A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [67]
Blackie wasn’t the only Englishman that was copying a famous WWF gimmick, as soon afterward a droopy dog of a man named Johnny South came into the caravan. Johnny looked vaguely like Hawk from the Road Warriors but instead of being known as the Legion of Doom, he was the Legend of Doom (they have the Big Mac, we have the Big Mic). He sported the same makeup, mohawk, and spiked shoulder pads as Hawk, but there was one major discrepancy. Johnny was about a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter. He also had a nasty divot across his bald head.
My curiosity got the best of me and I asked, “Where did that dent come from?”
“I got chopped in the head with an ax,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was stuck in me fookin’ scalp.”
Fair enough.
Blackie told me that Lasartesse was inside so I walked into the tent and encountered a huge, white-haired man, sitting at a desk counting money.
“Are you Rene?”
“Yes. Who are you?” He was from Switzerland and spoke in a hybrid French/English accent that made him sound like Andre the Giant.
“I’m Chris Jericho.”
He gave me the once over. “Wow, you looked better in the picture.”
He continued to bolster my ego when he explained that he simply forgot to pick me up and hadn’t got around to booking me at the Domschanke.
He offered to make up for his forgetfulness by giving me a ride to the nearby Reeperbahn where I could find a place to stay. We got into his two-seater Trans Am that was so small I had to sit with one of the clunky hockey bags on my lap. We drove to a street bathed in the neon light of signs, advertising all things porno from strip clubs to S/M shops to XXX theaters to live sex shows. The Reeperbahn is one of the most famous red-light districts in the world. And for the next six weeks I would be living there.
I price-checked a few hotels but they were all too expensive for my limited budget. I was only making 150 DM a night (about 175 bucks) and these places were 100 to 120 DM a night. Throw in the two grand I’d forked over for the plane ticket and it was paramount for me to be as frugal as possible. The further we traveled up the Reeperbahn the cheaper the hotels got, both in price and quality.
I finally settled on the illustrious Hotel Rheinland for a cool 75 DM a night. Anything cheaper and I’d be sleeping on the back of a cockroach. At the Rheinland, I just roomed with them.
The good thing about the Hotel Rheinland was its proximity to what I called the Triangle of Decadence™. To the right was a strip club called the Cat Meow, to the left a McDonald’s, and across the street a heavy metal club called the Docks. I believe that covers all three of the major-party food groups and I knew I was in for an adventurous six weeks.
CHAPTER 22
THE JERICHO CURSE
The tournament took place during the cold and clammy months of September and October. Because of all the moisture in the air, the damp got through your clothes and chilled you to the bone. My room was always cold because the radiator didn’t work very well. Things got worse when I first opened the door to the bathroom and found only a closet.
I went downstairs to the front pub desk to inquire where my biffy was. The fat guy behind the bar snickered and explained in Europe there was only one bathroom on every floor of the hotel and that was it.
“Where are you from...America?” he scoffed in a patronizing way.
“Uhhh, I’m from Canada, pal,” I fired back with great aplomb and stormed out of the pub. My dramatic exit would’ve worked much better if I hadn’t returned a few moments later because I’d locked myself out of my room.
So I dealt with the community potty by putting toilet paper on the seat before every dumpski and using the sink in my room as a urinal. Then washed my face immediately afterward...
I keed.
I waited a few minutes before washing my face.
The key to my room was an old-fashioned skinny skeleton key. But nobody told me that you had to put the key into the lock and turn it clockwise in order to lock the door. I just assumed that as soon as the door