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. Four Prisoners

   RoAnn threw down the copy of Achieve! with disgust. We were in the study after Nervy and Ivanna had gone to bed on Monday night. That meant it was probably technically Tuesday morning, but my stepmother and I both keep late hours.

   “This is not me you realize,” RoAnn told me. “De-Nile is a river,” I thought.

   “First, except for grounding Ivanna and curtailing her after school social life, I’ve taken nothing away from her, not her music, not her reading, not her computer though she refuses to use the internet because kids in her set are all boycotting it.” RoAnn shook her head. “You don’t seem to realize how badly parents can treat their kids.”

   I wanted to laugh. I had run away from my mother after eighth grade just because she treated me badly. Actually we both couldn’t stop fighting so I also ran away to keep the peace, but she was the adult so I guess she had more responsiblity. In a way I can understand why Nervy likes being here with RoAnn, Ivanna, and me. Living with Mom can’t be easy. Nervy’s quiet style which is borderline sullen is a kind of defensive coloration. And besides, I’ve heard parents say how whupping or whipping their kids can “bring them back into line.” Parents can be disgusting tyrants. That secret is old news.

   “Yes, but how long are you going to keep those locks on the door?” I asked.

   “Until I feel I can trust Ivanna again. What she did was a serious breach of trust. It’s that simple.”

   “It’s not that simple. I have to come home every day for Nervy. My sister has no social life because you have to come home and keep an eye on Ivanna. How do you work?”

   “I do what I can and when Sammy returns it will be his turn to watch Ivanna in the afternoons and my turn to catch up on the work that needs the secure connection.”

   RoAnn had it all figured out and what’s more she added: “If you feel like you are a prisoner because you can’t spend time with your friends after extracurriculars, than you can go every other day. I never took that away from you.”

   “I need to be here with Nervy,” I answered.

   “Then you understand…”

   “I undertand but I miss my friends and poor Nervy is cooped up. She has friends too. She’s in kindergarten. Kindergarteners are too little for school politics.” Yes it had a name or had acquired one during my time in the Turks and Caicos.

   “What am I supposed to do? I’m not leaving Ivanna alone in the house.”

   “I’m going to kidnap Nervy,” I proposed.

   “And where are you taking her?”

   “Guess,” I smiled.

   “Hmmm….I’d guess you are going either to Coney Island or Staten Island.”

   “Good!” my stepmother was on the ball.

   “How long do you plan to be gone? I trust the kidnapping will be only temporary.”

   “Most of the day on either a Saturday or Sunday,” I answered.

   “OK, but how are you and your friends gonig to study?” RoAnn understood the little sibling problem.

   “Nervy can draw or use her countnig box. When we want a break she can read to us.” Nervy was in truth the world’s most well behaved little sibling. There was no need to boot her out, and she all ready knew her place.

   “OK, kidnap your sister every other weekend on Sunday,” RoAnn handed me a big, fat chunk of Noblesse Oblige.

   Since this weekend was not a Young Achievers’ meeting weekend, I’d get to kidnap my sister in only a few days. I’d need to make arrangements with my friends at lunch and before classes. Needless to say, I went to bed feeling quite a bit better. Of course, part of me also knew that keeping Ivanna locked up forever was unworkable, but maybe after a time RoAnn’s anger would cool and Ivanna would somehow “earn back her trust.”

   I got up early wtih the alarm Tuesday morning and roused Nervy Worm which was easy since she was always up with the loud alarm I set for myself. Nervy did not take morning showers. I made sure she washed her face. Her clothes were hanging from my desk chair. She dressed quickly and then headed for the kitchen where RoAnn had a bowl of Cracking Oat Bran and a glass of Cran Orange or some other favorite juice punch ready. Full of made to order breakfast and warmly dressed, Nervy was ready for the long subway ride downtown.

   Houghton had free before school care at its lower school. That I had to pass the middle school entrance on the way there always brought up weird memories. I just suppressed them. Unlike most adults and teens, Nervy was very social in the early morning and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her to shut up. As a big sibling I am not very good at putting little siblings in their place.

   This morning Nervy noticed the writings on the sidewalk as she calls them. They could be drawings. They spill out from the middle school where several tired, and surly kids sit watch on the steps as if guarding a treasure. The writing is a series of pictographs and lines and hashes. It is written in colored chalks and/or charcoal on the sidewalks. It changes from one day to another. I’ve noticed it since I started taking Nervy for her before school care.

   “I wish I knew what the writing said,” Nervy told me for the umpteenth time.

   “It’s ECBAS code,” I replied.

   “Can we learn it? I want to learn it.” I glanced at the middle schoolers who had front row seats for this performance. They were kids a year or two behind me. Kids from my class were over at the high school. I doubted any of the seventh graders remembered an unhappy eighth grader who “never got good stuff” and transferred out.

   “I’m long gone,” I told myself. “And no one at my old school knows where I am.”

   At the entrance to the before school program rooms was a large counter. I had to show my ID which is my school ID since I am only fourteen (Back in the day fourteen year olds could work and I don’t feel very young any more) and sign Nervy in. The teacher took Nervy to the big main room which I could see over the counter.

   The big main room showed a study in contrasts. Some of the kindergarterners and maybe even first graders arrived still in their pajamas. Some carried sleeping bags or had them all ready. Nervy by contrast arrived ready for business, a lunch and a snack in her backpack, her school clothes on, her belly full of made to order breakfast, and her hair combed.

   ---

   I let myself back out on to the sidewalk. I did not want to pass the middle school again so instead rounded the corner and passed the high school, a door I had chosen not to darken. There was of course the enternal chalk code all over the sidewalks. Of course there was code. I suspected that a lot of Hougton high school students had given up Facebook as a support measure for their fellow classmates stuck under parental thumbs. The sidewalk code replaced electronic communication. It was that simple.

   “Hey Kore!” a female voice called out to me.

   I looked up to see Nicole whom I remembered from middle school. Nicole was the kind of kid content with bit parts who actually got them instead of nothing. Nicole did not mind doing forced labor for seniors who took the credit. Nicole went along to get along and had advised me to do the same. I told her I was getting the fuck out and please pardon the curse word. I got my wish, and Nicole was probably still getting along, yet I wondered what Nicole knew about me.

   “Hey Nicole,” I replied. Shit, this was going to be awkward. “What are you doing down here so early?” I asked.

   “I could ask you the same thing.”

   “Dropping off my little sister,” I answered. “She still goes here.”

   “Yeah, it sucks what happened to Kyril.”

   I hadn’t expected that. “My brother got what he deserved.”

   “I forget, Wolf Balls is your mom. She still upstate?”

   “Yes, she probably spends a lot of time in Albany too.”

   “How come?”

   “State legislature. She’s trying to make the charter in Herkimer County legal. New York is very beaurocratic.”

   Nicole leaped down from her stoop. She gave me a hard once over which reminded  me of the way Liana had looked me over last fall. I felt nervous and a little sick. I needed to get to school. I needed to be with Eugenia, Larisa, and Chin. Nicole was past history. She was dead. She was old news.

   “What if your brother doesn’t want to go to that hole?” Nicole asked me. “It’s still a hole even if the state makes it legal.”

   “Kyril is stuck. Herkimer County is the middle of nowhere.”

   “You almost feel good about that.”

   “Yeah, I do,” I answered and got ready to walk away.

   I turned to walk away and felt something hit me between the neck and backpack. I turned to see Nicole and another girl giggling triumphantly. It took me several seconds to realize that I’d been spat upon.

   “What the fuck?” I asked.

   “You stinking piece of garbage,” snarled a blonde girl with black roots and jeans down to her crotch topped off by a gold belt and a tiny high cut woolen coat. “No more dress code,” I thought, and it was a scant comfort that Nervy wouldn’t be going here next year when Mom’s free tuition for her children which was part of her severence package would vanish. Nervy would probably be in Herkimer county next year with mom. Somehow that thought made me inexplicably sad.

   “We’re winning,” I said back to the two enemies.

   Both girls laughed. “Ask the kids at IS-179. ECBAS is for spoilt, rich twirps, yeah…fucking twirps,” I yelled. Then I walked toward the train waiting for the next projectile to hit me in the back.

Archive