I had been driving down this one road for forever it seemed, it would curve and flatten, and curve again up some tedious hill before bottoming into the shadows of the sun’s icy and purple glow that blanketed, somewhat menacingly, above the darkening earth. With my van’s stereo having finally gone kaput, which is a fate that most of my vehicle’s shoddy powertrain was probably facing, I was left with only my thoughts to keep me occupied.

Certain memories would come whirling in and out like the images of the bending trees and the black and barren farmland outside of either window. Certain things I’d said in the past would pop up and I’d try reciting them under my breath in some sort of mental do-over.

Ever do that?

A do-over. I was sure due something of the sort I felt. Letting people down had always been a particular forte of mine, and not one that made washing your hands at the end of the day an easy task.

I began replaying the conversation I’d had with Marie just before leaving home. She was feeling a bit more pessimistic than I was regarding my decision to: “-give this one last shot, honey.”

“I just don’t want you getting hurt, Reggie. That place is really nasty, and full of weirdos.”

Her voice was honest and concerned, she pauses on a thought before continuing on with something I didn’t quite feel like hearing again: “The last time didn’t-”

“I know. I know. It was embarrassing-”

I told her after resting my calluses in between random little plucks of my father’s acoustic guitar strings,

“-I never finish anything.”

“Well you never give it your full effort, baby”

She quipped with a warming encouragement.

We both stop chatting for a moment as we hear the mix of our children and my sister’s children squawking over who’s turn it was to play Hello Neighbor in the next room.

You see by this past summertime, Marie and I had felt the full brunt of The Year of our Lord, 2020. While the misery of the entire situation does bear some mentioning, I think I’ll save the bulk of it for another time. To this point, it all had ended with the two of us, and our five children moving in with my sister in Frankfort.

We were living a reality that no person, let alone a couple with five children under the age of seven, would be aspiring to in their early thirties. It was demoralizing. With each waking moment, I could feel myself sliding deeper into an almost thoughtless and harmful depression, and Marie? Though she would never say it, I knew she was miserable. Our whole way of life had changed, and though we did struggle before, most of the time just scraping by, at least we were doing it with the autonomy to walk around our home naked, or play music late in the evening, or leave any goddamn light on in our house if we damn well chose.

So on behalf of the both of us, I had made my mind up that I would be returning to the XWF; a place I had embarrassed myself in a time or twelve. For whatever reason, the XWF always seemed to be begging for raw meat to feed it’s premier talent, and that’s probably because less and less people are willing to be drowned in a pool of c.diff excrement on live television. At any rate, I was prepared to be their Steak Tartare served with a side of smelly au jous again.

Marie and I had to face the facts. The economy was in shambles and we needed money. The decent nine-to-five I found after my last go at wrestling had been dissolved and we were left with just a meager 401k account and a measly stimulus check to carry us through the pandemic. With the situation we were kicked into, it didn’t take long for the reemerging notion to slide between my ears ever so vehemently that I was a total failure; and moreover I began to believe that the only thing I truly wanted was to give each of my children their own bedroom.

Let the mockery forthcoming be damned!

I wince a little with my face at the ear-splitting arguments of the natural narcissists, also known as toddlers, and resume picking at the guitar. D to A to G, back to D with a little boogie rhythm.

“I’m going to get us out of here, honey.”

I spoke out over the chords,

“Well you better be careful!”

She said before kissing my forehead,

Back on the road I’m startled back into reality by a loud gunshot-like pop and a sputtering from under my hood. The gas pedal pulled-up, tightened, and then quickly depressed into the floorboard. The thermostat gauge had boiled well over hot as my blood ran cold. With a teeth chattering grind of hot metal welding into even hotter metal, an inordinate echoing screech along with a cloud of smoke raging up from beneath the van.

Now I’m no mechanic by any stretch of the imagination, but given my experience in driving shitty cars all of my life, I was fairly equipped enough to deduct, with a borderline suicidal tone:

“NO! NO! NOT THE FUCKING TRANSMISSION!”

Though I hadn’t seen another car for many miles I smacked the caution light and began easing my clunker to the side of the road. When I say “easing”, I mean slamming the break down as the van wrenched along the pavement like a glitching video game, yanking my body about as I pounded on the steering wheel in frustration just as the frame petered out.

Somewhere between Who’da-Thunk?, West Virginia and My-Next-Fuck-Up, Connecticut, I just sat there, like a stalwart captain on a sinking ship; a life’s worth of episodic dumb-luck just like this racing through my mind. I rage out and start beating on the stereo. It was the one thing I hated about this van the most, with it’s stupid, mocking digital time clock that I knew was at least 4 hours off one way or the other, the buttons of which to adjust having always been broken off.



“The fuck?”

Commence the Creedence, y’all.

The piece of shit finally starts:

“Working? YOU’RE FUCKING WORKING NOW?! Well! Isn’t that just spec-fuckin-tac-”

Suddenly I felt a rumble from behind, I jerked my rearview mirror down to see a set of headlights becoming brighter about a mile back. Getting half way out of the van I can still hear Creedence playing. I paused and looked at the radio just before smacking the off-button and running out into the road to wave down some much needed help.

-to be continued-



Well XWF, here I am again, thrusting myself back into the unforgiving arms of professional wrestling, doing as I've done a number of times and as so many have done and are doing currently; trying to reach for something too far beyond themselves to fill themselves.

Case in point: The ladies of the new, more sinister reboot of Hocus Pocus. The Left Hand.

For now, let me spare y'all any disparaging remarks about your "leader", The Baffling-one, and just cut straight to the chase:

Y'all ain't shit!

You know why?

Because you've already sold any "shit" you had way on down the river. Frankly, it's pathetic.

Rather than leaning into reality and facing your mistakes head on and trying to improve upon your suck-ass-ery , you've been bamboozled into believing that the reason y'all lose all of the time is because you've been cheated, or that you've been standing in the "light" for too long, or something stupid and cliché like that.

WELL!

What better way to fix this then to goth-out and sync up your PMS cycles? That's clearly what's been missing from your stale and tired getups, more blood! Give me a break will ya'? You all are about as scary and demonic as a devilled egg.

I mean seriously, what has the dear leader provided you ladies so far that's really changed anything about any of you? I haven't noticed anything supernatural. Like imagine thinking that ganging up on people with mental and physical disabilities makes you appear to be anything but cowards.

Lycana was already parading herself around like some background actress in Penny Dreadful who's into BDSM. Not that long ago I'm pretty sure I saw her on T.V. practically begging to fuck my tag partner. What has she gotten? To unleash the rest of her sexual tension with that clown, Marf in one of the weirdest looking matches the world has ever seen? It's pretty damn obvious to me that the whole thing was staged now, given their current entanglement. So there's a big whopping NOTHING for starters.

How about Ash? She's won, what? A match or something since slitting her wrists? She's really the only one of you who's been on anything like a "run", albeit against a gauntlet of uninterested snooze-buttons, but what even have those wins landed her? A tag match, two matches deep into a relatively weak card, and the same goes for Lycana.

And my apologies to Corey Smith, this guy has everything in the tank in terms of in-ring ability. He's a star, hands down. But the problem is he's been booked to hold my hand through this, me being the person dragging this match down into the ratings slum: for one because I'm sure he's a great guy, and for two because I doubt he'd throw a big fit about such a thing. Humility really is powerful.

So back to Ash Quinn, you selling out to cut the hand that feeds you off has only led you to this: a weak ass opponent who has lost nearly every match of his career, and who's in need of help from an actually decent wrestler. Well! Jeez-o-pete! You acting even dumber and needier then before sure is paying off huh?

What about your girl Geri? Ha! I won't even go there.

Listen, the thing of it is, next Wednesday you ladies are going to have to put your bosses kool-aide where your mouth is...

Show the world that your really committed to the grift of your boss man and that it's really working, because if not? If you can't overcome some "normie" like R.L. Edgar in some one-off confrontation, then I'm sorry, but your whole little "movement", it's going to lose even more credibility than it already has.

So I suggest you bringing your at least C+ game, because I have a feeling that this will be wildly underwhelming.

Peace.

Former:
1x Hart Champion
1x Federweight Champion
April 2021 RP Of The Month Still Waters Run Deep