Have a Nice Day (3 page)

Dave and I were good friends, but there was a small resentment that he’d felt for me ever since I had sung a song I wrote about him and Crystal over the school intercom. Feel free to sing along to the tune of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” by Canadian legend Gordon Lightfoot.

“The Ballad of Dave and Crystal” by M. Foley

His day was a loss, he was playing lacrosse, he had nothing else better to do.

But he came to his home to ans.-1er the phone, and the voice of Bob Whehman came though.

He said “I’ve got a notion, let’s go to the ocean, we can ride those big waves.

We’ll have some fun, we’re leaving at one, what do you say to it, Dave?”

And if it’s all right with you, there is someone else too, to go on this trip we are plannin’

It isn’t just Sean, who will bore you till dawn, but a pretty female companion

She looked so good on the beach that Dave could not speak-she was wearing a nice white bikini

And the look of that suit on her body so smooth, sent a tingle right down his big weenie.

Oh, there was more, much more, but because the song was fictional and I was using creative license, it got a little graphic and unfortunately ended in one of the three ways that my songs always did-pregnancy, venereal disease, or the cutting off of the penis. Actually, it was the latter subject that had won the high school talent show for me and my buddies, John Imbriani, John McNulty, Scott Darragh, and Zucker—collectively known as the B.P.s (The Brothers Penis). However, the next day we were called into the principal’s office and told that we were disqualified for “inappropriate song material,” and that we would therefore have to forfeit the grand prize of $40 worth of Chinese food. “Man, I sure could go for an egg roll right now,” I mumbled as Mr. Marschack continued to admonish us.

“You really think this is funny, don’t you, Mickey?” Marschack asked me. “I mean, this is humorous to you, isn’t it?”

“No, Mr. Marschack,” I politely answered. “I don’t think it’s funny. We were judged to be the winners by a team of judges, and now you are stripping us of our rightful prize.”

Marschack laughed, because as my seventh grade English teacher who had remained friendly with me over the years, he knew that I was dead serious. I wanted the food. “Mickey, I cannot in good conscience give the grand prize to a bunch of guys who sing about a penis.”

Now he had me mad. “Mr. Marschack, there’s a lot more to it than just a penis. It’s about the guy who is attached to the penis, who can’t cope with his guilt and therefore has no other alternative than to get rid of the part of his body that’s causing him so much pain. It’s actually a pretty touching song.” I then recited the sensitive song and waited for Marschack’s ruling, which came about a second later. “No food for you guys” was the final word.

After all these years, I still feel that we were wronged, and now you can be the judge. Sung to the tune of the Kinks’ “Lola,” and with sincere apologies to Ray Davies, here is the award-winning “Boner” by Mickey Foley.

Well I don’t acquaint with girls I don’t know, and I don’t go to parties, I stay at home-I’m a loner L-0-N-E-R Loner.

But I saw her out there alone on the street, her body was built; I looked at my meat-I had a boner B-0-N-E-R boner, bo bo bo bo boner.

She said, “Hey boy won’t you come inside, and when I walked inside, I felt my penis rise into a boner. Bo bo bo bo boner.

We sat at the bar and I bought her a drink, and she glanced at my pants, and she said, “I think you’ve got a boner.” Bo bo bo bo boner. Bo bo bo bo boner.

Well I could feel the blood flow though my sack and I could feel the cloth stretch in my slacks.

Actually, I forget the rest, but it had something to do with becoming oversexed, and cutting off the penis as a cure. Probably not much of a cure. Just as important as the lyrics was our show-stopping finale, in which I did a horrible front handspring into a flat-backed landing, and sat up just in time for Danny Zucker to smash me over the head with a plastic “Village People” guitar. Sure the guitar was fake, as were all the B.P.’s instruments (we had a real band behind the curtain), but it was still a pretty impressive sight, and a sign of things to come.

Let’s get back to Joe Couzzo’s camp. The tension between Dave and me was growing to the point that it would have to be settled in a “bout,” which was the name given to camp boxing matches in the cabins, with lacrosse helmet and gloves on for protection. Actually the lacrosse helmet is a lot lighter than a football helmet, and its shock absorbing usefulness was arguable. I began promoting this bout to the best of my abilities. I wrote humiliating facts about Dave in Magic. Marker on my chest. I did pushups during lunch with a plate of beans beneath my face and scoffed down a bite between each poorly executed push. I even wore a bull’s-eye over my balls for the camper-staff game, of which Dave was a part.

By the time the bout rolled around, it was the hottest issue at the camp. For some reason, all of the younger kids looked up to me, and my entrance was met with great enthusiasm from the campers. McCulloch, however, was booed relentlessly. There was no bell, so someone blew on a horn, and the bout was on. I came out fast and furious and threw everything I had at the college sophomore. Lefts, rights, hooks, uppercuts-you name it, and I threw it-for about thirty seconds. At the half-minute mark, my arms felt like lead, my legs felt even worse and my entire respiratory system felt like it was failing me.

I looked at Dave, and he was smiling. He knew I had nothing left, and he began throwing punches with bad intentions. Dave was damn near a man, and I was just a boy, and he was hammering me relentlessly. I got through the round, but tasted the stale iron of my own blood. His punches had split my lip, and I was, to quote many a wrestling show, “busted wide open.” The coaches stepped in, and seeing that I was getting the crap beaten out of me, stopped the fight. I believe it was the last “bout” ever held at the Suffolk lacrosse camp. When they stopped me, I went ballistic. “Don’t stop it, Coach, I’m okay,” I argued.

“Mick, it’s over,” Coach Ray Weeks told me. “Now go clean yourself up.”

“This isn’t right,” I yelled for the whole camp to hear, “I was just getting started.”

Slowly, I walked outside to the bathroom building. I stepped inside and shut the door. I looked into the mirror at my bloody face and had to admit that I liked it. I envisioned a big wrestling match, with Vince McMahon screaming, “Look at Foley, my goodness, he’s busted wide open!” I smiled at the thought and then another thought hit me. “Thank God they stopped that damn fight.”

Lacrosse had been my passion for several years. At my father’s request, I had also played football and basketball as a sophomore, but I had sucked at both of them. I think I had one tackle and one basket for the entire season on each of those teams. It wasn’t that I wasn’t a good athlete-I just seemed to be an underachiever when it came to team sports. In football, I would actually bend down to tie my shoes when it came time to pick sides for practice. In basketball, I liked to stand outside and wait for long-range jumpers.

Contact wasn’t the issue. In a game of one-on-one, or even up to three-on-three, I was impassioned when it came to boxing out, or playing defense, or driving the lane. When the game turned to five-on five, or eleven-on-eleven, I just kind of disappeared and figured my teammates would take care of it. To this day, I’ve kept a little bit of that inside me, which is why I’ve always preferred wrestling as a single. As a single, I get caught up in the match easily-as part of a team, I really have to fight the tendency to rely on my partner.

I guess that’s why I enjoyed playing goalie in lacrosse. Even though I was part of a team, the responsibility was all mine. I loved the challenge of stopping shots without a chest protector or cup. It was my propensity for playing without a cup that led to the much-publicized “testicle the size of a grapefruit” story on Raw Is War fourteen years later. Actually the whole story is slightly misleading, as I didn’t make a habit of playing without a cup, I just oftentimes forgot to wear one. My ball wasn’t exactly the size of a grapefruit either-more like a medium-size tangerine.

Lacrosse was so important to me that as a senior, I went out for the winter track team strictly to shape up for the spring season, during which I would grace the goal for the Patriots. The fact that I was no runner was soon discovered, and I began taking to bailing out on the far side of the track and hiding in the woods for a couple of laps. I threw the shot-put and discus too, but one look at my shoulder development should tell you how I fared at that endeavor.

One day before practice, I was talking to fellow B.P. John McNulty, who was nicknamed McNugget in honor of the McDonald’s food of questionable origin. “Track, huh, slick guy,” he said, before adding, “You might be the slowest guy in the school.”

“I know,” I agreed, “but I just want to get in shape for lacrosse.”

John thought it over before saying the words that would have a profound effect on my life: “Why don’t you go out for wrestling,” he wondered. “Even if you never have a match, it will get you in better shape than track will.”

Wrestling, now there was an idea. With my father as the school district’s athletic director, I had grown up watching amateur wrestling in addition to the fake stuff on TV. I knew Coach Jim McGonigle well, as he had coached by brother for two years and also had been my instructor for driver’s education. Hell, I’d even covered the team for the local newspaper and baby-sat the coach’s children on a couple of occasions. In addition, my living room matches with my brother, John, had taught me techniques that would prove invaluable on the mat. In gym class, I had even dominated a school bully so bad that he begged me not to pin him and ruin his reputation. After that, Rob Pilla and I always had a special bond, even though if I had to do it all over again, I would have pinned his ass. “What the hell,” I said, laughing, “I’ll do it.”

I went out for the team and had the time of my life. I loved it. I loved the competition and the pressure, and the knowledge that whatever I did was done on my own. I highly advise any kid to wrestle, as I learned more about being a man during one season on the mats than I had in the seventeen previous years put together. A lot of athletes won’t go out for wrestling because of the potential ego and image damage it can do. Who wants to lose or, worse yet, be pinned in front of his friends, especially if he just ran for touchdowns a month earlier on the football team?

I was moderately successful right from the start, as I defeated and pinned bigger and more experienced opponents with my unorthodox style I had learned in the Foley living room. One match in particular sticks out in my mind during my time in the green Melville singlet. I was sick as hell one night and was not even scheduled to wrestle, but the meet was close and it would be decided by the final match. Coach McGonigle looked at me, and I looked back, and without saying a word, I started warming up. I looked across the mat at Artie Mimms, who was a big muscular black guy with an imposing Mohawk that made him look like Mr. T. Remember this was back in early 1983, before Mr. Tended up in the “where are they now” file. Mimms was ranked second in the county. I put on my headgear, and I walked over to Coach McGonigle, who patted me on the back and said, “We need a pin to win, Mick, a pin to win.” I nodded and went out to get the job done.

Actually this is one of those “good news/bad news” stories. The good news was, there definitely was a pin. The bad news was, I wasn’t the one doing the pinning. I put up a hell of a fight, but my “double underhook into a body scissors” backfired, and I ended up throwing myself on my back at the very start of the third period, after nearly two minutes of fighting the inevitable. I tried to breathe, and no air entered my lungs. A moment later, I heard a slap on the mat and I was done.

I looked up at the crowd and saw a few of my friends with sadness in their eyes. I spotted a few girls whom I had actually lusted over, and guessed that they weren’t lusting over me. I got up slowly and shook Mimms’s hand. I then walked over and shook his coach’s hand. I then walked over and shook Coach McGonigle’s hand, as he put his arm around me. “It’s all right, Mick, ya know why?” he said, as I smiled a disappointed smile. “It’s all right because that’s the best I’ve ever seen you wrestle. I was laughing to myself, because I couldn’t believe how well you were doing against that guy.” I walked away disappointed but proud. I continued walking down two flights of stairs to the wrestling room where we practiced under hot conditions. Only during meets did we venture upstairs to the gym. I sat down in the empty room and I cried my eyes out.

I hadn’t cried in almost three years-when I found out that Renee Virga was going to the junior high prom with Chris Lenz instead of me. It would take seven more years, after the death of my brother’s cat Snowy, until I shed tears again. Nowadays, forget it, I cry during the Christmas episode of Happy Days-the one where Richie spots Fonzie heating up a can of ravioli by himself on Christmas Eve. Yeah, and I cry at the end of Old Yeller also.

John McNulty came into the room as I was about all tapped out, and he made me laugh at some of his weak humor. I got dressed and drove my brother’s old Mustang II home. My parents were visiting my brother in Indiana and so a few friends came over to cheer me up. I actually had a good time, and I remember that night with friends warmly. Conspicuous by his absence, however, was John Imbelliosio, who skipped out on his distraught buddy to see Taboo II at the Rocky Point cinema with the Renee Virga-stealing Chris Lenz. What a guy. The sequel to my all-time favorite Kay Parker film and he leaves me hanging.

I finally did get to kiss Renee Virga at John Imbelliosio’s wedding in 1989. I saw her recently and told her she was going to be in my book. I also asked her if she’d seen the Chris Lenz issue of TV Guide.

I really only had one problem with wrestling. I simply liked it so much that I lost my desire to play lacrosse. I had been a big pro wrestling fan for a long time, but I never considered it as a career option. Now, however, with a little bit of amateur background behind me, I began to see the possibilities. I began studying tapes of my favorite wrestlers. I became obsessed with the sport/art form, and began to believe I could actually do it. In June 1983, I attended my first match at Madison Square Garden to see Jimmy Snuka battle Don Muraco in a bloody double disqualification. I was hooked. I didn’t need lacrosse anymore-I had pro wrestling.