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?”
