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“There it is,” he said, and not of the notebook. His shoulders dropped a little. I opened my mouth to explain, though explain what, I wasn’t sure. He shook his head, not interested.

“Sit down for a minute,” he said. He was worried about what he’d been telling me, what people would think of him, about his health and his rough history. But he’d decided. We were going to do this.

It was time to say goodbye.

“Hug your kids. Tell them you love them,” he said. Standing in an old T-shirt and boxers, he offered me his hand. After our journey, I knew what the hand meant. It’ll be all business now. I didn’t mean for it to get all emotional like this.I refused his hand, stood and hugged him.

Roddy’s days of hurting people were done, no matter how many old regrets nagged at his conscience. But as he leaned in, his hands folded intuitively into one another against the small of my back, one wrapped around the other the way a wrestler grips his opponent before lifting him off the mat. This hug was looking a lot like a front suplex. Old habits and muscle memory.

He let go and smiled. Grim, still, but sincere now. And so I told him we’d meet up again, resume our effort to tell his story as truly and fully as we could. He offered his hand once more. This time it meant something different, and I took it.

Roddy Piper died in the early hours of July 31, 2015. Months later, Craig Pyette asked Roddy’s daughter Ariel and son Colt if they were interested in finishing the job their father had started. They said yes.