Korê in New York

What happens when a kid refuses to leave the past behind? What happens when the past won't go away? Read on and don't worry about the emotional damage.

1. Social Intelligence

   I ate dinner at Kuo Chang’s. I decided to do this on the spur of the moment because I needed to eat. Kayla Sidlow had all ready left for the spa (one of several actually but I did not know that) along with all the girls except me. I just said I wasn’t interested. Marcus Sidlow had to go to dinner at a lounge where teens were not welcome so he asked me what I planned to do with myself. I told him about Kuo Chang and Official Teen Activities. That was enough to satisfy him and get both adults to leave me alone.

   I went back to the villa, showered, and changed and then walked around the island to Building 5 and then down to where a lot of the good ethnic restaurants hid, several levels below the surface. Unlike the PeKing Buffet, Kuo Chang’s was just plain white tile, a kind of default interface for an eaterie. It had one of the largest Chinese restaurant menus I had ever seen including a huge selection of dumplings and soups. Some of this stuff looked worth trying just out of curiosity. There were also noodle, poultry (not just chicken), beef, pork, seafood, and vegetarian sections to the menu. I ordered pepper steak as planned but made a mental note to take a repeat visit to try something more exotic.

   I needed to think again and of course could think of nothing. I did not think of: “What’s the point?” or “What’s the purpose?” That’s really dumb. Instead I thought: “What next?” That was a hard one. I  knew tonight, I’d be with a group of spoiled, unhappy kids who given a chance to be away from parents and younger siblings and engage in interesting activities, wanted no part of that chance because somewhere out there was something better. Read that as with more status.

   If you want to read this is parallel some time to my time at Houghton and the way I felt about dramatics, community service, and nearly everything that happened outside of class, you  may have a point, but school is compulsory. A resort is a place for fun and despite your stereotype about spoilt, rich kids, the Houghton where I went for middle school did not have any intentino of pampering its younger kids. Think pleasure palace in Dix Hills, New York or Espy, Pennsylvania if you want a better idea of what the kids who were “not quite good enough” found.

   Still none of those kids as far as I could tell were ready to make the switch and drop ECBAS. Maybe they were the kind who found schoolwork distasteful or pointless. Maybe their parents even backed them up on the subject. Or perhaps they were just fine at home and only here in Rialitee did they run into trouble. I knew that I couldn’t really recruit the counselors. If they jumped ship, they could be fired.

   I finished my meal, still feeling very uncertain about the evening that lay ahead. I walked off my food trying to stay underground for as much of the trip as possible. I had a map so this was not all that difficult. I even got through the gap via a tunnel at S-3. I saw some interesting sights in the tunnels. There was an office of Nature Tourism which happily advertised Free Tours in its window. There was a post office for old fashioned snail mail. There were two cybercafes. I asked and one of them had Office 2007 on its machines. I did not ask at the others. I might need to at least do a paper outline, so this was useful information. There was a huge ice cream parlor, a store that offered all sorts of bagged and bulked snacks free of charge, a bowling alley and even an ice skating rink. Most of these attractions were nearly empty.

   I emerged on the surface near Building #2 and walked out on to the beach. I could see the jetty beyond the teens-not-welcome-by-custom casual club, and the Christmas lights on the teen pavillion porch were all ready on in anticipation of the quick tropical sunset. Lights out!

   There was a large screen set up in the ground level, baement, disco. Jersey Dom, the DJ and aspiring clinical psychologist and educational philosopher greeeted me: “Sunday night is usually video night,” and this was a usual Sunday night.

   Videos meant there didn’t have to be as much awkward “social dancing” or any at all. Most of the videos were to oldies, but then we watched Shante’s video for Where is My Faith which included a mash up of the confrontation at the IS-179 Study Center in Jamaica, Queens. It was a skillfully made thing. That was for sure. The kids who watched from the lighted windows on a cold, dark, early January evening looked like prisoners. It was just a visual trick and how a big, urban Catholic school building might look to outsiders.

   Most of the video was on Shante singing about how religion was just show and her faith was in love and having fun. Love is fine, but in this world, you have to fight, and if you love something enough, you have to fight for it. Ask Father Goma.

   “Do you have Touch Me More?” asked a slightly overweight girl my own age who were hip huggers so low, they nearly hugged her crotch, but she had the right kind of silver belt and belly shirt. Two boys at nachos covered with cheese sauce. Another boy argued about opening up the video room upstairs. In the end, Amanda, yielded. “You want to come upstairs?” she asked me.

   I was surprised. I preferred the music videos or maybe a walk along the beach to computer games which to me are utterly pointless. Still  maybe Amanda wanted to talk. “You going to give another dancing lesson?” I asked.

   “When we get more kids maybe. Usually Haley gives them,” Amanda glanced at the boys settling in at the machines or the Wii platforms. A skinny blonde girl wanted to play Dance Dance Revolution, so Amanda and I got it down for her. “You get paid to help the counselor,” skinny blonde asked.

   “No,” I replied point blank.

   Amanda settled down at her desk which was behind a partiion of cheap wood covered with colored burlap. This could have been a school computer lab, I thought. The games beeped and played music at eachother. Music from the videos drifted up from downstairs.

   “This is not a secure setting,” something told me. I stared at the floor feeling sorry I had entered Amanda’s office.

   “It’s OK,” Amanda said softly. “You looked like you were having a hard time with that last video.”

   “I was there,” I answered.

   “Really, inside or outside?”

   “Both. I saw Shante’s motorcade come up the street from the computer lab. I was cleaning old fashioned mice, the kind with balls in them.”

   Amanda gave a snort that was half way to a giggle.

   “Then I went downstairs and took pictures with my cell phone camera. Father Goma is one of my heroes.” Well now you know, and it’s nothing new I told you. Your turn.

   “We have cultural tour in the morning. We usually do it twice a week. Haley likes to do it. They’re going to leave at 9am to catch the 9:30am ferry to Provo. They’re going to do downtown and the Conch Farm. The kids don’t always give this the best reception.”

   “I owe you one,” I replied.Actually, I really liked the idea of a tour to the real Providenciales. “I just want time to stop at a bank with an ATM.”

   “What for?”

   “I want a few dollars in local currency.”

   “OK…” Amanda twisted her face into a funny smile.

   “When are you doing mosaics again?” I asked.

   “Late in the week,” Amanda replied.

   “I want to do paier mache tomorrow. I’m going to wreack the craft shop. Ceramics are Tuesday. We’ll have project finish ups in the morning.”

   “What kind of ceramics?” I asked.

   “It varies. There are places to paint greenware, but I let kids bring it back here. I prefer the clay studio and pottery shop in the basement of Building 3.”

   “I’ll join you for that one,” I said.

   “You’re too kind.”

   “It’s not a problem,” I replied.

   “Let’s check downstairs and see if more kids have arrived.”

   Haley stood with her hands in the pockets of blue, imitation denim, yoga pants. She wore a robin’s egg blue short sleeve shirt to match. She said to Amanda. “It’s under control downstairs. Why don’t you keep an eye on the gamers upstairs?”

   “Thanks Haley. Our friend here wants a social dancing lesson.”

   “Let three more kids show up.”

   A mash up of the Beatles played on the screen. “Can’t we forget our parents music?” I said aloud.

   Haley gave me a strange look.

   Just then two security guards entered the Teen Pavillion through the oustide door which was just a bit open to let in the night air. They were real security guards in black uniforms with hand cuffs hanging from their belts and short, black night sticks ready 24/7. Both had shaven heads. One was Caucasian and the other dark, brown skinned. Between them were two very, unhappy boys.

   I felt my stomach muscles cringe in fear. Part of me wanted to run. Part of me wanted to scream. One of the boys was nearly in tears. Jersey Dom cut the dead rock stars. The girl in hip huggers who was hugging some kind of cold drink came over to look at the boys.

   “They tried to enter an off limits area,” explained the white cop.

   “What kind of off limits area?” I wondered.

   “Employees only?” asked Haley.

   “No,” the African American police man curtly replied. “Selective admission only, casual dress, all ages.”

   “Club Tiqi,” I said.

   “No,” sighed the caucasian cop. “Ninth Dimmension Video. Mezzanine Building 1.”

   “We have a pretty good selection of video games upstairs,” Haley tried to placate the boys. “Or we can have dancing down here.”

   “Your games are gay,” said the boy was was not crying. He was my ageish with a thick mop of hair dyed blond and light brown at the roots.

   “Well then you can try the dancing. I’m going to give a lesson and we’re  having conga lines.”

   “Are you gay or crazy?” asked the crying boy.

   “Neither. I’m an adult,” Haley responded. “And you’re not Peter Pan. It’s time to grow up.”

   “Well fuck you!”

   “OK, now that, that’s out of your system. Tell me the whole story. Go on…”

   The boys glanced at eachother. On the video screen a video by the Boogie Boys played with the music turned down dscretely enough to permit conversation.

   The boy who shed tears began. “Jean and me won this trip. It was a prize for donig the most support. Ever done support? They teach  you and it’s hard because half the time it’s a kid you don’t really know who wouldn’t really be your friend any other way, but the kid has nothing at home.”

   Jean continued: “And sometimes you can’t play your games or get on the net because there are parents who are taking it from a kid and they want to make that kid feel like he’s the only one in the world without those priviledges and nobody cares. Well we care and we give up our priviledges to show that. I used to lead our grade in doing that. It’s hard esepcially with games and some of those girls are a-dick-ted to Facebook.”

   “But when you see support really work,” the crying boy told us. “It’s beautiful. It’s like a mountain. Imagine fifty kids all on the snow in front of the school hugging and greeting eachother in the morning because they know some of those kids are hurting and those kids need to know they’re loved. Think about it.”

   “Now we get sent here as a reward and we can’t get into half the places. This place really sucks!” complained Jean. “You know that. This is really gay!”

   “Where are you from?” Jersey Dom asked the boys.

   “Jefferson. It’s just outside Kanasas City, Missouri.”

   “Use your social intelligence,” Dom quipped.

   “What the fuck?” asked the crying boy.

   “You mean our chapter doesn’t count for shit?” asked Jean.

   “That would be my guess,” Dom answered. “ECBAS can be very hierarchical. You’ll have to work your way up if you want these rewards or realize what you’re doing at home is important no matter where you can go here.”

   “Or maybe you’re here for a purpose, to give support to others here,” Haley explained.

   “Support’s not supposed to be cause our own don’t treat us right,” answered crying boy.

   He’d won the argument, though only barely. I did end up teaching crying boy to dance. We had a few dance lines. Video night broke up early. The crying boy and Jean’s guardians came to get him. They were a couple of positively radiant looking and very glamorous colleges students who looked around the basement disco of the Teen Pavillion as if there was a dead rat hidden in the corner and they needed to find the source of a stench.

   I could only imagin what would happen to the boys when they got back to their room. In the villa I was able to study Math B for nearly two hours before the girls returned giggling, with guests, and in need of smoothies. I had all ready called in my wakeup call. Kayla took a shower. Marcus reclined on the couch drinking something very stiff. His eyes were half closed like a cat. Hannah begged me to turn the lights off. “You really study in here,” was all the greeting she could manage.

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