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It seemed strange that he would rather write long emails than pick up the phone and talk, but that was Chris—always a little strange. He wore a long black leather overcoat even in the summer. He constantly chewed on coffee straws, with an extra cocked behind his ear waiting to be gnawed and a fresh supply in his pocket. He was very intense during conversations, to the point of being angry.

“How are you doing, Chris?”

“GOOD … YOU?” he would reply, straight-faced with a steely glare.

Chris also didn’t share the same sense of humor with too many other people and never laughed at the obvious. Once when we were on a long drive with Chavo Guerrero, I popped in a cassette (remember those?) of a famous Canadian comedy radio show called Brocket 99, which was a broadcast of a fictitious Indian reservation radio station. Growing up with Canadian Indians and near reservations, I found the routine hilarious. Benoit was from the prairies as well, so I thought he might get a kick out of it too. I was wrong, and instead of doubling over with laughter like me, he remained stone-faced during the whole show.

His lack of reaction made me question my own sense of humor.

“Do you not find this funny? If you don’t like it I’ll turn it off.”

He responded stoically, “No, keep playing it. I think it’s hilarious. I’m howling inside.”

I let it play, but he still didn’t laugh. Not a giggle, not a chuckle, not a tee-hee—never went “Ha.” Yet when somebody threw up or fell down the stairs, he would belly-laugh out loud for hours on end.

We spent the rest of the drive in silence, and when we arrived at the hotel someone was throwing a party a few doors down from us. Chris grabbed a garbage can filled with trash from the hall and dumped in a bunch of ice. Then he pulled down his pants and filled the rest of it with 100 percent Canadian wolverine piss. He propped the can against the door at an angle and knocked furiously. We ran down the hall like three teenagers and I heard the cries of disgust when the partiers opened the door. We snuck into our room, trying to be quiet but failing miserably due to Chris’s giggling, and called the revelers.

When they answered Chris said in a creepy little-kid voice, “You don’t know how to party,” and hung up laughing uncontrollably.

In February 2007, I decided to take Ash up to Edmonton so he could play with his cousins in the snow. My cousin Todd (Chad’s judicious brother) lived in Sherwood Park, the same suburb in which Benoit used to live and two of his children still did. I hadn’t seen him in over a year, so I sent him a text before we left notifying him I was going to be there on the off chance he would be too. He texted back instantly saying that by sheer coincidence he was also in Sherwood Park until Saturday. Ash and I got in Friday afternoon and we agreed to meet as soon as we landed. I called him when I arrived at 2 p.m., but he didn’t answer so I told him to call me when he could. I didn’t hear anything from him, so I texted him again at 5 and at 7, but still nothing.

I was getting annoyed because it was near Ash’s bedtime and Chris was going to miss out on seeing him. I was leafing through the Edmonton Sun waiting for his call and saw his picture advertising an appearance he was making at an indoor lacrosse game that night. I figured he would call me after the game, but he never did, so I went to bed.

I awoke at 3:30 a.m. by the beep of my cell phone informing me I had a text.

“Hey Chris, just got back from my appearance, sorry I missed you. Hope to see you soon.”

Who gets back from a personal appearance at 3:30 in the morning?

His actions really annoyed me. I hadn’t seen him in so long and here we were by pure luck in the same town, yet he still couldn’t make the effort to see me and my son for a measly twenty minutes? How lame was that? I considered Chris to be a brother, but it wasn’t always easy to be his friend. You had to take the good with the bad when it came to his friendship.

As strange as he was, I still