The day I believed in Karmic Justice

Have I ever written the story of how a high-school “friend” of mine performed the most absurdly underhanded act I’ve seen? No? Story time!

When I moved to a new area in Athens in 1992, I started in a new Gymnasium (what would be called “Middle-school” I think for U.S. Americans.), and I had to make all new friends from scratch. As I was a very awkward kid (shy and geeky but feisty as well) I started getting into a lot of fights and became a bit of a pariah to my classmates.

I did make some friends, but I also made a lot of enemies. A lot of those enemies were content to simply torment me daily with new nicknames, spitballs in my hair during class, attempts at bullying etc, while others were very happy to simply goad the rest into keeping this up, or attempting to keep me as a social outcast. One of the latter was a kid we’ll call “Dewie” for this story.

So this kid was very very slimy. Always trying to get people to start shit with me, telling people lies or secrets about me etc. To my face though, he tried to be friendly and even to befriend me. To an extent, it worked, since I didn’t have a lot of people to hang out with; but since I also wasn’t completely oblivious, this relationship became a friend/nemesis situation. I.e. some weeks we’d be on just speaking terms, some others we’d be friends (e.g. I’d invite him home to play video games etc), some others we’d be bitter enemies, fist-fighting in the yard, or randomly on the street etc. It was a weird situation caused in part by my own character type. I’m very difficult to anger and very easy to forgive and trust people.

What didn’t help matters is that I had found some other people who I was friends with, and he managed to insert himself into that group as well. At that point this pissed me off because they knew we did not get along at the time and they nevertheless allowed him in. This further complicated things but this situation kept going on for 3 years.

Some of the things I remember Dewie did:

• We got into a fight. I wrestled him to the floor and he conceded. I got up to leave and he sucker-punched me in the face with all his strength.
• I borrowed him a PC game I loved which came on 3 CD and I had bought original with all my savings. After he returned it I tried to play it, but for some reason I couldn’t load the 3rd stage (2nd CD). When I asked him about it, he said it was working fine for him. A common friend later told me he laughed to him about destroying the back of the CD with a screwdriver so that I wouldn’t be able to play anymore.
• I got into a verbal fight on the street with a Roma boy (I can’t remember why). Without me knowing, he gathered his friends and went looking to beat me up. They couldn’t find me as I had already gone home but somehow Dewie got involved. He then not only led them to my apartment, but he rang my doorbell, and told me he had a surprise for me (At that point we were on speaking terms again). I lived on the 8th floor, so imagine my surprise when I open the door and see 3 Roma boys come out of the elevator and jump me! Dewie was sitting next to the elevator laughing his ass off. Fortunately another friend of mine was at my place at the time for video games so I screamed for support and with his and (iirc) my sister’s help we managed to drive them back (the kids were I think 1-3 years younger than us). Dewie escaped and somehow thought this was something to brag about.

Even though all of that, my common group of friends would just no drop him from the circle, to the point that I would have to avoid hanging out with them when he was around, eventually causing me to be almost completely alone except 2 very closer friends. And even them I almost lost during this time.

But there was one thing that not just Broke the Camel’s back, but pile-dived into a pyramid of Camels. The act so low and stupid that it still stupefies me.

When I was 15, my mother died. At that point I was almost completely alone, friend-wise. Silver lining to that event was that people started talking to me again, even some people who had been my mortal enemies during all my high-school year. There was an outpouring of compassion during those first few weeks/months and the classes at my age-group decided to make a fund-drive to get me some economic support (I was completely orphaned at that point). Dewie, at the time happened to be the class accountant, so naturally he gathered the money for everyone to transfer to my family bank account. It was not a lot, but it was a symbolic amount (I think it would have been something like 100-200 Eur now).

Next day, Dewie is missing from school. Apparently he had to go urgently to the hospital. We were all wondering what happens, and then a common friend, Alex, drops this bombshell:

On the previous day, he run into Dewie on the street. Dewie was on the other side a small avenue, and as soon as he notices Alex, he raises a couple of Heavy Metal CDs and shouts to him something like “look what I got!”, and runs over to show him. At that point a motorcycle run blazing past and smacks straight onto Dewie who is dragged on the group with his face for a couple of meters.

In case you didn’t get it, Dewie has used the money my class-mates had gathered out of support for my dead mother to buy himself music CDs…

And Karmic Justice struck him down like a clay pigeon!

I don’t remember how Alex knew this. I think Dewie might have bragged about it already (he was notoriously stupid at times). Whatever the reason, news quickly spread out in school about this dastardly deed, and for half a year or so, the world turned a bit on its head and I was the liked-kid, while Dewie was the social pariah.

Unfortunately, due to my inherent awkwardness and Dewies inherent slimyness, this didn’t last. Within a year, things were back how they were, with Dewie still involved my group of friends and me being the outcast.

But at least that act was so heinous that I could never forgive him for it, and would avoid him like the plague from then on.