Incelbordination, Chapter 3

Even though he was only three feet tall and south of a hundred pounds, Oswald Crow sent tremors throughout the punching bag like he was Mike fucking Tyson. The boxing gloves looked ridiculously large on his little hands, and for some it was a source of cheap entertainment. Whatever laughs he received at the gym were drowned out by the sounds of Phil Anselmo screaming “Bedroom Destroyer” in his ears. There was something euphoric about heavy metal strengthening Oswald’s punches against the sandbag.

He wasn’t just punching sand for the sake of it. He actually utilized decent footwork like all boxers should have done. He came at that thing from multiple angles and didn’t go too fast for fear of gassing himself out. The fact that Oswald had to learn these brutal techniques to begin with said a lot about why he would need them in life. Maybe that was why Antero was so keen on bringing him into Incelbordination. Heh, Antero. What a joke. He became a bigger joke when Oswald imagined the Matrix nut’s face superimposed on the punching bag.

The little warrior was so lost in his exercise routine that he failed to notice even the slightest chuckle behind him. He went for an overhead rabbit punch and his headsets accidentally slid off his dome. That was when the laughs became more obvious than a forest fire. Speaking of flames, Oswald’s face glowed bright red when he collected his MP3 player, turned around, and saw the source of the southern yuk-yuks. Of course, who else would it be? It was none other than muscle-headed high school tormentor Wacey Judge, who happened to be filming Oswald this whole time on his phone.

Watching his former bully laugh his ass off brought Oswald back to those old times when he was being stuffed in a locker, pushed over, held upside-down by the ankles, and called a litany of insults. If there was ever a time for that sweet green medicine, this would have been it, if for nothing else other than stamping the lit roll out in Wacey’s face. To Oswald’s way of thinking, such a red hot scar would be an improvement to his face.

“Hey, moron!” shouted Oswald. “This ain’t high school anymore! You’ve got to grow the fuck up! Put away the goddamn phone and fuck off!”

“Grow up?” Wacey chuckled. “Isn’t that what I should be telling you? You looked like a baby back then and you look like one now! Goddamn, Infinite Elgintensity’s going to roast the shit out of you tonight!”

“I don’t think so, you fucking retard!” belted Oswald as he threw his gloves to the ground and stomped towards his bully, not a hint of fear in the dwarf’s eyes. “Give me the goddamn phone!” He tried to reach up for it, but Wacey kept pulling it higher out of reach, prompting laughs from the “innocent bystanders”.

Patting Oswald on the head, the bully said, “Don’t worry, little guy, I’m sure there’s a ladder around here somewhere. Anybody got a step stool this guy can use? How about a stripper’s pole? How about an elevator?” The bystanders got even louder laughs out of Wacey’s “comedy” and a singular tear formed in Oswald’s red puffy eyes. “What, are you going to cry, little baby? Should I give you my thumb to suck on?”

Sure enough, Wacey held out his thumb and made a mockingly sorrowful face at his little victim while the entire gym watched and did nothing. Another tear rolled down Oswald’s cheek, but this wasn’t out of sadness. This was out of pure white hot rage stemming from years of abuse from someone who didn’t deserve to be as gigantic as he was. Why couldn’t Oswald have muscles like that? Why couldn’t he be a chick magnet too? All the jealousy, all the trauma, all the sickness, they led to a do-or-die situation for the little warrior.

“Fuck you, Wacey!” shouted Oswald with more lung power than he was capable of. He then hauled back and punched his bully right in the dick, doubling the giant over and causing the audience to gasp in horror. The dwarf’s next punch was an uppercut to Wacey’s square jaw, hurting his hand in the process, but make no mistake about it, the bully got the worst of that exchange. The muscle head squatted backwards against the wall dizzy and stunned.

“Fuck yeah! You just got your ass kicked by a midget! How does that shit feel, Wacey?! I said how does that fucking feel?! This shit’s been a long time coming! Woo!” screamed Oswald triumphantly while holding his bruised knuckles in the air.

“What the hell’s going on around here?!” said an equally muscular gym teacher, who burst into the room with his hands on his hips. “I’ll be damned.”

Pointing an accusatory finger at the teacher, Oswald laid into him with, “Nice of you to show up, Spongebob Square Jaw. It’s funny how you were nowhere to be seen when this jackass was having a laugh at me. Story of my life, isn’t it?!”

The gym teacher stomped towards Oswald, knelt down, and grabbed him harshly by the shoulders. “Listen up, you sick bastard. I don’t care what names you were called as a teenager. I don’t care how rough you’ve had it. The minute you attack another gym member is when I have to step in and call the shots. You beat the holy hell out of Mr. Judge here. I have to do something about it.”

“What are you going to do, ban me for life?”

“Damn right I’m going to ban you for life! Get your violent ass out of my gym!” ordered the gym teacher while standing up and pointing towards the door.

“That’s fine with me, you six foot dip shit!” snapped Oswald. “I wasn’t planning on coming back anyways! You’re harboring this piece of shit and turning your gym into a fucking Black Site! I’d be better off at Planet Fitness eating pizza until I have a heart attack! You hear that everyone? Don’t come to this gym anymore! I heard pedophiles like to hang out in the shower areas!”

“Get out of here, you twerp!” commanded the teacher.

“And don’t eat at their smoothie bar either! There’s a big fucking rat’s nest in the kitchen!”

“Are you going to leave or do I have to toss you out of here myself?!”

Waving him off, Oswald said, “Don’t worry, Lex Luger, I’ll be out of here in a second. I just want to make sure Wacey here is awake when someone tells him that his name rhymes with Stacy.” That earned a collective gasp from the crowd and a sullen expression from the gym teacher.

The pugilist dwarf raised his bruised middle finger to the sky as he trudged out of the gym. He closed the door behind him and ran out of there as fast as he could, as if the adrenaline would be the least bit effective at masking his tear-stained face. He looked like a badass in that gym, but he felt like the little baby Wacey accused him of being this whole time.

Oswald stopped running and collected his breath in the common area near an empty stone table. The tears wouldn’t stop coming. His mask of toughness was melting like ice cream in this goddamned heat. He didn’t bother to look up to see if anybody was watching him and he didn’t care at this point. First Antero Magnus, then Valerie Sand, and now Wacey Judge could be added to the list of shit-heels who made his college career a miserable one.

The little person pulled himself onto the stone bench and laid his face in his tiny arms. If he earned any laughs from the other students, it would have been a testament to their ignorance, he was convinced. What kind of song on his MP3 player could heal his blues? The better question for him to ask was what kind of green drug was more powerful than the most emotional Pink Floyd song?

Oswald reached in his trench coat pocket and pulled out another ready roll of Mary-Jane. He smiled and wiped away his tears at the sight of this beautiful medicine he was fortunate enough to have a prescription for. He frisked himself in search of his lighter, but goddamn it, he left it in his dorm room for the second time in a row.

He pounded the stone table in frustration and let even more tears pour down his bearded face. He secretly wished this whole college would burn to the ground just so he could have something to light his ready roll with. And then a familiar voice asked him a familiar question from the night before…

“Need a light?”