Chapter 1: It's The Morphine Talking

The beginning is the end of Andre's career, but it's not the end of the story. The story had just begun.

It was the longest three count I could ever recall. There I was lying in the ring with my knee in constant agony. Truth be told, I had forgotten where I was but I remember hearing the referee count.I saw my whole life flash before my eyes as the count would drag on for what felt like hours. One of many moments that were shown vividly was the time I almost got hit by a car in high school. It's eerie to recall thinking when it happened that if I was an inch closer to the middle of the road, my career would have been over before it began. Yet, there I lied in the middle of the ring with the most devastating injury in my life thinking the exact same thing. But before I bore you with that, why don't we flashback a bit shall we?

The day I almost got hit by a car was a bit different than the typical day of hanging out after school. As usual, I walked home to drop off my bags and my homework was done because I'd do it at lunch. Without any responsibilities holding me back, I hopped on my bike and started to ride around the neighborhood with no path in mind. Typically, I would have already had a destination determined before I left, like a friend's house. To my knowledge, all of them were either busy or unavailable at the time.

Now, it may or may not surprise you as to why I walked home instead of riding my bike to and from school but there's two logical reasons for that. One, the last time I had rode a bike back from a school I ended up catching my gym bag in the wheels of the bike and slammed my knee hard against the pavement as I fell on top of the bike. Luckily for myself, my coach at the time Mr. Nixon, was just leaving and offered to give me a ride home. Unluckily for myself, my right knee was bruised on the inside for all two weeks during Christmas Break. You could imagine the tears I had in my eyes when I couldn't do anything but sit on the couch and play video games for those two weeks. All joking aside, I place the blame for my bum right knee on this incident. Two, most of my friends walked to and from school. I didn't have to walk to school but I definitely made it a priority to walk home from school so we could all talk about the day and what to do after. Which is why this fateful day I had no plans of going anywhere specific because our core group as a whole decided that there wouldn't be any hanging out for the time being due to almost everyone being busy whatever life threw at them at that moment in time. 

I began to cycle around the neighborhood looking for straggling friends that were just as bored as I was. Most of my clique back then lived by this park where we used to play basketball, so I made up my mind to ride over and check anyway. Nobody was in the park, nobody but myself would catch what would happen next. It's almost ironic that both near "career-ending" injuries would be because of a bike. But, I had never stopped loving them. I have never stopped riding them. In a snap of the fingers, I heard my chain break loose as I cut through the park barely making it to the end. I tried to slam on the breaks to avoid riding uncontrollably out into the street but I was launched off the bike and into the middle of the street. An oncoming car luckily broke its straight line and swerved around me, narrowly missing my head as I laid out looking at what possibly could have been my utter demise. It was the closest I had been to death in a long time. Of course as traumatizing as it could have been, nothing was seriously injured. But I did have a few scratches and a bruise on, you guessed it, my right knee. 

I got up and started pushing the bike to my friend Brian's house limping all of the way there. Brian's parents weren't too fond of having people come in when they weren't home or when Brian hadn't finished chores, so when I got there I was met with a "you can't come in, but I'm not doing anything so I'll walk with you." I guess I've always had a high tolerance for pain because not once did I think that maybe I should just go home or call for a ride, rather than to walk on an injured leg. Regardless, we walked to the high school thinking that maybe someone there might have a first aid kit handy. Most of the faculty had gone home and any of them that hadn't were busy running practices, or so we thought. That's when we were approached by one of the greatest campus monitors, Cuevas. 

Cuevas was a really cool guy. Not only was he a campus monitor but a track and field coach and a father to a few of my friends that attended the school as well. He was friendly with everyone and treated everyone like they were his extended family. It should have been no surprise when I met up with him and he said, "Mijo, what happened?" I recall being puzzled but I always laughed any time after I thought about it. I'm not his son after all, but he cared enough to treat me like I was. Although, he did not have a first aid kit readily available, he did have some bandages to cover up the scrapes on my knee. I thanked him. All three of us had a short conversation. Myself and Brian would end up going our separate ways and I would arrive home to tell my parents what happened previously. 

You know, if I had to make a guess about how my career was going to end in the wrestling ring, I would have for sure told everyone that my knee would have been the cause behind it. But could I really be surprised that it was? No. My life had always been one unforeseen setback after the next. I was lucky to have even gotten this far. It looks like the luck had run out.