Snow White and the Dwarf
- Rich Logsdon
| I. In the dirty glow of the late afternoon sun, the young red-haired woman crouched in the shadow of the yellow wall, which formed the back of the 7-11. She could see to her left the store's battered green and white neon sign. Naked and frightened, she panted in short rhythmic bursts. From the darkness, where she knew she would be nearly invisible, the trembling female had a view of the littered alleyway leading to the street. From her hiding she heard the bouncing beat of a rock song she readily identified, coming from one of the houses beyond the gray wall across the alley. Cunt rock, she thought to herself.
Sadness mixed with fear and rage washed over her as she wondered what had brought her to this point. She knew that she needed help and, closing her eyes, flew back over the years. She saw her Daddy, a thin, bespectacled man with a beard and mustache proclaiming the gospel from the pulpit of Wings of Fire Church of Holiness. Oh, Daddy, where are you? she asked, crouching in darkness. Jesus, she moaned inwardly, where are you? Frantic, feeling nothing, she tried to remember the ancient self-defense texts that had recently replaced the Bible in her life. .
Exhausted from flight, legs gashed and upper lip caked with dried blood, Misty summoned courage, forced rage out of her soul and fixed her thoughts on her pursuers. At this moment Misty wished God existed, wished the Lord of Hosts stood on her side, wished Jesus would walk down the alley and tell her things were going to be fine. If God exists, she thought, angry that He might not exist, then surely He has already given my enemies into my hands. I can, therefore, face them, she told herself.
II. Just one hour before, Misty had been strolling through the city park with Ray Swede, a gangly, quiet young man who had dark beady eyes and white spiked hair. Ray always wore blue Levi's and a faded gray shirt. Hand-in-hand, like newlyweds, they had wandered through a noisy, jostling crowd of drunken and sweaty men to the pulsing thud of music in the air.
Some of the men had pushed against her, brushing her breasts. One had stuck his tongue out at her obscenely. Happy as a bird, Misty had given the men little thought, shoving past them and humming an old gospel tune she had learned at church long ago. Then, as if someone had turned up the music, a midget, his bulky arms blue with tattoos, had stepped out of the crowd, nodded and winked at Ray, and grabbed her left arm, wrenching it violently behind her. The little man had then forced her to the ground. Like animals, the howling crowd had formed a tight circle around Misty and the strong little man; four or five other men had joined in, and after she had struggled up they had ripped the clothes from her body, pulled her to the ground, and forced her legs apart. Screaming, she desperately had searched for Ray, whom she had seen standing to the side next to a small man she knew as Rhino. Both had been laughing. At that moment, a small and fat dark complexioned man with a gold tooth had leaned over her, muttering "Well, hello Snow White," and she had felt his fat hand between her legs as he tried to force himself inside of her.
Silently, for the first time in years, she had cried to Jesus and had felt, instantly, a power moving through her like the hot desert wind of ancient scripture. Misty had struggled to her feet and broken from her attackers. Bleeding from the mouth and nose, running like a cheetah, she had quickly outdistanced the two pursuers who had yelled as she steadily moved away from them, "We're gonna crucify you, Snow White!" Like a whirlwind, she had dodged in and out of park trees and bushes, leaving the predators behind, finally scaling the tall gray wall at the back end of the park. Never had she run so fast. Then she had dashed silently, swiftly running through empty back yards, bounding over another wall and finding herself in the alleyway behind an old 7-11 in an unfamiliar part of the city.
As she now crouched, she knew instinctively that the men would come for her. It was as if a still small voice had said to her, Be ready, Misty, be ready.
Now, heart beating rapidly, more alert than she had felt since her mother's funeral years ago, almost certain that Jesus had found her after years of absence, Misty gripped in her right hand an iron rod she had found in one of the back yards, and as she waited for the sun to set, she imagined herself bashing the young men into bloody piles of flesh.
Studying the cloud, she saw the day replayed like an old black and white flick. The day had begun simply enough. At two that afternoon, she had met Ray for lunch at Whistle Willie's, the restaurant where she had worked for the past five years following a brief stint in a nude bar downtown. She hadn't known much about Ray except that she had danced for him once when she was a stripper and that about once every two weeks he had visited the restaurant with the fat, limping dwarf nicknamed "Rhino," who oozed darkness through every pore. Like everyone else, Ray and Rhino came in to ogle the waitresses, who traditionally wore skimpy tops revealing most of their breasts and tight fitting shorts that showed plenty of ass.
Because Ray had always been nice when he had touched her and had whispered sweet vulgarities to her, she had agreed to meet him for lunch on the day of her pursuit. Just as she had finished her shift at 2:00, Ray had walked in alone and planted himself at a table in the middle of the room Eagerly, Misty had joined him.
As soon as she had sat down, he had noticed the crucifix hanging from the chain around her neck.
"Nice fuckin? cross, babe," he'd muttered, hesitant. Misty never wore her cross when she worked.
"Thanks," Misty had replied.
When Ray had told her that he had gone to Dallas Theological Seminary, Misty had confessed her own struggle with faith following her mother's terminal battle with lung cancer years. Over a meal of hot and spicy buffalo chicken sandwiches and two pitchers of beer, she had revealed that she could no longer tell good from evil.
"Things used to be black and white, Ray," she had said between mouthfuls of her sandwich, "but that was when Daddy was preaching local and Momma was still alive. Now everything seems black as night." She had not told Ray that, to combat the darkness, she had spent several years studying ancient texts that taught her to channel despair into destructive energy.
Ray had studied her intently before smiling, almost smirking, and asking, "And what happened, Peaches?" It was a word she had been taught to hate, but she tolerated it since Ray was the only one who used it.
She had answered, "Momma died. Jesus didn't come and save her like I prayed he would. Jesus did not raise my Momma from the grave on that day of burial, and my faith was so strong I thought He would. After that Daddy kind of went fuckin? crazy, hit the back roads as a preacher of God, and comes home twice a year. Hallelujah and all that shit. Maybe. Jesus, it's been a long time since I seen Daddy."
"You never see your Daddy?" Ray asked before taking a huge gulp of beer and belching loudly.
"Almost never," she said. "Sometimes he writes. Like on Christmas. "Dear Misty,? he writes, ?I hope all is well with your soul blah blah blah.? But mostly, for eight years, I been alone. No Daddy. No Jesus. I never answer daddy. Don't wanna be crazy like him."
"No Jesus, huh?" Ray had almost laughed as he had reached across the table and put his callused hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, sweet and pretty thing," he had said, "you got me."
Over lunch, they had decided to drive to Old Montgomery Park in the center of the city. At the park, a couple of Ray's favorite bands, Sonic Dirt and Fetish, would be playing through the afternoon and into the night. "These guys are winning souls for Jesus," Ray had said jokingly between gulps of beer and , refusing laughter, Misty had wondered if Ray were ridiculing her. "Besides," he added, taking a huge gulp of beer, "I like their music." "Sounds good to me," Misty had replied, glad that for once Ray had left the dwarf Rhino behind, "so let's get the fuck outa here and get down there." The two had walked out of Whistle Willie's arm-in-arm, and Misty knew she had found a boyfriend as she climbed into the battered red Blazer and scooted over in her seat to sit next to Ray.
Once at the park, Ray had guided Misty straight through the garden of bushes and gigantic trees. Off in the distance, coming from the far end of the park, Misty had heard a grating, rapping music that was unlike any she had heard before.
"What kind of music is that?" she asked.
Flinching at the use of a name she loathed, Misty said nothing. In silence, she and Ray had walked toward the almost hypnotic sound.
Her heart had fallen when she had seen, bathed in the dirty glow of the afternoon sun, Rhino and several of friends. Rhino and his buddies all smaller than he--were sitting near a huge maple tree at a table and just outside the area where thousands of people had congregated to listen to the bands. Dressed in a red and black warm-up suit, Rhino had worn sun glasses and had been smoking a cigar. He and his friends had been playing with a pack of Tarot cards.
"Hey," Rhino had said in his raspy voice that made Misty think of snakes, "if it ain't ole Stud Bone and Snow White. How ya doin?, Snow White?" Dark and creepy, the dwarf had looked up from the cards he had been holding in his hands and glanced at Ray and Misty.
Misty had looked up at Ray, who was staring into the clouds, as if he were reading something, and then back at Rhino. She had remembered that, according to her daddy, a deck of Tarot cards always signified evil.
"Hello, Rhino," she had said coldly, trying not to look into the dwarf's green eyes. "My name's not Snow White."
"Sure it is, babe," the dwarf had wheezed, biting on the cigar. "Sure it is. Pure as the freshly driven snow. Sweet as a peach. You're Snow White. And us", and with this Rhino had gestured with a sweep of his hand, "we're the, what, fuckin' dwarves?" The others laughed.
Lightheaded, apprehensive, Misty had managed a smile.
"And Stud Bone, my man," Rhino had continued, smiling at Ray, who was now staring at the ground, his hands in the pockets of his blue Levi's. "Or should I say Mr. Prince Fucking Charming. Be sure to shove that bone in its proper hole, if you know what I mean."
Ray had smiled, nodded, and continued to stare at the ground.
"Gonna bone that babe?" Rhino had chuckled, studying a card in his hand. "Hell's bells, man, I'd bone that babe. I think we'd all like to bone that babe."
Judging him possessed, Misty had glared at the Dwarf and felt a hardening contempt for the little man, who had continued to spit out vulgarities.
Then Ray had laughed, put his arm around Misty's shoulders, and said, "Hey, you guys goin? inside?" He had nodded in the direction of the bands and the crowd.
"Naw," Rhino had snorted, "you and Snow White go on an? enjoy your selves. Watch out for the little people though."
Excused from the presence of the hideous little man, Misty and Ray had walked away towards the music, shouts, and laughter.
She did not have to wait long. Just as the setting sun was bleeding through the polluted evening sky with reds, pinks, purples, and yellow, she heard a voice coming from the other side of the wall across the alleyway. She held her breath, knowing she had heard the voice before.
When the voice spoke again, almost in the form of a chant, she couldn't make out the words, but she recognized the rasping tone of Rhino. Jesus, she thought to herself, they're here, and they must know where I am. Maybe they've been there all along. Holding her breath, willing herself to become one with the growing darkness, praying for Jesus to snatch her from this life, she watched the wall and listened again. She had heard only the evening breeze blowing through the tops of the great neighborhood trees.
Then, daylight fading, she heard scraping sounds across the alley and watched them crawl like huge, deformed lizards over the wall one by one and drop to the alleyway below: Ray, Rhino, the dark man with the gold tooth, and one of Rhino's dwarfish friends. Oh, my sweet Jesus, she thought to herself, I cannot take four. God help me, I cannot take four.
Unmoving in the darkness of the store wall, wishing she could disappear, she studied the men as they gathered not fifty feet from her. They were discussing something, and Misty knew they had to be talking about her. Bracing herself, gripping the bar tightly, she prepared to spring and run when she saw the men, led by Rhino, turn to her right and walk down the alley towards the street. She watched them until, her vision obscured by a house, they disappeared.
Her heart racing, she waited for their return. Maybe, she thought, I have lost them. Maybe Jesus has hidden me from them. Dark night coming on, she decided finally to make a break when she heard the scratch of gravel from her right.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a short, bulky form in the darkness, knew instantly that the men had walked down the street and turned right on another street to the front of the store so they could come in behind her, sprang to her feet, and with all her strength(rage surging within her) swung the bar. She felt the bar hit something hard, bone undoubtedly, drew the bar back and struck again, this time in an arc beginning directly over her head, and felt the bone and flesh of the head cave in. Screaming, the man fell beyond the shadow and into the light cast by the store marquee. It was Rhino's dwarf friend, his head a mass of blood.
Misty had no time to think and, sensing a presence on her left, sprang back in the darkness, bellowed, and struck out several times with the bar. Again, she made contact. Her adversary squealed like a pig. In the darkness, Misty could just make out the man kneeling before her; the air thick with the smell of blood, she brought the bar down again in the direction of the head. Again, she felt the skull give way under the blow as she continued to strike.
As the man before her collapsed on the ground, Misty relaxed for an instant, tried to force her mind to clear. Glancing around her and then up at the sky, she felt the night air against her skin, realized that she needed to dress herself, and sought the moon. I wonder what Daddy's doing, she thought to herself.
Suddenly, she felt cold fingers grab her arms from behind and, in a burst of incredible energy, she spun, kicked for the groin, heard the cry of pain, and then jumped out of the shadows to face her third attacker.
"Jesus," she muttered, feeling a rush of holy fire in her soul and the confidence that she could defeat forty, don't you assholes get the hint? Don't you get the message?"
Silence followed her question, the night breeze whistling through the large neighborhood trees, and Ray emerged from the darkness.
"Misty, Misty, Misty, honey," he mumbled. Ray stood, wobbled, extended one hand to her, beckoning her, and Misty thought of dropping the bar and moving to the embrace. But hearing a rustling behind her, Misty sprang forward and brought the bar against the side of his head. Ray dropped like a bag of sand.
For five minutes, Ray lay sprawled on the alleyway, and for five minutes she stared at him. Dark silence engulfed them.
"Misty, baby, let's talk," Ray finally whimpered, rolling over, bleeding profusely from a huge gash on the side of his head. "Please. Please?"
"Where's the damned dwarf?" Misty growled. "I want the little prick who called me Snow White."
Rolling onto his back, still holding his bleeding head, Ray gasped, "I dunno where he is. I dunno. But it was his idea, I swear. We'd planned it just to have a little fun...."
"Fun...?" she asked.
"Yeah," he laughed, hoarsely, coughing, "as in let's-fuck-this-bitch-to-death fun." Ray continued to laugh and cough.
Misty was enraged. "That's fun, you creep? You call that fun?" With the last fun, Misty struck Ray again, this time to the ribs and back.
"Now, Mr. I-Just-Wanna-Have-Fun, tell me where the fuckin? dwarf is!"
Before her, Ray choked and vomited. Raising the bar over her head, she prepared to strike again, realized that she did not want to kill Ray, when she heard the voice behind her.
"I'm right here, Snow White, right behind you," the voice rasped, piercing her like a knife, and turning Misty could barely make out Rhino sitting on the wall, his legs dangling, caught in the glow from the neon sign. She noticed that the man was enshrouded in glowing, shining, spinning darkness that seemed to suck the light out of the air.
Misty glared at the thing, wondering if she should charge and attack. She knew that the three men she had just fought were not going to move.
"You scum-sucking piece of shit," Misty spat. "You satanic scum. You gotta pay for this."
"No," Rhino replied, puffing on his cigar, whose presence Misty assumed from the wisps of smoke threading the darkness, "I don't gotta pay for anything because I am the one who makes people pay. No Rhino, no justice. But you gotta listen."
"I gotta listen? After you and your animals tried to rape me, wanted to fuck me to death, I gotta listen? Who do you think you are," Misty gulped, sensing that she was on dangerous ground, "the fucking prince of darkness?"
Seeming to glow in darkness, Rhino smiled, sucked on the cigar, and blew a huge cloud of smoke. "That's real close, Miss Peaches," the voice laughed. "You may have hit it right on the head."
Satan, she told herself, could not be this limping , blackening creature in front of her. Stories about the devil angrily stalking the planet had always seemed implausible. Head spinning, fearing the dissolution of her being, Misty tried to muster the power to attack the dwarf and found that she could not. She felt the strength sucked out of her, realized she was vulnerable, and whispered, "Jesus, help me." Exhausted from combat, she dropped the bar on the pavement, crouched, and looked up to the dwarf. Then Misty slowly examined herself and realized, in the glow from the 7-11 sign, that she was spattered in blood. "Jesus," she muttered, "Jesus, help me."
Looking up, she thought she saw the darkness shudder. "Don't you use that name," the thing growled. "Don't you say that name."
"What name?" Misty asked, suddenly sensing darkness moving away from her.
"His name!"
"Whose?"
"His fuckin? name!..."
"Whose?"
"You know. You know. I know you know!" it screamed.
She thought, then asked. "Who the fuck are you? The Prince of Darkness?"
"Himself." The voice hissed. "His very fucking self. Bitch."
"You're an ugly dwarf. That's all."
"That, too," the thing spat, spiteful.
"Jesus," she muttered, wondering where to go from here.
"He's not here," the voice said weakly, fading. "Don't use that name, you worthless cunt. Don't you dare use it." Misty knew two things at this point: that the evil thing was fighting to hold its grip in this world, and that the presence of something much greater was moving around her like a fiery wind. Yet, the wind was not blowing.
Misty knew the thing now had no power over her. "The Devil. You. Really...."
"Believe it, Snow White," the thing continued, the voice shrinking, and as her mind settled Misty realized that she actually could believe it. She'd sensed it from the start, when she first met the loathsome little man and had sensed about him something indescribably dark. If evil existed, if the Devil existed, then surely God's presence filled the universe, she reasoned, believing herself to be in Hell.
Misty glared in the direction of the hideous thing. "Everything bad that's happened to you," came the wavering voice from the darkness, "like your momma's cancer, your daddy's insanity, the rape this afternoon...."
"Yes?" said Misty.
"That was me, you fuckable twit," the dark thing laughed, weakly. "It's what I do. I fuck things up."
Misty stared. "Not for long," she whispered.
"But, and here?s the kicker," he added, hesitantly, growing slightly more distant, "because you may not have enough brains in that pretty head to understand, you and all the other good little fuckers on the planet need me. I mean, shit, a pigeon can see this: if there's no light, there can be no darkness. Light and darkness, white and black we define each other."
"We define each other,..." Misty said, not so sure that did not understand..
"Define each other. You got it, Peach Twat. You need me, the very incarnation of evil, and I need you."
"Fuck you," she muttered, aware that very likely she had been carrying on a dialogue with an insane man. Suddenly acknowledging that she was naked and her tits and stomach were spattered in blood, she used her right forefinger to draw the shape of the cross just below her heart.
With the suddenness of a migraine, she saw an explosion of light in her brain and simultaneously felt the darkness collapse on itself, she would tell others years later. Then, hissing, gurgling, shrieking finally, the glowing darkness shrank, diminished and disappeared.
"Jesus Christ," Misty breathed, stunned, realizing she had stood her ground and won. Her daddy, she knew, would call her a warrior.
Her mind settling, images flying through her brain, Misty suddenly thought back on the time her father had baptized her in the river in front of the entire congregation. Rising out of the water for the third time, she had felt cleansed of all sin. That's what I feel like now, Misty thought; I feel like I have just been born again. After beating three men, I have just encountered something indescribably evil, and, praise the Lord of Hosts, I have survived. Surely, she thought, Jesus has his hand upon me and even if I die today I shall surely be with Him in paradise.
Pride surging within her heart, Misty slowly rose to her feet, turned, and looked at the three bodies that lay sprawled behind her. Walking over to them, Misty knew that two were dead, the fires of Hell already devouring their souls, and that the third, Ray, would live but would need some medical help.
Kneeling, she pulled off Ray's tennis shoes, removed first his shirt and then his pants. She would need these clothes, she knew, on her long walk home.
Pulling on the pants and then a bloodied T-shirt, slipping into his tennis shoes, she brushed her hair, caked in blood, out of her face and walked down the alleyway towards the street.
As she gazed at the blood-red moon bobbing on the horizon, she assured herself that, from this point on, life would be better. From now on, she told herself, there will be no more Rays, and God will be with me through the valley of the shadow of death.
Misty said a brief prayer, thanking Jesus that she would live to see another day just as she reached the street. When she got home, she would unwind by listening to some cunt rock and then write or call her daddy. Her daddy, she knew, would be glad to hear from her.
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