Tag: NYC Public Schools

 

  
                 Brebnor was standing at the window of a classroom on the third floor, a
                 proctor for the state Regents Math exam; his mind stretched out on a nail
                 bed of introspection.

                 So Bob Meier had gone on sabbatical; he hadn’t said a word about it to his
                 buddies, except that asshole Jim Lightbody, who seemed determined these
                 days to sound upbeat and cheery about everything; from the proposal to
                 close of the school, to his crumbling marriage. Asshole.

                     The man’s marriage was on the rocks, on the rocks; and there he was 
                 making stupid little jokes, telling the carpool that his daughter, a high school
                 senior, had decided to drop out. She was dropping out, from a school in
                 Westchester; a good school, with opportunities and advantages, clubs and
                 advanced courses, and nurturing sports programs. You’d think they’d have no
                 drop out problems out there; you’d think a girl, whose father was a teacher,
                 would have no reason to drop out. And what did Lightbody, the loving
                 father, say to her? Go ahead, drop out, if that’s what you want to do.

                 He disclosed all this on a Monday. Lightbody’s cheeks and chin always had a
                 freshly shaven look on Monday. And there he was, all clean and smooth,
                 bringing the carpool up to date about his family situation, like it was
                 someone else’s family situation: “So she says to me, If you guys break up
                 don’t expect me to stay with either of you. So I said, Fine, fine. But
                 where are you going to go? And she says, I’ll move in with my boyfriend…
                 Move in with her boyfriend!… So I said, Fine, fine, do whatever you want.        

                 Sharing this very private family…mess…that Monday morning with the carpool.
                 With Ghansam, for chrissakes! He didn’t care if Ghansam found out. The man
                      was clearly in need of professional help. One of us should have told him that,
                 instead of just going along with his jaunty…crapulous…crap.

                 January was the most difficult time of year for Brebnor. So many issues floating
                 up to the ceiling like helium balloons. Always in January. First month of the new
                 year, end of the semester. Nothing but work, piles of paperwork; final grades,
                 all kinds of pressure. And always the air escaping from those helium balloons
                 leaving him acid with mistrust and resentment.

                 Here he was watching over the bowed heads of ill-prepared students taking the
                 State Regents exam; grappling with questions they had little hope of answering.

                      He was losing it – the love of teaching, the passion he’d started out with never
                 mind the low salary. He’d begun to look back, regretting missed opportunities,
                 forks in the road not taken. He was thinking about his teaching schedule for the
                 next semester, the school set to close at the end; the years he had left before
                 retirement.

                     And his marriage – his wife was refusing to have sex with
him. Going on two
                 weeks now, no sex. Not tonight. No,
I’m too tired. And all because he’d
                 forgotten their wedding
anniversary. Forgotten to take her out to dinner. First
                 time this had ever
happened, and suddenly she’s acting peculiar. You’d think
                 she’d understand
after all these years living with him, sleeping with him.

                 Of course, there was more to it than that. Things weren’t going too well
                 between them – little things, stupid petty things; snappish arguments at dinner,
                 sullen shoulders in bed.

                 He went to the door and looked up and down the hallway. He wasn’t allowed to
                 sit. They didn’t want you sitting. It didn’t make a fucking difference standing or
                 sitting, but the assistant principal walked in on him the other day and made a
                 big deal about it; telling him there might be Board of Education people in the
                 building monitoring how the exams were being proctored; looking for small
                 things, like teachers standing, not reading the New York Times at the desk.
                 Little shitty things. Like remembering to write on the board at 10 minute
                 intervals how much time had elapsed.

                 He looked at his watch. He should have been relieved 5 minutes ago by
                 someone. Some teachers took their sweet time showing up for relief
                 assignments, and the assistant principals did nothing about that! He decided
                 not to stand at the door, scowling, evidently waiting to be relieved. He went
                 back to the window. 

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

 

 

                The future of John Wayne Cotter H.S., clouded with rumour, made more
                frightening by speculation, now loomed with certainty once they’d turned into
                the new year. Everyone went about their tasks with strained or surly temper,
                sensing that the Spring semester could very well be their last together.

                The ripples of change had already touched the carpool. Jim Lightbody tried to 
                put a bolder than usual face on things. Bob Meir was going on sabbatical.  
                Apparently he’d told only Lightbody about it. “Didn’t he tell you?”  Lightbody 
                asked the others, a little chagrined he was the only one who knew. “I’m sure
                he mentioned it some time.” Meir wasn’t with them that day.

                “I see you’re putting on weight in certain quarters,” Ghansam said, patting 
                Lightbody on the stomach. Lightbody glanced at his stomach and made a
                dismissive noise, not quite ready to change the subject.

                “So what’s he going to do?” Brebnor asked.

                “Well, he has to take nine graduate credits…I think he’s going to St Joseph’s
                College, in Westchester.”
 
                “Why is he going on sabbatical now?” Ghansam wanted to know.

                “That’s what everybody does. You take your sabbatical in the spring, it flows
                right into the summer holidays, you come back in September…”

                     “Nine education credits…that’s like going back to college again…which is why
                 I haven’t taken sabbatical. I’ve had enough of college courses,” Brebnor said.

                “It’s not that bad. You take the courses that are related to your field,”
                 Lightbody said.

                “What’s Bob going to do? Did he tell you?”

                “I think he said Human Sexuality…”

                “…that should spice up his marriage!”

                “…and the History of Television”

                “Sexuality and television,” Ghansan gave a short laugh. “But wouldn’t that 
                 raise a few eyebrows at the Board of Education?”

 

                The school was closed for Martin Luther King Day, which fell near the end of 
                the fall semester. It seemed not a good time to celebrate King or any slain
                hero; teachers were digging out from under mounds of paperwork, final
                grades had to be entered, pass/fail issues dealt with. Many truants showed 
                up at this time with smiles and a bright determination to make things right.
                In English class they offered to do a book report, do anything to make up for
                weeks of absence or missed assignments.

                During the days before the Martin Luther King break, Mrs. Haliburton, for
                reasons she never fully explained, showed up without her head wrap. It
                caught the attention of Marjorie Paige (Math) who secretly monitored Mrs.
                Haliburton’s words and wardrobe; who now simply had to tell someone what  
                she’d noticed.

                “Have you seen her this morning?” she said to Mrs. Boneskosky (English). 
                They were on line in the teacher’s cafeteria. Mrs. Boneskosky, not happy 
                with the day's lunch menu, was considering the pizza slices along with the 
                French fries. She felt tired and a bit cranky; she’d just done three-classes
                -in-a row.

                “Seen who?” 

                “Our Equal Opportunity Advisor… Mrs. Haliburton? I mean, have you 
                noticed anything strange about her?”

                “No I haven’t… I haven’t seen her.” Mrs. Boneskosky tried to shake off 
                Marjorie Paige. She was in no mood for idle gossip, especially from this 
                odious little plump woman who, like her colleagues in the Math depart-
                ment, could not lift their conversation above the level of backbiting gossip.

                     “She hasn’t got her turban thing on today.”

                “Her what?”

                “You know, that wrap thing she always wears wrapped round her head. 
                She’s not wearing it today.”

                “Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed,” Mrs. Boneskosky seemed at that moment 
                absorbed with food selection.

                “Well, she’s got short hair…I mean, she’s a shorthaired woman…I was 
                flummoxed.” Mrs. Boneskosky’s own thoughts had begun to drift, but that 
                word flummoxed, so rare a choice for a Math teacher, snapped a finger at 
                her weary spirit.

                With a quick intake of breath she made an effort to listen to Marjorie Paige 
                who, it appeared, was also having a pizza slice, the French fries and some
                soggy broccoli. “And all this time,” Marjorie Paige continued, “I used to think
                she had a full head of hair under that…turban thing…and this morning she
                steps into the elevator and… I almost fell to the floor. It was so…” Marjorie
                Paige seemed lost for the next word, and Mrs.Boneskosky promptly lost
                interest in her again. “I mean, I couldn’t recognize her at first…just this itsy-
                bitsy bit of hair on her head.”

                Mrs. Haliburton may or may not have sensed the mild consternation her 
                headwear had provoked. After the Martin Luther King holiday, just as 
                mysteriously, she resumed the wearing of her head wrap.

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

 

 

 

 

              Three weeks before the Christmas break Principal Wamp in an effort to
                 maintain a serious tone of instruction sent a notice to her staff. There were
                 to be no Christmas parties. Celebrations of any kind should be discouraged.
                 Teaching on a regular serious basis should continue right down to the last
                 day, which happened to be the day before Christmas Eve.

                 She needn’t have bothered. In happier times when the mood in the building
                 was less charged with uncertainty – the school closed a few more days before
                 Christmas to give everyone time to complete Christmas shopping – in those
                 happier days a more spontaneous festive mood was tolerated. Back then, the
                 secretaries explained, favorite teachers received Christmas cards; students
                 swapped tokens of friendship. One or two teachers might have sported a
                 Santa Claus hat; and the music department would surely have mounted a
                 Christmas Carol show in the auditorium for specially invited classes.

                 No such mood prevailed at John Wayne Cotter this year. Classroom attendance
                 was sparse; nobody felt much like teaching or learning. Mischief and vandalism
                 made duties difficult for the security staff who spent all morning chasing after
                 violators. Teachers and students could hardly wait for the bell at the end of
                 the day.

                 Radix came home, dropped his briefcase and wondered how the season would
                 pass. No traditional celebrations for him; no rushing about spending money on
                 gifts. Just a bone-dry waiting for the frenzy of consumption to pass. He would 
                 try, however, to make every day count.

                 That evening he took a stroll to the barbershop. The cold wind, the grey skies
                 with no forecast of snow, set the stage for a Christmas in the Bronx that       
                 would be little more than a fierce struggle to stay warm in cold buildings; be
                 cheerful, have much to eat and drink.

                 The barber, his two young apprentices and the customers were in seasonal
                 mood; the music was loud, the humor unrestrained, the conversation (about
                 domestic violence, police violence) served up with excitement. Young men,
                 talking fast, kept popping in with duffel bags offering watches, toys, cologne
                 at cut-rate price. The barber and the apprentices stopped what they were
                 doing to inspect the merchandise.

                 Back outside on the sidewalk, feeling stranger than ever with his fresh
                 haircut, dust and litter blowing up at his ankles, Radix sensed around him
                 some willed effort at merriness; at the same time a guarded edginess, the
                 kind of edginess that kept everyone moving on the sidewalk, stopping to
                 chat, but wary of popping interruptions, a half-forgotten slight that could
                 surface at any moment.

                 The following morning, still determined to make every day count, he decided
                 to make a trip to bookstores in Manhattan. He’d stopped in once at the
                 neighborhood public library. It was stocked with books which someone must
                 have deemed appropriate for the neighborhood’s income or reading levels –
                 popular romance, technical job-related books, a much-handled children book
                 section.

                 On the bus to the subway he looked out at the buildings and movement on
                 the sidewalks; at the vacant lots; that woman at the corner, thin legs twisting
                 on heels, sad-looking eyes in a bony face hoping to arouse desire; at the
                 next corner where young and old men waited outside the Deli, jobless, with 
                 quick darting eyes; a young woman in straight-ahead hurry, a child quick-
                 stepping to keep up.

                 Over there more people idling; and now another vacant lot across which
                 sheets of newspaper rolled, came to rest, then picked up again, sheet after
                 once folded sheet dispersing; unpainted signs over those shops, sagging
                 awnings. A cold, hellish place – so it would strike anyone moving away from
                 it, looking out from a bus; leaving it behind, if only for a short time.

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

 

 

 

                From the Desk of the Chapter Chairperson, Phil Quickenbush

                First, let me say you are the best staff the students and this city have seen or
                will ever see. Your poise in these trying times and under the relentless pressure
                put upon us by the community, the administration as well as the Superintendent
                has been gallant.

                For those of us who have had enough and want to see action, please contact me
                if you wish to volunteer to help me take this to another level – the removal
                from the State legislature of those who have failed so miserably to serve,
                protect and respect us as a staff.

                Second, the two Article 10 safety grievances approved by the Executive
                Board six weeks ago were heard last Friday. The first was in protest of the
                principal’s failure to evacuate the building in response to the flood of raw
                sewage that flowed through the basement, which exposed our students and
                staff to needless risk and illness, as well as creating a security nightmare. 
                The second grievance was to protest the failure of the administration to
                inform the staff about a fire for ELEVEN minutes while the alarms were
                going off. The staff will be kept informed of the outcome of these
                grievances.

                Third, the Superintendent denied our appeal to the principal’s obstinate
                refusal to permit staff to sit while on hall assignment. We intend to take
                this matter to Step II.

                The list of reported incidents occurring in and around the building in the
                last week:
                             Monday, March 30: Students yell “Heil Hitler” and “I worship
                             Hitler” to a Social Studies teacher of the Jewish faith.

                
                A bell rang and Radix stopped reading. An announcement from the main
                office reminded teachers of the afternoon sessions in professional
                development. Phil Quickenbush started to exit the cafeteria and was pursued
                by a tiny voluble group with more questions and stormy hearts.

                “So where do we go next?” Radix asked Bilicki. They hadn’t moved from their
                seats.

                Bilicki shrugged his shoulders. “By the way, you also missed the announcement 
                this morning…our new acting assistant principal…in Business Education… Dave
                Degraffenbach?”

                “Degraffenbach…? Didn’t he start teaching yesterday?”

                “Youngest AP the school ever had. Talk about meteoric rise…he must have 
                taken all the Supervisory exams in pretty quick time…and speaking of the 
                devil.” Dave Degraffenbach had entered the cafeteria.

                He was accompanied by Mrs. Haliburton who stuck to his shoulders like an
                appointed escort. At tables she stood a little apart, then drew close to join
                in humorous exchange about what this all meant. As they bore down on Radix
                and Bilicki, she beamed delight and pride. For all intents and purposes
                Degraffenbach was her newfound protégé, the source of her new joy.

                “Well, well, well,” Bilicki said, as they approached. “The man of the hour…
                the only man in the building with reason to celebrate.”

                “Same thing I was saying just this minute,” Mrs. Haliburton said. “Here we 
                are approaching doomsday, wondering what’s going to become of us, while
                this young man gets appointed assistant principal.” She looked directly at
                Radix as if her remarks were intended specifically for him, man without a
                country. “But tell us, Dave, how'd you do it? When did this all happen?”

                Degraffenbach, who would have preferred not to go into details given the
                prevailing atmosphere, sighed and shook his head.

                “I took the exams in bunches,” he revealed. In bunches? “I found out what 
                courses I had to take, and I took them in bunches. Took a big bunch last
                summer and finished up. I wanted to get it over with quickly.”

                “Well, you sure tore up that track like Jesse Owens,” Mrs. Haliburton said.

                “Hey, what difference does it make? The way things are shaping up, we’ll all
                be gone by next September I’ll be looking for a school just like everybody 
                else.”

                “I’ll say one thing I’m happy about,” Mrs. Haliburton lowered her voice for 
                her next words. “There will be no more John Wayne Cotter. I was never a
                fan of John Wayne movies. This community owes nothing to the John
                Waynes and Cotters of this world. Amen, I say, to reforms. Bring on the
                changes to this school.”

                She chuckled; her body shook with mirth. Bilicki checked his watch. And with 
                that everyone prepared to disperse.

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

 

 

 

                  Waiting on the first floor for the elevator, which seemed stuck on the third
                  floor, Radix was about to give up and take the stairs when the lights signaled it
                  was moving again. The door opened, teachers came off, talking fearfully,
                  searching each other for information, any scrap of information, now that things
                  were suddenly in flux.

                  Radix stepped in and pressed the button, and just as the doors were closing
                  MaryJane Syphers rushed in.

                  “Almost got yourself crushed to death,” Radix said.

                 “Yes, that would have been something.”

                  MaryJane Syphers gave him a smile that acknowledged his presence; then
                  the smile abruptly vanished. She burrowed in her bag and became preoccupied
                  with whatever it was she couldn’t find.

                  The elevator moved, going down, not up. They both groaned, and Radix in a
                  spontaneous wish to dissolve the awkwardness said:

                  “The story of my life! You want to  move up in the world…press the elevator
                   button…it takes you down…Next time I think I’ll rely on my own two feet.”

                   MaryJane Syphers released another frugal smile, and searched more frantically
                   in her bag. She seemed in no mood for small talk – not with this man in the
                   elevator. In any event when they got to the basement, Jim Holmstedder from
                   the attendance office came on, carrying sheets of computer printout, and
                   instantly her mood changed.

                   Maybe she’d known Jim Holmstedder a long time, and had more to say to him
                   than to a new teacher. In any event she got back her confidence, or must have
                   found that elusive thing at the bottom of her bag; and now suddenly she was
                   chatting away, not looking at Radix. Which left him free to study her again.

                   For the new semester, a new sweater. It didn’t conceal the veins in her
                   scraggy neck. Didn’t do much for her at all, though he was mindful of what
                   Bilicki had told him, that she'd lost her husband, her one true love, in the
                   Vietnam war. She seemed now a task-driven widower, all physical desire
                   turned inward; holding herself apart, a little curve at the shoulders, all flat
                   and pale and dry. Not much passion surging through her body; just that
                   skin-scratching resentment of the world for snuffing out the life of her
                   Vietnam warrior.

                   And now not caring to talk to Radix, though she evidently didn’t mind talking
                   to Jim Holmstedder, a teddy bear of a man, with a neat white beard and an
                   irresistibly friendly manner. They were having a tense exchange.

                  “I was told I might be excessed because they’re closing down the school. Not
                  that I’m  crazy about this school. It’s just that… you walk in here, all set to
                  start the new  year, and suddenly you’re pulled up like weeds…and tossed
                  aside… this is incredible.”

                  “They’re not going to toss anybody aside, MaryJane,” Jim Holmstedder said, in
                  his gentle teddy-bear voice.

                  “Well, that’s the impression I got.”

                  “I don’t think people were listening to what the Superintendent said; or maybe
                  they only heard what they wanted to hear.”

                  “Okay, tell me what you heard.”

                  “The way I understand it, there are going to be three schools instead of one.”

                  “Three schools?”

                  “Three schools…in the same building…Humanities and the Arts on the first
                  floor, Law and Government on the second, Mathematics and Science on the
                  third… three… separate…schools. They’re not going to shut down the building
                  and send everybody home. The plan, as I understand it, is to phase out the
                  old and phase in the new institutions. Starting next September. With the new
                  freshman class.”

                  “So what does that mean? Will they still need us here?”

                  “You’re needed right now,” Jim Holmstedder turned and winked at Radix. He 
                  placed an affectionate arm around her shoulder and drew her close to his
                  warm friendly chest. “And as the classes from the old school graduate, and the
                  new  school classes come in, they might even ask you to stay on and help.”

                  “Well, I don’t know if I want to be part of anything so…ridiculous… It’s so 
                  confusing. Besides it’s not going to change anything.”

                  The elevator had reached the third floor; they all stepped off.  Jim Holm-
                  stedder held the door and laughed; he should have gotten off on the first floor.

                  “See what you did?” he said. “You made me miss my floor. You sure know how
                  to grab hold of a man.”

                  A cherubic smile lit up his face. MaryJane Syphers smiled back at him, a rare
                  flower of a smile from the hothouse of her youthful years.

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

 

 

 

                 Radix came flying into the building, alarmed at how late he really was,
                      and certain someone had noticed;  thinking: if his job was now in jeopardy,
                      he had no one else to blame but himself. The world was in upheaval; the
                      Soviet Union, that citadel of centuries-old orthodoxy, was crumbling; the
                      event was sending  ripples across the globe. The first ripple had already
                      touched the shoreline of his work habits. Here he was back to school, start
                      of a new school year, first day and he was late, very late.

                      He tripped on the last concrete stair leading to the front door and went
                      tumbling forward into the surprised arms of the two security officers. They
                      held him up and shook with laughter, as if they’d been waiting for just that
                      sort of distraction.

                      These officers were young (and not so young) men and women, often
                      overzealous with male students, overfriendly with female students. For
                      the new semester they were wearing spiffy new outfits to go with the bulky
                      arrest paraphernalia around their waist.

                             His first stop after taking care of his time card had to be the department
                      office. It was empty. The hallways had a strange deserted look. Everybody
                      was convening somewhere – but where?

                      Then Mrs. Schnupp came into the office, her fist full of duplicating carbon.
                      She gave a chirpy hello to Radix, but there was on her face a vacant
                      disoriented look.
                      
                      “I hope the copying machine is working. Do you know if it’s working?” she
                      asked offhand, not waiting for an answer.

                      “You’re in a hurry for classes to start.”

                      “I like to be ready – before the floodgates open and the flood races
                      through.”

                      As she said this, Mrs. Schnupp switched on the copying machine; it whirred
                      and clattered, its green copying light came on to indicate a readiness to
                      churn out copies. Mrs. Schnupp watched the whole start-up process with a
                      nervous skepticism.

                            “Where is everybody?” Radix asked. He’d been scanning notices on the        
                      department board, looking for clues to the day’s agenda.

                      “Department meetings…discussing the bad news,” Mrs. Schnupp said, not
                      looking up.

                      “What bad news?’

                      “Haven’t you heard? Weren’t you at the faculty meeting?” Her face
                       tightened into a grimace. The copy machine needed paper, and here was
                       someone she barely knew talking as if he’d just come off a subway car
                       from Mars.

                            “I just got here. What’s going on?”

                      “Nothing’s going on. It’s the beginning of the end. The school’s been taken
                       over. This copy machine’s got short paper, I need long paper. Where do
                       they keep the long paper?

                      "Taken over?”

                      “Yes…taken over. The writing was on the wall a long time. Guess I’ll
                       have to use the short paper. Yes, this is what we've come to.”

                      And Radix, who didn’t know her very well, decided he’d had enough of her
                      distracted manner, and enough of her dispute with the copy machine.

                      “I think I’d better find the department meeting.”

                      “Started awhile back. Room 252,” Mrs. Schnupp said, stuffing paper in the
                        paper tray.

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

 

 

 

                If there was anyone in the auditorium on the Principal’s side that morning,
                someone who viewed her with considerable sympathy, if not bursting
                affection, it was Mrs. Haliburton; seated in the second row, chatting away like
                everyone else, until from the corner of one eye she sensed the anxiety
                Principal Wamp must be feeling. Mrs. Haliburton tried shushing everyone
                around her so things could get started. It was a gesture Principal Wamp
                noticed and acknowledged with a weary, grateful smile.

                Mrs. Haliburton understood what Principal Wamp was going through as the
                first woman to be appointed to run John Wayne Cotter H.S. The first woman 
                of color – her mother was Philippine, her father American, though she looked
                more Philippine than American. Her skin was almost white, bearing that fraction
                of difference that, in someone holding so conspicuous a position, would not go
                unnoticed.

                She tested the microphone; she looked around as if she’d misplaced
                something; she said something to one of her assistant principals in the front
                row, walked back to the podium and stood ready to begin her presentation.
                The buzz in the auditorium would not let up. Principal Wamp touched up her
                hair and waited.

                “Ladies and Gentlemen!” The microphone squealed and grated the nerves; she
                looked at it in an amused, horrified way; the buzz in the auditorium swelled.
                “Ladies and Gentlemen, if I can have your attention, please, we have a lot to
                get through this morning.”

                Getting them settled proved always a difficult proposition, more difficult that
                it ought to be. She’d arranged a welcome-back morning breakfast spread in
                the cafeteria, after which they always straggled up to the auditorium, still
                munching and sipping. She'd spoken to her assistant principals about the need
                for a tight schedule on this first day. Teachers should be handed a program of
                activities; they should be reminded they were back to work, ready to care of
                business especially at the September start.

                   This morning as she entered the auditorium, with her important guests and
               their ground-breaking news, she was almost flattened by the noise level,
               laughter and chatter coming at her over rows of chairs in anarchic waves.

                   Above the din someone was playing the piano – it looked like Mr. Bobcombe,
               the band instructor, bald and bulky on his piano stool and singing some
               jazzy melody; turning the auditorium into a jazz club, or a cocktail lounge.
               And – please, heaven help! – there was one of the teachers, that short eccentric
               woman in the English dept. who taught Drama, her skinny body perched on top
               the piano, pretending to be swoony with desire for Mr. Bobcombe.

                    Her visitors shifted restlessly in their seats, their visitor conversation
               exhausted. She caught the Superintendent looking at her, smiling patiently.
               Principal Wamp rallied her flailing spirit.

                   She fiddled with the microphone, adjusting it up and down; and now, finally
               losing patience, she raised her voice, meaning to signal she’d wait not a minute
               more. “Ladies and Gentlemen…LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…we have a lot to get
               through this morning.” Something caught in her throat; the faculty buzz slowly
               subsided.

               And then the microphone squealed and went dead. Fortunately, Mr. Dalghetti
               who was in charge of rigging up the system hurried to the front of the stage. She
               could wait no longer. Leaning forward on the podium and trusting to the
               acoustics of the hall – at least until Mr. Dalghetti got his wires and speakers
               functioning properly – she launched into the welcome-back speech she’d
               prepared.

               Mr. Dalghetti signaled the address system was working again. Principal Wamp
               tried it; it screeched and howled. She recoiled, “It’s working too well now, but
               better too well than not at all, right?” she joked. Then she touched her flower-
               pattered scarf and ran her hand down the side of her dress; and she smiled a
               dazzling smile now that the problems had melted away and everything was
               finally set and ready to go.

 

             "How’d you end up with a name like that?” Radix asked, that first day Degraf-
             fenbach reached over to shake his hand.
                    “How did you end up with a name like – sorry, what did you say your name
             was?” Degraffenbach shot back, pulling in his chair, keeping things on even keel.
                     He went on: “There’s this guy in the Math department, he’s from Nigeria,
             he’s got this funny-sounding name, nobody can get their tongue wrapped 
             around the syllables… Oban…jem…funa! See, even I have a hard time with it.
             Anyway, everybody calls him Mr. O. The kids call him Mr. O. Even the payroll
             secretary calls him Mr. O. And, get this, he doesn’t mind!  Says it makes things
             easy for him.”  Then turning to Radix, he said, “By the way, everybody calls me
             Dave or Mr. Degraff. I have no problem with that.”
                Not to be outdone, or to seem outsmarted, Radix said there was someone in
             his department with a name everyone managed to pronounce correctly, with no
             abbreviation, despite its strange spelling.
                “Zbryznski… anyone know him?”
                Degraffenbach said he hadn’t heard the name, nor did he know the guy. “In
             any case, what did Shakespeare say…That which we call a rose by any other
             name would smell as sweet…? Isn’t that Romeo and Juliet?” Bilicki assured
             him it was. "That line has stayed with me since 9th grade.”
               Radix thought he heard in the tone of the other man’s voice an attempt to
             slide him down a notch. He figured Degraffenbach had just stopped by and had
             no intention of joining them. But the next day he was back, with his tray of
             cafeteria food, and his ebullient manner. When Radix tried to draw him out on
             political or current issues he got the same joking response. Once Degraffenbach
             slapped him on the shoulders, telling him to “lighten up”. Radix played with his
             coffee spoon, refusing to lighten up, his resentment of the man growing.
                   For his part Mahmood seemed put off by Degraffenbach’s lack of seriousness,
             but chose not to make an issue of it, putting it down to the younger man’s
             inexperience. Raised on Long Island what could he possibly know about the lives
             of “rock breakers” around the world?
                   One morning Degraffenbach joined them just as Mahmood was explaining an
             incident in California involving a white police officer who had found him in his
             stalled Volkswagen in what they considered a “wrong” neighborhood.
                 Bilicki shook his head and reminded everyone there were “wrong” neighbor- 
             hoods in New York. “I live in a “wrong” neighborhood just across the river in
             New Jersey. If someone like you happens along there at certain hours, acting
             suspiously, as they say, there are nice old ladies peering through the blinds who
             would not hesitate to reach for the phone.”
                   Degraffenbach looked down at his plate, chewing thoughtfully; then as his
             forked picked away for the next food dispatch he made a startling disclosure:
             he’d lived among white people all his life on Long Island, and he couldn’t  
             honestly say he had experienced racism.
                    Everyone looked at him, mildly amazed.
                “No, I’m serious. I hear talk about taxis not stopping when you hail them in
            Manhattan, because you’re black. Well, I’m black, and I’ve never had a problem
         &#0160
;  with cabs in Manhattan.”
                  “Why do you think that is so?” Mahmood asked.
                  “I really don’t know.” Degraffenbach leaned back, and seemed to give the
            question some thought. Then he said, “Maybe taxi drivers find me attractive.”
                 Bilicki laughed; he was the only one who didn’t mind Degraffenbach’s jokes. 
            “That's it,” Degraffenbach went on. “That's why they stop for me every time. They
            find me irresistible.” His voice climbed to a falsetto of mock incredulity; his
            boyish face beamed amusement.
                 A lost cause, Radix thought, his mouth compressed in irritation. Telling funny
           stories, simply refusing to think. Beyond saving, Radix felt sure.

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