Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 01:08:55 -0500
From: Tom Cup <tom_cup@hotmail.com>
Subject: Kevin - Series Chapter 24

Kevin By Tom Cup
Copyright 2000, 2001 by the Paratwa Partnership: A Colorado Corporation. All
rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means electronic or mechanical, except in the case of reviews, without
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Florissant, CO 80816

This is a fictional story involving youth/youth or adult/youth sexual
relationships. If this type of material offends you, please do not read any
further. This material is intended for mature adult audiences. Names,
characters, locations and incidents are either the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events or
locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
************************************************************************

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***********************************************************************Kevin
Chapter 24
By Tom Cup
Barb

>From the biography of "The Lion of Bolognia:"

"Come, little one.  Come and sit with me."

How do you describe love? I guess that's the question all great artists try
to answer, the answer that all their labors try to describe.  I wish I could
point to a painting, or sculpture, or literary work and say, `ah, that is
what I saw when I looked at Marie Bolognia, my mother. Then you would nod
and weep because of her beauty, grace and love.  You would understand why,
every time she spoke, silence fell upon creation, as though the very angels
themselves were afraid to miss one of her melodious tones. She smiled and
the sun brightened. She laughed... and joy bubbled up from the center of your
soul.

I was thirteen and still she coddled me, wrapping her arms around me like a
mother hen protecting her brood, smothering my cheek and forehead with
kisses, until I would squirm and giggle like an out of control school girl.

"Please mom.... Please," I squealed, "Please!"

I was laughing with tears streaming down my face.  Antonio was balled in a
corner crying with laughter. She loved to make us laugh.  I suppose I could
describe what she did but it wouldn't be funny.  It wasn't what she did that
was funny. It was that she was doing it, that made it funny.  Like eating
pizza with a knife or kissing my forehead until I couldn't take it anymore.
Sometimes she annoyed Antonio and I to no end.  Only when we were beside
ourselves would she suddenly say, about herself, what we would never even
dream of saying, and the giggles would start.  The giggles would continue,
growing in intensity, until, like now, I was laughing so hard at what I
couldn't remember that I cried. But I loved it. I loved the shear joy she
brought to life.

"OK," she said as Antonio and I struggled to regain control of ourselves.
It worked best if we refused to look at one another.  A glance, meeting each
other's gaze for but a moment, suddenly became the catalyst for minutes of
uncontrollable, suffocating, laughter. "I do want to talk about Barbara
Greer."

"Oh mom," I said.

"Give it a break mom.  He doesn't want to see her." Antonio clarified.

"First, Kevin, your behavior is not civilized and stinks of fear."

"I'm not afraid."

"And second, Antonio, you are less than honorable for encouraging this
behavior.  Shame on you both."

I didn't understand what she was saying. Neither did Antonio.  In the end,
Antonio and I stared at each other until we broke into laughter.  Marie
grabbed us and hugged us both. She kissed Antonio on the cheek and then
turned and kissed me. We all laughed.

That's how it was decided that I would see Barb.

*****

Robby and Jimmy hugged their mother. They were, quite simply, happy to see
her.  They were to young to remember to hold her accountable for the misery
that she had allowed in their lives.  They told her how good she looked,
asked if she was coming to get them -- "someday, maybe," she answered, "We'll
have to wait and see what the court says. Mommy still has a lot of work to
do." -- They asked about Chuck, of course.  She assured them that he would
not be back in their lives.  She was through with losers.

"So you made some progress," the counselor asked.

The woman annoyed Barb.  She asked Barb the questions, that Barb thought,
the counselor was supposed to answer. How in the world was Barb supposed to
know if she was making progress?  Wasn't it the counselor's job to tell Barb
if she was or wasn't making progress? Wasn't it the counselor's job to tell
Barb what to do in order to make better progress? The woman was useless in
these regards.  She filled Barb's head with more questions each time they
sat together to discuss Barb's week.

"Can I ask you something?" Barb said.

"Sure." The counselor didn't bother to look up from her writing.

"Well, I come here and have a bunch of questions.  I leave with those same
questions and with the new ones you pile on top.  How am I supposed to make
progress if you never answer any of my questions?"

"I'm not here to answer your questions for you Barb. I'm here to help you
find your own answers."

"Seems like I'm doing nothing but sitting here talking to myself.  I can do
that on my own."

"What's bothering you Barb?" the counselor asked finally putting down the
clipboard and focusing on Barb.

Barb sighed. "I didn't know how much I had.... fucked up, OK.  I mean, I
thought I did and it hurt. But when I looked into Donna's eyes, when I think
about the look in Kevin's eyes, they will never forgive me."

"Maybe not.  So what?"

A gush of air escaped Barb's lungs. It wasn't a laugh, exactly. It wasn't an
expletive. Yet, it had the force of both. Barb wanted to grab the woman by
the hair and beat her senseless.  She wanted to beat the counselor until she
understood her pain, until she felt it ten thousand times as much as Barb.
It was the only way that someone as smug, or stupid, as the counselor would
ever understand.  Barb glared at the woman. The counselor was smiling. It
angered Barb even more.

"How did that feel Barb? Did it hurt? You want to beat the shit out of me
now? Do you? Do you want to kick my ass until I understand?"

Barb's mouth dropped opened. Her mind went blank as the counselor sang on.

"That's how you handle your kids, isn't it?  If they don't understand or do
what you say, you beat the shit out of them.  But now you can't, can you?
You can't solve your problems the way you use to, can you? You can't just
beat them into submission and you can't beat me into submission. We can all
tell you exactly how we feel and there isn't a damn thing you can do about
it.  You don't want answers Barb you want an easy way out. You want someone
to tell your children to behave, someone to tell them that mommy's all
right.  Well, you are not all right Barb and you won't be until you can
handle the tough situations, the ones that piss you off, with reason and
civility.  That's what this is about Barb.  It's about turning a barbarian
into a civilized person."

Barb was weeping bitterly and nodding.  It was true.  The counselor was
right.  She didn't want to go through months of painful negotiations with
her children, winning a little here and losing a little there.  She wanted
the children to accept her as she was, accept the work she had already done.
  But they demanded more, the counselor demanded more.  There would be
nothing left of who she once was if they had their way, Barb understood.
The fear of becoming someone she didn't know, even if that someone was far
better than Barb could ever hope to be, stood in the way of her progress.
That unknown person was the person the counselor wanted to see, the person
Kevin and Donna wanted to see, the person that Tony Bolognia wanted to see.

"Even if I tried to answer your questions for you," the counselor said, "the
answers I gave would be my answers, not yours.  You have to find your
answers.  So, as annoying as it is, I will continue to ask questions until
you find your answers."

Barb nodded and continued trying to wipe her face dry.  Tears continued to
fall. She was once again in that place where only one word made sense to
her.  Again, she repeated it. It echoed off of dark and empty walls deep
within her. "Sorry...sorry...sorry...."


*****

Rich maintain an emotionally dispassionate distance between himself, Mark
and Craig. It wasn't that he didn't like his foster brothers; it was far
more profound.  He did like them.  That was the first problem that he faced
when he was placed with the Levy family.  He liked the family immediately.

No five children had ever been so carefully placed as the Greer children.
They couldn't be placed together but Michael Robbins had kept Tony's word.
He personally oversaw every foster placement. He reviewed and approved every
suggested placement home, visited the home twice: once alone to view the
environment and once with the children.  He noted how all of the Greer
children seemed resigned to accept whatever was put off on them.  But he
made a connection with each child and by the time the placements were made,
the children understood that he was their lawyer.  If they didn't like
something they were to call him.  He wasn't a push over, but he listened and
told them honestly what he thought.

Rich looked forward to the surprise visits he made: maybe once or twice a
month, he'd show up at the house or school, take him out for a burger or ice
cream, talk with him for an hour or so, and then take him home.  Mr. Robbins
had picked him up at school today.  They had a burger together and then
Michael gave him an envelope.  It was an invitation from Kevin. Rich had to
tell someone.  He was going to see Kevin.  His excitement washed away the
dispassionate distance he'd placed between himself and his foster brothers.
Meredith Levy stood in the hall, outside the door, listened as, at long
last, Rich acted like a member of the family: talking, and laughing, freely,
with Mark and Craig. She cried.

Meredith Levy wasn't high on Michael's best foster home candidates list.
But the social worker had convinced him that he really should consider the
home for Rich.  She had `a feeling' that it would be prefect. Michael
thought the woman mad.  Rich would be the only one of the kids to be placed
alone and `Miss Social Worker,' as Rich called her, wanted to place him in a
single parent home? Michael was convinced that Rich need to be in a two
parent family and perhaps even be the only child in the home: no competition
for the parents' attention.  The social worker had strongly suggested a
single mother with two kids and limited income; and Rich would be sandwiched
as the middle child. He could see no way of approving the placement and
considered visiting the home a waste of time.

He wasn't sure to this day what he liked about Meredith Levy.  The woman
hadn't said very much but he liked her.  He liked the way her kids responded
to her and how she fussed about them and how they all seemed to genuinely
love one another.  He liked that.  He wanted Rich to see that; he wanted the
kid to be smothered in a mother's love. It had seemed to work. The kid was
happy even if he pretended not to be.

And Michael was happy for the kid.  Rich complained about how Meredith
always fussed about him, touching him, cleaning up after him, and Michael
listened.

"Sheesh, I was going to refilled my glass, I only put it down for a second,
but she's like a ghost or something.  I reached for it and it's gone.  I go,
`mom did you move my glass?' And yes she did! She had taken it and put it in
the dishwasher. Like I make a mess or something."

"So you call her `mom' now?"

"Yeah, I know it's stupid but it makes her all happy."

Michael smiled. "Well, I can get you out of there, get you another
placement."

"Naw, it's not that bad."

"OK, you let me know."

Yeah, the kid was happy. He was just afraid to show it.  Rich didn't know
how to deal with happiness.  He was afraid to be happy because he couldn't
bear the feeling of not being happy.  Every moment of happiness Rich could
remember had been torn away to reveal the pain underneath. Wasn't that the
first thing Michael had learned about the boy? Chuck had beaten him, broken
his ribs, left him near unconscious and suffering like a wounded animal.
And why? Because Rich stopped to play with some friends after school. A
moment's happiness turned into brutality and pain.

Michael Robbins didn't stop to think very often about what his client's
business might be. He knew instinctively that Tony Bolognia was a man use to
power, a man that could be dangerous. But he remained, for the most part,
hopeful that Tony's business was strictly import, export and acquisition of
fine works of art. He never thought there would be a time when he would wish
anything other of Tony Bolognia.  But as he thought of the pain that Chuck
had inflected on the Greer family, and as he thought of Rich, he hoped that
Tony Bolognia was the type of man that could have someone killed, and that
Chuck was dead.

"So what do you know?" Tony asked as Michael opened the door to his office.

"Well, I hope you know what your doing."

"You know, I think you worry more than I do."

"I have to worry."

"Why, what'd you have to worry about?"

"Why don't we just forget about the other kids?  You have Kevin.  He's the
one that matters."

"Yes and no.  Yes, because he's part of the family.  No, because Kevin loves
his brothers and sisters. They're family because he's family."

"OK. OK, please not another lecture about the importance of family."

"OK, Mr. Big Shot what you got?"

"Well, the kids are doing OK...the boys better than the girls..."

"Women... I'll never figure them out."

"Rich is doing better than most but he doesn't like to admit it.  I thought
he was going to burst when he got the invitation."

Tony nodded. Michael knew the look.

"What's bothering you Tony?"

"The mother."

"Everything checks out.  She seems to be doing everything she can to get the
other kids back."

"Yes, I saw her.  How could she not know?"

"You see what you want to see, and remember she's been a drugger and boozer
for a long time."

"Yes, but still, how could she not know?"

***********************************************************************
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***********************************************************************