Have a Nice Day (20 page)

Eventually I got tired of my surroundings, especially when my bike was stolen out of my room and I couldn’t use the bathroom because one of Terry’s friends had passed out in there. Oh yeah, there was also a married couple in one room with a newborn. When the husband went to jail, the wife informed me that she was a lonely woman and that I could feel free to visit her room anytime I wanted to keep her company. I declined, partly because I didn’t need an angry ex-con looking for me, partly because I wouldn’t feel right about doing the nasty with a newborn in the room.

I left the house in Arlington and moved into an apartment in Irving with a woman named Joanne who made tights for all the boys. Despite rumors to the contrary, I never had a sexual relationship with that woman, Ms. Harriss.

I returned to the house in Arlington a year later and found things to be even worse than when I’d left. Wilson had died from alcoholism; Thomas had gotten married and moved out. Dennis hadn’t been heard from, and Kyle and Roger were living in a van in front of the house. Saddest of all, Tippy, the dog I had gotten from the pound for Wilson when his dog died, had been put to sleep after Wilson’s death. I remember the dog tied up to its house and starving for attention and I regretted every time I came in late from a show and didn’t pay her enough attention. For ten years I have regretted that, especially because my new dog, Delilah, looks so much like her.

Back on the wrestling front I asked for some time off as we headed into April, as I hadn’t been home for almost a year. I was given five days off at the beginning of May during which I would meet up with my old buddies for a return to Cortland for two days, and a visit with my parents for three. As I planned my escape, two mistakes were made-one by me and one by the office. I paid for both of them.

My first mistake was in not checking my schedule more carefully. If I had, I would have seen that we had only one show scheduled for the week before my trip. By simply checking ahead, I could have skipped the Lawton, Oklahoma show and had a twelve-day break, instead of the five I got. I’m not sure, but it’s a pretty safe bet that the people of Lawton wouldn’t have missed me enough to cost seven days fewer at home. It’s also a safe bet that my bank account wouldn’t have missed the extra $7 5 all that much.

The second mistake was the office forgetting about my time off and booking me and Gary in the main event at the Sportatorium against Embry and Mexican Legend (and I use that term real lightly) Mil Mascaras. The show was to fall on Cinco de Mayo (the fifth of May), and Mascaras was being brought in to capitalize on Dallas’s huge Mexican population. A month earlier, Gary had used a baseball bat to injure Embry internally and now, with Embry hell-bent on revenge, the match was to be a “ball bat on a pole” match. There was only one problem. I wasn’t going to be there.

I went to Eric and expressed my problem. Embry assured me it would be all right. “How are we going to cover it?” I asked.

“We’ll hurt you” was Embry’s immediate reply. I wanted to know how. Eric thought it over. “We’ll do it with a chair,” he said. Even ten years ago, I didn’t feel like a chair was enough to keep Cactus Jack down and told him as much. “What do you suggest then, baby,” Embry asked, using his frequent term of endearment for me.

I looked him straight in the eye so as to avoid looking at his penis and said, “I’ll think of something.”

That “something” turned out to be something pretty wild as Embry cracked me with the bat and I went sailing off the ring apron with the same Nestea Plunge that had almost done me in at Memphis. I hit the ancient wood floor of the Sportatorium and immediately began spitting up loogies of blood. A stretcher came and got me as the action continued in the ring. Akbar went into a verbal tirade. He was being interviewed as I was being carried away and when asked about my welfare, quickly changed the subject. “Never mind that,” the incensed Akbar yelled, “he ripped this expensive shirt!”

I was a little lightheaded and my throat was hoarse from hacking up blood, but other than that, I felt all right to walk and drive. Unfortunately, I was not able to, as the show had just ended and fans were streaming into the parking lot. Unlike other crowds, the Dallas fans were treated to two wrestling shows a weekend, and as a result, knew not only the wrestlers but each other quite well. After a show, they tended to congregate for hours in the parking lot, throwing small parties complete with barbecues and beverages. I really couldn’t afford to have them see my face, as the fall was supposed to keep me out all week. Instead, I climbed up the stairs into the “crow’s nest,” a fenced in area where the wrestlers, their families, and their friends could watch the matches in peace. After the Sportatorium had emptied, Gentleman Chris Adams was having his inaugural class for his wrestling school, and I sat down to have a few laughs at the beginners’ expense.

My first laugh came when Adams talked about the cost of the school. “Three thousand dollars might seem like a lot of money,” the Gentleman began in his perfect Stratford-on-Avon accent, “but not when you realize that I make that in one day.” Oh man, that was a good one. Next, Adams arranged his dozen or so students into groups and began doing drills with them. “Man, these guys suck,” I thought. “Some of these guys are even worse than I was.”

All except one guy, that is, who actually seemed to be doing quite well. He was a big muscular kid with long blond hair and he stood out in the crowd like a sore thumb. The more I watched him, the more impressed I was. “Man,” I thought in a slight reconsideration of my earlier harsh appraisal of talent, “that blond kid looks like he’s got potential.” That was the first time I ever saw Steve Austin, who would go on to become the biggest star in the history of the business.

I returned to Texas to hear some strange news-I was booked for the following Saturday night in Fort Worth in a scaffold match. A scaffold match is a wonder of stupidity that some genius thought up in Memphis and that had since made the rounds in Texas and Jim Crockett’s old NWA. The object of the match was simple-knock your opponent off the scaffold. World Class bragged that they had the highest scaffold in the wrestling world. It had to be more than twenty, maybe even twenty-five feet high. I thought back to an offhand comment Embry had made months earlier. “Would you be willing to do a scaffold match?” he had nonchalantly asked, to which I had nonchalantly said, “Sure.” Now, however, it didn’t seem like such a good idea.

A day before the match, I got a surprise phone call. The voice was frantic. “Jack, please don’t do this match,” it yelled. It was Valerie, the girl who had dumped me, and I paused for a few minutes to get myself in Cactus Jack mode.

“Why?” I asked, waiting for more of this outpouring of emotion.

“Because you’re going to get hurt and I don’t want you to get hurt,” was her reply.

Not bad, a lot of anguish in her voice, but I was going to make her pay for daring to suggest a sexual inadequacy on my part. “I’m sorry, it’s too late,” I replied. “It’s already been booked, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Yes there is,” Valerie cried. “Tell them that you can’t do it.”

Oh, this was great, and now, it seemed, was the perfect time for a little sarcasm. “What do you want me to do, Valerie,” I asked, “tell them that I can’t do it because me ex-girlfriend won’t let me?”

“Yes,” she yelled, “tell them anything, just don’t go up there!”

“I’m sorry,” I replied in much sadness before adding, “and, Valerie, in case anything happens to me up there, I want to say good luck.” She was crying when she hung up the phone. I showed her. No one, and I mean no one, makes fun of my “little buddy” and gets away with it.

I knew two things about scaffold matches before having this one. First, for the most part, they suck, with very little action being supplied by guys who are usually scared out of their wits. There had been a few exceptions, thanks to guys like Bobby Eaton, who would actually put on a show up there, but by and large most of them were stinkers.

I also knew that scaffolds were dangerous. Even though common sense and the slightest respect for the human body tells us that no one is actually going to be “thrown” off the scaffold, even a hanging drop was dangerous-especially to the knees. A few wrestlers, with Jim Cornette being the most notable example, had blown out their knees and had never been quite the same. I hoped that I would not suffer the same fate.

The scaffold match was actually my second match of the evening, as I had already wrestled in the second match of the night. Killer Tim Brooks had quit the company a month earlier and instead of hiring another heel, Joanne Harriss had sewed together a black and red outfit and a hood. Yours truly became “Super Zodiac Number II,” never mind the fact that my hair stuck through the mask and that my distinctive walk and even more distinctive ass (or lack of ass) left absolutely no one fooled. I came back from my match in Fort Worth and asked Eric about the wisdom of me losing in the second match only to come out ready to kick some ass in the main event. Embry looked at me like I had two heads. “Baby,” he said, before adding the words that would forever make me doubt his judgment and sanity, “no one will know-you’re under a hood.”

I walked out for the scaffold match with General Akbar by my side. At the last moment, Akbar had been added to the festivities as my partner, while Embry had chosen a partner as well-Percy Pringle, who would later become known as Paul Bearer. When I climbed up the scaffold, I immediately felt a rush of adrenaline, partially because I knew that potential for injury was high. I can only compare it to standing atop the Hell in a Cell in June 1998, and unfortunately the results would be comparable as well. Embry and Percy climbed up and the match was under way. Immediately, Akbar and Percy dropped to their bellies and stayed there for the duration of the match. Together, they spent more time on their bellies than most snakes do. I think any fool could tell you that neither of the two would take the tumble.

Eric and I, however, were eager to duke it out. I really can’t remember a damn thing about it except being pile driven on the scaffold and rolling over on my belly to prepare for the drop. “Are you ready, baby,” Embry asked as he delivered a boot to the head that eased me halfway off the structure.

“Yeah,” I said weakly, as the ring below me appeared very far away. I may have said “yeah,” but in reality I had no idea what to do. I knew what I was supposed to do-hang until ready, then drop, and crumple upon impact so as not to ruin my knees. Sadly, I sensed that my goal would be unobtainable because as I supported myself with one elbow, I could see that I had nothing to grab on to with which to hang. Everything I saw was much longer than my hand and impossible to grip. I really didn’t see how I could hang. Twenty feet in the air was not the best place to be for a kid who could never do pull-ups in gym class.

I was swinging my legs when Embry kicked me and my elbow hold gave way. I must have been on a backward swing because when I dropped, I began to free-fall face-first-picking up speed and heading for disaster. As I was about to land, I put my hand down to block the fall, and then landed in a heap. It was a good minute before I moved because when I realized where I was, Akbar was already on the mat. I tried to stand quickly and fell down. Two more wrestlers came from the back and together helped me make my way to the dressing room. The other wrestlers wore expressions of concern as I stumbled in. “Are you all right?” they all wanted to know. I assured them I was, but in reality I was far from okay. After sitting for a half hour, I tried to change but found it very hard to do so. Untying my shoes was extremely painful to attempt. Finally, Cowboy Tony came in and helped me untie my boots. A good hour after the match had ended, I walked out to my Plymouth Arrow with the dented, unusable door, and saw a small congregation of well-wishers gathered there. Among them were Valerie and her two kids.

It was obvious that all three had been crying. “I’m sorry, Jack,” she cried, “can you forgive me?”

“Sure,” I said, and then in a true example of class, I treated her and the kids to Jack in the Box, where against my wishes, the kids ordered sodas instead of free tap water.

In retrospect, that match at the Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth was the beginning of the end for me. I had my wrist X-rayed and, sure enough, there was a small crack in a bone in my wrist. The doctor gave me a brace and told me to wear it for two weeks. Sixteen weeks later, my arm was taken out of a cast that extended all the way to my elbow. The doctor, who, I later learned, had a less than sterling reputation, had failed to correctly diagnose my cracked bone as being the vernicular bone, which, due to poor blood supply, is one of the most difficult bones in the body to heal.

I wrestled for three months with the cast and had some good matches. The announcers never even acknowledged the cast. Apparently, they felt it might make me look sympathetic and therefore declined to comment. I was able to have matches for three months without throwing a single punch, which was beneficial in the long run, but I began to lose matches on television with increasing regularity and I began to think of other options in my life.

I had been quite friendly with Video Bob, our director and producer of the World Class show. Given the restraints on time and money that he worked under, Bob did a tremendous job on the show, and with his help, I put together an impressive music video for me and Gary set to the tune of “Born to Be Wild.” We actually turned the video into a rib on Gary, who himself was known as quite a ribber. After completing the video, Bob and I spent an extra four hours making another special video in which all of Gary’s great moves were edited out and replaced by boneheaded mishaps. Together, Bob and I laughed our ball off (right, Dominic?) and waited in anticipation for Gary to arrive to check out the finished product. When Gary showed up, his reaction was classic, as his face inched closer to the screen with every indignity he suffered, while I, as his partner, came across like Bruiser Brody. “What do you think,” I asked him, and then waited while he fumbled for a reply. Finally, my own lack of body control gave me away and Gary caught on when he saw my stomach rapidly shaking in an attempt to withhold my laughter. “That was a good rib,” Gary had to admit, “that was a good rib.” We then played the real video, which was met with a huge reaction.