America's Team: Fighting Over The Dallas Cowboys

Yesterday I mentioned I'm reading a book, Twentynine Palms, by Deanne Stillman and that I was surprised, as I often am when reading any random book, at how Texas finds itself somehow in the narrative.

In this particular book it was the Dallas Cowboys who suddenly were part of the plotline.

A running theme in Twentynine Palms is spousal abuse, husbands getting drunk and beating their wives.

I'll copy below the part of the story where the Cowboys provoked bad behavior off the field...

"The really serious trouble began during football season. The Cowboys were playing the Raiders. Like a lot of Texans, Max was a hard-core Cowboys fan, really believed that they were "America's team'; as the Cowboys went, so went the country. He exploded ecstatically with every completed pass, every down, died with every fumble, every bad call. Debie was a hard-core Raiders fan, like a lot of Northern Californians, like a lot of non-Texans, who did not identify with their own teams, who had a boss and didn't like him, who preferred the scrappy street-fighter image of the team with the pirate logo and the slogan "pursuit of excellence."

Max had polished off a couple of six-packs. The Raiders' infamous George Blanda faked a pass to his receiver, then lateraled to a guard, who outran two line-backers and a safety, completing the run for the winning touchdown. Debie jumped up and told Max to settle on a bet they had made. But Max was seething, as often happened when he drank too much, and he lunged at Debie. Debie grabbed one of his size-thirteen boots and threw it at him; he dodged and it hit a door, making a deep hole in the thin wood used for base housing. Max came after Debie again. She ran into the bathroom and locked the door. He ran after her, kicked the door down, lunged at her, and hauled her out...."

The beatings worsened, some Dallas Cowboy related, some not. Within a short time Debie took her kids and escaped. Max moved back to Texas. Where he has had plenty of reasons to continue to be aggravated by the hapless Dallas Cowboys.