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. Siblings in my Dreams

   In the days running up to the opening of An American in Paris, it was Ivanna whom I saw in the shadows at the edges of the stage and in the empty auditorium. She stood there in her leotard, tights, with her Capezios draped over her shoulder or else on her feet. There were other girls with her, or at least I imagined it, but they were shadows following her, dancing partners, props.

   I had nothing to say to my stepsister. She’d done one more thing to turn my world and Nervy’s upside down. That should have made me angry, and on one level it did. On another level, I understood what she had done. Ivanna was brave like her mother and resourceful like me. Was Ivanna braver than I was? It after all took me a few more weeks to realize that the situation with my mother was impossible last spring. Then again, I purposefully waited  until finals were over before I bolted and I also had a berth at a new school so I’d been working the system for a long time. All right, Ivanna and I both worked the system. We just found different places to do our work.

   I also saw Kyril as I stood in the wings or climbed on the battens. Kyril did not have either his hockey paraphenalia or his box of Hungry Man potato mix with him. His appetite was a hard thing for me to fathom. His motivations were simply not my own and had never been. Right now, Kyril was utterly screwed and I did not feel good about it. Hockey season even way upstate was over. That meant no sports for a while, and now Kyril was with a “strange family.” Mom was in Texas. Kyril was profoundly dumped and abandoned.

   Of course I knew the way out for Kyril. I was not sure if he knew it or if it was really a way out. If he did not take it, I did not blame him. I had loathed Barry, but not because Barry was a great person or even because Barry and Kyril bonded. Barry had not known what to do with a bookish eight year old girl and I was not about to give him lessons if he was going to spend all his time with my little brother. Then of course Mom and Barry broke up. It was not my fault though I couldn’t have made anything better for Barry.

   I knew whose fault it was if it was anybody’s fault. Barry walked out (Mom threw him out or pressured him to go) on Mom within months after Minerva came  home from the hospital. Barry had “flunked” his paternity test. Minerva was Dad’s daughter and not Barry’s. I kind of liked that, but Barry was very unhappy about that result.

   As far as I know, Barry is still in Scranton. I’ve checked the Greyhound web site. If Kyril can make it to Utica, he can take a bus to Syracuse and from there another that goes south through Cortland and on into Binghamton, Elmira, and then into Pennsylvania, straight to Scranton. Would Barry even remember Kyril or take him back? Is Barry even still there or is he a mirage in the shadows like Kyril and Ivanna?

   At least in the days before the musical, I could stop worrying about whether RoAnn would take out her anger over Ivanna’s defection on Minerva. She was not going to do that. She was also going to spare me, but then again I deserved all sorts of adult wrath though I’d fight it if adults picked on me.

   I knew this for certain because when I returned home around 10pm on Tuesday night, I found a pensive Nervy Worm planted on the living room couch and a big fight, or rather half a big fight, going full bore in the kitchen. Wednesday  night I found the same fight in the study. RoAnn called Ivanna or Ivanna called RoAnn every night, and sometimes twice every night, and they fought, and screamed and called each other names. RoAnn told her daughter there was “NO WAY YOU’RE NOT GETTING AN EDUCATION….Yes, I’m going to court over it….Yes, I have a lawayer…. Anthony is an asshole. Oh so I’m an asshole too…Gee thanks.” Yes, RoAnn and Ivanna loved to call eachother assholes. Asshole had a special meaning because it was the ECBAS symbol for Young Achiever and Young Achiever adult supporter and sometimes teacher or school administrator.

   I should have been overjoyed that RoAnn found the correct target, but I have way too much experience fighting with parents to be happy. Put another way, parents can get in fighting traps. They keep fighting and fighting and there is no way to stop them. That was the way my mother and I were the spring I was in eighth grade.

   I guess this leads to another question, but I’m not going to ask it. You, dear reader can figure out the answer because I wasn’t sure of it that week, and I’ll probably never even know the answer. Ivanna was way more than a figure in the shadows conjured up by my imagination and need for closure. I had no closure because Ivanna emailed me (and also RoAnn) daily. This left me stuck with having to answer her. I don’t know what RoAnn wrote. I told Ivanna about Nervy and An American in Paris. As far as  my emails were concerned, my stepsister could be taking a vacation in North Carolina. Ashville is beautiful in the spring time.

   I saw almost nothing of Nervy that last week. I came home, replenished the relish tray, packed both of us lunch, and fixed my own dinner and then replenished the tray again so there would be a side dish ready to go. Nervy unless awakened by the phone fighting was all ready asleep in her magenta and pink, shiney, sleeping bag, curled up like a little worm in the corner of my bedroom where the hard floor did no damage to her soft bones. I missed talking to her as she fell asleep at night. I’d lie in my own bed and listen to her breathing. “Next week we’ll be together more,” I told her. And I also told her: “You’re my favorite Nervy Worm, and I’m glad you’re Dad’s and not Barry’s.” No, the past never dies and nobody gets closure. Big, fat, fucking deal.

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