Their friendship is no-holds-barred

The pro wrestling fans met 25 years ago. Now, one has cancer and the other couldn't let him stay at hospice.

By JODIE TILLMAN, Times staff writer
Published January 21, 2008

Bill Noto gives his friend Nolan Johnston a good-natured headlock at his home in Holiday last week. Noto and Johnston are pals and huge wrestling fans from way back. When Johnston was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer, he moved in a year ago with Noto, who now helps to care for him.
	[Stephen J. Coddington | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Stephen J. Coddington | Times] Nolan Johnston enjoys watching a wrestling match on television at his friend Bill Noto's home in Holiday last week. Johnston's wish is to attend the WrestleMania event in Orlando in March.

HOLIDAY - "Look at that!" Nolan Johnston shouted from his recliner. "Watch this referee!"

It was Friday night. He and Bill Noto were watching World Wrestling Entertainment's SmackDown on television.

"Hey, you know who this guy reminds me of?" said Noto, 42, who was stretched out on the couch. "Danny Davis."

"Dirty. Danny. Davis," said Johnston, 46, shaking his head in disgust at the memory of that wrestler. "Man."

This has been the rhythm of many Friday nights in the 25 years since the pair met on a night-shift job cleaning grocery store floors and realized they shared an appreciation of football, video games and, above all, wrestling.

But the contours of a friendship built on good times began to change in 2006. That's when Johnston couldn't stop coughing, couldn't shake the fatigue.

* * *

Back in the early days of their friendship, they kept a consistent, not-quite-grown-up schedule.

Worked for the floor maintenance company from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Took the equipment to Tampa to get it serviced. Went to a Championship Wrestling from Florida event being taped in Tampa some mornings. Hit Krystal for big sodas and lots of burgers.

Then, as Noto puts it, "party, party, party," which might involve pina coladas and attempts to demonstrate the signature moves of their favorite wrestlers in an apartment swimming pool. Went to bed at 6 p.m. Reported to work at 11 p.m.

This lasted about a year, the end precipitated by Johnston's whacking an irate store manager with a mop. "He was on my floor," he said. "And I couldn't get done."

They worked other odd jobs together. They helped each other through divorces and other disappointments. Through everything, they had wrestling.

"So Kevin Sullivan hits Dusty Rhodes with a chair. Threw it outside the ring," said Noto, describing one of their great moments at a live event. "I walked out with the chair. With Dusty Rhodes' blood on it."

Even after Johnston moved to Colorado to be near his sister for a few years, not too much changed. On wrestling nights, two television sets miles apart were usually turned to the same channel. And one of the friends was usually picking up the phone.

* * *

Then, in 2006, Johnston called Noto for another reason. "I told him I wasn't feeling good," he said. He had flulike symptoms, maybe pneumonia. He went to a doctor to get it checked out.

"Come to find out I did have pneumonia," Johnston said. "But the doctor kept staring at me and I said, 'What else?' "

He had a lump on his lungs. It turned out to be small cell lung cancer, in an advanced stage.

Johnston had quit his 21/2-pack a day habit only months earlier. He quit because Noto had quit.

"My first thought," Noto said, "was I should've quit earlier. Because then he would have quit earlier."

Johnston went through chemotherapy and radiation until, finally, his doctors told him he was not getting better. He was dying.

"I cried," Johnston said. "I started thinking about all the things I should've done. And all the things I wanted to do. But I just talked to God and said, you know I'm going to live my life to its fullest. One day at a time."

But at first, accepting death didn't make the living much better.

Johnston didn't have a place of his own. He was staying, unhappily, with family members. In early 2007, he decided to move into a hospice house. He was surrounded by much older people in the last stages of their lives. He could not bear it, not even for a week.

"I was so bored I started smoking again," he said.

He called Noto, who sensed his friend was in trouble.

"I said, 'I'll be right there,'" Noto said. "When I got to the hospice, I said to the nurses, 'Pack his stuff. He's coming to live with me.' "

* * *

So for the last year Johnston has lived in a Holiday home with Noto; Noto's girlfriend, Donna Roberts; three big dogs; a bird and a two-legged cat named Scooter. Noto cooks, Roberts cleans and Johnston looks after the animals.

Noto makes sure Johnston is eating enough and not sleeping too much. He'll go into Johnston's bedroom, log onto the computer and bang on the keyboard to wake him. He gets him out of the house on his bad days and takes him to Sims Park.

"I don't have to worry about him," Noto said. "He's here. And I love him like a brother."

Noto stays upbeat about the future. But Roberts worries about him. "It's going to be tough when ...," her voice trails off.

Mitch Thompson, a nurse with Gulfside Regional Hospice, comes by a few days every week. He helps Johnston with his medicine, hears Noto's reports ("He rats him out," Thompson said jokingly), and checks Johnston's vitals. He once made the mistake of trying to take his blood pressure during a wrestling match.

"They were just cutting up and screaming," Thompson said. "I always walk out of that house with a smile on my face. Those two guys make my day."

Gulfside is trying to fulfill one of Johnston's wishes: to get tickets for the WrestleMania event in Orlando in March. The significance of the event is not lost on Noto and Johnston.

"It's, like, the Super Bowl of wrestling," Noto said.

"It is the Super Bowl of wrestling," Johnston said.

* * *

Friday night, just before their program began, the pair were reminiscing about their favorite wrestler of all times ("American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, of course) and their top pick of the current crop, Triple H.

"Dusty Rhodes basically passed him the torch," Noto said.

"Yeah, Triple H is really the Dusty Rhodes of today," Johnston said. "Even when he was a bad guy, you just loved to hate him."

They thought about it for a moment, when Johnston suddenly grabbed his back in pain. "Billy, oh, I got a knot on my back!" he cried. "Ow, ow ..."

Noto hopped off his stool and hustled into a bedroom, emerging with a medicated patch for pain. He pulled up the back of Johnston's shirt.

"Oh, right, where my fingers are," Johnston said.

Noto smoothed the patch on Johnston's back, holding his hand on his friend until the hurting stopped.

Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Jodie Tillman can be reached at jtillman@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6247.

[Last modified January 20, 2008, 22:05:28]