Straight from the Hart (41 page)

“fucked up” (as he put it) my family. He stammered that he’d only been intending to “use” Andrea to make Diana jealous, but that things had kind of gotten out of hand and he couldn’t admit, to either Andrea or Diana, that it had been a work. In any case, he said he felt quite bad that so many people had been hurt in the process. We ended up shaking hands and left on good terms.

As he got up to leave, I found myself thinking what a twisted fairytale this had been: first, Cinderella (Andrea) hooks up with the handsome prince (Davey Boy) and they drive off to his castle in his chariot (BMW 740), but the castle and the chariot both get repossessed. Bummed out, he then sticks a needle in his arm and turns back into a destitute frog, but decides to dump Cinderella anyway and then runs off with the wicked witch (Diana); and everyone lives unhappily ever after. Whoopee! It kind of sounds like one of those twisted story lines from the creators of Chuck and Billy’s fairytale wedding.

The week after Davey and Harry got back from Manitoba, my wife Andrea —

whom I hadn’t spoken to in a long time — called me up and asked if she could meet me for coffee. I wasn’t sure if she knew of Davey’s surprise appearance at
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my dad’s a few weeks back or of his announcement that he was getting back with Diana, so I didn’t mention it and arranged to get together with her.

The past few times I’d seen her, she’d been kind of smug, but this time around, she was pretty humble. After a bit of awkward small talk, she related that she and Davey were breaking up and that she wanted to move out of her mother’s place but was broke — which, of course, was why she wanted to see me. I probably could have gloated, but didn’t say anything. Instead I cut her a check for $3,000 — which I could ill-afford. She smiled, although it was a decidedly sad smile, and then got up and walked away, in silent humiliation. As I watched her drive away, something my old Freebird crony Michael Hayes used to say, came to mind, “Be careful of what you wish for — because you just might get it.” For years, she’d wished for Diana’s life and she’d finally gotten it. Had she ever.

Two days later, my brother Ross and I had a Stampede Wrestling show and our main event that night was a grudge match between our top heel, Elvis da Silva, and Harry. Harry and Elvis were supposed to go into the ring around 9:30, but by 9:15, Harry, who was usually quite reliable, hadn’t showed and we were starting to think we might have to substitute somebody else for him.

He finally arrived just before the match. As he was hastily getting dressed for his match, I asked him why he was so late. He seemed quite frazzled and divulged that there had been a huge altercation at home between Diana and Davey. It seems that Diana had found out that Davey was going out to Fairmont, a tourist town west of Calgary, with Andrea. Harry said Davey had claimed the only reason he was going out there was to officially break things off with Andrea, which was kind of strange because everyone had been given to believe they’d already broken up. Adding insult to injury, Harry said that Diana was furious because she’d asked my dad to loan Davey $5,000 — to supposedly help him get back on his feet. Diana was now accusing him of using the money to go on a drug binge with Andrea. When I heard that, I was also pissed, because I was wondering if the $3,000 I’d given my wife was being used for the same purpose.

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I also felt sorry for poor Harry, because he and his sister, Georgia, had been through a lot the past few years — as had my kids, and just when it looked like things were beginning to stabilize, the games were being played again.

The next afternoon, I had just returned from a grocery shopping outing with Rhett, when my sister Ellie suddenly burst through the front door and, ashen faced, told me that Davey Boy had just been found, dead, out in Fairmont — of an apparent heart attack. I was saddened to hear the news, as it was just one more in what had seemed like an epidemic of unfortunate events, including my nephew Matt, Brian Pillman, Owen, my mom . . . and now, this. Even though he’d caused me a lot of stress, I still considered Davey to be more of a victim than a perpetrator.

Even after Davey’s death, the game of one-upsmanship continued, with Diana having a big funeral service for him (attended by Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan and most of the WWF stars), while my wife also tried to have a funeral for him — with each endeavoring to make out as if they’d been the one who’d won the battle. As I was reflecting on the whole sad scenario, I found that, in many ways, it was like the Montreal charade between Bret, Shawn and Vince, in that you had three individuals, none of whom wanted to be the one to do the job. As it turned out, Davey did the ultimate job, but, just like in Montreal, there were no winners, only losers and, again, like Montreal, there had been a hell of a lot of subsequent casualties.

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The weekend after Davey Boy had been laid to rest, I was up at my dad’s place, just winding up our Saturday Dungeon workout when my brother Bret wheeled into the yard in his hot new Lexus convertible and invited me to come for a spin. It had been quite a while since I’d had any kind of conversation with Bret, but we’d been on good terms since my mom’s funeral and we got around to catching up on things as he drove.

He mentioned, among other things, that he felt bad about Davey Boy’s demise and was reflecting on their awesome match at SummerSlam back in 1992, as well as the great run they had in 1997 when the Hart Foundation was at its peak. Somewhat uncharacteristically, he said that he felt bad about having written the infamous “dog in shit” article about Davey — something that many felt had played a role in Davey reverting back to drugs, which had been the beginning of his long, sad, downward spiral.

I told Bret that it was hard to tell whether that had been the sole cause for Davey’s downfall, as he had a long history of drug abuse before that, but before I could even make my point, Bret was soon angrily laying the blame on Vince and Shawn — claiming that if they hadn’t perpetrated the fuck in Montreal, Davey would never have had to leave the WWF in the first place and he’d likely
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still be here today. Bret continued down the same road, claiming that if not for Montreal, Owen would also still be here today, because if he’d been in the WWF at the time, he would never have allowed him to have gone up on the catwalk in Kansas City in the first place. Once again, I told him that it was all speculation and that he shouldn’t be beating himself up about what could have or should have happened.

He seemed almost oblivious to what I was saying though and continued on this vehement tirade, cursing Vince and Shawn for having fucked up his life and the lives of so many others, and on, and on, and on. . . . As he continued, I found myself thinking, “Here’s a guy who seemingly has the world by the tail — a multimillion dollar gig with the WCW, a brand new sports car, a nice family, house and everything else, while I’ve been through a hell of a lot more than him the past few years, yet I’m still relatively happy, while he’s acting like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his back. Why the hell doesn’t he just let go of some of this baggage?”

A couple of days later, my dad called me up and said that Bret had suffered a stroke and was in the Calgary Foothills Hospital. It was pretty sobering to see him lying in the bed in that state, half paralyzed, unable to even mumble, unable to feed himself and looking helpless. As I saw him lying there in that condition, I thought to myself, I’ll take health over money, anytime.

Later on, I heard conjecture that a potato (stiff shot) from Bill Goldberg was being blamed for having caused the stroke, but in talking to neurologists at the Children’s Hospital, whom I’d come to know through my son Rhett, they told me they were dubious about a blow to the head causing a stroke. If such was the case, boxers, football players and whatnot would be having strokes all the time. They told me that, for a relatively young guy, in seemingly good shape, stress was a more likely cause. When I thought back to Bret’s tirade a few days before, about Shawn, Vince and the Montreal screw job, it occurred to me that carrying all that baggage had probably contributed to his near fatal stroke. I said to myself, if that’s the case, that it was just one more misfortune, in an epidemic of tragedies and catastrophes, due to that Montreal nonsense. The fallout is almost mind boggling. It’s not the least bit funny, but it’s laughable
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that a comedy of errors like that could ever have been allowed to result in so much tragedy. Doesn’t anybody realize that it’s a work?

I’m pleased to report though that, after several months of difficult rehabilitation, Bret made a near complete recovery and in so doing, showed more fortitude and courage than in any match of his storied career. I’m also pleased to relate that he now seems to have discarded most of the emotional baggage that was burdening him (and many others), and appears to be far more tolerant and less judgmental.

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Even though my dad was one of the strongest, most resilient people I’ve ever known and seemed to never let anything get to him, all the accumulated tragedy and infighting of the past few years had begun to take their toll. In his typical stoic manner though, he usually kept it to himself — which probably made things even worse.

In September 2003, he was hospitalized because of pneumonia and exhaustion and while he didn’t appear to be in any imminent danger, doctors said he needed some rest and that they’d monitor his condition.