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. Two Assignments

   I got home from school Monday night to find Dad fixing Nervy’s, his, and my dinner. Nervyworm, my favorite Nervy worm had had her shower and sat in her robe and PJ’s looking, hungry, happy, and impatient. It was kind of a sweet look. RoAnn and Ivanna were in the office/study. This was as good a family tableau as it got.

   I was glad when Dad did not mention the Blackberry and its disappearance at dinner. I figured he was either making plans to get it back or he wasn’t. If he was, fantastic since it was rather useful. If he wasn’t, I was not going  to beg. I’d just gotten  unlucky with a random backpack inspection. That was going to be my story.

   So far I’d survived one day of being grounded. I figured I could handle quite a few more. After dinner, Dad turned RoAnn and Ivanna out of the study and put me in with the door closed. “Where is your laptop?” he began.

   “I didn’t bring it to school,” I answered. I was glad of that. I smiled with nervous relief.

   “I figured that out, but where is it? I want to see it.”

   “Why?” I asked.

   “I want to look at your social networking.”

   “I deleted my Facebook account,” I told Dad which was absolutely true.

   “There are other services: MySpace, Eons, Piczoo, Tumblr, Twitter, Plurk….”

   “This isn’t your business.”

   “Your mom and I paid for the laptop.”

   “You’re not going to see it. It’s my private space.”

   “I’m gonig to find it.”

   “What makes you think so?” I asked.

   “Because it has to be in this apartment unless you are asking a friend to hold it.” Dad opened the study door. “I can call up the Pipers and find that one out easily. I can even call the Wangs or the Ropas or the Howards.” Dad had all my friends’ last names memorized. That was fantastic!

   “The computer is not at Kore’s friends’ house,” RoAnn said tersely from the living room. “She had it here this weekend and left it home.”

   “Then where is it Ro?”

   “Where do you think? Kore’s female. Think where your exwife would hide a computer.”

   “Oh shit,” Dad cussed.

   “What’s wrong?” RoAnn asked my father?

   “I can’t do it. Kore, please get me your computer.”

   “No.”

   “Kore, I asked you.”

   “And I said, ‘no.’ What can you do to me? I ‘m all ready grounded.”

   “Kore, don’t you want to go to synagogue?” Dad knew how to bargain.

   “Not until May 29th,” I answered. “Saturday rehearsals are next week and then the one acts are the twenty-second.”

   “Yes, but the twenty-ninth is only two and a half weeks from now. Kore, I’m your father.”

   “Dad, it’s my private space.”

   “I can get the computer out,” RoAnn broke the deadlock.

   “Oooooh,” groaned Nervy Worm. “Kore’s going to get in trouble.”

   “Kore is all ready in trouble,” I answered. “It’s permanent you know.”

   “Either you dig out the computer or I do,” RoAnn threatened me, “and if you have any other secrets in there, I’ll dig those out too.”

   “There’s nothing that exciting in there,” I responded. “Even the computer’s not that exciting.”

   RoAnn headed to my bedroom. She made a bee line for my dresser with the underware drawer in it and opened it up. There was a sock with a hundred and forty dollars in it, mostly in twenties. There were some photos from Drama Club, outtakes with curse fingers in them, and of course the computer. RoAnn examined everything. She reburied the photos and the money and brought the computer out to Dad.

   He booted it up and had me login. Then he asked me to show him Twitter. “Dad,” I drew the line. “I’m not unfollowing the Fast Crowd. You can’t make me. You can take the computer away but that won’t change things. You can delete my account, but I’ll just start another one from the library at school or from Kinko’s.”

   Dad sat busily reading my Twitter screen. Then he passed me back the computer. “Kore,” he asked. “What is so important about the Fast Crowd?”

   “They’re my enemies. They made my life hell for three years?” I replied. Dad knew the story. He’d seen the damage! “You know this!”

   “I know some of it. I want to follow your logic. Kore where are they now?”

   “Stephenna Crowe is supposed to be at Grinnell in Iowa. Mom helped her get in there but she hates it so she comes to New York as much as possible….Unity is a college student out west. She went to Santa Balandina. I don’t know her last name. Moira Cuthbert is a student at Hofstra. She had a brain tumor and wears a scarf around her head as if it were still shaved bald for the operation or from the chemo. She says ‘live each day to the fullest and who cares at whose expense.’ Eliza and Nicole are wannabees. There still at Houghton.

   Marta Arrowhood is a holleywood reporter. Inner Beauty is Caren Fish, last year’s America’s Hottest Teen Model. Silver Feet is Bari DeVilliers….”

   “You didn’t go to school with Troy DeVillier’s wife?” Dad wanted to laugh. “Kore none of the people you mentioned except for Nicole and Eliza are at Houghton any more. Do you realize that?”

   “I’m not at Houghton any more. Kids graduate when they turn eighteen.”

   “Kids grow up. That’s how you move on.”

   “So, I’m supposed to let go, move on, forgive and forget? BULLSHIT!”

   “OK….Kore, what do you hope to do to the Fast Crowd?”

   “Wait for an opportunity…”

   “An opportunity to do what?”

   “I want to make it so Stephenna can’t hurt anybody ever again.”

   “That sounds like a death threat.”

   “It’s not. She’s a piece of scum not worth going to jail over.”

   “OK,” Dad sighed. “I can’t solve this so you’re going to talk to another adult.”

   “You mean Ms. Marmlestein?” I asked. I was not sure I fully trusted Ms. Marmlestein because when you thought about it she really did make her living off the conflict. That made her a parasite.

   “No, someone you trust….I don’t think it’s too late for you to call Dr. Angelus is it?”

   “Can I do it in private?” I asked.

   “Yes, but you put me on the line afterwards.”

   “It’s a deal,” I said. I was scaird, but I dialed. I had to use Dad’s cell phone. I had to explain why Brooklyn Tech had confiscated my Blackberry, the real reason, not the reason I was giving everyone else. Then I told the story of Margolin and the insults and dragging her around Brooklyn and Long Island until she cried Uncle?”

   “And what did Margolin Sidlow do to you?” asked Dr. Angelus.

   “She annoys me. She’s a smug little ECBAS twirp. She’s a slacker who gets patted on the back for doing one quarter of the work I’m doing.”

   “OK, and then she insulted your mother…” Dr. Angelus tried to get the whole story straight.

   “He insulted my mom and RoAnn,” I corrected him.

   “OK, but she was a handy target and you had a valid pretext.”

   “That’s better than no pretext.”

   “But Margolin Sidlow is not Stephenna Crowe or Moira Cuthbert.”

   “It’s a good thing Stephenna and Moira don’t spend any time with me any more,” I smiled.

   “What do you want to do to Stephenna?” Dr. Angelus asked me.

   “Tell her how much she hurt me and then let her know I haven’t forgotten and never will. I also want to make sure she never hurts anybody else.”

   “And how will Stephenna hurt other people?” asked Dr. Angelus as if he did not know.

   “I told the story of how the Fast Crowd had made sixth, seventh, and eighth grade Hell. I told him of not being able to try out for drama club parts. I told him of having to beg to paint scenery with the boys who spent their time impersonating superheroes and flipping baseball cards. I told him of volunteer service where I got treated like a slave while Stephenna and her all her friends got all the credit and her favorite younger kids, of whom I was not one, got the easier jobs.”

   To his credit Dr. Angelus listened to the whole thing and even sounded interested afterwards.

   “You know,” he told me. “You’re not going to believe me right now, but Stephenna and Moira were not at fault.”

   “Are you telling me I brought my suffering on myself. You sound like my mom at the time.”

   “No,” answreed Dr. Angelus. “Kore, how old was Stephenna when she ran drama club for the middle schoolers?”

   I did the math in my head…”Tenth grade,” I answered. That would make her a year younger than Piper is now. It made her younger than Micah and the same age as Frank and Ho. Kwaata was in tenth grade.

   “Don’t you think there were adults supervising her who knew what was going on?” asked Dr. Angelus.

   “My mom,” I blurted out but then I added. “Please, I can’t be angry at my parents or I’ll have  no family left.”

   “Did your mom run all of Houghton?” Dr. Angelus asked.

   “No,” I confessed. “Then I want you to write down the whole chain of command that permitted the abuse. Can you do that?”

   “I try not to think about Houghton,” I confessed.

   Dr. Angelus did not see the irony in that or at least pretended not to.

   “It may hurt,” Dr. Angelus counseled me. “Being betrayed by adults can be worse than being betrayed by your peers. Now I have a second assignment and this one is much harder.”

   “What is it?” I asked.

   “I want you to look into ways that Stephenna Crowe and Moira Cuthbert have hurt themselves. Follow them on Twitter and in the news but start keeping score. Can you do that?”

   I said I could and then I put Dad on with Dr. Angelus. I got to keep my computer. I got to keep my Twitter and Tumblr accounts which is why I’m still writing this diary. RoAnn did not touch my weird Drama Club pictures, and I even got my Blackberry back. I’d won…well not really.

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