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. The Show Must Go On

   Saturday night, we blew two lavender high spots up on batten three. In the main lighting box, Micah m ust have bit his tongue. I got out the safety harness. Batten three had a weight limit of a hundred and seventy-five pounds. I weight a hundred and twelve. I am fearless. Once you fall, you either never climb again or you lose your fear.

   I thought of grabbing spare bulbs and I tied on their handles and then I put together the splice kit. “What the fuck is taking so long?” Javonovitch hissed.

   “It’s not just a blown bulb,” I answered, grabbing the WD-40. There was no use climbing all the way down to get it. Howard signaled to the band to strike up an extra number. Micah had switched to alternate lighting choices to completed the scene and we had the curtains drawn to give us time to make the on-the-fly repair. Utility lights were up, and they showed a sickly, underwater shade of blue.

   “Don’t take all day making a fucking splice,” growled Javonovitch.

   The ladder to batten three felt cold under my hands. I wiggled my fingers between grabs to keep them from getting stiff. My toes hurt. I fastened on my safety harness and double checked. A fall down from this height would probably kill me. That was why I needed a good harness. I had a good harness. I had nothing to fear.

   I crawled out along the batten and removed and replaced the blown bulbs. I let the cardboard boxes with the old bulbs drop to stage level where Howard retrieved them. I checked the wires. I could see several burnt spots. Javonovitch would have called this a “class A cluster fuck.”

   “I need power out on batten 3! Please cut the circuit breakers!” I yelled it. The band was playing loudly enough that those outside the curtain could not hear. “Cut circuit breaker to batten 3!” I yelled it a third time and finally saw all the batten three lights go out.

   I began stripping the wire. I did it without thinking. I remembered my dad teaching me how to do this. I watched my mom strip wires for lamps, but it always seemed arcane and frightening. Dad made me build wires from scratch and walked me through it step-by-step.

   How old had I been then? It was the summer after sixth grade. I was wretched. Any adult could see that, but it was easier for adults to ignore that kind of thing. Dad did what he could be trying to distract me. Somehow the lesson stuck. Splcing in the new wires was trickier, since I had to add about six of them in about three different places and getting it reinsulated with electrical take was the hardest. When I got done, the patches looked fat and ugly.

   “OK, power on on batten 3!” I cried at the top of my lungs.

   The power came on. “Full up, lavender spots!” I commanded. They came on. They shown bright. I made sure my tools were secure, and slowly, carefully crawled back to the ladder and began the climb down. My legs and arms were water, but my hands and feet were no longer stiff. On the ground, my teeth began to chatter. Then something hurt behind my eyes.

   “Don’t tell me you’re going to fucking cry!” Javonovitch said.

   “I don’t have to tell you,” I answered. “Look at my face.”

   “Oh shit,” he sighed.

   “The lights are all working…Howard signal to the band to finish up, and thanks Bihar. You do good work.”

   ---

   After the performance, I met not only RoAnn and Nervy Worm in the lobby. My own mother was there. She had flown in all the way from Texas to see the perforance, and it was she who asked about the delay in act two. I wondered if I could tell the story of splicing wires without going all to pieces. I gasped and sputtered and tried to tell the tale as we made our way out to the truck.

   We played no CDs as we crossed the bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan. “I’d take everyone out for ice creamor smoothies, but that doesn’t work for your girls,” RoAnn explained to Mom who now sat beside her on the front seat as if they were the best of friends. Well, both of them had almost lost children. Both of them were in the big “political fight.” Maybe they had become allies if not friends. Both of them had also loved the same man though I did not think Mom loved my dad any more. Dad belonged to RoAnn, Nervy, and me now.

   “You’d probably like something for dinner,” RoAnn continued to think aloud.

   “Good idea,” Mom perked up.

   We did not go to the arena, but to a deli/diner instead where we could each order what we liked. Mom had a portabella burger. RoAnn had chicken salad with low calorie ranch dressing and beets. She was trying to be good and ate most of her food. Nervy ordered an Italian sub with cole slaw on the side and I had a liverwurst sandwich with the vegetable of the day. We sat around as if we had always been family.

   Mom talked about the difficulties of setting up charter schools in Texas. Down there half the districts had fallen, and the legislature met only once every two years. This made setting up charters a brutal process. Georgia spent half her time “securing venues” and the other half “dealing with a board of beaurocrats who liked to sleep more than anything else.” Still she had three charters in the pipeline.

   I wondered how to ask about Kyril. It struck me that asking about Kyril was like asking about Barry. Still I asked. “He seems to be happy,” Mom answered. “Living upstate agrees with him. There’s lots of outdoor life and sports even if he works on academics and he likes the other kids. He likes his foster family. It’s better for him than being with me as I travel from one place to the next. I think Kyril has always wanted roots.”

   “Barry,” I thought. “BARRY BARRY BARRY BARRY BARRY,” but I said nothing. Some things you just can not say.

Archive