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. No Deer on the Subway

   I was a goo daughter, important student, skillful person, and remarkable older sister until Thusrday night. I came home from IS-179 where a teacher who was now head of the computer labs told I could not teach because I was a high school student and “only in ninth grade.”

   I thought about buying another soda as I rode the subway back to Manhattan on the long trip from Queens. New York is too big for a city, not like Scranton, but I’d been in New York since before I started sixth grade back at Houghton. I went to Brooklyn Tech. Things were better now.

   Flemming was on duty as door person of the night and he greeted me with a smile. I was keeping what for me were respectable hours. There was no reason that every adult in the world with the exception of the Lord of the Computer Room at IS-179 should not be utterly and completely pleased with me.

   I let myself into the apartment and found Nervy no where to be seen. RoAnn and Dad were fighting. I stood in the foyer like a deer in the proverbial headlights. There aren’t any deer in New York City of course. Taxis and buses have all run them down, and they aren’t allowed to ride the subway.

   I did not want to listen to what RoAnn and Dad was saying. Fights aren’t ever about anything. Once parents get started fighting, they fight about everything besides whatever upsets them, and even if parents have a major issue, usually both of them are guilty and fighting doesn’t solve whatever problems they have. I know this from my mom and dad fighting when I was in second and third grade back in Scranton.

   By the time I was in fourth grade, my parents had a trial separation and then a divorce. Since they were around eachother a lot less, they fought a lot less. That was very nice. I used to know what to do when my parents fought. I went to my room and read a book, making sure the door was closed. If Kyril (Nervy wasn’t born yet) came in, I booted him out, treating him as befits a younger sibling.

   Sometimes though I was charitable. I told him, he could come in if he kept the door closed and played quietly. He never did. I think now he wanted me to comfort him. He was a year and a half younger than Nervy is now, but seven and eight year olds are not long on sympathy. They are practical people, and I was doing the right thing. The best thing to do with a parental fight was stay out of the way.

   Kyril of course wanted peace back or maybe he dreaded where the fights were going. The fights, as I said before never went anywhere. My parents’ marriage went down in flames. That meant less noise. That satisfied me. I knew both my parents were “guilty.” They were also in love which in the world of grownups absolves their kind of guilt, but not the guilt for fighting. I was old enough to develop a delicious appreciation for adult hypocrisy. Kyril…what did happen to Kyril?

   I decided to look for Nervy. With luck, Nervy was more like me and had taken shelter from the fighting by keeping busy. Nervy was reading softly in the study/Office. She sat in RoAnn’s chair at RoAnn’s computer which played a screen saver of New York Times headlines from the last ten years mixed in with headlines of Newspapers from foreign countries, most of which used nonRoman script. Nervy’s eyes were on her book which was about a little, lost, black kitten.

   Nervy’s crayons and papers were scattered all over the floor. She said she worked better there. I cleaned up the crayons so they wouldn’t get smooshed under foot and closed the study door. I tried not to think about where my parents’ fights had led half a lifetime ago. I did not want to even begin imagining Dad leaving RoAnn.

   Still I couldn’t shut the fighting out. “I can’t accuse Anthony of being an unfit parent, Sammy! That would be a lie! I remember from when Ivanna was a baby.”

   “Yes, but she’s not a baby any more.”

   “Anthony has never raised a school age child.”

   “What about those children who all run away to his house. I think you have a case!”

   “I think you’re an engineer, love, not a lawyer.”

   “What did your stupid lawyer tell you?”

   “He’s not stupid, Sammy.”

   “Fine what did your brilliant lawyer tell you?”

   “It’s easier to get the custody agreement changed to guarantee Ivanna a traditional education than it is to get custody back, and I agree. I think we can get the judge to listen.”

   “Fine, now what about Anthony! I’ve been around ECBAS zealots. They hire us because we’re a necessary evil.”

   “Anthony now has to obey the separation and custody agreement. If he doesn’t, we’re back in court and Ithaca is not that far away.”

   “You expect to be back in court.”

   “I expect to be back in court before September if it comes to it. If not, then before January of next year,. I’ll have good grounds to take back Ivanna or Anthony will pull his weight and…You know Ivanna was not happy here.”

   “You aren’t giving up?”

   “Yes I am. I’m out of tricks. I want my one girl happy. I always felt I was…Maybe it was moving to New York.”

   “New York is the capital of the world. That is what you used to tell me.”

   “I don’t remember Scranton,” Nervy stopped reading.

   “It was OK,” I said glad that my little sister helped me tune out the fight.

   “What was it really like?”

   “It was smaller than New York and it had a river. The river was called the Susquehanna. The high school kids played football and made a big deal out of that. They probably had other sports, but I didn’t know about them. You’re not missing much.”

   “I’m not going to  Houghton next year,” Nervy told me.

   I said nothing. I did not know where Nervy would be in September and did not want to tell her that.

   “Do you like the new school RoAnn picked out for you?” I asked.

   “She didn’t pick it out. I won it in the lottery,” Nervy was on the ball.

   “But what if you’re in Texas or North Carolina?” I asked.

   “I can’t be in those places. I live in New York,” was my little sister’s reply. I did not want to tell her that she lived where Mom said she lived. Damn, I thought. I needed to study. I got out my books. “Can you work quietly so we can share the room?” I asked. “I have studying to do. I don’t want to pay attention to RoAnn and Dad.  I don’t want you to pay attention to them either. Parent fighting is just bullshit. They do it when they run out of other ideas and then it gets to be a bad habit. Grownups can have bad habits too.” “Now you know, Nervy” I thought and I wished I had made the same speech to Kyril long ago.

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