The lioness

Those tiny gypsies are doing it again. The Dara siblings have been circling around ever since I started playing and I can clearly see them eyeing my money. I casually move to the hat on the ground and drag it closer to my spot with my foot. The whole activity looks silly, since I’m trying to keep on playing the violin meanwhile. The younger sister points her finger at me, laughing. Both of her front teeth are missing and she almost looks cute and innocent. But the siblings stole my tips a few days ago, so this time I am extra careful around them. Being careful around gypsies is the common sense here.
It’s close to midnight already, but it’s a Friday, so the plaza is quite crowded. Although I started playing just half an hour ago, I must have made a decent amount of money - „decent” by the standards of street performing in an unknown little town.
The song I’m playing is coming to an end and I start playing it again. I only know a few songs, and most of them are sad as hell, which for some reason doesn’t pay as well as the happy folk music. I’m disappointed with the lack of a crowd around me tonight. Maybe I chose the wrong place: all around me are pubs and bars and I think I might just be the last teenager left who enjoys violin music.
I hear someone approaching me from behind and I turn around just as I hear my name being called:
“Leo!”
His voice sends shivers down my spine and I stop playing instantly. Adi is two years older, but we are both in the same grade, except he goes to another school. He lives under the impression we are in love and he’s been trying to hook up with me ever since I was about thirteen. It has gotten to the point where I actively try my best to avoid him, which is hard when he is actively stalking me in the meanwhile.
“Leo”, he calls me again, this time close enough for me to catch the smell of alcohol in his breath. “I know some things about you.”
I place my hands in front of me, holding the violin tight at my chest. I do so without realizing and it bothers me that he intimidates me on an unconscious level. So I put my violin in its case (I’m not going to play anymore anyway) and lay it on the ground. Then I put my hands on my hips and stare him down with my most vicious look.
“What things?” I repeated.
“I have my people. They know things,” he continues as vaguely as before, staring me back in the eyes. He seems to be angry, but his voice doesn’t let it show. It is only slightly visible in the flexing of his muscles, but he does that a lot, so it might be just my imagination. I am often paranoid when it comes to drunken men.
“What things?”
“Who you’ve been going out with… How do you think this makes me look?”
I have no clue what he is talking about, but considering that he thinks every now and then that we are a couple, I guess he’s jealous. He seems agitated, moving his weight from one leg to another, but his eyes are fixed on mine.
“People respect me,” he goes on, getting somehow emotional. “I can’t afford my lover to be a slut.”
Oh, there you go. I roll my eyes and only manage to say, “We are not…”, when he grabs my shoulders and brings me closer to his face. His eyes are glassy and his pupils big. I hate the way he smells.
“Why are you toying around with me like that?! Why do you play so hard to get?”
He delivers his lines passionately and it impresses me just how delusional he is.
“Adi” I say as calmly and slowly as possible, as if I was talking to a child “I am not playing hard to get. We are not lovers. Do you understand? I most sincerely do not wish to be involved in any romantic, sexual or platonic relationship with you.”
Apparently, he does not understand, because he attempts to kiss me right after I finish talking. I manage to turn my head away in time and his lips land on my cheek. This disgusts me nevertheless and I push him away.
“No!” I exclaim as he lets me go.
“No?” he makes sure, his voice repugnantly sweet.
“No.” I reassure him, crossing my arms.
“Okay. Okay… Okay, I get that. Not today -” he says, his voice shaking with a mix of sadness and oncoming anger.
I want to say, “not ever”, but he has already turned his back on me and I have no desire to keep the conversation going.
I was ready to pick up my stuff and get moving, when Adi turned around and punched me in the stomach. The pain is crippling and I curl with a soft cry, almost falling down.
He then kicks me in the sheen and this time I don’t stand a chance at regaining my vertical position and I collapse. Adi doesn’t stop though; he places his foot on my face and whispers something about infidelity and how feminism ruined women, while I am incapable of thinking of a way to attack back. I hope he’ll let me go after he finished talking, so I stay petrified under the sole of his shoe, trying to focus on ignoring the pain.
But he doesn’t stop. He starts screaming non- sense about me cheating and then channels his anger in kicking me in my torso, as if my heart were a football.
I lose my breath at the first kick and can’t cry for help. I curl up, protecting my head with my arms and my belly with my legs, but he still hits me pretty badly. Two more kicks follow, while I hear masculine voices shouting and people running and then the hitting stops.
I open my eyes, still unable to breathe. Adi is gone. There are some young men around me and they’re all saying something, but I can only focus on the pulsating pain in my lower torso. My body seems to be frozen in that position and I feel as if my heartbeat is shaking the entire plaza.
“Are you okay?” one of them asks, kneeing down next to me. “Should I call an ambulance?”
“Are you dumb? Of course we should call an ambulance!”
“And the police,” some other dude says, getting his mobile phone out of his pocket.
“No,” I finally get my breath back and manage to speak.
The pain is killing me, but I still hope it will go away by itself, because the last thing I am in the mood for is a trip to the hospital and a talk with an officer.
“The man got away anyway,” - the third one says. “Did you know him? Could you identify him?”
The first one who talked helps me stand up. My whole body is shaking and I can’t stand straight, but my mind is rather calm and my train of thought pragmatic: maybe this is the denial stage.
There are apparently quite some people around, way more than there were when I was playing my violin. Adi is nowhere to be seen though. He ran away. I’m pissed, but I will still not contact the police. He is underage anyway; best case scenario his parents will have to pay a fine and then beat him up as well.
“No police, I am fine.” I say again, more clearly this time. “No ambulance as well. I am fine.”
“You are crying and bleeding,” the guy points out.
I didn’t even notice I started crying, nor bleeding. I must have scrapped my forehead while he was pressing it against the pavement, but the area is dirtier that it is wounded. I stare at the man who is still supporting me. He is around twenty and looks really worried and slightly scared. All three of the guys are looking at me with caution; as if afraid I am mad. The other spectators are slowly clearing the spot now that they see the three men are helping me, but curious looks are still being thrown.
“Nah, man, I’m great,” I insist. “Thank you guys a lot, but I’d rather go home now.”
“You might have some internal damage, it’s better to get yourself checked,” the dude insists as well.
“Nah, it only hurts when I breathe and talk.”
I realize immediately how ridiculous the claim is, but it’s more or less true: it’s bad when I stay completely still.
“I called a cab,” the one with the phone said. “You must have something broken. You can’t just go home!”
I am getting more and more annoyed by the whole situation, but they’re right. The faster I get to the hospital, the faster I can get home and the less my parents will get involved.
One guy picks up my hat, jacket, violin and backpack while the other two stay at my sides. On the bright side, nobody stole my tips while I was getting my ribs smashed. They are both holding me by my arms – they even offered to carry me – and they bother me more than they help, but I am in no position to complain. We get to the street at the same time the cab gets there.
The guys open the door and attempt to help me sit, when the taxi driver rushes to slam the door back shut.
“No drunken people!!!” he explains neurotically, letting the window down.
“She’s not drunk” my helpers defend me. “She’s hurt. She needs to get to the hospital.”
“No OD-ing people either!”
“I’m on no drugs, I got beaten up.”
He watches me up and down skeptically.
“Why is there a shoe mark on your face?”
“Because I like people to walk on my face while I’m tripping.”
He is not amused at all.
“Do you have money?”
I present him my tip hat and the coins at the bottom of it.
“Tst… No banknotes?”
“You can keep the hat.”
“You sure are funny for a person who was beaten up.”
“We’ll pay for the ride right now,”- one of my guys intervenes.
“Alright. But no bleeding or vomiting in the car!”
I sit in front and thank everyone again, as they pay the driver. He seems unsatisfied and unimpressed and I wonder if he always carries around people like me. I raise my t-shirt to analyze my wounds, but it’s too dark to see any visible marks. I can’t believe I’ve gotten involved in this. What a great Friday night!
“So who stepped on your face?” he says shortly after we start moving, lighting up a cigarette.
I roll my eyes at him, but my irritated look doesn’t stop him from going on:
“Was he a gypsy?”
“Yes.”
“You’re also a gypsy, right?”
“Yep.”
“Yeah, I thought so. But it’s quite hard to tell nowadays. A lot of girls go to the tanning salon and dye their hair black.”
“Look, I think one of my ribs is in my liver, I’m not really in the mood…”
“Chill, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I just thought you were a gypsy because there is a lot of domestic violence in gypsy families.”
“I’m fifteen.”
“I’m not saying there is anything wrong with starting a family at fifteen. I’m not judging!”
I am not even bothering to tell him that there are plenty of things wrong with everything he said.
“He shouldn’t have hit you.”
“Because my face is so pretty?” I growl sarcastically.
“No, because hitting anyone is a bad thing to do.”
He finishes his cigarette and does not throw the butt out the window. I watch the dark circles around his eyes and his dry hands on the wheel and I decide to start making an effort and stop being so salty all the time. There surely are people out there with nights worse than mine.