Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (21 page)

On the first night of the tournament Heinrich Kaiser directed us to his righthand man, Peter William, who had white hair and was built like a stork. He smiled, clicked his heels together and said, “Nice to meet you, gentlemen. How is your brother Smith?” He told us how, when Smith had been in Germany, all the wrestlers would parade out at the beginning of the show, marching around the ring and then climbing into it to the sound of marching music. “It was quite amusing,” he said.

“Sometimes Smitty would walk backward, or hop on one leg, or wear his boots on the wrong feet.

The best one was the time he did Charlie Chaplin. He brushed his hair to one side, trimmed his mustache, stuffed a ball of socks down the front of his trunks, and goose-stepped to the ring, complete with a onearmed salute. We all had such a laugh.” He wasn’t smiling when he said it, and I took it as a warning.

The wrestlers came from all over the world: Russians, Brits, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Africans, Japanese, Americans. The top babyface in the tournament was a German named Axel Dieter; he looked about sixty years old, with a face like an ax, and wore his stringy hair in a comb-over. It occurred to me that all the German wrestlers were at least fifty years old, while all the guys they’d be beating every night were the young stars from everywhere else.

After the parade I watched one match after another. The old men wrestled in a slow, stiff style that was almost comical, yet the German fans whistled and cheered enthusiastically. The more I watched, the more I saw how easy it would be to impress these fans with how well I could work.

On that first night in Germany, I was wrestling Bob Della Serra, a thirty-year-old French Canadian who worked under a mask as UFO. He was an established star, and my job was to put him over. I entered the ring to a German pop song, which signaled to the fans that I was a babyface. UFO was eager to work, and we gave them a splendid old-time match with him calling all sorts of high-flying drop kicks and slick roll-ups before catching a quick fall on me. The crowd was easy to please, typical of wrestling fans all over Germany.

After intermission on the first night, they posted the next night’s match-ups on the billboard. Jim was working, but I was off. And that became the pattern. I’d made a mistake, having a good match that first night; the old German wrestlers couldn’t follow it. I was considered a threat to the old established order, so the promoters made it clear, both to the fans and to me, that I wasn’t going to contend. After that, I rarely worked, and when I did, I was disposed of in short matches by jobbers.

Big Jim, on the other hand, was being built as a top heel so that he could eventually be thumped by Axel. He worked hard every night, usually going a minimum of four rounds. Jim couldn’t understand why I was unhappy about not working, since my pay was the same either way. But I was thinking of the future, and I was sure that I wouldn’t be invited back the next year.

I liked Germany, the people, the food, the open-mindedness. Jochem arranged for Jim and me to have the use of a cheap car, so every day we went to the co-ed Sport Fitness Zentrum, where we sweated out the previous night’s alcohol. When we showered, hard-bodied Fräuleins with unshaven armpits would eagerly soap our backs. We’d return the favor, laughing and giggling like little kids.

After a few days it didn’t seem unusual to us anymore.

Every night after the show, Jochem took Jim and me to sex clubs, lesbian bars and brothels where he conducted undercover police work. I imagined myself as some sort of a shadowy player in the world of international intrigue, which served to distract me from my bruised ego. I plopped down on a stool with a beer in front of me, always the best and always compliments of the owners, busy talking to Jochem. On many of these outings, Jim seemed lost in thought, having learned that Ellie was pregnant again. Eventually Jochem would give us a nod: Time to move on to another club. By 3 a.m., I was drinking apple Schnapps in the best brothel in Hanover, debating the differences between American and German culture with the owner. I couldn’t get over the fact that prostitution was legal in Germany. Then the proprietor offered Jim and me the girls of our choice, compliments of the house. Jim declined with a sheepish look, saying, “Umm, I’m married. To Bret’s sister.”

“And what about you?” The owner smiled at me.

I said, “My girlfriend is here.”

“Girlfriends, they do not count!”

Before I knew it I was being led through six floors of hallways, trying to choose among at least three hundred good-looking girls, wearing everything from lingerie to leather. I kept reminding myself that I wasn’t married, and a chance like this wasn’t likely to come again, and besides, who would know?

And then I thought of Julie. Perhaps it was the booze, or the fact that I couldn’t begin to pick just one girl. “Maybe some other time,” I said.

I resigned myself to my role as a jobber and actually had some good matches. As a special treat one night, I rode in an unmarked police cruiser with Jochem while he worked. A call came in over the radio that shots had been fired, and I ended up hunched down in the car while Jochem and his partner chased a killer, who they eventually caught hiding in a tree!

I returned to the apartment drunk, with visions of sex and violence spinning in my head. I crawled quietly into the little bed that Jochem had provided—one for me and one for Julie—when she suddenly slammed her fist hard into my face. In whispered shouts she tore into me: “I can smell perfume on you a mile away.”

“It’s just some soap-on-a-rope that I borrowed from this Spanish wrestler. I’ve been out with Jochem all night chasing killers!”

It occurred to me, even as I said it, that as excuses go, it was a pretty strange line. Even stranger because it was true. Julie gave me the cold shoulder for several days. As the weeks went by it really began to bother me that Julie kept accusing me of something I didn’t do, to the point that sometimes I wished I had. Of course it never occurred to me to go home to her right after the matches.

Meanwhile, Jim and Ellie had alienated everyone at their apartment complex with ear-shattering shouting matches.

On the final day of the tour I stopped by Adrian Street’s trailer and met a well-dressed, stern-looking man who introduced himself as Adrian’s father. He had been one of the British army’s most highly decorated heroes during the Second World War and had escaped twice from his Japanese captors.

I sat lacing my boots up in the dressing tent when the flap opened and in stumbled a dazed German wrestler named Dahlburg. There was blood pouring out of his mouth and spilling down his chin, and he was holding three teeth in his open hand. My music played and minutes later I was in the ring with Adorable Adrian Street riding me around like a pony and spanking me on the ass while the crowd roared with laughter. At least I still had my teeth.

Naturally, Axel Dieter won the tournament and was bedecked in wreaths of flowers and awarded a big silver cup.

Julie and I were off to England, where Tom and Michelle were waiting for us. We stayed with Davey’s mom and dad in the small town of Golborne, in the north country, not far from Wigan, renowned within wrestling circles for its shooters. Tom and Michelle were staying at Tom’s parents’ place, about a minute’s walk down the street.

Davey’s parents were in their fifties. Sid was handsome, with jet-black hair and a thin mustache.

Joyce was a sturdy woman who didn’t say a lot. Davey had an older brother, Terrance, who no longer lived at home, and two young sisters. Joanne looked like Davey, and Tracey was a frail but adorable blonde born with brain cancer who’d gone through years of painful surgeries that left her mentally challenged. She always wore a big, bright smile. Julie and Michelle had plenty to catch up on, which was just as well, since Tom and I had a full calendar of bookings.

Tom had got me a guarantee of U.S.$500 a week, which was good by British wrestling standards.

Max Crabtree, the promoter, was the cleverest of the three Crabtree brothers who controlled wrestling in the U.K. The boys thought of Max as a penny-pincher who talked out of both sides of his mouth, a tendency common to wrestling promoters, although he was fair and honest with me. I had a hunch that, like my dad, Max probably wasn’t making as much as the boys imagined. But nobody argued that he didn’t have a brilliant mind for business. Running five or six different shows a night all over the U.K., he managed to pack the halls even though he was running some of the sorriest-looking wrestlers to ever suit up—although that’s not to say that there weren’t some great British wrestlers. Max and his smaller brother, Brian, who was his emcee, had at one time been workers, but it was the oldest brother, Shirley Big Daddy Crabtree, who was the biggest attraction in Great Britain. He was a year older than Max, had a sixty-five-inch chest and weighed more than five hundred pounds. His white hair poked out under a red, white and blue top hat; he reminded me of a friendly polar bear. One of his biggest fans was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Big Daddy’s finishing move was to fall backward and crush his opponent flat. Few men could handle the impact, but all it took was for Max to wave a few extra quid in a wrestler’s face, and he’d put his life on the line.

Nobody gave a wank about who was winning or losing. If anything, the Brits preferred to wrestle first so they could dash back home, since most of them had day jobs. There were silly gimmicks everywhere in the dressing room and a variety of accents, from Cockney to Yorkshire, and all the wrestlers, from sixteen to sixty, spoke English rhyming slang fluently. There was Steve Logan, a small, sixteen-year-old kid. Another guy, a bit older but just as slender, clomped around dressed up as a firefighter, dragging a four-foot length of fire hose. A short East Indian called The Prince was easily as hairy as a gorilla. Tarzan Johnny Hunter, a big bodybuilder, wore a leopard-skin singlet. Then there was strongman Alan Dennison, a kind, middle-aged, bald-headed wrestler wearing silver arm bands.

Dennison had a nice physique for his age, but his strongman bit was all show. There was Mick McManus, a small, crusty wrestler who had to be sixty years old, the greatest villain of U.K.

wrestling, whom the boys still tiptoed around. King Kong Kirk stood six-foot-four and 350 pounds, with a shaved head and one ugly mug. I remembered him briefly working for my dad in the early 1970s.

King Kong was my opponent the first night. Max told me I would work as the blue-eye, as the Brits called a babyface, and I was to put him over in five rounds. Tom was working with none other than Mark Rollerball Rocco, considered one of the best grafters, or workers, in Britain at the time. He was small and dapper with dark hair and a trim mustache. At thirty, Rollerball was a second-generation heel, as much loved by his peers for his hard work in the ring as for his knack for telling colossal bullshit stories.

The British wrestling style was gymnastic and choreographed, and the rules were a bit like boxing. If a wrestler was down, his opponent had to back off while the referee gave him a ten count. I went out wearing my silly cowboy hat to an enthusiastic cheer. Kirk stood sneering in the middle of the ring, which was big and bouncy and surrounded by old-time fans, hatpin types. Kirk turned out to be a great worker and bump-taker, and when he collapsed on top of me, he was as light as if he’d covered me with a blanket. King Kong loved the match and so did Max, who booked me to work with Tom in his home town the next night.

The following morning at Tom’s place, I was introduced to his mentor, Ted Betley. It was strange to think that this short, balding, softspoken old farmer in a tweed coat was tough as nails. And Tom acted like a choir boy around him: no swearing, no smoking and no boozing.

In the packed hall that night in Warrington, I was whipping forearm smashes across Dynamite’s lower back. With every blow the crowd grew more incensed, and when I forgot to break for the count, the crowd wanted my head. I was black-hatted Cowboy Bret Hart the baddy.

Tom was taking such high back drops that I feared his feet would hit the ring lights overhead. I knew this match meant the world to him. He wanted to show what he could do to the other wrestlers, his old mates, friends who had ridiculed his choice of career, and especially his old mentor, Ted Betley, all of whom were looking on from the stands. Tom’s dad was also there, small and hard, like his son.

We weren’t giving the crowd the usual flips and rolls; we were giving each other an absolute physical thrashing. Dynamite jammed his thumb up his nose and blood poured, smearing the lower half of his face. When I finally went for my side backbreaker, he kicked his legs up and turned a complete circle in the air, landing on his feet in perfect position to piledrive me. I lay flat on my back and stared up at the ring lights, happy to have had a great match. The thought disappeared when the lights were blocked by the flying body of Dynamite, who had launched himself off the top turnbuckle and crashed head to head with me. The crowd screamed as I twisted in pretend agony. I never felt a thing. Dynamite hooked my leg for the one . . . two . . . three.

When we returned to the dressing room, the boys were in awe. Later Tom pulled me aside and told me that Max was so thrilled that he’d added me to the last card ever at the Kings Hall at Belle Vue Stadium in Manchester to work with Marty Jones, the Lancashire Lion.

“It’s like Madison Square Garden. It’s had wrestling and boxing since forever, and they’re tearing the building down,” Tom said. I heard later that many of the boys approached Max wanting to take my place on the bill, even offering to work for free, but Max stood by me. I think the fan in him wanted to see The Cowboy tangle with The Lion.

Kings Hall was packed to overflowing with 7,500 enthusiastic fans. All the wrestling legends of the past came by for one last visit. The mood in the dressing room was melancholy as wrestlers pieced together the last bouts they’d ever have in that historic old building. All the Brits had fond memories of the place, as did all the fans, and when the night was over things wouldn’t be the same for wrestling in England.