Defense of the unwillingly defended

                On a cold day in New York on February 6, 2003, Larry, a purebred Greek boy, decided to go to LaGuardia High School to see his cousin Kera.  He knew that Kera would not want his presence there, but he didn’t really care, he was bored and when bored he enjoyed traveling around New York.  When he arrived there he saw the large number of high school students filling the streets.  LaGuardia wasn’t the only school in the area, so this was perfectly natural for the time of day.  Larry spotted Kera in the crowd; he kept a distance so as to observe her life.  He felt a bit foolish for going up there and not saying a word to Kera but it was better than sitting in his dorm. 

                Larry and Kera used to be very close friends when Larry lived in Ohio and she lived in New York.  This distance prompted their friendship to be limited to just knowing about each other’s lives, not being a part of it.  Now that Larry lived in New York and his being a part of her life was possible, it caused Kera to push Larry away.  Kera liked her circle of friends and made many sacrifices in order to obtain these friends.  She didn’t need someone to try to convince her to be herself and not experiment with trying to be someone else just for popularity.  Nowadays, Kera seldom talked to Larry and any conversation that occurred, Kera would try to back out of as soon as possible.  As Larry watched her, he pondered why this change took place, after all, when he was giving advice from 450 miles away, it didn’t get her angry.  The reason it hurt Larry was because he looked at his cousin not just as a good friend but also with the love a brother shows a sister.  He had to accept the changing circumstances and not force conversations anymore.

                Larry watched as a young man approached Kera.  Like older brothers with their sisters, this caused him to pay even closer attention to any subtle hints that this guy was up to no good.  Larry noticed them arguing but stood his ground.  He knew interfering would get Kera mad at him, but at this point he didn’t care.  He had already accepted that as long as he lived in New York, a friendship was impossible.  Larry gazed as the boy moved in to kiss Kera.  To Larry’s delight, Kera pulled her head back and pushed him back gently with her arm causing the boy to retreat with a disgusted look on his face.  More arguing occurred, and then the boy backhanded Kera across the face.  Larry wondered that with all the cops around, why nobody interfered.  Then he realized that he was in New York and unlike most places, New York cops don’t get involved in these trivial matters.  Larry walked toward Kera as soon as he saw the hand come across Kera’s face.  His face was stern and his eyes were focused in rage.  Kera saw him coming and stared with surprise and fear.  Larry grabbed the kid from behind and turned him around and asked, “How old are you?”

                Although Larry was furious, he knew that since he was over 18, if he hit a minor before the minor had hit him five times then he could be arrested.  The boy responded, “Who the fuck are you?”

                “Answer the fucking question”

                “I’m 17”

                “Why did you hit my cousin?”

                Kera said, “Larry, I’m okay”

                Larry ignored her comment, and the boy replied, “See she’s not even mad.”

                “That doesn’t matter, I still have a problem with you hitting my cousin.”

                The boy was slightly bigger than Larry so he was not intimidated, “Look, you can go play hero some other time, there’s no problem.”

                “Wrong, there is a problem, you hit my cousin, so there’s a problem between me and you.”

                “And what are you going to do about it.”

                “Since I’m pissed off right now and it would be unfair to fight you now, I will give you five hits, before I retaliate.”

                A cop heard what was going on and didn’t interfere.  He was at a close enough distance where he could hear what they were saying and saw no problem that one member was still trying to follow the law before hurting someone.  The boy retaliated, “What if I don’t hit you?”

                “Then I’ll just kick your ass, but you can rest assured, I’m not going to let you continue to harass my cousin.  I mean any pussy can hit a girl, try hitting someone close to your size, like me.  Or are you too scared for that?”

                “Yo alright, fuck you” he said as he punched Larry across the face.

                Larry turned his head to the side from the blow.  At this point he was too enraged to react to pain.  He said “one”

                The kid struck him across the face again shocked that Larry showed little reaction.  Larry said, “Two, come on man, Kera hits harder than that”

                Another thump came across Larry’s face, and he said, “Oh you’re in trouble if that’s the best you got, two more tries”

                The boy hooked his arm under and punched him in the stomach and this time Larry never lost eye contact.  “One more, make it count jackass”

                The kid grabbed Larry by the shoulders and pulled him close with his knee up attempting to hit him in the testicles.  Larry instinctively lifted his leg in the way so the boy’s knee hit his thigh instead.  Larry then said, “Five pussy” and punched the boy squarely in the nose.  The kid took a couple steps back and Larry ran forward jumped and drove his knee into his solar plexus.  The kid bent over as he exhaled the wind from his body.  Larry then grabbed the hair on the back of the boy’s head with his left hand and drove the kid’s face into his right knee repeatedly.  Blood emulated on the boy’s face and consequently got on Larry’s jeans but Larry didn’t care.  Kera tried to pull Larry off but her efforts were inconsequential.  The police officer realized that the action caught the attention of the school and teachers and principals were bound to find out and if they realized that the police stood and watched they could get in trouble so he grabbed Larry and tried to pull him away.  Larry just wrapped his arm around the guy’s head and dragged him with him still drilling his knee into his face.  Finally the cop wrapped his arms around Larry’s waist, hoisted him up and jerked him around.  Larry maintained his grip on the boy for a little bit but during the swing he let go as the boy swung to the ground long since unconscious and bloodied.  Larry calmed down and gave a quick glance at Kera and turned away from LaGuardia and walked toward the subway.  As far as the police were concerned, there was no longer a problem, Larry had fought with the extent of the law, and even though it was to excess, since he calmly walked away after being separated, they no longer had a problem with him.  Kera ran up to Larry and turned him around and said, “What the fuck was that?”

                Larry opted to talk in Greek so that nobody around could understand, “I know you don’t want to talk to me, so why are you?”

                “What do you mean?” she responded following the Greek

                “I know that you think there was no problem with what he was doing but there is”

                “I didn’t ask for your help”

                “Of course not, guys can do whatever they want to you that you don’t know when there’s a problem.”

                “Are you calling me a slut?”

                “Yea, I know that since you haven’t fucked anybody, you don’t think you are but since you hook up with one guy and hook up with him for a month, and then the next month with a different guy, I would say you are.”

                “Fuck you”

                “You’re the one that talked to me, I didn’t want to say one word to you, but what I’m saying is true, and you say that since all the girls here do it more than you and even have sex, it makes it right but you’re wrong.”        

                Kera was on the verge of crying now and just asked, “Why are you saying this?”

                “Because I’ve accepted that you don’t want to be my friend anymore, you only want me to know about your life, not actually be in it.  So why do I have to be shy about what I say to you?  I can say the truth, it won’t change anything, I’m just some relative now.”

                With Larry’s accusations, Kera was glad they were speaking Greek and responded, “Larry, you are my friend”

                “Shut up, say I’m not, I know it’s true”

                “Why because I don’t’ hang out with you?”

                “No, the way you talk to me”

                There was a long pause and then Larry continued, “I know you don’t want to believe me, but you know it’s true.  You would do anything to be popular, and now you forgot who you really are”

                “You don’t know me now”

                “Yes I do, because I can see through this new face, it’s you who has forgotten”

                “So you’re blaming my friends again?” (Close to four years ago, Larry wrote a paper insulting Kera’s friend that caused her to be mad at him for 17 months)

                “Nope, you wanted to do this, I can’t blame other people for your mistakes.  You’re not as strong as I thought you were.”

“Is this because of the smoking?”

“No, but you have the biggest reason why not to smoke weed and you do anyway” (Kera is a singer and takes it more seriously than anything and knows that marijuana ruins your voice yet she does it anyway)

“It calms me down”

“And how calm will you be when you can’t sing?”

Kera didn’t say anything, she knew deep down that what Larry was saying was true but she refused to accept it, she held back tears but the longer the conversation progressed the worse she felt.  She said, “So that’s it, I’m a slut that smokes weed.”

“And someone that yells at anybody that knows the real you and tries to get you back to who you are.”

“And you think you know?”

“Nope, I know I do”

“That’s a little arrogant”

“Let’s see, you do hook up with a guy for a month then move to a different guy.  You will do anything to be popular including something that may kill the one thing you like most.  Sounds to me, that I’m only saying the truth.”

Kera then slapped him across the face.  Hearing the summary of his speech was too much.  She immediately froze when Larry turned his head back revealing the same anger in his eyes that he saw before.  Larry grabbed Kera’s arms and stepped closer so his face was barely two inches from her face.  Kera put her head down, but Larry used one finger to lift it so she looked at him in the eyes.  Somewhere Kera knew that Larry wouldn’t hit her, but it didn’t stop her fear.  Larry stared at her and said, “I rest my case” As he threw back her arms and turned away.  Kera, now knowing she was safe, said, “Yea just walk away” and continued in a softer tone, “see what I care.”

Larry kept walking, Larry’s words were finally settling in on Kera, she couldn’t hold it back but she didn’t want to cry in front of her friends so she ran up to Larry and turned him around and hugged him crying on his shoulder.  Larry knew what was going on, so he wrapped one arm around and rested it on her back and the other on the back of her head.  He tried to maintain his coldness but it was hard with Kera crying on his shoulder.  Kera stopped crying after a little bit and maintained her composure.  She pulled back but kept facing Larry.  Larry said, “Bye Kera” and turned around.

Kera was surprised that Larry didn’t soften up even after she cried on his shoulder.  She just called out, “Where are you going?”

Larry turned around and walked toward her maintaining the Greek, “I’m not your friend, but I will always love you and now I must yell” as he paused to take a break and then yelled in English as loud as he could, “If anyone were to hurt you, I’d want to kill them” he then finished in Greek, “and it wouldn’t’ matter what you say.”

Kera turned and faced the crowd of kids that were watching intently on the conversation despite not knowing what was being said.  They all heard Larry’s sentence in English and now all the guys looked at her differently.  During the conversation, the boy was taken to the hospital.  Kera looked over the horrified faces of the guys and said in English, “Hey Larry”

Larry was about to cross the street when he turned around.  The sign was flashing, “don’t walk.”  Kera continued, “How good are you at kicking your own ass?”

Larry decided to follow with the English “Are you implying I hurt you?”

Kera just nodded, a little happier thinking she got one over Larry and hurt him.  The sign had moved to solid “don’t’ walk” as the light was about to change.  Larry said, “watch”

When the light hit green and the cars started accelerating forward Larry hurried in front of a car jumping so that the impact would be more distributed.  The car slammed the brakes and Larry lied on the hood and rolled off to the side.  Kera watched in horror at this.  She sprinted toward Larry and kneeled beside him.  Larry was stirring in obvious pain.  By the time he managed to get to his feet assisted by the cops and a crowd of students, the driver was out yelling, “what the fuck are you doing?”

“Relax I’m not going to press charges” he snapped back and then turned to Kera and said in English so all those around could understand, “I am a man of my word, I said I would want to kill anyone that hurt you, of course I wouldn’t really kill them but put it this way, this is what I do to myself, imagine what I would do to others.”

Larry finished crossing the street with obvious pain.  Kera ran after him again and put her arm around him and said, “I’m coming with you, we’re going to the hospital.”

“Don’t you want to be with your friends?”

“You need a hospital; I’m going to make sure you go.”

“Larry didn’t argue, he knew that the only thing keeping him up was his own adrenaline.  Larry and Kera went to the hospital as Larry put his arm around her so as to put less weight on his legs.  While waiting in the waiting room, Kera said, “God, how am I going to go to school now?”

“I don’t want to have this conversation; you can leave whenever you want.”

“No, I’m going to stay.  You know that guys will be intimidated by me now though”

“I hope you realize that was done purposely, now there’s less of a chance you’ll be used”

“Now I’m the girl with the psycho cousin”

“I told you I don’t want to talk about this; the door is over there, leave if you can’t handle it.  Don’t expect remorse from me, I hated that guys would fool around with you and then a month later they’re forgotten.  You weren’t doing anything about it so I did all I can do.  No more on this.”

“Alright”

Larry just had cuts, when he jumped, he twisted his body so that the car hit the back of his legs and his back hit the hood spreading the impact throughout his whole body.  There is no better way to fall.  The fall on the pavement is what caused the cuts.  After a couple hours in the hospital, Larry and Kera went their separate ways.  Kera had disregarded everything Larry said and was now set on trying to convince LaGuardia that Larry was not a threat.  She didn’t change her ways and still did whatever it took to be considered popular excluding sex.  Larry and Kera’s friendship was not renewed.  Larry knew he couldn’t stalk LaGuardia; all he could hope for was that that day would give Kera a reputation as a girl not to play around with.  It did work to some extent, but by the end of the school year, as was true for high school kids, events from three months ago were old news and the guys were no longer intimidated.  For those few months, Kera did have less hook ups because of that one day, which caused her to hate Larry.