Chapter 14: A Moment of Madness

After school on Friday, Harry and Lisa decided to sneak away to the woods behind the high school for a short make out session. It was tough for them to have a place to kiss where they wouldn’t be observed. They weren’t the first kids from the school to slip off into the woods, although that afternoon they were the only kids to head into the woods.

Having learned that her father loved her the previous weekend, Lisa did not feel the same need to get male approval. As a result, the relationship between her and Harry had slowed down a little. That isn’t to say that it had stalled. It just meant that she was willing to allow Harry to work a little more for access to her body. For both of them, the pace was thrilling enough.

Harry wasn’t even aware of the change in her. The relationship was proceeding plenty fast enough for him. There was lots of kissing and hugging. He still hadn’t slipped a hand under her shirt, but he had caressed her breasts through the shirt. He would have been surprised if she hadn’t kept things at the current pace.

They had just reached a spot where they would be granted a little privacy when there was a noise behind them. They turned and looked back the way they had come. What they saw made their blood freeze in their veins. A medium sized man was wrestling a boy to the ground while trying to wrap the boy’s wrists with duct tape. There was already a patch of duct tape over the boy’s mouth.

Once boy’s wrists were bound, the man threw the boy to the ground. There was a struggle while the man tried to pull the pants off the boy. The kid was kicking and thrashing as much as he could, but the man had him overpowered. The boy’s fear was strong enough that Harry and Lisa could smell it.

When Harry realized what was going on, he acted without any reservations or thoughts of self preservation. He charged the man full out. He dove at the man without regard to injury and made contact with his full body weight behind a single fist. For the next few minutes, Harry was a wild animal. He hit, slapped, jabbed, bit, scratched, kicked, squeezed, head-butted, elbowed, and kneed his opponent. He took every opportunity that arose to make forceful contact with the body of the man.

It is a fact that the outcome of a fight is not always determined by size, weight, or strength. Ask anyone who has tried to give a cat a bath if a ten to one advantage in size, weight, and strength was sufficient to ensure that the cat ended up clean. It is the ferocity of the combatants that is often the critical difference between the winner and loser of a fight. That afternoon, two years of pent up anger and frustration at his parents burst loose. Harry was ferocious.

Becoming a little more aware of his surroundings, Harry found that he was being held upside down in the air by his arms and legs. He struggled, but the grips on his arms and legs were too strong. He heard a voice say, “Jesus, don’t let go of him.”

“He already gave me a black eye,” said another man.

Harry heard Lisa shout, “Don’t hurt him!”

Looking at the ground from his upside down position, Harry could just make out a bloody mass in front of him. He didn’t know if it was the boy or the guy he had attacked. If it was the boy, he knew that he was in serious trouble. He twisted to see who was holding one of his legs and found he was staring at the football coach. The man had a bloody nose. While attempting to process that information, Harry’s brain decided that it was time to take a vacation.

Lisa, biting her knuckles, watched as the football coach and three of the players lowered a suddenly limp Harry to the ground. Afraid, she asked, “Is he all right?”

The coach looked down at Harry and said, “I think he’s fainted. Chuck, get the Principal and tell him to call 911.”

Although it was too late to prevent Chuck from his errand, the assistant coach looked up from the other boy on the ground and said, “I already sent Doug to do that.”

Kneeling down to examine Harry, the coach said, “Too bad we don’t have an extreme fighting team. I’d want this boy on it. He definitely won that fight.”

Lisa asked, “Is he all right?”

“It looks like he broke a finger and lost a nail. He got hit in the eye, but I don’t see any real damage to it. He’s going to have a real shiner in the morning. I don’t see any other broken bones, but we’ll know more when he gets to the hospital.” The coach checked for a concussion but didn’t see the obvious signs. He didn’t have any smelling salts with him.

“Hospital?” Lisa asked terrified that Harry was hurt really bad. He had scared her to death when he had charged at the man.

“He broke a finger and he lost consciousness. He’s going to the hospital to be checked out,” the coach said. He looked over at the man lying on the ground. He wasn’t going to waste any of his first aid skills on that piece of trash.

“Is he going to be all right?”

He winced while dabbing at his nose with his handkerchief. The cloth came away red with his blood. At least it didn’t feel like his nose was broken. Winking at Lisa, he said, “Don’t worry. He’s small but tough.”

One of the football players said, “I bet that guy outweighs him by fifty pounds. I don’t know how he did it.”

The Principal of the school arrived and looked around. Puffing and out of breath from the run from the office, he asked, “What happened?”

“We saw that guy trying to rape Ted. Harry went after the guy and now he’s hurt.”

The Principal went over to the man on the ground and bent down to see if he recognized him. He paled and stepped back. Shocked, he asked, “What happened to his eye?”

“Looks like Harry poked his eye out with a finger,” the assistant coach answered. Ted started to struggle to see the guy who had attacked him. The assistant coach held Ted down and said, “You’re okay. Just relax. We’re all friends here.”

“Aren’t you going to do something about it?” the Principal asked staring at the bloody eye socket.

“No,” the coach answered with a snort. He pointed to the two boys on the ground and said, “We’ve got two injured students here and they are our first responsibility. Yours, too. Leave that piece of shit where he is. The cops will take care of him.”

Feeling weak and helpless, Ted said, “I want that bastard dead.”

While pointing to the bridge of his nose, the assistant coach said, “Ted, look at me. Look me in the eyes. You’re okay. He didn’t get you. Everything is going to be all right. Do you understand me?”

“He...”

“It doesn’t matter what he tried to do. You and Harry fought him off.”

“Harry? Who’s Harry?” Ted asked. He had lost consciousness about the time that Harry had attacked the man.

Lisa watched the drama unfold with wide eyes. She knew Ted. He was one of the quietest boys in school. He was small for his age and pretty smart, but he wasn’t physically strong. Somehow he always managed to travel below the radar of all the school bullies. Without Harry’s intervention, the man would have been able to do whatever he wanted to Ted. She could only imagine what Ted must have been feeling.

She answered, “Harry Anders, my boyfriend.”

On hearing that, the Principal looked at Lisa and then at Harry. He knew exactly why they had been in the woods. Every day that week he had told the kids during the morning announcement to stay well away from the woods. Shaking his head, he asked, “Didn’t you hear me tell everyone to stay away from the woods?”

Harry groaned and his eyes fluttered open. He saw the coach kneeling over him and started to struggle to get up. Leaning back to protect his sore nose, the coach said, “Relax. You aren’t in any danger.”

Lisa knelt down next to Harry and kissed him. She said, “Thank God, you’re all right.”

“Did I stop him?” Harry asked once Lisa stopped kissing him.

Chuckling, the coach said, “You stopped him. You almost stopped me with that backhand to the nose.”

Worried and angry, Jack entered the hospital and paused to look around for signs telling him where he was supposed to go. He was almost knocked off his feet when Lisa ran into him and hugged him. He was relieved to see that she was okay. The story that he had gotten was something about an attempted rape involving Harry and some other kid. He held Lisa for a moment and asked, “What happened?”

“We saw a guy trying to rape Ted. Harry went after the guy,” Lisa answered.

Having watched the news for the past few weeks, Jack didn’t have to ask who the guy was to know that Harry had taken a real big risk. He didn’t say it, but he was very relieved to learn that Lisa hadn’t been the intended victim of rape. He asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she answered.

He asked, “How’s Harry?”

“He’s hurt, but not too bad. At least, that’s what the coach said. They brought him here to check for broken bones.”

“Is the other kid okay?”

“Yes, Harry got to the guy before he was able to rape him. Ted was hurt, but the coaches said that he would be okay.”

“What happened to the guy?”

“Harry hurt him,” Lisa answered. She was feeling proud of what her boyfriend had done. She hadn’t stayed to watch the fight. She had run off to get some help and, without really thinking about it, had gone to the football field where the junior varsity team was playing a game.