking us who the hell those friends of ours were. Our place on the A-list would come under review.
“Brad, actually she’s a plastic surgeon,” he said. “She’s very good. She might meet some people here at the club but she doesn’t golf. Meeting some people in your wife’s trade would be, well…”
“Good for business.”
“Well put.”
“I can do it,” I said. I left out the part about having to hold my nose.
“And we don’t have a problem. Mr. Hunt has pneumonia. That’s all the team has to know. I can refer him to a friend. Any sort of support—medical support, that is—he’ll be able to provide it for Mr. Hunt. My friend is very discreet.”
We shook hands.
* * *
Hunts can still tell you how many years, months, days, and hours it’s been since he had his last drink, that JD on my couch. A week after that last drink, he asked me what the bill was in the bar where I scraped him off the floor. I told him to forget about it but I’d collect with interest if he ever drank again. A month later our goalie went down with a knee that was going to have to be reconstructed and they threw Hunts in there. He played the last twenty games of the season and got us into the second round of the playoffs pretty well singlehandedly. He only took off from there. By the time our old No. 1 limped back into the line-up, Hunts was halfway to getting voted onto the All-Star team and getting a million-dollar deal. His wife had cashed out when his stock hit rock bottom, and if she ever came around to the idea that he had changed, it was way too late. A year sober, Hunts was a fan favourite. Not long after they retired his number, he was handed the interim GM’s job. He has kept Doc Colford on the payroll. I took Hunts’s bill at the bar and all other debts off the books when he hired me to scout for L.A. And every year he contributes a paycheque to a charity for an outreach for alcoholics and drug addicts. He doesn’t put his name on it. He just makes it “in memory of Stu Morris” and leaves it at that.
For as long as I was in L.A., which was approximately how long I was married, the Drs. Colford walked into parties with us. It’s been twenty years since anyone with a name invited me to a Hollywood party, but the Drs. Colford are still on the A-list. And even before our marital holocaust hit the Enquirer, Dr. Colford’s better half was drumming up business at those parties. She’s now the plastic surgeon to the stars. If only I had been working on commission.
The night I shook hands with the doctor, I got another call from location in Texas again. “I can’t believe Dom DeLuise is married with kids,” she said. I thought I should at least start the ball rolling and told her that I had dinner with Dr. Colford and that he and his wife were a real swell pair. I didn’t know at the time that I was recruiting Dr. Tessa Colford’s first celebrity client, one who has had seven pieces of work and counting.
I thought about all that the other day. Joan Rivers was on a talk show and someone asked her about my ex. “The ancient ingenue, she looks like a duck-billed platypus,” she said. I threw a slipper at the TV. She’s stealing my material.
G B Joyce, The Third Man In
