At first there was a white crossing guard, a bespectacled woman in her sixties. She was
quietly efficient, unsmiling; stopping traffic with one gloved hand, waving the kids forward
with the other; always businesslike and correct. She just assumed everyone would be law-
abiding at the sight of children at a zebra crossing.
Suddenly one morning she was gone, and in her place, a black crossing guard – younger,
brisk, her blue pants tight around her bottom. And her manner was decidedly different.
She had a police officer's notepad stuck in the hip pocket of her blue trousers, conspicuous
and ready to be whipped out; and a ballpoint in her white gloves. She glared after motorists
who sped through green lights, as if speed by definition was inconceivable at her intersection.
She was as concerned about the safety of her young charges as the white crossing guard, but
she brought something else to the job…community spirit.
She waved to bus drivers she recognized when they drove by; she waved and exchanged
words and laughter with young women hurrying to work; she had motivating words for kids
walking too slowly, who might be laggard in the classroom. She apparently knew some of the
accompanying mothers, and sometimes got so distracted, so absorbed in a story or news, she
forgot about traffic at the zebra crossing.
A car speeding through the intersection would summon her back to duty; she'd step back
out on the roadway, squint and stare hard after the car, trying to catch the plate number.
(from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 