Have a Nice Day (7 page)

More than anything, The Legend of Frank Foley was about wrestling. After being called Frank by Kathy, who was played by my friend Diane Bentley, I used creative license to drive away, instead of walking, and drove up to my house instead of a dormitory. Waiting for me was an open driveway with two mattresses and some cardboard boxes in the middle, upon which was placed my opponent, Chris P. Lettuce. I think because of Chris P., I’ve always hated punny names in wrestling, like the evil dentist Isaac Yankem, D.D.S., from Decay-tur, Illinois. To add to the drama, Danny Zucker was calling the action, as I suplexed, pile drove, body slammed, and elbow dropped the lifeless doll on the cold concrete driveway.

I set Chris P. down on the mattresses and pulled up the garage door as Danny speculated on what I was doing. “Oh, he’s cleaning house, the Dude’s cleaning house,” my skinny Jewish buddy yelled, as I emerged with a vacuum cleaner. Then I pulled out a ladder, and set it up against the basketball backboard where I had spent so many hours practicing my shot and proving the theory that “white men can’t jump.” With all the grace of an African bull elephant, I navigated the steel ladder, taking only a brief time-out to swig red food coloring out of a vial. Finally, I was there. “Look at Foley, he must be twenty, thirty feet in the air,” yelled Zucker, as I stood perched atop the ten-foot rim. I wonder if that same technique would work if I hired Zuck to announce my sex life-“Look at that penis on Foley, it must be thirteen, fifteen inches in length and just as big in diameter.”

Taking a deep breath, I surveyed the situation, flipped the Snuka “I love you” sign, and took to the sky. A second later, Chris P. was history as I rolled triumphantly off the landing pad. With “blood” running down my chin, I approached the camera and prophetically stated, “Do you know who you’re looking at? You’re looking at fat Mick Foley. You remember that, Vince McMahon, you remember that!” Following the match, “fat Mick Foley” decides his life isn’t worth living and tries to end it all with a plunge out the window. He is nursed back to health by his buddies and reemerges as the cool and talented Dude Love.

Six months went by, and still I was obsessed with being Dude Love. Even though I went to a school where girls had about as much resistance to sex as the Swiss army has to a military invasion, I was still unable to turn on a light switch. I did kiss a pretty senior, but found out later that she was prone to blackouts and didn’t remember it. I was real close to receiving oral sex once when my back went out on me. What the hell?

I was completely consumed with wrestling at this point in my life, and no longer saw everyday things for what they were, but instead saw them in terms of how they could be used in a wrestling match. I was living in a place called the Towers now, which consisted of two bedroom suites that I shared with Steve, John Hennessey, and a guy named Mac who hasn’t crossed my mind in fourteen years.

One night, Mac had a drunk girl in his room, and as I walked in I saw not an easy target for sexual fulfillment, but instead an easy target for an elbow drop off a desk. (No, I didn’t drop it, but it wasn’t for the lack of wanting.) One night I was at a party halfway between the Towers and downtown. I wasn’t a very regular drinker, but when I did, I did it right. I probably drank only twenty times during my few years in Cortland, which has got to be some kind of a record, but when I did-look out. Out of those twenty nights, I probably got sick on fifteen occasions. I was on fire that night, and was actually “catching raps” left and right, when I suddenly bailed out of the house. Twenty minutes later, Bob Spaeth, who was like a hero to John, Steve, and me because of his exciting sexual adventures and even greater verbal embellishments of them, saw me standing on the front lawn, looking up at the roof. I heard, “What are you doing, Mick?” and it shook me out of my spell. I answered, “Oh nothing, Spaethie, I’m just thinking.”

“What are you thinking of?” he asked, with real concern in his usually jolly voice.

“Oh, nothing really,” I lied, which he picked up on immediately.

“Come on, Mick,” he urged me, “you look like you were in a trance out here.”

“Well,” I slowly started, because even though I was drunk, I had enough sense to know the oddness of my thought, “I was just wondering, if I dove off that roof [which had to be a legitimate fifteen feet], do you think that garbage can would break my fall?”

He looked at me in a strange, but appreciative way, and said, “Let me get you another beer.”

I haven’t seen or heard from Bob, who used to refer to sex as “jukes,” in over twelve years, but I heard from my old roommate Steve that Bob wanted me to speak to his class at school. If I did, I would have to serenade him with an old song I wrote, which is sung to the tune of the New York Yankees jingle. Sing along if you like.

The song is meant as a joke, but I had to watch myself when I drank, or else my sensitive side would sneak out. I was entertaining as hell, especially when I ran into Kathy after inhaling six shots of Jack Daniel’s in an hour, while she stood with (believe it or not) Kevin on her arm. (This was about nine months after the original “Frank incident.”) Yeah, they were back together again, at least for a few days, but that didn’t stop me from telling her about The Legend of Frank Foley and Dude Love, and how her heartbreaking name negligence was going to one day make me a star. She was still beautiful, and was still beaming, but in truth, it seemed to be more of a scared beam-as if she thought if she didn’t give me the beam of old that I might come off the bar with a big elbow. I wouldn’t, but hell, even if I did, I’d make sure in true Foley fashion that I absorbed most of the punishment.

I remember feeling funny when I saw them walking up the hill. Not really sad anymore, but just at a loss to explain human emotions. What the hell did Kevin have that I didn’t? I was the storyteller, I was the jovial drunk, I was the guy she beamed at-even if it was a scared beam-I was the basketball rim diver, wasn’t I? For crying out loud, she had a chance to shag Dude Love, didn’t she, and she let it slip away for what? Kevin?

Later that night, despite my best effort, I let sensitive, drunk Mick Foley rear his wimpy head. I reached for my wallet, and though I tried to fight it, I pulled it out. No, not a condom, even though I had one packed away just in case. Eventually, when I tried to use it, in the summer of 1988 on the Caribbean island of Dominica, the damn thing was so old that it literally crumbled in my fingers. I never knew latex could crumble. What I pulled out were the lyrics to a Kinks song called “The Way Love Used to Be,” and when I showed it to my friend Joanne Adams, I could literally see her respect for me disappear. As far as chicks go, some sensitivity is a good thing, but “The Way Love Used to Be” is probably a little much. In six days from this writing, on my way from Hershey Park in Pennsylvania to Santa’s Village in New Hampshire, I’ll be stopping by Joanne Adams’s house with my wife and kids. I wonder if she’ll be able to look past the missing teeth, missing ear, barbed-wire scars, and seventy-three-pound weight gain and see the love struck loser who showed her the sappy song.

As Christmas of 1984 rolled around, I was well aware that Mick Foley had dropped the ball. It was high time that the Dude picked up the damn thing and ran with it for a while.

The Loved One was taped in the three days spanning January 11-13, 1985. In addition to being historic for giving birth to the “roof” dive that was later seen by millions on World Wrestling Federation programming, it was one of the best times I can remember. It was like a great party for me and a bunch of my friends. My friends didn’t know their lines, so they had them taped to wrestling magazines, and even with the verbiage right in front of them, their performances were so poor that they made Pete Gas look like Sir Laurence Olivier by comparison.

My parents were away for a few days, which meant I had room to let my creativity run rampant, which I did in a highly inebriated state. Like I said, I’m not a very regular drinker, but if anyone wants to get a look at Mick Foley when he’s drunk, The Loved One is your chance. With the exception of the famed “backyard match,” I’m hammered in every scene.

The Loved One was essentially a retelling of the Frank Foley movie, but with several added plot twists, and much greater technical expertise. It was still so bad that I have never allowed my wife to see it, and when the World Wrestling Federation years later wanted to put the Dude tape on the tube, I gave them access only to the wrestling scenes. Actually, the entire movie was recently screened at Danny Zucker’s house in Seattle, and was a great hit, but when it comes to The Loved One, I like to think it has a limited audience of about the five people who were in it and their immediate families.

The film starts out as Danny Zucker walks hand in hand with my friend Felice, sits down at a picnic table where Felice’s lines are taped to firewood, and asks her to marry him. Danny is disguised with the classic Groucho glasses with the big nose, furry eyebrows, and mustache, but even the getup can’t hide his pain as she tells him, “No, Danny, I can’t marry you because I feel like you’re hiding something from me.”

“All right, Felice, I’ll tell you,” Zuck said, “I guess we’ll start at the beginning.” With that, the scene-complete with gentle love music in the background-fades out, and the strange saga of Dude Love unfolds.

Mick Foley is my character in the beginning, a tortured soul who is still trying to put the embarrassment of his suicide attempt behind him. Like many survivors of suicide and incorrect name calling from the woman of his dreams, Mick is without ambition, as he sits munching salty snacks amid his concerned friends. “Why don’t you go back to wrestling?” John McNulty helpfully suggests.

For a moment Mick’s face lights up as he says, “Do you really think so?”

“Sure,” John fires back, “you were winning almost fifty percent of your matches, and the fans really liked your clean-cut ways and sportsmanship.”

Mick is interested, but has a few reservations, as he states, “But everyone knows I tried to kill myself, if I show up to wrestle, I’ll be laughed right out of the ring.”

“Why don’t you wear a mask?” Cortland dropout Scott Darragh chimes in.

“Yeah,” Mick is quick to answer, “but what will I call myself? I’ll need a cool name.”

At that point, a bunch of names are fired at Mick, which he quickly shoots down. Finally, Scott, who in real life seemed to live to argue about everything and anything, stepped in by firmly stating, “Come on, Mick, stop arguing, all you ever do is debate.”

With that word, a light bulb seems to go on in Mick’s head. “Debate, debate, that’s it!” he yells triumphantly. “I’ll call myself the Masked Debater.”

Pretty cool, huh? Actually, don’t be surprised to see a “Masked Debater” making his way to World Wrestling Federation rings soon, as the gimmick has money written all over it.

Unfortunately, things do not go well for the Debater, who is dressed in a blue polo shirt, a Baltimore Orioles ski cap (to hide my hair) and a sparkling mask that looks like Julie Newmar’s Catwoman disguise in the Batman series. I wonder if Julie watches wrestling, because man, I’d like to … Never mind-I don’t know if we need to get into my fixation on seventies sitcom stars, and my theory that I might be able to nail some of them now that they’re sixtyish and I’m on TV. I’ve actually got permission from my wife to hammer Barbara Eden if I ever get the chance.

The Debater gets a little down when an anti-drug talk he’s giving leads to disrespect. “Dammit, Scott, nothing’s really changed, I still don’t get any respect,” Mick sneers angrily, before adding, “I’m sick and tired of being treated like a dog-get me something to eat.”

“How about a Milk-Bone, Mick?” Scott replies, and then proceeds to make the poor Debater beg, roll over, play dead, and drink water out of a bowl on the ground, before finally giving him the crunchy canine treat.

“There’s only one person who can help me,” the distraught Debater declares, and opens the yellow pages to the Grand Lizard of Wrestling.

In the next scene, the Debater shows up at the Lizard’s door, which oddly is just to the side of the Foley living room, with pictures of Mick and John Foley hanging in the background. The Debater throws himself at the mercy of the Lizard, who after lambasting him both verbally and physically, admits that he sees that “eye of the tiger” in Mick and agrees to take him under his wing. First the Lizard (who is actually Dan Zucker without the Groucho glasses) tears off the Debaters “preppy piss rag” and says, “Here, wear this, it’s your first pajama top.”

The action picks up as Mick’s swinging friends are sitting on a couch reading wrestling magazines, wondering where their buddy has gone, and mentioning they haven’t “seen that rat Zuck around either.” All of a sudden, the Dude appears. He has entered the building alongside his manager, the Grand Lizard of Wrestling. The Dude is looking good with his long hair wig, pajama top with matching headband, long underwear with shorts over them, and work boots. He also is now wearing a goatee. (In a display of cinematic genius, the Dude scenes were filmed first, and then a clean-shaven Foley and Debater did the rest.) The Lizard looks resplendent in a New Year’s Eve party hat and bedspread wrapped around him.

Together, the deadly duo insult the swinging wrestling magazine readers, prompting a “Who are you?” from Tim Goldstein. After a bunch of incoherent drunken slurs, I was able to spit out “Dude Love.”

“You’re Dude Love?” Tim suddenly gasps. “The master of the spinning sidewinder suplex, the man who’s been terrorizing the Midwest for the past four months?” (Remember, back then professional wrestling still had many regional territories, instead of two national powers.)

The Dude then launches a verbal diatribe, which ends with “We’re here for one reason, and one reason only: fame, honor, glory, and fortune; to destruct, to destroy, and to take the World Wrestling Federation belt-the ten pounds of gold-from around the fat waist of Ishmala the Puerto Rican Giant.”

With that, the movie segues into a music video that is actually a good piece of storytelling, chronicling the Dude’s rise to glory in the World Wrestling Federation. Combining interviews, locker room pull-aparts, and wrestling matches that took place in the snow in my front yard next to our big pine tree, the segment ends with a “busted open” Dude taking the gold from Ishmala. I think The Loved One’s greatest achievement is that we were able to get the real-life, five-foot- eight, two-hundred-and-eighty-pound Ishmala Lozada to wrestle in his underwear in seventeen-degree weather. I also should point out that unlike today’s backyard wrestlers, who foolishly maim each other, no one was hurt during our wrestling sequences. Plenty of fake punches, though, and the Dude’s ever-present “palm to the forehead thrust.”