GOODBYE, MY FRIEND

“But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out”

It wasn’t always fun and I wasn’t always laughing, though I tried. I fired someone once after a particularly bad screwup, and he called me an no-good Irish motherfucker. There might have been a gay slur thrown in there somewhere as well. I went to Vince’s office and blew a gasket. “It’s not true, Vince, and it really pisses me off. I’m not Irish.”

But, seriously, I had to go through some dark times. There was absolutely no laughter associated with the sexual harassment scandal. In the wake of other individuals’ misconduct within the company, I was wrongly accused of being involved in their inappropriate conduct. The fact that I was gay certainly played a part in me being targeted like that. Out of loyalty, I decided to make life easy on Vince: I quit the company. In my mind, that was it; I was done. I was out of the business and I needed a new job. I even went to school to become a bartender. I figured that if I was good enough, I could work in an airport or something and still meet people from all over the world. It was weird being out of the business completely. I really don’t want to go into the details, or give publicity to people who don’t deserve it, but this is my book and I need to make this statement to clarify things forever.

I understand that no matter what I say about the situation, ­people are going to believe what they’ll believe. (And that’s why I’ve decided not to labor over the details.) I could spend page after page on the whole story of going to civil court against that no-good son of a bitch . . . To this day, I honestly don’t know why he picked on me. I talked to him twice while he worked for WWE.

I said hello to him and welcomed him to the company shortly after he was hired, and I told him he would have a good time working with us. I didn’t see him for quite a while after that. He worked in our studio facility and I was at the tower. We were in two different buildings.

I remember the only other time I met him was when Vince had asked me to come to his office. Before you enter, there’s a waiting room. He was there, waiting to see Vince as well. I said hi to him and went in to speak with Vince. I spoke with Vince for maybe five minutes at most. Then, right after seeing me, Vince fired the guy. I honestly didn’t know that’s why he was waiting. In fact, I only found out he had been let go two weeks later. I had not even seen his work on television. It took him six months after being fired to bring the allegations forward, and it was coincidence that that’s when everything else hit the media. It was fucking awful.

Quitting WWE over all of that was the worst time for me professionally. It was horrible. I was loyal, but I was also heartbroken because there was really nothing I could do but wait for my name to be cleared. I was at the mercy of one man’s lies just because I was gay. Worse, some people I considered friends, whom I had helped in the business, went on television and blatantly lied about me.

I later learned that Vince hired an outside agency, the Fairfax Group, to perform an independent internal investigation to determine if I had been guilty of anything. I understood why the company needed to do that. I had quit not because I was guilty, but because I didn’t want to put the company through an ordeal. The investigators talked to everyone: from referees to production crew, from the talent to the office staff. Anyone and everyone who might have had to deal with me in any capacity.

Finally, Vince asked me to come to his office. And this is what he said, “Pat, you could run for President of the United States and you’d be elected. Not one person that we interviewed had a bad word to say about you. Please come back to work.”

I was ecstatic. I returned to the company for SummerSlam 1992 in England; I was not secretly working for the company as some have suggested. And, as I just told you, I really was planning to become a bartender. It was such a relief when I got back to work. Everyone was happy to see me — I can’t even count how many hugs I received. It felt very good to be back, but still the whole experience was just horrible, and it hurt.

If I had wanted it, I could have pursued a big offer to go to WCW. I received word that they wanted to speak with me. I let them know through the same channels that there was no point in talking, as I would never even entertain the idea. It never crossed my mind to work elsewhere in the business, even after I resigned. I was loyal to the company and Vince as if I were his father. It was never about money or glory.

Another thing I want to say is that I’ve never given steroids to anyone. I resent that anyone would say that about me. There is one Montreal journalist that went on the radio and said I distribute steroids out of my suitcase or something like that. My brothers and sisters heard that, and it hurt them. It didn’t bother me the same way; I was not living in Montréal. But I had to go through all of that bullshit with my family for no good reason because of these gratuitous accusations.

When I decided to resign, Louie was disgusted that I’d been dragged through all of this mud. He was behind me 100 percent and he knew I was innocent. He was my rock.

I’ve never been accused of breaking any law in court, never been found guilty of anything. But still those allegations haunt me because they’re repeated by people who don’t bother to check the facts. Through it all, three decades later, nobody has ever come forward or even insinuated that I did something wrong to them at any point in time. It was just crazy shit people made up because they were mad at the company. I am gay, and because of that I became an easy target.

Let me just say to end this: if you didn’t get to WWE, or didn’t succeed, it was because you were not good enough. And not because of anything I did, or didn’t do.

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When you first start wrestling, you don’t make money. And when you finally start making some, you want to improve your life with the big house and the big car. Then one day, maybe, you realize that you don’t need all that shit. You start making smart choices, like getting a smaller place and taking care of your money. Louie and I bought a humongous house in Connecticut: 5,000 square feet and 171 windows (and not one of them was identical). Then one day I woke up and realized I needed that as much as I needed another hole in my head. When I tried to hire someone to wash all of those windows, I was quoted $8,000. Seriously. It was in a neighborhood with big houses and people with a lot of money, so that’s the price everyone was paying. It was crazy to me. I’m not paying $8,000 to have you wash my windows even if there are 171 of them. You know what he said? “It’s 171, outside and inside.”

I still said no and I realized I needed to sell that place. I found a handyman who did the job for $150, proving that it was a completely ridiculous price the specialist had quoted me. You always think you can afford the big house, but it makes no sense. Once you have it, you don’t want it anymore. The best two days I had with that place were the day we bought it and the day we sold it.

Through it all, Louie and I were together. We were a couple for forty years. When the AIDS epidemic hit, we decided to be completely exclusive. We were aware of the dangers of the spread of the disease and we didn’t waste time making that decision. I trusted him and he trusted me. We were smart and we wanted to enjoy life. We could travel and go anywhere — why risk that?

And that’s part of why I was so devastated when I lost him.

I was working in Pittsburgh at the King of the Ring PPV on June 28, 1998. It was a night made famous for the Hell in a Cell match between Mick Foley and Undertaker. Louie was at his sister’s place, just outside of Boston. I was supposed to go back to Montréal after the show. Louie was going to join me, and we were going to spend a week at home with my family.

I got the emergency call while in a meeting at the arena.

When I was told that Louie had passed away, it was like I’d been shot. A part of me died that day, too.

Linda McMahon sat with me; she held me and gave me a handkerchief. She took care of me and led me to a small room, so I could be in private. “Just sit here and relax, Pat,” she said. Then Vince came in, and even in the midst of the craziness that is a WWE PPV day, he stopped to be with me and say, “I’m so sorry for your loss, Pat. We’ll take care of everything.”

About an hour after I’d gotten the news, a limousine was waiting to take me back to the hotel. Linda said, “Take your time at the ­hotel, pack your bag, and compose yourself. We will have a jet ready for you to go to be with Louie’s family.”

She joined me at the hotel and brought me some vodka. I had a drink or two. Then they had me driven to the airport. When I got to Boston, another limo was waiting. I got there at 3 a.m. and all of Louie’s family was there for me.

It was his second heart attack. This one came very suddenly, out of nowhere. I was surprised since he seemed like he was in such good shape. He played golf all the time. I told him that eighteen holes were more than enough in one day, but some days he played thirty-six. As always, he told me not to tell him what to do.

I was lost without him. I wanted to let his family decide everything, but they insisted I make all the decisions. The worst part was seeing him in the casket.

Holy shit, that was tough.

Later on, after the close family had been by ourselves for a while, we started receiving friends and other family members. Then it hit us: there was a lineup outside. He came from a well-known family in his neighborhood; a lot of people wanted to pay their respects. And he was so well liked — he had made so many friends through the years. Everybody from the WWE office came. The priest said to his sister, “What did your brother do to draw all of these people?”

“He was just a good person,” she said. And that was true.

I took very little time off. I was in shock, I guess. Vince said, “Best thing for you might just be to come back to work right away. Get your mind off it.” I’ve never told that to anybody. But he was probably right.

The hard part came when I was alone at night in a hotel room. My reflex before going to bed had always been to call Louie. I’d reach for the phone. Then it would hit me all over again. He was gone. And I would cry like a baby. So I’d pick myself up quickly and go right back to the bar for a few more drinks with the guys before heading straight back up to bed. I’m used to it now, and after a little while, things became a bit easier. Still, it is the most difficult thing I ever lived through.

Louie had worked for WWE, in the merchandising department, for a little while, and he did very well at first. But the head of the department was not an easy fellow to get along with. Vince and Louie were very tight by that point, and one day they had a conversation where it was decided that it was probably better for Louie to stop working for the company. They never had any issues after that, and they always had fun together. Louie told him that the only thing he needed to change was that he should thank people more often.

“What the hell for? It’s their job,” Vince said.

“I know, Vince, but it never hurts to add a thank-you.”

That was my Louie.

Vince has never forgotten it, to this day.

When my mother and father died, I was not the one in charge of making the important decisions. For Louie, I had to do everything, and I think it just made things even more difficult. I gave all of his jewelry, his clothes, and his golf clubs to his brothers. I didn’t keep anything — I have my memories. In my wallet, I still have a small picture of Louie. I’ve had it since forever. I have another picture in my house in Florida and some on my phone. That’s it.

It’s hard now to return to an empty house. After a while, I needed to break away from the past, so I sold our place in Tampa. Now I have a place in Fort Lauderdale. Young or old, a relationship is not always about sex; it’s about having someone to talk to, to kiss, to hold. I’m not sure if I could meet someone today and have a real, meaningful relationship. I’m not looking, that’s for sure. If it happens, it happens. I bring my friends or my sister on cruises or trips now, just to have someone to share the experience, but if I’m alone that’s all right, too.

I realized I experienced closure about two years ago. Mick Foley was the one who finally mustered the guts to ask me about that day. Louie’s passing is one of the few things he remembers from the day of that match with Taker. He hugged me while his tooth still hung by his nose. (It’s a wrestling thing, and you might not get it. But look it up on WWE Network.)

I had just started to talk openly about being gay and how difficult it is, still, to open up. Guys like Mick Foley always respected the fact that I was not fully comfortable talking about this with just anyone. But on that day, he finally said what was on his mind.

“Pat, can I ask you a question? When Louie died . . . He had his heart attack during King of the Ring . . . Did Louie die during my match?”

“Goddamn it, no, you crazy bastard. He died three hours before the show.”

Mick was relieved. “So, I didn’t kill Louie?”

He’d harbored that guilt for thirteen years. That day I laughed for the first time while speaking about losing Louie. I needed that. Mick, thank you, my friend.

So goodbye my friend

I know I’ll never see you again

But the time together through all the years

Will take away these tears

It’s okay now

Goodbye my friend

I’m not much for keeping mementos in my house, but that frame with a golf bag is a daily reminder of my Louie.