..:: Prologue ::.. ..:: Part 1: Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out ::.. The highway narrowed to 2 lanes when he passed the sign telling how far in miles he had until he reach his destination: The 2003 Wrestlemania Entertainment Royal Rumble. He was fast losing himself in his thoughts, in his world when she sat up and lit a cigarette and held it out for him. It was a funny habit she had, she didn't smoke but she was beginning to light them up for him. She popped open the glove compartment of the new Chevy Astro minivan and pulled out a couple of cd's before choosing "The Eminem Show". She cued it to song 3, "Business" before she spoke. She wasn't nearly as close to sleeping as he had imagined...or hoped.
The sign along the side of Interstate-5 read: "Seattle 932"
Numbers are perfect. Numbers are infallible and everlasting. People arent. Numbers are always right in the end. You may see an incorrect figure
..but thats not the fault of the number, the fault lies in the person doing the calculating. How many times will your heart beat in the course of your lifetime? Of course you dont know! But there is a number that can and will provide you with this small, trivial bit of information. The sun may explode, you may lose your job, you may never be able to get it up again
but at the end of the day, five is five. Numbers do not cut in line at lunch. Numbers do not write bad checks. Numbers sound cool
like when a cop gets a call on his cop radio to hurry up and put down the coffee and donut that he bought at a 7-11 and go respond to a 187, and try to get there before the reporter from Channel 4.
For me the safest and most perfect number has always been 1. With Sid passed out in the back and Veronica close to sleep next to me and its times like these when life is almost bearable. No phone calls, no ones thoughts to endure. I can think my own thoughts. Get in touch with my own destiny. People make me sad and lonely for solitude. I feel better when Im walking alone. I like eating alone. Movies are better alone. Music sounds better when you listen to it alone. Books are better read alone in a room. People ruin almost everything! Being around people makes me feel like I have nothing and that I am a creep. On my own, I dont feel half bad. Alone is safer because you attract less attention. Not to mention the fact that when you are alone you are harder for strangers to figure out. Also, you only have to look out for yourself and you dont have to worry if the people that you are with can handle themselves in a bad situation. Id rather be outnumbered and alone, than to have a weak person with me. I look out for number one
.because I am number 1, I am the Hardkore 1. 
Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "For a minute tonight.....I really thought that David Flair was going to fire us all!!! Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "I can't believe that he came up in my locker room tonight after the match calling me Jim like we're friends or something! Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "There is no interraction with staff! By the time that they make themselves available, their agenda is set and you can go along with the angle that they have for you or they find someone who does......especially David Flair!" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "He found about about my angle tonight though didn't he? He got upclose and personal with the "un-gimmick"! This isn't some character I play on television like some of the guys on Slam. What I wear on Slam are the same things I wear at home, nobody else can say that!!" Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "It was priceless! But I don't believe that you did it right there in front of Mr. Perfect like that!" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "Curt is....perfectly cool with the scenario. When me and Big Sid first started running together back in Miami the night that new Jack put staples in his head, for about a minute there was talks of The Sandman leading a stable. Then David Flair steps in saying......Oh yeah a Slam stable, that sounds great....I'm gonna pair you guys off with Mr. Perfect and call it 'The West Texas Rednecks', you guys can have this whole Rap is Crap gimmick and fued with Rikishi.......' Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "But tonight is was 'Rock is Crap' and fued with Slam's Rock Superstar Kaos, with maybe a little Impact Players action thrown in on the side....." Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "That's the third time we've been offered that gimmick! Now the first time it was mentioned, me Curt and Sid all sat down and by the time that the first pitcher of Budweiser was gone, Curt had decided that he couldn't work in a group called The Cult. Me and Big Nasty Sid decided that we couldn't work in a group called The West Texas Rednecks. Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "So what happened then? Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "We got more beer.....you act like there was gonna be some big bar room brawl over it. You saw all those guys tonight, guys that never even spoke to me before back at the arena....just as soon as I win the WME Tag Titles they all wanna run up and shake my hand, tell me congratulations. But who was the only guy to come to the locker room with a sixer of Budweisers? Alot of guys were real jerks when I got here to Slam, but Curt is one of the few that are alright......"' Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "Oh my God...you should have seen the look in Sid's eyes when you and Perfect bet on the Superbowl!!! Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "Big Sid should know me well enought to know that I would have had to welch on that bet. Curt was perfectly aware of the fact that I was sh*ttin' him, so were you......" Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "That's the point that I tried to make to David Flair during all of that and that's the perfect example. No one here in the WME really knows you. Not even your tag team partner, much less the staff. To properly market a product you must first know the product. Had David Flair been aware of the fact that your entire gimmick is based on "not giving a sh*t about anybody", he would have never asked you to give a sh*t what kind of music Kaos likes......" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "I'm a surfer....that's about the farthest thing in the world from a redneck. I mean Metallica plays my goddamn ring intro for Christ's sake! Anyhow, it's like I said before.....I'm finished talking to Flair, I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that someone is gonna leave The Royal Rumble with their head busted open and hating me.... Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "No you're missing The Cult's best angle.....let him keep you out of things. You've got tag gold sit back and see who wants it. There's no need to run right out and pick a fight.....what I'm worried about is keeping both of you guys healthy past the Royal Rumble. That's when we're going to come out with some very original vignettes to promote you....." Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "Keep me healthy? I don't have to be healthy to fight! You want to see me get hardcore? You wanna see me take it to the extreme?I am The King of Extreme and I'm hurting people like its going out of style. And when we get to Seattle, I'm calling out every single tough man on this planet." Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "That's what we need to stay away from....that's what everyone already knows. I said it before and I will say it again you must know your product to effectively market it. What we don't want the powers that be to think of when they think of The Sandman is blood, barbed wire, and that Singapore Cane. they need to know that they are not dealing with some common street thug but with a college educated athelete......" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "So I was starting quarterback at Syracuse for four years about a million years ago, what difference does that make in the WME right now? Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "And you blew off 7 invitations to NFL minicamps to go surfing. You can't make up a story like that, Jim. That's priceless, if that doesn't prove to someone that you don't give a sh*t, never have never will then I don't know what will!" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "Funny thing is....I do give a sh*t about some things, and winning the Royal Rumble is one of them! A guy like me isn't gonna get many chances to fight for the big gold here in the WME...this may be the only shot that I ever get. This could be the closest that I can ever come to it and I'll tell you this right now....I don't give a sh*t about anything standing in my way!!!"
I can't still can't believe that you told him:
NO YOU CAN NOT JOIN THE CULT....BUT YOU CAN LOOK LIKE YOU DID!
His face was redder than his Dad's for a minute!"
I'LL SLAP THE sh*t OUTTA SOMEBODY FOR LESS THAN THAT!
There is a line that must be drawn in the sand between David Flair and The Sandman. I don't want anymore interraction with the staff, that's all on you now......."
'Ok, if the Raiders lose you have to join The Cult...and if the Bucs lose me and Sid will join The West Texas Rednecks!'
Sid was gonna strangle you if the Buccaneers lost!"
..:: Part 2: Till my legs give out, can't shut my mouth ::.. They rode in silence for several miles until Sid rolled over in the back and let out a snort. In his sleep he pulled off one of his cowboy boots and rolled it up to use as a pillow. As soon as the boot was off, Veronica was digging in her purse, she turned around and sprayed about one hundered and fifty dollars worth of Chanel nuber five on his stinking foot. The Sandman lit a cigarette and cued the cd to track 10, "Without Me".......
Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "For some reason tonight I was thinking about The Royal Rumble and it reminded me of a summer I had at Syracuse University. I had a full ride from playing football but that only covered books and tuition. So when I was nineteen I worked as an intern in a lab facility just outside the city limits there in Syracuse. The place had mice, rat and rabbits. I was a drone. Monday I mopped the entire facility. Tuesday I loaded dirty cages into a huge washer. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday would pass in similar fashion. One day I was passing the three hundreth batch of mice into a clean cage, Mike, the head man came into the room. He told me that there was an outbreak of a rodent disease called ectromelia throughout the entire facility. All of the animals in the facility were to be killed and incinerated....." Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "You've got to be kidding me! I couldn't imagine doing anything like that....." Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "Yeah.....neither could my boss which was exactly why he was even telling me any of this! OK, so here's the scenario.....by order of the National Institute of Health, somewhere between fifteen and seventeen thousand little beasts were to be destroyed. Clean their cages, mop their floors, sterilize their rooms and now I kill them. Most of the staff was relocated to another facility near Buffalo. It was pretty much just me and the animals. I had a room all empty and waiting....... Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "I couldn't be alone in there with all of those rats...that would be too creepy for me....and then to have to touch them, and watch them die.....this is starting to sound like an old haunted house story around a campfire somewhere...... Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "But the monsters in those storys aren't real....the monster in my tale is very very real. Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "OOOOOOOOOH......Spooky!" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "I had my plastic bags and my tank of CO2. I would kill. Cage by cage. When the boxes would fill with dead rats and mice I would take the boxes over to the big National Institute of Health facility in Albany where I would incinerate them. From 7:30 in the morning until 4:30 in the evening, I killed them. Each time I would gas....I watched the animals die. When the mice would be put into the bag, they would crawl around and sniff and try to figure out what they were doing in there. Then when I stuck the tube in and turned on the gas they would leap up the sides of the plastic bag as it ballooned full of gas. They looked like they were jumping for joy or something! Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "Now that's just going too far...you were murdering them and enjoying it!" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "No....I was ordered to terminate. I was Adolf Eichmann. I was not a murderer. I was trying to get the job done with maximum efficiency. I would terminate and incinerate. I always liked the way that sounded. I brought them into the camp in carts that held two thousand...efficient. I gassed them in enclosures that contained the bodies, their waste and their disease....efficient. I took said enclosures to the ovens and incinerated, leaving behind disease free ashes...efficient. You call me a murderer? A saint maybe, a murderer, no. After all I stopped the disease and I stopped it's spread. I destroyed the weak and the ill, those who were not fit for survival. I did a job that had to be done......" ..:: Part 3: Till the smoke clears out - am I high? Perhaps ::.. Veronica sat for a few moments pondering the story and not knowing exactly how to respond to it. She lit a cigarette for The Sandman and changed the subject as "Hailie's Song" began to play.....
Anyhow...The procedure was simple enough. All I had to do was put twenty to thirty animals in a plastic bag, squeeze the air out, put a gas hose in and turn on the gas. Over and over, I would go into the rooms and pull out the carts that held the cages. Then I would wheel the cages into what I began to call the death room.....
They would fall back down to the bottom, gasping, soaking in their own urine. They always dies with their eyes open. I would look in the bag at their eyes, their bodies stacked in a heap. The bottom of the bag was always warm from their piss and sh*t. I would tie the bag off and throw it in a specially marked box with the biohazard logo on it."
Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "Out of all of those guys congratulating you and Sid after you won the tag Titles, I swear to God that guy Sean O'Haire was the weirdest....it was just plain creepy. If I didn't know better, I would swear that he was encouraging us to hurry up, go out and celebrate the victory......" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "It sounded more to me like he was encouraging us to go out drinking and driving.....There is a fine line that is walked when The Devil's Advocate unknowingly tries to tempt Satan himself. See guys have been running those head games backstage for years. We all do it to rookies.....what everyone forgets is that I may be the new kid on the block here in the WME but as far as the game goes....I'm not new to this......I'm true to this! And knowing what I know, I could easily see why he would readily encourage such a thing to a guy like me. It's no mystery that to me there's nothing better than an ice cold Budweiser after a match, hell smoking cigarettes and drinking beer before during and after my matches was in my repetoire for years before Austin came to ECW, saw it and made it popular! A guy like O'Haire didn't get to where he is in the WME by being dumb as a bag of rocks. that guy knows that the best thinjg that can happen for him in the Royal Rumble is for me to get a D.U.I. and miss the show being in jail. Don't get me wrong, O'Haire is a helluva athelete and works his ass off every week to get where he is, but he's not unbeatable....I know it and O'Haire knows it. I think he's smart enough to know that no matter what number I draw that my presence has changed the entire face and the attitude of the Royal Rumble." Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "O'Haire's coming in last and he's coming in strong!" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "He's coming in off of 2 big wins, but he's not unbeatable. I will see O'Haire in the ring at the Royal Rumble and I won't be the guy standing back to see who he goes after. I'm gonna be the guy standing in front of him drawing a line in the sand....and that line will not represent what he has to cross to come get some...when I draw a line in the sand it's to show him how far away from an ass-whipping he is!" Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "Just don't focus on O'Haire and forget about...... Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "This is how it's going down....by luck of the draw, Big Sid enters, then Perfect, then me. No tag team is gonna make it past those first 2 minutes. me and Sid aren't allowing it, it's simply out of the question. If we're not defending the titles at the event we still still make a statement of solidarity by eliminating any team standing.....and I hope one of them is Matt Hardy and Foley." Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "Matt doesn't stand a chance to still be in the ring by the time you and Sid get there....." Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "Stranger things have happened, I hope that there is a ring full of bonafide WME superstars when I get there.....I wanna be the guy remembered for eliminating all the real talent, not the guy clearing out the ring so that the posterboys can finish the show off. That's why O'Haire is one of my main focal points in the Rumble....with everyone expecting him to win, I have to be the guy that takes him out!" Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "I bet every guy wants to be the guy that takes out O'Haire....." Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "But do they want it bad enough to get up in his face and do something about it? That's when we'll find out who's really extreme and who's got a cool little catch-phrase that they like saying on television! Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "What it all boils down to is this, alot of guys around here don't see you as much of a threat, they act like you're not even in the Rumble and that's your biggest advantage......" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "My biggest advantage is being The Original Hardcore Icon. I have taken ass whippins that would hospitalize most of the guys on Slam but I keep getting up. As long as I'm conscious there is fight in me. I don't give a sh*t about looking good, I don't have to showcase all of my favorite moves and finishers, if it helps me put someone out then fine so be it, other than that I can't wait for these guys to start whipping out their finisher on me trying to show off, most of these guys are simple to counter. And when you take their head out of the game like that, alot of guys just don't recover from it. They see you differently. I wonder what they really think of me being in the Rumble....a guy with no fear and a taste for pain. A guy that isn't a wrestler but a brawler, that has nothing but disdain, and a total lack of respect for the goals and priorities of every other man entered into this thing! Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "I just think you should be really careful in there with people like The Impact Players.... Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "Those two guys are the least of my concerns! What was the shortest match last week on Slam? I put the fear of The Sandman into The Impact Players and I doubt those guys will even ask for a re-match, much less put up much of a fight. I'm more worried about people like Rikishi. Now that's another guy who could win it, so he's got to go. I know Sid wants Rikishi and he wants him bad. But if I get a shot to take out Rikishi, then it's gonna be over. Rikishi is another guy that would rather look good winning than to win ugly. When he steps up and looks into my eyes he's gonna see that this is no dance contest, this isn't about having fun and showing off for the crowd. This is war! Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "It seems like 28 guys see this as a beauty contest....a talent show, but you and Sid are the only 2 that see it for what it is.....just one big bar room brawl!" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "To me all this looks like are twenty to thirty rats in a plastic bag, scurrying around and trying to get to the top......" ..:: Part 4: I'ma rip this sh*t, till my bones collapse ::.. Track 18, "Til I Collapse" hits the speakers and Veronica turns it up just a bit as she lights a cigarette and passes it to The Sandman who's head bangs in time to the beat..... Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "But do they really want what's waiting for them when they get to the top?" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman " Everyone thinks that they have what it takes to be on top. They all want to be the man. But most guys when they get it they act like a man sitting in a jail cell serving a life sentence. When they get it they want no part of it anymore. No one has any concern for them anymore beyond the duration of their suffering. They know that at some point the star will implode and the man will find a way to escape his misery, and regain his freedom..... Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "Why would you want it if that's how you see it?" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "That's not how I see it, that's how it looks when you can't handle it. I want it because I am a competitor. When I played football no matter what the score I played to win. When I surfed, I was the world champion. Now I could have stayed in any number of small federations and wallowed in the exstacy of a lengthy World Title reign, but what does it mean? I wore the ECW World Title but how prestigious is that when you take it off of a guy like Rhyno? This is the big league....this is where winning a World Title really means something, when you've won this one then you have something to truly be proud of. i don't believe in fate or destiny but I do believe in various degrees of pain and humiliation, the only question is how much pain and humiliation will I ultimately be forced to dish out on my road to the Big Gold here in the WME!" Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "I never knew that you were so focused on this....with you and Sid in this together there's no way you can go wrong......." Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "It's nice to have a partner but really it's not something that I'm used to, and I might never get used to......." Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "Why do you say that?" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "The first feeling I ever had that I felt was my own was when I was young and riding my bike at night.The sound of my tires on the street and the wind rushing by my ears made me feel good. I felt strong and that no one could tell me what to do. I noticed that all of the other kids around me were always with other kids. I never saw a person my age walking alone. I hated males my age. They would tease me and beat me up. The humiliation was hard to take. I would eventually learn to engage these males in episodes of my violent fury that they always regretted. I learned early that there is alot of strength in having nothing to lose. I saw early that I was always going to be on the outside. I knew that by the time I was 12. Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "Oh Jim....that's horrible....." Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "It gets worse.....Years passed and I grew farther apart from my parents and people in school. The only thing that brought me back a little closer to them was the pursuit of women. I always felt that women belonged to them and their palnet and that they could always tell that I spent most of my time on my own. I had almost zero social skills besides those which I had learned watching television shows. I knew that life wasn't like that but I tried to affect the cool of the people I would watch. It did nothing but alienate me further. Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "I really don't know what to say to all of this, but I want to hear the rest very badly....." Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "Back when I wrestled for the ECW in Philadelphia, there was this one little diner that I used to eat at a few nights a week. Usually ther'd be an old man sitting in the corner reading a book or a newspaper. One night he came over to where I was and he sat down across from me....... He leaned over the table and looked directly into my eyes. I could tell that he wanted to tell me something he knew from expierience. Whatever was going to come out of his mouth was something that he had lived, was living through and was doomed to keep living. I could see the pain in his face as he tried to find the words. He pulled back and looked away from me and sighed deeply. He said that he had seen me in here alot and that he was checking out soon. He said that Agent Orange was pushing through his chest and that he didn't give a sh*t anymore. The he handed me a piece of paper and a war medal. I looked at the medal and it was the Purple Heart. He smiled as if he had finally gotten rid of something painful and could die in peace. He got up and left quickly without looking back......" The Sandman reached into his front pocket and pulled out a worn and crumbled scrap of paper and held it out to Veronica. She began to read it, then decided to read it aloud. it was written in blue ballpoint ink, barely readable: Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "This may come as a relief to you...You will always be alone. Crowded rooms, busy streets, it doesn't matter. Your solitude will be with you everywhere, always. You will wake up mornings of all four seasons aloneand go to sleep the same way. The years will pass and you will witness your body slowly show the ravages of time. Of course there will the intermitent crossing of paths with women. Be assured that all of these liasons will be short lived. If you're not immediately distracted and alienated, you will find yourself filled with contempt either real or imagined soon enough. You have seen too much and you know the wrong things. Expierience is a well dressed curse. The higher power has a price. The price is the silence of truth. The ghosts never leave and the echoes never die down. They know you better than anyone living ever will. Until you stop fighting the reality of your life, you will pass the nights looking for someone to share your isolation with. You will never meet your equal because you have none. You will only be reminded of your dicontent, hence your emptiness and contempt while in the intimate company of another. You are uniquely damaged. It's the scars that keep you from ever getting away from what you know that you are. The sooner you learn to accept your fate the better off you are.Time passes easier when you stop tormenting yourself. I know how it is sometimes, no one understands except for other people like me, ones who are damned and know it. And in my company there is no solace because all we have in common is the Abyss, which life has cast us forever to walk through. This is the joke that life plays on us all...look too deeply and regret it forever......." Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "I don't ponder the great mysteries of life anymore because I know now that there are none. I know that some things in life just are......water's wet...the skies blue..... Big Booty Girl::Veronica Caine "And this sunday at The Royal Rumble, you're going to shock the world!" Original Hardcore Icon::The Sandman "Oh I don't really think that's it's going to be much of a shock at all....." The Sandman lights another cigarette as Veronica finally closes her eyes and gives him what he has wanted all night long, a little time alone.
I started to think of myself as a person from another planet. My hatred for people grew more intense as I grew older and understood more of the ways of the world and just how weak humans are. I was done with my parents by the time I was sixteen and merely listened to them so I could remember what to say and what not to say so I could get around them with more ease. I never tried to do anything to make them proud of me. I never thought that they were anything more than people that i was staying with until I could get loose and nothing more. I never did anything to learn about their lives, and to this day I know nothing more of them than I knew when I was a teenager. i do not know when either of them died......."
As I got older and started living on my own I remained a loner. The farther along I got, the more natural it felt. Even now when I walk the streets alone I can still hear the wind like I did on my bike. When I am near people I can't hear the wind. The years passed and the jobs and addresses changed. I drifted all over America, never staying in any one place more than a year or so. The scar tissue on my eyebrows and knuckles became deep lines on my face and hands.
I learned to forget. I learned to hear the sound of the wind rushing by my ears even when I am in an arena full of people screaming for my blood, I can hear it. I always lived alone. Women came seldom and went quickly. After a while I stopped looking for company and just thought about it as I walked the streets at night......"
