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The Collector · (07-10-2020)

Days Inn
Jersey City, New Jersey

I’mma probably harp on it a little bit in this promo and promos to come, but I’m proud of what I did for Keith Rickle, and more importantly, his son Frankie. I have helped others pay off debts to Alister Henry before. A few grand here, twenty grand there. I don’t care about money. Not mine, not theirs, and certainly not Alister’s. It takes a certain ruthlessness to carry out this job.

Unless they’re traitors or enemy combatants, I’m not very ruthless.

I know it.

I have yet to see Alister since I wrote that check to Keith. There’s a number of reasons why but the two most important ones are that I’m avoiding that confrontation- he’s gonna smell that one a mile away. The other? I really don’t like this line of work. I thought I did, if I’m being honest. I knew going into it what the job entailed but I didn’t know these people from Adam.

I’m beginning to know them. They’re mostly good and decent people that have fallen on hard times and there’s that cranky old shitbag Alister Henry to swoop down and save the day charging them an enormous amount of money in order to save their skin...but only for a time.

So I lay here on this twin bed in a musty old Days Inn motel room considering my life’s choices. I wonder why I ran away from people I love and a job I hated just to find myself in the midst of someone I loathe while doing a job that quite honestly disgusts me to my very core. Despite the good that I do for others, this job isn’t really me. I wanted it to be right in the beginning, but it isn’t.

I wear the mask still, but lately it’s just for show. The last few days I haven’t even bothered to turn on the voice augmenter thingy to disguise my voice. I’m just so...disenchanted with the whole thing.

I’ve been waiting on this mark for like three hours. I’m starting to grow very bored. All I ever do is wait and wait and wait. Then talk a little. Maybe make some threats that I have no intention of following through on.

And for what?

So Alister Henry can continue to grow his fortune?

Fuck.

After three hours of waiting, I finally hear my mark at the door. I jump into action, making myself one with the wall, so to speak, getting as close to it as possible. I hear the door open, then shut quickly. I wait for her to emerge from the entry way but she never comes. Staying as still and as silent as possible, I listen for her, but hear nothing.

I poke my head around the corner but no one is there.

”What the fuck?” I say with a sigh. I open the door, expecting her to maybe be down the hall getting ice. I look in both directions and no one is around. It looks like it’ll be more waiting for me tonight.

Go me!

After closing the door I flick on the light switch to my right and turn around to go chill on the bed. That was the plan anyway, except I’m startled by what I run into when I turn around and backpedal too fast, ending up falling on my ass in the small hallway beside the closet.

”Where the fuck did you come from!?” I ask my father.

He doesn’t answer, only sits his rather large frame on the edge of the bed. It creaks beneath his weight. He’s 6 feet 9 and like 290. Shits gonna moan when he sits on it.

”How long have you been away?” he asks me. I know he knows, he’s just feeling.

”I’m not sure exactly, dad,” I answer him somewhat honestly. ”I haven’t kept track of time since I left.”

”You never even called me,” he replies, sounding like his feelings were hurt. That’d be a shock because for most of my life, he and I had a very tumultuous relationship. ”I was trying, you were trying. We were bonding.”

Shit.

He is hurt.

”It wasn’t...”

”A lot of people died so that you could take the reigns, boy!”

Annnnd now he’s angry.

”You don’t take control then just ignore your responsibilities. This isn’t a fucking WalMart.”

”Dad, I know! I just...”

”You just what?” he asks in a mocking tone of voice. “You had a little argument with Lane and shit didn’t go your way and you SHIT on the legacy I forged for you with MY work! MY blood! MY sweat! MY tears!” he’s standing and pacing now. Like a rabid fucking dog that hasn’t eaten in a week and smells blood.

”Fuck bro, it had nothing to do with Lane or...”

”Some fucking coward in the desert wants you dead and blew you out of the sky so you run...”

”DON’T!” I shout as I shove him. He stumbles over on the bed and bounces, but gets back to his feet.

”So that’s it,” he surmises. He sits awkwardly in the chair across the room.

”I’m sorry,” I say to him honestly. ”For pushing you.”

”Fuck that. I don’t care that you pushed me.

“Just listen.

“Before you were born, it was me as the head mother fucker in charge. I know the pressures, I know the risks. I put people in harms way for the cause, just like you. I lost people I loved, just like you. Their blood was on my hands, just like you.”

”Dad! I know all that!”

”You talking, isn’t listening. Shut the fuck up!” he exclaims as he stands from the chair and leans against the wall.

To be really honest, I was wondering when this day would come. My dad doesn’t do well sitting on the sidelines. He never has. I expected him sooner though, in reality. Maybe my return to the ring is what set him off.

”You’re a soft man, kid. There’s nothing wrong with that. You feel everything. I did too,” he begins to explain. ”Fact is, we just deal with it differently. I always brooded while in the dark and buried the hurt I felt inside. Then I used that hurt to rain fire on those that would harm us.

“You?

“You run away.

“Time and time again, you run away from the life I fucking created for you!

“Time and again, shit gets tough, someone dies and you hightail it out of town to lick your wounds and feel sorry for yourself!”

”I don’t feel sorry for myself,” I interject with honesty.

”No? Then tell me what it is. What is it that makes you run like a little coward?”

I consider his question for a minute and gather my thoughts. Reaching for the buckle on the mask, I remove it and throw it on the floor. The camera of course, pointed at my back.

Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, I begin to explain myself. ”When I was leading armies for you and Grandfather, I didn’t make mistakes. I earned the love and respect of my men because of it. Yes, people died, but all I ever did was carry out your vision, or Grandfather’s vision.

“When I took over, I started making mistakes. I thought I was invincible, untouchable.

“Then I wasn’t.

“I made mistakes and a lot of people died because of them. I never ran out of fear, dad. I ran from my guilt.”

He leaves his place at the wall and stands directly in front of me. In a moment of tenderness, believe me, it’s a rarity from this man, he places his hand on my shoulder.

”And as long as you’re away, everyone we’ve lost is lost in vain.”

…

”Your time here is running out, kid. It’s been far too long already. If you make me go home, I’m not leaving again.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

”Yes.” I fully understand the implications.

”I did try to run once,” he admits to my astonishment.

”Really?” I inquire, sincerely wanting to know the story. Through all my years, granted they’ve been few, I’ve never heard the story of my dad running away.

”I had just debuted in the XWF and, honestly it’s been so long that I don’t even remember WHY I ran, I just know that I did.

“It worked for a time.”

”What brought you back?”

”Your grandfather gathered a bunch of the men and ended up kidnapping me during a match with Griffin MacAlister.”

”I just… I’m not ready yet.”

”You go home,” he says with a playful slap upside my head. ”Or I will.”

You know what Evan? You’re god damn right I’m destined for big things. I wouldn’t call beating and humiliating Gage Gannon a big win. I’ve had big wins and I consider neither he nor my win- “big.” If Gage Gannon is what you consider to be a big win then you my friend, ought to rethink your life’s choices, you ought to reconsider stepping into the big time and maybe go back to the fuckin’ minor leagues where you belong.

I know, I know. We’re supposed to believe in your subliminal messaging where you’re the “reality” of evil or danger that lurks in the shadows while I’m the sunshine and roses fake facade. Thing is, you gotta put your money where your mouth is, old man. Sometime, you have to actually do something in your career that matters.

Gannon was a “here, get your feet wet again” moment in time that in a month from now, I won’t even remember it.

You? You might even be less than that. You’re a lamb being fed to a lion, pops.

You are in so deep, so far in over your head that the only thing you can see is darkness, the blackness of the abyssal black hole that the fat ass idiot in charge saw fit to put you in, in your first go-round on Warfare. I tell you that so you remember who is to blame for throwing you to the hungry lions when you’re trying to make a name for yourself.

There is no light at the end of the tunnel for you.

There’s is no glass half full for you.

Only hurt.

Only blood.

Only defeat.

Only loss.

Only you wondering just why the fuck you came here only to get slaughtered in your first match.

That’s the reality of the situation you find yourself in, Mr. Jackson.

Warfare will belong to me just like it belonged to him all those years ago.

You? You’re just a stepping stone that I’m surely not tripping over.

Turn out the lights, the competition is over.

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