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              The commute to John Wayne Cotter H.S in the Bronx depended on where you lived. 
             It could be smooth and uninteresting, or filled with nerve-wracking tension. Students
             zoned to the school lived in or around the neighbourhood; they invariably used the 
             buses or the subway. The teaching staff drove in from outside the borough; it was a
             half-hour, sometimes one hour, drive, with bridges to cross, tolls to pay and often 
             long traffic delays.
                 Because teachers were required to clock in – a bone of contention between the
             Board of Education and the Teachers Union; time clocks were considered demeaning
             "to teachers as professionals" – there was the added pressure to be in the building on
             time; to be at your classroom door on time.
                 If asked to comment on these pressures most teachers at John Wayne Cotter would
             laugh dismissively and, speaking in the tone of overworked, unappreciated profess-  
             ionals, they might retort that, well, this is the job they do; a poorly paid job; with
             diminished satisfactions each passing year.      
                "Actually, I have no problem getting in." (Mrs. Richter, Music) "Where do I live…?
             Jersey…yes, all the way out there….Yes, I cross the George Washington every
             morning, but you see, there's very little traffic on the road when I start out which is 
             about six in the morning. Oh, I'm up at five in the morning…that early! And I usually 
             get here on time."  
                "I'm not going to kill myself getting here." (Ms Sinak, Social Studies)
                "Well, I'll tell you, sometimes I'm late, but that's rare." (Mrs. Helmsclaw, English,
             leaning forward on elbows, and twitching her bottom). "I drive in from Long Island. 
             I take the Throgs Neck Bridge. My problem is, I tend to linger…I'd step outside,
             ready to leave, then I kind of get distracted by the condition of the lawn. I'd walk
             around and inspect the flowers, check the sprinkler head, pull up a few weeds…Yes,
             tending the garden while the car is warming up, can you imagine?…Actually, it's my  
             husband who's the garden buff. He spends hours pruning and pottering…no, I can't 
             explain it. I just have this desire to touch the plants and flowers as I'm leaving in the
             morning…must be something fatalistic in me…like it's the last time I'll see them…
             Sounds crazy, I know."    
                 (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

                [Strong as an ox (his calf breeding wife so quiet & serving,
               luscious her mambo) he served his island with OHMS pride.
               They sent him for Sandhurst grooming, happy we were. He'd step
               beside prime ministers & royal kin, in helmet & ceremonial whites,
               body* stiff sword *keeper, such was his rank.

               In his last days he'd lay in bed, not speaking.
               I rushed to his side – what would become of his memories?
               dignitary gossip overheard?
               I hoped he'd recognize the Regiment bugler – you know,
               at the cenotaph on Remembrance Day? He frowned and turned
               aside; reached for the dial of his Grundig radio.   

               After the war that German flagship ruled the waves.
               His pleasure was pilot at dial, bowhead cleaving through white
               noise, imperious news to the ports he valued:
               chimes, fast bowling at Lords, Sunday devotions
              (though not Edmundo Orchestra & His Ros.)

               I heard he fell off his bed one moody night, cracked a bone
               or hip, reaching for that dial; and curled in pain
               until his grandson, headset paused,
               sounded the alarm ("Grandpa's sleeping on the floor".)

               For his last nights, the bed now with guard rails,
               I brought him a Sony, thinking it would cheer him
               up – you know,
               memory presets, wireless sensors?

               The batteries for this thing, they die so fast, he groaned,
               fearing his life would smash on its high seas, the spinning propeller
               out of reach, no anchor hold;
               the headwinds of shortwave passing
               service at world's end]W.W.      

                       FEAR

                       Dying alone, no friend,
                       doctor or priest to prop
                       the fiction that you have

                       lived, you reach to clutch at any
                       final voice and see at the end

                       of the arm of a stranger with no
                       number or word in mind the strangest
                       hand of desire minding its own

                       business of clinging to one more
                       straw of its habitual mind.
                                        (from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan)

            
             The lights stayed red. The gas station looked like an island lit up but abandoned in
          the silent night. He thought he saw something move in the dark, near the concrete
          columns supporting the overpass. The homeless man in the ripped-out car seat had
          stirred.
             He'd spotted the car idling at the lights; he was moving toward Radix in a deter-
          mined manner, meaning to get to the car before the lights turned green; squeegee
          stick in one hand, a bottle of glass cleaner in the other, wanting to clean the car's
          windshield.       
              No problem. Radix had no objection to simple honest labour; his coin box was
          usually ready with quarters; the fellows worked fast, seemed harmless, and they
          could use small change.
              When the man was about ten strides away, squeegee stick raised as if hailing a cab,
          the lights turned green. Since his windshield really didn't need cleaning Radix shot
          across the roadway and drew up beside the gas pumps. As he got out the car he 
          noticed the man still coming his way. He walked over to the cubicle, shoved his notes
          in the steel tray and shouted his order. Waiting for his change he looked back at the
          car.    
              The man had got to work on his windshield, squirting glass cleaner or water, making
          vigorous circular movement with his arm; lifting the windshield wipers…squirt, squirt,
          squirt…wiping, wiping…squirt, squirt, squirt. 
               Radix came back, saying not a word; unhooking the pump, unlocking the gas cap. He
          was about to insert the nozzle when the man came around to the rear, smiled broadly,
          and said in a hearty voice that filled the night,"Yes, boss…I fixed you real good…now
          you can see from here to eternity."
               Had he been sitting in the car, say at the lights, his reaction would have been
          simple: reach for the coins pass them through the window…Thank you!…on his way. 
               Standing face to face with the squeegee man, whose smile revealed missing front
          teeth, who seemed in his thirties; whose voice had an aggressive, not necessarily
          menacing, tone that compelled Radix to clear his throat and match the decibel level
          mano o mano - all this now rattled him. 
               His hand  on the gasoline pump froze; the squeegee man looked directly into his
          eyes. His face beneath the hair and grime was an ordinary human face, needing a 
          shower and a shave, but a fellow human face. "Got you ready to hit the road again,
          boss," the man said, removing a soiled baseball cap and scratching his head.  
              Radix shoved his hand in his pocket, felt coins, gathered and pulled them out - 
          quarters, nickels, dimes, when did he put them there? – and with some urgency he
          passed them into the man's palm. The man looked at them; he looked at Radix; his
          face became a mask of creased incredulity.
              Radix felt his heart pounding a little faster. For seconds neither man moved. The
          hand remained extended. 
              Radix could hear the grinding rush of traffic on the highway like a stampede of cars
          pounding its way to the bridge. He threw a glance toward the cubicle where the 
          attendant, an Indian fellow wearing a turban, was watching the encounter.
              Then Radix said, half-apologetically, but firmly, "Look, that's all I have on me right
          now." He was about to insert the pump nozzle when the man exploded: "What da fuck
          is this?"  Each word distinct and aggrieved, What…da…fuck…is…this? 
              The sound of that voice, clear and sharp, pinned Radix to the spot. This fellow was
          seriously vexed. Radix reached deep down in his gut for a response, for anything to
          break up the confrontation. Nothing, nothing but bubbles of fear rising. 
   &#01
60;          He stood there, the gas pump in his hand, feeling helpless, hoping he didn't look
          helpless; and the squeegee man, sensing weakness, craning his  neck forward and 
          dropping his voice now to a knife-blade clean hiss, said, "I fixed you up good…you
          could see from here to eternity…Whaddafuck you saying to me, man?"
        (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

     
             He checked the slip of paper Amarelle had given him with travel directions; he didn't
       really need to; it seemed easier to read the green signs at night, follow the stream of 
       red lights, the public holiday traffic making its weary way back to the city. He settled
       in behind a Volvo moving sedately along, a family of four, each head stiff with self-
       importance on the headrest.
             And suddenly, the sign pointing to the Cross Bronx Expressway!
             What was it about highways that made you drive fearfully when you set out, then
      return with a little trepidation as if guided by some unerring computer chip in the car?  
             The Cross Bronx Expressway…tire grooves in its surface from heavy truck traffic…
      which could throw you wobbling dangerously out of lane if you weren't careful…but  
      there it was, the gateway home.
             The warning light on his gas gauge came on. Though it was long past midnight he
      thought, what the heck, might as well fill up now; there was bound to be a gas station
      open.  
             He  came down the ramp and there he was – that man slumped in a ripped-out car
      seat beneath the overpass, his day's scavengings of soda bottles in black trash bags
      piled high in a shopping cart. They couldn't just dump people, build an expressway over
      their damaged lives, and hope they'd stay out of sight forever.
             There he was – invisible man! – using anything he could salvage to resist inconse-
      quence; refusing to crawl away and die; fighting back against extinction, the great
      human experiment gone badly wrong, foundering now in Moscow, but huddled in defiance
      under a highway here in New York city.
             And just across the street from the  traffic lights, a gas station.  
                                       (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
         
              

   
           Name me a player in the colony eleven (chain round the neck
           not yet gold) who didn't pray to be chosen:
           a calabash shower, his chance
           to dress up in cricket whites and perform
           on the green with the willow. Mark
           the padded walk (the boys copy that) his trickster runs, the googlies –
           our saviour-gladiator! like Havana's commandante, nailing
           boundaries our side of the world.

           These days he's the man at the UN podium, in never wrinkles blue suit;
           the centurion! sprig in lapel for the greenheart forest.
           With a swamp's grasp of Parfum he clutches words, he speaks
           for our trees and river dwellers who never once complained
           of regime change, not once the plunder of stillness. To the myth-
           hugging dreamers in libraries, the loin cloth swimmers up creeks
           Cha-ching! he'll go, Cha-ching!

           Tomorrow he could be our 1st man in space, all spiffy
           in orange launch suit, si senor! Waving to the people
           via stadium telecast, knowing their toes will wiggle
           in the mud as his shuttle or ship lifts off – lifts
           from tightpacked bodies, poor facing forward lean; row
           upon row going O mi god! at that up
           pushingfuelburnbillow at the base. 

           Prince of appearances, a player…Howzzat?
           "progressive"?  "delusional"?  "grandstanding"?
           Ah, merde!
           Here comes the skipper, who's up?

                                                                         -W.W.  

            IRONY

                         is the voice of challenge, a backed-up sewer's:
            when your drains run silent, that's when they're breeding
            the promise of your next plague whose eggs of sleep
            with this last straw I break so that their dark lice,
            clinging to it, might float up and be exposed.
                                         (from "Scratches on the Air" by Brian Chan)  
 

     Later Amarelle would attempt to shatter the picture of marital bliss.
         Veronique, who worked at her sister's hospital, was in fact the mother of two
     children whose father – an islander and a hopeless womanizer – she'd left back there.
     She met her Jewish husband in the hospital's EKG room where he'd been sent for a 
     routine examination; and where as she tried to affix the suction cups on his surprisingly
     hairy chest, he made funny conversation; so funny, she could barely contain her profess-
     ional demeanour.
         He told her he'd never felt so relaxed, so safe, as at that moment in that room, in her
     hands.
         They fell in love. Just like that? Just like that, Amarelle said, opening her eyes wide,
     and going on to reveal her suspicion that Veronique was a little schemer: up from the
     islands with two growing children, and looking for permanent residence.
          In any event the Jewish fellow, single, about forty, balding, broad at the hips, with
     connections to a moneyed Jewish family in Manhattan, this fellow proposed to her one
     week later; and to everyone's astonishment they got married. Now she was pregnant,
     the little schemer.
         They appeared to have not too many friends, which explained their appreciation of
     Aschelle's gesture, inviting them to drive out to Poughkeepsie on Labour Day; and now
     this man also from the islands, also kind, patient, not in any way discomfited by their
     racial coupling.
         Veronique offered to refill anyone's plate. She chastised the laziness of her husband
     who, she was prepared to wager, had been spoiled by his Jewish mother.
         Left along for awhile Aaron asked, "So what do you do…? where do you teach?" Then
   he talked about a friend of his who'd gotten into trouble with the NYC Board of Education.
   Radix crossed his leg and listened.
        Veronique returned, her face and fleshy shoulders glowing with the healthy promise
    of her pregnancy; she offered to fetch drinks and went off again. Aaron continued his
    story about his friend and the Board of Education.
        A gentle, generous fellow, this Aaron; eager for friendship; talking up a tide to keep
    their tiny group afloat and perky. And when Veronique came back and sat down they went
    at each other again for a bit, husband and wife so sure of each other, staging these little
    pillow fights without the slightest embarassment.
       At some point, sensing saturation, and unsure of Radix' disinclination to talk, Veronique
   switched the topic to the subway system; how relieved she felt not to be using the trains
   so often, now that they lived in Riverdale. No, not so much the jostling crowds; not the
   terrible draft in the tunnels. It was that horrible screech of metal when the trains came
   into the station and jolted to a stop. That was what she couldn't stand.
       "Doesn't take much to make her happy," Aaron said.
       "That…and bruised fruit. I can't stand bruised bananas. You know when sometimes you
    peel them…? and they're all dark and mushy and…bruised?" 
       "Otherwise, she's one happy lady," Aaron said.
                                   (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

            At some point Radix decided he was sufficiently attached to one couple to hang on
            to their company, not wander back outside to eat alone.
                They shuffled away, linked to each other by the woman's happy talk; she turned
            to Radix, she turned back to her husband, her words rattling like chains. They found
            folding chairs outside and settled down, leaning forward, shaking hands: Radix,
            Aaron Friedman from New York city, and Veronique from the islands.
                They had arrived late, Veronique said, and had got lost on the way. "All this man's
            fault." They had to turn back at one point. "He took the wrong exit." They hadn't
            met everyone yet. Radix nodded and smiled.
                Aaron like a good sport seemed determined not to let the conversation falter.
                They lived, he said, pulling his chair closer, their knees almost touching, in
            Riverdale in the Bronx. Where was Radix from? He'd visited the island of Dominica
            once on vacation…had Radix ever been there…? The approach to the island's airstrip,
            that was the most heart-stopping experience he'd ever had flying.
                "Just listen to this man," Veronique interrupted. "Like he's a frequent flyer."
                "I am a frequent flyer."
                "Let me tell you, the only heart-stopping experience he has… is when he's in his
            Lazyboy…in front of the television."
                "I'd have you know," Aaron rejoined, pointing his fork at Veronique, but making his
            point to Radix, "I've travelled the length and breadth of these United States…and
            frequently too." 
                "Just listen to this man."
                "And speaking of frequency, I have never met anyone with…shall we say, voracious
            bedroom appetites…who makes frequent demands on her spouse…at all hours of  
            the day and night…Are all the girls from Dominica like that?"
                "Aaaaaron!" Veronique, mouth open, fork frozen in mid-air, taken completely by
            surprise at the baring of moments of their intimacy. "That's not fair, Aaron. That's just
            not fair."
                 Yet despite her show of chagrin she was evidently enjoying herself, and lost no
            time returning to the fray with more revelations about her husband's ways.
                 Radix was content to sit back and smile impartially. He could only marvel at what
            seemed a display of verbal pillow fighting. For as long as he sat there they would need
            him as witness to the very real probability that a New York Jew and a black woman
            from the islands could marry and experience love and happiness.

           She called one morning just as he'd stepped into the bathroom. He was fiddling
           with the shower knobs; his feet were wet; he tied a towel around his waist and,
           leaving a trail of wet footprints on the floor, rushed to the phone.
               "It's been ringing a long time," she said irritably. "Where were you?"
               "In the shower."
               "It kept ringing and ringing. We're not supposed to make personal outside calls.
           I was just about to hang up."
               He didn't feel like saying more in defence. He tied the knot of the towel which
           kept coming loose.
               "Anyway, I just called to tell you to take the meat out the refrigerator."
               "What meat?"
               "Hold on a second.." she said, speaking to someone in the office.
               Radix sat shivering a little on the bed. He scratched his arms idly and noticed
           a bit of excess fat around his waist.
              Amarelle was taking her time getting back to the phone. He heard background
           noises and he pictured a tiny room with women, all technicians in white coats,
           chatting or joking as they labelled samples or called the next patient in for a blood
           sample.
              The skinny one from the Philippines who didn't speak much; and two Hispanic
          women who were fond of Avon products; and a Jamaican who bragged about her son,
          the honors student, and her house in Westchester; who still received welfare checks
          she was no longer entitled to ("I mean, what am I supposed to do? They keep sending
          me these cheques?" Amarelle liked to mimic.)
              These were her co-workers; all immigrants, they were one happy family of 
          dreamers and chatterers. In their company Amarelle felt grounded and secure.
              She'd come home physically tired but bursting with news about these women,
          talking from the moment she'd dropped her bag and kicked off her travel sneakers,
          as if talking was one sure way to relieve the working day's stress.
              The telephone line went quiet; then someone came on, impatient, asking Radix
          with authority what he wanted. Not sure if he should reveal his identity Radix put the
          phone down.
              (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams)