They did all sorts of similar tests on me. I remember next they bring in a squat rack and barbell set. They put a bunch of weight on and tell me that these are “fake plates” and that the bar is as “light as a feather“. It’s just like doing deep knee bends with no weight at all, and then instructed me to start squatting. I would then begin exercising until they told me to stop. It was very strange because I could hear the “clang” the weight plates make when you have four or five stacked on each side and you are squatting.
In testing at Rochester, I squatted 545 pounds as my maximum, when I was squatting in the lab I think I was doing seven 45 pound plates on each side (which is 675 pounds for as many reps as they wanted). I would just start “squatting” and I would not stop until they told me to. Yet it felt like there was no weight pressing on my shoulders at all. It was in reality “as light as a feather”, just like doing simple deep knee bends. Another favorite was to sit me down in a chair and tell me to envision my arm not as an arm but as a huge robotic hydraulic vice.
This vice had unlimited power, and ANYTHING they placed in my hand I could crush, just like squeezing an “egg.” They then would proceed to place various objects in my hand, and I would crush it like an egg. In my mind, I wasn’t squeezing an unopened can of Coke.
I was squeezing an egg, and I would crush it accordingly. I remember they put some kind of gauge in my hand to see what the pounds per square inch were that I was producing. It was like one of those old hand exercisers you would squeeze. The first time I squeezed it, I broke it, and they got all excited. They had to “recalibrate” another one for me, and again I buried the needle on their gauge, and this astounded them. They made me feel “good” about being able to do these things, and I was sort of “proud” of my self. As my confidence grew, my abilities grew.
It was all like a game to me. They would set up some kind of test, something that I should not be able to do, and I would love to prove them wrong. They told me to walk around with my chest stuck out and head held high because I was “the biggest, baddest, meanest motherf*ckering stud on the planet and if you F*CK with me I will kill you.” This particular suggestion caused some very serious problems later on. They said we need a name to call you by. This name is something very special, it is the name that ONLY WE may call you by, it is your code name and you should spend some time thinking about it because it is very important.
I answered almost immediately “I want to be called THE RHINO,” I said. I had chosen this name because it was a name I wanted as my “nickname” on my high school football team. However in high school, the nickname was already given to another player so I could not have it, but for some reason, I always thought it was really “COOL“, and now that I could choose any name I wanted, I chose “the Rhino” and that’s why I chose “the rhino” as my new name. At first, the man with the white hair and black leather coat as well as the other guys laughed at the name, but after a while, it grew on them and they liked it. The man with the white hair and black leather coat would bark out “RHINO” get over here, and it would come running like a puppy and then he really started to like it.
I think they made me choose a different name not only for the practicality of it but more so to disassociate my “new self” from my “old self.” In other words, when they called me they didn’t want any association to do with my “old self“, anything to do with “Andy“. Mostly because they never broke “Andy“, since they could not break “Andy” they sort of had to build over him.
They squashed “Andy” into a vacuum-sealed steel coffin and buried him under tons and tons of ten-foot thick steel plates the each the size of a football field, and buried him in the deepest part of my mind. They wanted “Andy” to be totally gone, but I remember they could NEVER destroy or break him. I think that is why I still remember all of these events. That fact really angered the man with the white hair, and really frightened Mr. Green as his worst fear is that I will remember and come back for him.
And believe me, he WILL see his day in court, for honestly, I have no fear of dying anymore because I have touched what is beyond this life and despite all of this I still somehow have a sense of “inner peace” if you will. A fact that I am no longer afraid of the darkness and afraid of the night.
But anyway, when they called me they wanted “THE RHINO“.