Countdown To Lockdown (38 page)

“Yes … I am married,” I deadpanned.

Tyler and his dad loved it, and even Kane let a little chuckle loose. Melina’s face turned bright red. It turned out to be a question about her match.

That’s probably going to be it for Melina mentions in this book—unlike
The Hardcore Diaries
, where I appeared to be just slightly smitten with the lovely young Latina.

So was I? You know, smitten? Yeah, probably, but I think it would be easier to list the Divas and Knockouts that I
haven’t
been smitten with than the ones I have. It would be a much shorter list. Hold on a minute, lest anyone get the wrong idea about my marriage. Not only is my wife cool enough to tolerate my fleeting schoolboy crushes on Knockouts, Divas, and film stars, but after all these years, she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. And as I remind her constantly via text message, she’s getting hotter every day.

That time at ’
Mania
with Tyler and his dad left me with an incredible feeling of accomplishment. With just a little perseverance and several small acts of kindness on the part of the wrestlers and ballplayers, Tyler’s worst weekend turned into one of his best.

Unfortunately, there has yet to be a happy ending to the life story of a child suffering from Duchenne’s. It’s essentially a death sentence, the worst possible news a child or parent can hear. Worse, even, than
cancer, where there’s always the chance, often a good chance, for remission and victory. As Tyler’s dad told me last night, every day he watches his son die.

I was up to see Tyler about a year ago, when his dad told me that things weren’t looking good. But he’s still hanging in there. Just a few days ago, when I found out I’d be in his general neck of the woods, I gave him a call, asking if he’d like a little company for
Impact.

He’s some tough little guy, a big smile on his face despite his obvious problems. His poor little body is twisted and gnarled, his torso so curved it almost doesn’t look real. I don’t understand how life can treat a wonderful kid with such cruelty. But he’s proud of his new Mohawk haircut. And he loves his wrestling.

“Hey, did you guys put all this stuff up when you heard I was coming?” I ask, noting the sheer volume of Mick Foley memorabilia adorning Tyler’s walls. I mean it as a joke, the same weak joke I use when I see anything with my likeness on it in a family’s home.

But the Medicine Man is strictly a no-BS guy. “Yeah, we did,” he said, laughing. “I told Tyler we’d better take down some John Cena stuff and put Mick Foley up.” I appreciate the honesty, but I wonder if it’s necessarily the best policy in this particular case. So what if I’m on the wrong side of that confidence/delusion line. I’m happy there.

I enjoy a pizza—just two slices, which is quite an accomplishment for me—and text a few of the wrestlers I know, telling them about Tyler, asking them to send a text to him at my number. Jeff Jarrett and Edge come through. Jay Lethal stiffs me.

Then, it’s
Impact
time. I warn Tyler that my promo on the show might be a little scary. He tells me that he thought I was scary when he was little, but that he knows better now. For the next hour, I laugh, listen, tell stories, and drop names of celebrities—George Steinbrenner, Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey, etc., etc.—like my very life depends on it. Then it’s time for me. A little visit to Promoland. The room gets very quiet while I watch my most important promo in years.

Nothing but wrestling.

I really didn’t know how this thing was going to turn out. “You’re going to interview yourself?” a couple guys would ask. “Well, if anyone can make this work, it would be you.” Which was kinda sorta encouraging, I guess.

The basic idea had been Russo’s, and it struck me immediately as one of the worst ideas he’d ever had. “Bro, you are gonna mess with Sting’s head,” he’d said. “I mean you’re gonna treat this whole thing like it’s a joke.” Except I had the sneaking suspicion the joke was going to be on me.

I called Russo back a few hours later. “I think I can make this work,” I said. “But I’m not going to treat it like it’s a joke. I’m going to try to have a serious conversation between Mick and Cactus.”

“Bro,” Russo began, a little taken aback. “How you gonna do that?”

“Well, I’m going to treat this like it’s the first time Cactus and Mick have ever actually met … and Cactus doesn’t like Mick a whole lot.”

It was kind of true, too. Cactus Jack was the guy who took back body drops on gymnasium floors in front of twenty-six fans in Poca, West Virginia—home of the dreaded Poca Dots. Mick was the guy
who said, “Wow, that sounds a little dangerous. You sure you want to try that here? It’s only
WrestleMania.
”

I might hit this promo out of the park, or I might swing and miss in embarrassing fashion. This was really not the type of promo that could be a ground-ball single through the hole. But at least I’d gotten my wish. This was no “brother, I respect you” way to go home.

And remember—if anyone could make this work, it was me.

Let’s take a look.

I am introduced to the crowd and walk down the ramp with a little extra pep in my step, doing my best to accentuate my nerdy qualities—waving, pointing to fans—so as to better juxtapose the darker, more serious Cactus I hope to expose in the next few minutes.

I step into the ring and walk a complete circle, smiling and waving to the fans in the Impact Zone. Apparently, someone forgot to tell me I’m the bad guy here. I sit down in one of the two director’s chairs in the ring—another Russo idea. There’s a chair for me, and a chair for my guest.

By now, as a reader, I guess you’ve caught on to the idea that I regularly go from past to present tense when I write about the in-ring stuff. Now, as an added task, try to remember that, for the sake of this chapter, when I refer to “I,” I am referring to Mick Foley. Cactus will be “Cactus,” even though I’m well aware we’re the same guy. Kind of.

“Oh yes, it feels so good to be back in the Impact Zone. Thank you, thank you so much.” Basic pandering, a good start. Because Cactus, at least this 2009 version I plan on presenting, would never pander.

“As you guys saw, things got a little crazy in the Impact Zone last week. Foley was
busted
wide open.” A little nod to the announcing of an early eighties Vince McMahon. No one ever was simply bleeding. No, in Vince’s world, which Gorilla Monsoon also inhabited, they were
busted wide open.

“Things are going to get even crazier at
Lockdown
on April 19,
when Sting and I are locked inside the Six Sides of Steel. So I thought what I’d do in the interim period was kick back, relax, and interview one of the true greats that the world has ever known. For those of you who said it couldn’t be done, oh, it’s going to be done! Put your hands together. All the way from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, say hello to Cactus Ja-hackk!”

My heart is pounding. I’ve always maintained that different is good. But perhaps this is a little too different; like sneaking an AC/DC tune into a Baby Einstein video.

Our fans actually look up at the entrance ramp, as if they expect Cactus Jack, or some facsimile of him, to come strutting to the ring.

“You think this is funny, Mick? You think this is some kind of a joke?” It’s me, Mick, sitting in the chair, but the voice is a little deeper, a lot more serious. This, apparently, is Cactus Jack.

Mick finds it kind of amusing. “Huh, huh, I thought that—”

But Cactus cuts Mick off. “Shut your mouth!” The selection of camera shots is great here. Two different close-ups, two entirely different perspectives. As I watch from Tyler’s living room, I get the distinct feeling that this could actually work.

“You don’t think the people know that we walk with the same legs, breathe with the same lungs, talk with the same mouth?” Cactus asks. “Yet there are distinct differences between the two of us, Mick, because you … have no heart … no guts … and no spine.”

The camera is back on Mick. Somehow, the two characters are lit differently. Mick is fully illuminated, while Cactus is bathed in shadows. I don’t know how they do it, but I like it.

“Ho ho ho. Hold on there, hot shot,” Mick says, stealing a line from Warren Oates’s Sergeant Hulka character in
Stripes.
The Oates line is a perennial favorite and is bound to come up any time (sometimes lots of times) Stone Cold and I speak. “You’re talking about the guy who lost an ear in a match in Germany and continued to wrestle.” Good point, right? Except Cactus isn’t buying it.

“No, I’m not talking about that guy!” Cactus yells, as he begins
to unbutton the red and black flannel, revealing the classic Cactus “Wanted” T-shirt beneath. “Make no mistake about it, Mick—that guy was me! You? Losing an ear? You’d find solace in the nearest banana split, you gluttonous son of a bitch!” Sure, the 1994 Cactus had once tipped the scales at 317, and the Mick he was deriding fifteen years later was under three bills, but let’s continue to suspend disbelief here.

“Wha, wait a second now, just hold on,” Mick stammers. But Cactus isn’t buying it! Not for a second. Our fans, on the other hand, do seem to be buying it, or at the very least, are considering the possibility of buying it. As I’ve written earlier, they can be a jaded bunch, having seen just about everything there is to see. But … they haven’t seen this.

“I’m calling the shots around here!” Cactus is in full command. Bathed in those effective shadows, he is about to make his best point, by raising a contentious issue. “Why don’t you tell me where you were, Mick, on the night of July 22, 2007?”

Actually, I have no idea where I was on July 22, 2007. July 22,
2008
, was the date of the Con I wrote about earlier in the book. And the issue I’m raising in the Impact Zone took place in 2006. But such are the perils of winging it. Sometimes the details get fudged, sometimes you mess up a word, lose your train of thought. Still, I’ll take a heartfelt promo over a fact-checked, homogenized, memorized, rehearsed one just about any day.

Mick looks around nervously, like the date is a familiar one, and not a happy one. “Well, how am I supposed to remem—”

“You know where you were!” Cactus yells, angry, disgusted with this other guy who shares his body. “You were in San Diego, weren’t you, Mick?” Cactus is calmer now, no longer yelling, but he’s onto something big here. “Well, why don’t I tell you where you were? At the Comic-Con, signing little pre-copies of your book, trying to create a little buzz of excitement for your next sellout. You had dinner at Croce’s, your favorite place [true, the only restaurant in the country that I actually plan on eating at], and when you walked out the door,
you heard the words ‘Thief, stop, thief,’ and you looked up and you saw two youths run by [they were carrying a purse], and you know what you did? You did nothing, Mick! You let them run by. You let it transpire, and you didn’t lift a finger to help! Why?”

This was a real-life scenario, and I’d asked myself that same question about it many times. Why hadn’t I helped? Why had I just let those two youths with the purse run on by?

Mick tries to answer the question and doesn’t fare too well. “Well, because there was no way I could get to—”

“Shut your mouth,” Cactus yells. Actually, Mick’s point had some merit to it; there was no way I would have caught those kids. But Cactus isn’t interested in excuses. “The fact is, you didn’t even try because you lost the heart, the guts, and the desire a long time ago.” Here comes the meat of the promo. I feel like I’m taking my best swing here, and that I’ve made solid contact. I just need to follow through, see how far that figurative ball goes.

“I am so tired of
you
cashing the checks
this
body wrote. Of
you
writing stories about
my
life. Of
you
living off the reputation
I
forged.

“You want to be the shareholder, Mick, that’s fine … but keep the little sneakers at home; I’m lacing up the leopard skin.” A nice round of applause for the leopard boots, a nice close-up of the Otomix sneakers. “Keep the sweatpants in the closet; I’m opting for a little classic Cactus Jack.” A nice round of applause for the riddance of the sweatpants, too. “Because I will not let you have my moment of glory when I vanquish my greatest rival.”

Cactus has laid out a pretty solid case. But Mick attempts to raise one more feeble objection. “But don’t you think—”