Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (40 page)

“Last year, Uga went to the Heisman Trophy award dinner in New York,” he said. “Did you hear about that? Here, look.” Seiler pulled out an AP Wirephoto of himself and Uga IV with Herschel Walker, the Georgia halfback who had won the Heisman Trophy that year. The three of them, the dog included, were wearing black tie. “Uga’s the only dog ever to be invited to a Heisman dinner,” he said brightly.

He continued wading through the files. “Uga’s correspondence is amazing. When he had an operation on his knee, he got
hundreds
of get-well cards from all over the country. There’s a file of
them somewhere in here. He even got a card from Mike the Tiger.”

“Who’s Mike the Tiger?” I asked.

Seiler looked up from the cabinet, surprised at my ignorance. “LSU,” he said. He pressed the intercom. “Betty, you got that file with Uga’s get-well cards? I cain’t find it.”

Seiler’s secretary came into the room with a worried look. “It should be in there, Sonny,” she said. She opened another drawer and looked through it. Then she left the room. Seiler went on rummaging, thoroughly engrossed. Meanwhile, I glanced around the room. A life-size porcelain bulldog lounged on the hearth. Above it, a procession of carved bulldogs prowled across the mantelpiece in bas-relief. Scattered here and there were other objects of bulldogiana—framed snapshots, a brass paperweight, figurines, needlepoint pillows. Betty came back into the room.

“I think this is it, Sonny,” she said. She gave him a file labeled “Knee Injury.” Scores of cards and letters fell out onto the desk. Seiler began to paw through them.

“Here it is,” he said. “Mike the Tiger. And here’s one from the Boston College Eagle … the Kentucky Wildcat … Mrs. Willingham’s fourth-grade class in Macon.” Some of the letters ran to several pages. Seiler held up a handful.

“I tell ya, Uga’s a phenomenon. Uga III even made it into
The Animals’ Who’s Who.
He was the mascot when we won the national championship a couple years ago.”

Seiler went over to the bookshelf and took down the book. Indeed, Uga III was immortalized in it, along with Rin Tin Tin, Man o’ War, Moby Dick, Toto, and The White Rabbit. I put the book down on Seiler’s desk, which was now awash in Uga memorabilia.

“You know,” said Seiler, looking up from the pile, “you oughta try to make it up to Athens this weekend. We’re playing UCLA. Oughta see at least one game while you’re here. If you do, come on by the hotel suite around noon. We always have a little gathering before the game. That’s when Uga gets dressed.”

On Saturday morning, traffic flowed north toward Athens with the exuberance of a cavalry charge. Red-and-black pennants fluttered from aerials. Homemade signs flashed messages of common cause:
GO BULLDOGS! BEAT UCLA! HOW ’BOUT THEM DAWGS!

At noon, a dozen guests were gathered in Sonny Seiler’s hotel suite. A radio on the dresser was tuned to a pregame call-in question-and-answer show. Seiler sat on the edge of the bed talking on the telephone. He wore a red sweater, black slacks, and a white baseball cap inscribed with the letter G. He was shouting into the receiver.

“That you, Remer? Can you hear me? We all up here listenin’ to the damn talk show, but you ain’t called in yet! … They got a bunch a crackers callin’ in. Huh? Oh, hell, they just askin’ dumb questions like, ‘When do we wear white pants and when do we wear red?’ and ‘How many conference games has Georgia lost in red trousers?’ You gonna call in? … It’s that 800 number I gave you. You got it? … Okay, Coach, we’ll be listenin’ for ya.”

Sonny got up from the bed. “That was Remer Lane. He’s back in Savannah. Gonna call that radio show with a question about Uga.” At this moment, Uga himself was reclining on a blanket in the shower stall, an enormous heap of furry white wrinkles surrounded by a cluster of admirers including Seiler’s daughter, Swann. “Hey, baby, hey, sweetie,” a woman cooed. “You gonna pull us through today, Sugar?”

Sonny went to a makeshift bar on the dresser and poured several drinks. “I tell ya,” he said, “I got every bit of faith in this team. We gonna have another winning season, but I sure do miss Herschel.”

“Amen,” said a man in a red blazer. Herschel Walker had played his last season the previous year and was now a rookie with the New Jersey Generals.

“We’ll do okay,” another man said, “but I’m already beginning to sweat the Florida game. Not the outcome of the game, mind you. The tickets. Everybody wants tickets. I’m usually
pretty good at finding ’em, and everybody and his brother seems to know that. But I mean, Jesus, it’s only September and it’s already started.”

“September!” said a tall man in a red-and-black windbreaker. “My phone usually starts ringing around the middle of July, and that’s no exaggeration. Then come August, it really heats up. I get phone calls, I get interoffice memos, I get telegrams, I get letters. I’m the most popular man in Georgia when it comes to the Georgia-Florida game.”

Most of the men in the room were well-connected football fans, and now they traded stories about getting tickets for friends. “Hey, Sonny!” one of them called out. “What about that Williams murder case? You figure you’re gonna win it?”

Seiler looked at the man. “Is Georgia gonna beat UCLA?” Georgia was heavily favored. “I tell ya, Coach,” said Seiler, “don’t go placing any bets against us yet. We got a couple of surprises up our sleeve. New evidence, a couple of new witnesses. It’s gonna be a … Oh,
wait!
There it is!” Seiler reached over and turned up the volume on the radio.

“…of course, Uga has a big appetite,”
the announcer was saying,
“and our caller from Savannah wants to know: ‘What brand of dog food does Uga eat?’”

“Attaboy, Remer!” said Seiler. Everyone in the room knew the answer: Jim Dandy dog ration. Uga not only ate Jim Dandy dog ration, but he officially endorsed it too. Plastic cups were raised in a toast to Uga IV and Jim Dandy. Swann Seiler poked her head in the door. “Daddy, it’s time to dress Uga.”

“Ah, the Dressing of the Dog!” intoned a portly man standing by the window.

Seiler held up a red jersey and called out,
“Heeeeee-yuuhhhhh!”
Uga came trotting into the room, wriggling and wagging his sixty-five-pound body. Seiler slipped the jersey over his head and fastened a spiked collar around his neck. “If we have a defeat,” said Swann, “then we don’t ever wear that jersey again. Sometimes, if things aren’t going well, we change jerseys in the middle of a game.”

“We’ve got five or six with us today,” said Sonny. “We can change if we have to. I hope we don’t.”

“Mom used to make them,” said Swann. “We’ve got some historical jerseys that Uga wears when we’ve won bowl games. Uga’s got a bigger wardrobe than I do.”

The guests started putting on their coats as Seiler brushed the dog and sprinkled talcum powder on the top of his head to cover a grayish spot. “That’s for the cameras,” he said. “He’s supposed to be a picture-perfect, all-white dog. Well, let’s go.” He opened the door, and Uga surged down the hall, straining on his leash and leading the procession to the elevator and out through the lobby.

In the parking lot outside Sanford Stadium, Seiler lifted Uga onto the roof of his red station wagon, the one with the “UGA IV” license plates. Thus enthroned, Uga accepted the adoration of his fans. Thousands of spectators waved, called his name, patted him on the head, and took snapshots on their way into the stadium. Uga wiggled and panted and licked as many hands as he could reach.

Shortly before kickoff, Seiler took Uga down from his perch and led him around to the open end of the U-shaped stadium. He and Uga paused just outside the end zone in front of three marble tombstones set into a landscaped embankment. This was the Uga memorial plot. Bunches of flowers had been placed at the foot of each tombstone, and each bore an inscription to a late Uga:

“UGA. Undefeated, Untied. Six bowl teams. ‘Damn Good Dog’ (1956-1967).”

“UGA II. Five bowl teams. ‘Not bad for a dog’ (1968-1972).”

“UGA III. Undefeated, Untied, Undisputed, and Undenied. National Champions of College Football 1980. ‘How ’bout this dog.’”

The band was assembling in the end zone. The Georgia cheerleaders came to take Uga from Seiler and put him into his official doghouse, which was shaped like a big red fire hydrant on wheels. It was air-conditioned, the Georgia heat being less than
ideal for Uga’s breed of English bulldog. The hydrant was wheeled out to midfield for the opening ceremonies. Just before kickoff, Uga jumped out and trotted to the sidelines. A roar went up from the crowd. “Damn good dog! Damn good dog! Damn good dog!
Rooff! Rooff! Rooff! Rooff-rooff-rooff-rooff-rooffrooffrooffrooff!”

Later that evening, I called Williams to tell him about my conversations with Seiler.

“It sounds as if he’s come up with strong new ammunition for you,” I said.

“I would think so,” said Williams, “considering the rates he charges. What did you think of him?”

“Smart, energetic, committed to your case.”

“Mmmmm,” said Williams, “and to the money he’s making from it.” I could hear the clinking of ice cubes at Williams’s end of the line.

“Do you want me to explain what he’s got?”

“No, not especially. But tell me—not that I really care about this either—who won the game today?”

“Georgia. Nineteen to eight.”

“Good,” said Williams. “That means Sonny will be in high spirits. It’s all so childish. When Georgia loses, it absolutely destroys him. He goes into shock and can’t function for days.”

“In that case, I think you’ll get a vigorous defense out of him. It was a solid victory.”

“Not too big a victory, I hope. He might regard my trial as an anticlimax.”

“I don’t think the game was that important,” I said. “It wasn’t a Southeastern Conference game.”

“Wonderful,” said Williams. “I wouldn’t want him to be all distracted and daydreaming. I want him to be frisky. Yes. That should work.” Williams paused. The ice cubes clinked. “Yes, that should work very well.”

This is not a happy jury. Six men, six women—seven black, five white. When Judge Oliver told them to go home and come back in the morning with enough clothes for a two-week stay, four of the women burst into tears. One of the men jumped up and shouted, “I refuse it! I refuse it! I’ll lose work.
It will make me hostile to the case!”
Another man bolted for the door and had to be restrained by the bailiffs. “You can take me to jail!” he screamed. “I’m not serving!” The judge summoned the six recalcitrant jurors to his chambers and listened to their complaints. Then he told them to go home and pack.