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. Math at Houghton

   Actually Dr. Angelus’ assignment started out pretty easy. I wasn’t dumb. My parents’ divorce had taught me that adults do not always put the needs and interests of children or teenagers first. They don’t neglect them either, but sometimes it’s take a number while we fight, or “we’re in love and stuff happens,” or there’s a big fight that distracts them from everything else. Just think about Barry who walked out on my mom. Kyril loved Barry. My brother, an angrly little turd (No forget that, turds get used for fertilizer and are therefore useful) , was collateral damage. Dad and RoAnn moved to New York when I was in fifth grade. Kyril and I had to take the Greyhound bus every other weekend to see him. I didn’t mind because I liked travelling and I loved Dad passionately. He was a refuge from Mom who was a bit crazy with anger and resentment at the time. Breaking up does that to you, and kids take a number. Kyril hated it. We both had to endure it. Nobody thought anything was wrong with it. RoAnn had a new and exciting job, and Dad could work anywhere.

   You can see then that there was nothing exciting or earth shaking about the Middle School Drama Club advisor, Ms. Shane, letting Stephenna and Moira (knowns as @Sxxy_Raven and @Sxxy_Pache on Twitter) play favorites and even agreeing with them and supporting them. Teachers were adults and adults as I said above did not always act in kids’ best interests. Drama Club in middle school was Ms. Shane’s club and if I didn’t like the way she let Stephenna and Moira run it, I could find some other activity or none at all. Extra-curriculars in middle school did not count except they made you feel mature, and I liked feeling mature, and I couldn’t get rid of the idea that I needed a chance like anybody else. That was my problem.

   On the scale of adult bullshit, what Ms. Shane did was small time. I had a better story for Dr. Angelus. By the end of sixth grade, I pretty well knew that things sucked incredibly badly at Houghton. RoAnn taught me office skills over the summer in the hopes that I could get a good volunteer berth. I talked about trying to change schools, but Mom didn’t have to pay for Houghton because she was their College Admissions Counselor. I talked about entrance exam high schools, and Mom told me that I wasn’t good enough in math, and I knew I wasn’t good enough in math.

   In short, I was trapped and could only hope that seventh grade was better than sixth. It wasn’t. In fact it was worse. Math was what made it worse. The math teacher’s name was Ms. Dominique. That’s a nice name, but she was an evil person because she not only loved fast crowd kids, she catered to their slacker nature by often not teaching math. Sometimes we got to make vaguely math related art work. Concepts were more important than the dull working of problems. Of course you have to work problems to learn math. Even a poor, wretched, seventh grader knows this.

   After several months of seventh grade, I knew things were not going to get better. I looked to see if I needed parental consent to take the New York City Specialty High School Exam. I couldn’t take it until October of eighth grade. At the time that was ten months in the future, but maybe the time would be to my advantage. Could a person make themselves good in math in ten months? I thought about this and told Dad I wanted to at least try taking the exam.

   Dad shook his head. RoAnn told all of us: “It can’t hurt. Are you really serious about this, Kore?”

   I said I was, and RoAnn took Dad and me to a store that sold academic books of various kinds. I found myself with a bunch of old math textbooks and Amsco Preliminary Math and the beginnings of Amsco Mathemaitcs A. RoAnn also told me to ask my math teacher at school for help. Teachers, according to RoAnn could be my best friends and allies. She also said that Mom had something to lose if I transferred out for high school. I didn’t care about what Mom had to lose. I cared about me!

   One miserable day in late January of seventh grade, Ms. Dominique tossed aside her lesson plan and gave us all sheets of paper. She said she wanted us to get along better. Each of us needed a change of attitude. She said this could be a life changing exercise. She was right, but not in the way she intended. She asked each of us to write down one positive thing about the name of a classmate written on the sheet. I got a girl who hardly ever talked to me. She was pretty and had long, blonde, straight hair. For all I know, she is still at Houghton, but to tell the truth, I could have cared less about her. I don’t even remember her name now.

   I pushed my papers to the end of my desk and flipped them back over. Ms. Dominique asked me: “Why aren’t you writing, Kore?”

   I told her that this wasn’t math.

   “But there are more important things than math.”

   “Not in math class.”

   Several of the kids snickered.

   “Why do you want to learn math so much today anyway?” Ms. Dominique probed further. I of course had a reason. I remembered last weekend’s book run. I even had one of the books with me. “I need math to pass the New York City Speciality High School Exam next year,” I replied.

   Ms. Dominique gave me a library pass and told me to go to the library and study math. She did that pretty much every class after that. To my credit, I did not spend my library period reading magazines, something I might have done the year before, but having to do that bullshit exercise really galvanized me. It was one thing to get crapped on. It was another thing having to publicly deny it. The exercise was mind control. I was free in the library, and determined to make good use of my freedom. I was going to break out of the looney bin, and those old math books were my key to the lock on the wrought iron gate.

   All of this went along quite well until April of seventh grade when someone got wise to the kid who was always in the library when she should have been in math class. Ms. Dominique was now on the hot seat. She said I wanted to study math independently with books from home. No one believed this. They took me down to the Guidance Office and gave me a math test. It was not that hard, and my scores were fantastic.

   The counselor wondered how I did not cheat. He gave me another different kind of test. He asked me to solve problems from an old 1930’s book that used a lot more forumlas and fancier language. I did all that and a bit more. He then congratulatedme on my improved math skills. “We’re going to have to think of changing your schedule for eighth grade, Kore,” he said and then he asked. “Tell me, how did you become interested in mathematics?”

   I told the counselor of my plans to take the New York City Specialty High School Exam in eighth grade. The counselor than talked to my mother. Mom was not pleased. “Kore,” she told me. “You don’t really like math do you?”

   “It’s not a question of liking it Mom,” I answered. “It’s a question of needing it for the exam.”

   “You know the exam is in October. If you are planning to attend an entrance exam high school next year you are going to need to be in Math A in eighth grade.”

   That was fine with me. Serious math would help me with the exam. Anything that helped me with the exam was what I wanted. “And Math A will go on long after you take the test. It’s going to be very hard.”

   “It’s ninth grade math, Mom!” I retorted.

   “Yes, but you’ll be starting a year early when it’s harder.”

   “I don’t care,” I answered.

   Needless to say, I was in Math A for eighth grade, real math, hard math, and that was good. I’d spent the summer studying for the Specialty Exam, reading, doing m ath problems, and reading more. My head swam with fear. This was a test on which my life depended. RoAnn understood that. Even Mom understood that. It was a nervous time.

   I was glad to be in Math A since it boosted my morale. I also hated Math A, not for the subject matter. Math was now a part of my life. It was in my blood and sweated out of my pores. In eight months I had morphed into a serious and capable math student, if not necessarily a talented one. I hated Math A because I hated my fellow students. I did not hate them because they mistreated me. I hated them because they had given up.

   I feel guilty about this now as I write it down. I was “giving up” too of course, but half the kids in my Math A course were just marking time one way or another until they could escape. This was what happened to kids who were social failures in Houghton Middle School. Many of the kids were going away to boarding prep schools for high school. One boy was going away to middle school. Another kid talked about living with his other parent so he could attend Stepanec in Westchester County. Other kids gave up and escaped in other ways. Many dodged the volunteer requirement by volunteering through people their parents knew or their church. They escaped being under the supervision of kids who would treat them like dirt. Many were active in churches and synagogues and other outside organizations since “middle school extracurriculars sucked.” I had no such alternatives. Unless I was willing to try chess club or hang out with the boys in the AV room who had their own private thing going, I was stuck with working under the Fast Crowd. It was easy to mix jealousy with hatred, and that I was trying to make my own break, only made things worse. Math A was the end of the line, and that it led to something better was immaterial. We were at the end of the line because we had failed!

   I was such a failure, in fact, that I did not get my first or second choice of entrance examination high school. “Do you still want to go to Brooklyn Tech?” Mom asked me. It was a dreary November morning in eighth grade. It was a Saturday. We made a family pilgrimage to Brooklyn to look over the place. It was huge, hulking, and old. It was thousands of students. It was the size of a college. It was NOT HOUGHTON. I loved it. I had gotten in under my own power. Someone else had recognize that I was smart and special. I told my Mom “YES!”

   I remember attending the orientation. I felt proud to sit among elite kids from all over the city. Suddenly, I was no longer a failure. And you know, that is where grownups would like the story to end, but that’s not how I would end it.

   As I tought of Math A and of Ms. Dominique, I thought back to all those other kids. What had become of them? Where were they now? I did not want to keep in touch at the time. Now I wished I had. Was I really so damaged that I could no longer reach out and help others in their own bids to escape? Where had my compassion gone? Had fear really paralyzed it? Was I really that uempathetic a little blob of an eighth grader? How had I let myself get poisoned like that? Writing about math in seventh and eighth grade made me feel sick about myself.

   Well, there was Assignment One for Doctor Angelus. I had to go back to studying biology anyway. It was Wednesday night. Around midnight, I took a break to check my Brooklyn Tech email. I try to check it twice a week, and that was how I noticed the letter from Livi Meir. Livi was the kid I called side part, the one in the black jumper and unimaginative white shell, and neat back oxfords. I’d love a pair of shoes like those to wear with kahkis.

   I read her letter. She had two cousins coming to live with the family next week. They were going to try to establish New York City residency so they could go to school here in a Full Academic. The schools where they had lived in Louisville, Kentucky, had more or less fallen or been replaced by one anemic little charter. These were not Livi’s words, but that was the gist of the letter. The cousins were Jewish. This was very important to Livi, but they were not frum. “Acadmeic migrants,” I thought. They needed someone to be their friend.

   “Fuck those truck loads of snot!” I thought. Why hadn’t I thought about nonreligious or less religious (Oh that’s the wrong word! I believe as much as anybody else and so too do Livi’s cousins) relatives. You can’t hide in your Orthodox Jewish bunker forever! I was glad I had my blackberry back, but I emailed Livi immediately to let her know I had Saturday rehearsals so would be unavailable for Shabbos lunch.

   “What about Shabbos dinner Friday night?” she asked in the next letter.

   I asked what time it was. She replied it was around 8:30pm. I said I could squeeze it in, but I might be a bit late. Being no longer grounded meant I would be at rehearsals, and this close to production, they could run long.

   “You sit in a lighting booth that long?” she said.

   “I climb on the battens too and I study when I have to wait around. Sometimes I help other kids,” I answered. With Livi, I realized, one had to explain everything. Livi had never been part of a serious dramatic production, not even as a lowly painter of scenery. Livi needed an education….and so did I.

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