Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (22 page)

Marty and I worked a hard, solid match in which the crafty Brit beat me with a fancy double roll-up.

I’m still honored to have worked that final show.

Julie and I took the train to Liverpool to see the Cavern Club, where the Beatles first played; it wasn’t much more than a hole in the wall selling souvenirs. On the train back, she brought up the whole thing about being unfaithful in Germany again and said that when we returned home we should go our separate ways. I was angry and hurt that she’d put me through all this again, so I decided to take her at her word and accept that she was really leaving this time.

I was single again.

Royal Albert Hall. I couldn’t help but whistle “A Day in the Life.” I was supposed to put Pat Roach over, who was a strict blue-eye in England. He was awfully big, but I said I’d do all that I could. Tom grabbed me just before the match and took me upstairs where there were stacks of long tables and chairs piled up next to a small janitor’s room. He nodded toward the door.

“Open it.”

When I did, I saw a girl, slightly older than I was, with dirty-blond hair and a slim but busty figure in a black leather miniskirt. “This him?” she asked coyly. Tom had already disappeared. The girl tugged me inside, pushed the door shut and fumbled with my zipper in the dark. Before I could stop myself things were already out of hand. Now I know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. I could hear Tom laughing in the distance.

In the ring I hit Pat Roach with everything I had, gouging his eyes, whaling away on him with a barrage of punches and kicks. Every time I pounded him down, he jumped back up in his boxer’s stance, and we’d have to start building the match all over again. Oddly, I thought how it wasn’t a whole lot different from how I kept pulling myself back up, again and again, to start all over with Julie.

And it was the fact that many British houses had no central heating that may well have saved me and Julie. Just before we were to go home, England was hit with the worst winter snowstorm of the century, but there was no army of snowplows like we had back home. It was twenty-five below zero; we’d go to bed not talking to each other, wearing all our clothes, including our coats. Even in the midst of breaking up we saw the humor, waking up in each other’s arms, stuck together like icicles.

We just sort of made up.

When we finished up with Max, I took Julie to London for a few days, bought her a new winter coat and lots of new clothes. She chose trendy punk styles and Doc Martens boots, and I hoped it would make her happy to show Michelle what I’d bought for her. In the evening, we rode to the theater in a shiny black London cab and found Evita nothing short of aweinspiring. Afterwards we ate at a pricey seafood restaurant across the street, sucking down raw oysters on the half-shell and sipping shark fin soup. Finally, Julie poured out how sorry she was. Although the royal wedding of Charles and Diana inspired young couples everywhere, my thoughts on getting more serious were lukewarm.

Instead I was satisfied knowing I’d at least given Julie the memory of strolling arm in arm past the storied statues of Trafalgar Square and watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

11

PUZZLE RINGS

I SPENT CHRISTMAS EVE at Stu’s with all the Harts, including Alison’s new boyfriend, Ben Bassarab, a good-looking bodybuilder who seemed just as much in love with Davey as he was with Alison. Much to Alison’s horror, Jim and Davey helped Ben get so bombed that he couldn’t get up off the floor.

Welcome to Hart house, Ben!

In January, I set off for the land of the rising sun, where Tom and I were met by the usual horde of reporters and fans. It was obvious that he was over big in Japan, but I was worried about him. There were times when I had to shoot him up with his steroids because his butt was so knotted up he couldn’t inject himself.

We soon got familiar with the rest of the foreign crew. In what was almost like a big-time sports trade, Tiger Jeet and Abdullah had swapped places. Abdullah sat grinning like a big fat cat, wearing wraparound shades and glittering with diamonds and gold. “What’s up, champ?” He waved to me.

There was ex-NFL all-American Wahoo McDaniel, a Choctaw-Chickasaw from Oklahoma who, like Ernie Ladd, was one of the toughest tackles in the NFL. Rounding out the crew were Superstar Billy Graham, who wasn’t looking forward to the tour; S.D. Jones, a big, friendly black wrestler from Antigua working out of New York; and two short Mexicans.

In a dressing room in a town somewhere outside Tokyo, I paced around with my cowboy hat on while TV sets all over Japan were set to carry our opening match live. I gained real respect for one of the Japanese wrestlers, Tiger Mask, that night. He wore a black-and-gold mask with little teddy bear ears and stood short and thick in blue-and-gold tights, but he moved with lightning speed, diving into somersaults, exploding into spinning back kicks, leaving the crowd speechless, like the Bruce Lee of wrestling. Shimma was desperately in need of wrestlers who could work with Tiger Mask. A much friendlier Peter Takahashi explained that because I was going to be Dynamite’s sidekick, they’d be building me up for a World Junior Heavyweight title shot with Tiger Mask in Sapporo on February 5.

Then Tom would face him on February 12, in a triple main event at the Sumo Palace in Tokyo, under Inoki and Abdullah. I was grateful that Tom let me ride his coattails. The biggest pop every night came when Dynamite marched out.

We bused from town to town, selling out everywhere, suffering through lousy food and hard matches. I missed Julie, and Tom missed Michelle, even though he’d never admit it. Like I had the last time I was in Japan, I propped up my perfumed Pink Panther on the dresser and wrote long, sappy letters home.

I became Tom’s drinking buddy, often protecting him from himself. Without me around he grew lonely, dangerous and occasionally cruel. One morning as we waited to leave on the bus, Tom opened the window, calling and waving over a poor vagrant. I thought Tom was going to toss a few coins out the window to him, but instead he spit right in his face and said, “Fuck you, you dirty yellow bastard.” I felt bad for both of them, but more for Tom, because the last lesson a bully ever learns is that what goes around always comes around.

When I called home, Julie was packing it in and going back to Regina, just like the last time I was in Japan.

On the bus I was absorbed in the James Clavell novel Shogun. I imagined myself as a Barbarian pirate in medieval Japan, not so much raping and plundering, but maybe seducing the Orient. When I gazed around, taking in the twitchy, anxious eyes of S.D. Jones; Abdullah’s fat, round head; Bad News’s one gold earring; and the assorted tics and affectations of Tom, Wahoo, Billy Graham and the two little Mexicans, the bus itself felt like a modern-day pirate ship.

After a month in the country, we boarded a ferry for the overnight ride up the coast to Hokkaido, which I think is the most beautiful part of Japan. Inoki, wearing a full-length fox-fur coat, disappeared into his first-class cabin while everyone else crashed on the floors of the various decks.

Everyone, that is, except for me, Tom and Wahoo. By 4 a.m. we were stumbling drunk. Wahoo had stripped down to his socks and shorts and was lying on a rubber female mannequin that was intended for use in CPR instruction. Tom was wearing my cowboy hat. I was wearing Wahoo’s headdress. By the time the boat docked, we were slumped and snoring. Inoki, fully rested and robust in his fox fur, stepped out of his cabin and practically tripped over Wahoo, still half-naked, nuzzling a rubber girl. Inoki cracked a smile and stepped over him, followed by an outraged Peter. All the foreign boys stood around Wahoo, laughing hard, as he woke up.

Arriving for the last week of the tour was the legendary Dusty Rhodes, to replace Superstar Billy Graham. Dusty, a large, heavyset west Texan with curly blond hair and deepset eyes that were always ringed with dark circles, sat in the bar with a big smile and blade marks all over his forehead.

He and Wahoo swapped war stories all night long. When we all fell out of the elevator on the way to our rooms, two cute Japanese girls approached us nervously and asked for autographs. When I got to my door at the end of the hall, I could hear the thud of the other doors closing and I looked back.

The girls didn’t seem to have anywhere to go. The trains stopped running around 2 a.m., and most fans were never out this late.

I waved the girls over, and it turned out I was right: They were stuck. I decided to be helpful. “You can stay my room, okay?” We sat up for a while, laughing and talking in broken English. Then I stretched out across my bed, wearing only my jeans. They crept in beside me like kittens, in white cotton bras and panties. They took turns kissing me gently on the cheek, and on my puffy lip, then began to tug at my jeans. I arched my back, thinking none of the other wrestlers would believe this.

Sorry, Jules. Then I clicked off the light. I wasn’t going to say no anymore: a pirate in paradise.

The pine trees were frosted with snow as the train rocked north toward Sapporo. Wahoo, Dusty and Abdullah came into the dining car for something to eat. Before long they were bragging about the money they’d made in Florida, Charlotte and Japan—jewelry, Rolexes, fancy cars, fur coats—each topping the other in a grand bullshit contest. Tom and I listened quietly until they broke it up and went back to their seats, all except Abdullah, who winked at us over his shades: “They bullshit me, I bullshit them. It’s all just bullshit.” I appreciated the humor and the honesty, but Tom muttered that it wasn’t fair that they made all the money while, in his view, wrestlers like us did all the work.

I could already hear the packed crowd in Sapporo as Tiger Mask and I met with Peter secretly between the dressing rooms before our match. Satoro Sayama was likable and polite as we worked out numerous complicated high spots, with Peter dictating the finish.

At the twenty-three-minute mark, I had Tiger Mask clamped in a rear chin lock. Peter was on his knees encouraging us both on. We’d set a blistering pace, and my lower back was killing me.

Suddenly, another spin kick. I bumped down hard, but was right back up, only to be drop-kicked out between the narrow rubber ropes, to the floor. Tiger Mask sailed high over the top rope and I moved out of the way at the last second. He crashed to the padded floor, and the stunned crowd became concerned. I climbed back into the ring, and when Tiger Mask tried to come under the ropes I met him with a barrage of punches. Then I tore off across the ring, and Tiger Mask onejumped it perfectly, perching himself on the top turnbuckle. He caught me coming off the ropes with a stiff drop kick, and the crowd exploded! As I staggered to my feet I could feel that the inside of my mouth was shredded—I was lucky I didn’t lose any teeth! Gripping me around the waist, Tiger Mask suplexed me backward for the win.

In the dressing room, Tom and Abdullah congratulated me on a great match, as I sat, exhausted, watching the TV monitor as Tiger Mask bowed and accepted his World Junior Heavyweight belt along with a five-foot-tall trophy that was only a few inches shorter than he was.

At the Sumo Palace in Tokyo, Dynamite and Tiger Mask tore the house down, but from the way Dynamite limped back to the dressing room it was clear that the match took a physical toll on him.

As Shimma paid me on the final night, he congratulated me on a great match and rewarded me with a five-day, U.S.$3,000 tour to the United Arab Emirates in April with Dynamite, and a Japanese tour in the summer, with a raise. Before the main match, Abdullah’s massage guy worked on him and then an ancient-looking Japanese doctor injected him with adrenaline. Tom and I watched, like two weary soldiers from the front line, as Abdullah and Inoki squared off. Before they even touched each other, Abdullah abruptly broke into a karate stance, yelling, “Wooo!” and that was all it took to bring the house down. Some guys just had the look. Tom rolled his eyes, thinking of how he killed his body to get the same reaction. But despite our skepticism, Abdullah and Inoki had a great match that went well over twenty real and intense minutes. Both of them were bleeding by the time Inoki back-kicked him in the head for the win. After the match, Abdullah lay on the dressing room floor hyperventilating as the nervous doctor held an oxygen mask over his face. I can only imagine what alarms were going off in his massive chest, and I feared he might die right there on the spot. But Abbie left Japan in one piece.

The good news when I got back was that Julie was still there. And there were some pluses now to my personal position: I was still steroid-free when so many weren’t. Blessed with my dad’s great legs, I filled out my six-foot frame with a thick back and neck, round shoulders and a muscled chest; I was lean at 235 pounds. And my mom insisted I take a raise in pay to $600 a week, since that was what they were paying Bruce.

But the territory was out of control. The shows started late, there were lots of lame finishes and then there were the ball shots. Nothing infuriated Stu more than watching one wrestler after another spread his opponent’s legs and drill him right in the balls. Every night he ordered that it be stopped, but it wasn’t.

I immediately set about fixing things. Whenever I confronted anybody on it, they always said, “That’s what Bruce told me to do.” I’d shake my head and tell them not anymore. Another problem was blood in the early matches: How were the main events supposed to top that?

The one big plus was David Schultz, whose hilarious banter with Ed Whalen made him an immensely entertaining character. Foley and his heel thugs double-crossed Schultz on TV, turning him into the babyface star the territory so desperately needed. Tom and I had only been back for ten days when he blew out a knee again. When wrestlers were injured, Stu kept them on the payroll, which said a lot about his generosity and good faith, especially since Tom’s injury was probably a direct consequence of his last match with Tiger Mask.

Meanwhile, in the rundown Ramsay district of Calgary, love seemed to be everywhere. Diana and Davey had become inseparable. And one day Tom pulled me aside to tell me that he and Michelle were getting married, and asked if I would be his best man.