EPISODE 3 THE UNDERDOG

Two years into her relationship with Chris, my mom was already burnt-out. She was working full-time, flying around the world, nurturing a blossoming romance, and parenting an absolute asshole of a teenager. (That would be me.)

She decided to look for houses located closer to Chris in Bayside, Dublin, about thirty minutes from where we lived. She may as well have wanted to move to India for how far away that seemed to my thirteen-year-old self. And, of course, this meant everything was about to change!

I’d have to leave the house I grew up in. I’d have to change schools. I’d have to leave all of my friends. My dad would have to move out.

“Why can’t Chris just move closer to where we live?” I bargained.

“Because his kids’ mother lives closer to him and he has to see his kids too.”

I didn’t like any of this! I felt like our family was getting the shaft, while his was being catered to.

In adult reality, my mom was looking for a way out of the tension-ridden house that in many ways had kept her captive in her own home—as one might expect when cohabitating with one’s ex-husband. Plus, Chris was an amazing man who had proved to be an incredible partner for my mother and it was about time they progressed this damn inconvenient thing. She also didn’t want to move in with him either, worrying that living with someone who wasn’t our dad would be difficult on my brother and me. And I’m sure sparing Chris my teenage wrath.

After my mother had searched for months on end, as if by some great miracle the house next door to Chris came up for sale, and my mom instantly made her move.

It rained on moving day, perfectly encapsulating my mood. We’ll ignore the fact that it rains most every day in Ireland.

As I left the only home I had ever known, I yelled at my mom that I hated her—with a venom I don’t think I’ve spit out since.

My dad attempted to comfort me as he guided me to the car, but I was too far gone. He hated her too. The last nearly ten years had worked well for him. He loved his kids more than anything and now he had to move away from them. He wasn’t able to afford much in terms of housing, which automatically disqualified him from majority custody.

Mom’s new house was a fixer-upper verging on dilapidated. The previous owners clearly dabbled in pharmaceutical sales of the street variety, as they left behind their triple-beam scale and a constellation of burn marks all over the carpet.

The stress I was putting my mom under was taking its toll on her. She began wasting away to nothing, unable to eat, and gagging at the dinner table when she tried. She only ever wanted to be a good mother, raise good children, and live a good life. But somehow, no matter how many masses she attended, things weren’t working out that way for her. And unfortunately, for the next few years, I was only going to get worse.

What’s more, the new neighborhood was a maze of dodgy side alleys and nettle-filled fields, with a random ancient graveyard smack-dab in the middle of it. Perfect for delinquent teens—of which there happened to be an abundance. Which facilitated my newfound hobbies of street drinking and pot smoking that I had picked up to cope with all of these thirteen-year-old emotions.

On the plus side, me and my brother were becoming closer, bonding over our shared disdain for our current situation. Richy was four years my senior, and though I had annoyed the ever-living shit out of him for most our lives, he had the patience of a saint and, ultimately, all I wanted was to be like him. He is one of life’s good guys, an old soul with an innate wisdom about him.

Richy also excels at anything he puts his mind to. While I never had many interests beyond hanging with my friends and watching television, he was always doing something productive—karate, playing guitar, playing rugby—but ultimately his greatest love was creating art. He was gifted from a young age, drawing comic book characters or pulling tar up from the roads on hot summer days to make his own action figures. And though he was older, smarter, and more accepting than I was, he was struggling with this family deterioration too, maybe even more so as he attempted to balance his own grief with also being my shield of armor. When my parents’ fighting was at its peak, he bore the weight so I would be less impacted.

Through all of these changes, we found solace in two things.

Number one: wrestling. Of course we were all Hulkamaniacs in the early nineties, singing along to “Real American” as the balding, bandana-clad hero flexed his twenty-four-inch pythons to the sheer delight of all watching. But once I had passed the age of five, it was no longer hip to love wrestling. After a long period of abstention from all things WWE, my brother rekindled a love for the sport, and that meant I, inevitably, was soon to follow suit. It was the height of the Attitude Era, where wrestling was bold and brash, beating up your boss only led to making more money, the objectification of women was strangely celebrated, characters were outlandish, and it had just become cool for teenagers and folk in their twenties to re-indulge, while classrooms were filled with kids giving one another the middle finger and telling their teachers to “suck it.”

But I wasn’t just going to accept wrestling’s coolness willy-nilly. It would have to prove itself to me. Because clearly I was the authority on cool.

“That stuff is for babies,” I jeered my brother as he watched. “Don’t you know it’s all fake?” I was the worst.

“Actually, it has gotten really good,” Richy replied cool as a cucumber, completely unbothered by my insults.

And while I was doing my own thing around the house, listening to Nirvana or detailing my woes in journal entries, I kept one eye on the television—due to one captivating performer.

His name was Mick Foley and he was involved in an angle with Triple H. Mick, a large and hairy man, missing half of an ear and with the physique of a springtime bear, had a particular way of speaking that I was mesmerized by. With his slightly high-pitched and cracking voice, there was something about the way this madman told a story that would not allow me to look away. He had intensity and warmth in equal measures. He was brave but vulnerable and also had incredible comedic timing. More than anything, he was authentic. Through my TV screen I could tell he was a wonderful human.

In my teenage disarray and feeling like I didn’t belong, I could relate to Mick. Like me, he wasn’t naturally gifted. He wasn’t an athlete, but he made up for it by taking huge risks in the ring and I wanted those risks to pay off for him so badly.

I began to instruct my brother, “Just call me when Mick comes on!”

Mick would come on the telly and reel me in—and, well, after that I was there to stay. It would become one of my life goals to one day give Mick Foley a big bear hug. And while I don’t want to give away the ending of this book… (but tick ).

Wrestling is a funny thing. Once you get into it, you can’t seem to shut up about it. Or at least I couldn’t. The spectacle, the story lines, the conflict and resolution. The athletic maneuvers, the stunts, good prevailing over evil and even if things aren’t going well for our heroes there could be a win around the corner. It had everything: drama, comedy, romance, adrenaline, excitement. Above all, it had hope.

I revered the effort, training, dedication, and toughness that it took to become a WWE superstar. Even though I myself knew nothing of discipline, I could live vicariously through my idols.

I wanted to talk to everyone about wrestling. I wanted to break down the nuance in the ring and the gossip outside of it. And I found a place I could go on endlessly, which brings me to number two: the Central Bank. I’m sure you’re thinking, That’s an odd thing for a thirteen-year-old to be into. It wasn’t actually banking I was into, but the location of the bank. It was in the middle of Dublin City and became the hangout spot for misfits of all kinds. The goths, the hippies, the rockers, and the emos would all go there on the weekends to drink away our common misery, bonding over our dysfunctional families and love of alternative music and of course wrestling.

We weren’t the bad kids, but we were the kids sneaking vodka into our Coca-Cola bottles and drinking in the bathroom of the cinema, or stealing the chocolate bars on the bottom shelf in the local corner store when no one was looking. At the same time, we thought about the state of society and the world, and wanted peace, love, and harmony. Well, mostly.

There was, amidst us, a twenty-four-year-old man named Zippy who had spent time in prison and had emerged unreformed and who would inspire fear amongst us teens whenever he entered our orbit. However, he adored one of my friends, Steven. Steven and I had connected over our mutual love of wrestling. He was a smart, dashingly handsome lad with beautiful long, flowing blond hair—and to top it all off, he was in a band. Swoon.

Steven got along with everyone. And thus, even the most feared thug in the group, Zippy, wanted to impress him.

While discussing wrestling one evening, all three of us walked through the center of the city. We had just descended a set of concrete stairs leading to a large courtyard when we came across a kid no older than sixteen.

“What’s your name?” Zippy asked as we approached him.

“Who, me? I’m—”

Suddenly, with no warning, Zippy scooped under the kid’s arm, hoisted him up into the air, and rock-bottomed him flush on the concrete, his skull hitting the ground with a most disgusting thud.

The kid, miraculously still conscious, got up and scurried away as quick as his shaky legs could carry him, blood coming from his head, as Steven and I looked on with wide-eyed horror.

As much as I loved wrestling, I didn’t want a live impromptu show. Especially when one of the participants wasn’t consenting. I abided by the “Don’t try this at home” WWE warning. I wished this full-grown dodgy man would too.

Back in my new neighborhood, I had acquired a group of friends. We all had the same love of getting stoned and hanging around the mean streets of Bayside. Everyone was slightly older than I was, so it made purchasing alcohol even easier.

With my mom being gone on overnights on weekends, our place became the party house. Most weekends were fairly tame, but occasionally the wrong person would invite a group of wrong people. Then my brother and I had to prevent fights from breaking out and stop people from setting fire to our furniture.

My mom could smell the stench of smoke when she walked into the house, jet-lagged and exhausted from working through the night. She’d start frantically cleaning, disappointed in us and worn-out by our irresponsibility and recklessness.

We, of course, would deny everything emphatically. Innocent until proven guilty! And she had no concrete evidence that there were hordes of delinquent youths utilizing her home as if it were the local nightclub.

My aunt, noticing my wildness—and probably thinking she could extinguish the flames, considering she was a former wild woman herself—took me away to Italy with her and her family for two weeks during the summer, with the hope this would give me some grounding and life experience.

The first week was filled with sightseeing and historical excursions. Getting to travel through the city of Pompeii, imagining the world two thousand years ago and the horror people experienced as their town was covered in molten lava, reminded me of the insignificance of my problems and that maybe things weren’t as bad as they could be. Especially when I was spending the evenings eating authentic Italian pizza and the world’s best gelato.

However, when we came to the relaxing, sitting by the pool part of the vacation, I was less than enthused. My rotund fourteen-year-old body and frizzed-up mop of hair had me rather self-conscious, so I would do all I could to avoid wearing a bikini in public.

One day while I sat next to my aunt, trying awkwardly to cover up my body, she did her best to comfort me. “Oh, Becky darling,” she said with sincerity, “there’s far too many blond beauties around here for anyone to be looking at you.”

Oh, gee, thanks. That makes me feel fucking great.

She quickly found out that I really was as difficult as my mom claimed. I pouted all day long, secretly smoked my cigarettes, and hoarded alcohol in my room, unwilling to socialize with anyone. But Italy really is beautiful in the summertime.

When school recommenced, I had fully retracted into myself, showing little interest in anything other than getting high in the bushes during lunch break. I even failed PE, which, by the way, I thought you passed just by showing up. And I was there, bloodshot eyes and all, refusing to do anything. I was worried I looked stupid when I ran. To be fair, high as I was, my worry was most likely valid.

By the time the parent-teacher meetings rolled around, my mom left the school in tears after being waterboarded with stories of how lazy and unmotivated I was, how I was falling behind and something needed to be done.

I knew I wasn’t doing well and I had no aversion to making my mom cry myself, but when someone else made her cry on my behalf, that was different. It felt like maybe, perhaps, there was a small chance that I was, in fact, the problem and needed to do something about it.

As I sat in my dismal bedroom, contemplating the meaning of everything and whether school mattered or if a better way to cope with this confusion was to find myself a can of beer and chill out in the graveyard by the house, I had an epiphany. I had to turn my life around once and for all right now.

But how?