The Hardcore Diaries (5 page)

“As a matter of fact, I am,” I said, beaming, proud of my friendship with so many of the girls.

“No, you’re not,” one kid said.

“Am too!” I shot back.

“Are not!”

“Am too!”

“Prove it,” another kid said, prompting snickers from his buddies.

In such a situation, there’s really only one way to prove that such a friendship between really beautiful girls and a dumpy, hairy guy exists—speed dial.

Up until this year’s
WrestleMania
I had only a couple of names in my speed dial—after all, I barely knew how to turn one of these damn phones on, let alone enter names and numbers into it. My wife was on there, as was my son Dewey and my friend Jill Thompson, who illustrated two of my children’s books. Oh, and Test was on there, too. Which of course makes perfect sense. Stacy Keibler put his number in there, back when, frighteningly enough, they were a real couple. I’ve been trying to get the damn number out ever since. But no matter how many ways I try to delete him, Test keeps coming back. I swear, Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger have nothing on that guy.

But following
WrestleMania,
I had two new names on the speed dial. Good ones, too. Trish Stratus, a great wrestler and a good friend for many years, was one. Melina was the other.

With Chris Giordano.

Courtesy of the Foley family.

I’d utilized the Trish Stratus button a few days earlier, while watching the
Backlash
Pay-Per-View at my buddy Chris Giordano’s house. I actually met Chris at my first-ever Sports Night, and have probably watched about twenty Pay-Per-Views at his house since then. I went the first time because Chris, a huge WWE fan, was a young man with cerebral palsy. I continue to go, five years later, because Chris is a great guy, my kids love going, his mom and dad treat us like part of the family, and well, I get to eat a lot of free food while I’m over there.

While watching
Backlash
we noticed that Trish had fallen awkwardly from the ring and that her match had ended shortly after, in an unceremonious manner. It just kind of stopped. I looked at Chris’s wall, noticed a huge poster of Trish, and combining a desire to find out if she was okay with a desire to show off in front of Chris, gave the old speed dial a try. Trish didn’t answer, but Chris went absolutely crazy when he heard her on the voice mail.

It was now Melina’s turn to make me look good. I hit speed dial. “Hi, it’s Melina.” Again, just the voice mail, but the kids went crazy, nonetheless.

I waited for the beep. “Hi, its Mick Foley, and I’m hanging out with some really great kids, and they just wanted to say hello.” The kids all yelled their greetings. “Also, I’ve got what I think is a really good idea, and I really want to tell you about it. So, I’ll call you back in a couple of days, or you can call me back if you want. I’ll talk to you later.”

Keep in mind that writing a book by hand takes an enormous amount of time, especially when a completed manuscript is expected in two months. Because of the four kids running around the house, I do most of my writing at night, and subsequently spend much of the day exhausted.

I desperately need a good night’s sleep every few days, or else I just won’t have the energy to take command of the written page. In other words, the writing will start sucking. Not that it’s Pulitzer material anyway, but hey, at least it’s got energy. Right?

To ensure that good night’s sleep, I do occasionally take a sleeping pill. I may have made a tactical error in taking that pill right before checking my messages. Hey, a message from Melina. She would love to hear my idea. Cool! What a great voice, too. All right, I’ll give her a quick call, run down my idea, and be in bed in ten minutes.

I looked at the phone right before I hung up with her. Two hours and forty minutes! Damn. My longest phone call since I was in college and had a secret admirer, who used to call me at all hours of the evening and tantalize me with tales of forbidden lust that I had previously only read about. She would torture my innocent ears (I had both of them back then) for hours, while she simultaneously participated in solitary sex acts, which she described in great detail. It was a great relationship—not necessarily one that evoked childhood memories of Santa’s Village, but great nonetheless. Then, unfortunately, we met.

Jeez, how was I going to explain this near-three-hour call to my wife? “You spoke to who? For how long?” My wife knows me pretty well, and she knows I possess a couple of odd but charming quirks, but I’m not sure even she would believe that I talk to this exotic, beautiful, voluptuous woman because she makes me feel like an innocent kid.

Besides, as I try to piece the conversation together, I realize I started fading in the latter stages, somewhere around the two-hour mark. I know she loved the idea, or else did a really good idea of pretending she did. She also seemed genuinely flattered that I would put so much faith in her, and that I would willingly sacrifice my dignity on her behalf.

Which seemed like a perfect time to repeat the words Terry Funk spoke to me right before putting me over in the King of the Deathmatch tournament in Yokohama, Japan, in 1995: “You know, I wouldn’t do this for many people.”

A Novel Idea

I finally did write that novel. But I didn’t take Judith Regan’s offer, although it turned out to be the highest one. As a matter of fact, I took the lowest offer, which also involved the promise of the most rewriting and editing.

Let me assure you,
Hardcore Diaries
is primarily a wrestling book. Sure, I explore some other themes, but I will try to tie them all back in, somehow, to WWE. I am not going to make you suffer through a chapter about the creation of a novel you have probably previously chosen not to read. It’s okay, you can admit it.

But as you will find out,
Tietam Brown
is what eventually brought me back to my WWE family. My second adventure in fiction,
Scooter
, is what led to an actual return to in-ring competition. So think of the novels as an extension of my wrestling career (albeit not a very financially successful one) and then suffer through a few pages about the origin of
Tietam Brown.

Steph dreaming of Honey Bunny.

I had actually thought about this book for close to a year. The idea had been on my mind for several months before the
New York Times
article actually came out. As far back as September of 2000, I remember sitting with Stephanie McMahon and Kurt Angle at lunch, regaling them with one of the two visions that made me think I could actually do one of these novel things.

I should probably point out that it was in June of 2000 that I wrote
Tales from Wrescal Lane,
a children’s book that was eventually released in 2004, following a struggle with political red tape and my eighteen-month estrangement from the company. One of the two “tales” concerned little Steph’s attempt to raise money at a yard sale for “Honey Bunny,” the doll of her dreams. Along the way, her yard-sale stuff is destroyed, and the kids from Wrescal Lane (WWE Superstars as children) learn a valuable lesson about treating people with respect and kindness.

Vince had been very enthusiastic about the idea, so I sent in the Steph story, along with some prototype “Wrescals” (part wrestlers, part rascal) that my friend Jill Thompson, the artist who did the Halloween book with me, had illustrated.

A few days later, I was on the phone with Vince when he told me Steph wanted to say hello. What followed was one of my favorite conversations; one that, even without
Hardcore Diaries
to document it, would be hard for me to forget.

“Hi, Mick.”

“Yeah, hi Steph.”

“I can’t tell you how much I like your story.”

“Oh, thanks. I appreciate it.”

“You know, up until I read it, I never thought that you liked me.”

“You?” I said in disbelief. “Why?”

Now, I’m going to double-check with Steph to see if it’s all right to say this, but my recollection is that she was pretty close to tears, so unless I’m overruled by Steph or if WWE doesn’t want her to seem sympathetic, try to picture this moment as a tearful one.

She said, “Well, I always got the feeling that you didn’t respect me, because I hadn’t paid my dues. That you thought I was only here because I was Vince’s daughter.”

I didn’t really know what to say. I mean, her thoughts, which she had actually shared with Vince, were actually a long way from the truth. As it turned out, I was wrestling Triple H, who was managed by Stephanie at the time when WWE first started scripting interviews. Because I was new to this scripting process and because, to this day, I don’t completely believe in it, I was very likely to stray from the script, leaving Stephanie to interpret my actions as a personal sign of distaste for her.

“Steph. That’s really strange, because you’ve always been one of my favorite people.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

And with that one conversation, Stephanie McMahon and I became good friends, which I consider us to be to this day. In September of 2001, she took on some more responsibility, assuming the role of one of the show’s writers. But prior to that, for a few months after I returned to WWE as commissioner in June of 2000, Steph and I would talk and hang out frequently. So it was not unusual that we would be hanging out with our frequent lunch mate and good friend Kurt Angle when I first spoke of my initial vision for
Tietam.

“I’ve got an idea for a book.” I told them. “Not really a book yet, just an idea for a scene.”

“Let’s hear it,” Steph said.

“Well, it’s about this shy kid, Andy, who was given up for adoption when he was a baby. He’s had a kind of tough life, been kicked around in foster care, done a few years in a juvenile center, when his dad comes back into his life.”

“Sounds good,” Kurt said. Since Kurt probably won’t be a big part of
Diaries,
I’ll just state that he’s a great guy, an absolutely phenomenal wrestler, and someone I’m proud to call a friend.

All right, with that out of the way, let’s get a little weird. “Well, Andy comes to find that his dad has some strange habits, including participating in some really loud sex in the bedroom next door. Sometimes he encourages his son to listen with his ear next to a glass against the wall.”

Steph and Kurt were both nodding. I mean, let’s face it, this father is a great character. Even some critics who didn’t care for the book as a whole had to admit the dad was memorable.

“Well, the night is Christmas Eve, and Tietam hires actors to re-create the Nativity scene on his front lawn.” Which I thought was completely original until I saw the same idea on
Curb Your Enthusiasm
a year or so later, before
Tietam
was actually out.

“On this night, Andy has fallen asleep, using his Nat King Cole cassette to drown out the sex next door. He awakes to find that something weird is going on, you know, under the sheets. He’s startled and he sits up, causing the girl, who had been, you know, doing something to him under there, to retreat from the bed. Andy sees that it’s the Virgin Mary, or at least the girl who’s dressed like her.”

Steph and Kurt were transfixed. I think Kurt was even turned on. He was touching his gold medal in a suspicious way.

“But Andy’s dad is not about to let either one of them off so easy. He more or less orders her to finish the job (you can imagine what kind of job it is), and Andy’s too scared to say no. So you simultaneously have this kid experiencing both the worst and best feelings of his life. He tries to escape the reality of his situation by turning on his cassette player, so you have this really traumatic episode juxtaposed with the beauty of Nat King Cole’s ‘Oh Holy Night.’…Well…that’s it. What do you think?”

Steph claps her hands. “I think it’s awesome, Mick.”

Kurt just stares, then says, “I think you’ve got some serious problems.”

But it was all a ruse by Angle, a way to deny the vague sexual tension that had existed between us for months. Without thinking, I lunged for the former Olympic champion, drawing him into my warm embrace, not caring how many WWE Superstars were witnesses to our forbidden…What the hell! Yes, I’m kidding.

I think that lunchroom loquaciousness was actually my first public expression of my ideas. Before that, it had just been a seed in my brain, which over the course of the next year or so seemed to flower and grow, until all that remained was to take all the visions and inspirations that had kept me awake on so many occasions, and put it down in words.

Quite frankly, I was scared. Exaggerating to wrestling stars was one thing. Creating characters, plots, and dialogue was something altogether new. If I’d taken Judith Regan’s offer, I guess I would have been forced to. But without a contract to bind me, I bided my time, never quite finding the courage to enter the bold new world of fiction.

If not for the events of September 11, 2001, I may very well have chosen not to enter that world at all. But after mourning the loss of lives, the loss of humanity, and the loss of our country’s sense of safety for a month, I felt the need to sit down and write. Really, it was an act of escapism. Because for six weeks I retreated from the world (although much of
Tietam
was written on the road), finding great comfort in my long hours of solitude, telling the upbeat, optimistic tale of redemption that was
Tietam Brown.

Unfortunately, I was about the only person who saw it as optimistic or upbeat. The word most used to describe it was
dark.
Another common adjective was
disturbing.
I remember checking my messages while I was in England, filming
Robot Wars
for Spike TV, and hearing Barry Blaustein’s voice. Blaustein was the director of
Beyond the Mat,
the acclaimed wrestling documentary that wasn’t all that popular with Mr. McMahon. But Barry and I have remained friends—I’m even staying with him when I go out to California next week—and he was one of the first people to read the original
Tietam
manuscript. Barry is a well-known Hollywood scriptwriter, so I trusted his opinion, and looked forward to his feedback. What I heard was a little surprising.

“Hi, this is Barry. I just finished your book. And it’s really good, but it’s really dark. I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Okay, bye.”

Dark?
Was he crazy? Didn’t he see the hope?

But as it turned out, he wasn’t crazy. It
was
dark. But I’ve come to see the book as a microcosm for my worldview at the time: a pretty bleak place with just a little light shining through.

My literary agent, Luke Janklow, had sent the book out to several publishers, many of whom were enthusiastic, but all of whom had the sense to comment, “The girl’s got to live.” At first I fought it, saying some pretentious artist thing about “sticking to my vision,” but the more I thought about it, the more I came to see the enormous power such a change afforded me. I was bringing someone back from the dead. I was like James Caan in
Misery,
Dr. Frankenstein in—um, what was the name of that movie?—like Vince McMahon resurrecting Mark Henry’s career.

Besides, I really liked the girl in the story—maybe even had a crush on her. As far as I can tell (and I have asked for some female opinions on this), even as a married man, it does seem to be permissible to have a crush on another woman, as long as the woman is fictitious, and you are the guy creating her. Pretty cool, huh?

One morning, I received a phone call from Luke, who had sent out the revised manuscript (the one where the girl lives) and had gotten a couple of firm, respectable offers. Neither were quite as high as Judith Regan’s original, sight-unseen offer, but they were nonetheless pretty substantial.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” Luke said.

“Okay, what is it?”

“I mean, you’re going to think I’ve lost my mind.”

“What is it, Luke?”

“I sent the manuscript to Knopf.”

“So?”

I had no idea of Alfred A. Knopf’s lofty status in the book business. It was the home of John Updike, V. S. Naipaul, and a lot of other writers whose work I’d never read. I went into my office, which houses a pretty impressive library. Hundreds of volumes, and not a single Knopf among them. Wow, they must be prestigious if I don’t read them.

By the time I spoke to the Knopf editor, Victoria Wilson, I was fully aware of what Alfred A. Knopf represented, and how prestigious writing for them would be. I was also fully aware of Ms. Wilson’s reputation. “She’s not a back-slapper,” Luke told me. “She’s not going to feed your ego and tell you how great you are. But she will challenge you and make you a better writer.”

I dreaded that call. I was terrified of her. Until meeting Melina, it was the most frightened I’d ever been to talk to a woman. I was like Ebenezer Scrooge meeting the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. And not the Reginald Owen Scrooge either. Not the George C. Scott, not the Bill Murray in
Scrooged
, not Michael Caine in
A Muppet’s Christmas Carol,
not Scrooge McDuck in
Mickey Mouse’s Christmas Carol,
and certainly not Henry Winkler in
An American Christmas Carol.
I’m talking about the Alastair Sim, down on his knees, shaking in fear, saying, “Spirit, I fear you most of all”
Christmas Carol
, which is sometimes called
Scrooge.
That’s how scared I was.

“I like it,” Ms. Wilson said. “You’re a natural storyteller. But it’s got problems, major problems. I’m not talking about a few edits, either. I’m talking about major structural problems requiring considerable rewriting.”

Although Victoria Wilson neither looks nor sounds anything like her, I was actually picturing Margaret Hamilton as Ms. Gulch in
The Wizard of Oz
as I was writing that. Probably not much of a compliment until my admission that I always found the Wicked Witch to be quite sexy. Hamilton, as you know, also played the Wicked Witch in
Oz.
Because as you remember, the whole trip to Oz was a dream, and therefore all the characters played dual roles. Ray Bolger, for example, played both the Scarecrow and Huck. Bert Lahr was both the Cowardly Lion and Zeke. Jack Haley was both the Tin Man and Hickory. And though it took me a while to figure it out, Frank Morgan, an old vaudeville performer, was both the Wizard and Professor Marvel (and the Emerald City doorman, the carriage driver, and the Wizard’s guard), which I guess I should have guessed, because of the mystical nature of both characters. Wait, what the hell was I talking about anyway? Oh yeah, Knopf.