The next problem was to find a temporary replacement for Steve Kite. A candidate was quick to step forward – from the shadows, as it were – in the person of Phil Quickenbush. Little was known about him except what he was only too willing to reveal: he'd recently returned from Japan after a two-year teaching stint in a Japanese high school; he was working on a book based on his experiences there; he was currently assigned to the Business department, and in his opinion Steve Kite had been "railroaded". He was quite willing to take over Steve's responsibilities, and when the time came he would consider running for Steve's office.
Most people were too distracted to question his credentials. One or two veterans viewed him with suspicion (what had he done to merit selection for that teaching post in Japan?) But since no one else was prepared to fill the breach, it seemed a harmless move to let him take over.
Only Bilicki was alarmed. Phil Who? Just the look of the man – smooth-shaven, dressed for Wall Street, you would think, in white shirt and tie; the rimless glasses, the way he hovered in the teachers' cafeteria, hands in pocket, listening in on conversations; and when he did say something it was usually to highlight some "illogical" assertion, or make a correction, bolstered with facts and statistics; all of which put a damper on the anecdotal excitement teachers preferred while they ate lunch. Who did he think he was? Where did he think he was?
He loved working at at John Wayne Cotter H.S., he told everyone, but the situation in the hallways, you had to admit, was fast approaching anarchy. There should be police officers stationed in the building with powers of arrest. It was the only way to take back our classrooms from the hallway hoodlums. The public school system was moving away from the core values that made America strong, that offered strong leadership to the world. He ought to know; he'd just come back from Japan; the Japanese were moving miles and miles ahead of us.
Bit by bit an already inflamed Bilicki became infuriated. He felt tempted to break his self-imposed silence, to expose this upstart, this clever windbag, with his soft rounded shoulders, and his neat appearance, as if neatness and business methods were all a school needed to save itself. Just back from a high school gig in Japan, now here at a troubled school in the Bronx - where would he go next?
To raise these questions Bilicki risked giving the impression that, twice beaten and rejected as a candidate, he had turned into a bitter, boorish man, stooping now to character denigration.
(from "Ah Mikhail O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 