Juho Waara

*"Juho Waara" directs here. For information on Kelly's cat, see Juho (disambiguation).*

**Juho Waara** is the narrator and fictional creator of the Greensmith Archives. Any non-labeled quotes come from Waara himself in the Greensmith Archives. All quotes, unless otherwise specified, come from the Greensmith Archives.

**There are no trigger warnings on this wiki due to the inability to cover all bases, so please read at your own risk and check topic sentences!**

### Relatives

Mother unknown, Jackson Waara (Father), Rennie Waara (Half-Sister), Angela Kelly (God-Niece), Jamie Kelly (God-Niece), Yvonne-Kelly (God-Niece), Arland Kelly (God-Nephew)

### Affiliation

Uniseann Holata Kelly and family; the Lambourgh Family of North Carolina

### Occupation

Tailor shop janitor (1917-1918), Floral delivery man (1918-1920), Courtesan (1919-1925), Student (1929-1940), Field physician (1940-1945), Surgical resident (1945-1948), General surgeon (1948-1965)

## Physical description

### Weight

97lbs without prosthetic leg, 101lbs with

### Eye color

Green with centralized blue heterochromia

## Appearances

### Appears in

Innumerable pornographic films (1919-1924)

## **Biography**

### **Personality**

To those who knew him in life, Waara was an extremely extroverted person, but also stingy when it came to finances. When his interviews were scanned and other sources searched, his personality type was assumed (at close review) to be ESTP-T, although it is just a guess based on questioning people who knew him and tapes of him interacting with others. He made friends easily, but most of the bonds were not too strong. Waara was also a hobbyist filmmaker and enjoyed photography, both shown by the immense number of videos and images in the Greensmith Archives.

### Location

Brunswick County, Virginia, United States of America

### Inhabitants

18,222 (1900)

Waara was born into the Waara-Virtanen Cult in Ante, Virginia. He was the second child in his family, the first being his half-sister Rennie Waara. The group was a Finnish isolators’ compound, formed in the late 18th century, and they practiced incest, so, by the time he was born, he was incredibly sickly. Waara was born with a clubbed left foot that had to be amputated at ten months old due to its severity. He had severe seizures as an infant that did not respond to home remedies offered by his grandparents. As his mother was reportedly nearing complete deafness despite being in her early twenties, it came of no surprise that he was deaf in his right ear, as well, and would use a vactuphone when he could afford it in adulthood. He was diagnosed with Graves' disease as a teenager, which went untreated and ate away at the fat on his body and, eventually, his muscles, which left him incredibly weak.

Waara was stolen, along with his sibling, from the cult by their father, to be raised by him. Waara never knew his mother, and Jackson Waara worked to keep them both happy, healthy, and educated.

#### **Friendship with Kelly**

##### **Meeting**

Waara’s lifelong friendship with Uniseann Kelly began in 1908, when both boys swerved on their bikes to avoid a car and ran each other into the shoulder of the road. Neither spoke fluent English at the time, so it is an iconic moment that is described in the written Archives that they made vague gestures to each other. Waara knew fluent Finnish and tried to apologize in full for what had occurred and Kelly wrote out basic English phrases he believed Waara may have known (“Okay?”, “Broken?”, “Pain?”, etc.) in an attempt to get an understandable answer out of him, but to no avail. Waara broke his arm in the incident and his right ulna pushed out of his skin, so language was unnecessary to address the damage of that.

After some time, the boys got on track with rough provisional sign language, with Kelly pointing in the direction of his house, making carrying gestures (Waara’s prosthetic was beyond present repair), and Waara either nodding or shaking his head depending on whether he understood. Kelly brought Waara back to his house to properly reattach and reconstruct his prosthetic, which had fallen off, bent, and broken “into some larger pieces" in the incident.

##### **Joint Adolescence**

After forming a friendship, Waara found a safe haven with Kelly, but Kelly feared that his parents would not like him being friends with Waara due to his incestuous background. If Waara spent the night, he was hidden under the bed. One night in 1912, Kelly hid Waara, but did not get his prosthesis all the way underneath before his father entered his bedroom to say goodnight. Kelly’s father, William Kelly, picked the eleven-year-old up by his leg, which resulted in it falling off and Waara yelping from the sudden shock of being discovered. William Kelly, according to Waara’s records, laughed the incident off, gave them both a Dr. Pepper, and let him stay the remainder of the weekend as well as gave him permission to come over whenever he wished because he “[knew] it must have been uncomfortable under there” (W. Kelly, qtd. in Waara).

In multiple abusive incidents, Waara was struck by his father with a bottle, which resulted in glass sticking in or getting under his skin to a degree. As Kelly’s mother was a veterinarian and permitted him to watch simple surgical procedures, he offered to mend the wounds. In a 1915 literary entry, Waara detailed a makeshift surgery that Kelly performed on his arm by feeding him warm peanut butter to distract him from the pain and using sanitized tweezers to withdraw the glass from his wounds. Kelly stitched it himself, wrapped Waara’s arm in a blue cast, and allowed Waara to spend the night with him so he would not have to endure his father again due to the color of the cast. Waara stated that Kelly held his wounded arm “affectionately.” Kelly’s parents found the boys together asleep as such the next morning and put down strict rules that Waara had to sleep on a cot on the floor (although he could stay in the room) as he was fourteen, Kelly was sixteen, and it was unknown if Waara could get pregnant and if Kelly had malicious intents. Waara was frightened by the rules, worried that Kelly’s parents thought that Kelly may hurt him just as his father did to his mother, and Kelly had to talk to his parents about why they should believe that he needed to comfort Waara and that Waara enjoyed physical affection such as platonic cuddling after knowing what his father may do. The rules were lifted and they were permitted to share a bed.

Kelly was on a “ruleless rugby” team as a pre-teen and teen, and, although Waara could not join in due to his fragility and the low quality of his prosthetic, he enjoyed watching and sometimes did make efforts to be a part of the team. He could regularly be seen drinking a Dr. Pepper on a bench, kicking the fence while the other kids played and shouting what little English he knew at them, hoping it was insulting. In the times he attempted to play, he tripped over himself or patches of long grass on the field. Sometimes, Kelly carried him while he played and Waara’s job was to pull the other players’ hair and take out clips and ponytail holders. Waara met several kids his age on the rugby team, some who liked him and some who disliked him, but all of them were close-knit with Kelly. Two were the Lambourgh brothers, the adopted sons of the Raleigh “crime king,” Wesley Lambourgh and Michael Lambourgh. One was Lillian Meyer, a girl he found himself longing for very quickly. Another was Cara Bülcher, who was dating Kelly for several years by the mid-1910s. R. Waara also began enjoying the sport herself and Kelly befriended her, although the Lambourgh brothers were stand-offish to her. Michael Lambourgh took a liking to Waara and Meyer liked him as a friend.

As teens, Kelly and Waara developed drinking habits together. They escaped their houses with their parents’ whiskey and dropped rocks onto cars as they got drunk in a tree or on top of a bank’s roof in Raleigh. It got to a point that Kelly stole his father’s car to drive the half hour to Durham and Waara dropped three cases of Jack Daniels into the backseat so they could “curl on a train home and not remember it” . The boys were banned from seeing each other in 1914 when Kelly returned home hungover, but the early morning antics continued and Waara’s parents could not care less.

##### **Disappearance**

On October 21, 1914, Kelly and R. Waara disappeared after a rugby game. Waara spent the night on the field, writing journal entries with a match as light about how he longed for his sister's comforting hugs or his best friend to just sit next to him, until Kelly’s parents arrived to look for their son and he was reported missing the next day. The two did not return until 1918.

### **Adolescence**

#### **Beginning the Archives**

In 1915, Waara wrote out the first recorded entry of the Greensmith Archives. It lacks any semblance of structure, existing solely for exposition purposes, and he likely used a Finnish-English translator, though his fluency of 2-3 at the time may have allowed him to do it alone. The next year, he started the recording sector of the Archives. The first video, lacking audio as no phonograph reel exists, shows a fifteen-year-old Waara shocked that his camera worked. The remainder of the sped-up nine-second-long clip is him staggering around his room on his awfully-fitted prosthesis, putting up pieces of tinsel to mark out the corners of the area that the camera could capture and going behind the camera every time to check. It appears that he had some above-average knowledge of filming for his age.

#### **Gender**

Waara began going through a male puberty in 1911, and his father feared for his safety as he continued to enjoy traditionally feminine attire. He was attacked in 1912 for such a reason by a drunkard, and had to have surgery on both arms.

While he was still around, Kelly, as a Roman Catholic, found Waara’s gender exploration “disgusting.” He believed in binary sexes and genders, but at the same time, made no efforts to find out Waara’s. He “put up with” Waara wearing both masculine and feminine attire and eventually got used to it. Kelly’s parents saw Waara as a boy and did not permit him inside their house if he was wearing a skirt or dress, nor if he was not covered at least to his knees and elbows. After 1914, they became so desperate for companionship that they permitted him inside, regardless of attire, because of his shared wish to search for their son. Waara morbidly recalled, in a 1915 piece, (translated from Finnish and simplified), “They despise me until I’m the only one left.” .

#### **Other Friendships**

With Kelly’s disappearance, Waara became extremely close to a number of other people and was borderline dependent on some. In their late adolescence, Waara and Meyer became friends as well as Meyer’s girlfriend, Freddie Moore. The teens ran a welding shop with Meyer’s father and Waara was gifted a new professionally-fused prosthetic leg on his fifteenth birthday in 1916. Meyer and Waara would later conceive a son in November 1917 so Meyer and Moore could raise the boy together and agreed that Waara would not be a part of his life.

Waara stuck around to watch the group play rugby and grew his relationship with the Lambourgh brothers, particularly Michael Lambourgh. In August 1917, they began dating in secret. Lambourgh took Waara’s virginity in October of that year and left him two weeks later. Waara noted in his journal the day they broke up, in translated Finnish, “I will use my arm to chuck my pop at him the next chance I get." The friendship remained, but is presumed to have been awkward for a few years until the two were adults.

Waara made friends with a corner girl in Raleigh known only as Ozzie, presumed to be a nickname. She appears in the Greensmith Archives in literature only and is made out to be the only mature mother figure in Waara’s life at the time. Every time she is mentioned, she gives Waara cigarettes under the assumption that they were good for him and would talk to him until she got a client. She vanished from writing in 1918, cited that she moved to Shelby.

#### **Law**

Waara was caught in petty theft multiple times, but often let go. In 1917, he was sentenced to adult prison, despite being underage. To intimidate him, two guards cut all of his hair off during a routine haircut. Waara sued the guard, gathered two other inmates as witnesses, and won his case, cutting his time in prison short by three months. He was released on October 28, 1917.

#### **Waara-Virtanen Cult End**

In early 1918, on an indeterminate date, Waara came home and saw that much of the furniture in his family's home had been thrown around. When he looked on the other side of the bed, he saw his mother had been battered to the point that she was unconscious and his father had left to visit his parents back in the compound, where Waara's infant aunt had been born two months prior, supposedly to replace what the cult had lost with them. After he had cared for his mother and cleaned up except for the broken window, he biked to a phonebooth and reported to the Virginia police that a violent cult that he had just then escaped had set up in Ante and was planning on setting fire to the state capitol. Waara then set up a network with Michael Lambourgh to get recent newspapers from Ante delivered to his Raleigh apartment in discreet packaging, and, after three days, the front page displayed a brutal flame containing the remains of the Waara-Virtanen cult. The dead were Waara's maternal grandmother, paternal grandparents, and their two daughters. Waara would later write in detail of how he would bike up to Ante simply to spit on the adults' graves. His father was not killed in the police raid, and had been catching cabs back south at the time.

#### **Homelessness**

On his seventeenth birthday, Waara left his home in a blouse and skirt and put on makeup out of the sight of his father. He took note of the trip in a later journal entry after he got access to writing tools, stating that he swiped two candies from a street stand to give to his parents to make up for a small fight they had had previously. He defined “small” as:

1. No physical strikes were taken against him.
2. Nothing was destroyed.

When he returned, knowing full well that his parents were home, the doors and windows were locked. A note was left on the doorknob, reading (translated from Finnish):

***“We birthed a boy. We birthed a boy, and we named him Juho. There was no doctor there to fix him if he happened to be…[intersex] and he was born male. He acted like a girl when he was younger and so to excuse any speculation that he was a girl, we called him [intersex]. We did so for years to the point that we believed it. We called him our daughter, we called him our son. Now, we realize that our son is no man” (J. Waara and Greensmith, qtd. in Waara).***

The entry details that he did not believe a minor fight would push them to such a degree. He sat on the front steps for an indefinite amount of minutes and recounted that loss with Kelly’s loss in the line, “ My best friend was gone. My family was gone. I was alone." He then retried the door and windows, only to see his mother in his bedroom, cleaning a blood spot out of the carpet and avoiding eye contact. After several minutes of pounding on the window in an attempt to get her attention and failing, Waara gave up and walked back into town to tell Ozzie what happened. According to the entry, she hugs him and does her best to comfort him, but cannot do much due to having to take a customer. Instead, she takes him to Meyer's nearby welding shop where he can find something to drink and a blanket as well as Lillian's comfort. He could not stay there for long, though, as the shop had limited capacity and a fire risk. He was only able to sit and talk for a few hours.

By the next morning, Waara's entry setting is him writing about sleeping on the street. His first notice is that someone had given him a coat in the night, but, after trying to stand up, someone also stole his prosthetic leg. Waara then noted that there was a homeless man further down the street from him begging for coins and he began copying him.

The Archives skip several days at a time and the entries become very short throughout that period of his life. Most detail how he had become too weak to hold onto the wall and move down the street due to eating too little to combat his hyperthyroidism eating at his body fat. Still, he had been on the streets for a short enough time that it had not yet begun to attack his muscles. He made extremely frugal decisions with money he made from begging and only purchased food when he was in excruciating pain from starving. From April until November, Waara was borderline starving to death and bounced back with pennies and nickels, clutching his singular blanket and gifted coat for his life.

##### **Escape**

In November, the First World War ended. Waara had a leftover nickel and had purchased food the day prior, so he apparently felt it was a large enough deal to buy a paper. He crawled to a stand and, while awaiting his paper, a woman grabbed his arm and shouted,

**"The Waara kid! I found [him], I found [him]!"**

Waara claimed she was clutching a missing poster containing all physical information required to search for him with the exception of his assigned sex. It was also carrying a reward of fifty dollars, and Waara quipped that there was no way his family could pay it in their impoverished state.

The woman's shout gathered a crowd after the reward and Waara escaped her grasp, getting on his greatly weakened hands and running for it down the street. According to his own testament, Waara tucked the stump of left leg under his chest and used his right leg to propel himself when it swung behind him. He managed to turn a corner and get into an abandoned tailor shop, named Alfie's. He hid under a clothing rack until those chasing him had passed and he was able to catch his breath. In the writing, he assumed that he was stuck there and began crawling over the floor, staying there for a little over a week. He was surprised to find half-eaten fruit preserves on shelves with a light layer of dust on the top and rationed them as though he expected to stay for many months, noting that he searched to find who else was staying in the tailor shop, which had been "closed for repairs" for two years, but had no luck. After exploring for just eight days, he found a lift in the carpet that led to a trapdoor, complaining primarily about the cobwebs. Upon finding the handle, he lifted it up and descended the ladder underneath, giving hints that the length of the stump remaining on his left leg was approximately the height of a regular ladder. The notation also gives an idea that his interests and curiosity outweighed his likely extreme weakness at that point.

#### **Reuniting with Kelly**

At the very bottom was a closed-off speakeasy and fighting pit, fittingly called "The Pit." Waara clung to the wall and hid to gather his surroundings, but was found out and dragged to sand-filled ring to what he believed would be his death. Instead, he was spared because his leg was missing. A woman took him behind the ring, left him, and Waara listened to her talking to a man. The man showed himself and Waara immediately noticed he was Kelly.

From Archives entries on November 19th, 1918, there are Camel Cigarette traces on the pages, indicating that Kelly gave him some. He also ate a massive serving of dumplings and Jack Daniels. Waara took time to note that Kelly was extremely short with him, telling him that he cannot ever say anything about The Pit, but seemed happy to see him again.

While the two smoked together, Waara's writing became extremely awful as he went on an unhinged rant about how Kelly left him to fend for himself for four years. Some aggressive sentences, such as "How he may have gone!" and "Poisonous mud? I live a poisonous life!" indicated a lust for his death before he calmed down. Multiple times, Waara took advantage of the fact that Kelly could not see or read his flat writing and brought into question their friendship at the time.

### **Young Adulthood**

Due to the discovery of the Pit, Waara could not be released, but he was spared by the Lambourgh crime family, who still leased the property the arena was under. His refuge was not free, though, and he was pushed into sex work just before his eighteenth birthday. For roughly every customer he had, he was given meals and housing. Michael Lambourgh, then the controller of the family, swore no profit off of Waara's rapidly increasing salary to continue their friendship with the possibility of saving it after their teenage breakup, which worked as he and Waara became very close. Waara also had to join the gang, quickly finding out that Kelly was involved with them as well.

In the middle of 1919, two events struck Waara and Kelly -- Kelly's first child was born to him and his wife and both Waara and Kelly were sickened with the Spanish flu. While Waara's immune system was too weak to be turned against him effectively and he was unaffected aside from a cough, Kelly was reportedly on his deathbed for nearly four days and the Archives have multiple pages and videos of Waara taking what he believed to be palliative care of him. The two seemed to be feeling the same emotions for different people, Waara not wanting to lose Kelly again and Kelly already mourning the life of his daughter without her father. He would eventually survive by the seventh day, but never without a full recovery, and Waara noted that he required oxygen therapy for eight hours a day and regularly slept for several months after the illness had passed.

Waara's wealth went up extremely quickly in late 1919 and 1920. His courtesan salary was higher than usual due to his appearance, described as "male, female, both and neither" by a newspaper that he had ripped the title off of and stuffed into the spine of his fifth Archives journal. Waara's customers consisted of straight and achillean men, straight and sapphic women, and "all who can appreciate [an effeminate] man." Due to lacking a birth certificate, Waara escaped sodomy accusations for his bedroom encounters with men.

#### **Leon**

In 1921, Waara adopted a chicken named Leon, despite being seen as one to dislike animals. The Rhode Island Red rooster was taken from a life that would have led to his dairy industry death and raised by Waara after an unlikely turn of events, which involved a long drug trip, a dare, and Leon’s often beloved presence in the Archives. He was taught several tricks and Leon could be seen sleeping on Waara’s stomach when he laid on his couch, came when called by name, and was taught to do his business off of the apartment balcony, specifically on Waara's downstairs neighbor's balcony as Waara greatly disliked him and could blame the waste on birds migrating.

Waara hid Leon in the guest bedroom closet if his landlord came to check for pets due to hearing Leon’s clucking and Leon was trained to remain silent while in hiding. Waara jokingly treated Leon as “a judger of souls," and, based on Leon’s reaction to different people, Waara would assess how they were likely to act around him. In reality, Leon was likely priorly agitated or was trying to alert Waara that he had to go outside.

#### **Eddie**

In 1922, Waara was paid for sex at their home by Eddie Highman, an arms dealer for the Lambourgh family. Highman is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, but uses masculine terms such as husband, brother, etc.

Suspicious of the outside location, Waara strapped a Colt M1911 to his prosthetic under his dress, asking for a brief training from Kelly on how to use the weapon before leaving for ’s house. When paid his eighty dollars, Waara entered and was prepared to draw the pistol under the pretense that had been ordered to hire him away from Lambourgh territory by Wesley Lambourgh as, according to the Archives, Wesley disliked Waara’s “easy entry” into the family and likely wanted him killed. His ideas were fueled entirely by paranoia as Highman simply sat him down on their bed and spoke to him. Waara noted he had had customers who preferred having someone to talk with over truly hiring him for his profession, which he did not mind — “money either way, I can play therapist for an hour."

Highman was an orthodontist as their primary job and mentioned to Waara that they joined the Lambourgh family to get through medical school, having made the decision for both the gang and their future life when they were a teenager. They then mentioned to Waara that they found him very attractive, as well as his connections to the upper members of the gang, primarily Kelly and Michael Lambourgh. At that point, Waara drew his gun, firsthand literary sources saying that he found the “teeth talk” and the word “attractive” being together as creepy. Highman discovered their mistake, then getting that Waara did not understand their intentions, and re-explained. They said that they had been in the family for so long and had gotten nowhere, but Waara had been there for just over three years and had gotten everywhere, and they wished to know how he did so.

Waara proposed an idea — they were to fake a relationship, which could not be difficult as they were both polyamorous when it came to romance, so there would be no suspicions from close friends. Highman would at least get to meet with Kelly and the Lambourgh brothers to make an impression. To show trust, Waara took Highman to his apartment and introduced them to Leon, allowed Leon to judge Highman, and Leon curled up in Highman’s arms without fear. The two made dinner together at four in the morning on October 27, 1922, and took a photo of them and their meal as a pact. They would wed in May of 1928.

#### **Public Presence**

In the early 1920s, Waara grew a public following, despite his obvious queerness, from the public around his age. His extroverted personality allowed him to make friends extremely rapidly and, in Raleigh, he had a barrier of protection as a minor celebrity. His popularity skyrocketed, both in his career and in his social life, and he was the financial equivalent of a billionaire for the time (adjusted for inflation) by the age of twenty-three. As Waara's wealth boomed, so did his ability to do as he pleased. By 1923, the twenty-two year old had drawn a large public eye for his appearance and tendency to wear both dresses and suits, blurring the gender presentation lines. He was quickly arrested early in that year for "crossdressing" and was given a hefty fine. Still, he continued to go out in public wearing what he wished, but was more careful with his makeup so as to present as feminine as possible.

##### ***Waara v. Ragicon Copy and Printing [1922]***

Waara took up jobs in the dawning obscene film industry, eventually having to sue a poster printing company for portraying him offensively just to sell tapes. In one round of printed posters, Ragicon, the defendants, drew up Waara as an incredibly masculine transgender woman when, in reality, the tape was a simple gay pornographic film. With blackmail held over the judge and speaking to Kelly -- who had just graduated law school -- on the side about how to handle it, Waara was able to erase a blemish from his shredded record. Political cartoons littered the newspapers about the case, calling it corrupt and referring to Waara as an "overglorified drag queen." In reality, money and sexual services were passed under the table to win him the otherwise unlikely case, as Waara would later admit in a 1972 interview with a flippant laugh before asking what the statute of limitations was on federal bribery.

*"Waara v. Ragicon* would have otherwise fallen through the cracks if not for the money given to the people involved," Kelly stated in his 2000 interview, later adding that "the government of North Carolina as well as the United Stated would have not cared much for the genre of film nor the prosecutor's appearance. Hell, they probably would have arrested all of us without the bribery." When verbally reminded of Waara's question about the statute of limitations question by the interviewer to invoke some emotion about his late best friend, he took it literally and answered it in legal terms for several minutes.

##### ***North Carolina v. Waara [1925]***

###### **Background**

In 1924, Waara was assaulted on his way home and was dragged into an alleyway. Nearly beaten to death by his attacker, likely due to his appearance, but not killed, he was thrown into a dumpster nude and with his prosthetic leg fully separated. Waara ripped off a sharp piece of his prosthetic, gathered up all of his strength, and leaped out of the garbage to cut open the back of the neck of his attacker. The man fell, and Waara was able to kill him with the makeshift blade. Waara staggered back home, clothed in multiple garbage bags.

His attacker was later identified as a Roscoe Harper.

###### **Accusations**

When Harper was found dead, Waara was taken from his home due to the brief testimonies of a baker's daughter, Sophia Kvosty, who supposedly ran out when she heard the dying man's cries, and another prostitute, Odell Fisher, who was walking on the other side of the street when she saw Waara jump out of the trash. They were unaware of Waara killing in self defense, and he was placed in prison for second-degree murder that appeared to be going the way of first degree. His leg was taken away as evidence and he was provided crutches.

The day after Waara was taken from his home, he called for Kelly from prison, using coded language to evade his call being used against him. "Lambourghs" became "Robinsons," "criminal law" became "blacksmith," and the like. Waara stayed one night in prison until the public joined together to gather his $15,200 bail, what is now approximately $251,000, and Waara began spending all of his time with Kelly to build his defense.

###### **Arraignment**

With Kelly reluctant to defend a friend, Wesley Lambourgh threatened his life, stating that he "[would] not have such a high-ranking member imprisoned" and that it would lead to "the great police raid." Kelly gave in and began working with Waara. The arraignment was on December 10th, 1924.

The judge, Judge Eric Macintyre, had overseen two cases involving Kelly before, and easily permitted his use of a court-certified American Sign Language translator. Kelly elaborated that Waara had lived in the Raleigh area since his youth and that he did not have family in the area but could most definitely find shelter with him or could live in his own house and make payments. He also stated that Waara was of no threat to the witnesses or anyone involved in the case and, if permitted bail, would simply go about life, not injure the community. Kelly stated Waara pleaded "not guilty" to the charges.

###### **Discovery**

Kelly and Waara were provided documents about Waara's attacker's death by the prosecution, a criminal justice attorney named Elise Momar. Momar and Kelly worked together at a stable yet oppositional rate throughout Waara's case. She gave them written testimonies from Kvosty and Fisher, as well as R. Waara's testimony, who had volunteered to give factual statements about her half-brother. Kelly thought about being a character witness as well, but decided against it due to the risk of bias that the prosecution may hold against him.

Waara did not mention carrying his camera with him at the time of the death, but would eventually come forward with images. He took photos of inside the dumpster, which were near-blackness aside from a thin line of moonlight that managed to make it inside and light reflecting off of his skin and some bags. When pressed by Kelly in his office, Waara admitted that he also took a photo of the body, but had the lens cap on. They were brought in as evidence.

###### **Plea Bargaining**

Kelly reiterated that Waara was not guilty of second-degree murder when the state of North Carolina offered Waara a plea deal of removing any additional years from a sentencing if he went for guilty.

After declaring such, Kelly and Waara opted to skip the preliminary hearing, believing that the prosecution would push Waara too much and stress him before the true trial and they had no evidence that could not be presented later on.

###### **Trial**

Prior to the trial, Kelly made a motion to dismiss any of Waara's juvenile detention history during and after 1917 from being used against him due to the illegal activities done by officers to him. Macintyre permitted the motion. The trial occurred in the Wake County Courthouse on April 18, 1925.

Momar presented her, and thus the state's, case in her opening statement, with that Waara woke up drunk in a dumpster and attacked a man who was simply smoking outside of it when he awoke from a drunken slumber. Kelly would rebuke it in his, stating that Waara was attacked and thrown into the dumpster before weaponizing what he had with him to defend himself.

Momar first questioned Kvosty. Kvosty's testimony, according to court records provided by Wake County, stated that she heard Harper dying and, upon running out of the baker's shop, saw Waara walking away in a daze. Kelly, with Waara's leg and the separated piece in his hands, questioned her as to if she had seen the piece jutting out of his leg, to which she answered uncertainly. Waara supposedly had a vocal objection to the question, but was shut down by Macintyre.

Fisher was questioned by both Momar and Kelly, stating that she only saw Waara jump out of the dumpster, slit the victim's neck, and escape the scene.

R. Waara was cross-examined last. Momar asked her her relationship to Waara, to which she replied she was his sister. Kelly objected, stating that R. Waara was his half-sister and to state the entire truth. Waara reportedly made prayer hands at his sibling to ensure a non-casual setting with her. She nodded in reply and stated compliantly that she was his half-sister. Momar asked if R. Waara believed Waara was capable of committing murder and she responded with a blatant "no," but continuing that she believed he often had to defend himself because of "public cross-dressing habits." Momar objected on the basis of hostility in that R. Waara believed it was self-defense to begin with, but it was overruled.

To R. Waara, Kelly presented Waara's leg, first asking if she was familiar with the object, having grown up with him. He showed her the detached piece and where it fit. She agreed that she was familiar with the prosthesis. Momar objected on the basis of relevance, but it was overruled. To finalize his cross-examination, Kelly asked, "Does this look like a sharp weapon that your half-brother could wield against an attacker?" R. Waara nodded.

Kelly recalled Fisher to the stand and asked if she had seen any signs of struggle, as in, had Waara been harmed. Fisher agreed that she did see much of his own blood coming from wounds on his face, which garnered aggressive attention from the gallery. When pressed about why she had not shared the information prior, she simply stated that she had not been asked. Momar made a motion for clarification toward Waara himself. He stated that he had heavy bruising on his face, many broken bones in his arms, and could barely walk due to the injuries in his legs. Momar then made a motion to have Waara testify. Macintyre approved the motion due to Waara being very calm during the procedure, and Kelly asked Waara if he did indeed wish to testify. He agreed.

Waara's testimony carried on from the origin information of the case, including stating exactly where he was struck and showing bruising, if any remained. Momar showed him his own photographs. When asked about why he took a photo while inside the dumpster, he said it was to make sure the camera was working. The prosecution rested. Kelly questioned him for the last time, asking him to show the jury the two photos, and to clarify what the light line in the first image was, cleared up to be moonlight coming in through a crack in the lid. Waara was then asked to step down, and the defense rested.

Momar made her closing argument, stating that, according to evidence, Waara had his camera inside of a dumpster and attacked Harper when he showed up to smoke outside of it, her statement missing an explanation about Waara's wounds. Kelly's argument cleared that the testimonies, particularly Fisher's and R. Waara's, and evidence made it clear that Waara had been attacked by Harper, put into the dumpster, and fought back.

As the judge charged the jury and they were making their decision, Waara sat with his head on Kelly's shoulder and the court ASL translator stood off to the side, away from the two. The jury returned two hours later with a not-guilty decision.

Despite being declared not guilty of second-degree murder, Waara had still killed someone who came after him to begin with and his conscience was heavy, according to his journals. He asked Macintyre to place him on probation for a period of ten years and his request was granted.

### **Middle Adulthood**

#### **Education**

After the trial, Waara began pursuing finishing secondary school. He completed his middle school education in June of 1926 and his high school education in April of 1929. Kelly assisted him in his efforts, having been homeschooled himself, and primarily worked with Waara on his English skills. Waara applied to the University of North Carolina and was accepted on the condition that he wear solely masculine clothing while on campus as they "[did] not want [him] to influence the younger the students."

From 1930 to 1934, Waara attended UNC on Chapel Hill and double-majored in psychology and chemistry, and graduated with honors. Kelly noted that he was surprised by how studious Waara was, given that he had originally dropped out of middle school back in 1914 after Kelly's disappearance and how much the stress broke him down. Waara's pre-med studies led him to apply to the UNC School of Medicine in the spring of 1934. After several weeks, he was accepted, but if and only if he removed his gauges. In response, Waara surgically removed his earrings and allowed them to heal, noting in his writing that it was the first time in over a decade that his ears had felt "physicality peace."

In the spring of 1938, Waara graduated from medical school as a field physician, planning to work on flights for the U.S. Army. He began his internship the next fall, with plans to continue residency through to mid-1940.

#### **Military Service**

The beginning of World War Two brought Waara into a moral spiral. While not yet done with residency, he was militarily desirable for his chosen profession, especially then that women were serving on the medical front and his assigned sex no longer played much of a role. Waara decided to continue residency through all the way and then join the fighting on the Allied side.

Kelly greatly pressed Waara to not join, but he could not be convinced. Kelly was especially terrified for him because, while Kelly had been fighting an aggressive German regime, Waara would be fighting Nazis and more advanced planes. When it became clear Waara would join, Kelly changed his point and told Waara to not fight for the United States, but rather another allied nation, like Great Britain or Russia. Waara took his advice and opted to go into service for Great Britain.

In late 1940, Waara flew to Croydon Airport, mentioning an "uncomforted" building layout, and entered training for the British army as an undocumented immigrant, working in medical tents both on the homeland and in Belgium. His prosthesis was overlooked primarily due to his place of work and the army's desperation for recruits. He lied about his partial deafness.

##### **Service Tapes**

While working, Waara took his camera, usually tucking it in the folds of his medic uniform. He was unable to carry a video-abled camera, and thus the posthumously-dubbed "Service Tapes" subsection of the Greensmith Archives is composed solely of still images. Waara took photos of wounded soldiers he examined by lying to them that it was by order of the British military, but did not share them as to not break the Hippocratic oath, and of nurses and other field doctors. By the end of the war, his camera contained what Kelly referred to as a "morbid scrapbook."

##### **Injury**

In 1942, while assisting in surgery due to that being the only injury in the tent at the time, a Luftwaffe plane dropped a butterfly bomb on the medical tent. Waara managed to escape out of the back exit alongside a surgeon. He would mention that the smaller pieces of the bomb seemed to follow him, despite the main body of it hitting the tent. Most of his colleagues were killed on the scene, but he and the other escapee were hospitalized back in Great Britain. The other man held on for three days, but succumbed to his injuries, leaving Waara as the only survivor of the bombing, and with both legs having to be fully amputated.

When Waara came out of his anesthetics, it appeared that he was having severe but brief trauma associated with the original loss of his leg, such as phantom limb syndrome in both legs from thigh to foot and trying to walk, despite knowing that he could not get out of bed without a nurse. He was also extremely aggressive toward any nurses that tried to assist him, supposedly out of fear during the heat of the moment, but would calm down the following morning and take photos of his surroundings with his surviving camera. The film was slightly damaged as sparks from debris caught the corner of the camera, making those photos of that cartridge particularly notable for the sunset-orange brush and curl on the corners and bottom edge. Among them is a photo of the "butcher shop" remains of Waara's stubbed legs in his mid-thighs, before they were fully bandaged and were able to begin healing after amputation. Another is one his separated legs on the operating table beside him. Due to his bone density issues, Waara had a delay in being fit for prostheses and was taking seven and a half weeks to begin physical therapy. He continued such until early 1944.

In mid-1944, Waara began working in what was considered safer territory back in military hospitals in Great Britain. Rather than using his temporary therapy prostheses, he used a low-backed wheelchair and elevators to get around. When confronted by one of his coworkers that he should retire from the British army medical field, Waara iconically quipped, "I don't think me going home because my ass cheeks are the lowest part of my body now is going to help stop the Nazis, George."

Waara would work in the same hospital, which avoided carpet bombing, until the war's end in 1945, and stayed in Great Britain for three weeks until his professionally-structured prostheses would come in. In the meantime, he was granted British citizenship for his service. Waara flew back to the United States in early October after being awarded the 1939-1945 Star and France and Germany Star.

#### **Medical Career in the United States**

Upon returning to the U.S., Waara went back to UNC School of Medicine for an additional three years of residency to become a general surgeon, from which he graduated in 1948. He applied for and earned a job at the North Carolina Surgery at Raleigh Center in the general surgery unit, primarily in wound treatment. Waara rapidly befriended his coworkers, running errands for them whenever he had time, and spent his lunch break with Kelly in the cafeteria when they could. Waara was often seen in the neurosurgery unit. He would earn tenure in 1959, and retire in mid-1963.

##### **Gender Presentation in the Medical Community**

When entering the professional post-education medical body, Waara dropped the rules that forced him into masculine attire. He returned to wearing modest feminine clothing and what classified as androgynous wear, and with enough makeup that he could not be accused of "cross-dressing." Many of Waara's coworkers saw him as a bit of an office oddity, and it got to the point that there was a suggestion box outside of his office for future outfits. Some put in hateful messages, but a majority were simple ideas that he actually did.

##### **Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Contraction**

In 1955, Waara was running errands in the emergency area of the neurosurgery unit, noting in the day's Archives page that he had three heavy bags on his chair handles and had his lunch in his lap, "eating and driving." In particular, it was a croque-monsieur that Kelly had brought him for lunch after making four for a family breakfast earlier. On his way to deliver one bag to a coworker who was in the early stages of preparing the operating room, Waara spotted a semi-deteriorated brain on a "for disposal" counter. Out of curiosity, with the sandwich halfway in his mouth, he slightly poked the brain. With a halfhearted laugh, he watched it jiggle before cramming the rest of his food in his mouth, wiping off the cerebrospinal fluid on his skirt, and continuing his delivery. The brain was, in fact, infected with acquired Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and infected dura mater tissue had gotten caught on his fingers when he touched his food. According to his posthumous diagnosis, the disease lay dormant in him for nearly two and a half decades.

### **Late Adulthood**

#### **Drag Career**

In 1965, after a year and a half of spending his retirement in boredom, Waara went back to his early-life hobbies, particularly dressing in drag. Due to the time difference between the 1920s and 1960s, Waara wearing Roaring Twenties drag made him iconic in the Raleigh "queen scene." He used the name of Emma Duke and made his costumes from scratch, utilizing his skills from being pushed into tailoring in his childhood and having Highman and Kelly assist him in his clothing. In an Archives video, the three people started hitting each other with pieces of fabric and laughing when they were supposed to be constructing leggings.

#### **Marisa**

In 1971, Waara and Highman adopted a female ball python and named her Marisa. Though Waara had never liked animals, he was inspired by Kelly's separated ownership of ferrets and a bird, marked as exotic pets at the time, and Highman being obsessed with the thought of owing a snake. The two adopted Marisa from a reptile shelter and learned as much as they could about caring for the reptile. Waara often wrote about his enjoyment of Marisa curling around his arm, and he made Highman feed her because he disliked bugs and rodents, when she grew to full size. They shared caring for her and she lived to late 1996, with Arland Kelly taking on her care after Highman's death in 1992.

#### **Marriage**

In 1971, interracial marriage became legal in North Carolina. While Waara and Highman had already been common-law-married for over fifty years, they decided to have a second, legally-recognized marriage in 1972. Waara made efforts to present as binary female and Highman as binary male so as to get the wedding moved along without mistakes, though they regarded each other as their true selves. They, with the assistance of Kelly, made their own wedding clothes from the base of buying the originals from a second-hand store. Waara's dress was tailored to have a blue train of incredibly length, puffed sleeves with cuffed ends, and a high collar with a cleavage window. The veil was revived with a gold lining and implanted glitter. Highman wore a gold tuxedo with a black bowtie and high waisted blue slacks. Their hair was flipped in a style they had not worn until that specific day.

A taping of the wedding vows and kiss is the first video in the Greensmith Archives to be taken on a shared video and audio reel.

#### **Dementia**

By 1980, after struggling with his memory for nearly a year, Kelly took Waara to a neurologist, who diagnosed him with rapid-onset dementia. Kelly believed the diagnosis was right, while Waara was in complete denial. On the bus home, Kelly emphasized that Waara had developed dementia symptoms too quickly for it to be a normal type, and Waara argued back that he did not know what was going on in his mind. After he returned home, Highman consoled him while he cried on the couch. Waara would later write in his journal that the lengthy, 90s life he dreamed of would not occur.

Over the course of the next year, Waara seemed relatively normal. Highman and Kelly were shocked that he was not dying. He was still able to attend pride with Highman in June of 1981 and was fully able to operate his wheelchair by himself through to mid-1982. He was also able to feed Marisa, although he sometimes forgot her name as well as Highman's.

In late 1982, his more severe symptoms began to show. He could no longer use the chair himself and walked on his hands around the house as much as he could. Highman took full-time care of Marisa and feared for their partner. Kelly stopped by regularly and gave Waara puzzles to do. Slowly, Waara began forgetting English, his entries in the Archives becoming broken Finnish. Translating and correcting a page from January 1983, Waara's distress got to the point that he wrote "I cannot communicate with my beloveds."

In 1983, Waara lost his motion abilities. He was completely bedridden, and would be until his death. Kelly would come by more often and carry Waara around his own house to refresh his memory for the day. Highman would take Marisa, if she was available to be handled at the time, and allow her to be around Waara. Kelly also brought a Finnish-English dictionary with him so they could attempt to translate anything Waara may have said.

Waara, by his final months, could no longer speak nor accomplish any tasks on his own. Despite the commonality of falling into a coma when it came to rapid dementias, Waara never did and simply deteriorated over the course of five and a half years. Kelly suggested hospice care, but Highman was determined to care for Waara by themself and, for the simple thought, ejected Kelly from their household for the remainder of the day due to how much hurt it caused. In March, Alexander Moore, Waara's son with his ex-wife, turned up to say final words to his biological father. When Kelly was permitted back, he greatly disliked Moore's presence as he believed he was only there for Waara's inheritance. That was exactly why he was there, and he made it relatively clear.

### **Death**

On April 19th, 1984, Waara died in the guest bedroom of his home, surrounded by his beloved husband, childhood best friend, and estranged son. He had a brief moment of lucidity and turned to Kelly, referring to him as "Vee-Vee." Waara was approximately eighty-three years old. He was buried in the Ocean View Cemetery in Staten Island.

## **Legacy**

After his death, and mostly after his original celebrity in the 1920s, Waara was relatively forgotten by those who were not close to him. The Greensmith Archives were kept in Kelly's attic, and abandoned after he moved away in 1993. Highman was buried next to Waara after their death, but not under the same headstone. In 2004, a movement was made to put them together, which was successful, and they became a locally respected queer couple and were briefly used as part of the push to legalize gay marriage. He was once again put out of mind by the public, including historians.

In 2016, the Greensmith Archives were rediscovered and Waara's fame was rejuvenated. His name appeared on LGBTQIA+ history sites seemingly overnight and lost transcripts of his past interviews came about from his journals, which were taken and put online. Historians marked him posthumously as genderfluid and bisexual, and Tumblr took to drawing him in romantic relationships with Kelly, who was seen as almost a boyfriend figure when the Archives became public. When a compilation video from when Kelly came out as asexual and had used older terms to describe aromanticism in regards to himself was added to the Archives YouTube channel, the disrespectful 'shipping' slowed but did not fully cease.

In 2019, a statue of Waara was built outside of the Wake Country Courthouse, depicting him from a 1920 photograph where he came in late to a hearing wearing a dress and carrying an American flag. Dragging it on the ground, he yelled at the judge that he did not deserve to spend his youth in the judicial system simply because he enjoyed feminine clothing. Amongst the tearing down of confederate statues, right-wing politicians suggested taking down Waara's statue, but it stands today.

By present day, Waara is currently primarily appreciated for his incredible literary contributions and, within the queer community, he is revered as a genderfluid historical figure.

## **Trivia**

### **Greensmith Archives Trivia**

* Waara was ambidextrous, and used the fact to come out to Kelly as liking all genders by saying "I cannot use only one hand, just as I cannot like only women."
* Waara was a natural blonde, dying his hair black in 1916 as a response to finding out he was inbred and trying to hide any signs that he was of Finnish descent. In the early 1930s, he started letting the roots grow out again.
* Waara once sprinted away from the police in heels with a bag full of fried chicken, yelling "Hitto poliisit!"

### **Character Development Trivia (2019-present)**

* Waara was originally named James Cordman in the first draft, and was born in 1839.
* Waara has always had his black cressida hairstyle and prosthesis.
* There was a short period of time where Waara had a karambit knife and skull bandanna.

## **Quotes**

* "They don't know what I'm capable of." - said after being accused of cannibalism from eating a piece of chicken that was vaguely hand-shaped in a poorly-lit photograph.
* "I'll have you know that your daddy spent more time in me last night than he ever has in your mother."
* "I fuck men, but believe me, I have standards. You don't meet them."
* "There's donkeys smarter than you and I've met several."
* "What do eggs have to do with a murder?"
* "I'm an all Finnish-nightmare, bitch- no, shut up, the three percent English doesn't matter. Shut up. It's a joke."
* "I don't speak potatoes."
* "I don't exist. At least, according to the government." -- the first line of the written portion of the Greensmith Archives.
* "I'm allowed around elementary schools but not college campuses. Don't ask."
* "The constitution cannot control my labido."