Tag: N.D.Williams

         

                    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)

 

                               

  

 

                    
                He'd moved in with Satin's family on a Sunday afternoon.

               "My roommate said to me, Are you sure you want to do this? He's  a really nice
               chap. Offered to keep the apartment vacant just in case I had a change of heart.
               But my mind was made up. I was never more certain about what I was doing.

               "I packed all my stuff in my car, or as much as I could manage, and I drove across
               the bridge into the Bronx. I got lost. The roadways sort of meander about.
               Anyway, eventually I found the house. It's just off the El near Tremont  Avenue.
               It's not too bad. The trains keep rumbling by ever so often, but you get used to it."

               "I didn't know you had a car," Radix interrupted.

                  "Oh, I've always had a car. It's just that I'd rather take the bus or the train to
               school. It's much more intriguing. Actually I don't mind the subway. It's not as bad
               as people make it out to be, all the terrible things they say might happen to you. 
              
              "Right now I don't have a fully functioning car. I parked it outside Satin's place one 
               night, woke up the following morning and someone had walked off with the
               battery. Probably fellows around the block.

               "We've got these Hispanic chaps, always hanging about, with lean and hungry 
               faces, I don't think they like the idea of a white man moving into their neighbour-
               hood. I have to hear it from them every time I step outside, What you doing here
               white boy? Checkin' out the Indian girls? White pussy not good enough for you?
               One day I told them I was married to one of the Indian girls, and that I lived in he 
               neighborhood. That didn't stop them from vandalizing my car.

                    It was Satin's idea that I move in with her. They live in this one family dwelling. 
               Her parents and her brother live on the first floor; we're in the attic; and they've
               rented out the basement to another Indian family. Bit of a squeeze, as you can
               imagine. I haven't counted how many people actually occupy the house, but I'm
               sure we're in violation of some occupation code or other. Sometimes at night I get
               this feeling that there's someone right outside our door listening.

               "As things stand, Satin is no longer keen on our present situation. I'm telling you
                all this in the strictest confidence, right?"

               "Of course, of course."

               "Every morning she wakes up and she says to me, We have to move out of here,
                we have to move out of here! Now I can't help but wonder, Why did I move here
                in the first place? For her the situation has become, well, untenable. She thinks
                we need more privacy, more space.

                  "So we've started looking around for a new place. We'll probably move back to
                Manhattan; though, to be honest with you, I don't think where we are is all that
                bad.

                "I asked her one evening, Are your parents originally from India? Their curry
                doesn't taste like curry cooked in India. She didn't answer. Rather odd. There's 
                some mystery surrounding her family. It's something she prefers not talk about.
                At least not now.  Sometimes they have these dreadful rows, the menfolk
                screaming and swearing, the women answering back; then abruptly it all subsides
                and the house goes dead quiet.

                "Satin and I try go out as much as we can, but for the rest of the family, it's like a
                 siege mentality. They're truly afraid of the people around them. Those Hispanic
                 fellows I told you about? Always with something to say when you're stepping out.

                "So we come and go, and mind our own business, but it's not an easy proposition.
                It can get a little precarious in our neighborhood, if you know what I mean. All
                those popping noises in the middle of the night. Pretty frightening stuff."

                "So what is Satin doing now?"
   
                  "Well, she's at college, doing a course in Pharmacy. It's going to take many years of
                study. Then she'll be a pharmacist and maybe we'll go off and find a place in the
                world in need of pharmacists. In the meantime, we've got to survive somehow on
                my measly salary. Which is how I found myself a little strapped for cash today,
                you understand. But never you mind, I'll pay you back, just as soon as a few things
                get sorted out."

                Radix could think of nothing more to say.  There was a sense Stanley had said
                everything he wanted to say. His face was drained of intensity. He glanced at his
                watch, then started eating.

                He took a few mouthfuls, put down his fork, rubbed his knees and looked around
                the room; then he picked up his fork again. Baring his soul, it seemed, had done
                marvels for his appetite. His lunch, once cold and neglected, now swiftly, hand to
                mouth, entered and disappeared.

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

 

 

 

 

                     

 
               Radix was shocked when this teacher, standing behind him in the lunch line,
               an Englishman named Stanley Bagshott, leaned close to his ear and asked to 
               borrow five dollars. "I've got myself in a spot of trouble," he said bunching his
               shoulders.

               Teachers were, if nothing else, an independent self-sufficient lot. They didn't run
               out of pocket cash like factory workers with expensive habits.

               The Englishman  ̶  he quickly insisted Radix call him Stanley  ̶  tried to appear 
               nonchalant. His face was strained; he hadn't shaved recently; his pea soup green
               sweater hung on his shoulders as if, long passed over, it had been snatched 
               suddenly that morning from a drawer and pressed into service. He seemed in
               genuine distress.

               Radix, who first thought of pushing both trays to the cash register and paying for
               two lunches, passed him a five dollar note.

               Feeling he owed Radix some explanation for this unusual request he came over to
               his table, shoulders still bunched. "Mind if I join you?"  Radix gestured
               indifferently.

               "I don't mean to intrude," Stanley said; then he groaned. He got up to fetch paper 
                napkins. "Don't mean to intrude, " he resumed, "but there is something I think
                you might appreciate."  He got up again, he'd forgotten his plastic cutlery. He 
                settled down finally with a huge sigh, squirming in his chair, making airless
                remarks about the weather, and how dark the future looked for the school.
              
                Then: "What I wanted to tell you was this: I got married."

               "Good grief, congratulations! Who's the lucky lady?"               

               "Do you remember Satin? The Indian girl in Special Ed?  I'm sure you know her."  
    
               "A student? You got married to one of our students?"

               "Well, she isn't a student any longer. We got married soon after she graduated, at
                the end of the last semester."   

                Sensing Stanley wanted a sympathetic ear, Radix looked up from his plate with
                frequency. 

               "I suppose you're wondering how this all came about, " Stanley said, studying the
                other man, trying to determine how much he should reveal to him. "Or, as the
                Americans would ask, What's going on here?"

                Radix shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I had no idea you two…" 

               "I haven't told anyone else, but I think they know," Stanley said. 

               "You think they know?" 

               "The rest of the faculty. And maybe some students. I think one of the students saw
                us together on the trains. Maybe everyone knows. This sort of thing you can't hide
                forever." 

                "It shouldn't matter. She's no longer a student, right?" 

                "Yes, yes, the times are changing and all that, I know, but I can tell you," he 
                 leaned over his plate and lowered his voice, "there are people in this neck of the
                 woods who are not too pleased with what has happened. When someone like me
                 consorts, if I may put it the way, with someone like Satin, it raises a few
                 eyebrows.  No, not just eyebrows. It raises hackles. I'm sure questions have been
                 asked about the propriety, shall we say, of our relationship. I get the feeling it
                 would be fine if Satin were my kept woman, my mistress, you know. But
                 marrying her, well, that's something else altogether. Mind you, everything I've
                 done is above board. There's nothing they can do to me, like getting me fired or
                 anything. Not that it matters now." 

                 Radix imagined battles shaping up  ̶  Stanley vs.various Administrations; and he
                 decided if push came to shove, without reservation he would side with Stanley. 

                 "You know how things are here, the strong anti-immigrant prejudice in this    
                  country. Always been that way, of course. Isn't it amazing, especially when you
                  consider the nation was built on the backs of immigrants." Stanley rocked back
                  and laughed for no apparent reason.

                 "Has anyone said anything to you?" Radix asked

                 "In this building? No, and that's precisely the point. All of a sudden they're not
                  saying as much or smiling as they used to. And the payroll secretary…" 

                 "Oh, I had problems with that woman." 

                 "…you know, she gave me the strangest look when I told her about my change of
                  address, and enquired about changing my tax deduction code. I wouldn't put it
                  beyond her to begin snooping around, get a little private investigation going." 

                 "What are you talking about? What's there to investigate?" 

                  And Stanley, feeling there was enough genuine sympathy in the other man's
                  interest, put down his fork and began to explain the length and breadth of his
                  dilemma.                             

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

 

 

  

                  
               When next Radix saw Judy Wiener Spring was rolling its portentous way down to
               the end of the semester. She was sitting with another teacher in the cafeteria,
               and attending to her face with lipstick and mirror. He waved and called to her;
               she looked up and smiled; the other woman turned in her chair to see who it was.
               Radix came over with his steaming coffee cup.

               Judy Wiener's face looked white and drained, with a pre-coffee dry tension,
               almost frightening in that bloodless way white faces sometimes turn in winter. He
               hadn't seen her in weeks.

               "How're you? Where have you been?" he asked.

               "I'm okay." 

               "You're usually free this period?"

               "Yes, but I've been hiding away. Which is why you haven't seen much of me 
                recently."

               "So what have you been up to?"

                At this point, bumbling over her lapsed manners, she introduced the other
                teacher, Amanda Blitch, from the English Department, whose broad smile was set
                ablaze by crimson lipstick.

                She'd been listening to the exchange and staring at Radix, wondering what it was
                about him that got Judy Wiener so animated. She looked Radix straight in the
                face, much to his discomfort, and she informed him that she'd been on sabbatical
                and had just come back; so she hadn't encountered the usual fresh faces of the
                Fall term.

                Her face had a scrubbed pink glow and her eyes sparkled behind her rimless
                glasses.

                Radix was struck by the hat she wore which looked like something he'd seen in
                movies on the heads of officials in Shakespeare's England (she's probably teaching
                "Romeo and Juliet", Judy Wiener explained); and the black puffy blouse which
                completed the costume look. Radix was not much good at determining people's
                age from their faces, but he thought Amanda Blitch looked fortyish. She spoke in
                gushy bursts, her double chin quivering.

                "Well, I will leave you two happy souls alone," she said, looking at her watch, 
                getting up, gathering her things. "I've been away so long I don't know if I 
                remember where everything is, so I think I'd better get reacquainted with the 
                school quickly."

                She was rotund below the waist, looking like a stout lady of society as well as a 
                high school teacher. She gave Radix a last fresh smile and hurried off, light on
                her feet despite heavy haunches; making the point she could handle her weight
                and carry herself off with some elegance.

                Judy Wiener leaned forward. "You'd better be careful…there's a gleam in
                Amanda's eye."

                 "What are you talking about?" Radix looked at the door that had closed after her
                 exit.

                "When you get to know Amanda you'll see what I mean. She has a roving eye for
                 new teachers. You're a new young teacher. You're going to hear about her
                 mentoring program. She likes to mentor, and she takes a special interest in her
                 mentorees." Judy Wiener opened her eyes wide.

                 "Well, thanks for the warning. You know, the other day I had a brush with the
                  lady in the payroll office?"

                 "With Gwen? You had a brush with Gwen?" Judy Weiner went back to touching up
                  her face, which seemed done though not entirely to her satisfaction.

                 "She sent me a note asking me to see her immediately. Turns out I'd forgotten
                  to sign my payroll card. No big deal, I told her. I promised it wouldn't happen
                  again. And she said to me, twenty lashes."

                 "Twenty lashes?"

                 "Twenty lashes! The thing is, she wasn't smiling when she said it. No, seriously,
                  she really felt that was what I deserved for my misdemeanor… twenty lashes
                  was just right for me."

                 "I don't think she meant it like that," Judy Wiener turned her head away.
                 "Everybody in that office likes cracking whips whenever you step out of line,
                  doesn't matter who you are. Gwen likes to think, because she controls  the
                  distribution of paychecks, that she wields great power. By the way, have you
                  heard? Now they're considering docking our pay for showing up late?"

                 "Wait, you mean, someone's going to sit down… and go through all those time
                  cards… checking how many hours and minutes we actually work in this
                  building? That's ridiculous."

                 "That's how they see us sometimes. But Gwen's a nice person when you get
                 to know her."

                 "Well, that's one nice person I don't plan on getting to know."

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

 

 

 

 

                  
              On the 3rd floor (Rm. 322) the situation was more of a mystery.

              Mr. Willosong chose to decorate his classroom with enlarged photos of opera
              singers, in splendid regal dress, heads lifted, hands extended. Kathleen Battle, 
              Jessye Norman, Maria Callas, names and people Radix had never heard of. "You
              like opera?" Radix asked him once as he came in. "Oh, yes, I do…are you an opera
              buff?" Radix regretted he was not; and abruptly Mr. Willosong's face fell flat. It 
              seemed the opera was his passion; he was always ready to talk about it, but with
              seriousness; and only with fellow opera buffs.

                  More puzzling was the image he presented, if you looked in through the plexiglas 
              panel, of a teacher very much in control of his charges. No students taking 
              basketball shots. No one brazenly eating in his room.

              Mr. Willosong sat at his desk, a tall, thin black man, with a face so lean the flesh
              seemed wrapped like tinfoil on the bone. His head stuck out of a thick turtleneck
              sweater, stiff and shiny; and his eyes bulged and glowed like tiny round furnaces
              burning and sending heat to the rest of his body.

              He spoke in a slow precise manner, in a deep baritone that seemed to shovel and
              heft his words. And his students, a class of juniors, mostly girls, seemed pinned to 
              their seats on the other side of his desk, listening or reading or writing but always
              on task.

              How, Radix wondered, did he achieve this miracle of classroom management at 
              John Wayne Cotter? How did this gaunt man with his shiny cheekbones bend
              fractious student behavior to his single will?

                  And he did all this from his chair at his desk, rarely standing up. Not once did 
              Radix see him walking between the desks, or pacing, or writing on the board. A
              man severely apart, like teachers back on his island in the old days; magisterial in
              his detachment.

              It might have passed off as odd and unusual, a happy circumstance, had not Mr.
              Willosong revealed a personal obsession: at this time of year, he told Radix, he
              preferred the windows of his classroom closed. Always closed.

              It seemed an unusual request, for at times the heating system clanked and made
              the room unbearably stuffy, causing students, who liked to keep their stylish
              jackets on, to complain.

              When one morning Radix opened the windows a few cracks to release the stuffy 
              air, then forgot to close them before leaving, Mr. Willosong returning for his class
              stormed past the desk and shut them with a fierce bang. Radix looked up, startled;
              he said he was sorry, he'd forgotten about the windows. Mr. Willosong nodded,
              tightlipped. Radix could tell he was displeased, very displeased, as he turned away
              to write the objectives of the day's lesson on the board.

              Only then did Radix sense something plainly bizarre about Mr. Willosong and this
              entire situation: the students' correct behaviour, the far from standard teaching
              methods, the eerie stillness, the windows shut tight  ̶  all of this happening in a
              quiet corner on the third floor, away from the tumultuous operations of the school.

              Was any one else in the building aware of the behavior of this gaunt, cold-fearing
              man teaching English at John Wayne Cotter?

              He raised the question casually one day with Judy Weiner. She wasn't sure which 
              teacher he  meant until Radix used the words "gaunt" and "English Department".

              She smiled in recognition, and lowering her voice revealed there was a rumor
              about that English teacher. He was in fading health. In fact, he was said to be
              dying. Only in his thirties, and already dying. Of Aids, that new, body-shrinking
              incurable disease. At least this was what they were saying, she couldn't be sure.

              Radix felt mortified; he was only know finding out what everybody apparently
              knew; and hearing about it through furtive whispering.

              As for his students, had they sensed something wrong with their teacher  ̶  not
              yet a cadaver, sitting upright with a cold frightening will? Were they sworn to some
              secret student pact that helped him carry on, their heads bowed, obedient to his
              every wish, his every insistent breath?

              Primed with this information he started peering in with new interest at Mr.
              Willosong. The man sitting grim-willed at his desk now looked more ghoulish than
              "gaunt"; truly like a dying man who felt tidal waters sweeping him towards the
              precipice. A rock of defiance, though, with each passing day; his slow strange well-
              bred manner saying to the cold air frosting up his windows, Not quite ready, not
              finished yet.

 

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

 

 

 

 

  

                    
               It took Radix awhile to grasp the importance of declaring a preference for this or
               that classroom. As a newcomer he'd taken whatever room was assigned to him.
               Slowly he came to understand how having your own room mattered. For one thing,
               you didn't have to travel from floor to floor. The students came to you. They took
               their time, they dawdled and kissed, they scuffled and clogged up the hallways;
               but the burden of classroom shuttle was theirs.

               Smart or veteran teachers, who knew and worked the system of preferences, 
               stood at their desks, in their rooms, waiting for whoever cared to show up that 
               day. They locked away personal stuff in the teacher's closet and went off to 
               lunch. No travel into strange territory for them.

               As a new teacher still on probation, Radix found himself moving in and out of
               several rooms on different floors. He had to countenance the irritation of teachers
               who weren't too pleased with his dilatory manner in gathering his books and
               leaving; nor his attempt to deal with student problems at their desk minutes after
               the bell had gone for the next class.

               Some teachers chose rooms with a view. Some liked the east wing  because the 
               sunlight, what little there was of it in the Fall, made all the difference during 
               early morning periods. Lightbody was happy with his room far away in the north 
               wing. No chance his supervisor would leave his office and trek all the way over, 
               just to peer inside and determine if "learning activity" was going on.

               There was a small plexiglas panel on the door which teachers papered over (even
               though that was "in violation") to deter hallway strollers from looking in, making
               clown faces, waving to girl friends. The panels also became punching targets for
               enraged students.

               Radix kept his glass panel clear; he could put up with faces at the door. Of greater
               concern to him were teachers like Mrs. Huffman, who was obsessed with cleanli-
               ness and order. Her walls were decorated with portraits of past presidents. Her
               room looked neat and tidy. She wanted Radix, who used the room for one period,
               to maintain her standards of cleanliness and order; so she showed him the closet
               where she kept two brooms, and encouraged him to put them to good use.

               She told him about the bad habits of students. They brought orange juice and
               bread slices wrapped in tin foil into the classroom, complaining they hadn't time
               to shower and breakfast; they "balled up"  returned homework assignments and 
               made basketball shots that missed the basket near her desk and littered the floor.

               At the end of a forty-minute period, the room was "filthy". She could not teach in
               filth. No one could think clearly or work in filth. "If they're not willing to learn
               anything," she whispered earnestly, "the least we could do is instruct them in the
               virtues of cleanliness and good citizenship."

               Radix said he didn't think he'd have time to apply the broom, but he'd certainly
               make an effort to deter the basketball shots.

                  Perhaps curious to discover how well he managed in her absence, Mrs. Huffman 
               returned for her next class  and waited outside minutes before the bell. Radix
               glimpsed her peering in, making a sweeping inspection of as much of the floor as
               she could see through the plexiglas panel; and waiting.

               The bell rang, the door opened from the outside, Mrs. Huffman entered. She 
               gasped with exaggerated horror, threw a look of huge disappointment at Radix;
               then pointing at food wrappings on the floor she'd declare to the entire class (and
               its ineffectual teacher), "This is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. There are
               people coming in here after you. They cannot possibly work in these filthy
               conditions."

               The class walked out, ignoring her, absorbed in chatter, which left Radix alone to
               offer some explanation for the deplorable state of the room (and his apparent 
               complicity). Caught in the fury of her condemnation, he focused on gathering 
               student papers; then looking back in case he'd forgotten anything he made his
               exit.

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