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Dolly Waters · (05-03-2022)

The Scavenger Empress
The Stillborn Warrior

-brzzt-
-brzzt-

Those are cellphone vibrations

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…and they’re doing little to prod Dolly Waters from what’s not been the most comfortable of sleeps. Her black jeans spread across the floorboard and the gear shift of her (Corey Smith’s) ‘63 Dodge pickup. Her back leaning into the door of the cab, with her arms and face tucked inside of a black hoodie. The drawstrings pulled tight, leaving only her nose and sunglasses sticking out.

-brzzt-
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The phone continues to dance around the top of the dash, and now introducing its way into the fold of abrupt onomatopoeia:

-rrrWOOF-
-rrrWOOF-
-brzzt-
-brzzt-

The frantic whimpering and barks of Mutty Waters. The homeless little gray and brindle spotted pooch of no specific breed that Dolly’s father, Muddy, showed up with at Coreytopia last Summer. There’s a whole story there, but that’s for another time.

What duuude?

Dolly raisies a single eyelid under her sunglasses, and then springs-to with a gasp and the sudden realization that she'd likely been sleeping too long. A relived Mutty gives his partner a series of licks as she undoes the hood from her head and reaches for her phone on the dash.

Shit!

Alongside the fourteen 'missed calls' notifications, Dolly spots the time and date. Her heart sinks. With the afternoon sun beaming, parked at a rest stop just outside of Edgar's hometown in Kentucky, the road worn Waters girl realizes she's a full eight hours behind schedule.

Though not one to gripe, Dolly never has been well adjusted to the bustling traveling schedule the XWF demands, and never has understood how many of her peers get through the grind so seamlessly. Rhode Island, Tokyo, Chicago, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Alberta, now Kentucky, and soon Hollywood- all with trips to the Commune between. Even when at full strength, Dolly found the perpetual state of jetlag to be something of a sonovabitch. So it's safe to assume now, while recovering from injury and trying to get back into ring-form that our girl is exhausted.

Dolly doesn't waste time reading the twenty-seven text messages she's also received from Edgar, and instead dials him right back. Tucking the phone between her shoulder and ear, she turns the key in ignition and pulls out of the rest area parking lot.

So this is it, huh?!

She's barely out of her parking spot before Edgar answers,

Heeeeeey!

She rattles out with a nervous laugh,

So this is what all of that talking in Tokyo amounts to? You ghosting me until the ninth hour?

I'm sorry, I overslept!

Dolly swerves onto the interstate, nearly coming onto two wheels, using one arm to brace a terrified Mutty before steadying and opening up the engine.

Great! Well I hope you know that while you were sleeping, Mark Flynn and War Criminal-

Comrade!

Do what?

COMRADE War Criminal!

Whatever. They tore us to shreds!

Huh?

In promo! They made us look dumb as hell.

Oh fer’ fucks sake, Unc. It’s just a pro-

NOPE! Don’t you say it! Don’t you give me that ‘just a promo’ line. I’ll have you know my children were watching.

Okay? And you haven’t responded?

No! I’ve been waiting for you!

For what? Didn’t you record the promo of the month once against Chris Page?

Yeah…

Jeez louise, that baby-momma’ of yers’ must’ve really screwed yer’ head up.

SHUT IT!

Dolly swerves between traffic on the crowded interstate while arguing with her distressed tag partner. Deep down she knows this isn’t a good look, and nor does it bode well for their fledgling teams chances on Warfare. But deep down she knows something else too, something she knew the moment she saw the pairing of herself and Edgar versus the tag team champions- it’s something she really would rather not mention in this setting. Up ahead she spots a sign on the highway,

I’m fifteen miles outside of Georgetown. M’kay? I’ll be there in about an hour.

Before Edgar can even respond, Dolly drops the phone from her shoulder and peeks over at Mutty Waters. One ear flopped over, and his head tilted, he shoots Dolly a peculiar look,

I know, boy. We’re screwed.

Becoming A Mask

Dolly turns from Edgar's kitchen window where outside his basketball team's worth of children are harmlessly playing with Mutty Waters on their trampoline. The sun is settling down over backyard, as nightfall begins to dust Kentucky with violet skies. Through the Spanish archway of the kitchen and into the meager condo's living area, Dolly can overhear a light, almost pleasant sounding mumbling.

Not being so intrusive, yet being totally intrusive, Dolly peaks her head out of the archway and spots her Uncle Edgar speaking with his estranged spouse, Marie. They're leaned up just at base of the second floor steps, acting,

...totally weird.

Dolly whispers to herself,

Marie is all dolled up, dressed for an obvious evening outing. Even her perfume smells as loud as her high heels that stabbed their way down the staircase. Edgar is wearing a face blended between hypnotized and sadness, as his ex runs her fingers through his hair, showing him a loving smile. I'll see you later tonight.

Edgar's face runs flat, his tone mirthless, No you wont. Just then, Edgar spots his niece as she fails at gracefully ducking her head back between the archway, instead stamping on a lego Luke Skywalker, slipping and knocking over some decorative display of flowers in the hallway.

Heh! Don't mind me!

She cries out, while fumbling to her knees and trying to stack as many broken shards of the vase in her hand as possible. In turn only spilling them, watching them shatter into even smaller, messier pieces to clean.

It's alright. Those weren't important anyway.

Edgar says, pulling away from Marie and walking over to aide Dolly. The comment leaves a bent, and vexed expression on Marie's face as she heads out the front door. Here, let me. Edgar swoops down with a broom-head and dustpan while Dolly picks up the flower arrangement from the floor. Do you have another vase? I can-

Just throw em out. Got em' for Marie. She's kept the poor dying things alive long enough.

Dolly's face sinks into her chin as she watches her uncle, clearly elsewhere mentally, as he sweeps away a broken showing of his love. Dolly figures she might try approaching him with tenderness and empathy,

-so uh, she's going out with uh- - some friends?

She fails,

Right! Friends. he says after belting out a sarcastic laugh, and dumping the broken vase into the kitchen trashcan. Dolly follows behind and tosses the flowers on top,

Why is she still here?

...I don't know.

Dolly can sense his sincere dismay over the situation with Marie, as he looks out of the window at the children who are still playing with Mutty Waters. She figures now's a good a time as any to move on from the subject,

So, hey! Fuck her, right? Edgar turns, to face her with an offended bend of the eyebrow before curling a bit of a smile onto his cheek, Ready to talk strategy?

Right. she nods, "strategy".

The two wander back into the living room and flip on the television set, where one of Flynn and NK's promos are paused mid-stream. So listen, for the most part, every critique Flynn and Comrade made of our team are tee-totally on point. Edgar raises an eyebrow, opening his mouth with a silent gasp, I mean lets face it, they've lost how many tag team matches? One? Two? There's not a single team in the XWF that can beat them in a wrestling match right now, and Wednesday night, nothing changes.

But wait! What happened to all of your renewed vigor. All of that self-help chicken soup shit you were babbling about?

Dolly laughs and turns her gaze onto the paused guffaw of NK. Right! "Chicken Soup". Didn't I tell you that we proabablly weren't going to be ready, not even after a month, not even after-

Not even after you scoring those wins over Raab and Martin?

Didn't you hear, Flynn? Those wins amount to chopped liver. And he's right! Even though he's also kinda wrong at the same time.

Edgar's twirling facial expressions try keeping up with Dolly's logic,

Okay, LOOK. I hate doing this, but I also sometimes, really -REALLY- hate the whole 'look at who you've beat game'.

Oh! I know what you mean. The 'I beat them, who beat you during this one arbitrary match seventeen months before Arbor Day under full moon in Bangledesh' jargon. It's annoying, sure but it's gotta count for something, right?

IT DOES. Totally. But it's also a double-edged sword, and can serve as an opportunity for someone to stick their foot in their mouths. Take for instance Flynn poo=pooing on me defeating a couple of guys on Anarchy. One of which being none other than Elijah Martin, who carried the Anarchy Championship for MONTHS, right?

Right.

Well, Flynn also took an opportunity to dump on me saying that LSM climbed to greater heights after our tag match, going on to win the Anarchy Title. So is it that LSM stepped up and began to accomplish once she wasn't messing with me anymore -the obvious dig there- or is Anarchy a trashcan product where wins don't matter? You can't have it both ways.

Yeah, but it was all kind of tongue in cheek.

But that's the point. What else is there to say? What else CAN he say besides pointing out that you and I have had shoddy in-ring performance in recent memory?

Recency bias is a thing you know?

Yeah? So is wrestling. It's this "thing" that we do. For all of Flynn proclaiming that a string of bad performances means someone can never bounce back again do you think he would dare point out that I looked like crap against dick Powers before going on that nice little run last year? Do you think he would DARE point out that YOU, RL Edgar, lost multiple times to Peter Gilmour before coming back years later and earning a well deserved shot at the Universal Title?

Wow. I see you have no problem pointing out that I lost to Gilly. Multiple times. Thanks.

Yer' welcome. Because wasn't Peter Gilmour once a Universal Champion? The point I'm making is that comebacks do happen, and they always happen DESPITE the crap people like Flynn have to say about past records. It's meaningless. There's always a new day. There's always a new opportunity for someone to step up and start a new.

Edgar's nodding with a glow of confidence now,

But that won't be happening for us... yet anyhow.

What the fuck?! Why not?

Well for one, Flynn and Comrade are truly a GREAT team. For two, we're not even actually WRESTLING the guys. It's a tornado match on something called the Millennial Falcrom.

Edgar cocks his eyebrow,

You mean the Millennium Falcon?

Yeah. Whatever that is.

Edgar is beside himself,

Who, whoa, whoa, WAIT! You mean to tell me that YOU, Dolly Waters. As cultured as you are. Someone who loves Bob Dylan and other shitty old seventies music, doesn't know about Star Wars?

It's a game right? Never played it.

Fuck me runnin'. C'mon, sit down. You've got a LOT to learn young Padawan.

Over the next day and a half, Edgar makes Dolly watch all of the Star Wars movies, in correct order: 4,5,6,1,2,3,7,8,9

Dolly becomes emotionally attached to the films, and then devises a strategy to have Edgar dress as Kylo Ren, and distract the Disneyland actor playing Han Solo during their match. Her thinking that the Disneyland actor will be so lost in his method acting that he'll actually believe that he's Han Solo and will cause a huge scene that makes the Disneyland actor playing Chewbacca freak out and destroy the model Millennium Falcon.

Only none of it works. They lose in spectacular fashion.

...Mark Flynn is muh' daddy.

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