The first time I read the letter, I boiled and swore and choked and spat and threw it to my floorboard. Misty Waters, a woman claiming to be my mother, had only handed it to me moments before I stormed out of the American Legion,

“Your daddy was a helluva’ man, R.L.”

She said with a warm showing of sympathy,

“He wanted you to know the truth, baby.”

The charming, amber-haired woman continued while nodding her head to a thoughtful cadence, playing it up with a doe-eyed glare.

Rattling about in her hand was this crisp, three-fold letter. She was handing it towards me, and I was petrified. Like I’d had a stroke from the incredible claim of kinship. Beside me, Muddy Waters had already helped himself to the unmanned bar and poured shots of bourbon with a gawking type of chuckle,

“Shit, son! We orta’ have us a drink ‘for we hear any more of this! This here’s like Springer!”

He hooted and hollered,

Misty broke eye contact with me for a moment, and silently emphasized an annoyance in her body language towards Muddy. She twisted her hip out in her tight denim jeans and perched her hand on its curve. Her eyes acted as fiery daggers piercing into Muddy’s, prompting her son to bury his neck between his shoulders. Like he’d gotten an old familiar gist to shut-up before catching a whipping. We locked eyes for a moment as he turned away from his mother to face the bar. He shook his head at me, telling me "Don't bother" before powering down the shots of whisky like they were iced-tea.

Misty’s eyes curled back towards mine. She gave off this unmistakable impression of a person who was comfortable being in control of a situation. Her waltz towards me felt intoxicating, leaving me slow and puzzled as if Mercury were in retrograde. When she came within smelling-distance I coiled deeper into my winter coat. She was still offering the letter with her outreached hand, doing all but stuffing it in my shirt pocket.

“I know it’s hard for you to hear this, sugar.”

She said while leaning in and wrapping her arms around my flinching body,

“But don’t just take my word for it.”

She whispered before breaking the hug and holding the letter up to my face,

“Hear it from your daddy.”

There it was again... that damn letter strung up before my eyes. What was in there? What was I really about to learn? I could hear the damn thing popping and crackling with a white-hot glow, juxtaposing everything inside of the American Legion. I hesitated for a moment, my hand jittered and I reached for the piece of paper. I was afraid that it might burn my fingertips. I pulled it away from Misty’s hand revealing her face again. She wore a nurturing smile that pulled the curtain back on her age. Just beyond the light wrinkles, I could see my eyes inside of hers.

“Ma’am...”

I struggled to say,

“...my mother is dead.”

I brushed past her, grabbed a bourbon that Muddy poured, and headed for the exit.

“Appreciate-ch’all.”

Some of the liquor spilled down my chin as I turned back to face Misty and Muddy again. I dropped the shot glass in the empty trashcan next to the door and stormed out of the building.

Between the front door of the building and the driver-side door of the van it dawned on me that, like her son Muddy, I knew of Misty Waters. She had once been the Mayor of Nazareth or something like that. She was some sort of important somebody. Always on the front page of the newspaper, or at any type of Rotary or charity event. The types of things that I paid next-to-no attention to. But none of that settled my nerves, and neither did that fucking letter.

I mashed at it beneath my feet for good measure. I tried dialing my sister Fannie, while simultaneously texting Marie. Neither answered or responded. The cell service is shit in this town. ‘Why did this have to be happening?’ I needed to breathe and light a cigarette, and I did both. I had a Hart Championship to go win in Wisconsin.

I had a dream to fulfill, a family to raise, and still a father to grieve…

and now a woman claiming to be the mother I’ve already grieved...

The letter "magically" made it back into my lap.

I knew what this thing was from the moment I opened it; a genuine letter from my late father. I couldn’t mistake his handwriting, I had been reading it all of my life.

And for the second time in a row while reading the letter, Hold On Loosely crept through my radio speakers. Weird right?



Reggie,

If you’re reading this letter then you know the truth, son. I’m sorry that it’s taken this long, and I’m even more sorry that I didn’t get to tell you in person. But Misty Waters is the woman who gave birth to you… she is your mother.

I know that the truth alone isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, and you deserve to know the details. So here they are:

During the Fall of ‘87, Gina (the woman you’ve always known as ‘Mom’) and I had been split up for several years. Your sister Fannie, who is Gina’s child, was just a little girl.

Do you remember that fall-stench I always talked about? That old sweet tang of burning leaves and dying warmth? Well, the smell of it all had never been riper. I have never felt more alive than I did during that particular summer’s death. I sure do miss that feeling now. I was a free man, reinvigorated, strong, and healthy. All of that is French for 'Midlife-crisis' by the way!

Your uncle Glenn and I had been pouring the concrete at the old Walmart out on Hwy. 127. There used to be one of those old restaurant-style Pizza Huts right across the road. I think it got torn down when you were maybe three, or four-years-old. Now believe it or not, that Pizza Hut in the eighties was a pretty lively joint. It was an old biker-gang mainstay. I would make a sure-bet that they served more draft beer, bathroom cocaine, and under-the-table blowjobs than they ever did any pie.

Glenn and I went over to that Pizza Hut for lunch, which usually turned into dinner, every day for a week solid. That’s when and where I met your mother. She was the most beautiful thing I ever laid my eyes on, son. Here we were, in the skeeviest of shitholes known to man, where big burly pricks would drink lunch and snort dinner, and there she was, a lone flower on a wall painted black. The world moved to her walk.

I can remember her standing in front of the record machine, twisting her tight little body in a pair of acid-washed jeans… she was an absolute firecracker, son. She could have had anyone she wanted, and that night she wanted your old dad.

She had this baby. Your half-brother, Muddy, was always tucked in her arm. You and Muddy were both born on July, 9th, one year apart. You’re Irish Twins, just with different dads. Muddy was a good baby, but not too bright. He just stared at the walls most of the time, but he did liven up once you were born.

Son…

Your mother, Misty Waters, was a big deal. She had a promising career in politics. The first person from Nazareth to graduate college, and she did it at the age of seventeen. By eighteen she was the first woman, and the youngest person ever elected to the city council.

But her having your brother out of wedlock so young, really hurt her image. There was a shotgun wedding with hands on the bible. Neither Misty nor Muddy’s father was interested in being together. It was all to keep the public happy because how dare a woman not be tied to the stove? Her having an affair, and a bastard child, with a man nearly twice her age would have destroyed everything for her… so after the positive pregnancy test, her father moved us to Tijuana.

That’s where you were born, Reggie.

That’s where you spent the first two years of your life.

I was boiling again. The sweat from my fingers was drenching the edges of the paper. I couldn’t bear reading another word. I contemplated calling the police and reporting… something, anything! Fraud maybe? Was general fuckery an offense? According to my father’s words, my entire life was a lie. I was a Mexican? No disrespect to our southern neighbors, but like hell I was!

My mouth was wet and my jaw felt like gelatin. I gagged back the urge to vomit. I had never felt so unhinged, so furious… the sudden desire to torch my clothing and seer my skin under a shower of steaming bleach water became all-encompassing.

“Bullshit!”

I screamed and bashed my palm into the steering wheel,

I began to quickly murmur the rest of the letter aloud, stopping to catch my heart as it fell deeper with each new revelation. My father went on to explain how my grandpa Waters was a bourbon tycoon, who helped facilitate my forged birth certificate once we returned to the States.

He talked about how he and the woman I always called ’Mom’ got back together, as did Misty and Muddy’s father. But yet how the two of them would constantly rekindle their Tijuana love story. He made it very plain that everyone in my family, my sister Fannie included, knew the truth all along. But worst of all he tried appealing to my emotions through some frothy excuses of how keeping me in the dark:

...served a greater good, Reggie.

I wanted to hurt someone, but begrudgingly I continued with the letter,

I’ll never get the chance to know if you’ve forgiven me or not, but at least there might be time for you and your mother. Trust her, son. If she’s really ready to be a part of your life you should at least try and hear her out. She has connections, influence, and money. She can open new doors for you, Marie, and them grandbabies of mine.

Your dreams of becoming an XWF Champion? That’s a part of your Waters pedigree. It’s not a coincidence that both her son and granddaughter have done that. It was your mother who used to organize those wrestling matches we used to watch at the American Legion. Wrestling is in your blood and it comes from Misty.

The doctors are saying that what I’m going through is just early multiple-sclerosis, but I know better than that.

I’m dying, son.

Maybe I’ll make it to another Fall, maybe I won’t…

He was dying...

...and he didn’t make it to Fall.

The letter was dated June, 17th 2020. A week before the doctors discovered the forty-or-so golfball-sized tumors on his brain that rendered him incapable of communicating up until his death seventeen days later.

In the end, I know you'll do what's best for you. You always have been your own man... you're so much like I was.

But if there's one thing I can ask of you, one final request my son; STOP STOPPING! There may not be enough oyster in this world, but I know there's a star out in that sky just waiting for you to grab it, Reginald-Lewis.

Onward Young Vagabond!

I love you kid,
Dad

Seven days after I read that letter, an announcement was made in Greenbay, Wisconsin:

Winner and NEW XWF HART CHAMPION - RL EDGAR

--------


Sup?

Ya'll heard the news yet?

Next week in Barcelona, everybody's favorite incompetent criminal, Lycana, is going to get dropped on her head so hard she'll be permanently speaking Spanish.

R.L. starts giving a round of applause to the camera,

Seriously, bravo to the fine folks who booked this match. There's nothing in this world that's going to make me any happier than waving this lingering queef of a wrestler away.

But first, I would like to apologize to all of the dozens of Lycana fans out there. I know your girl needs a win pretty bad, she's currently o-and-never in doing anything meaningful...

Edgar curls the corner of his lip and shakes his head,

...but sorry kids! She sure as shit ain't getting it on R.L. Edgar! Not now. Not ever.

This?

He says, pulling the Hart Championship up into the frame.

This means a whole helluva lot more to me than you could imagine. I'll be damned if I let it fall into the hands of some bumbling dingbat so she can turn it into a sideshow for what's left of the hand. Get it?

Listen to me Lycana, don't worry about your fans, okay? I'm sure they'll all be busy performing seances over dead animals or cutting Betsy Granger's eyes out of wrestling magazines, or whatever it is they do besides simping your softcore torture porn. The silly shit really is torture to watch. I can only deal with wolf fights for so long before I mistake them for NatGeo and fall asleep.

No, you need to be worried about finding the right size of boxed gag-store lingerie to wear after I knock you down a few notches. You can't be looking all sloppy when you apologize to Baph-Daddy for losing yet another championship match. This would be what? The third or fourth in a row? You can't win for losing!

And yet the hype train for Lycana grows stronger with each scoop of shit shoveled in its furnace!

Call me old-fashioned, but where I come from a losing record doesn’t pay the bills, so what could it be? Why does everyone have such a hardon while watching this overdressed kid tumbling down a hill in the snow?

SURELY it isn’t the blue hair and the big tits, right?



Couldn't be.

Anyone who actually gets laid on the regular should be numb to watching this porcelain-faced bimbo, who looks like a cosmetology project gone bad, drool all over her own feet anytime something bleeds. It's trite. It's contrived. It's Ann Rice adapted by horny teenagers.

There's got to be more to the story that I'm missing. Is all of the pussy-patting and praise BECAUSE of the losing "efforts"? Because you had "good showings" when you lost to all of those superior talents? Where was all of the magic and powers of the dark side and shit? What happened to all of the promises of destruction and ruin for the XWF? More and more, it's becoming clear and clearer... it was all a show, which is exactly why you're not going to be winning this Hart Championship from me.

Lycana, I want to apologize to you for something. I'm truly embarrassed that I ever confused an attack as well-coordinated, and effective as the one I received on Warfare with anything that The Left Hand is capable of doing. After watching that shit-show of a kidnapping you all pulled on Sean Wild's wife, it truly amazes me that you and Marf can even lace your boots up properly.

For starters, the woman left herself wide the fuck open. It almost feels like she's in on the whole thing. But either way you two still nearly botched it! The only disguises you wore were hats? You didn't tuck all of that blue hair under a baseball cap, sorry, there's no fucking way. Doesn't Renee already know what you both look like? If Oliver Danielson weren't such an inept detective you all would already be behind bars. You fucking live-streamed the kidnapping on national tv! And then you let her go!

R.L. bends over, clutching his stomach from his laughter. He raises back up, shaking off the laugh and dabbing away some tears from his eyes,

What was the point of bashing that poor little woman against the wall? To intimidate Shaun Whyld? That guy barely knows what planet he's on half of the time! And shit! For all of your extolling the wonders of evil and murder...

he starts chuckling again,

...you let her live. Who would have known that the all-powerful satanic death-cult that's going to take over the world was less threatening than Al-Qaeda? Those people would have beheaded poor Renee.

But again... it's all show, isn't it? And it's all talk. And it's all about getting a knee-jerk gag, while your momentum turns into a slow-motion trainwreck. So guess what happens on Warfare next week when we square up... I'll give you a hint, you won't be forgetting it anytime soon.

Do you remember when you said that I was forgettable? When you tried to dismiss me? Acting as if I was on a level playing field with that talentless hack you tried propping up as a threat, Ash Quinn? Remember how that came back to bite you in the ass? Let me ask you something, Lycana... do I have your attention now?

Is it starting to seep into that thick skull just how utterly gutfucked you are? Do you feel me punching downward? Don't you find it interesting just how quickly a narrative can shift? And while you'll spit a bunch of verbose cliches that make no sense acting as if you OF ALL PEOPLE, have some words of wisdom to share with anyone, deep down you'll know that you've gotta' swing as hard as you can to hit this target.

Times change, Lycana, and unfortunately, you've been burning your candle at both ends with a blowtorch for a long while now, and there's nothing left chunk of over-fragranced blue wax. Slim fuckin pickins.

Y'all tune in Wednesday to watch our least favorite CW show get canceled on Warfare. The whole Left Hand can eat a dick.

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