I slouched there in the recliner, one of my legs restless and bouncing on the floor. Just across the living room, my older sister Fannie was leaned face-first onto the end of the staircase banister. She was all sloppy and sobbing from our argument. It was a good thing to see. She deserved it. But it still did little to snuff this wholehearted sense of betrayal.

“I didn’t know who she was, Reggie!”

She choked out through her cries, gasping for breaths between words,

Aside from her wailing, the house was silent. Our fight had made even the babies uncomfortable. Marie and the kids, along with Fannie’s husband Todd, all watched from various spots of the room. There was a streamer, and balloons, and a big banner with the word: CONGRATULATIONS hanging above an uneaten cake and unopened sodas. It was the drabbest celebration in history.

“I’m your sister, Reggie! You’ve got to believe me!”

she continued bellowing,

I just sat there watching her, my leg still bouncing. I was taking turns between chewing some of the skin from my cracked knuckles and twisting the hair on my beard.

“You ain't my sister.”

I said spitting some dead skin to the floor,

“Take that back!”

She cried,

"According to Dad’s letter, you’re my HALF sister! Just like some shitty drunk named Muddy Waters is my HALF brother! And you fucking knew it all along!”

The family had thrown a big party to celebrate my win at Snow Job. I hadn’t stepped foot back in that house since reading my father’s seedy confessional. Instead, I had driven directly to Louisville, to the airport, and flew out to Wisconsin. Marie had been the only person I spoke of the letter to, so she knew this fight was coming and was dreading it.

Everyone in that house knew I was justified. They were all eying that tattered screed, wadded-up in the middle of the room. Looking at it like an old dirty secret creeping back in their memories. That’s what I was! That’s what I’ve always been! A hidden scarlet letter of some nasty affair. Like a clergywoman’s abortion.

“Reggie! I never knew who your mom was, I just knew-”

I interrupted her,

“-you just knew that ‘Mom’ wasn’t really my mom.”

“I’m so sorry”

She wept,

“Did you know that I was born in Mexico, Fannie?” With a pained glare, she started shaking her head, “What does that even make me?” I heckled. “Oh I’ve got it!” snapping my fingers and leaning up from the recliner, “I’m a reverse-anchor baby! With a lying-ass sister, who spends all of her time looking down on people who couldn’t be bothered to tell me the truth!”

“Dad wanted to tell you himself, R.L.!”

She wailed out,

“Yeah, he did,”

I scoffed,

“In a letter, after he fucking died. HOW CONSIDERATE?!”

The tension in the air was so pungent you could taste it, and I had eaten enough. I felt sick, and pity for my sister but what could I do? This town was known for double-dealing. It wasn’t a stranger to anyone around the holler and I was obviously no exception. But I wasn’t going to let this be a distraction. In just a few days I was going to have to return to Italy for Wednesday Warfare, and continue on with the European tour... now as the face of that program.

Sobbing even louder now, Fannie darted up the stairs and into her room. I stood up and headed outside to get some air when Todd chimed in,

“Hey, Reggie... “

He began,

“I don’t even know if that’s my real name, Todd!”

I snapped back,

Todd Harrod; my brother-in-law, or HALF brother-in-law, I wasn’t sure how that worked now... was a man’s-man. A brawny and warm outdoorsman, but with a peculiar femme’ sounding voice that if not outright hilarious, was at least a little ironic. Especially when he’d screech at the kids. Like nails scraping down a chalkboard.

Todd had an upper-middle-class type of upbringing. A Tommy Hilfiger wearing, BETA Club president, golf-team captain type of guy. A person I would have normally never gotten along with in my youth, and yet I couldn’t help but love him even if he annoyed the piss out of me.

Todd had been humbled years ago. After having a swanky gig as a nuclear medicine tech, he found that he enjoyed running an IV into his own veins as well. It didn’t take long before the dope had beat him into submission. It was a tragic story that culminated with his best friend overdosing in his arms, leading to an involuntary manslaughter sentencing. He lost everything but found my sister Fannie, who was herself a drunk of the manic variety, through their shared programs of recovery.

He had been able to reign-in Fannie, which to me spoke volumes to his patience and character. While at times he could be aloof, and intentionally foreign to this blue-collar world he was now living in, Todd was all-in-all a good man, so I always had time for him.

“I know all of this must be really weird for you…”

I rolled my eyes as he spoke. His words felt glib and sounded squeaky. But still, I heard him out,

“...but we can make something positive out of this.”

“Oh we can, can we?”

I grumbled,

“Yes! Your Mother, Misty-”

“Can we please refrain from calling her that?”

He nods at me,

“Sorry… Misty Waters is the President of the Franklin County Historical Society!”

The statement left me raising an incurious eyebrow, my face sagging indifferently,

“Okay? So?”

I said,

“Look, I’m proud of you, dude! You’re finally fulfilling your dreams. It’s only a matter of time before you’re a bonafide superstar.”

“Will you quit blowing smoke up my ass and get to the point?”

I hissed,

“Okay! Okay! The point is, even if you want nothing to do with that woman, we might be able to use her to our advantage.”

“Oh, you mean to YOUR advantage?”

Todd let out a sigh of admission,

“I want to fulfill MY dreams too, Reggie. Misty Waters holds the key to putting the Midnight Wolf Pack on the map.”

The Midnight Wolfpack was a paranormal investigation team headed by Todd. The team was comprised of Bert Pack, an old tour guide at the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, his wife Denise, two of her cousins, and a self-described “skeptic” named Roland Chow. Each one of them was as stupifying and credulous as one could imagine.

I found the whole concept of the paranormal ridiculous. There’s no afterlife. No supernatural dimension. A few years ago I finally “came out of the closet” as an atheist, which in Kentucky was like openly admitting to eating live babies.

It led to a few fights, especially among Fannie and Todd. Fannie became even more combative and prodding about the subject after our Dad died. But deep down I believe that she, and everyone else only wished it were true. They feared their deaths while also prophesying them ad nauseum. They all wanted to be a part of some special plan.

Todd saw this whole ghost hunting deal as a special mission in life. I remember when I met him he showed me this twisted picture on his phone. He took it while lying on his mother’s couch, dope-sick and hearing voices. The image was swirling with red and black slashes into the bottom of the frame. Down there was an eerie gob of blotted color that could be mistaken for a face. He believed it to be some demonic omen, and he made it his life’s work to confront this demon again. I didn’t have the heart to remind him that it was simple image matrixing taken while he was detoxing from heroin. And just like I did every time he brought this stuff up, I just responded:

“Oh.”

“She can get us into Fort Hill!”

This turned my ear a little bit.

Fort Hill was this eleven-acre hump of forest that elevated two hundred feet from the bottom of the Franklin County valley and was notorious for old legends and wild ghost stories.

It served as a point of contention during the Civil War. Franklin County became the northernmost capital to be taken by the Confederacy until a local militia repelled them in a vicious battle. After a string of disappearances was connected to the site in the eighties and nineties it was permanently closed to the public in two-thousand.

Being able to investigate that location meant everything to Todd. His team’s credibility took a major hit when a previous documentary they produced flopped. The footage was debunked after a more reputable paranormal expert shat all over the most compelling piece of the “evidence”. A woman intentionally slung her own face into the concrete floor of an abandoned prison and made it seem as if she was pushed by a spirit. Anyone with a functioning brain could spot the fraud.

“Just think!”

He said,

“You could go on the investigation with us!”

I shook my head,

“Please, dude. I’m begging you! With your new celebrity status and Midnight WolfPack being the first paranormal team to investigate Fort Hill, this will be our big break!”

I considered his words in silence while chewing on the inside of my lip. I cared for Todd’s dreams. How selfish and smug would that make me if I didn’t? He was after all the father of my niece and nephews. Even though I found ghost hunting laughable, I wasn’t above playing along especially if it would help put money in Todd’s pocket.

Everyone around here believed in some fable or another and was easily duped by the things that go bump in the night. I was the Blacksheep. But I could understand why they were so gullible. This town itself resembled a living death. From under the rust, you could sometimes hear the ghosts of dead dreams ringing from the vacant streets. There was a genuine need to believe… in anything.

“Fuck Misty Waters, dude! Let’s use that bitch. It’ll be the least she can do after thirty-plus years of not being involved in your life.”

I appreciated that sentiment,

“I’ll think about it…”

But I wanted nothing to do with those people. The Waters’. Do you know that meme about Kentucky? Four million citizens, four last names? Well, Waters was one of those last names. Like the Hollands, or Blankenship's. They were old families from old money, like phantoms or the residual energy of a world that had passed on.

“Just call her”

He said, handing me Misty’s business card that was tucked in the letter’s fold,

I gazed upon it in my hand, running my thumb across its rough edges. It was pale and plain with only a name and a number. The hairs of my arms raised as if a tingling voice was hissing into my ear.

The feeling was eerily familiar…

One night not too long after my father died, I was lying in his old room, struggling to sleep. Struggling with the denial, with the guilt, with the anger. Struggling to bridge what I knew, with what I wished for. My father was dead, and I wanted him back. That’s when I heard him. Just like he was standing next to me and leaned over into my ear:

“It’s okay. It’s not what you think it is. It’s not what I thought it was. Everything... is okay.”

His words sang me to sleep.

Now I was hearing a ghost talking again…

I pulled out my phone and dialed the number.

-to be continued-

Could you imagine saying a million words while saying nothing at all? Could you imagine what it might feel like to stuff a rubber hose up your ass and fill yourself with hot air? Bloated with nothing. Ballooning up and drifting around with whatever direction the wind blows? Overcompensating the exterior to make up for the lack of anything real. What would that make you?

Empty and aimless...

Those words, to Lycana and her sympathizers, don't appear to carry any negative connotation. No, Lycana as herself, and as proxy to her flop of a stable, is happy with what she is: an airheaded and grandiose display of bad choices and gutlessness. But I guess being the done-to-death nihilistic bad guy is better than being "bland", right?

Fuck me running!

I mean how dare I point out the absurdities of your schtick? What do I think this is? The hype reel to a wrestling contest or something? I suppose we can talk about something other than your constant failing, or your regurgitation of the most generic story ever told. You're from Carolina, right? How are your Tar Heels doing this season? How's the weather where you are? It's raining pigs' blood and pentagrams here, it’s hella annoying, but perhaps that'll excite you! Maybe even as much as you pondering how you’ll get my dick hard!

Oh! How about we play twenty-one questions? This could be fun!

Here, let me start:

The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, chick-fil-a, anal sex, and Lycana.

Did I do that right?

Eh, fuck it!

What difference does it make?

I'm sure like everything else, the actual depth of anything I say to you will float just above that spray-painted hair of yours. You alluded to me being childish, and maybe I am, but let's not pretend that it isn't TOTALLY in your wheelhouse to focus on me saying: 'anal-sex' and then ramble a bunch of frivolous nonsense, mashing it together with a pisspot full of five letter synonyms for 'attack'.

"OH! You don't like anal?! Silly, Edgar! Just wait until I THROW you down and CHOKE you with the little friend I keep tucked between my cheeks for emergencies just like this! I will THRASH and TEAR OPEN that precious man cave of yours and make you SQUEAL and BLEED! THE BAPH-O-QUIT LIVES!"

Lycana, I know it's easier for you if I spell things out in crayon, but please recognize the sarcasm there you drifty bitch. That wasn't an invitation. I wouldn't want you to further bury yourself, and your shit mic skills, by running with another tongue-in-cheek comment, like the one I made about my cock. You can't seem to let go of it!

See! Innuendo can be fun if you're not a half-witted wolf goddess with no real-world experience.

Look, don't get me wrong, I'm all about some four-letter head-turners, like:

FUCK, and SUCK, and SHIT and PISS... I can even do that thing filler thing you like:

Lycana, you fucking suck, and smell like shit and piss!

But please don't come at me talking about being bland while reciting the same lulling threats, overworded to kingdom-fucking-come, twelve different ways in your promo. None of that crap is scary, and don't you act like that isn't the vibe you're aiming for.

Why in the world...

Nay!

...why even in your fantasy, teenybop Lovecraft world, should I be afraid of you?

For as much as you've tried force-feeding that tired, and beaten snatch of yours on the XWF, you've only grown less intimidating. You and the rest of your pitiful goons came into the XWF guns blazing and trying to turn this entire company and all of its rich history, into some tasteless cosplay sandbox for all of your rejected D-script movies.

It should go without saying that you were dead on arrival. When you landed in the XWF, you people recognized real quick just how in over your heads you were.

Sure, maybe the RMI followed you, clowns, in here, like a bunch of doddering, self-loathing sadomasochists who just lay down for the Left Hand in a moment's notice. And of course! Kicking the shit out of those guys, as you appear built to do, gave you a nice little rub for a while. But after we’d all seen it for the umpteenth time, it got stale as fuck, and anyone with a few functioning brain cells could tell it was little more than mere coincidence.

Outside of terrorizing The White Spider and his physically handicapped manager what have you actually done here Lycana? Kidnapped and beat up an innocent woman on national television? Nothing makes me shudder harder than watching two trained professional athletes batter some blonde-headed string-bean. What a dissentient action that was!

Other than that, what has there been? Not even a single fucking win, Lycana? Really? You were supposed to be the thumb of the Left Hand, and yet Geri Vayden made your group more credible than you have. I find that hilarious considering that she was XWF before she was a part of your laughing stock. And now she’s smartened up and ghosted on y’all! Just like Andrew Logan and your FEARLESS leader Baphamania!

What happened to Baph anyway? Did he finally suffer enough of watching you fail here before he decided to abandon you and spread y’alls herpes to some other wrestling brand? Oh! I hear there’s some parody wrestling company out there full of sensitive little man-children who kick and scream when things don’t go their way. Apparently, they’re all about that tasteless and edgy content! Especially poorly made Youtube video! I’m sure he’ll fit right in!

So where exactly does that leave you? I’m no prophet or anything, but I think we’re already catching little glimpses of your future. Outside of Marf your stable is gone. Now your partner may be a little slow to the mound, but as soon as he realizes that you’re trying to fit young Duke into your busy mouth I doubt he’ll be happy. I’d hope you brush your teeth before you kiss him goodbye.

Is this what you’re becoming? Moving from one ridiculous trope to the next? I thought the wrestling world was long removed from the days of women shaking their tits and ass backstage as filler content. If that’s what’s truly on the horizon for you, then it makes the situation of our Hart Championship match all the more serious.

See, outside of the obvious reasons, you and I are nothing alike, Lycana. Being a champion in this federation means everything to me. This is my dream. I don’t flip from acting like titles mean nothing to me because I have “bigger plans”, to suddenly wanting to win a title more than anything the very next week. What happened to the “bigger plans” you told Betsy about? Listen carefully, you can wad up all of those frothy and veiled threats and shove them directly up your ass.

It’s either:

a. The plans fell apart like everything else The Left Hand does...

or

b. The sight of R.L. Edgar as the Hart Champion deterred your attention.

Either of these things proves everything I’ve been saying all along. You ain’t shit, homegirl! YOU need to beat me, I don’t need to beat you!

I don’t think of myself as some outside force that’s just a part of the XWF. I don’t upload my vignettes and promos up onto some shitty Left Hand website full of lights and colors so gaudy they damn-near send me into a seizure every time I watch. No, I’m not a Left Hand, or a bOb, or a Continuum, or a Legacy, or a King. I’m just R.L. Edgar, and I’m the XWF through and through. And I'll be the XWF Hart Champion for as long as I damn-well-please!

We've all seen ghosts, we've all battled demons...

so what's so special about you?

I don't believe in those things, just like I don't believe you're capable of beating me.

As long as I'm the XWF Hart Champion, you're gonna have to look for another title to ruin.

Edgar out.

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