Dave Degraffenbach was everything the school’s Superintendent, the Board of Education, the school’s supervisors and Mrs. Haliburton looked forward to seeing more of in the teaching community – a bright, intelligent, enthusiastic young man of color. They weren’t enough of them coming into the profession, everyone agreed. Of course, Mrs. Haliburton had said it all along. At a time when young black males were viewed as increasingly uneducable, there was a serious need for young men of color to enter the teaching profession. They’d serve as important role models; they’d know how to win the confidence of troublesome students; they’d be living testimony of professional accomplishment outside the fields of sports and entertainment. The system could not survive as it had all these years with young black males – so many raised by single mothers! – being taught in classrooms by mostly middle- aged white women. When she first met Dave Degraffenbach she’d sounded him out for those personal traits that would endear him to her. He was raised, she learned, outside the community, on Long Island; he didn’t wear a Malcolm X goatee. What fires she sensed in his stomach seem to fuel his own personal ambitions, but he was affable, well-groomed, energetic in his roly-poly way, and everyone seemed to like him. It would have been churlish of her to raise what she perceived as shortcomings in his character. “I’m a very adaptable person,” he told her. “I get along with everybody.” This was much in evidence in the teachers’ cafeteria. He’d fill his food tray with whatever was on the menu that day, joking with the kitchen staff about portions and choices; and confessing that in any case his waist belt and stomach could cope with anything they prepared. Then he’d look around and head off to the first table that struck his fancy. For awhile he joined the Phys. Ed teachers table; they talked and laughed with locker room exuberance, in Polo shirts and sneakers never mind the weather; they organized wagers on major league sports like the super bowl game, and debated fiercely the teams’ chances. Then he sat with teachers from the Foreign Language department, a merry group of women, young and old, with hairstyles always sparkling; they ate and laughed and shared jokes from late-night TV shows they’d watched. They talked about the guests on the shows, and what movies were currently playing. Degraffenbach would slap his thighs, his clothes as loose and breezy as his manner, and repeat his favorite one-liners. One afternoon he stopped by Bilicki’s table, declaring, “Why don’t I sit with the intellectuals today… if that’s alright…how you guys doing?” Even if they wanted to they couldn’t resist his rolling good cheer. “Intellectuals? Is that who you think we are?” Bilicki said, making room with his chair, smiling. “Just kidding,” Degraffenbach said.
(from “Ah Mikhail, O Fidel”, a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
Flights to Paramaribo arrive just past midnight, if you’re coming from New York, on the regional carrier, whose seats and operations these days feel overused and over- worked. There's a nine hour wait in Port-Of-Spain, Trinidad for a connecting flight. To kill time you might consider venturing out via airport taxi; join multilane traffic under a Trinidad sun; catch a beach, “eat a food” or, if it’s Christmas, drink a Ponche de Crème. Take note and measure how close the island has moved toward developed- nation principles and practice.
The flight schedule alone is enough to discourage the unadventurous from discovering Suriname, unless you’re willing to stop over in the Republic of Guyana and risk fractious travel over land, bridges & rivers. You might also need a sense of purpose. A young couple, college-break free, speaking Dutch, wearing sandals and visiting the former colony might find it easier to look forward to quiet settings where familiarity breeds acts of kindness and harmless transgression.
The taxi ride in from the airport past midnight follows a narrow road, headlight-swept and free of anxiety. Visitors from industrial geographies might be excused for thinking they’ve entered a country of “sleepy” communities, stuck in time past, comfortable in village habits; though as you come closer to commercial areas – slowing for “drempels” (speed bumps) – and gas stations and security-lit buildings, a group of young men on motor bikes appear, hanging out (it’s Friday night); shiny crash helmets sitting on small heads, casting them as astral occupiers of night’s dreaming hours.
Next day the radio wakes you with Sranang talk and sentimental song which play on almost every station. It closes you in like elevator doors. For the rest of your stay and depending on your circumstances, you might feel digitally cut off from the world, or at least temporarily disabled; though you may or may not mind.
Over morning coffee paragraphs from the newspapers might leap out at you showing you how things are done here, [2011 AlphaMax Academy, Paramaribo] as for example this, from De Ware Tijd, recently: "The President has often stated since this government took office that he supports a transparent land policy. This has resulted in the sacking of Martinus Sastroredjo as RGB Minister after it became known that his concubine had applied for a large tract of land."
On the streets, under a Suriname sun as bright and brassy as a Trinidad sun, people go about their business, as elsewhere, in cars and in bubbles, leashed to triumphs and failings, of diverse race and creed. There are sudden fierce rain showers which stop abruptly, then skies are clear blue again. If you stay long enough you might hear of crepuscular activity, a twilight gathering of local spirits or conspiracy webs. Individuals who otherwise seem educated and informed will swear that, regardless of how things appear, each resident soul is monitored by unseen forces, by living and dead people.
The outside world has reached over language barriers, and moved deeper inland. The new consuming China with agreements-to-sign and full steaming enterprise has bespectably installed its zonal interests. Street blocks, currently home to many Brazilians, could expand in time and be viewed one day with settled pride as Little Brazil. In the Paramaribo of downtown bumper-to-bumper “progress” you are where you dine, or where you shop.
On the plane, early last year, next to my window seat was a Trinidadian (Lawrance G.) a soft-spoken man with a boxer’s upper body. Looking past 50 yrs, his fingers trembled as he settled his paper cup of coffee, hinting at a creeping vulnerability. He’d started working with an oil company soon after leaving high school in Port of Spain. How that transition straight forward happened he didn’t explain. Nickerie, in an area reportedly rich in oil deposits, was where he (and a team) were now headed on new contract & assignment.
He had travelled around the world, slipping on work boots, hard hat and gloves each day as the company probed and drilled into the earth: to Gabon (the nicest people, despite miles of deprivation); to Venezuela (the President there cares about the poor, despite puffed global moments of ad hominem fist shaking.)
Had he given any thought to How much longer, doing this? His body had endured the rigors of travel and work hazards. What excited him these days, he revealed, was exploring the working parts of the human body.
He reached into his carry-on bag and whipped out his latest purchase, the iPad. Did I own one? No? I should get one. The iPad 2, they say, has sharper screen display. To impress me his fingers brought up for viewing glossy images of organs in the body. He touch-swiped through the heart, liver, organs of reproduction, inserting his own commentary and breaths of marvel.
A world of new information, which in all likelihood could extend his longevity, was now within his reach. And though near enough for pension plan review, he wasn’t thinking of retiring, not just yet. (Though where – in his hands? strong character? – lay the source of that span of energy upholding him over the years.)
So what was my business in Suriname, he wanted to know, now that he had shared information and we were no longer strangers? Why was I going there? To see an old friend, I told him. And to learn about an event he was planning.
The event was the launch of a book, “Msiba, My Love”, by poet, Ivan A. Khayiat, a Guyanese educator who lives in Suriname. (The publication launch seems as ubiquitous these days as the baby shower.)
Khayiat describes it as a “symphonic poem”. It has a coffee-table book readiness – assuming that books are still welcome these days on coffee tables – with high gloss pictures and supportive verse revealing the natural beauty of Suriname, and the ecological damage done to parts of its landscape. And it comes with a companion DVD of evocative images and soundtrack over which voices, in English and Dutch, present the poem in heartfelt cadences.
"Msiba" DVD offers ten minutes of shimmering surfaces. It may be much less than a "symphonic” work, but the launch apparently made for a wonderful, rare evening out for invitees in Paramaribo. The Government of Suriname, it is reported, has adopted the DVD & book as a state gift for visiting dignitaries, impressed no doubt by what it sees as an excellent mix of art photo information and spoken words about the country, framed by knowledgeable, friendly hands.
Finding brave new worlds imagined by Suriname writers and artists might require a long stay, some search and enquiry. There is evidence of activity – workshops, art discourse, exhibitions – facilitated by stakeholders in Holland. A more vibrant, grand platform for exposing creative talent to residents and visitors is certain to be avail- able when the next big cultural event, the regional festival for the Arts (Carifesta), takes place in Suriname in 2013.
In the meantime, Wan Fu Nyun Winti Seti Sranan Bun. So the sharp suits and bill- boards say. – W.W.
≈☼≈
OPHELIA MAROON
Every leaf will return to blaze sharp green all about me through days without night (and yet no star shall be erased.) My gaze is the same as the sun’s; neither smile nor frown. My gown of water is all red and white buds not yet burst like my heart.
More often than not MaryJane Syphers sat alone with a cup of coffee and her cigarettes and a folder of scripts over which she poured diligently, hardly looking up; though if anyone happened to stop by at her table she’d interrupt what she was doing and give them her undivided attention, brushing back strands of hair; and turning in her chair, leaning forward to share confidences. The semester was weeks away from Christmas. Classes were set to run right down to the start of the holidays, leaving teachers no time for seasonal shopping. A memo from department chairs reminded faculty that Christmas parties, or events linked to the spirit of the season, were to be discouraged. In fact, classroom observations of teachers were scheduled for just this time, when students, in a fractious celebratory mood, made classroom management difficult for everyone. Radix, Mahmood and Bilicki were more than happy to find each other during the lunch period. The situation in the hallways was approaching levels of the “chaos” MaryJane had described. Radix had attempted once to separate two students fighting in his class. He was advised by Quickenbush to follow Union guidelines – take yourself out of harm’s way first; get help from security personnel. He talked to Bilicki about this – was it a really dangerous thing to do, jumping in to separate two students fighting? When MaryJane did stop by again, it was on a day of hysterics and incident. There had been a knife stabbing on the 1st floor. There was a trail of blood spots leading to a stairwell, but no sign of the victim. Two security officers with much theatrical hand gesture directed foot traffic away from the blood spots. MaryJane gasped, then thinking there must be a wounded student somewhere in the building, she started following the blood trail. Thinking better of it she turned back, muttering, “O my God!” She entered the cafeteria as the Principal was appealing over the P.A. system for calm on the 2nd and 3rd floors. She swept past their table, her shoulders bunched; she came back, gave them a look of terror, and in a harsh trembling voice, the tendons stretched on her neck, she said, “What did I tell you? What did I tell you? We’re way past redemption now.” Then she rushed off again. They looked at her, speechless. They had no idea what she meant. They supposed she was referring to what they’d been discussing – the general breakdown of order in the building. Annoyed at the school’s effort to dampen or ignore the Christmas season, students were finding ways to celebrate. Someone kept pulling the fire alarm. Bells went off almost every day. They rang for five minutes before someone shut the alarm off, but the strobe lights kept flashing and teachers were never sure what to do – ignore the bells, wait for an announcement or vacate the building right away. Outside the sirens of fire units could be heard approaching. Then there were nerve-jangling bangs as from left-over Halloween firecrackers; fights erupting in the hallways; and the emptying of classrooms when someone stuck his head in the door and shouted, “Fight!” Bilicki railed at attempts by the administration to downplay the gravity of the situation. It was the responsibility of the supervisors to provide a safe learning environment in the building. Evidently they were failing to do so. The school was on a slippery slope, moving closer and closer to a state of anarchy. There was this proposal he’d been working on. He was thinking, he said, of forming a watchdog group. He had a name for it, Excellence in Teaching. No, this was not another attempt to run for office. The watchdog group would throw a spotlight on areas where radical improvements could be made. It would be a far cry from the sentiments emanating from the principal’s office; a far cry, too, from the police blotter of alarming incidents issued by the Union chairman. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about it. He wanted to hear, first, what Radix and Mahmood thought. (from “Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!”, a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
Raised to bury or block thrill display, tamp down spread fires until the right darkness when there’s no excuse, he can get madrass bad all he want. Fresh water lily blooming years , the having to cross a river of lizards, uniformed for learning. Ankle socks skirting city masques, shops that would shutter quickly if snatch street dogs unchain making you run for fabric cover.
All of which jewels you the rani of cold wait, brown eyes on search clues for newspaper crosswords on Metro rides. From close in feel of others you extricate. Leg pant sleeve scarf export ovals of virtue, scorn all you want! There’s honour, too, in silence, men with beady eyes and fingers teach.
A secret worth keyholes? everybody codes one. Okay, your mother one day pulls you past this house, a woman crying her fate out under a tree, wife hammer, in hammock, swing pending. What if your serve time’s being arranged? lamb cheeks raised, the chosen vowed to rear? Indigo & beards, they say, share flower bed licks, bless compliant lips; the leaf rustle of undress.
Victoria you’re not, Sha’riya, gyal. Reed slim you wisp past swayed behinds tattoos on spine. Plus, why back side with bugging issues, gnats to ambition? Desire, futures horned in gold, swell locked. In Crescent village news gather for breaking: Girl doing fine. No time to link. Busy studying. Still, what if, chance willing ̶ angstamber! ̶ ankle bracelets raise? one leg has flashed through the fabric slit, you’re learning the tango noon prayers never intended. Sacred months pass. João (de Janeiro) might notice now you wider whirl, faith weights of expectation lifting; petal webbed, not quite the renouncer. Tracking off. Wired paths from profile page found ̶ Olá e Bem-Vinda! ̶ saved. Reset you’re all.
- W.W. �
160;
THE MASKED MAN TO THE MADAME
To the tango of blood that hurries, woman of green, waltz only. Across the cobra’s forehead that burns as it tries to climb your ladder of fire, drape your snow veil. Wait until night to drop your buds and thorns on to roofs of sleep and to the moon’s flag a feather kiss. (from “Fabula Rasa” by Brian Chan)
MaryJane Syphers (English) stopped by their table one morning with clicking heels, a scraping of the chair and a dramatic collapse. This was her manner of arriving anywhere in the building, always with a clatter and a crash, as if her body were a wooden cross she must drag each day through the hallways. In other classes the kids did a riotous imitation of Miss Syphers’ entrance – “Alright, settle down quickly everyone, let’s get this over with, painlessly and seriously.” – like rehearsals of grim resolve. At their table, once settled, she searched her bag with squirrelly urgency for a cigarette, all the while speaking fiercely to Bilicki who was her intended target. She lit up, threw her head back, exhaled; and only then did she seem to acknowledge the presence of Radix and Mahmood. Mahmood nodded and turned the pages of his Times. Radix looked at her, then looked away, a wave of resentment sweeping over him. He hoped it didn’t show on his face. What he resented was the way she’d barged in, how abruptly she’d cordoned off Bilicki for conversation. Strangers mere seconds ago, they contrived to ignore each other. MaryJane talked to Bilicki about a “stupid” note she’d just received from Pete Plimpler about her “failure” to submit to him, as requested, the lesson outline for her classes. That she should be subjected to this level of humiliation, after all these years, was a sign of how terrible things had become in the department. Bilicki listened and nodded in sympathy; he was growing a new beard. MaryJane shifted her behind around and pulled on her cigarette, as if wishing all her problems with the department chair, with the school, would quietly go up in smoke, leaving her lungs and her life in blissful contentment. Radix couldn’t bear to look at her saucer-round eyes, the lines writhing on her skin; couldn’t bear the meanness in her voice. He turned in his chair and made a point of looking anywhere but at her. And MaryJane, who sensed how displeased he was by her intrusion but couldn’t care less, coolly exhaled and carried on. “Did you get your guidelines for tomorrow’s Parent-Teachers conference?” at one point she asked Bilicki. “What guidelines?” “It’s in your mailbox. Memo from our beloved Supervisor. Reminding us how to conduct ourselves when we meet with the parents. You know, what to say to them, what not to say.” Bilicki shook his head. “They want us to focus on the positive. We must be careful not to cause injury to the self-esteem of the little darlings. Parents have enough problems of their own. They don’t come to our conferences to be told negative things.” MaryJane flicked ash off her cigarette in Bilicki’s empty coffee cup; and then, deciding this was perhaps the moment to open portals of interest in Bilicki’s friends, she said, switching her glance between Bilicki and Radix: “I think parents have a right to know what’s really going on in the classrooms. On a daily basis. I mean, what good does it do hiding the truth?” Then looking directly at Radix: “When you’ve been here as long as I have, you begin to see the bigger picture. We’re engaged in a never-ending war. Between order and chaos. And it seems to me that with every passing day we are losing that war.” She stopped talking for a minute, her blanched face bristling with certainty. She appeared to be waiting for Radix to say something, assuming he had something interesting to say. And Radix, clearing his throat, said, “Sometimes a little chaos is useful.” “I’m sorry. I didn’t…” MaryJane looked at him with quite frightening, staring eyes. Radix raised his voice: “I said, sometimes a little chaos can go a long way. You know, shaking things up…turning old habits upside down. It’s like, things have a way of calcifying, if you see what I mean.” MaryJane sat back, her finger propping her chin, studying this man, wondering who he really was. “Some people get stuck in their habits and offices…and routines, so a little chaos might help start a revolution.” “A revolution!” MaryJane gave a hoarse, incredulous laugh. “So that’s what this is all about.” She’d heard what sounded like resentment in his voice. She stared, backing away, but only so she could measure his range, let him flounder about as he got the angry stuff off his chest. When she spoke again her voice was controlled and precise. “Don’t get me wrong. There’s always enough blame to go around. Never enough money, the building’s in disrepair, the bureaucracy’s out of touch. And burnt-out teachers like me keep bitching at everybody.” She laughed and reached out to grasp Bilicki’s arm. “When you get right down to it,” she resumed, “we come here every day to teach. But these students, bless their poor hearts, come here with no readiness to learn. You’re constantly spoon-feeding them. Serving it up like Gerber baby food. And when you think they’ve got it, they walk out the door and…poof… it’s gone, all gone, turned to vapor.” Gathering her books and papers, she prepared to drag herself off. She shook her head, so sad, the situation we're in, and confessed she was near the end of her tether. She was thinking the other day it was time to call it quits. Hand everything over to the younger folk. “Like this young man here,” she said, tossing a smile like a bouquet at Radix. (from “Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!” a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
One morning Bilicki and Radix were joined by Mahmood Sharif; his teaching schedule had changed abruptly, assigning him a new ‘lunch period’. Mahmood was in his forties. A quiet scholarly-looking man, he had travelled from Iran – via London, the Virgin Islands and California, at each stop a classroom teacher – to John Wayne Cotter H.S. in the Bronx. He, too, was skeptical of the cafeteria food, but he ate it anyway. He brought a folded copy of the New York Times, and he divided his attention between conversation at the table and issues on the front page. Sometimes, disturbed by a headline or an article, he’d make disapproving sounds with his tongue. “Trouble back home?” Bilicki would ask. Mahmood would shake his head. “There’s always trouble back home,” he said once. “Whether your home is the Middle East or the Caribbean.” He looked at Radix for confirmation. “The news reported in the Times is always about trouble.” “That’s right,” Radix said. “For the Times, the world is full of trouble spots. You can sit here and read all about trouble spots. And you’re free to feel troubled, or not troubled at all.” Mahmood seemed easily disturbed by articles reporting the behavior of a world leader or a world agency. He’d tsk tsk and say, “I can’t believe what the State Department is doing now.” Or, “Listen to what Bush is saying.” Or, “This Margaret Thatcher is an evil woman.” He had a keen sense of the world as a violent playground. The players, the elected leaders, made moves or statements that set things in violent motion. His abiding concern was for ordinary working people all over the globe, “the rock breakers of the world”, who only wished to get on with their humble lives; who invariably got caught up in the machinations of world leaders. Once Radix heard him sigh, “O Fidel, Fidel!” He looked up and wondered aloud what had happened, had the Cuban leader died? No, he hadn’t, Mahmood assured him, smiling. He drove a Volkswagen to the school. He’d bought the car when he lived in California, and he’d driven it all the way to New York when he moved. His wife, he said, was urging him to trade it in, purchase a fancy new vehicle, a Japanese import. His wife, he sighed, did not understand how someone could remain as faithful to a car as a man to a horse. These revelations about the car and his wife, spoken with humor and an open-eyed plea for understanding, impressed Radix. The man’s gentle manner, his seeming lack of affectation, as well as the fire of concern inside him for the working people, “the rock breakers of the world”, struck him as genuine. Mahmood, it turned out, had a doctorate degree. So, shouldn’t he be lecturing somewhere, inspiring college freshmen with his passion? What was he doing in New York, a high school teacher? worlds away from his true audience? wearing his jacket with the elbow patch, and perusing the Times? For thirty minutes each day, over lunch, their table was the place for intense exchange. Tightly knit, almost conspiratorial in manner, they seemed so unlike other teachers on lunch break, most of whom were just relieved to be out of a classroom for a spell, enjoying a cigarette, or some foil-wrapped bone of gossip. People stopped by, ostensibly to speak to Bilicki, but curious about his friends, about what could possibly bind them together each day. They rested a hand on Bilicki’s shoulder. When they sensed conversation had paused or frozen as a result of their apparent intrusion, they drifted away. Quickenbush would join them on occasion. He hovered and smiled, half-listening to the talk; sometimes he sat and acted as if he wasn’t really there. One day he wondered aloud about the accuracy of reports published in the Times. What did he mean? Mahmood asked. Well, take for instance, a recent article about Japan where he, Quickenbush, had lived for several years. What the writer was saying about the Japanese seemed to him “way off base”. The Times, he felt certain, preferred to publish sugar-coated, anecdotal stuff, easy to digest with your morning coffee. If anyone really wanted to learn about the forces shaping events in Japan and around the world, the best place to turn to was The Wall Street Journal. And with that Quickenbush got up abruptly and left the table. (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
Our time on stage, how we balled and raved, the Mystic Revs, high turquoise waves, John & Zulaika, compañero Joe, Carroll whose dance moves swelled with forgiveness. Clinging to maroons of bass how we soared, unpierced navels and constant springs, single white Aussie knee grip on the drum – Go deh natty!
The smell of bus diesel to Cross Roads, trod down town for new Marley 45, smoky darkness of Roger Mais hills, the birth of dreadlock blues. The streets after Rodney, how we surged, downpressed, batty bwoy, blood & seed & I, news of the struggle in Mozam- bique, black brown haute class forming rites, women 1st Ministers cut priming – Sight?
Ikael whose Israelites wouldn't stand for reason, base line bound MMorris slicing poems like tennis balls, the rude bwoy who tossed his bike in the pool when they wouldn't let him; other dash aways kin torn, stealing mango for dinner, peeled orange from the rolling calf tree. Cross many rivers gun rain, and duppy curing canna leaf, conqueror for eye.
No no, gone-a-foreign mi no play, mi no smoke pipe painter wanti-want you how you were, grass grow long, drying now grey years. Seh sky blue mountain, return past due? No no no, the skies hail up dew new; see't come running? bolt like time flew? Life pounding, life still; iPower fall fi yu.
– W.W.
BIRD
My wings flutter before they fold as once more I settle for this flatness of earth I can always soar above but never ignore.
It was still early in the semester, a chilly October morning, when Radix first met Bilicki. He was sitting alone in the cafeteria, not yet sufficiently secure to approach and join teachers at their tables. As yet he had made few friends. Class schedules, the paperwork, the still foreign procedures all kept him moving, and restricted him to an exchange of passing courtesies with teachers. The lunch period in the cafeteria was the only available time to cultivate friendships. Bilicki came up to his table with a brown bag from which he removed a sandwich and an apple, and he said, "Mind if I sit here?" looking around as if he didn't relish sitting anywhere else. Radix looked down at his food tray and tried not to appear unsociable. "Is that all you're having?" he said, pointing his fork at Bilicki's apple and sandwich. Bilicki nodded. "When I started here," he said, removing the plastic wrap from his sandwich, "I was tempted by the French Fries, you know how it hits you the minute you walk in? Like you're walking into a McDonalds." "I know what you mean," Radix said. "And you're so famished, you think, that's exactly what I need now, some of that good-smelling stuff. After awhile your stomach starts working like a cement mixer." Bilicki spoke as if measuring each word he released. He looked around in a vaguely contemptuous manner. Radix chewed and studied him: the pony tail, the hair brushed straight back exposing much forehead, tired-looking eyes, his thoughtful way of chewing. This man, he concluded, had endured several tours of duty in the building; he was no doubt and expert on cafeteria food, bowel action and any school issue he cared to talk about. "My problem is not with the food," Radix said. Then perhaps out of a need to unburden his new teacher estrangement he plunged into an explanation. He was still struggling, he said, with the start of day routines, the class schedules, the way things were arranged in the building. Coming from an island where everyone woke up round about the time the cocks crowed, and breakfast lunch and dinner were more like rituals in sync with the movement of the sun, he found it hard getting up at 5.00, having his first meal at 5.30, still dark outside, then again at 10.30 which was his assigned lunch break until the work day ended. He'd had to make some adjustments, but this unusual eating pattern was playing havoc with his stomach. Bilicki kept chewing in a way that suggested his sandwich and apple needed as much sympathy and attention as Radix' story. Thinking perhaps he should not have opened up after so brief an an acquaintance, Radix fell silent. They met again the next and the day after, Bilicki with his paper bag, Radix persevering with the cafeteria menu. Their conversation warmed up, bit by bit Bilicki expanded. He talked about the school, the teachers, policies he detested, what he loved about teaching. As the weeks went by they anticipated meeting each other during lunch period. The table they sat at became their table, their spot. (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
On his way from the teachers' cafeteria one morning Bilicki glanced in at the adjoining students' cafeteria and saw Quickenbush. He was pushing a garbage container on wheels between the tables, and with bare hands picking up empty cartons he found on the floor. Laughing and joking with the students, he seemed not at all uncomfortable in his role – the Chapter Chairman reporting for cafeteria duty in his 'building assignment' period. What on earth was he up to now? Pandering to a student constituency? Parading some new egalitarian image for everyone to notice? Bilicki caught his eye. Quickenbush looked away, then paused to hold a grinning exchange with two Hispanic girls. They laughed as if Mr. Quickenbush outside the classroom was really something else, a cool funny down-to-earth guy. Instead of walking away, convinced the man was an arch deceiver, Bilicki entered the cafeteria, his intention, to let Quickenbush know there was at least one person in the building not taken in by his shameless calculated behavior. "Well, well…what have we here? You plan to run in the student council elections too?" Quickenbush gave him a cut-off smile; then he stooped to pick up a milk carton. And it seemed in the hiatus as if Bilicki's remark, assuming it was meant to impact, had missed its target by a mile. "Working hard, that I am," Quickenbush said. "I'm no stranger to menial labor, Mr. Bilicki." "What are you really doing here?' "What does it look like I'm doing here?" Quickenbush paused, asked a student to pass empty trays for deposit in his container, then continued: "My father always told me it doesn't matter how important or how small you think you are. There's no shame, no disgrace in reaching down and picking up something that has fallen." With that reference to his father, the blatant fabrication about what his father always told him, Bilicki felt in the privacy of his full heart he'd found a reason to reach for Quickenbush's throat, to squeeze that throat slowly with bare hands. He noticed with satisfaction the balding spot on top of his head, which was unusual for a man only thirty years old. "Shouldn't you be in the hallways somehere…? Patrolling, arresting or handcuffing perps?" Bilicki asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Quickenbush laughed, as if finally he understood Bilicki's game. Then as if to make it seem he was in no mood to play, he had work to do, he moved away pushing the container, inviting Bilicki to trail after him if he wanted to keep up his line of talk. And Bilicki, not prepared to trail, feeling suddenly stopped and a little foolish, glanced at his watch and swung away out of the cafeteria. He'd given in to an asinine impulse; he'd committed a gaffe talking that way; now he felt worse than a gaffer. He felt like a beaten bitter veteran with nothing to offer these days but beaten bitter remarks. It stayed with him for the rest of the day, this embarassed feeling, the subtle push back he'd suffered at the hands of Quickenbush. Back in his department lounge he tried marking homework assignments; he couldn't concentrate; his heart was filled with misery and loathing. For relief he let his mind play with scenarios of punishment and pain. A knife was too messy, bare hands too banal for Quickenbush. He'd like to walk into the building next Monday with six pit bulls panting and pulling on leash. He'd spot Quickenbush in the cafeteria. He'd tell the students to leave, then he'd release the dogs. The dogs would corner Quickenbush, biting and tearing and chomping. A bleeding Quickenbush, intestines hanging out his stomach, would scream for mercy, confess he hadn't been completely honest in his dealings, beg him to call off the dogs. Bilicki would look at his watch and walk away. He was late for a class. The dogs were well trained. When they were done with Quickenbush they knew where to find him. (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
Otherwise a good tenant Hamid lets bulbs burn all day in every room through winter. Makes no sense, I told him: how do you sleep? how much do you send home? "Do you know in my village? there are 24 hour funeral pyres for body disposal." Excuse me! and the shoeless skinny old river gods fired ̶ they failed to ferry dead souls 'cross the Ganges ̶ strike back with sewage garlands and immersions, but what do I know?
"But who're we here? tails working off? like slave device?" Hadassah: to the Pizzeria help who swears under the Mali wrap she wears from Spring 'til Fall her buttocks shudder. She rents on the 17th floor cleansed view of sky and peaks and domes salt slates; she prizes her acrylic bathtub, she strips lowers tears away for hours through bird calls petals prayers. No hands dare reach touch sponge inside her thighs again, and how do I know? care takers hear: swollen résumés relieving fear slime wiped, stomachs rewiring.
See, back there ̶ no word, some missing arms and legs ̶ blood let left sigh assume you didn't transfuse. Only the coyotes' rapture whiffs where last your bones sought rest: so close the Arizona fence, so near the Lampedusa shore where lungs scoop bailing bailing out the chest; where worn from wait! a cobra head demands you spread I take, or else! life savings lost right there.
Free reset means light bills paid, with fist on heart and limbs pledged wide you can design abodes for borders! die or dare, take leopard steps to side walk vamps of rupture. Being the Super, these things I know; they're cyclothymed to happen. You hear knee angers sudding swirling drain to schools of effluence forming in the earth. And mine like metal earth rare your own business. -W.W.
MAROON ON NOVEMBER ROCK
With no books by which to read me now, I write one, on the blank air; with a finger trace the wordless mountains of memory as in and out of clouds they haze,
erasing and rewriting
their peaks; and with my breath reshape my book of days whose light daily still returns yet nightly longer and longer stays sunk beneath this indifferent swelling sea.
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 