Tag: Caribbean Fiction

 

            

                    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)

              

 

 

  

                     
               Chapter Chair Quackenbush sent out a fresh bulletin to his troops
               assuring them the battle for John Wayne Cotter H.S. was ongoing; talks
               with the Board of Education were continuing. All was not lost, something
               would be worked out. In the proposals for change, the interests of the 
               teachers were paramount and would not be compromised.

               All of which had a nice ring of defiance, but did little to lift spirits. 

               Two teachers in Radix' department were among several who went on
               extended sick leave. The word was they were cashing in their accumulated
               sick days and, fearing the worst, looking for jobs outside the teaching
               profession. Their absence meant that substitutes were sent by the Board
               to man the classrooms. This led to frequent scenes of disruption, the
               mobilizing of school Security. 

               There was a huge commotion one day that nearly grew into a riot. A 
               substitute teacher had  "lost control of her class", as the dean of discipline
               explained later. 

               She was from Nigeria, and she wore a bright patterned robe whenever   
               she reported for duty. She didn't have a classroom key, so her class was
               usually found milling around outside a locked door. And she was tired of
               asking other teachers, who smiled but seemed irritated, to open doors for
               her. 

               The students couldn't pronounce her name so they quickly settled for "Miss 
               Mandela". They mimicked her accent  ̶  You children haavve no risspec!! 
                ̶  they drew chalk pictures of her on the board, exaggerating the tortoise
               shell glasses on her nose. They asked her questions about Africa, and made
               monkey noises which, she reminded them, were "very racist". 

               On the day she "lost control" she'd told a student to Shut up! (Later she
               argued she didn't see any harm in what she said, didn't understand why Be
               quiet! would be the preferred choice of words.) The offended student rose
               to his feet, threw down his chair in outrage, came up to her desk, and 
               screamed  ̶  You telling me to shut up?  YOU shut up! You shut the FUCK
               up!  ̶  his hands menacing, but not touching her. The class went  ̶  whoo!
               whoo! whoo!  ̶  and drummed on the desks; a few more chairs got thrown
               down. The commotion spilled out in the hallway, triggering an exodus from
               nearby classrooms of students thinking there was a fight". Worried
               teachers, fearing "loss of control" on the entire floor, called for Security. 

               Spring days, still cool but warming up, led to a breakout of seasonal
               colours and  fashion among the students, prompting Principal Wamp to
               issue stern warnings  about exposed mid-sections and the general tone of
               the building. 

               Despite the overhanging gloom some teachers seemed strangely energized.
               Bill McCraggen had switched to season (army) green tee shirts, short
               pants, sneakers and tube socks, and a Yankee baseball cap. His Girls
               Soccer team was out on the field getting ready for the season. 

               His commitment to task attracted smirks from teachers who couldn't see
               the point, since soon there would be no John Wayne Cotter H.S. To which
               Bill McCraggen would retort,  coolly swinging his coach whistle, that come
               what may, they would be really "stoopid" to shut down the sports
               department. Not after all the years of winning trophies. If nothing else,
               the school could boast about its fine sports tradition. There were plaques, 
               awards, teams pictures and memories going back decades. Doing away
               with the sports department would be plain "stoopid". 

               Jim Lightbody switched to blue jeans (under which he wore his long johns)
               a checkered shirt and cowboy hat. He kept saying he had a new job
               already lined up "out in Texas", but nobody believed him.

               There was now, more frequently than before, the strong aroma of 
               marijuana in the stairwells. Somebody was smoking marijuana in the
               building. No one was ever seen, no one was ever caught; and everyone
               suspected those quick-tempered, foul-mouthed Jamaican students who
               walked the hallways and hung about on the sidewalk during morning
               sessions because the weather was really nice.

               Radix tried not to think about what would happen come June.  He
               expected to be excessed; last hired, first to be laid off. Not much he could
               do about it. He carried on dutifully. He even took time out to quell
               student fears about their future, explaining there was nothing to worry 
               about, education in one form or another would continue. He avoided
               hallway huddles and didn't say much of anything to anyone.

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

  

         

                    We must work harder. We must keep stirring the pot, Mambisi Colon
                    exhorted, trying to keep the family spirits up. 

                    But anxieties were mounting among many of the John Wayne Cotter
                    Pyramid players. It was looking bad for everyone still in the game.

                    Judy Wiener felt the acute embarrassment of having to admit she 
                    might lose her investment. Some teachers, the sensible non-players, 
                    formed huddles of their own. In the hallways, in the cafeteria she 
                    could sense them smirking. Mrs. Caratini didn't drop by as often. And
                    the students, surely they must think something was going on. What did
                    they make of someone knocking on the door, interrupting the lesson,
                    calling the teacher outside for a hasty conference?

                    One morning Xavier came into the room, handed her an envelope and 
                    said brusquely, "Here". When she opened it she found 10 hundred dollar
                    bills. She looked at him, confounded, trembling. Where did you get
                    this?  He said one of the teachers gave it to him, told him to deliver it
                    to her. "I didn't ask any questions." What did he mean, One of the
                    teachers? "I didn't ask any questions." She looked at the bills, she
                    looked at Xavier. What did he mean, he didn't ask any questions? But
                    Xavier had retreated to his desk; his head was down, as if after hard
                    hours at his night job he didn't want to be disturbed.

                    Did he know what was in the envelope? Which "teacher" in his right
                    mind would ask a student to deliver an envelope with a thousand
                    dollars? What was going on here? 

                    Minutes later, a knock on the door. When it opened, Mambisi Colon
                    walked in. Her manner suggested unhappiness. Judy Wiener looked up
                    and her face must have betrayed bewilderment and fear.

                    "I was robbed last night" Robbed? "Yes, robbed. Three men came to my
                     house late last night and demanded money." Judy Wiener's face went
                     white with shock. Did she call the police? "Hell, no. I don't want the
                     police meddling in my business. Nobody's going to pull a stunt like this
                     and get away with it." What stunt? What was she talking about? "I'm
                     saying, three people barged into my home and demanded their money
                     back. One guy, I know who he is, wanted his money back. Which was
                     fine. But then he called the names of two people and he said they
                     wanted their money back too. One of the names was yours."  

                     Judy Wiener felt pierced through the heart. She uttered a half-
                     credulous laugh. "Me?…my name?" "Yes, your name." Her wide open,
                     not yet accusing eyes studied Judy Wiener's face. "But that's im-
                     possible. I didn't ask anyone to do anything like that. In any case,
                     my group split off from your family, remember? We meet in Queens."
                     "That's what I figured. It doesn't make sense. And you're near the top.
                     So why would you want your money back? Anyway I wasn't going to 
                     give them anything; but then these two other guys, they were
                     wearing these snow-day face masks so you could only see their eyes
                     and nose, they had guns in their waist bands." Judy sat down slowly, 
                     horrified. "Yes, guns; they unbuttoned their coats and I saw these
                     guns. And I knew right away I'd be dead, dead, if I didn't hand over the
                     money. So I gave them the money. $3.000. They wanted it in three
                     separate envelopes. I gave it to them"

                     Judy Wiener was now speechless. She hoped her face conveyed the
                     proper sag of commiseration, didn't give away anything else. She
                     sensed Mambisi Colon's eyes still looking for clues, for some give-away
                     flicker of complicity.

                     Over at the computers her class was pecking away at the keys. Xavier 
                     looked up from what he had written and said, What a predicament! as
                     if the words he'd just typed had given him great satisfaction. "I'll be
                     with you in a minute," she shouted, deflecting the watchful suspicion
                     on the other's face, and giving herself reason to breathe.

                     And Mambisi Colon turned and walked away in a flourish, showing off
                     what she was wearing that day  ̶̶  shiny black pants, shiny black shoes,
                     a turtleneck sweater  ̶  as if to suggest the loss of $3.000 in one night
                     had not in any way devastated her wardrobe. "I'm going to get to the
                     bottom of this, " she shouted at the door. And Judy Wiener looked
                     down at her desk and said, "Well, let me know what happened."

                     She looked at Xavier. She knew that inside his shiny skull lay answers
                     to all this. She had only to walk over there and gently tease the truth 
                     out; but would he be willing to talk to her? Maybe he was writing it all
                     down in his Journal. From his hunch over the keyboard she sensed a
                     surly concentration.

                     At the end of the class, without another word, Xavier left the room.
                     She restrained an impulse to call him back.

                     For the rest of the day she felt wretched with guilt and worry; it was
                     difficult to concentrate on familiar tasks. She muttered fretfully to
                     herself; and from a distance she sensed in the hallway the alarm
                     among teachers generated by Mambisi Colon who must have told her
                     story a hundred times and mentioned Judy Wiener's name; so that, like
                     it or not, her name was now linked to some alarming gun-brandishing 
                     incident in the Bronx.

                     She braced herself expecting to be stopped and questioned, with
                     unctuous smiles from the questioner, about rumours of her
                     "involvement". She was ready to protest, I really don't know what this
                     is all about.

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

 

 

 

 

  

                    Forced to decide whom to trust  ̶  Mambisi Colon and her Pyramid
                    enterprise, or Mrs. Caratini, friend and erstwhile savior, though nursing
                    surprisingly bitter resentment  ̶  Judy Wiener sided with Mambisi Colon.

                    In fact, she allowed herself to be won over by the woman's soft-spoken
                    but intense manner. When she wasn't speaking, Mambisi Colon  fingered
                    the chain with a cross that rested on her bosom. When she spoke she'd
                    lower her voice to levels of shared uncertainty; at the same time she
                    offered the assurance everything would be fine

                    She had wide, round hips and a double chin, but she moved down the
                    corridors at ease with her body weight distribution. To Judy Wiener this
                    suggested a woman of solid grounded trustworthiness who felt things,
                    who had good strong feelings about the Pyramid game. It seemed all
                    above board. If it was nothing but a scam, she felt sure Mambisi Colon
                    would have nothing to do with it.

                    The meetings for envelope exchange were held on Mondays. Mambisi
                    Colon came to her classroom with a hand-drawn map of directions to
                    the meeting place, so accurate, you couldn't possibly get lost.

                    And what an adventure it turned out to be; entering "strange"
                    neighborhoods, searching for parking space, sometimes blocks away
                    from the address; the walk back up a sloping sidewalk.

                    Judy Wiener walked as if she knew these streets. She was familiar with
                    the street names from addresses on home contact cards handed in by
                    students. She walked past brown and black faces, like the faces she 
                    passed in hallways; and she braced herself half-expecting to be
                    recognized and hailed. She took little notice of groups of idlers outside
                    the fluorescent-lit Delis at street corners, or in doorways of buildings,
                    feeling certain they preferred to remain unnoticed.

                    She was surprised at her own courage; and even more surprised when
                    nothing unusual happened. No one leapt out of the dark to assault her.
                    No one vandalized her car. Her anxieties quickly drained away; things 
                    seemed as normal as one would expect in any neighborhood; the sense
                    of danger, always exaggerated, quickly evaporated. 

                    One night she stepped into the elevator of an apartment building; its
                    occupants, two elderly white women, short, bespectacled, like almost
                    dressed-alike sisters, remarked how odd it seemed: the elevators were
                    crowded with strangers, particularly at this hour; on Monday nights; 
                    black men and women. 

                    Something was going on; they didn't feel entirely safe as they were
                    used to. They looked at her, hoping she'd confirm their suspicions. 

                    Judy Weiner smiled; she explained she was a visitor herself, and though
                    she couldn't comment on their suspicions, she didn't think there was 
                    anything to be alarmed about. The two ladies got off on the second
                    floor, muttering, Well I don't know. 

                    When she rang the bell a smiling face greeted and ushered her in. 
                    There were people everywhere, sitting, standing; a television set
                    flickered in the living room. 

                    She was surprised to discover white faces from John Wayne Cotter in
                    the crowd Carol Boardingham, Mrs. Fuqua and Amy Nirza from the 
                    attendance office. They sat apart, too tense and anxious to speak; they
                    acknowledged her arrival with a smile, but didn't appear eager to come
                    over and form a huddle. 

                    In the basement the newcomers to the game were receiving their
                    introduction, complete with charts and warm explanations. At some 
                    point Mambisi Colon, moving around in a capacious robe and turban
                    hat, and enjoying her role as Pyramid matriarch, announced it was
                    time to form the "family" groups; time for the good news, the hand
                    over of envelopes. "We have to work a little harder stirring the pot,"
                    she chided amiably. 

                    Judy Weiner had hoped to get Michael Radix interested in the game; he
                    was decidedly against the idea. To her surprise, Mr. Obanjemfuna, who
                    had initially turned down her invitation, came back to say he was 
                    interested. He came in eventually, bringing with him a few of his
                    Nigerian friends. 

                    For awhile it was comforting to be swept along in the undertow of
                    Mambisi Colon who'd been to the Pyramid top twice and was on her
                    third trip up. Suddenly one evening Judy Wiener learnt that her
                    "family" was about to be branched off; she was two steps from the top,
                    but she would be severed from the Mambisi Colon family; they would
                    form a separate group with arrangements to meet out in the Queens
                    borough.

                    This was alien territory to her. She had to pay a toll, cross the Throgs
                    Neck bridge. The directions to the house of meetings seemed less
                    precise, the street names unfamiliar. Mr. Obanjemfuna and his Nigerian
                    friends were with her, but sometimes they got lost on the way and
                    arrived late.  

                    Things were beginning to stall; new players just weren't coming in; her 
                    old fears that this was altogether a bad idea resurfaced. She could ask
                    for her initial investment back, but so close to the top it seemed
                    foolish to pull out; and in any case no one was quite ready to hand back
                    one thousand dollars. 

                    She drove back over the Throgs Neck Bridge, the car windows misting 
                    up, and she'd swear ugly words when the car hit a pothole. Her heart
                    was sick with worry she'd been wrong, wildly wrong, to get involved in 
                    this. She hadn't heard of one teacher, apart from Mambisi Colon, who
                    had made it to the Pyramid top. Not one.

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

 

 

 

 

                    He was about to pull in and lock the door when a sheet of paper near the
                    teacher's desk caught his eye. On an impulse he went back in, picked it up,
                    meaning to discard it in the waste container. On a second impulse he read
                    what was scribbled on it; some sort of conversation between two students they
                    must have written and past back and forth.

                             do u know what Anthony said 2 me this morning on the patio!    

                             Well I guess you want me to ask!
                             So what? 

                             Well u fucking right! He said, Jessica Delgado
                             report 2 my penis immediately.
                             I said F U!!!

                             I can explain how that Jessica Delgado report thing started.
                             Anthony is a prick!

                   Strange, that students would leave something like this lying around. Maybe it
                   slipped out of a student's notebook.                        

                   But there it was, evidence from the 90s generation  ̶   so carefree and careless
                   with their bodies, so blasé about sex; hormones swarming like locust through
                   the leaves of their brains.

                   Report 2 my penis! So much of this was nothing but Ready to Burst foreplay; the
                   bitches in giggling huddle, the dogs prowling hallways in sniffing packs. Those
                   baggy-pants boys with their gold chains, mouths and arms in constant motion;
                   boys wanting to be men.

                   The way they talked to the girls; the way the girls talked back; dogs and bitches
                   tossing casual snarls at each other.

                   And to think that back in his day Dana Ricci found black boys attractive. This
                   was what she told him  ̶  Black boys know how to do it!  ̶   when he tried for the 
                   second  time, humble and apologetic, to get her up to his room. I know what
                   I'm talking about, she'd sniggered, shooting a look of contempt at his crotch;
                   then walking away; knowing he'd stare after her in disbelief and resentment. As
                   if any black guy would want her. As if any black guy with attitude would wait
                   for her to get the snag out of her zipper. Dana Ricci didn't have a clue.

                   For the rest of the afternoon he seemed distracted. In the cafeteria he chatted
                   breezily, then lapsed into silence. In his stomach, the terror of anticipation: he
                   was about to try something he'd never done before; he was about to cross a line
                   here, forchrisssakes!

                   When the bell rang for the end of the 8th, he walked to the attendance office
                   with the attendance bubble sheet; he hung about chatting, he waved, Have a
                   good one! to colleagues hurrying out the building. He took his time walking back
                   to the gym, his eyes sweeping the hallways on the first floor for anyone who
                   appeared to idle.

                     Outside the gym door he saw a lone figure waiting, and he cursed at the thought
                  they would have to enter together; for, should something unforeseen happen,
                  someone might recall seeing Mr. McCraggen and a student entering the gym
                  together. 

                   It wasn't Ipanema Vasquez waiting. The girl had a narrow, delicate face and an
                   elaborate hairdo. Arms folded, she watched him approaching. "What are you     
                   doing here?" he asked sternly. Waiting for a friend. "Well, you can't wait here.
                   You must leave the building. Wait outside." The girl gave him a pouting fuckyou
                   glare and moved off, looking back at him just once. He watched until she had
                   cleared the hallway. 

                   Inside the gym he set about tidying, sorting out gym equipment. He looked
                   around his office space, which over the years had served every purpose but was
                   never a set for physical intimacy.  There was an old sofa in a corner; it sagged 
                   and was cluttered with soda cans, baseball mitts, cardboard boxes of balls,
                   books, other stuff. 

                   He needed a plan, quick and satisfying. 

                   He looked at his watch. She was twenty minutes late. Imagine: her graduation
                   depended on it, and she couldn't keep an important appointment; lazy…
                   voluptuous…fat fuck.                         

                   Slumped in his little stuffy office chair, his heart heavy with doubt and a
                   foolish adolescent panic he thought he'd outgrown, he felt a helplessness that
                   was beyond the usual Friday state of enervation..

                   More random thoughts kept popping in his head. If Ipanema Vasquez walked in
                   this minute he didn't think he'd be able to perform. Ten minutes back, maybe.
                   Not now. He couldn't do much with her now. Where the fuck was this girl?

                   To try and to fail with her  ̶  the embarrassment would be huge, huge; worse
                   than the scandal that would follow if somehow word leaked out about what
                   they did.

                   Nah! This wasn't going to work

                   He gathered up things for his briefcase. He reached for his coat, whistling to
                   himself. He looked around the room with a little regret and disappointment;
                   with a little relief, too, that nothing had happened. Maybe this arrangement
                   wasn't meant to happen. Not this time.

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

 

 

                       

                "Being fat or overweight isn't a big deal these days," O'Rooney had said to him. "In
                 my high school days, nobody dated a girl who was overweight."

                 This prompted him to tell O'Rooney a story.

                 "First girl I fucked," he told him, "was a fat girl. Well, not exactly fat; kind of 
                  on the plump side, you know. Anyway, I get her up to my room, and I'm like
                  ready to get started. I'm fairly bursting in my briefs. So I'm standing there ready
                  to stick it up her zabaglione. Her name was Dana Ricci  ̶  Italian. And she's
                  standing there, with her back to me  ̶  she'd taken off her tops, and she was
                  fumbling with her zipper or something. So I go up behind her, grab her jeans,
                  and begin to pull them down. She screams, Whasdamattawidyou!  And I shout, 
                  What the fuck's the matter with you? And she says, Get off me, you've ruined
                  my zipper! I couldn't believe this. I'm up and ready, and she's worried about 
                  her freaking jeans zipper!"

                  But these were the 90s, he agreed, different times. Everyone walked around
                  thinking: I'm desirable. Somebody out there wants me.

                  Fat girls, skinny girls, short, black, white girls  ̶  it didn't matter. They put 
                  lipstick on, put a little sway in the hips, and bingo! they're ready to burst. 

                  And here was Ipanema Vasquez: thinking she was ready, thinking she knew
                  exactly what she wanted.
                          
                  He wondered: did she move alone in the hallways, friendless? was there a
                  furnace of desire quietly churning inside that fatness? Okay.  

                  She was taking her time getting back from the bathroom. The bell rang; the
                  class clattered out, barely acknowledging him. And she was nowhere in sight.
                  Her bag, her coat, her stuff were on a desk.

                  He stood at the doorway, exasperated; he had to get his teacher's bathroom pass
                  back from her. No students were gathering outside to use the room. He couldn't
                  just shut the door, walk away, leave her stuff inside.

                  Then he saw her  ̶  maneuvering like an emergency vehicle through the hallway 
                  crowd; chopping her way forward with surprisingly nimble moves. A smile on her
                  chubby face as she said, Excuse me! and slipped passed a noisy lingering group.
                  Making her way back to Mr. McCraggen. Catching his eye from a distance so that
                  he imagined her smile was intended for him, not the students she had just 
                  jostled.

                  Her body didn't look fat; just tight and compact in jeans. It might go out of
                  shape after her first pregnancy, but right at that moment her voluptuous   ̶ 
                  "voluptuous" was the only word he could think of  ̶  her voluptuous body in the
                  bursting prime of its youth was making its approach.

                  She came skipping up to him She looked into his face, anticipating some display
                  of teacher temper. He stood stiff with controlled annoyance at the door. She 
                  planted a smile like a kiss on his cheeks and rushed past him, saying how sorry
                  she was to keep him waiting.

                  She'd touched up her face in the bathroom  ̶  black lipstick on her lips which,
                  with her black hair cut short to the shoulder and her thick eyebrows, gave her a
                  halloween witch look.

                  She was trying hard in her adolescent way for "prettiness", with the make-up kit
                  and the hoop earrings and the shiny arm bracelets; her cupped breasts 
                  clamoring for boys. Like so many John Wayne seniors hoping to provoke envy and
                  desire in the grown-up world, she ended up, he thought, looking ridiculously
                  painted.

                  "At the end of the 8th," he reminded her as she brushed past. "If I'm not there, 
                   wait for me." She promised she would.

                  There would be no complication. No negotiations. An easy simple transaction, a
                  quick in and out. Friday afternoon, the gym after 8th period. Everyone else in a
                  rush for the exits. The cleaning crew working their way down from the third
                  floors. Give the hallways 15 minutes to clear. No PM classes. Nothing to lose.
  
                              (from "Ah Mikhail,O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

                                 

 

 

 

  

                   In that moment Bill McCraggen never felt more ecstatic with anticipation.
                   There he was covering a class of seniors; their teacher was absent, and this
                   Hispanic girl kept looking at him; looking away, then looking at him. She
                   smiled; he smiled back with a sort of perfunctory grimace.

                   He sensed her eyes still on him, so he turned the pages of his newspaper and
                   concentrate.

                   She came up to his desk; he didn't look up. Her fingers played with the back of
                   his neck, then started a stress-relieving massage. "What are you doing," he
                   asked. She wanted to talk to him. "What about?" Something very important.
                   "Okay, talk."

                   If she was going to graduate this year, she needed to pass Phys. Ed. "So."
                   Well, she hadn't been coming to his Gym class. "So." Well, was there any-
                   thing she could do to make up for the classes missed? "I don't think so."

                   She lowered herself on her haunches so that she appeared to be looking up in
                   his face. Oh, please, Mr. McCraggen, please.

                   He folded his newspaper, his eyes caught her eyes. And in that instant his
                   thoughts flew off to a lake in a wooded area in New Jersey, near where he'd
                   grown up; where every boy at some point stripped off and plunged right in,
                   simply because it was there and offered itself.

                   The pleading in her voice, the body almost in kneeling position, I'll do 
                   anything. 

                   They must have stared at each other for the longest second. Her eyes never 
                   wavered. He turned his face away in case any student was observing what he 
                   now considered an invitation to intimacy.                            

                   And in that moment, the thought occurred to him: Take the plunge, what do
                   you have to lose?  With six months left before everyone, students and staff,
                   was scattered to the wind, the school slated for closing or recasting, what did
                   he have to lose? 

                   Oh, please, Mr. McCraggen. Had he hesitated two heart beats longer, the
                   moment might have vanished through a hole in his stomach. "See me in the 
                   gym. End of the day, okay? Okay?" 

                   She moved away from his desk, putting a little swivel, he thought, in her waist;
                   not too much to attract the attention of the class; enough to keep his mind   
                   focused. She knew he wouldn't be caught dead staring after her. 

                   Three minutes later she was back at his desk. Permission to go to the bath-
                   room. He looked up from his newspaper, his forehead suddenly heating up, and
                   he gave her a long, patient stare. The smile was still there, but since their
                   intentions were already joined, she didn't need to play him any more. "What 
                   did you say your name was?"

                   She made a little show of surprise and disappointment  ̶  had he really forgotten
                   her name? He told her to be quick about it, the class was almost over. 

                   Ipanema Vasquez. Of course, he remembered her. 

                   Didn't want to change for his gym class, that was her problem. Couldn't bear
                   exposing her body (her bosom bulging alarmingly inside her sweater) to the
                   other girls, or something like that. As if anyone would pay any attention to her
                   body in gym shorts. 

                   So she stayed away. Didn't even show up for his jog around the track program
                   on bright, still shivery, spring mornings; twenty minutes, six brisk warm-up
                   laps around the track, which the lazier kids loved. They strolled and chatted
                   their heads off and reported back pretending to wheeze and huff from the
                   exercise.

                   Ipanema Vasquez was a no show. Now she was ready to do anything to pass his 
                     gym class; lazy fat fuck.

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