A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [85]
This stupid bastard would sit in bed and eat sandwiches, but instead of throwing the crusts away he put them between the mattress and the box spring. Apparently the roaches had heard about the fine buffet offered at SMF and decided to set a spell.
Do I even need to tell you that at that moment I was finished with SMF?
CHAPTER 27
STRANGE KENTUCKY PEOPLE
Things were even stranger on the road than they were at SMF.
We’d arrive in a town like Hyden, Kentucky, where the census population was 200 and 400 people would turn up for the matches. People would literally come down from the hills to see the show. I hate to stereotype, but this was pure Deliverance–type shit and the evidence of inbreeding was impossible to ignore. I saw one kid with purple skin and another with hands like lobster claws. I know it’s a cliché to say that rednecks have no teeth, but it’s just plain creepy to see so many people in one place that literally have no chiclets. But they loved to watch their rasslin’.
I don’t know where they got the cash, but the people in these towns bought more gimmicks than fans anywhere else did. I was signing pictures at the table in Virgie, Kentucky, when a guy came up and asked me for an autograph.
“Sure thing, bud,” I said with a smile. “I’d be happy to.”
He looked at me with sleepy-eyed wonder, his gut peeking out of his greasy wifebeater, and asked with complete seriousness, “How did you know my name was Bud?”
You can’t write stuff like this.
I was hanging around between matches at another of our regular towns, Paintsville, Kentucky, when a girl came up to me and gave me a videotape. She stared at the ground while she stuttered and spit out, “Chris Jericho, I love you. I made a tape of your matches just for you. It’s got all your matches that you ever had in SMW.” Then she turned tail and split. I was honored that she’d put them all on one tape as a present but when I watched the tape, it didn’t contain any matches. What it did contain, however, was much more entertaining.
The tape featured the girl and her hillbilly mountain family performing for me...and what a show it was. It began with her looking into the camera like a deer in headlights. She resembled Chris Farley dressed up as Meatloaf circa 1977 and was wearing a shirt with a rebel flag on it that said, “You wear your colors, I’ll wear mine.”
She began her dissertation and said, “I made this tape for you, Chris Jericho [she always called me by my full name]. We love you, Chris Jericho. You’re my favorite rassler, Chris Jericho, and I really love you, Chris Jericho.” She wiped the snot out of her nose.
Then she became Annie Wilkes from Misery and started speaking gibberish like, “Well look. Here’s a white googleberry. Fleezin fibble foo!” She began dancing as the rest of her family came into frame like Oompa Loompas. They were all smacking each other’s butts and doing the most bizarre version of the Electric Slide, while chanting in unison “Electric Slide, Electric Slide, Electric Slide,” like some kind of disco cult.
Then a kid who I’m guessing was her brother or her husband—or both—explained how much he liked watching rasslin’, then farted twice. Then his mother or his wife—or both—who literally had NO teeth, patted him on the butt and commented on its fragrance. There was a bed in the middle of the living room and on the wall behind it were two pictures: one of Jesus and one of Ricky and Robert. Both photos were at the exact same level, which I’m sure was a huge honor for the Savior.
Farleyloaf wandered back in and gave a shout-out to