9:46:01 PM Excerpt of Rolling Stone Article: | |
Excerpt of Rolling Stone Article:
 The cover of Rolling Stones Magazine - Issue August 2013. "I could never quite get his name – Dokar? Jokar?" says Larry Aaronson, a retired Rindge history teacher (Jahar, he says, eventually told him to call him "Joe"). Aaronson, a longtime friend of the late historian Howard Zinn, also lives on Norfolk Street, down the block from the Tsarnaevs’ home. "I asked him once where he was from, and he said Chechnya. And I’m like, ‘Chechnya? Are you shitting me?’" says Aaronson. "I said, ‘My God, how did you cope with all that stress?’ And he said, ‘Larry, that’s how come we came to America, and how lucky that we came to Cambridge, of all places!’ He just embraced the city, the school and the whole culture – he gratefully took advantage of it. And that’s what endeared me to him: This was the quintessential kid from the war zone, who made total use of everything we offer so that he could remake his life. And he was gorgeous," he adds. Jahar’s friends were a diverse group of kids from both the wealthier and poorer sections of Cambridge; black, white, Jewish, Catholic, Puerto Rican, Bangladeshi, Cape Verdean. They were, as one Cambridge parent told me, "the good kids" – debate champs, varsity athletes, student-government types, a few brainiacs who’d go off to elite New England colleges. A diligent student, Jahar talked about attending Brandeis or Tufts, recalls a friend I’ll call Sam, one of a tight-knit group of friends, who, using pseudonyms, agreed to speak exclusively to Rolling Stone. "He was one of the realest dudes I’ve ever met in my life," says Sam, who spent nearly every day with Jahar during their teens, shooting hoops or partying at a spot on the Charles River known as the "Riv." No matter what, "he was the first person I’d call if I needed a ride or a favor. He’d just go, ‘I got you, dog’ – even if you called him totally wasted at, like, two or three in the morning." "He was just superchill," says another friend, Will, who recalls one New Year’s Eve when Jahar packed eight or nine people – including one in the trunk – into his green Honda Civic. Of course, he adds, the police pulled them over, but Jahar was unfazed. "Even if somebody caught him drinking," says his buddy Jackson, "he was the calm, collected kid who always knew how to talk to police." He had morals, they all agree. "He never picked on anybody," says Sam, adding that much like his brother, Jahar was a great boxer. "He was better at boxing than wrestling – he was a beast." But while he could probably knock out anyone he wanted, he never did. "He wasn’t violent, though – that’s the crazy thing. He was never violent," says Sam. "He was smooth as fuck," says his friend Alyssa, who is a year younger than Jahar. Girls went a little crazy over him – though to Jahar’s credit, his friends say, even when he had crushes, he never exploited them. "He’d always be like, ‘Chill, chill, let’s just hang out,’" says Sam, recalling Jahar’s almost physical aversion to any kind of attention. "He was just really humble – that’s the best way to describe him." | |
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