It will make Billy anxious, this photo. He’ll see too much trust in A-bort’s face, too much heedless good faith in the presumed blessings of being born American at a certain point in time, but at the moment of its taking Billy has his own hands full. It must be that every cheerleader has been given a specific charge, for as soon as the Bravos step off the stage each soldier is received by exactly three girls, a moment that packs the force, if not the content, of divine intercession. Billy is shy about actually touching them but they spoon right in with sisterly nonchalance. Their pancake makeup disappoints him a little, but he decides he doesn’t mind because they’re just so pretty and genuinely nice, and toned, good God, their bodies firm as steel-belted radials. Such an honor to meet you! Welcome to Texas Stadium! We’re so proud and thrilled to have you with us today! Oh mother of all fuck even a man with a pounding migraine feels restored among these girls, no, these women, these creatures with their thickets of fragrant hair and palmable little butts and Alpine crevasses of dizzying cleavage into which a man could fall, never to be seen or heard from again.
And that would be all right, just to disappear down there, vanished by a kind of reverse-rapture action into chasms of sheltering female flesh. Such tender feelings their bodies evoke in him, an almost irresistible instinct to root and nuzzle, to say I love you. I need you. Marry me. Candace’s boobs, incidentally, are fake, not that it matters a damn, those are regular warheads punching out from her chest, whereas Alicia and Lexis sport the more pliable slope of the real. By any measure they are all three stunning women with their sharp little noses and blinding white teeth and such tiny tiny isthmuses of biscuit-brown waists that it’s all he can do not to grab them, just to try those sylphy flexures out for size.
“You havin’ a good day so far?” Candace asks.
“Outstanding,” Billy says. “I hope I didn’t talk too much up there.”
“What?”
“Are you kidding?”
“No way!”
“You were super,” Lexis assures him. “Everybody was incredibly moved by your words.”
“Well, it just felt weird. Usually I don’t talk that much.”
“You were excellent,” she says firmly. “Believe me. You were very concise and to the point.”
“And it’s not like you were putting yourself forward,” Alicia observes. “They kept asking you questions, what’re you gonna do?”
“Personally I thought it was kind of rude, some of the stuff they were asking,” says Lexis.
“You have to be so careful around the media,” Candace says.
Photographers and TV cameramen eddy through the crowd, along with reporters, team executives, and persons of no discernible purpose. Billy spots Mr. Jones sharking around the fringes, armed and presumably dangerous, or at least a pain in the ass to have to think about. It turns out that the cheerleaders have their own photographer, a balding, raw-faced little jockey of a man who dashes about barking “Hold!” before each shot, showing no more sensibility for the splendors of his subjects than a peeler at a meat-packing plant. Hold! — snnnizzzck. Hold! — snnnizzzck, the shutter spasming like an old man’s sphincter giving way. In between photo ops the girls tell Billy about the USO tour they did last spring, with stops in Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, and points beyond, plus a volunteers-only foray into Ramadi, where their Black Hawk helicopter could have taken fire.
“I don’t see how yall do it,” says Alicia. “That’s some hard living over there, boy, just how dry it is, all that wind and sand. And those people, the Iraqis, their houses? All those dirt huts, they’re like something Jesus might’ve lived in.”
“Your service is just so much more meaningful to us now,” Lexis tells him. “We have a lot more appreciation for the job you’re doing.”
“The food was pretty good,” says Candace, “the chow. We only had to eat MREs a couple of times.”
“A lot of carbs,” adds Lexis.
“I swear, ever since we got back? I cry whenever I hear the national anthem,” Alicia admits.
Billy was hoping to meet his strawberry-blond cheerleader but knows he should be grateful for what he has right here, three beautiful and voluptuous Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. They are so sweet, so utterly gorgeous. They smell so good. They cry out and give him high-fives on discovering he’s a Texan just like them. Their wonderful breasts keep noodging up against his arms, setting off sensory bells and whistles like a run of bonus points in a video game. Whenever any of the medias approach, the girls hook their thumbs into their hot pants and stand there cock-hipped and saucy as if daring the press to give their Billy a hard time. And the medias, the men, they cannot deal straightforwardly but throw out smirks, sidelong looks, ironical tones of voice. Yeah, yeah, we see you, hoss, they as much as say to Billy. Rock star and everything, ain’t you the shit. Viewing himself through the medias’ eyes, Billy understands how close the cheerleaders come to rendering him absurd, the pimp excess of not just one or two but three beautiful girls. He’s fully aware it’s all fake, and surely they know he knows, so is this put-on scorn their way of manning up to him?
He begins to resent the situation. The reporters waft a few pro forma questions his way. Did he play sports in high school? Is he a Cowboys fan? What does it mean to be home for Thanksgiving this year?
“Well, technically,” Billy points out, “I’m not at home. I’m here.”
They don’t even have to take notes, just hoover up his words with sleek little recording gadgets that look like protein bars. Merely by standing there they manage to be incredibly annoying, a middle-aged bunch of mostly big-assed white guys dressed in boring-as-hell business casual, such a sad-fuck sampling of civilian bio-matter that for a moment Billy is actually glad for the war, hell yes, so much better to be out there shooting guns and blowing shit up than shuffling around like scenery on a bad sitcom. God knows the war sucks, but he sees no great appeal in these tepid peacetime lives.
Through the crowd he spots his cheerleader, who’s been assigned — gah! — to Sykes. The proceedings are definitely getting on his nerves. She catches him looking and sends back a seemingly warm and genuine smile, then tips her head in concern or puzzlement. His abs contract as if from a body blow.
When the medias finally leave he turns to Lexis and asks, “Do you have to be single to be a cheerleader?”
She gives a curt laugh; a look passes among the cheerleaders. Oh Christ, they think he’s hitting on them.
“Well, no,” she says, very crisp and businesslike, “you don’t, and we’ve always got some married girls on the squad. Me and Candace and Al, we aren’t married, but we’ve all got steady boyfriends.”
Billy’s head is bobbing in manic agreeableness, uh huh, uh huh, of course you do! “I was just, you know, um, curious.”
The girls exchange another look. Sure you were. He is trying to figure out how to nicely say it’s not you particular three I’m interested in, but before this formulation is revealed to him he’s summoned by Josh. Showtime. The medias want a photo op, Norm and the Bravos together. A space is cleared in front of the stage, chairs pushed back, bodies herded. One of Norm’s small grandsons darts past playing tag with the cheerleaders, the sturdy little stub of his erect penis straining against his pants. As everyone takes their places a reporter asks Norm about his plans for a possible new stadium. An oh-ho sort of razzing rises from the medias.