Friday, January 19, 2018

Russian Aggression


                It was Valentines Day in New York.  A holiday that most women love and men try to appease the woman in their life with their plans.  For single people, however, Valentines Day is annoying.  Even if they wanted to go out to eat, restaurants are all jammed packed and PDA is sure to occur.  Vonnie Yankolov had a solution to this problem.  She was going to throw a singles-only Valentines Day party at her parent’s apartment in Fort Lee, NJ.  Her parents had agreed to stay with their eldest daughter while Vonnie threw the party.  Vonnie was in her first year at New York University, and since she had lived at home, she was able to keep in touch with old friends from home while making new ones in college.  The party was a mixture of the two groups, and Vonnie hoped that everyone would mix well.  Some people, however, just don’t mix.

                Larry had met Vonnie at school and quickly hit it off with her in a plutonic way.  She had quickly climbed his list of best friends and sat at the top in just a few months.  Although Larry would say that he is the most consistent person when it comes to his actions and attitudes, with Vonnie especially he held nothing back.  This is why she was his best friend, because he didn’t have to watch his mouth or inhibit his actions around her.  He was free to do and act as he saw fit.  It’s because of this that he readily agreed to Vonnie’s single-only party.  He wasn’t someone to always have a plan when he went somewhere he just took things as they happened and saw where he’d end up.  Although this almost always made for good stories, it sometimes placed him in situations he’d rather avoid.

                Vladimir was a fellow-Russian friend of Vonnie’s.  He was a few years older than her but Vonnie’s going to college had not affected their friendship, he often times came down to NYU to have dinner or drinks with Vonnie and see how she was doing offering any advice as he saw fit having just finished college himself.  Like everyone else at the party, Vladimir became extremely drunk as the night went on and he quickly avoided standing so as to maintain his balance.  He had noticed Larry go into Vonnie’s parent’s bedroom with a girl and from what he heard from various people who had gone in there, they were hooking up.  This didn’t really concern Vladimir as he expected that at a party, much more, a singles-only party, that some people would end up matching up even if it were just for a night.  A while later, he saw the person he had met previously as Larry walk out looking completely disheveled and exhausted.  Ironically, the girl had not come out with him.  Larry immediately sat down at the table Vladimir also happened to be at and Vladimir decided to strike up a conversation.  He said, “Did you have fun in there?” to which Larry responded just by nodding but had a blank expression on his face so Vladimir continued, “did you fuck her?”

                “No, she passed out.”

                Vladimir glared at Larry and decided to help this guy out, “So?  Go back in there and finish the job”

                Larry looked up and suddenly the blank expression was no longer there and he was glaring at him. “No, I’m not going to do that” he said rather forcefully.

                “Why not man?”
                “That’s called rape”

                “No it’s not, she obviously wanted it if she was hooking up with you before, so just go back in there and finish it, nobody will know.”

                Larry rose and snapped, “What the fuck is a matter with you?!”

                Vladimir raised his hands a bit and replied, “Alright Alright, do what you want.”

                Not too long later, the girl Larry had been with, awoke with no recollection of what happened.  She started crying and given that Vonnie already had to deal with one girl who was crying because she lost her virginity, naturally assumed that she’d have to go through it again.  As she walked into the hallway, Vonnie looked over at Larry and decided to diffuse what she thought might be a volatile situation before it started and told Larry to go into the parent’s bedroom and go to sleep so that she could deal with her and the other girl who had been crying.  Larry was more than happy to agree, not because it was 5AM and he had an early morning flight the next day or avoiding facing the girl he just hooked up with, but if he spoke to Vladimir any longer, he may resort to blows for implying that he should have raped his partner.

                The next day Larry left Vonnie’s house before anyone had awoken and flew to Columbus, Ohio not knowing what would happen when he returned.  He hadn’t said anything to the girl since they hooked up and Vladimir ended up passing out in the bathroom. 

                Five and a half years after that singles-only Valentines Day party nothing seemed to have changed.  Vladimir seemed to have forgotten about that night and was unaware that Larry was still mad at him for suggesting that he rape his now close friend.  Although Larry and Vonnie didn’t see each other too often, their friendship didn’t seem to fade.  It was more a matter that they both had the same personality trait of not thinking to call people.  To them, friends were really out of sight, out of mind.  It bothered both of them, but when they did see each other, they often picked up right where they left off.  This was especially true around Larry’s birthday, because Vonnie would always plan it.  She took birthdays very seriously and knew that Larry hated his birthday because he believed that bad things always happened.  For the last four out of five years since they’d known each other, Vonnie had always succeeded in giving Larry a good birthday.  The one year that Larry didn’t enjoy it, was the birthday he had planned himself.  Vonnie had realized that she hadn’t seen most of her friends in a while so she decided to have a party just to see everyone again.  The party was to take place at Vonnie’s apartment in Tribeca.  It was a first floor apartment that had access to a small garden in the back, which Vonnie had utilized to plant many plants and flowers as it relaxed her to walk outside to flowers after a long day of work in a barren Manhattan concrete jungle.  She still considered Larry her best male friend and would be on his side if any disputes were to arise.  She had forgotten that Larry hated Vladimir so saw no reason why not to invite both of them to the party.  Vladimir had a girlfriend currently named Tatiana who was a 5’6” blond haired Ukrainian who had moved to New York from the Midwest.  Vladimir had introduced Larry to Tatiana and given that they both grew up in the Midwest (Larry was raised in Cleveland, Ohio) they used that as an ice breaker and continued from there.  As alcohol was consumed, Vladimir and Tatiana had gone to the bathroom together.  Larry was sitting off to the side as he was kind of antisocial and enjoyed people watching more than actively participating in festivities.  Tatiana came over to him and sat down and he and her began talking.  Tatiana told him that she had gone to the bathroom and Vladimir wanted to hook up but she didn’t think it was right to do that in the bathroom of someone’s house whom she didn’t know so she pushed him away and ran out.  Larry was incredulous with the story.  He had found out that Vladimir and Tatiana lived together so her denying his advances didn’t really make much sense to him.  What made even less sense was that Tatiana was telling him the story given that they had just met that night.  Larry only responded, “In five seconds, Vladimir will be back here.” 

                He wasn’t really sure why he said that, but Tatiana rattled off “1-2-3-4-5” as fast as she could say it.

                Larry held up five fingers and counted down in real seconds, when he got to one, Vladimir walked over to them.  He was coming from behind Larry and smacked him on the back of the head and said, “What the fuck are you doing?  You hitting on my girl?”

                Larry turned around and said calmly, “No, but if you want to go outside and discuss this, let’s go” as he rose and headed toward the door to the garden always turning to ensure Vladimir wasn’t going for a blind side attack.  What was conspicuous to Larry was that Tatiana was doing nothing to stop Vladimir, she followed closely behind him as they went outside.  When they were both in the garden, Larry turned toward Vladimir relishing the moment that he would finally get to fight him.  Vladimir lunged forward to shove Larry and yelled out, “You want to hit on my girl?” so the crowd knew what the fight was about.  Larry brought his right arm down and his left arm up chopping Vladimir’s arms away and since his right hand was now cocked at his side, and Vladimir’s arms were in no position to defend himself Larry drove his right palm up into Vladimir’s nose bloodying it.  Vladimir backed up a couple of steps from the blow holding his nose.  He came back quickly with a punch that Larry blocked and then he grabbed Vladimir by the head bringing it down.  This was a mistake Larry often employed in street fights.  He was very accustomed to wrestling thus striking, as is needed in street fighting, was not his instinctive reaction.  Vladimir was stronger than Larry thus despite being in the headlock he was able to drive Larry back into the fence on the opposite wall but Larry had maintained his grip.  Vladimir punched away at Larry midsection hoping he’d break the hold.  Larry kept downward pressure on his neck trying to force Vladimir down, finally he drove his knee up catching Vladimir in the midsection.  Vladimir dropped to his knees but reached his hand up and drove his thumb into Larry’s eye.  Larry tried moving his head to spring loose but Vladimir had his thumb locked in so Larry released the hold to use his hand to pull Vladimir’s hand away.  This temporarily blinded him and gave Vladimir the opening he needed as he punched Larry in the stomach a couple times ending it with a punch to the face.  Larry turned his head as he anticipated the punch so that Vladimir would punch the back of his skull.  He knew it would hurt, but it could potentially crack Vladimir’s knuckles or break his wrist depending on how hard he punched.  As Larry acquired his bearings, Vladimir was shaking his wrist.  Larry lunged forward and tackled Vladimir to the ground and punched away at his face.  Vladimir deflected most of the momentum from the blows by putting his arms around his face and wrapped his legs around Larry’s waist squeezing trying to suffocate him.  Larry was able to lower Vladimir’s legs slightly enough so that that his pelvis absorbed the pressure but high enough so that Vladimir wouldn’t notice the futility of the effort.  Vladimir reached up and wrapped his hands around Larry’s neck and squeezed choking him.  Larry jabbed connecting with his nose again forcing Vladimir to release his grip.  Larry got up and started coughing.  Vladimir rose to his feet and charged at Larry, Larry fell to the side sticking his right leg out and kicking at the Vladimir’s Achilles Heel with his left tripping him over the right and onto his stomach.  Larry pounced on top of Vladimir and grabbed him by the hair and repeatedly slammed his face into the ground.  Vladimir put out his hands to try to push himself up but Larry brought his arms underneath Vladimir’s and put him in a full nelson giving him free reign to drive his face repeatedly into the ground. 

As Vladimir lost consciousness, Larry felt a kick to the side of head knocking him off Vladimir.  He rolled around to see who was kicking him and saw Tatiana ignore Vladimir and head right for him.  She drove her knee into Larry’s face before he could register what was going on.  Larry rolled away from Tatiana and leaned toward a pursuing Tatiana wrapping his arms around her legs and rising with her slouching over his shoulder.  Larry contemplated snapping the top half of her body to the ground but he was vehemently against hitting girls and just couldn’t bring himself to do it.  Tatiana struggled immensely pounding at Larry’s back trying to push herself up to a vertical base.  Larry couldn’t hold on much longer and instead of slamming her down she dropped back on her feet only to be met by a slap to the face.  Larry backed up for defensive purposes and blocked a wide range of punches and kicks from Tatiana unsure how long he could keep it up.  He was a bit wary from the fight and the two kicks to the head plus Tatiana was at full strength reduced his chances.  If Larry could bring himself to fight back, he may have stood a chance, but since his morality stopped him, this could be very embarrassing and end very badly for Larry.  In the corner of his eye, Larry saw a slim figure come out of the crowd.  His peripherals could only make out that it was a woman, but he wasn’t sure if it was friend or foe as the majority of his concentration was on Tatiana’s four limbs coming at him.  The figure then kicked Tatiana in the midsection causing her to lean over in pain.  Larry turned toward his rescuer to see Vonnie in a fighting stance.  Vonnie prided herself on having very powerful legs, and Larry knew that she had connected well with one of her powerful legs and Tatiana was feeling the effects of it.  Larry backed off to catch his breath and became a part of the crowd, whose attention was now on Vonnie and Tatiana.  Tatiana stood to full height, which was some three inches taller than Vonnie still showing obvious signs of pain.  Vonnie, slapped her across the face and taunted, “You want to start a fight in my apartment bitch?!”

                Tatiana came back with a slap of her own, which only seemed to anger Vonnie more.  One thing Vonnie hated was people touching her face, and a slap was the biggest form of disrespect you could show and she was not going to tolerate anyone slapping her in her home.  She punched Tatiana in the solar plexus and then grabbed on to Tatiana’s hair to stop her from peeling over again.  Vonnie dragged Tatiana by the hair and slammed her face first into the fence.  Vonnie then yanked back tripping Tatiana over her extended knee and stomped away at Tatiana’s midsection taunting her, “You want to slap me, you fucking bitch!”

                When Vonnie tired, she spit on Tatiana and said, “A little harder when someone hits back isn’t it?”

                She turned toward some of her other male friends and told them to get Vladimir and Tatiana out of her apartment, to which they agreed.  Larry went up to Vonnie and said, “Damn Vonnie, not bad”

                Vonnie shook her head and said, ‘Shut up Larry, you fought in my house too, I’m just glad you took it outside, that’s the only reason you’re still here.”

                “You couldn’t have been completely against it, if you fought for me buddy.”

                Vonnie gave Larry a look of contempt which only made him smile wider.  She asked, “Will you ever grow up and start acting like a man?  You’re so immature” she then changed her tone to a mocking tone “ehhh Cat fight” waving her arms and rolling her eyes.

                “No”

                Vonnie finally managed to smile and said, “Well then how does it feel that you couldn’t take on a woman by yourself?  How’s your ego now?”

                Larry’s eyes widened but his smile never faded and responded, “I know right? thank God I have female friends or else I would have been really humiliated, thanks Vonnie monster” using her nickname that Larry had blatantly stolen from when he and Vonnie saw Avenue Q together.”

                Vonnie decided it was no use arguing back so she would just play along, she was over what happened, there was no damage to her house, Vladimir and Tatiana were escorted outside and people were going about their business.  She waved a finger at Larry and said, “Be careful, I won’t always be there to protect you.”

                Larry then hugged Vonnie and Vonnie pushed him away and said, “Ewww, you’re all sweaty and you got a bloody nose, wash yourself up and then hug me.”

                Larry laughed as he went into the bathroom to wash his face and then had a couple more drinks.  After everyone who was not going to spend the night had left, Larry took a shower and then shared a bed with Vonnie.  This was a common occurrence in their beginning years of college but hadn’t happened in a while.  As they slept Larry couldn’t help but feeling a bit of nostalgia for he really had missed the friendship that Larry and Vonnie had while in college.  The next day they went off their separate ways unknowing when they would meet again since neither of them were very good callers. 

Friday, January 12, 2018

Good Men Do Somethng


All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing ~ Edmund Burke

 

Brian Dubois was a troubled child in that he didn’t really know how to handle the teasing that everyone gets at nine years old.  When he went to his parents complaining of such things, his mom’s initial reaction was to try to involve the cops.  Given that being made fun of is hardly a police matter, his parents resorted to teaching their son to try to help himself.  The father promulgated this belief by instilling his child to respond violently to any attack verbal or physical.  Being an attorney, Brian’s father was able to instill fear in others parents, schools, recreational leagues or any organization that Brian participated in causing them to never discipline Brian for fear of a lawsuit or the police involvement.

Like many nine-year-olds, Brian played Little League in the summer.  During the year, a member of the opposing team, Lionel Honan started ribbing Brian.  Brian was big for a nine year old and when sizing up Lionel, realized that he was bigger so it wouldn’t be too risky to respond violently.  He went up to Lionel and punched him in the stomach, leading to his removal from the game.  The next week, Brian punched another child, and when a parent exclaimed, “Didn’t he do this last week?”  The father responded, “You weren’t even here last week, so you can’t say anything.” 

The concerned observer didn’t reply.  Since children only refrain from doing things because they fear the consequences, the fact that adults held kids back from retaliating, and his parents took care of the adults who protested, there really was no reason for Brian to change his behavior so it continued for the rest of the summer.

As summer ended and Brian went back to school, his parents enrolled him in flag football.  It was during practice where two of his teammates were making fun of him calling him names such as “retard.”  Given the politically correct society that we currently live in, people cringe at this word, but this is athletics and these are nine year old children and no matter what society tries to instill, and no matter how hard it is fought, the fact remains that kids will be kids.  Kids will tease other kids and more emphasis in both school and home should be placed on teaching kids how to deal with being ribbed rather than firmly discipline children who tease.  Brian sized up the two teammates teasing him and realized that they were around his size, much too risky for him to attack.  Realizing that their friend, and fellow teammate, Dimitri Thanakis, was smaller than he was, he realized he could take out his aggression on Dimitri without worry of losing the fight.  He punched Dimitri across the face sending him to the ground.  Immediately adults rushed to the scene and Dimitri’ father, who was acting as coach due to the head coach being in Aruba on vacation, held back the two kids who were ribbing Brian to not escalate the confrontation any more than it had. Dimitri got up and punched Brian twice in the face and kicked him in the genitals.  Brian recovered quickly, however, and sent another punch to Dimitri’ face knocking out one of his baby teeth.  Mr. Thanakis grabbed Dimitri who was crying from the blow and immediately took him home. 

When Mr. Thanakis returned to the game later in the day, he was infuriated to not only see that Brian showed up to the game, but as the game went on, he was bragging about what he had done to Dimitri.  Furthermore, Brian’s father told everyone that he encourages his child to stick up for himself by any means necessary and given that he was being made fun of, Brian acted appropriately.  Mr. Thanakis didn’t want to confront Brian’s father for fear that he would lose his temper so just made a note to try everything in his power to ban Brian from all recreational sports in the town he lived in. Dimitri had also participated in little league and knew Brian by reputation.  Mr. Thanakis, like every other victims’ family, didn’t want the police to get involved, which the mother was sure to do and didn’t want to deal with the father for fear of being sued.  Given this, he took the “moral high ground” and decided to let the higher-ups of the recreational league solve the problem for him. 

            Dimitri’ parents wasted no time in informing the league not only what had happened to their son, but also Brian’s history of violence.  The league, like all bureaucratic institutions, was slow moving in deciding what to do about Brian Dubois.  The week progressed and Mr. Thanakis kept his e-mail correspondence with the league getting increasingly frustrated each day that Brian continued to practice with the team.  What angered him more was that Dimitri had expressed to him that he felt like a loser because he lost the fight.  Mr. Thanakis tried to tell his son that he was sucker punched and there was no shame in what happened but Dimitri still felt bad.  A couple days after the incident, Dimitri was awarded the first-ever Theo Rozakis Toughman Award, which exemplifies the qualities of someone who never picks a fight but if someone picks a fight with him will give it to them good.  Dimitri was awarded the award for not staying down or backing down after someone bigger than himself had hit him.  Dimitri was very happy with the award and even showed it off to his friends.  This, however, did not stop the zeal of Mr. and Mrs. Thanakis from imploring the league to suspend Brian from sports in Lincroft, New Jersey.   

            The following weekend were the playoffs for flag football featuring Dimitri and Brian’s team.  Much to the dismay of everyone, Brian and his family were in attendance due to the league still deciding on whether or not they should suspend Brian.  They heard Brian’s dad’s argument that the kids were harassing him and Brian was forced to react the way he did, but they just responded, “I don’t care if they call his mom a whore, you don’t punch kids.” 

            Just as the game was getting under way and Brian’s parents looked around to challenge anyone who went against their son; a figure emerged from a car with New York license plates.  Everyone was focused on the game so hardly noticed this person, whom none of them had ever seen before, walk to the stands.  It didn’t take long for a parent to comment how Brian shouldn’t be playing, causing Brian’s dad to blurt out, “Your kid wasn’t even involved, so you can’t say anything.”  The man exiting the car was dressed in a black trench coat, with a black bowler hat and tattoos on his neck standing at six feet tall with white eyes.  He came toward Brian’s dad at a slow deliberate pace.  Given that everyone was sitting, and the awkward appearance, he caught some attention.  He went up to Brian’s dad and said, “Are you the father of that problem child, Brian Dubois?”

            Brian’s dad got up and faced the man and given that he had never seen this man before, assumed he was not related to any of the children on the team, he said, “This is none of your business.”

            “Fuck you.” The adults who were near the area suddenly weren’t really sure who the good guy was.  They abhorred what Brian did to any child that made fun of him but they didn’t condone profanity among little kids.  Brian’s dad stepped closer so he was eye to eye with the man and was a little unnerved when merely pupils stared back at him but he wasn’t going to tolerate this man stepping up to him, the mysterious character continued, “You’re son is a plague of this league and a disgrace to little kids everywhere, and you condone his criminal and animalistic behavior, he deserves to be in a zoo not among civilized children.”

            Brian’s dad, following his own rules he instilled in Brian, went to shove the man out of his way.  Nobody talks about his son that way and he knew he could defend himself in court because he had great ability in the court room.  The figure threw his left arm up and right arm down slapping Brian’s dad arms away from him, his right hand was now cocked at his waist and he shot his palm up striking Brian’s dad squarely in the nose breaking it on impact.  Brian’s dad took a couple steps back as his eyes naturally watered from being struck in the nose and brought his hand to his nose and realized, it was bleeding.  Because he was too concerned with checking if he was bleeding, he didn’t notice the figure shuffle toward him, wind up as far as his waist would allow and step into a vicious jab that caught Brian’s dad squarely in the face again knocking him unconscious.  Brian ran toward his father hoping to defend him.  Brian’s mother reached for her cell phone only to find that it was no longer in her purse.  She asked people around her for her phone but all the parents knew that she wanted to call the cops and as far as they were concerned, the Duboiss were getting exactly what they deserved.  Seeing that she had no support, and realizing her son was running toward a man who had now proven himself to be dangerous, she ran toward the scene hoping to keep her son from harm.  Brian wouldn’t make it as the two teammates who had teased Brian before, chased him down and tackled him and started kicking him before the coaches restrained them.  The mother screamed, “Somebody call the cops!” as she ran to console her son who was now crying. 

The figure walked toward Brian and his mom hoping that the mother would try to attack him.  The mother got up and tried to shove the figure, but he batted her arms out of the way, just as he did to the father.  This time, however, he didn’t follow it with any offense.  Brian’s mother, realizing that she wasn’t going to get hit, tried to slap the man only to have him dodge it causing her to fall from her swinging momentum hitting nothing.  Brian tried to punch the figure in the genitals but the figure thrusted his arm out around Brian’s neck holding him at arms length, which meant that Brian’s arm wasn’t long enough to make contact.  Brian grabbed on the man’s arm trying to pull it away but that just allowed the figure to move forward and lift Brian with one arm around his neck and slam him to the ground.  Brian rolled on the ground crying and screaming holding his head.  The mother had yet to get up and looked around frightened as nobody was coming to help her or Brian.  The figure looked at her and said, “You have two choices, one keep attacking me, and I’ll take it out on your son, or tend to your son.”

This was a no decision, she crawled over to her son and held him close as he cried on her shoulder.  She blurted out, “You’ll pay for this.”

“Doubtful, for what goes around comes around and I am the collector of the payment for your son and husband’s sins” the man said as he turned and walked to his car and drove off.  The surrounding adults were too shocked at what transpired to take action before it was over.  Nobody felt bad for what had happened to Brian’s dad but they felt that harming the child was over the top. 

            Brian’s dad came to shortly later, and they took their son and went home threatening law suits.

The entire debacle lasted less than a minute and when he drove off, nobody got the license plate number and nobody heard from the figure again.  When Brian’s dad asked around to find out his identity, nobody claimed to have known him because nobody recognized him.  Cameras in the parking lot revealed the license plate to have been a rental car and the name given the rental car place was a fake complete with fake driver’s license.

            Brian’s parents withdrew Brian from recreational competition, horrified that none of the parents came to their aid.  Ironically, it was the same passiveness from the same people that had allowed Brian to get away with his brutal and unwarranted attacks.  Brian was humbled by the experience and lived in constant fear of the figure that took out his dad and him would come back, so he was a lot more disinclined to attack a child.