An Englishman from Mexico

                His name was Reginald Benedict Gonzalez.

                He hated his last name.

                Reginald, or Reggie, as he liked to be called, was born the first and only son of Charles Benedict Senior. If there was a junior, no one could say, but Charles had always announce himself by that appellation. Unlike the entirety of his family, avowed Shakespeareans who lived in Stratford-upon-Avon, Reggie was born in the far more American town of Waxahachie, Texas, before relocating to Manhattan.

                Charles claimed Reggie was a Texan. Reggie hated him for it.

                Reggie spent his earliest years abroad. His father, an oil businessman with offices in China, Venezuela, Scotland, and Houston, took his son with him on his business trips. Whether by airplane or boat, Reggie was accompanied by the finest tutors in the world. Charles often, and proudly, announced the hundred thousand dollar salaries he paid his employees. “This is my son,” he said proudly at dinner parties. “Did you know just one of his tutors costs me a hundred grand?” Charles had never been shy about his wealth, and by all accounts was something of a bastard. 

                He was also a renowned world traveler, seen on the cover of Yacht Owner’s Fancy and Delectable Boats. He was particularly proud of standing with his finger stretched outward to the sun, his leg propped against the railing of his boat with a cob pipe jutting from his teeth. Reggie, for his part, did not stay out of the spotlight. He was quite often featured alongside his father, and the child’s great intellect was often put on display. In Russia he played a series of chess games against some of the world’s most renowned Chessmasters. He took his first game, lost his second, and stalemated his third. He was only eight at the time, so it was considered quite the accomplishment by all. His father was slightly disappointed. 

                Despite some of his other unsavory predilections, Charles Senior was an avowed conservationist. He took his son beneath the Arctic Circle during whaling season, where the two of them boarded a Japanese whaling vessel. The sight of a nine year old boy being taken prisoner was considered an international scandal, and the official whaling season was called off that year. It made for a good summer vacation, and in the fall, Charles and Reggie returned to shore. They stopped off in France, where Reggie took music lessons from the acclaimed artist, Pierre-Louis Courbet. The child’s painting, A Vision of Terror, was featured in the winter edition of Painter’s International. 

In short, his father took him everywhere, and so it was that, by the age of ten, Reggie had seen the Great Wall of China, Edinburg Castle, Angel Falls, and the Alamo. 

                Reggie’s mother was a Spanish woman with family in the states. She knew him for only a brief time, and he knew her even less. She had family in Texas, where she had met Charles. The two of them had what some described as the “erotic heights of tempestuous love” before they split in a firestorm of accusations and broken hearts. She was a passionate woman with a desire for close affection, and he was a man of the sea who could never stay still long. She left their suburban home in the Houston area, leaving only a half-written note that began, “Dear Charles, I…” before running out of ink. She hadn’t bothered trying to find another pen.

                Charles kept his son on into his teen years, when he began to travel more frequently and found less time to stay in any one place. Reggie increasingly spent time in the States, a turn of events he despised. His aunt and uncle, Mary and Gil, would go on to permanently adopt him. This was shortly after Charles’ fateful voyage around the tip of South America, during his attempts to replicate the fateful circumnavigation of the world first completed by Ferdinand Magellan.      

                So it was that Reginald Benedict Gonzalez, future heir of the Benedict fortune, a globally travelled prodigy who once sat at the feet of the world’s greatest instructors, found himself once again in New York. From the age of 14, he stayed on with his new parents in the house Charles Senior had left to them. He attended the prestigious Westington House, a private all-boys school attended by the children of princes, diplomats, and business tycoons. Charles’ name continued to haunt him, since it was engraved in stone over the library’s main entrance.

                By 21, Reggie found himself commuting to the private college of Saint Bartholomew. Rumored to have been established by a fraternal order whose wealth was plundered from the Orient during the Boxer Rebellion, Saint Bartholomew made all its students sign a pledge promising they wouldn’t look too closely into the history of the school. Reggie hadn’t particularly cared about the pledge either way.

                The only thing Reggie cared about was the dwindling money that was draining out of his bank account. For as rich as he had been, Charles Senior had not made it clear where he had stored the family fortune. Reggie had the house that had been left to him, and the sizeable sum of money that he inherited, a sum that was nearly exhausted after a lifetime of private schools. 

                So it was that Reggie, in his final semester of college and nearing his 22^nd birthday, began to face down the reality that he would never again be known as the globe travelling genius. After a lifetime spent training at the hands of masters, being featured in magazines, and living the life of a trust fund enriched nomad, Reggie found himself with the greatest challenge of his life. Soon, he would have no money.

                And that’s when the letter arrived.