Chapter 5: Excruciating Conundrum(growing up) a.k.a Akalibobo

Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the bandPretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music manBallerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sandAnd now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my handThis is the story of a very strange Bulgarian boy called Mirlo. He is 12. He goes to Grainville primary school in st Helier, Jersey. He lives with Inga his mum who is a divorcee. I am with Inga now, sort of.Mirlo is not little; in fact he is morbidly obese and if he was older he would fit the description of "fat fucker" but being young I will simply say he is a fatty fatty boom boom(that's not too bad, his school mates am sure call him worse).Being fat, he does all the things fat kids like him do, for example; he was preparing to go to school on Friday morning and as he sat in the chair to eat his cereal his school pants got torn in the middle.Yesterday evening we were sitting to watch a movie with Inga when he, too,uncomfortable with the extended presence of a man in the house, sitting too close to his mum, and her obviously adoring him(the man), judging by the whispers and touching asked to come sit between us(I thought how sweet, he wants to feel like a regular kid sitting between mommy and daddy), so he came over, so I moved to the end of the sofa to create space for his rhino size butt.I had forgotten that rhino butts like his come with not only consumption of huge amounts of sofa seat space but also rhino @#$% butt smell.Poor mirlo, suffering the fart fate of the fat fucker.But of course the love of a mother knows no limit; his mum merely wrapped her hands around her huge bear of a son, and planted kisses on his neck, just as if he was a cuddly teddy bear and not mirlo the farty.I didn't really like Mirlo at first. I like him now, somehow. No actually, I more of understand his situation than like him. He was annoying, in fact, really annoying.I still can't for example kiss his mum in his presence without him throwing a tantrum.When she holds my hand, he let's off a stream of Bulgarian words at her and we have to stop it unless she is angry at him(when her own emotions need assuaging). At those times; she tells him to shut up(in another string of Bulgarian words) and continues holding my hand, but not too long, her son is still her priority and she doesn't want to upset him so eventually she stops.As a result, evenings at her house are quick moments of stolen kisses here, whispers there, silent laughs and private jokes. We don't want to upset Mirlo by being too touchy feely.Poor kid, that too works him up, coz when we whisper to each other,then he wants to know what we're talking or laughing about and so a third string of Bulgarian expletives is let out.Its ridiculous really, but I can't reprimand him, I am not his father, and I can't really tell Inga that she spoils her son rotten. Can't blame her, he is perhaps the only constant in her life and I realise that in a way they need each other;He, her protector, him, her cuddly bear for when the tears are flowing."You are not family" he told me the other evening when I tried to get him to speak after Inga and I stayed out too long(according to him). We wanted to have a quiet moment to ourselves at my house and so returned to her house late and his highness's royal ass was angry and thus gave us the silent treatment.Jesus freaks out in the streetHanding out tickets for GodTurning back she just laughsthe boulevard is not that badThis is also a story about 12 year old Romana his adopted sister.She lives upstairs with her mum(Inga's best friend) and she has probably gotten her first real crush on an adult man. Perhaps as last evening ended and she ran back upstairs following the sound of her mum's curt: "Romana, bed" she will write in her diary;"Dear diary, I have met a man, he is dark and handsome. Not like the dark that people like me get from a sun tan(or as of those damn Portuguese. I hate them, because all they do is speak Portuguese even when they ask me to sit with them at school), my dark knight as I will call him is not the Portuguese or sun tan kind of dark,no way! He has the dark of being a black man; an african(I wish though he was African American like the new American president).He is a tall black man with the whitest teeth I ever saw. There is just one problem, I think he is involved with downstairs mummy.I wonder if he thought I was pretty in the green cashmere I wore as soon as I heard his voice downstairs. I wonder if he thought I was brilliant when I showed him my school activities book. My English is much better since me and mummy mummy left sofia, did he notice how I lengthen my vowels like a real English girl?"As the little girl bombarded me with her questions, I thought of perhaps another silent revolution taking place the world over; black is the new white, perhaps like the moors who conquered and ruled Spain for several hundred years, we are in the beginning or middle of the black revolution(the "darkies era").Went the little girl without giving me so much as a chance to speak;"Do you have animals like koalas or kungfu panda? Do people in africa live in houses like these or is it all like on TV? Oh my goodness look at your hands, so black unlike mine. I wish I was black."You know what I don't like Mirlo",she continued unabated, "he is too ahhhh cranky and fat and ugly. I like another boy in school, an English boy.""Did you tell him you like him?" I asked a sort of dumb question(after all good girls never do tell). She responded, while twirling her hair, " OMG, no way, what am I going to do, go to him and say I like you?So where are you from?"she again continues breathlessly after my only attempt at two way conversation and not monologue. "how old are you?""Romana, Dickson is too old for you"Mirlos mum interrupts, and smiles and winks at me at she does. But oh how it feels so realLying here with no one nearOnly you and you can hear meWhen I say softly slowlyHold me closer tiny dancerCount the headlights on the highwayLay me down in sheets of linenyou had a busy day todayPerhaps Mirlo's quirky behaviour is understandable after all. It seems his mum is too often drunk and amorous and as a result he has seen too many men to recall. All taking advantage of her and so perhaps as a result he doesn't really like men around mummy. They never stay long, they leave her crying, lead to her drinking even more and the vicious circle continues. She meets a man, she is too often drunk and so he doesn't think much of her, as a result he takes advantage, and leaves, she gets frustrated, drinks and goes to the night club and whilst there, inebriated too, meets another, and so the circle continues.Said Mirlo on meeting me for the first time early last week; Mummy's boyfriends always come here and I don't like them, like the crazy Kenyan one called mani. He and mum just sat there and smoked weed and watched TV all day, instead of working. But you are different, so I will be watching you." He then put his two fingers to eyes and then pointed at me with his index finger to indicate the said "watching me""Mirlo stop speaking shit" his mum interrupts from kitchen, too late I went, in my mind of course.Its a strange thing this growing up. I now have to deal with not only a woman but her grizzly bear of a son.Should I stay and deal with the hustle of dating single mums or return to little miss evil(her and I on break following the A&E visit she put me through) and in the process leave another woman with pent up anger and frustration at men, and leave her son even more wary of any man who shows the littlest bit of affection for his mum. Black brothers will be even more of a no go zone, not with the affection he has taken to ice cube and now saying to me in glee every time he sees me;"what's up ma nigger?" Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the bandPretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music manBallerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sandAnd now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my handThis is not really a story about a boy or about Inga. Its about missing someone. Its about Little Miss evil and I.As the lyrics of Tiny dancer play in my head again and again, I cant seem to run away from her for long. I am always taken back to the time before this all. Little miss sunshine and I before I became a stone cold gentleman, before she became little miss evil, before the strange kids, before the strange scents and the strange accents of these foreign women.To the time when it was just her and I.Walking along the boulevard of fallen leaves on the way to my house or cuddled up in the living room of her house, scented candles burning, elmo the donkey sitting on the radiator watching us, chilled bottle of wine, us cuddled up under the duvet, kissing and hands clasped and the record playing again and again...As i think of her I wonder how she is dealing with us apart, does she miss me like I her, I wonder. Even as I held Inga today, all I could think of was her cherry lips, her sparkling eyes, her my tiny dancer; always with me, in my mind.I pick up the phone to call her but it rings and rings and rings.....it now slips out of my hand and a tear comes. I think today I will drown in my tears as I hit replay of Tiny dancer, again and again and again....P.S Tiny Dancer by Elton John(1971) from his album, madman across the water was ranked in rolling stone's top 500 greatest songs of all time.The song was written about Bernie Taupin's then-girlfriend Maxine Feibelman, a dancer who had accompanied John and Taupin on their first tour of America in 1970. She would later become Taupin's wife the following year.The closing paragraph makes reference to "drown in my own tears" which is adopted from a song of similar title by Ray Charles.This is the 5th part of the "excruciating conundrum" series, part 4 can be read here