Saturday, midnight.
In behind a dark alley in Peterborough.
Only a few minutes left.
I bolted.
"GOTCHA!"
I was grabbed, flipped around and pinned against the wall. I kicked, but it was useless to fight.
Bobby grinned.
"You owe me. Cough it up."
"All right, all right. Just put me down."
"Why should I? So you can get away from me again? I'm not going to fall for that for the third time."
"That's because you're stupid."
SLAM!
"Ow! Jeez, this is concrete man!"
"It's brick."
"Concrete sounds better."
"You're stalling Marty. Cough it up."
"All right." I went for my wallet and gave me thirty bucks. He counted them.
"You ain't got it in Canadian?"
"Now you're stalling."
He squinted, but let me down, but had a hand on my shirt collar. "Coach D'Amore's looking for you. It's important."
"I know that."
"Then why did you have me chase you around the city? Huh?"
"You ... look pissed."
He looked at me as if I was dumb. "Um, yeah?"
"I meant before. You had other things to do than to worry about me, you know? And Coach ... always wants to say something to me, whether it's important or not."
He released my shirt collar, but slowly. He pointed. "That's because you're a fuckup." I didn't want to hear that, but he continued. "I do have another things than to get a workout of chasing you around, but that's because I'm your damn residential babysitter. Got that? Now move it."
He shoved me out of the alley and kept shoving whenever I looked down to make sure I didn't miss a step.
"Dude!"
"Move it."
He gripped my shirt collar and dragged me across the street and around the block back to the hotel we were all staying at - the rest of Team Canada. I knew it wasn't going to be pretty. I was led into the lobby where Coach D'Amore was at on the phone. I didn't have to have my glasses on to see he was glaring the death through me.
He got up and flipped his phone shut. He walked over and slapped me, hard enough to send me stepping backwards. Before I could even react or put a hand to defend my face, he gripped my chin and stared into my eyes.
"You deserved that, you know that? Do you have ANY idea what I had to do? Send Bobby around looking for YOU!"
He slapped me again, but my hands went to defend my face. Coach kept slapping at my head.
"Do you honestly not care? Do you? Do you even care? ANSWER ME!"
"I do. I swear to God I do!"
"Well, you're going to have to show it. This is not good enough." He sighed, and was about to hit me again, but didn't. "You disappoint me." He looked back to Bobby and nodded. Bobby reached and gripped my arm. It was painful, but I didn't complain. He dragged me around to the elevators. I didn't have to look back to see Coach D'Amore was right behind us. We boarded the elevator and up to the room.
The guys were in the living room, playing on the X-Box 360. They all glanced up, but neither one of them wanted to stay anything. Petey was the one to get up a bit off of the couch.
"What the fuck is this?! Didn't I tell you three to go to bed hours ago!"
"Uh, yes Coach," A1 stammered. "you, you did."
"Then why the FUCK are you up?"
Eric pointed to the TV. "Playing X-Box."
Coach D'Amore stared a hole at Eric. "REALLY? No shit, Eric!"
With that, and one closed fist, I was sent reeling into the wall. My hands immediately went to shield my face from Coach D'Amore brutal knee kicks. My head bounced off of the wall. He stopped when the guys ran out the room and turned to me.
"Go to bed. NOW."
I scrambled off of the floor and up to the rooms. I buried myself in the bed and hoped all would be well tomorrow. So I thought. We took a shuttle bus to the studios, like we always did whenever we were in Florida. Neither one of us were our normal selfs. Coach didn't even brief us on what were we going to do like he usually does before a show; Jarrett and Simon Diamond did that for us.
A1, Eric, and I had a match versus Team 3D and Rhino; Coach was going to attend ringside.
It seemed sort of a miracle; Coach was like himself that night. He was waving the Canadian flag on the hockey stick, yelling at the ref, distracting the ref at times, and of course, staring at the crowd who found pleasure in verbally dissing Canada. Somehow, I had a feeling something was going to go wrong.
A1 and Eric were down and D'Amore made the mistake of being in the middle of the ring. He was being pulled around by Brother Ray. I slid into the ring and pushed D'Amore out of the way, but I was gored by Rhino into the table. I passed out for a minute until I heard D'Amore's screaming.
"MARTY! Marty, come on, wake up!"
I blinked and only light and D'Amore. His head was blocking the ceiling light but I couldn't see the front of his face. I slowly sat up and saw a couple of the fans clapping. I looked around and saw the table. It looked like a wreck. D'Amore distracted me by saying I had a concussion. I didn't know what the heck he was talking about. I got up to my feet and a couple of them were telling me not to move. Two steps, I became dizzy and hit the mat to pass out for good. The next time I woke up I was backstage. A trainer was blinking light from a pen into my eyes - his lips were moving and looking over to my left. It was D'Amore again. I couldn't hear anything except for some ringing. The trainer asked if I knew where I was.
"Yeah. Orlando."
"Where in Orlando?"
"TNA .. studios."
He blinked and figured I was okay, but told me if I had any more problems, I was to go to the hospital. D'Amore had Bobby and A1 help me off of the examining table and to the locker room to change. I was better a little bit, but things seemed out of connection and foggy. I didn't tell anyone.
At the hotel room where everybody was asleep, I watched the pay-per-view recap.
I shoved D'Amore out of the way ... Rhino gored me ... through the table, but one of the turnbuckles were off; Ray had tore them off before Team Canada had hit the ring ... the back of my head hit that after I was gone through the table, which caused me to lie there for several seconds ... D'Amore went to check on me as Eric came after Rhino with the Showtime Manuever and won the match. The ref Rudy Charles and security surrounded me as D'Amore yelled for me to wake up. I did and I sat up there. I was completely out of it. Then I collapsed down to the mat.
I smiled and turned it off to go to sleep.
But revenge will be a bitch. Ray would know, being on the receiving end of it.
On Tuesday afternoon, everyone was worried about me. Namely so. I didn't talk to anyone, so I snuck off the Team Canada locker room and went to the production video truck. I was all by myself; no one was there to report on me. I had an associate degree in this sort of thing. Here we go.
...
I cooly walked into the room, but was slammed into the wall.
"GODDAMN YOU!"
SLAP. I blinked and saw Coach D'Amore yelling and the guys staring at me. D'Amore slapped my head again and showed me to the chair.
"Don't you EVER walk away from me again, do you hear me?"
"Yes Coach."
He didn't have to slap me three times in the same day, but oh well. That night, a guy I slipped a couple twenty to played the slick video I made. I was smiling when I saw this. I saw Coach's eyes glance at my direction. He had the faintest smile on his face too.
We all watched as I was gored through the table and my head bouncing off the steel.
Again.
And again.
Some of the guys backstage were beginning to flinch.
"Damn Marty."
They were sorry, but not as Ray would be. He was frowning at this. No one wanted to see this, but the more I watched, I was laughing. Coach wasn't smiling anymore. He was looking at me in admonishment. That night at the tapings of IMPACT!, I ganged up on Ray. I put him in the 313, the wheelbarrow bulldog off of the top rope. He went through the table and I grinned.
The lights went out and I went backstage.
Coach was just standing there, but with a grin on his face and gripped mine.
"That's D'Amore."
