Author: FarJourney Caribbean

                    Xavier's mother appeared to be studying Radix for the first time  ̶
                    looking him up and down, immensely curious about his association with
                    this white woman. 

                    Radix shifted from one foot to the next. "So when will they let us see 
                    Xavier?" he asked. This was enough to snap him back into the 
                    conversation. Judy Wiener explained, seemingly just for his benefit,
                    that Xavier's condition needed round the clock observation. 

                    Xavier's mother looked at her watch. "O, my goodness!" she declared,
                    still ladylike in manner; she had to catch the train to Manhattan. She
                    worked at a bank, from 6.00pm to 2.00am  ̶  "the graveyard shift", she
                    smiled knowingly. In fact, Xavier was on his way to her bank to get her 
                    house key (he couldn't find his) when the incident with the police
                    officer occurred. 

                    Outside Radix was determined not to seem disinterested right at the
                    point of taking leave. Xavier's mother was buttoning up her coat and
                    explaining more about her son. And for the first time he heard the 
                    anguish of a mother whose child lay in a hospital bed "in critical but
                    stable" condition. 

                    "I have to contact the lawyer, let him know 'bout the way they have
                     him handcuffed to the bed. Treating him like a common criminal!" This
                     brought them to a halt on the sidewalk. Judy Wiener folded her arms
                     and shook her head, firmly allied with Xavier's mother on this issue. 

                     Did she have far to go, Radix asked. Did she need a lift? No, the
                     subway stop was two blocks away; she could manage. 

                     She reached in her bag, took out a pack of spearmint gum and offered
                     it around. In the cold afternoon light she presented the image of an
                     indomitable island woman, up from island poverty; getting little sleep
                     these days, but not about to give in to self-pity and fatigue. A mother
                     relieved of the aggravation in her marriage, living only for her son
                     now handcuffed to a hospital bed. 

                     And as if to reinforce the idea of how resourceful she was, she 
                     explained, speaking now for Radix' benefit, that she had tried to enroll
                     Xavier in a high school on Long Island. They'd told her she would need
                     a referral from a school counselor. "Like he was a delinquent or some-
                     thing!"  

                     Turned away, her aspirations denied, she had no choice but to send 
                     him to his zoned school, John Wayne Cotter H.S.  

                     She spoke as if she wanted Radix to understand this, before they went
                     their separate ways bearing half-finished portraits of each other.
                     Whatever he thought about her, he should know this about her son  ̶
                     Xavier was a good boy, a smart, decent boy.  

                     "Him used to sing in the church choir." (The "him" gave her island
                     origins away, and as she went on she seemed to drop her speech
                     affectations.) His father was a strict man. When they came to New  
                     York he picked up the notion of raising a "straight A student". He
                     insisted the boy's report be free of blemish.  "Him get blows all 'bout
                     him head if his father see even one stray B on the report card." 

                     Judy Wiener nodded, though Radix couldn't tell if she'd heard the story
                     before and was simply confirming its truth. 

                     Xavier's father spoke too harshly and lifted his hands once too often to
                     the boy. She couldn't stand aside and witness the "child abuse" any
                     longer. She separated from him taking Xavier with her. It was at this
                     point that Xavier started going down. 

                     "Him kind of feel like freedom, you know, since his father wasn't
                      around anymore. So him lose the discipline. Him get into some kind 
                      of trouble with the teachers so they put him in Special Education. But
                      Mrs. Wiener here is a good teacher, so I have nothing to worry about,
                      right Mrs. Wiener?" 

                      It was a good moment to say goodbye, on a note of sweet optimism,
                      after the disappointment at not seeing Xavier. And so after a farewell
                      embrace and handshakes, Xavier's mother went off to catch her
                      train. 

                      "Isn't it terrible?" Judy Wiener was saying, searching her bags for her
                       car keys as she walked beside Radix. 

                       He wasn't sure what she meant but he agreed: life was indeed
                       terrible. Black boys handcuffed to hospital beds, that gold-chained
                       man lounging at the street corner with his pitbull  ̶  in the Bronx life
                       was a terrible, fragmented thing. With frothy rapids through which
                       they all navigated; staying closer to this bank or that bank; isolated
                       souls meeting and sharing distress, then pushing out and away again.

                    (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

                     Outside Lincoln Hospital he had to wait for Judy Wiener again. They'd
                     traveled in separate cars, it seemed the best arrangement, and he'd
                     got there first. It occurred to him she might get lost once she came off
                     the expressway. There would be a parking problem in the narrow local
                     streets; she was probably driving around looking for a spot. He'd been
                     standing outside the entrance a full twenty minutes and still no sign of
                     her. 

                     The temperature had fallen. A cold afternoon wind had sneaked up. 
                     What had started as a balmy night and then a warmer morning was 
                     taking a chilly turn that would surprise everyone coming out of offices 
                     at five o'clock. Weather aside, the traffic flowed, the stores and
                     sidewalks seemed active; people in the Bronx had their reasons to be
                     out and about. 

                     We wake to situations altered while we sleep, he started thinking: a
                     bullet-pierced body, a door lock broken, drug capsules like scattered
                     seeds on the stoop. Something keeps creeping closer as through a
                     mist, always hard to detect.                 

                     He looked up at the hospital and imagined Xavier waking up, waiting in
                     bed for the doctors to decide what to do so he could be out again in
                     the streets. The longer he stood waiting for Judy Wiener the stronger
                     his irritation grew.

                     People all about, most of them jobless at this time of day, he had to
                     assume. Vanishing specks. He was a speck waiting to vanish, too,
                     amidst the movement and noise and odors swirling around on this
                     Bronx street. Xavier, too, was a speck. How many people were even
                     aware of his condition up there in a hospital bed? The hospital was a
                     speck. But for its name on the outer wall it was fairly indistinguishable
                     from most buildings around.

                     And who was this guy standing across the road, a strapping young man,
                     dark glasses, gold chain gleaming on his chest, his chin jutting out as if
                     to discourage scrutiny? And beside him a heavy panting fleshy dog? 

                     It was exactly as he'd imagined  ̶  Judy Wiener had gotten lost. She'd
                     stopped to ask directions twice, and she was parked on a side street
                     two blocks away. She explained all this on the sidewalk, going through
                     her bag again like a squirrel. She looked up at the hospital as if
                     surprised to find it actually standing there. 

                     Inside the doors they hesitated. Xavier's mother had said she'd be
                     waiting to meet them in the lobby. There were rows of chairs in a
                     waxed waiting area, but she wasn't there. 

                     A security officer, a youngish, balding man standing in a corner
                     chewing gum, studied them. Two stern-faced receptionists at the
                     reception desk listened as a doctor in white coat handed over a folder,
                     whispered instructions, clicked shut his ballpoint and headed for the
                     elevators. 

                     They approached the reception desk; but then someone called her
                     name and rushed toward Judy Wiener and it seemed Xavier's mother
                     had found them. 

                     She'd just come off the elevator; she'd been upstairs to see Xavier;
                     they weren't allowing him visitors at this hour. And he lay there
                     handcuffed to his bed. Handcuffed to his bed. 

                     Radix stood aside watching the two women embrace after a flurry of
                     smiles and exclamations. He was introduced as a teacher who knew 
                     Xavier very well. "He's from the West Indies, too." Judy Wiener
                     added. Xavier's mother extended a limp hand and smiled a wary island
                     smile. Then she turned back to Judy Wiener.  

                     Radix had expected a mild-mannered, good-hearted lady gripping a
                     handbag, her face a mask of distress. Xavier's mother  ̶  Mrs.
                     Haltaufauderhude!  ̶  was a short woman, in her thirties, he guessed.
                     She wore a blue beret, and a London Fog  raincoat unbuttoned to
                     reveal her shimmering corduroy pants outfit and Nike footwear. She
                     carried a Channel 13 TV tote bag with a magazine sticking out, and
                     her perfume hung like a protective mist around her. 

                     With animated gestures, her bracelets jangling, she explained her
                     intention to protest to "the proper authorities" about Xavier being in 
                     handcuffs. "I mean, come on…" , she kept saying, in a tone of ladylike
                     outrage. Judy Wiener, arms folded, nodded and shared her outrage. 

                     For awhile Radix could think of nothing to say. He sort of hovered over
                     the two women. At times he looked from one concerned face to the
                     other, and he tried to wedge his own concern somewhere in the heart
                     of the conversation. 

                     At some point he sensed silence around them, a lull in the conver- 
                     sation. Perhaps feeling they ought now to include him in their 
                     exchanges, the women turned their attention to him.

                          (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D. Williams, 2001)

                     Radix spent the morning pondering his future  ̶  what might happen if
                     he were excessed; or reassigned to another school, say, in Brooklyn,
                     miles and bridges away. Would he have to consider moving? Did he
                     really want to continue teaching? 

                    When he saw Judy Wiener in the cafeteria, sitting with a teacher he
                    didn't know, he lost no time moving toward her. he pulled out a chair,
                    nodded politely and sat tight-lipped. "What's the matter, Michael?" she
                    asked, quick to sense his distress. He waved a hand as if the matter
                    could easily wait. 

                    All around him, the cafeteria noise; tense white faces leaning forward,
                    talking to each other, scooping up food with plastic forks. 

                    The teacher sitting with Judy Wiener abruptly shrugged and sighed in a 
                    way that suggested there was not much anyone could do about what- 
                    ever they'd been discussing. "Talk to you later," she said, remembering
                    to smile at Radix. 

                    And before he could utter a word Judy Wiener said, "That was  Mrs.
                    Summerhays, Xavier's Guidance Counselor. Did you hear about Xavier?"
                    Radix shook his head. "He's in a hospital…with gunshot wounds." Radix
                    looked at her, his heart going cold, his own discomfort fast dissipating.
                    "He was shot by a police officer in a subway station…resisting arrest…"
                    She said resisting arrest as if she didn't believe it, not her Xavier.
                    "What happened?" Radix asked.
                         
                    It seemed Xavier was on a subway platform, somewhere in Manhattan.
                    He heard a train rushing in; he had to go down a long flight of stairs
                    which was crowded; it meant he'd miss the train on the lower level.
                    There was an up escalator not in motion; without thinking he charged
                    down the up escalator. When he got to the bottom a police officer
                    tried to arrest him. "For walking down an up escalator?" 

                    What happened next was not clear. Xavier started to walk away,
                    protesting he'd done nothing wrong. The cop tried to stop him. Xavier
                    dared the cop to arrest him for something that stupid. There was a
                    scuffle, the officer's gun went off. The next thing they knew he'd been
                    shot. 

                    He was in an Intensive Care unit, his condition critical. The bullet had
                    lodged somewhere near his heart. The doctors were afraid to operate.

                    Radix' stomach stirred, reminding him he had forty minutes, no, thirty
                    minutes, to eat before the bell. He didn't have the will to move. Judy
                    Wiener had spoken in a low intense voice which transfixed him. Not
                    just her voice. The look on her face, the moistness in her eyes. A 
                    student  ̶  her Xavier!  ̶  had been shot.  

                    What could he say to her? He returned her stare. He could see right
                    down to where she kept her feelings for the Xaviers of this world. She
                    managed a week smile and she told him his teaching break would soon
                    be over.  

                    When he came back to the table, with a cup of coffee and a Danish
                    roll, her lips were compressed, her shoulders rounded; and her body
                    seemed to sag with the weight of this fresh calamity. "Where is he, 
                    which hospital?" His voice was sharp with concern. "He's at Lincoln     
                    Hospital."

                    Judy Weiner took a deep breath, then reached for her bag, taking out
                    a mirror. "I'm going to see him this afternoon." And Radix said, "I'll
                    come with you, if that's alright." "Of course, we'll go right after
                    school." 

                    She got up to go. She wore a red dress which hung down her body like a
                    sack. He'd never really paid attention to the body inside that dress
                    until this moment,in this sack dress. She launched into chatter about 
                    things she had to do and perhaps they could meet in the lobby and go
                    off to the hospital together; or would it make sense to get there in
                    separate cars?

                    He waited for her in the lobby as the school streamed out. There was 
                    some sort of Art class display, artwork stuck around the walls by the
                    Art teacher, with the title, The Joy Of Spring. No one seemed in the
                    mood to stop and look. Judy Wiener was taking her time.

                    She didn't exactly rush from the elevators, frantic and apologetic.
                    Radix saw her walking toward him, self-absorbed; stopping to
                    put on her dark glasses, rummaging in her bag, her lips moving
                    nervously. And he found himself studying her again. The legs seemed 
                    fairly confident under the sack dress. Something about the face,
                    though - a little too passive and unlucky; the face of someone who
                    spent too much time worrying; who found little reason these days
                    to exert herself.

                     (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)