A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [66]
I did have two hockey bags, but regretfully they were filled with clothes not crack. The tour was six weeks long so I’d packed accordingly. I brought exactly three weeks of clothes...twenty-one pairs of socks, twenty-one pairs of gonch, etc., so I’d only have to do the washing once. Genius, huh? I also brought a slew of cassettes (remember those?) and a four-speaker ghetto blaster. There was no way I was going to let anything stop me from rocking for six whole weeks.
I lugged my bags into the bright sunshine looking for the friendly face of Lasartesse. I had no idea what he looked like, which wasn’t a problem because nobody was there.
Nobody.
I was by myself in Germany, didn’t speak the language, and didn’t have any contact numbers or for that matter any contacts. All I had was the address to the Hotel Domschanke, the place where Rene had booked me.
I found what appeared to be the only taxi driver in Hamburg lounging in the coffee shop and gave him the address. We drove for twenty minutes until he dropped me off at what looked like a large house, not the fancy joint with picture windows and revolving doors that I was expecting. I lugged my overstuffed bags up a flight of stairs and walked into what I thought was the lobby.
It was actually a pub and it was just like the bar scene in Animal House: Everyone stopped talking and turned to stare at me. The smile crawled off my face as the beer steins clinked down on the tables and everyone took a good look. I put my bags down with a double thud and asked the big-boned woman behind the bar, “Excuse me, where’s the front desk?”
She said nothing and a few of the patrons snickered at my question.
Awkward...
“Dis EES de front desk,” she said with a scowl in a thick German accent.
I told her that I had a reservation at the hotel.
“No you don’t, ve’re full.”
“I’m sure I do. Renee Lasartesse made it for me.”
“I’m sure you DON’T, ve’re full,” she insisted.
So Rene hadn’t picked me up from the airport or made me a reservation, but I wasn’t surprised. This was wrestling, after all.
I decided to let it go and I asked her if she knew where the Catch tournament was. She pointed out the window, to a thumbnail of a tent in the middle of a huge park.
“Right over dere,” she said and gave me my Welcome to Germany present of a basket of puppies. Actually, she stared at me as if I’d murdered David Hasselhoff, and motioned toward the door.
I headed through the park toward the tent as if I was Dorothy walking to the Emerald City. I cursed Lasartesse as each step seemed to add another brick to my hockey bags. Hot, wet, and dripping with sweat, I finally reached the venue, which seemed better suited for Oktoberfest than for wrestling. It was a big circus tent with a wooden floor and various flags hanging from the ceiling. Parked on the outside was a line of motor home trailers. When I knocked on the first trailer hoping to find Lasartesse, I was astonished when Davey Boy Smith opened the door.
It took me two seconds to realize that the guy wasn’t as big or as handsome as Davey, but he was damn close. He didn’t look happy to be disturbed and growled in a strong English accent, “What the fuck do you want?”
When I told him I was looking for Rene, he lightened up and invited me inside.
His name was Boston Blackie and the trailer, or caravan, was his. Most of the wrestlers from the U.K. lived in caravans for the six weeks of the tournament and were able to save a lot of money as a result.
We shot the breeze for a bit until he asked me, “Are you a villain or a blue-eye?”
It took me a minute to figure out that blue-eye meant babyface. Blackie was a blue-eye, which was exemplified by the stack of Davey Boy Smith (one of the most popular English wrestlers ever) pictures