Through The Shattered Glass

by Jeanie Clarke

  As the match was concluded by special referee Ken Shamrock, a mixed-martial artist from the world of UFC, Bret continued his assault to a chorus of boos.

  The circle was now complete, and both wrestlers’ roles had been reversed with masterful precision. Bret was now received as the callous heel, and Steve was accepted as the hero; a lone wolf with a never-say-die attitude.

  I was so proud of Steve that weekend. After years of hard work, he had finally made it. He was facing the biggest names in his profession, and more than holding his own. His star was shining bright.

  The match with Bret that weekend had elevated Steve to the point where he was now viewed as the hottest talent in the company and it kick-started his hot on-screen feud with The Hart Foundation, a stable comprised of Bret and his brother Owen, their brothers-in-law Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart and Davey Boy Smith, and Steve’s former tag team partner Brian Pillman.

  Steve might not have been the WWF Champion, but his cult fan-base had risen immensely to the point that he was gradually finding fame as a mainstream star. At live events, the wrestling ring would frequently resemble a miniature island within an expansive ocean of Austin 3:16 signs and T-shirts.

  The demand for Steve was incredible as he was being groomed to reach the top of the World Wrestling Federation. In addition to his already gruelling events schedule, he was making an increasing amount of publicity appearances to capitalise on his soaring popularity.

  As a result, he was rarely at home to spend any time with his family.

  As much as I had a fondness for Texas, I still couldn’t settle into the hacienda when I returned from the frenetic rush of the WrestleMania 13 weekend schedule and after-party.

  I was starting to miss Steve more than ever. Very much alone with the children, I had been unable to make friends in the remote town of Boerne.

  As I was still reeling from the effects of post-natal depression, the detachment from any semblance of a social community was haunting me. There was neither a nearby church, nor an existing network of friends anywhere close.

  Stuck at the hacienda without any company, I felt abandoned. Shutting off from the world, I soon found myself in a steady decline towards a reclusive existence.

  For the first time, I was beginning to yearn for a means of escape from my living reality.

  17 THE LONE STAR STATE

  As I had been struggling to cope with the loneliness of life in Boerne, I was determined to find a social circle for the girls. I did not want them to grow up and feel trapped in the house, so I searched for a day care centre which could enable them to interact with other children. At the centre, I quickly became friends with one of the carers, a really lovely lady named Mary Hernandez. Sensing my loneliness, she understood my plight and had offered to help babysit so I could get out the house and form some measure of a life for myself.

  Within weeks, I required a small surgical procedure to remove my breast implants which had been causing ongoing discomfort since my third pregnancy. In order to relieve myself of the agony from the operation, I had been given Vicodin, a pain relief medication. The pills did help me overcome the pain, but once the prescription ran out I quickly got another one, even when my aches had dissipated.

  Vicodin gave me a sense of euphoria. It offered a quick-fix and it was an easy escape from the loneliness I was still feeling from the remnants of my lingering post-natal depression. By the summer of 1997, it became a daily habit, offering an aid to cope with the fatigue of the never-ending, scorching days in South Texas.

  It was not long before I could not get through a day without craving more. With my body developing immunity to the pills, I was soon scrambling to find a bigger fix.

  Ever since his time in WCW, Steve had been taking a legal drug called GHB to help him function. It was readily available from health food stores and had many uses. It could aid sleep, improve athletic performance, burn fat and could even provide an intoxicating sensation.

  After finding Steve’s stash of GHB, I decided to give it a try.

  As soon as I tried it, the results were immediate. Despite being unsettled in my home, the intake of GHB made me feel incredibly relaxed. I reached out to Steve’s contact at the gym, and ordered more.

  When the effects would wear off, I would feel incredibly numb. I found that Vicodin could counter some of the numbness, so I started to interchange between the pills, discreetly mixing them when I was alone in the hacienda.

  Panic attacks. These became commonplace as I increased my intake of Vicodin. Waking up in the middle of the night with high levels of anxiety, my body had no strength, my fingers seemed weak and my heart was thumping through my chest.

  In desperation, I clutched to the calm persuasion of some more GHB to slow my heart rate. Each time that it happened, I could depend on it bring me back to a tranquil place where my mind and body needed to be. Nobody knew about my little secret.

  But nobody needed to. My secret was not a problem.

  It was my way of coping with the pressures of family life in a remote town in which I felt alienated.

  Anyway, I was still very much functioning. I was able to look after the girls and my home was in order. Nobody would notice if I needed a little pill every now and then. And nobody did.

  When Steve would come home from his commitments with the WWF, he also wanted to find some means of escapism. He needed to unwind, and would either ride around on our four-wheeler or sit around the house and drink. Frequently, he would head into the woods with his new friends Ricky and Sandra, who were avid deer hunters.

  As the wait-at-home mother, all I wanted to do was to go out with Steve when he would eventually return. Unfortunately, when he did, he would journey straight out for hours on end or refuse to leave the house. Either way, I was stuck and felt abandoned.

  But there was a way to cope with that.

  If his tour had taken a larger toll on his body than usual, Steve would sometimes order Somas. These were a powerful muscle relaxant that was highly effective in managing the aches and pains that were caused by his punishing bumps in the ring.

  It was not long before I had started to experiment with them. The Somas worked. They insulated me from the nagging pains we feel in our day to day lives. Of course, there were dangers in using Somas regularly. However, I was using them in moderation. I was still very much in control.

  However, it was not long before I got a call that made me feel anything but in control. In fact, it was a call on 3rd August 1997 that made me feel absolutely powerless.

  It was Steve, and he was calling from the hospital in a highly emotional state. He was choked up and sombre, and did not sound like himself at all. He had just wrestled a pay-per-view match with Owen Hart in East Rutherford, New Jersey, but something had gone terribly wrong within the execution of the finishing sequence of the match.

  Owen had lifted Steve upside down for a tombstone piledriver. When performed correctly, the piledriver is a manoeuvre that elicits tremendous heat from the crowd, as it involves a wrestler being dropped headfirst to the mat. But there is a reason the move looks so unsafe; it really is dangerous.

  Steve had not been elevated to the point that he could be fully protected when the move was performed. Owen then dropped downward, and the weight of both men came crashing down to the canvas, smashing the top of Steve’s head into his neck with devastating force.

  For moments, Steve just lay there. Motionless, and without any feeling below his neck, there was concern that he could be paralysed.

  Owen sensed something was wrong, and mugged to the crowd to buy some time for Steve to get checked out. Trying to salvage the intended finish to the match and provide the desired result, Hart then fell backwards, allowing Steve’s limp arms to make the cover and win Owen’s title.

  Steve was the new Intercontinental Champion of the WWF, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was his health.

  Like many, I had been watching the SummerSlam pay-per-view from the house and hadn’t realised that
the ending had not gone as planned. In Steve’s matches with The Hart Foundation, he would often struggle out of the ring in a seemingly-battered state and, truth be told, I just thought the injury was part of the storyline.

  After Steve gingerly walked backstage, he was rushed by an ambulance to the hospital. He was taken for an immediate scan to assess the long-term damage to his spinal cord.

  Speaking to Steve was a sobering reminder of just how dangerous each manoeuvre in professional wrestling could be if not performed correctly.

  For the first time, I heard true vulnerability in Steve’s voice. He had an appointment scheduled with a neurosurgeon that specialised in spinal trauma, and Steve asked if I would accompany him. He didn’t need to ask. Of course I would.

  In no uncertain terms, the doctor told Steve that his injury was the worst he had ever seen, and that his career as a wrestler was finished.

  Professional wrestling had become Steve’s life, and he had just started to break into the prime of his career only to have it all stripped away.

  I looked into Steve’s eyes, and saw his face sink with disappointment. I could feel his pain, and I burst into tears.

  “Crying will not do you any good,” scowled the consultant.

  I was taken aback by the insensitivity of the doctor. I knew how great a loss it would be for Steve to end his career under such unfortunate circumstances.

  I could tell that Steve was not ready for such a setback. He insisted that he would get a second opinion before taking such drastic action as leaving the business, especially since he had finally found his niche and true calling as an on-screen character.

  Further investigation was required to establish the best course of surgical action, so we both headed back to Boerne, where Steve’s body could get some respite.

  When we finally returned to the hacienda, the stress on Steve started to put a strain on our relationship. He was incensed at Owen for not calling him to check on his condition. Steve perceived that there was a lack of respect shown and he even suspected that there had been some malice to hamper his career and push him back down the card. Out of action for an indefinite time, I tried to make Steve’s life more tolerable by trying to appeal to his sense of humour. We had shared a goofy connection from the minute we established a friendship, and I was doing what I could to make him laugh and distract him from the stress of his uncertain future.

  In the U.K., there was a famous children’s comic strip, entitled The Beano, which I used to read every week. One of the main characters was the fastest boy alive, Billy Whizz. I used get pictures taken, in which I would pull these silly poses and faces in a running stance, and pass them to Steve. He would take one look, and crack up with laughter.

  But I knew my jokes and attempts to get him to smile wasn’t enough, and he started to become increasingly close with our new neighbours.

  Steve started to spend a lot more time at Ricky and Sandra’s house, and he found it to be a place where he could escape from his career and family. I had started to go there too, but there were some things I could not identify with whenever their discussions would drift onto various topics.

  It was during these visits and social time together that I began to realise the vast cultural differences between us. I became unsettled as I tried to adjust to life in Boerne.

  On 31st August, I caught a newsflash on the television. Diana, the Princess of Wales, had been killed in a horrific car accident in Paris. I was in shock at this dreadful news, and I cried.

  Diana was a symbol of compassion and she had captured the imagination of the British public with her undying kindness. I had sympathy for Diana once the details of her loveless marriage with Charles were revealed. She was someone who had all the fame and fandom in the world. But for her it was irrelevant, as she did not have the love of her husband.

  She was a lonely girl, trapped in a life that made her deeply unhappy.

  Shaken by this tragic event, I went through to see Steve who was at Ricky and Sandra’s house. I had tears in my eyes, and I told them what had happened. They could not understand why I would be affected by the death of someone I didn’t know, and they laughed at me.

  To them, Diana was just some chick who married a prince. To me, she was symbolic of something much more. The reaction of the three drove me to a sudden realisation; I was starting to feel like the odd one out in my life with Steve.

  When Steve and I would visit Ricky and Sandra, I was starting to feel like the black sheep, as they only seemed to speak about two topics. Over and over, it got increasingly tiresome, but I was making an effort to be a part of the group and I still went through to visit.

  All three were avid hunting enthusiasts. I always knew Steve was a fan of shooting from our time together in Atlanta. I have never stopped or tried to discourage anyone from doing what makes them happy in life, but the thought of killing animals for fun just was not for me.

  I would bow out whenever the three would head off to go on one of their trips to snag some game, but tolerated it as I knew it was their right to do so.

  There was one topic that I felt was not their right, or anyone else’s to express.

  It was not long before I found out that Ricky and Sandra were fiercely racist.

  Whenever we would visit, they would constantly fill their conversations with the N-word and how they found Mexicans to be beneath them.

  The word ‘nigger’ will always be an abhorrent slur from a shameful era in American history, and I could not stand to hear it being used so casually. I would voice my concerns about the use of such nasty dialogue, especially if they were around the girls.

  Frequently, my pacifist reasoning was turned on its head and was used by the pair as a means to mock me. I was often ridiculed for my soft-nature and Christian views, which were amusing to them.

  On one occasion, I expressed disbelief that the Ku-Klux-Klan had arrived in town and set up an enlistment drive for new members. When the topic was discussed, I was disgusted to find that there was not a shared derision of this extreme faction in Boerne.

  When we had that discussion, I was just yards from the house, but I could not have felt further from home. For the first time in years, I yearned to be back in England.

  To cope with my homesickness, I secretively swallowed a few more pills on top of my regular amounts in an effort to numb the pain. Slowly, my dosage increased to the point that I had started to become complacent in my domestic life.

  I couldn’t even bring myself to unpack many of my books and memorabilia that I took across from our move. All my belongings just stayed in a barn that was yards from the hacienda, locked away in storage. This added to my misery, as the house just stayed in the same state it had been as we arrived.

  Steve’s mum came over to check on us, and could tell that the house was in need of modernisation. She was an interior designer herself, and kindly got to work. In fairness, she made a real effort, hanging up curtains and wallpaper and in an attempt to make things more comfortable for us. Beverly was very good at what she did, and I was grateful that she made the effort, even if there was still an underlying issue between us.

  It gave me a boost, and Steve and I started to resume our hobby of antique shopping, searching for vintage signs. We were starting to get closer again as his nagging pains were starting to heal.

  Feeling physically better, Steve had sought a second opinion on his neck injury. He got the news he was desperate to hear. Within a few months, he would be able to return to the ring.

  He called Vince, and a plan was put in place for his return. Instead of waiting until he was fully healed, Steve would make his return imminently. He could be used as an on-screen character who might not be competing in actual wrestling matches, but was still integral to a show that greatly needed strong characters to compete with WCW’s star-studded spectacles.

  McMahon was keen to use the legitimate neck injury as a means to enhance Steve’s appeal, pitting him in confrontations against the corporation’s offic
ials. He wanted to make it seem that political obstacles were stopping Steve from returning to action, and bolster his underdog appeal.

  By late September, Steve would resume his anti-hero character and became an even bigger star. Interrupting the WWF’s programming, he dished out beatings to anyone who tried to prevent him from returning to the ring, including the management team who had stripped him of his newly-won championship for his own ‘best interests’.

  The fans saw Steve as an anti-authority figure, and cheered his on-screen rebellious attitude and out-of-control antics. The hiatus from the ring had been a blessing for the ‘Stone Cold’ character, as the demand for his return made him a red-hot commodity. Just as things seemed right for Steve in the WWF, tragedy struck.

  On 5th October 1997, the World Wrestling Federation was preparing for its eighteenth In Your House pay-per-view, entitled Badd Blood. In the afternoon of the show, one of the talents hadn’t arrived, and could not be contacted.

  It turned out that it was Steve’s old tag team partner, and good friend, Brian Pillman.

  A call was made to the Budget Tel Motel in Bloomington Minnesota, where Brian had stayed the night before, to check and see if he had simply overslept or missed his flight. Brian’s body was found motionless by one of the maids and was pronounced dead as soon as the ambulance had arrived. He was 35 years old.

  For years, Brian had been one of the most promising talents in wrestling. He possessed a fantastic mind for the business, and was well-liked by most of his peers. Unfortunately, Pillman could never escape his own demons, which stemmed from abuse of multiple prescription and recreational drugs.

  When the autopsy was completed, the coroner had discovered that Brian had developed a hereditary condition of heart disease; however there were significant amounts of cocaine found within his system.

  As a result, his body was not given the chance to fight when he suffered the heart attack that, ultimately, ended his life.

  Brian was respected as a wrestler, but moreover, he was widely known to be a caring father and was in the midst of raising three children and two stepchildren with his wife Melanie.