One Big Surprise
he next morning.
Chavo and me met up the next morning as planned but with two additional people.
One of them was D'Lo Brown, whose car we were enlisting for the ride over to Uncle Eddy's. D'Lo would be forever remembered as the person ended Darren "Droz" Drozdov's career for a botched powerbomb himself so I guess he could sympathize with Goldberg a little on that score. From what I've heard he gets a bum rap for that since it'd simply an accident brought about by bad timing.
I know also know he feels indebted to Shane McMahon for getting him rehired a few months after he'd been fired in 2003, taking the fall for a poorly planned racism storyline that was about as well received as the storyline leading into my Uncle Booker T's match against Stephanie McMahon - Helmsley's current husband, Hunter for the what was then the RAW brand title at WrestleMania, in which Booker T won clean. D'Lo's now a trainer at OVW as well as the Developmental organization's top announcer. I don't know if Chavo told D'Lo everything, but I think that if D'Lo thought it would lead to some answers about why Shane disappeared, he'd have helped us do anything we'd asked.
I think D'Lo also figured, knowing the passionate way the Gurrerros fight, that there might be a need for a cool headed mediator during our confrontation with Eddy.
The other person with us was Athena.
Athena had walked in on me and Chavo reviewing the video tape yesterday. She looked like she'd seen a ghost seeing the slightly blurred picture that was in front of her, which was a result of the pausing I'd done when the door had opened on me and Chavo. She left for a few minutes then came back with an old newspaper clipping. It's showed her father on a stretcher, his face partially obscured by medical personnel. We could see the late Jerry "The King" Lawler at ringside looking over at things.
But that's not what surprised Chavo and me.
What got us was that the one of the medics in the black and white picture looked like the medic in the video telling my dad to play dead. Giving Uncle Eddy some sort of message. The same medic telling my mother that my dad was dead. I wondered for the first time if maybe Eddy had been lying. If maybe Owen Hart's death and my dad's really were linked together in some way.
So Athena joined us on our mission, having a few questions for Eddy Guerrerro of her own to ask now that she'd seen the tape.
I found out earlier about something that I hadn't known by Chavo. Her uncle, Bret, who was once known as the Hitman, ironically had his own career cut short by Goldberg. It'd been one of the reasons my Dad hadn't wanted to fight him that night fourteen years ago.
We'd gotten to Eddy's house in the pre - dawn morning figuring it might be best to get to him before he even before he came to OVW, if indeed he did. He'd been acting weird lately according to some. Chavo and D'Lo had noted to me and Athena that the last time Uncle Eddy had been so fidgety had been at my 'uncle' Mick Foley's funeral a year ago. Unlike most wrestlers, Mick had passed away peacefully in his sleep from natural causes. While most proclaimed that wrestlers preferred to die with their boots on most of my Dad and Mick's friends said that the way Mick had died had been both apropos and ironic for the one that many called the King of Hardcore.
I watched as the door opened. Eddy came out the door. Someone else followed him. This person had dark brown hair streaked with gray. He wore sunglasses. He looked familiar but I wasn't quite sure who he was.
"You have to be shitting me!" D-Lo said from the front seat. "What's Shane McMahon doing there?" I looked closer. Yeah now I could see it. I had seen photos in the papers during the research. There was no denying it. That was Shane McMahon.
The two men went to Eddy's garage and entered a Black SUV, which confused us even more since Uncle Eddy usually drove a red and white Caddy which hopped about like one of those cars in those old mid to late 1990s so called 'gangster' rap videos.
As the SUV Eddy and Shane were in started up, D'Lo made a move to block the vehicle.
"NO, wait!" I cried out, grabbing D'Lo's arm.
"What are you crazy?" D'Lo asked.
"Let's follow them." I suggested.
"What?! What are you crazy? Athena Hart exclaimed, echoing D'Lo.
"Maybe we'll get more answers that way." I said.
"Still crazy," D'Lo muttered putting the Saturn out of park to follow Eddy and Shane.
We drove for a couple of hours realizing that we were heading to more rural landscaping and further from anything close to resembling civilization. If I remember my history lessons from school correctly, this was one of the areas that the federal government had barred from ever being logged or turned into commercial areas when President Maria Kennedy Schriver took office in 2008. I wondered why Eddy and Shane would go out this far. We didn't have to wait too long.
It was around 9am when we saw a wooded cabin in view. We lengthened our distance form Eddy and Shane's SUV since by now we were the only two vehicles on that stretch of road. We pulled to a stop a couple hundred yards from where the black vehicle had stopped right in front of the cabin. We parked behind some woods that while hid us from Shane and Eddy, gave us a clear view of the house and the two men getting out of SUV and heading for the door of the house.
The door opened and I saw a man I couldn't recognize come out and greet Uncle Eddy and Shane McMahon. We saw them talking for a bit but couldn't hear what they said. The man went back inside and shut the door. Eddy and Shane talked briefly to each other. I wondered what they were saying. The door opened again and another man stepped out...
I think my heart skipped a few beats and I'm pretty sure I stopped breathing.
There he was. His hair was thinner, grayer. He was still muscular but not as much than he'd been during his wrestling days. Though he was far away, I could see his face. It was still the same face that had kissed me good bye right before that fateful PPV.
I unbuckled my seat belt and got out of the car. I stayed beside it, still gazing at the figures on the porch. One of which I'd believed dead for fourteen years.
"Dad," I whispered still looking at Chris Benoit.
"Daniel," I heard Athena whisper, breaking me out of my spell. I looked at her, could see her touching my arm, obviously in an attempt to try to get me back into the car. To try and avoid making a potentially disastrous scene. I'd turned to acquiesce to her silent plea when I saw her freeze in shock. I'm pretty sure the expression on her pretty face was the same one I'd worn a few seconds earlier.
I turned around look at the porch again to see what had startled Athena so much. Then I saw. My Dad, Shane, and Eddy were still on the front porch, but another had joined them. Almost or about as tall as my father but a little bit more stockier. He had short blonde hair with streaks of gray in it. His nose resembled that of Hunter Hearst Helmsley's. I'd never met the man in my life, but I'd seen enough wrestling videos, particularly of my father wrestling him to know exactly who that fourth man was.
Damned, I'd hoped Athena wouldn't have to deal with this. I'd had some minor warning with the videotape, which I suppose was real after all. Poor Athena had no warning. She was frozen like a statue in shock.
"Daddy," she whispered, staring at her father, Owen Hart.
he next morning.
Chavo and me met up the next morning as planned but with two additional people.
One of them was D'Lo Brown, whose car we were enlisting for the ride over to Uncle Eddy's. D'Lo would be forever remembered as the person ended Darren "Droz" Drozdov's career for a botched powerbomb himself so I guess he could sympathize with Goldberg a little on that score. From what I've heard he gets a bum rap for that since it'd simply an accident brought about by bad timing.
I know also know he feels indebted to Shane McMahon for getting him rehired a few months after he'd been fired in 2003, taking the fall for a poorly planned racism storyline that was about as well received as the storyline leading into my Uncle Booker T's match against Stephanie McMahon - Helmsley's current husband, Hunter for the what was then the RAW brand title at WrestleMania, in which Booker T won clean. D'Lo's now a trainer at OVW as well as the Developmental organization's top announcer. I don't know if Chavo told D'Lo everything, but I think that if D'Lo thought it would lead to some answers about why Shane disappeared, he'd have helped us do anything we'd asked.
I think D'Lo also figured, knowing the passionate way the Gurrerros fight, that there might be a need for a cool headed mediator during our confrontation with Eddy.
The other person with us was Athena.
Athena had walked in on me and Chavo reviewing the video tape yesterday. She looked like she'd seen a ghost seeing the slightly blurred picture that was in front of her, which was a result of the pausing I'd done when the door had opened on me and Chavo. She left for a few minutes then came back with an old newspaper clipping. It's showed her father on a stretcher, his face partially obscured by medical personnel. We could see the late Jerry "The King" Lawler at ringside looking over at things.
But that's not what surprised Chavo and me.
What got us was that the one of the medics in the black and white picture looked like the medic in the video telling my dad to play dead. Giving Uncle Eddy some sort of message. The same medic telling my mother that my dad was dead. I wondered for the first time if maybe Eddy had been lying. If maybe Owen Hart's death and my dad's really were linked together in some way.
So Athena joined us on our mission, having a few questions for Eddy Guerrerro of her own to ask now that she'd seen the tape.
I found out earlier about something that I hadn't known by Chavo. Her uncle, Bret, who was once known as the Hitman, ironically had his own career cut short by Goldberg. It'd been one of the reasons my Dad hadn't wanted to fight him that night fourteen years ago.
We'd gotten to Eddy's house in the pre - dawn morning figuring it might be best to get to him before he even before he came to OVW, if indeed he did. He'd been acting weird lately according to some. Chavo and D'Lo had noted to me and Athena that the last time Uncle Eddy had been so fidgety had been at my 'uncle' Mick Foley's funeral a year ago. Unlike most wrestlers, Mick had passed away peacefully in his sleep from natural causes. While most proclaimed that wrestlers preferred to die with their boots on most of my Dad and Mick's friends said that the way Mick had died had been both apropos and ironic for the one that many called the King of Hardcore.
I watched as the door opened. Eddy came out the door. Someone else followed him. This person had dark brown hair streaked with gray. He wore sunglasses. He looked familiar but I wasn't quite sure who he was.
"You have to be shitting me!" D-Lo said from the front seat. "What's Shane McMahon doing there?" I looked closer. Yeah now I could see it. I had seen photos in the papers during the research. There was no denying it. That was Shane McMahon.
The two men went to Eddy's garage and entered a Black SUV, which confused us even more since Uncle Eddy usually drove a red and white Caddy which hopped about like one of those cars in those old mid to late 1990s so called 'gangster' rap videos.
As the SUV Eddy and Shane were in started up, D'Lo made a move to block the vehicle.
"NO, wait!" I cried out, grabbing D'Lo's arm.
"What are you crazy?" D'Lo asked.
"Let's follow them." I suggested.
"What?! What are you crazy? Athena Hart exclaimed, echoing D'Lo.
"Maybe we'll get more answers that way." I said.
"Still crazy," D'Lo muttered putting the Saturn out of park to follow Eddy and Shane.
We drove for a couple of hours realizing that we were heading to more rural landscaping and further from anything close to resembling civilization. If I remember my history lessons from school correctly, this was one of the areas that the federal government had barred from ever being logged or turned into commercial areas when President Maria Kennedy Schriver took office in 2008. I wondered why Eddy and Shane would go out this far. We didn't have to wait too long.
It was around 9am when we saw a wooded cabin in view. We lengthened our distance form Eddy and Shane's SUV since by now we were the only two vehicles on that stretch of road. We pulled to a stop a couple hundred yards from where the black vehicle had stopped right in front of the cabin. We parked behind some woods that while hid us from Shane and Eddy, gave us a clear view of the house and the two men getting out of SUV and heading for the door of the house.
The door opened and I saw a man I couldn't recognize come out and greet Uncle Eddy and Shane McMahon. We saw them talking for a bit but couldn't hear what they said. The man went back inside and shut the door. Eddy and Shane talked briefly to each other. I wondered what they were saying. The door opened again and another man stepped out...
I think my heart skipped a few beats and I'm pretty sure I stopped breathing.
There he was. His hair was thinner, grayer. He was still muscular but not as much than he'd been during his wrestling days. Though he was far away, I could see his face. It was still the same face that had kissed me good bye right before that fateful PPV.
I unbuckled my seat belt and got out of the car. I stayed beside it, still gazing at the figures on the porch. One of which I'd believed dead for fourteen years.
"Dad," I whispered still looking at Chris Benoit.
"Daniel," I heard Athena whisper, breaking me out of my spell. I looked at her, could see her touching my arm, obviously in an attempt to try to get me back into the car. To try and avoid making a potentially disastrous scene. I'd turned to acquiesce to her silent plea when I saw her freeze in shock. I'm pretty sure the expression on her pretty face was the same one I'd worn a few seconds earlier.
I turned around look at the porch again to see what had startled Athena so much. Then I saw. My Dad, Shane, and Eddy were still on the front porch, but another had joined them. Almost or about as tall as my father but a little bit more stockier. He had short blonde hair with streaks of gray in it. His nose resembled that of Hunter Hearst Helmsley's. I'd never met the man in my life, but I'd seen enough wrestling videos, particularly of my father wrestling him to know exactly who that fourth man was.
Damned, I'd hoped Athena wouldn't have to deal with this. I'd had some minor warning with the videotape, which I suppose was real after all. Poor Athena had no warning. She was frozen like a statue in shock.
"Daddy," she whispered, staring at her father, Owen Hart.