Collected written works | Gary Marx
A Football Drama
in Three-Quarter Time
My wife, Pam, and I were in Nag’s Head, N.C., about a month ago, and we stopped at Kelly’s for dinner. There was a line, so we put our name on the list and went to the bar to wait. It was fairly empty in there: one bartender and a few other couples. Some guy was setting up a drum kit for the band that would play later in the evening. And right over there, not far, sat a writer and his friend behind a stack of new books on a table.
That’s the setting of this play, a true story, titled:
“THE PAUL HORNUNG INCIDENT”
CHARACTERS:
PAM and GARY: A Midwestern couple about to experience a communication problem.
BARTENDER: He thinks he’s only a bartender, but, more important, he’s also a dramatic device in this story.
PAUL HORNUNG: Former football stud and party boy. Now a writer of overpriced books.
JIMMY LAMBERT: Songwriter, ex-con and Hornung’s lifelong friend in need of a shave.
ACT 1, SCENE 1
(Don’t be deceived; there’s only one of each)
Pam and Gary take stools at the bar and order wine. They glance around the room. The bartender brings the drinks.
GARY (to bartender): So, who’s the writer? Somebody local?
BARTENDER: No. That guy used to play for Vince Lombardi.
PAM, thinking: Lombardi? Lombardi? Why is that familiar?
GARY (taking a closer look): Oh, that’s Paul Hornung!
PAM, thinking: Horny? Did he just say Horny?
BARTENDER: That’s right.
PAM, thinking: I wasn’t asking you.
Bartender leaves, doesn’t come back, but he’s happy to have contributed to the development of plot.
PAM (turning to Gary): You know Horny?
GARY (wanting to impress, and shallowly thinking he could do so by quoting the bartender): Sure, he used to play for Vince Lombardi.
PAM, thinking: Lombardi? He must mean “Lombardo,” the band leader. What was the name of his band, the Royal Canadian Mounties or something? Then, suddenly, she figures it out: “Horny” is a nickname because he was a trumpet player or something in the orchestra. Of course!
GARY: I’ve seen him on TV many times.
PAM: Well, maybe you should go over and talk to him.
Gary and Pam walk to the writer’s table. Another couple is in front of them, so as they wait Gary and Pam are greeted by a jovial Jimmy Lambert. Jimmy is wearing shades, holding a bottle of beer, acting like a good-old-boy outlaw celebrity and talking up a blue streak. Hands are shaken, names exchanged.
GARY: So you’ve known Paul a long time?
JIMMY: Oh yeah, yeah, we go way back, back to Kentucky, Louisville and Lexington, but I’m living right here right now, where y’all from?
PAM: We’re Southern Illinoisans, but we live in Kansas City.
JIMMY: Kansas City! I spent some time in Leavenworth, two years and one day, would have been longer, but Paul got me out early, talked the warden into knocking six months off my sentence.
Pam is fascinated by the backstage world of traveling musicians and their checkered pasts. But she’s puzzled. Wasn’t Lombardo’s band more conservative?
GARY: So what do you do now, Jimmy?
JIMMY: I do some song writing and stuff.
PAM (clearly taken): Really? What kind of songs?
Pam and Jimmy begin a long chat about music. The line opens up, and Gary slides over to meet Paul Hornung.
GARY (to Hornung): So is Jimmy’s story true, that you got him out of Leavenworth early?
PAUL (inscribing an overpriced book “To Gary…”): Yeah, nothing but true stories. Right, Jimmy?
Jimmy doesn’t respond, he’s spinning tales and flirting with Pam. The rascal!
PAUL: So yeah, I went to see him in prison, and this guy … (to Jimmy) who was that jackass?
JIMMY: The warden?
PAUL: Yeah, that’s it, the warden. He says, “You Paul Hornung?” I said, “Yeah,” but he knew who I was. He wanted me to talk to the whole group, see?
GARY: The inmates?
PAUL: Yeah, all the prisoners, the guards, everyone. I told him I’d talk to them under one condition: that he release Jimmy six months early. And that’s what happened. But they had all the prisoners in the cafeteria, and I look over there, and there’s a salad bar set up. I said, “What’s this?” They say, “This is salad bar Tuesday.” I mean, we’re talking about murderers and thieves and stuff, and they’re serving them salad. Can you imagine? Salad!
GARY (amazed at this turn in the conversation): Hard to figure.
PAUL (sliding the overpriced book across the table and waving away the credit card): Cash only.
Gary listens to Paul tell a few more stories about his football days while Pam chats with Jimmy and rebuffs his not too subtle advances. The scoundrel! Then Gary drags Pam away and they say goodbye to Paul and Jimmy and retreat to a table to compare notes and tales.
GARY (excited): Then Paul told about how he was checking into a hotel in downtown Kansas City with this girl, and …
PAM: Jimmy said they always had groupies …
GARY: And then he said …
PAM: Did you know Jimmy wrote a song that Willie Nelson recorded? It’s called “Run That By Me One More Time.”
GARY: What’s it called?
This is the cue for the guy setting up the drums. BA-DA-BOOM!
PAM (she adores her husband, despite his personality): I was really impressed that you knew who he was.
GARY (blushing modestly): Well, sure. He used to play for Vince Lombardi, you know.
PAM, thinking: Lombardi? Again with the Lombardi? I wish he’d get that right.
GARY: And he’s been on TV and stuff.
PAM: Yes, but I don’t know anything about Horny.
GARY, thinking: Horny?
PAM: I mean, I don’t even know what instrument he plays.
GARY, thinking: Instrument?
GARY: You mean what position he played?
PAM: Well, I assume he was first chair, but what instrument.
GARY: Wha?
PAM: Didn’t you say he played for Vince Lombardo?
GARY, thinking: Lombardo?!
GARY: Do you mean to say, um, Guy? Guy Lombardo?
PAM (pursing lips, eyes to the ceiling, the slow dawn of realization … ): Oh … well, maybe.
GARY: Honey, have you seen this?
He lifts the book to show Pam, who hasn’t yet seen the cover and the photo of Coach Vince Lombardi and Paul Hornung in football gear, and the title: “Lombardi and Me.”
PAM: So… are you telling me this is about sports? Then why would Jimmy talk about music the whole time? And why would Paul have a name like Horny? And …
GARY: Honey?
PAM: What?
GARY: Want to start this conversation over?
PAM: No.
GARY: I love you.
Curtain.
— 30 —
“Forgive me, pretty baby, but I always take the long way home.”
— TOM WAITS
NOTE
The pieces collected in A Hat Full of Rain first appeared in the magazine Good Living in Southern Illinois.
