Mrs. Haliburton arrived at the school at about seven in the morning. She was driven
there by her husband in their Cadillac Seville. It idled for a few minutes at the front
entrance while its occupants, looking straight ahead, exchanged important reminders;
then Mrs. Haliburton stepped out. She was among the first to arrive, and often the
first to leave.
Her departure, about an hour before the exodus of the three thousand students,
was also through the front entrance. The Seville was not there to take her home. She
walked. Sometimes she stopped by the post office; chatted on the sidewalk with old
ladies gripping shopping carts; then she caught the bus. A lady of social standing, she
felt at ease in the streets of her community.
Once in the building she attended to paperwork for half an hour; then she picked
up the phone and called her "girlfriends", women who like Mrs. Haliburton worked at
a desk; single or divorced black women, like Noreen at the Board of Education, or
Thelma at the Superintendent's office. They formed part of her valuable network of
information.
Networking for Mrs. Haliburton was as important as the underground railroad back
in the old bad days. She had her sources, people she relied on to leak information
from downtown. Often she learnt in advance about new proposals for John Wayne
Cotter H.S. She'd pass on the leaks to astonished colleagues with a wink and a smile,
and "Don't tell anyone you heard it here first."
Other bits of information she filtered to people in the community, folks she met on
Sundays at her husband's church; influential grassroots people whom the Bronx
politicians courted and turned to for votes.
(from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 