Tag: N.D.Williams

 

  More often than not MaryJane Syphers sat alone with a cup of coffee and her cigarettes and a folder of scripts over which she poured diligently, hardly looking up; though if anyone happened to stop by at her table she’d interrupt what she was doing and give them her undivided attention, brushing back strands of hair; and turning in her chair, leaning forward to share confidences.
    The semester was weeks away from Christmas. Classes were set to run right down to the start of the holidays, leaving teachers no time for seasonal shopping. A memo from department chairs reminded faculty that Christmas parties, or events linked to the spirit of the season, were to be discouraged. In fact, classroom observations of teachers were scheduled for just this time, when students, in a fractious celebratory mood, made classroom management difficult for everyone.
   Radix, Mahmood and Bilicki were more than happy to find each other during the lunch period. The situation in the hallways was approaching levels of the “chaos” MaryJane had described. Radix had attempted once to separate two students fighting in his class. He was advised by Quickenbush to follow Union guidelines – take yourself out of harm’s way first; get help from security personnel. He talked to Bilicki about this – was it a really dangerous thing to do, jumping in to separate two students fighting?
    When MaryJane did stop by again, it was on a day of hysterics and incident.    
  There had been a knife stabbing on the 1^st floor. There was a trail of blood spots leading to a stairwell, but no sign of the victim. Two security officers with much theatrical hand gesture directed foot traffic away from the blood spots. MaryJane gasped, then thinking there must be a wounded student somewhere in the building, she started following the blood trail. Thinking better of it she turned back, muttering, “O my God!”
    She entered the cafeteria as the Principal was appealing over the P.A. system for calm on the 2^nd and 3^rd floors. She swept past their table, her shoulders bunched; she came back, gave them a look of terror, and in a harsh trembling voice, the tendons stretched on her neck, she said, “What did I tell you? What did I tell you? We’re way past redemption now.” Then she rushed off again.
    They looked at her, speechless. They had no idea what she meant. They supposed she was referring to what they’d been discussing – the general breakdown of order in the building.
  Annoyed at the school’s effort to dampen or ignore the Christmas season, students were finding ways to celebrate. Someone kept pulling the fire alarm. Bells went off almost every day. They rang for five minutes before someone shut the alarm off, but the strobe lights kept flashing and teachers were never sure what to do – ignore the bells, wait for an announcement or vacate the building right away. Outside the sirens of fire units could be heard approaching.
     Then there were nerve-jangling bangs as from left-over Halloween firecrackers; fights erupting in the hallways; and the emptying of classrooms when someone stuck his head in the door and shouted, “Fight!”
      Bilicki railed at attempts by the administration to downplay the gravity of the situation. It was the responsibility of the supervisors to provide a safe learning environment in the building. Evidently they were failing to do so. The school was on a slippery slope, moving closer and closer to a state of anarchy.
    There was this proposal he’d been working on. He was thinking, he said, of forming a watchdog group. He had a name for it, Excellence in Teaching. No, this was not another attempt to run for office. The watchdog group would throw a spotlight on areas where radical improvements could be made. It would be a far cry from the sentiments emanating from the principal’s office; a far cry, too, from the police blotter of alarming incidents issued by the Union chairman. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about it. He wanted to hear, first, what Radix and Mahmood thought.
  (from “Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!”, a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

 

 

 

 

 

MaryJane Syphers (English) stopped by their table one morning with clicking heels, a scraping of the chair and a dramatic collapse. This was her manner of arriving anywhere in the building, always with a clatter and a crash, as if her body were a wooden cross she must drag each day through the hallways. In other classes the kids did a riotous imitation of Miss Syphers’ entrance – “Alright, settle down quickly everyone, let’s get this over with, painlessly and seriously.” – like rehearsals of grim resolve.
    At their table, once settled, she searched her bag with squirrelly urgency for a cigarette, all the while speaking fiercely to Bilicki who was her intended target. She lit up, threw her head back, exhaled; and only then did she seem to acknowledge the presence of Radix and Mahmood.
    Mahmood nodded and turned the pages of his Times. Radix looked at her, then looked away, a wave of resentment sweeping over him. He hoped it didn’t show on his face. What he resented was the way she’d barged in, how abruptly she’d cordoned off Bilicki for conversation. Strangers mere seconds ago, they contrived to ignore each other.
    MaryJane talked to Bilicki about a “stupid” note she’d just received from Pete Plimpler about her “failure” to submit to him, as requested, the lesson outline for her classes. That she should be subjected to this level of humiliation, after all these years, was a sign of how terrible things had become in the department.
    Bilicki listened and nodded in sympathy; he was growing a new beard. MaryJane shifted her behind around and pulled on her cigarette, as if wishing all her problems with the department chair, with the school, would quietly go up in smoke, leaving her lungs and her life in blissful contentment.
    Radix couldn’t bear to look at her saucer-round eyes, the lines writhing on her skin; couldn’t bear the meanness in her voice. He turned in his chair and made a point of looking anywhere but at her. And MaryJane, who sensed how displeased he was by her intrusion but couldn’t care less, coolly exhaled and carried on.
    “Did you get your guidelines for tomorrow’s Parent-Teachers conference?” at one point she asked Bilicki.
   “What guidelines?”
   “It’s in your mailbox. Memo from our beloved Supervisor. Reminding us how to conduct ourselves when we meet with the parents. You know, what to say to them, what not to say.”
    Bilicki shook his head.
    “They want us to focus on the positive. We must be careful not to cause injury to the self-esteem of the little darlings. Parents have enough problems of their own. They don’t come to our conferences to be told negative things.”
    MaryJane flicked ash off her cigarette in Bilicki’s empty coffee cup; and then, deciding this was perhaps the moment to open portals of interest in Bilicki’s friends, she said, switching her glance between Bilicki and Radix:
   “I think parents have a right to know what’s really going on in the classrooms. On a daily basis. I mean, what good does it do hiding the truth?” Then looking directly at Radix: “When you’ve been here as long as I have, you begin to see the bigger picture. We’re engaged in a never-ending war. Between order and chaos. And it seems to me that with every passing day we are losing that war.”
   She stopped talking for a minute, her blanched face bristling with certainty. She appeared to be waiting for Radix to say something, assuming he had something interesting to say.
   And Radix, clearing his throat, said, “Sometimes a little chaos is useful.”
   “I’m sorry. I didn’t…” MaryJane looked at him with quite frightening, staring eyes.
    Radix raised his voice: “I said, sometimes a little chaos can go a long way. You know, shaking things up…turning old habits upside down. It’s like, things have a way of calcifying, if you see what I mean.” MaryJane sat back, her finger propping her chin, studying this man, wondering who he really was. “Some people get stuck in their habits and offices…and routines, so a little chaos might help start a revolution.”
   “A revolution!”  MaryJane gave a hoarse, incredulous laugh. “So that’s what this is all about.”
    She’d heard what sounded like resentment in his voice. She stared, backing away, but only so she could measure his range, let him flounder about as he got the angry stuff off his chest. When she spoke again her voice was controlled and precise.
   “Don’t get me wrong. There’s always enough blame to go around. Never enough money, the building’s in disrepair, the bureaucracy’s out of touch. And burnt-out teachers like me keep bitching at everybody.” She laughed and reached out to grasp Bilicki’s arm. “When you get right down to it,” she resumed, “we come here every day to teach. But these students, bless their poor hearts, come here with no readiness to learn. You’re constantly spoon-feeding them. Serving it up like Gerber baby food. And when you think they’ve got it, they walk out the door and…poof… it’s gone, all gone, turned to vapor.”
    Gathering her books and papers, she prepared to drag herself off. She shook her head, so sad, the situation we're in, and confessed she was near the end of her tether. She was thinking the other day it was time to call it quits. Hand everything over to the younger folk.
    “Like this young man here,” she said, tossing a smile like a bouquet at Radix.
       (from “Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!” a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

 

     It was still early in the semester, a chilly October morning, when Radix first met Bilicki. He was sitting alone in the cafeteria, not yet sufficiently secure to approach and join teachers at their tables. As yet he had made few friends. Class schedules, the paperwork, the still foreign procedures all kept him moving, and restricted him to an exchange of passing courtesies with teachers. The lunch period in the cafeteria was the only available time to cultivate friendships.
    Bilicki came up to his table with a brown bag from which he removed a sandwich and an apple, and he said, "Mind if I sit here?"  looking around as if he didn't relish sitting anywhere else. Radix looked down at his food tray and tried not to appear unsociable. 
   "Is that all you're having?" he said, pointing his fork at Bilicki's apple and sandwich.
   Bilicki nodded. "When I started here," he said, removing the plastic wrap from his sandwich, "I was tempted by the French Fries, you know how it hits you the minute you walk in? Like you're walking into a McDonalds."
   "I know what you mean," Radix said.
   "And you're so famished, you think, that's exactly what I need now, some of that good-smelling stuff. After awhile your stomach starts working like a cement mixer."
    Bilicki spoke as if measuring each word he released. He looked around in a vaguely contemptuous manner. Radix chewed and studied him: the pony tail, the hair brushed straight back exposing much forehead, tired-looking eyes, his thoughtful way of chewing. This man, he concluded, had endured several tours of duty in the building; he was no doubt and expert on cafeteria food, bowel action and any school issue he cared to talk about.
    "My problem is not with the food," Radix said. Then perhaps out of a need to unburden his new teacher estrangement he plunged into an explanation.
    He was still struggling, he said, with the start of day routines, the class schedules, the way things were arranged in the building. Coming from an island where everyone woke up round about the time the cocks crowed, and breakfast lunch and dinner were more like rituals in sync with the movement of the sun, he found it hard getting up at 5.00, having his first meal at 5.30, still dark outside, then again at 10.30 which was his assigned lunch break until the work day ended. He'd  had to make some adjustments, but this unusual eating pattern was playing havoc with his stomach.
    Bilicki kept chewing in a way that suggested his sandwich and apple needed as much sympathy and attention as Radix' story. Thinking perhaps he should not have opened up after so brief an an acquaintance, Radix fell silent.
    They met again the next and the day after, Bilicki with his paper bag, Radix persevering with the cafeteria menu. Their conversation warmed up, bit by bit Bilicki expanded. He talked about the school, the teachers, policies he detested, what he loved about teaching. As the weeks went by they anticipated meeting each other during lunch period. The table they sat at became their table, their spot.
      (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

 

 

 

 

      On his way from the teachers' cafeteria one morning Bilicki glanced in at the adjoining students' cafeteria and saw Quickenbush. He was pushing a garbage container on wheels between the tables, and with bare hands picking up empty cartons he found on the floor. Laughing and joking with the students, he seemed not at all uncomfortable in his role – the Chapter Chairman reporting for cafeteria duty in his 'building assignment' period.
    What on earth was he up to now? Pandering to a student constituency? Parading some new egalitarian image for everyone to notice?
    Bilicki caught his eye. Quickenbush looked away, then paused to hold a grinning exchange with two Hispanic girls. They laughed as if Mr. Quickenbush outside the classroom was really something else, a cool funny down-to-earth guy.
    Instead of walking away, convinced the man was an arch deceiver, Bilicki entered the cafeteria, his intention, to let Quickenbush know there was at least one person in the building not taken in by his shameless calculated behavior.
    "Well, well…what have we here? You plan to run in the student council elections too?"
    Quickenbush gave him a cut-off smile; then he stooped to pick up a milk carton. And it seemed in the hiatus as if Bilicki's remark, assuming it was meant to impact, had missed its target by a mile.
    "Working hard, that I am," Quickenbush said. "I'm no stranger to menial labor, Mr. Bilicki."
    "What are you really doing here?'
    "What does it look like I'm doing here?"
     Quickenbush paused, asked a student to pass empty trays for deposit in his container, then continued: "My father always told me it doesn't matter how important or how small you think you are. There's no shame, no disgrace in reaching down and picking up something that has fallen."
    With that reference to his father, the blatant fabrication about what his father always told him, Bilicki felt in the privacy of his full heart he'd found a reason to reach for Quickenbush's throat, to squeeze that throat slowly with bare hands. He noticed with satisfaction the balding spot on top of his head, which was unusual for a man only thirty years old.
   "Shouldn't you be in the hallways somehere…? Patrolling, arresting or handcuffing perps?" Bilicki asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
    Quickenbush laughed, as if finally he understood Bilicki's game. Then as if to make it seem he was in no mood to play, he had work to do, he moved away pushing the container, inviting Bilicki to trail after him if he wanted to keep up his line of talk.
    And Bilicki, not prepared to trail, feeling suddenly stopped and a little foolish, glanced at his watch and swung away out of the cafeteria.
    He'd given in to an asinine impulse; he'd committed a gaffe talking that way; now he felt worse than a gaffer. He felt like a beaten bitter veteran with nothing to offer these days but beaten bitter remarks.
    It stayed with him for the rest of the day, this embarassed feeling, the subtle push back he'd suffered at the hands of Quickenbush.
    Back in his department lounge he tried marking homework assignments; he couldn't concentrate; his heart was filled with misery and loathing. For relief he let his mind play with scenarios of punishment and pain.
    A knife was too messy, bare hands too banal for Quickenbush.
    He'd like to walk into the building next Monday with six pit bulls panting and pulling on leash. He'd spot Quickenbush in the cafeteria. He'd tell the students to leave, then he'd release the dogs.
    The dogs would corner Quickenbush, biting and tearing and chomping. A bleeding Quickenbush, intestines hanging out his stomach, would scream for mercy, confess he hadn't been completely honest in his dealings, beg him to call off the dogs. Bilicki would look at his watch and walk away. He was late for a class. The dogs were well trained. When they were done with Quickenbush they knew where to find him. 
               (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

 

 

 

    Perhaps realizing his newcomer status would not immediately win him friends in all quarters, Phil Quickenbush set about racking up support. He introduced a newsletter for staffers. It appeared in teachers' boxes on Friday afternoon, printed on orange bond paper. Teachers getting ready to punch out and leave the Bronx for the weekend were accosted by rows of flaming leaflets in their boxes. They pulled them out, they walked away reading, sometimes pausing in mid-stride to absorb some piece of alarming news.
   Headlined "From The Desk Of The Chapter Leader", the newsletter began, Dear Fellow Staff Members, then after presenting innocuous union news it tore off in a direction that even the cantankerous Steve Kite could not have dreamed up:

       The list of reported incidents occurring in and around John Wayne Cotter
        H.S. is as follows:
            Monday, November 15:
            English Teacher receives puncture wound from unknown assailant
            while passing between homeroom and Period 3.
            Tuesday, November 16:
            Car belonging to Business Teacher is stolen.
            (13th attempt, 1st success)
            Wednesday, November 17:
            2 students wounded by knife-wielding students. Students who
            threatened Math teacher (see last week's newsletter) again
            stalks the teacher.
            Thursday, November 19:
            4 students given Desk summonses for setting fire to mailbox
            at the corner of the school.
            Friday, November 19:
            School Aide and Security guard wounded during melee in Student
            Cafe. Six students arrested as a result of the melee.
      A warning to Administrators: Issac Newton, in his Third Law of Motion, stated
      that whenever one body exerts a force, the second always exerts on the first
      a force which is equal in magnitude, opposite in direction, and has the same
      line of action. (University Physics, 5th Edition)

   For Bilicki this was really too much. "Typical right-wing, scaremongering tactics," he
whispered harshly whenever he came across someone diligently reading the newsletter. "Does anyone know what he plans to do about all this?"
    No one knew. Everyone seemed too alarmed to ask.
    Many confessed they were astonished to learn what was going on. Hitherto, teachers who worked, say, in the east wing of the building had no way of knowing that incidents "like this" happened in the west wing – or in the basement, or outside the building – so regulated were their movements, so fearfully constricted their habits.
    Bilicki was among the few stubbornly unimpressed. This was nothing but crass, vile politicking. A piece of fraudulence. The man describes a situation in colors of terror and despair, then he offers, not solutions, but himself as savior. A scam as plain as daylight.
    "But, Brendan, you can't argue with the facts, les petits faits vrais," Mrs. Rojas (Foreign Languages) said to him pleasantly. "These terrible things are happening. Maybe not in your neck of the woods. But that doesn't make it less frightening."
    Quickenbush was seen, next, consulting with the principal, stepping into the office of the principal. He offered proposals to the principal. At faculty meetings the principal made a point of thanking Mr. Quickenbush for providing useful information. She promised to work closely with Quickenbush and the Union to find solutions to the problems at John Wayne Cotter H.S. She praised the staff for their professionalism "in the line of fire".
    "These guys," Bilicki shook his head. "What a piece of Japanese theatre."
  (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

 

 

 

   The next problem was to find a temporary replacement for Steve Kite. A candidate was quick to step forward – from the shadows, as it were – in the person of Phil Quickenbush. Little was known about him except what he was only too willing to reveal: he'd recently returned from Japan after a two-year teaching stint in a Japanese high school; he was working on a book based on his experiences there; he was currently assigned to the Business department, and in his opinion Steve Kite had been "railroaded". He was quite willing to take over Steve's responsibilities, and when the time came he would consider running for Steve's office.
    Most people were too distracted to question his credentials. One or two veterans viewed him with suspicion (what had he done to merit selection for that teaching post in Japan?) But since no one else was prepared to fill the breach, it seemed a harmless move to let him take over.
    Only Bilicki was alarmed. Phil Who? Just the look of the man – smooth-shaven, dressed for Wall Street, you would think, in white shirt and tie; the rimless glasses, the way he hovered in the teachers' cafeteria, hands in pocket, listening in on conversations; and when he did say something it was usually to highlight some "illogical" assertion, or make a correction, bolstered with facts and statistics; all of which put a damper on the anecdotal excitement teachers  preferred while they ate lunch. Who did he think he was? Where did he think he was?
     He loved working at at John Wayne Cotter H.S., he told everyone, but the situation in the hallways, you had to admit, was fast approaching anarchy. There should be police officers stationed in the building with powers of arrest. It was the only way to take back our classrooms from the hallway hoodlums. The public school system was moving away from the core values that made America strong, that offered strong leadership to the world. He ought to know; he'd just come back from Japan; the Japanese were moving miles and miles ahead of us.
    Bit by bit an already inflamed Bilicki became infuriated. He felt tempted to break his self-imposed silence, to expose this upstart, this clever windbag, with his soft rounded shoulders, and his neat appearance, as if neatness and business methods were all a school needed to save itself. Just back from a high school gig in Japan, now here at a troubled school in the Bronx - where would he go next?
    To raise these questions Bilicki risked giving the impression that, twice beaten and rejected as a candidate, he had turned into a bitter, boorish man, stooping now to character denigration.
        (from "Ah Mikhail O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

 

 

 

   Admirers and detractors of Steve Kite could not allow his removal to pass without comment.
  "They're right to remove him. That kind of remark is unprofessional. You don't go around telling kids they smell, I don't care who you are. That kind of behavior is unacceptable," said Mrs. Haliburton, known for her heavenly high perfumes.
   "He didn't say that. It never happened. These kids make things up about teachers all the time. This is ridiculous…you mean, what he's alleged to have said… really ridiculous, what's going on," said Peggy Marmalad (Special Education), known for her tight-fitting clothes.
   "Well I don't know what all the fuss is about. Most of these kids get out of bed, jump into clothes and come to school. I mean, it's cold in the morning. Of course, they're going to smell a little…bedsweaty…I mean, what's the big deal about somebody's morning B.O.?" Tameka Brisbane (Student Council)
   "Let me tell you, this whole thing is being orchestrated by certain individuals in this school who are always ready to play the race card, you know what I mean? It's always the white teachers who are insensitive and racist, always the black students who are the victims." Jim Lightbody, to the carpool, too tired to respond that day, and quite willing to let him speak his mind.
   Brendan Bilicki made no comment. It was noticed that he kept himself apart from the gossip and speculation clusters. Like a cat curled up in a corner licking its fur, he was content to sit in the department lounge, his head buried in The Times. Approached one day in the library by the librarian and asked what he thought of the whole thing, he heaved a faintly triumphant sigh. "It's a case of the chickens come home to roost," he said, rustling his pages. He was prepared to leave it at that.
              (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

 

 

 

     Steve Kite was re-elected as Chapter Chair but this time around his term of office was shortlived. His trademark loose way with words got him into trouble with students, and Bilicki watched his demise with tightlipped satisfaction, his heart cheering wildly as the guillotine started its fall.
   The story, as told in a student complaint, was that Steve Kite had grievously insulted them; had insulted two students to be precise, then with a wave of his hand had corralled the entire class into the insult.
   Allegedly he accused the students of coming to class unwashed and smelling to high heaven. "Why don't you people simply have a bath when you get up in the morning?" The words "you people" linked with the implications of smell, and tossed off in a fit of 1st period irritability, raised howls of classroom laughter; but the words got back to some parents sending them into howls of outrage.
   What's this teacher's name? The fuck he think he is?
   A delegation of parents, mainly angry mothers, charging racism, came in to see the principal the very next day. They threatened to picket the school. They milled around in the lobby, arguing with the security guards; and refusing to leave the building until they'd received an apology from the offending teacher. Mrs. Haliburton appeared and managed to restore calm in the lobby. The principal came out and invited the group into his office.
   A stunned Steve Kite, unused to backpedaling, could only throw his hands up in dismay. He tried to put a blase face on the matter, carrying on as if nothing would come of it. Stopped in the hallway and asked what it was all about, his stock response was, "A piece of crock." People had blown things entirely out of proportion, he insisted. Of course, he wasn't going to apologize, there was nothing to apologize for.
   The days passed, it seemed nothing would come of it. Steve Kite conducted classes, though the offended students stayed away.
   Then one day he was gone. Word came back that the matter was being "investigated". In the meantime rules of procedure required his "removal" from the classroom.
       (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

 

      This second time around Bilicki's campaign approach was more subtle, less charged with extraneous incident and cries of "corruption". He left leaflets in teachers' mailboxes asking voters to consider the "new direction" he would take the Union – out into the community. He would heal the breach between the out-of-borough teaching staff and the community they served. He included words like "integrity" and "accountability" and he made character a small but important issue. Stouthearted, he made no secret of his determination to win.
   For his part Steve Kite gave his challenger the polite brush-off. As he quipped to colleagues, sounding like a Senator from Arizona, "My record will speak for itself."
   Apparently it did. Teachers felt comfortable with Steve. They had dealt with him all these years. He was there when they needed the Union, and there when they didn't need the Union.
   Mr. Ghansam, for instance, was unequivocal in his praise for Steve Kite. It was Steve who stood by him, who fought for him when he received the first "Unsatisfactory" rating from his supervisor. Steve explained the grievance procedure and after he'd raised the matter with the assistant principal, Ghansam's rating – he suspected it had something to do with his accent and his resident alien status – improved to "Marginally Satisfactory". "Now I have no problem. Now all my ratings…Satisfactory…Satisfactory…Satisfactory."
   In dealing with the supervisors Steve Kite came across as a scrappy fighter. He was a short man with a preference for suspenders and bowties, who combed his hair with a part to the right; his mottled face looked as if his wife had scratched and punched him too often (this was the joke exchanged with the secretaries who gave him fond, puzzled smiles). His piercing voice, his deliberate clear phrasing, rang out at meetings in the auditorium like steel striking stone, serving notice to the administration that he was monitoring their every move.
   Bilicki on the other hand was considered an idealist, a man stuck in 1960s rebelliousness. A good listener, mind you, and a fairly decent fellow at heart, but you couldn't hear him sharpening knives to do battle for teachers.
   What really endeared Steve Kite to his supporters was the tone of offensiveness in his  conversation. He said things that, from the mouth of anyone else, might have sounded obnoxious. He had nicknames for some supervisors – " that old fossil", "fucking Nazi",  "horse-faced bitch" – and he offered crude opinions about their personal lives that left everyone mildly horrified, yet relieved someone had the nerve to speak that way about the bosses.
          (from "Ah Mikhail. O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)