Act 2
Bret and Shawn are sitting in two jail cells directly next to one another, separated by only a set of bars. There is a bench in each cell, and both men are sitting. Shawn is talking on his cell phone with one hand and holding a bag of ice to his groin with the other. The actor who was the bartender is now a cop, sitting in a chair reading a paper.
Shawn: Baby, come on. It’s not like it’s real jail. Nobody is going to press charges.
Bret: I’m pressing charges.
Shawn: You attacked me!
Bret: You provoked me!
Shawn: No, honey, everything is fine. The guy I got into a fight with is just being himself.
Bret: Bite me.
Shawn: Just some guy. No, no one you know. His name is Bret. Baby, you can’t scream at him for beating up an old man. He’s an old man too. We’re both old men. Honey, they’ll let us out in the morning, right officer?
Cop: Soon as your friend agrees not to cause anymore trouble, y’all can go Mr. Michaels.
Shawn: You hear that? As soon as BRET agrees not to attack me again, we can get out of here. The cop is a fan. Heh! No honey, it wasn’t Bret Hart. Could you imagine if Bret Hart was so incredibly anal that he would attack me thirty years after Montreal?
Bret: Go to hell.
Shawn: Baby, I’ll be out soon. I’m fine! I’m perfectly fine. I’m sorry I woke you. See you tomorrow. Love you too. I won’t drop the soap, I promise. Bye.
Shawn hangs up the phone and with a grunt of pain stands up. He walks to the front of the cell and sticks his arm through the bars. The officer takes it.
Bret: I’ll give you this, you could work through an injury when it was convenient for you.
Shawn: Thanks for letting me use my phone.
Cop: No problem man. You want anything, anything at all, you let me know.
Shawn: Very nice of you.
Cop: Shawn Michaels! THE Shawn Michaels in my holding tank! Man, I got tickets to your Q and A tomorrow.
Shawn: I’ll make sure you got a front row seat.
Cop: Man, my daddy used to watch you back in the day. I seen all your matches on the computer, daddy downloaded all dem. Drove my momma batshit crazy the way he’d walk around the house singing Sexy Boy. You sang that yourself, right?
Shawn: Yep. Not my proudest moment in my career, but…
Cop: Nah man, it’s hilarious!
Shawn: Thank you.
Cop: And your son is awesome! Cameron’s my favorite wrestler.
Shawn: I’m very proud of him, thank you.
Bret: Hicks sure love the Michaels.
Cop: You insulting my father buddy?
Bret: I’m insulting that prick your daddy worshipped.
Shawn: Lay off his dad, Bret. Hey, officer, you want to say he assaulted you, I’ll back you up.
Bret: Yeah, screw me over again.
Cop: You were a wrestler too?
Bret: Yes! Bret Hart! The Hitman! The excellence of execution!
Cop: You killed people?
Bret: No.
Shawn: But he did put a lot of people to sleep.
Cop: I know Dallas Hart. You his daddy?
Bret: Yes. You know Shawn Michaels but not Bret Hart. Do you know the Rock?
Cop: Yeah.
Bret: Stone Cold?
Cop: 3:16, baby!
Bret: Ric Flair?
Cop: WOOH!
Bret: Hulk Hogan?
Cop: We’re not big fans of his in our household.
Bret: But you heard of him?
Cop: Yeah.
Bret: Honky Tonk Man?
Cop: That guy was hilarious.
Bret: You know the Honky Tonk Man but you don’t know Bret Hart?
Cop: Should I?
Bret: I’ve got a few DVDs back at my hotel room. I’ll give one when I get out of here.
Cop: Pass. If it was any good my daddy would’ve downloaded it for me. He downloaded all the great matches and told me about all the best wrestlers. Man, that Jake Roberts had issues.
Bret: I was the greatest wrestler ever!
Cop: You are sitting next to the greatest wrestler ever.
Bret: I beat him! I beat him in the first WWE ladder match! I invented the ladder match!
Cop: No, that was Shawn and Razor Ramon. Chico! Someting happens to my gold, someting happens to you.
Shawn: That’s a great impression. Bret also invented the Internet.
Bret: You’re a cocksucker.
Shawn: Come on buddy! I’m fine, and obviously this guy is going to be a problem. How about you let me out and keep him here until he calms down?
Cop: No can do Mr. Michaels. We got a policy here. Either both elderly gentlemen agree not to fight or you’re here till morning.
Shawn: I completely understand. I just want to make it clear that I apologize for my role in the fight and promise I will not start a fight with Mr. Hart.
Cop: We’re just waiting on the excellence of electrocution then.
Bret: You know he said sweet chin music before he kicked me in stomach? He intended to break my jaw. That is intent to assault a senior citizen!
Cop: That’s not a crime.
Bret: It should be.
Shawn: Will you just say that you won’t attack me again so we can both get out of here?
Bret: Not until you apologize for Montreal.
Cop: That’s in Kentucky, right?
Bret: Canada.
Cop: Whatever.
Shawn: Would it be okay if I gave you a fake apology?
Bret: That’d be fine.
Shawn: Well I won’t.
Bret: That’s fine too.
Cop: It’s none of my business Mr. Michaels, but you mind if I ask what happened up in Montreal?
Bret: I’ll tell you what happened.
Shawn: He asked me.
Bret: I was the victim, I get to tell the story!
Shawn: You weren’t a victim.
Bret: The hell I wasn’t.
Cop: I asked Mr. Michaels, not you, “Hitman”. You quiet down in there.
Shawn: Thank you. Now then, we had a title match in Montreal. I needed to win the title to save the company cause Bret was leaving, but Bret refused to lose to me and he had it in his contract where he could do that.
Bret: There’s a long back story here he’s leaving out.
Shawn: So me and the boss and a ref got together and arranged it so I would win the match without Bret knowing it was going to happen. We executed the plan, Bret went to work for WCW for millions of dollars a year and I got the title.
Cop: Oh. That doesn’t sound too bad.
Bret: It ruined my life.
Cop: Come on! So they played a bit of a prank on you while you were leaving. Guy named Steve used to be my partner, he got a job working for a software company. On his last day we put crazy glue on his seat and on his phone. Man, he was pissed something sore, but he got over it okay.
Bret: Tell me, did you do this to Steve in front of millions of people? Did you have a midget mocking Steve come into the station the next day? Did your police station make billions from the repercussions of the prank over the next decade? Did you employ Steve’s brother and accidentally get him killed doing something a cop should never have been doing in the first place?
Cop: Nah, we didn’t do none of that.
Shawn: He has a point though. What if you had just laughed it off?
Bret: Go to hell.
Shawn: Seriously. What if you had just reacted to it as though it was a simple prank, another dick move by me at the end of a long line of them? What if instead of throwing a fit and destroying the set you shrugged your shoulders and left with a smile on your face?
Bret: I reacted as anyone would.
Shawn: No! You brought up Hogan before, and he changed the plan hours before the match. We were supposed to trade victories, and he suddenly decided that I had gone too far in the promos that I didn’t even want to do in the first place. I might have made some snide comments the next night, but I didn’t bitch about it for the next… well, you’ve been bitching about it for the last three decades, haven’t you?
Bret: It was a company wide conspiracy against me, orchestrated by everyone I trusted and you. Hogan was one man.
Shawn: So were you. Hey, let’s talk about the repercussions, shall we? You became the most popular wrestler in the world.
Bret: I already was.
Shawn: Again, not Canada, the world. Vince became the biggest heel with me a close second. Tell me, why was Vince able to spin that into gold while you didn’t do anything with it in WCW?
Bret: We both know the answer to that. Bischoff loved Hogan.
Shawn: You played the politics game as well as if not better than me in WWE. Why weren’t you able to pull Hogan’s dick out of Eric’s mouth?
Bret: What do you want? You want to me to say I didn’t care anymore? I was a little jaded by Montreal? Of course I was.
Shawn: Montreal didn’t ruin your life. You let Montreal ruin your life.
Bret: Bullshit.
Cop: I think Mr. Michaels is right. See, when you let a situation dominate you instead of dominating a situation, well, that situation ends up sticky.
Bret: Thank you Officer Gump, but…
Cop: My last name isn’t Gump. It’s Ronson. Deputy Ronson.
Bret: My mistake. I never said I wasn’t blameless, but everything that happened after that stemmed from Montreal. If I could go back and do things differently, of course I would. That’s why I accepted the Hall of Fame invitation. That’s why I helped with the DVD, because I knew it wasn’t all because of Vince. He and I, we’d change the past if we could. But not you Shawn.
Shawn: Not me?
Bret: Not you. You didn’t suffer one bit.
Shawn: Because of what happened, I had to fight the Undertaker at the next big Pay Per View in a casket match. I broke my back on that casket. I’ve got a steel rod in my back that hurts constantly.
Bret: I know. I get a little Shawn Michaels empathy pain from time to time.
Shawn: Would that match have taken place if I didn’t win the title from you that night? Maybe not, but I don’t blame Montreal for my injury.
Bret: That’s awfully big of you. To be honest, I always took a little perverse pleasure in the fact that you screwing me led to the injury.
Shawn: You shouldn’t. The injury happened because I got careless on that day, not because of Montreal. Your wife didn’t leave you because of Montreal, Goldberg didn’t kick you with his eyes closed because of Montreal, and Owen didn’t fall because of Montreal. If you want to look at it as the day your life began to unravel, that’s fine, but it was just one day and one event that you helped cause. Everything else is on you and the choices you made.
Bret: So you feel no guilt?
Shawn: I feel lots of guilt for things I’ve done to you, and I feel badly for things that have happened to you, but I feel nothing for Montreal.
Bret: You should.
Shawn: I don’t.
Cop: Well, you should a little.
Shawn: Hmm. You seem like a smart guy. Why should I feel guilty about saving my company?
Cop: I’m not saying you did the wrong thing. I don’t know all that much about it cause my dad never downloaded the match, but it sounds like you hurt Dallas’ dad’s feelings. Now, whether it was right or wrong don’t really matter, you made him feel bad and you should maybe apologize.
Shawn: Fair enough. I see your point, but I’m not going to apologize to him. Are you offended?
Cop: Nope. We all got our pride.
Shawn: Darn right. You’re a good kid. Good head on your shoulders.
Cop: Hey, you mind if bring some of my dad’s collection to the Q and A tomorrow? Sign some of his shirts?
Shawn: Is he still among us?
Cop: Yes sir. He doesn’t leave the house all the often anymore.
Shawn: You drag him down there, I’ll shake his hand and pose for a photo with him. How about I treat the two of you to lunch?
Cop: That’d be fantastic Mr. Michaels.
Bret: It doesn’t matter where you are, you find the guy in the power position and kiss his ass.
Shawn: Oh come on! Deputy Ronson is a fan of mine.
Bret: And you were always a prince to your fans, right Shawn?
Shawn: Like you never got snappy at a grown man who idolized you.
Bret: You were so busy jumping from rat to rat that you forgot about the kids. I never forgot about the kids. I was all about the kids!
Shawn: I know. We weren’t best friends, but I always said that Bret Hart loves little boys.
Bret: You’re despicable.
Shawn: Give a rest, I’m just kidding.
Bret: There’s nothing funny about this situation!
Shawn: Thirty years after a changed ending to a fake fight, the two now old men get into a fist fight in a bar over it. During the fight one of the old men says the name of his former finishing move and pulls his groin trying to hit it. How can you sit there with a straight face and say that nothing about this situation is funny?
Bret: All right. It might be a little funny. Why the hell did you try to pull off Sweet Chin Music?
Shawn: It works when I do it to my grandkids.
Bret: See, that’s not funny. I don’t find violence towards children…
Shawn: I’m not making a joke. When Cameron brings them over the kids want to wrestle. I don’t actually hit them… give me a break! You’ve got to do this with your grandkids.
Bret: Not really.
Shawn: After what your old man did to you? I’d bet money that every time you’ve seen your grandkids it’s sharpshooters all around.
Bret: Well…
Shawn: Come on! You’ve got an army of grandchildren, and every one of them has been in the sharpshooter.
Bret: There’s a big difference between rest holds and kicking like that. You’re gonna break a hip, or pull a groin.
Shawn: Who are you, my wife?
Bret: You’ve f*cked me enough times. Might as well make it legal.
Shawn: Bret, we both really need to let go of the past.
Bret: Then apologize.
Shawn: You blame me, I blame you, then there’s Vince and Earl and… Bret, Montreal wasn’t any one person’s fault. It was the culmination of years of bad blood and bad decisions and power plays. But it’s all over now. Our kids have gotten a nice feud over it, made some money, why can’t we…
Cop: Holy cow! Yeah, the Montreal thing! Dallas brought that up about two years ago in an interview. He and Cameron had a stare down and the entire audience hushed up. That’s what this is all about. I remember now.
Shawn: See! Deputy Ronson knows who you are.
Bret: Great.
Cop: I was cooking dinner at the time, wasn’t really paying attention. Sorry bout that Mr. Hitman.
Bret: No problem.
Shawn: Shane and Hunter offered us a lot of money to be in our son’s corners for the blow off match, but it had to be both of us.
Bret: I made a promise a long, long time ago to never appear on WWE television again. I have my pride, and Dallas understands that.
Shawn: Exactly. A long, long time ago.
Bret: The proposed storyline was that Shawn and Shane McMahon screw Dallas out of the world title and then I’d punch them both.
Cop: That’d been funny.
Bret: Decades later and they still want to cash in on the worst professional moment of my life. I’m just supposed to smile and nod my head and thank God they let me back in the spotlight? I’ve had my moment, I’ve made my money, and unlike some people I didn’t spend it all on rats and booze.
Shawn: I was fiscally conservative my second time around.
Bret: And there’s always the chance they would have screwed me again. For f*ck’s sake, his best friend is the head booker!
Cop: Well, I bet your son would’ve been glad you joined him.
Shawn: Cameron loves it when I stand in his corner.
Bret: Dallas understands. Dallas is proud of me for sticking to my morals.
Shawn: Screw morals.
Bret: Says the born again Christian.
Shawn: I was born again and did the DX reunion anyway. I went heel and mocked Hogan in a very unchristian way. These fluctuations in my behavior caused a lot of people, present company included I believe, to question my newfound faith in a higher power. Bret, I am not a slave to my beliefs. I never let my religion get in the way of entertaining those fans, and I’d never let my religion or my personal animosity towards you get in the way of pleasing my son.
Bret: Does that make you better than me or a bigger whore than me?
Shawn: Maybe both, but all that matters is that ten years ago I got to work a match with my son as my partner on television and the fans were still chanting HBK.
Cop: I saw that when I was 14. That was pretty cool. My dad was going bonkers.
Shawn: I look forward to meeting him tomorrow. I don’t mean to be a bother, but my ice pack is getting a little warm. Think you can rustle me up another one?
Cop: Sure Mr. Michaels! You just hold on.
The cop exits off-stage.
Shawn: Okay, the keys are on the desk. If we both rip out some of our hair we could construct a crude rope…
Bret: You’re hilarious. We’re not going anywhere until the morning.
Shawn: The cop is crazy. His father walked around the house singing Sexy Boy.
Bret: It was a catchy tune.
Shawn: He’s going to keep me here as a trophy. I can feel it.
Bret: Typical Shawn. A friend to your face and as soon as your back is turned…
Shawn: I’m joking, and what are you talking about? I was never a friend to your face.
Bret: Good point. You know what really bugged me?
Shawn: So everything else just kind of bugged you?
Bret: During the build up to Montreal, you and Vince were really pushing me to places I didn’t want to go.
Shawn: Nobody likes going to Montreal, but we have fans in Canada.
Bret: Will you be serious for a minute?
Shawn: I’m sorry. Where were we pushing you?
Bret: You guys wanted me to bash America, call Detroit a toilet, call you a homo…
Shawn: Were you really that averse to calling me gay?
Bret: That’s not who I am.
Shawn: You called me gay plenty of times behind my back.
Bret: You did kiss Hunter on camera.
Shawn: And you weren’t the biggest supporter of American wrestling fans at the time.
Bret: I wasn’t stupid Shawn. I understood that the fan base was getting older, their tastes more perverted. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but Vince had me play it up to an extreme I wasn’t comfortable going to.
Shawn: Matt Bourne wasn’t really a clown, Jim Mauler wasn’t really Kamala the Ugandan stereotype. This might shock you about me, but I was more in to country than rock while I was a Rocker.
Bret: I didn’t want to be a jerk off on camera. I didn’t want to be a homophobe. You can call me a hypocrite, but kids looked up to me. I could have played a bad guy, I could have even portrayed myself as a morality policeman without sinking to those depths.
Shawn: Sorry I encouraged you to call me a fag. We were keeping up with the times, Bret.
Bret: Yeah, well, keeping up with the times led to Hunter pretending to have sex with a corpse and a gay wedding.
Shawn: Yeah, I’m not going to argue either of those points. Vince sure loves his extremes.
Bret: Have they ever had a Samoan character who wasn’t an idiotic monster with stuff painted on him?
Shawn: Rikishi I guess.
Bret: Was he the fat guy who danced with Lawler’s kid?
Shawn: Yeah.
Bret: He was funny.
Shawn: Yeah.
Cop returns with a new ice pack. He sticks his hand through the bars, and Shawn limps to him and takes it.
Cop: Here you go Mr. Michaels.
Shawn: Thanks a lot buddy.
Cop: You two behaving?
Shawn: Bret came up with an escape plan, but I foiled it.
Bret: THAT IS SUCH CRAP! I WON’T SIT HERE AND LISTEN TO THIS BULLSHIT! HE WAS THE ONE…(Shawn and Cop crack up laughing.) What’s so funny?
Shawn: I told you! I thought he’d flip out a bit more when you pretended not to know who he was, but I KNEW he’d get all anal about the escape plan.
Bret: You know who I am?
Cop: Yeah, sorry man. Mr. Michaels asked me to do it when I was questioning him alone.
Bret: Everything is a f*cking joke to you Shawn!
Shawn: Can’t an old man have a little fun?
Bret: And you! You’re a police officer!
Cop: I apologize Mr. Hart. Mr. Michaels said it would be funny.
Bret: Well it wasn’t!
Cop: Yeah, it kind of was.
Bret: You screw with all your prisoners or just the celebrities?
Cop: You can complain all you want, but you’re very lucky to have Mr. Michaels sitting next to you right now.
Bret: I feel lucky.
Cop: His story and the bartender’s story matched up. He just came to talk, offered to buy you a beer and you started throwing drinks around and then you attacked him.
Bret: That’s not how it happened! He called me an asshole!
Cop: The bartender said you called him a bunch of worse things.
Bret: Well… I never asked him to come into that bar.
Cop: Point is, he asked to be locked up next to you all night instead of pressing charges.
Bret: So all of this is just to screw with me?
Shawn: No, I was hoping we’d reach some sort of understanding.
Bret: You did this to screw with me.
Shawn: Okay, yeah, but you attacked me.
Bret: I’m going to sue you, I’m going to sue that hick cop, I’m going to sue this WHOLE FUCKING STATE! I’M…
(Shawn and Cop start laughing again.)
Shawn: You see!
Cop: You were right Mr. Michaels.
Bret: What now? What the f*ck is so funny now?
Shawn: You think I’d be sitting here next with a pulled groin if I was free to go? Didn’t I tell you? This guy’s humorless.
Bret: You prick…
Cop: Okay, fun and games are over. Sorry about that Mr. Hart.
Bret: You’ll be sorry when I get my lawyer down here.
Cop: I’m sure I will be.
Bret: I bet your dad wasn’t even Shawn Michaels’ biggest fan. Another joke, right?
Cop: Yep. Actually, my dad preferred you.
Bret: Right.
Cop: Seriously. His favorite match of yours was against Davey Boy Smith in Wembley Stadium.
Bret: You’re hilarious Shawn.
Shawn: This ain’t me.
Bret: I’m sure. I’m suing everyone.
Cop: Truth of the matter is that I don’t know much about either of y’all besides what my daddy showed me and what Mr. Michaels told me a short while back, so you’ll forgive me if I had a little fun with a humorless old bastard. Now, you want to talk about lawsuits, well, I can charge you with assault and destruction of private property. Won’t get nowhere without any witnesses, bartender don’t mind all that much and Mr. Michaels said he didn’t want anything to do with charges, but it could certainly keep you here a week or two. So you either shake Mr. Michaels’ hand and the two of you leave right now, or you wait till morning and keep your f*cking mouth shut about lawsuits. You get me?
Bret: You little shit…
Cop: You ain’t in no position to be making threats.
Bret: This is another joke, right Shawn? Right?
Shawn: Shut up Bret.
Bret: No! You think it’s so f*cking funny…
Shawn: BRET! Shut the hell up!
Bret stares at Shawn. Shawn appears to be serious. Bret looks down at the ground.
Cop: That’s a good boy. You know, I never really liked watching that old crap with my pop. Never paid much attention. I’m going to check on our non-celebrity guests. No more escape plans, right guys? That’s right.
Cop exits.
Bret: That really wasn’t another joke.
Shawn: No. I had no idea that guy was insane.
Bret: He’s a cop and he went along with your stupid prank! Of course he’s a psycho!
Shawn: Well excuse me for trusting people.
Bret: This is just great. Fucking Alabama.
Shawn: Yeah. The cradle of civilization.
Bret: This proves it. You haven’t changed one bit.
Shawn: I’m sorry Bret. I thought Deputy Ronson was a fan.
Bret: As soon as you walked into the bar I knew you were going to do something to screw me, and now you have.
Shawn: Look, when the maniac comes back just shake my hand and then we never have to see one another again.
Bret: No. You made this mess, you clean it up.
Shawn: First of all, you made this mess. Second of all…
Bret: You conspired with the cop!
Shawn: You attacked me in the bar!
Bret: You called me an asshole!
Shawn: You are one!
Bret: You’re a bigger one!
Shawn: I went into that bar to get a drink without the wife knowing. You were in there drinking away years of misery. I felt bad for you and wanted to make things right. You were the one…
Bret: Even if you apologized for Montreal, which you didn’t by the way, you think I’d be any less miserable? Everyone I loved is dead, everything I worked for is a joke and I’m closer to the grave every day.
Shawn: How many grandchildren do you have? Twenty?
Bret: Twenty two.
Shawn: Yeah, everyone you loved is sure dead.
Bret: Maybe not everyone, but I carry more ghosts with me than any man should have to.
Shawn: You had a very large family involved in a business where a young death, while maybe not the norm, happens occasionally.
Bret: My father lived to be such an old man.
Shawn: And so will you.
Bret: He had something to live for. He had his wife. He had his kids.
Shawn: You have your kids, and you have your grandkids.
Bret: But I don’t have my wife.
Shawn: How about we shake hands, get out of here, go get some sleep? Tomorrow we can hit the convention floor. They’re swimming with old ladies who wanted nothing more than to get excellently executed back in the day.
Bret: Not interested.
Shawn: Sunny’s here.
Bret: Tammy?
Shawn: Yeah. She’s staying in my hotel. I’m pretty sure she’s still single.
Bret: Whether or not I had a one nighter with her, I’m not saying. You were the one she said she had a nine month affair with.
Shawn: Yeah. I know.
Bret: Wait a second.
Shawn: What?
Bret: It was true, wasn’t it? You were sleeping her.
Shawn: Does it matter?
Bret: Yes. Yes it does. Chris Candido was asking questions about Tammy having an affair, and you went on television and said I was f*cking her.
Shawn: That’s because I thought you were.
Bret: No. You just wanted to deflect the suspicion from yourself. You ruined my first marriage because you didn’t want a jobber to know you were screwing his girlfriend?
Shawn: From what I heard, Tammy was trying to talk to you at some kind of convention but you were ignoring her, so then she gives that interview where she absolves you and blames me. We both know that’s crap. She was just trying to get back into your good graces.
Bret: No, you were the one who screwed her!
Shawn: No, I screwed you. You screwed her.
Bret: I don’t want to discuss Tammy anymore
Shawn: Forget Tammy. The point is, we get out of here and I’ll get you laid.
Bret: I don’t want you doing me any more favors.
Shawn: Come on! It’ll be like the good old days.
Bret: We never shared any good old days.
Shawn: It’ll be like the good old days you missed out on because you were married.
Bret: You think this is about me wanting to get laid?
Shawn: No. I just think you’d be a little happier if you weren’t so lonely.
Bret: I’ve got you for company and I’m still miserable.
Shawn: I’m surprised. I’m having a good time.
Bret: Yeah. That annoys me.
Shawn: Short of me apologizing for Montreal, what would it take for you to drop this animosity towards me?
Bret: My win back.
Shawn: What?
Bret: You beat me at Wrestlemania. When it was my turn you didn’t return the favor. Our next one on one match was at the Survivor Series, and you went over me again.
Shawn: You want to have another match?
Bret: And you submit to the sharpshooter.
Shawn: You’re the insane one now. You had your chance. During my second run I told anyone who’d listen that I would job to you in a second.
Bret: You were on WWE television.
Shawn: What was I supposed to do? Quit my job and go to the indy’s so you could beat me in front of fifty people?
Bret: Don’t get me wrong, I never would have gotten in to the ring with you again anyway. I couldn’t trust you.
Shawn: If you can’t trust this face…
Bret: Stop with the jokes. That’s what I missed the most, you know? Being able to trust people in the business, in life. Ever since that day I’ve been wondering who the next person is going to be to f*ck me over. It made it nearly impossible to do my job in WCW. It made it difficult to be a good father and husband. Do you how hard I fought with Dallas when he told me he was going to work for the WWE? I said things to him no father should say to a son, all because I knew they would do to him what they did to me. Everything else I’ve lost time has healed. But my trust in my fellow man, my belief that people are basically good, I haven’t been able to reclaim that. I miss that.
Shawn: Montreal took that from you?
Bret: Yeah.
Shawn: I knew you’d be pissed, but I thought you’d shake it off eventually. You’re Bret Hart.
Bret: That’s a curse I’m going to have to learn to live with. I’m going to sleep. Please be gone when I wake up.
Bret lays down on the bench. He closes his eyes. There is a moment of silence.
Shawn: Bret?
Bret: What?
Shawn: I’m sorry we did that to you in Montreal.
Bret sits up. He gets up and walks to the bars adjoining his and Shawn’s.
Bret: You’re sorry for Montreal?
Shawn: I did what I did for business. I still think it was the right decision, but I don’t know if I would have made it if I knew what it would do to you.
Bret: So you’re sorry for Montreal?
Shawn: Yes. I’m sorry for Montreal.
Bret: That’s all I needed to hear.
Bret sticks his hand through the bars. Shawn gets to his feet, limps to the bars and shakes Bret’s hand.
Bret: I accept your apology.
Shawn: Thank you. Hey, why don’t you come by the Q and A tomorrow?
Bret: No. I can’t I’m receiving some plaque at six…
Shawn: I know. They told me I couldn’t go to the ceremony. My session is one to three. Come on down, shake my hand, I’ll blow you, you’ll blow me, it’ll be fantastic.
Bret: Sounds tempting, but…
Shawn: This might be the last time people who remember what we were fighting about get to see us. Let’s give them a little thrill.
Bret: I’ll think about it. You should really be in the hospital.
Shawn: My groin’s been worse than this.
Bret: Like when it was in Sunny?
Shawn: All you have is the word of a crack whore.
Bret: That’s not nice. Tammy has issues.
Shawn: Don’t we all?
Bret: Yes we do. We sure do.
The two men size each other up with a hint of a smile on both their faces. The lights fade out. End of Act II)
