Have a Nice Day (30 page)

I’ve got a couple of favorite DDP stories. The first are centered around Dallas’s return to his old stamping grounds of Fort Myers, Florida. I was traveling with Page and Scotty Flamingo (later known as Raven) on the loop through Florida, and was forced to endure story after story about how “over” Page was in Fort Myers. Behind his back, we’d dismiss DDP’s claims. “Nobody can be as popular as Page claims he is,” we’d scoff. When we got to Fort Myers, we began to doubt our thoughts-every paper had a story about DDP. Man, Page was pumped, too. He was going to return to Fort Myers a hero, and, brother, he was going to tear the house down! Well, it didn’t work out quite that way.

Dallas’s opponent that night was the returning Curtis Hughes. Hughes at 300 pounds was a hell of a performer. On returning, he looked to be about 380 and was now known as Big Cat Curtis Hughes. Now, if I was wrestling a guy in his hometown, I would make extra sure to have my flying shoes on, and would go out of my way to make the guy the look good in front of his friends and family. Unfortunately, too many guys had gotten in Hughes’s ear and convinced him that he was “too big to bump,” especially for a beginning guy like Page.

What followed was ten of the worst minutes of wrestling I’d ever seen, with Page throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Hughes, and the Big Cat standing still like the rock of Gibraltar. To make matters worse, Kevin Nash was late hitting the ring and failed to break up a pin attempt that would have led to a disqualification. Instead, Page lay on his back, waiting in vain for a save that didn’t arrive, while the referee counted one, two … three. The legendary Diamond Dallas Page had done the J-0-B in his own hometown.

He was crushed. Almost to the point of tears. He was so upset that he didn’t even want to go out to the nightclub he used to run even though he’d set up a deal where the boys could eat and drink all night for free. Eventually we convinced him, and we headed out for a night on the town at Norma Jean’s, where, to tell you the truth, Dallas wasn’t as popular as he’d claimed. In truth, he was even more popular-he was the MAN! Girls everywhere wanted to talk to him-guys gathered close just to be around him. Dallas even started to smile, and he was returning to his normal state of overbearing stories and worn-out cliches when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw him. As if burying DDP’s hopes and dreams in his own hometown wasn’t enough, Big Cat Curtis Hughes had showed up to eat Dallas’s free food and to drink his free beer.

Hughes later resurfaced a few times in the World Wrestling Federation. On his second run, a short-lived stint in early 1997, he was brought in as Hunter Hearst Helmsley’s “butler.” After one show, Hughes had to be hospitalized. While he was laid up, Hughes’s duties were taken over by Hunter’s first choice, a muscular female wrestler named Chyna.

My other favorite DDP story occurred somewhere in the Carolinas in the middle of 1993. I was traveling with DDP and Stunning (not quite Stone Cold yet) Steve Austin, and we were in the second day of a week-long loop. Now, you’ve got to understand, despite all the cartoonish characteristics, Dallas was a very intense individual, so intense in fact that he used to ask us to videotape his match every night. He’d then study those damn things for hours, looking to improve in any way he could. Often, Steve and I would goof on Page by supplying color commentary during the matches. Dallas jokes now that he could get a fortune for these homemade videos with Stone Cold and Mankind making the calls.

Because of his intensity, Dallas was easy to rile up on a road trip. On the first day of this particular trip, Steve and I made a little bet. “How quick do you think we can crack Page?” I asked, looking forward to this somewhat cruel pleasure.

“Three days,” replied Austin, looking forward to the challenge. Three was good, but I had just a little bit more faith. “We can crack him in two days,” I stated solemnly, giving Austin my best Jack Lord “Book him, Danna” look. The race was on.

The first day started with a quality shot. Austin fired it. “My wife wanted me to pick up a couple of antiques on this trip,” Steve innocently said.

“What did you tell her?” Page responded.

“I told her I’d already picked up DDP at the airport,” Austin said, laughing. Man, an age joke, an especially sensitive subject for the man who claimed he’d never had a bad day in his life. The verbal blow was a good one, but the aging Page shrugged it off.

By day two, however, he wasn’t shrugging anything off-he was downright cranky. We checked into a hotel after the evening’s show, and a still sweaty Dallas was looking forward to a hot shower. He stormed out of the bathroom angered that no towels had been left for us. He called immediately and demanded that housekeeping bring some on the double. The towels arrived while DDP was down the hall, getting ice for his many nagging injuries-the guy strapped so many ice packs to his body that I often suggested he just buy a huge cooler and just lie in it. Steve and I looked at each other-Page was on the verge of cracking-we couldn’t let up now. Thinking quickly, Austin hid all the towels except two under a bed. When Page inquired about the status of the towels, I informed him that the towels had indeed come, and that housekeeping had left them in the bathroom. No sooner had Page walked into the john than he came storming out. “This is what they brought us,” he screamed, holding aloft one hand towel and a washcloth for Steve and me to see. “Goddammit, I’m going to get them myself.”

The moment Page walked out, Steve reached under the bed and pulled out about eight plush bath towels that he placed directly on the TV so that it would be the first thing Page saw upon his reentry to the room. “What a maroon,” I said in my best Bugs Bunny impression. “He’s just about done.”

Dallas finally did take his shower, and he emerged from the bathroom in typical fashion: buck naked except for an ice pack on his shoulder and Saran wrap around his knees (that he claimed kept the joints loose). He then began his presleep ritual that included thumbtacking the blinds to the wall, so as not to allow even the faintest ray of sunshine into the room in the morning. I found the whole nude thing a little uncomfortable, to tell you the truth. Usually the only guys who walked around naked were the midgets, who seemed proud of what some people call “God’s practical joke,” and guys like Scorpio, who was kind of like a genitalactic freak of nature. DDP was more or less a normal white guy. Hey, I’m no peeker checker, but with Page’s protruding peter bouncing around, it was hard not to notice. The guy’s penis was everywhere.

Poor Page turned the lights off and settled into his bed for a long comfortable nap. Little did he know that his evening wasn’t quite over. Earlier, a fan had given us a whole batch of chocolate chip cookies that she had baked. While Dallas showered, Steve and I had dumped approximately thirty-six soft chewy beauties between the sheets of DDP’s bed, and now as he lay there I could tell that those delicious tollhouses were starting to take effect. It started with a little wriggle, and them grew to the point where he knew something was wrong.

“What, what, what’s this,” Dallas said, to no one in particular. Steve and I remained silent. Suddenly, it hit him.

“There’s fucking cookies in my bed,” he yelled. “Someone put fucking cookies in my bed.”

Silence. Dallas was now screaming at the top of his lungs. “I want to know who put fucking cookies in my bed, right now!”

I soon gave myself away. I was laughing so hard under my covers that I couldn’t help myself. By holding in this laugh, my stomach was rising up and down rapidly, and Dallas detected the quick in-and-out breathing from my nostrils.

“You,” he yelled and jumped from his bed, turning on the light and throwing back the covers to reveal a plethora of crumbs, chunks, and chips that a helpful fan had hoped would be eaten by three of her favorite sports-entertainers. Instead, in an ironic twist, her baking bid had backfired! Instead of being eaten, these innocent cookies had eaten up the livid Page, who was now hell-bent on vengeance. Dallas lunged for me and threw back my sheets-unlike the naked Page, I was attired in Fruit of the Looms. He then gathered as many of the broken pieces as he could carry and threw them on top of me. It wasn’t enough; he wanted to make sure the cookies would torture me and ruin my sleep, the way that I had ruined his. He sat on me and began jumping, trying to grind the offending cookies into my body, as I listened to the strange symphony of bouncing bed springs and crackling Saran wrap.

“There,” he yelled, “how do you like it, how do you like fucking cookies in your bed!” He waited for my reply.

“Well,” I started, “it’s not the cookies that I mind, it’s the fact that you’re rubbing your naked ass all over me.”

DDP got up slowly. He was a defeated man. He went back to his bed and swept away the remaining cookie parts. He turned off the light and lay back down. After about a minute, he spoke. Quietly. Sadly. “Guys,” he began, “I think I’m going to get my own room tomorrow.”

On February 20, 1992, I became a father. Dewey Francis Foley was born in Massapequa, New York, and after a month of readjusting from his trip through the womb, we packed up our car and two dogs and headed for Atlanta and the house on Lake Lanier that I had just rented. The house turned out to be a real hassle, because as charming as it was to live on the lake, the house was more accurately a cottage. It was musty, without enough room, and you actually had to walk outside to get from our bedroom to the rest of the house. We did have plenty of fun, however, as we would dive off our dock and swim with the dogs, while little Dewey looked on from his infant seat. We had two Shetland sheepdogs, or Shelties: one that Colette had gotten in 1981 named Confusion and another that we’d gotten a year ago as a “practice” baby named Fuzzy. From Confusion to Fuzzy in ten years-my wife had certainly changed. Confusion’s not with us anymore, but we’ve got a big, goofy black lab named Delilah and two guinea pigs named Allen and Ruby to keep us busy.

At about two months of age, Dewey came down with an illness that doctors couldn’t detect. Several of them told us there was nothing wrong, but still a persistent cough continued to worry us. One night, when we were in the car returning from a trip, Dewey was coughing so bad that I really thought we were going to lose him. He was whooping and gasping, and we were completely unable to help him. I began speeding for the nearest hospital. It was 2 A.M. and the highway was empty, so I gathered some speed-up to about seventy-five in a sixty-five mph zone. I saw the red lights of a North Carolina State trooper, and I slowed down to explain the dire situation. Can you believe it?-the SON OF A BITCH actually wrote us a ticket. I was so damn mad that I blatantly cursed out an officer of the law. Now I have respect for the law, hell I even carried a photo of Hawaii Five-O’s Steve McGarrett in my wallet with me for years, but this guy was a disgrace and a prick. I didn’t pay the ticket out of principle, and ended up having my license suspended over it. Sometimes, it just doesn’t pay to make a stand. Dewey would later be all right, but not before giving the cough to me.

The coughing started affecting my matches. I could wrestle for about a minute before an attack would set in. The coughing would lead to dry heaving and I would have to bail out of the ring to try to regain my composure. One night in Perry, Georgia, the situation got ugly.

I was wrestling Ron Simmons, a true football legend, and one of the great storytellers in the business. Ron, who had grown up in nearby Warner Robins, Georgia, was an intense performer, and he was particularly looking forward to his hometown crowd. A few minutes into the match, Simmons shot me into the ropes and caught me with a move called the spinebuster. This is legitimately a pretty tough move to take, because the impact is so sudden and violent on the back, but it was even rougher when the powerful former Heisman Trophy candidate did it. In spite of the impact, it was a move that I thought I took well. Some guys instinctively put down their hands or elbows to try to block the bump, and others hold on for dear life, and make it look like crap, but I always took it quick and clean. Bam! It was an impressive sight. Two months earlier, I had even taken the move from Ron in a Pay-Per-View match on the wooden ramp, prompting another great Jim Ross call. “That is a wooden ramp, folks-please don’t sit at home saying, ‘Well, he knows how to fall.’ “

Something went wrong on that night in Perry. I took the bump and couldn’t breathe. I got up, and blood started filling my mouth, spilling up from my insides. Simmons was in the corner, in a three-point stance ready to hit me with football-style tackles aimed at my knees. I tried to tell him I was hurt, but when I opened my mouth, the only thing that came out was blood. Ron charged at me for the tackle. Ordinarily I would cut a flip upon impact, a move that did two things. One, it looked good, and two, lessened the risk of knee injury. Instead, I went down like a wounded deer. Simmons looked confused, but he went to the corner and got down in his stance. Again I tried to speak and again blood oozed out instead. Simmons hit me again, and again I fell like a sack of shit. Mercifully, he pinned me.

I walked back to the dressing room, worried that my career was over. Every four or five steps I stopped to empty my mouth of the red stuff. Over the years, I’ve bled so damn much that I can’t help making a few observations about this liquid that courses through our veins. I’ve seen it spill out of me like water, and I’ve seen it so thick that my face looked like a coagulated mask of plasmic Jell-0. I’ve seen it look like black ink running down my arm, and I had seen my bathtub almost black when I rinsed my blood-soaked clothing in it. My wife used to joke about the “Norman Bates” shower I would take after a match where the “juice” had been flowing. This night in Perry, however, was the brightest red blood I had ever seen. I think internal blood is always brighter for some reason. When I think back to the gob of internal blood that I spat on the floor of the Dallas Sportatorium in ‘89, it seems that it also was noticeably brighter than its head wound cousins. It was almost fluorescent.

Grizzly Smith was there to size up the situation. “Cactus,” he said softly, “I believe we’d better get you to a hospital.” Thus began a series of tests and probes and barium swallows that yielded no further insight into what the hell was wrong with me. A couple of nights later, I was wrestling Barry Windham, and after about a minute the coughing and dry heaves began. We finished the match, but upon returning to the dressing room, I was told that Windham said, “That guy shouldn’t be in the ring.”