Surrender

The endless miles of prairie slithered by in numbing brown and gold waves outside the bus window.

Time to settle in and relax.

By now the police would have found the bodies. Tomorrow she would be in the City safely anonymous in her new career as a the world's tallest midget porn star - there to disappear under a pile of pawing groping little hands and sweaty little bodies till she could re-emerge under an assumed name.

In the meantime it was work and Dorothy, raised on a farm, was used to that.

She looked down at the ridiculously garish red shoes on her feet and cackled like a loon. Some farm girl she was. What a laugh.

Miss Almira Gulch, spinster busybody of the trailer court learnt different. Poor wet Almira. She drowned the old bitch in her kitchen sink. The old crone's last words burbled out around the Sunday dishes were, "Wicked little girl. Oh what a world, what a world!" before she finally croaked.

What a world and wicked little girl indeed. If only she knew.

After rifling through old witch's meager possessions she shoved the body into the crawl space under the dilapidated trailer. Thirty seven dollars and twenty eight cents was all she got for her troubles. That barely paid for the bus ticket.

Nothing seemed to be working out for Dorothy Gale. She couldn't even get the skinny bitch to fit in the cramped space underneath the trailer - even with the help of a chainsaw. Almira's long stocking feet ended up protruding for all the world to see. As an after thought, Dorothy snatched the ruby slippers off the old bird's cold dead feet, the only other thing the old bitch had that was worth stealing.

Well why not? she thought. She didn't need them any more and she wasn't just merely dead, she was really quite sincerely dead.

She clicked her heels together for luck.

Dorothy stared out the window at the endless cornfields rolling by. The sun peaked through the low hanging storm clouds bathing the landscape in an eerie yellowish glow making the cracked highway appear to be paved in dull gold bricks. Tornado weather probably but who gave a shit?

Bored, she carved another swastika into her forearm. The feel of the penknife cutting into her skin made her tingle. Anything to feel - something - about anything or anyone.

"Fuckers," she thought as she recalled what the school psychiatrist Dr. Baum said about her once. Tests, tests and more tests and then the bullshit concern on his dopey Midwestern puss. The words borderline personality disorder hovered in the air of his musty office as he excused himself.

Shadows moving across the opaque milky glass of the office door. She heard him consulting with the principal in an agitated whisper outside. More words floating in the stale air seeping into the dingy wallpaper.

Deep seated psychosis coupled with narcissistic tendencies. Text book sociopath.

Dangerous. Involuntary commitment.

She'd show them all.

Fuckers.

She had the postcard in her pocket from the Wizard.

Another of his alias' no doubt.

She'd heard him called many things over the years: Professor Marvel, Doorman, Cabbie, Guard... now he was calling himself the Wizard, pompous ass that he was. Operating under the delusion that he could fool the authorities by donning new clothes and slapping on a fake beard or mustache.

Wonderful.

Dear God, she thought, I hope he's dropped that shitty British accent.

Dorothy knew him as Bob, the man that had first turned her to hard drugs and prostitution. He ran a gentleman's club in a dodgy neighborhood on the eastside of the City. His real money came from the hookers and the cheap porno films he made with and for midgets. She looked down at the crumpled card in her hands - a grainy photo of midgets in an obscene daisey-chain spelling out the name EMERALD LOUNGE. The club's address was on the back.

She sighed. Hooking for Bob would pay for the drugs at least. Moral quandaries were not Dorothy's thing.

A BJ here and a BJ there and a couple of Hot Carl jobs, 

that's how she'd pass the day away in the merry whorehouse of Bobs.

Dorothy sang out loud, a nervous habit she'd developed during her first stint in rehab. Her bubble-headed counselor Glinda would get annoyed whenever Dorothy burst into one of her inane songs during tense therapy sessions.

♫ Someday I'll wish upon a star

And wake up where the clouds are far behind Meeeeee!

Where troubles melt like lemon drops,

Away above the chimney tops,

That's where - you'll - find - meeeeeee!♫

Blowing off steam. And if one of the new fish laughed at her singing, she'd beat the living fucking shit out of them in the showers later on. All the merrier.

Dorothy finished her song and reached for another cigarette. She could see the old woman in the seat opposite her trying to ignore the wild-eyed pig-tailed girl bellowing off key, possibly sensing the very real danger hiding behind the empty blue eyes. Good call, Dorothy thought. And she had a nice voice anyway, though the rot gut whiskey and unfiltered Camels were beginning to take their toll.

The bus hit a bump and she rubbed absently at her crotch. The clap was a parting gift from the last guy she was with, the empty headed farmer who looked like a gangly scarecrow. Sweet guy really. Simple in his puppy-like devotion to her. Always remembering to buy her nice things. Sometimes he'd come around the trailer with his two friends, Hickory, an emotionless robot of a man who performed mechanically and Zeke, his hair-lipped bashful buddy too afraid to strip in front of her.

She had killed them of course. But of all of them, she thought she'd miss Scarecrow most of all. If he'd only had a brain.

She squirmed uncomfortably in the cramped seat. Just thinking about the crotch rot seemed to make her gingham thong ride up her ass crack as punishment.

Fingers begin to twitch, to satisfy her itch. And suddenly her brain started to -- unhitch -- She sees - that witch! -- and chopping her to bits - and beating her with a broomstick while humming perfect pitch.

But oh... what happened then was rich.

~

Her pocket book moaned. Toto, her mangy cairn terrier wheezed and gacked inside the pocket book on the seat next to her. Toto was the only thing she'd taken from the home of Aunt Em and Uncle Henry -- besides her bloody trophies. She'd sell the mutt for some rock when she hit the city.

---

Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.

Uncle Henry was just the latest in a succession of "uncles" Auntie Em brought home from the truck stop bar. Drunken pawing uncles. There's no place like home! Yeah right! Thank god for that. She mused that she should have off'd them years ago. Especially that royal perv Uncle Henry.

Dorothy had come home early one day only to find old Henry parading around in one of her dresses. It was kind of funny really; finding out that this grizzled old farmer was a closet tranny. But that was nothing. The real shocker came the night she followed old Henry down to the bar where he hung out hoping to lift some cash off his drunk ass.

Turns out it was a tranny bar but the really fucked up stuff was still waiting for her inside.

She watched in mildly perplexed horror as her uncle Henry and then a dozen other old geezers came out to sing on stage dressed as... her! Dorothy.

She found out later that it had become a real tranny trend - dressing as Dorothy Gale. She could only hope that this fad would die out soon.

---

The tab of acid went on her tongue washed down with a swig from a warm forty of Colt .45 wrapped in a paper bag. She belched up a blast of stale beer and the Bar-B-Q flavored pork rinds she'd eaten for breakfast. This coupled with the metallic taste of the LSD brought up the contents of her stomach. She snatched her bag and barfed loudly into it.

Too late, she remembered that Toto was still in there, asleep.

Oh well.

Fuck him.

Fuck Toto.


She settled back and waited for her trip to really begin. Swirling colors and kaleidoscopic images played under her eyelids as she slipped further from reality. Bloody corpses and flying monkeys: the happy dreams of a young soulless serial killer.


Dorothy was too far gone to notice when the bus passed over the bridge to the Missouri side of the river.


And it would be hours yet before she was sober enough to realize that she wasn't in Kansas anymore.