Horizontal Woman (11 page)

“Now,” he says, “now,” and begins to work on her avidly. From a distance Elizabeth hears pots steaming, children crying, the sound of bottles shattering on Boerum Street but they are far away. What can she do? Trapped outside him she allows Morales his last moments with her. Nothing she has done with him has been understood. He is not up to the supportive level yet. All of it has been wasted because she started too late, had too little time. And then it must be that this is her fault.

Nothing to do. Morales fucks her grunting, Elizabeth closes her eyes and lets him have his will. She deserves it. It is her penalty. If she had been a better social worker, this could not have happened. Morales comes and his sperm is like electricity shot through her, reminding her that never again, as long as she lives, will she ever be so smug or self-confident or faulty again. She has deserved this darkness.

How she leaves the Morales apartment and in exactly what state their relationship is when she leaves and what she says to Mrs. Morales and what the Morales children say to her never quite comes clear in Elizabeth’s mind; she only knows that after a certain sensation of struggling passage she finds herself once again on Boerum Street and her clothes seem uncomfortably heavy on her although she is not sweating. From a window way upstairs Morales is waving to her, at least he is gesturing toward the street in her direction but she cannot deduce his cries which may be in Spanish or merely poorly transmitted. “Yes,” she says, raising her hand, “yes, goodbye,” knowing that Morales will be one of her irretrievable failures (she has always been willing to express total internal self-honesty: she has failed utterly with Morales, nothing has worked out, she will have to live with this) and walks down Boerum Street, turns down Nostrand Avenue, decides that her next stop will be the Homeway Hotel where, at least, her goodbyes can be brief and not nearly so therapeutic in intention. There in the lobby she sees her clients once again, sitting in stifled, embryonic shapes in the huge chairs, gnarled and twisted in postures of agony, not one of them looking at her as she comes by them and to the desk. Mel is there, rubbing his hands, cheerful and efficient. He knows her caseload. “Let’s see,” he says, “this is July. That means that you have statutories still to complete with George, Jimmy, Jack H. and Willis K. I’ll have them out here in just a second if you want to take a rest.”

“No,” she says, “that’s all right. I’m not making any statutories today.”

“Oh? Then what brings you by?” Mel fishes in his pocket, takes out a twenty dollar bill, looks at it. “If you’ve changed your mind,” he says, “this is waiting for you. Anytime at all. Maybe — ”

“No. It wasn’t for that.”

“Then I’m busy,” Mel says and turns. “Got to manage this hotel; keep my boys happy. Unless,” he says, turning, “unless maybe you dropped by hoping I’d ask you for a date. Okay. I’m asking you for a date. Want to go out tonight?”

“No,” she says, “I don’t go out with anyone. I just came by to say goodbye. I wanted to say goodbye to my cases and to you too I guess. I’m being transferred.”

“Transferred?” Mel says, looking at her quizzically. “You mean, you’re resigning.”

“No, I’m not resigning. I’m being sent to another welfare center.”

“You mean, you’re not actually quitting. You’re just taking another job with the department?”

“That’s right.”

“Why are you being transferred? You sick of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Wanted an inside job?”

“No,” Elizabeth says. “It wasn’t voluntary. I love my job. I was reassigned to be a home economist in the Bronx.”

Mel shrugs. His eyes narrow. “All right,” he says, “you’ll be a home economist in the Bronx. That’s okay with me. I’ve seen them come and go for ten years here and I guess I’ll see some more. It’s my loss but what can you do? Salant was a nice fellow but the trouble is they all want to improve themselves; they can’t see a soft spot when they fall into it. So go to the Bronx.” He extends a soft hand, touches her palm. “Shake,” he says, “and good luck. No advances, that’s not my ticket. If you don’t want to shake, don’t. Up to you.”

“It isn’t that,” Elizabeth says vaguely, withdrawing from the clasp after a moment. “I mean, of course I wanted to say goodbye to you. You’re part of the social work context of this hotel. But I wanted to say goodbye to my clients as well.”

“So good,” Mel says, raising a hand. “There they are, those that are able to sit up. Some of the others are in their rooms but you wouldn’t be able to rouse them anyway. Say goodbye and godspeed and that’s it. They’ll never know the difference.”

“You make it sound so disgusting,” Elizabeth says after a pause. “It isn’t. It doesn’t have to be.”

“It doesn’t have to be? Well, that all depends. Excuse me,” Mel says. With some finesse he hoists himself up onto the counter, stands there blinking for a moment until he gets his balance and then cups his hands to his mouth. “Boys!” he says, “I mean gentlemen. Our investigator is leaving us. She’d like to say goodbye. May we have your attention? May we have all of your attention please? Your investigator would like to say goodbye. I will repeat that; your investigator would like to say goodbye. I am talking about your welfare investigator. Attention please. She would like to say goodbye.”

The men stir in their chairs, wink, groan, wipe their mouths with the backs of their hands, then one by one, like fish on a counter, look up at her beadily, without interest, their dead eyes popping. Some spit on the floor, others lean forward to mumble. “There they are,” Mel says, presenting the lobby with a flourish. “Ready to say goodbye. Do you want to get up with me on the counter?”

“No,” Elizabeth says. Abruptly she feels like a fool; she has no business wasting her time here when there are so many live cases, so many possibilities outside. She turns, looks at the men. “I hope that I’ve been able to help you,” she says. “I’m going to miss you.”

There is more generalized spitting, small conferrals between the men. She waits for them to say something but realizes after a time that they will not. “Well,” she says, “I guess that that’s all. God be with you.” It sounds curiously formal; in fact it sounds stupid but she does not know what else to say to them. Most of them, despite their senile and alcoholic dementia, still hold childishly onto the institutions with which they were born; invoking the name of God is to reassure them of some continuity in their lives and this is as close as she can come with any of them to social work. “God be with you again,” she says awkwardly and backs away.

“That was your investigator,” Mel says with some enthusiasm, “that was your investigator addressing all of you. Your ex-investigator; she’s leaving today.”

“Well, not today, but
soon
. I mean this is the last day — ”

“Enough,” Mel says grandly, dropping an arm, “if this is your last time here then it’s the last day for all of the boys and me here. I’m sure we all want to wish our ex-investigator the best. Don’t we John? How about it, Bobby boy? Want to say goodbye to her?”

Two of the men detach themselves from their chairs, stumble, stagger against the walls and then begin, slowly, to advance upon Elizabeth. Their mouths are distended into grotesque smiles, their clawlike hands gesture wildly as they close the distance. Rotting teeth in their mouths seem to ooze liquids and suddenly Elizabeth finds that her control has broken. It is not professional; it is an unspeakable, inexcusable lapse, she does not in fact know what is happening to her but she finds that she is caught in a thrall of fear. She feels nausea, racking sobs. The men advance upon her, the distance narrowing.

“Oh my God!” Elizabeth says, “oh my God, I can’t stand it!” and it is as if she sees the Homeway Residence for the first time, these clients for the first time, Mel himself for the first time and she pivots, in mid-scream, grasping her fieldbook and then, to her shame (and she knows that she will never forgive herself for this as long as she lives) Elizabeth runs. She runs from the Homeway Residence in dread, hearing the cackling behind her, her skin frozen against what she feels at any instant will be a terrible puncturing contact which will drop her.

“Goodbye,” Mel calls after her, “goodbye, goodbye!” and she hears his laughter, hears the mumbles of the men as well, hears all of the activity in the Homeway Residence but as she stands under the enormous decaying sign, little bits of smashed fluorescence around her on the street, her control already returning, Elizabeth knows that what she should do if she had any professionalism at all is to go back to the lobby and beg the forgiveness of those men for running from them.

But she cannot. She cannot do this. She will have to accept this part of herself, that she is totally blocked. What it will lead to she does not know; what implications it will have upon her career she cannot understand.

Humbled, shaking, Elizabeth grasps her fieldbook to her chest and carries it like a shield against her on the dreadful streets as she moves away from the Residence and thinks of what she must do during the rest of this day.

For she must see Willie Buckingham now. She does not know why she feels she must wrap up everything on this one day, why she cannot use the remainder of the week to close down her relationships or at least the important ones but she has the feeling now, some insane compulsion to act, that if she does not do her work
now
she may never do it. For all she knows, Oved is lying in wait for her at the center, ready to laugh in her face and fire her the instant she walks in. Perhaps her transfer orders have come through already (the department is a paramilitary organization in certain respects) and she will be sent to the Bronx early. Perhaps her pain and dislocation are so great that if she does not drive herself blindly through the necessary tasks she will not be able to accomplish them at all. Perhaps perhaps. Who knows? She does not know. She knows that she must go now to Willie Buckingham.

She turns the corner again, wanders past the Morales apartment with her head down, forces herself toward Willie’s building. Mandleman’s office is closed today, a cardboard sign dangling in the window informing police and fire authorities of the emergency number to call in case of disaster and for some reason she is sorry that this is so; it would be nice to know that Mandleman was around. He is a terrible man, wholly misguided and corrupt in the bargain, his insights about the clients are twisted and grotesque, nevertheless it would be nice to know that he were within earshot if something bad were to happen in one of these buildings. Why is she thinking this way? What has happened to her? Maybe it is the Felipe Morales come now stiff and dry on her thighs, chafing her as she walks … but then she has never been one to shape her attitudes around merely physical details. Morales’ come is an annoyance, her relationship with Felipe has been a waste … but why should this depress her so or make her fearful of simple Willie Buckingham?

She does not know. She climbs four flights and knocks on the Buckingham door. Mrs. Buckingham opens it and her face deadens and becomes cold as she sees Elizabeth; gentle Sadie Buckingham, mother of five out-of-wedlock children who to the best of Elizabeth’s knowledge has never been anything other than totally obsequious. (She has been unable to break through to the woman.)

“Get out of here,” Mrs. Buckingham says. “I don’t want to see you.”

“You don’t understand, Mrs. Buckingham. I — ”

“I understand everything. I don’t want you around now, Mrs. — ”

“Miss. Miss Moore.”

“Miss Moore, whatever your name. We scheduled for no visit this month. You out here just last month and you ask a million questions and I tell you everything you want to know.” Mrs. Buckingham is a huge woman, her breasts overhanging her waistline; staring at her Elizabeth can again understand Willie’s” obvious Oedipal block. “You want to know the rent and the maintenance and all that crap and I told you everything. You come back in two more months and ask more questions.”

“This is kind of a special visit, Mrs. Buckingham. Is Willie around?” The thing to do is to barrel on through; jauntily, looking toward the purposes in mind. Nothing else matters. She will not stop. She eases her way into the apartment, the woman sniffing and coughing around her, little sparks of coughs lying around Elizabeth like flowers and inhales the deep, menstrual odors of a welfare apartment. “Is he?”

“Willie in the bedroom,” Mrs. Buckingham says sullenly. “What you done with that boy is a disgrace. I tried to raise them proper. They say you on welfare they say you ain’t no good at all but I had concerns. I care for these children; they don’t live like pigs. A lot you care, Miss Moore.”

“Willie told you — ” Elizabeth says delicately. She stifles a little sneeze. “He told you — ”

“Willie a good boy. You don’t think so; you think he trash just like you think all of us but Willie have manners and he tell me everything.”

Elizabeth puts her fieldbook under her arm and uses both hands to grasp Mrs. Buckingham’s. “Oh,” she says, “if I could only tell you, if I could only make you understand — ”

“Like I say, I understand everything. I ought to report you. Miss Moore, I never heard of an investigator doing something like that. I know my boy a good boy; he never force the issue.” Mrs. Buckingham sobs; obviously her hostility has been a thin, defensive cover for pain. “He never make you do nothing you don’t want to do. How can you — ”

“It just happened,” Elizabeth says softly, still holding the woman’s hand. “It’s one of those things. Willie’s a wonderful boy and you ought to be proud of him.”

“Proud of him? I ought to report you!”

“That wouldn’t do any good, Mrs. Buckingham,” Elizabeth says. She has no time for casework and yet, instinctively, she persists. “If you’re disturbed, you’ve got to think of the reasons you’re so upset. What did this really mean to you? Can you let him go — ”

“You smart white bitch,” Mrs. Buckingham says, flinging her hands away, “you lucky I don’t take a
knife
to you. Get out of my house. You get away from my boy, you hear?”

“I am,” Elizabeth says softly. “I’m not going to be your worker any more. I’ve been transferred; this is the last time I’ll ever see you. Next time you’ll have a new investigator. Could I see Willie? Could I say goodbye to him?”

“Willie in the other room there. I don’t think he want to talk to you. I know he don’t. You really leaving?”

“Yes I am. I’ve been transferred out.”

“That’s a break,” Mrs. Buckingham says. “That’s a blessing from God. You’d have all those other kids inside you in about two weeks, I figure.”

“That’s not
fair
,” Elizabeth says, angered, her control lapsing with this woman for the first time. “You have no right to say that. I had reasons.”

“I bet you had reasons.”

“And they weren’t for me; they were for your son. I wanted to do my best for him, don’t you understand that?”

“What I understand,” Mrs. Buckingham says, shaking her head, “and I been on relief twenty years so maybe this ain’t worth understanding too much but as far as I can see you are crazy. You are a crazy one, Miss Moore. I never heard of no investigator pulling tricks like that. Some of the men with the girls, yes, men investigators; you know how they are. But a woman — ”

“I want to see Willie,” Elizabeth says. “I won’t be up here any more and I want to say goodbye to him. I don’t care if you think I’m crazy or not because you’ll never understand and you’re blocked anyway.”

“He in the bedroom Miss Moore,” Mrs. Buckingham says, seizing a broom and sweeping the floor violently, using the back end to administer small, directing pats to Elizabeth’s buttocks. “But I don’t think he want to see you.”

“Sure I want to see Miss Moore,” Willie says, opening the bedroom door, standing before them wearing dungarees and socks. “I like Miss Moore. You got no right, ma, to say those things — ”

“No good,” Mrs. Buckingham says, “this is all no good. You want to talk to each other, you go in there and you leave the door
open
. I hear any sounds, I see any sights and I gonna lay in there with this broom.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Moore,” Willie says, touching her gently on the shoulder, leading her into the bedroom. It is the first time she has ever seen it: a modified dormitory this is with five or six bunks heaped to the ceiling, all of them empty now except for one sleeping child in the rear. “I was listening at the door and I heard those things she was saying and they’re all wrong. I don’t agree. I didn’t mean to make fun of you or anything. George Jones
is
a friend of mine and those other cats wouldn’t believe. They just wouldn’t
believe —
”

It is a changed Willie; Elizabeth can understand some of the reasons for this. His mother’s aggression has stripped him down; to a real extent he will never be able to escape it. Also, she can see the neurasthenic signs in the wrist, palpitations of the neck: undoubtedly his friends have given him a bad time. “It’s all right, Willie,” Elizabeth says softly, taking his hand, looking at him. “It’s all right.”

“Leave that door open!” Mrs. Buckingham shouts. “Ain’t nobody gonna close that door.”

“It’s open, damn it, ma! I wouldn’t close no door — ”

“I’m leaving, Willie,” Elizabeth says. “I won’t be your worker any more.”

“I know. I heard that.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“Well, I guess I’ll miss you too. Can we see each other you think?”

“No, Willie,” Elizabeth says. She feels maternal; reacts to her own drives and manages to suppress a desire to bring him against her. His dependency is so great. “Now that I’m no longer on your case it wouldn’t be fair to either of us. Your next worker will try to help you too.”

“There ain’t never been a worker like you, Miss Moore.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“We seen a whole lot of workers in this house through the years and there never been one like Miss Moore.”

“That means something to me Willie,” Elizabeth says. She holds his hand still, bends over, scrabbles for her fieldbook which she has dropped. She must, somehow, terminate the interview before the emotional blocks loosen or Mrs. Buckingham comes in with the broom. In some tentative way she feels that she has reached Willie: Willie at least, may be her legacy. “I’ve got to be going now,” she says gently. “You understand.”

“Sure, sure I understand Miss Moore.”

“But I had to come up and say goodbye to you. It was something I very much wanted to do.”

“I’m glad, Miss Moore. You sure we can’t ever see each other again?”

“No Willie. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Miss Moore,” Willie says, dropping her hand, standing, turning around and looking out the window, “I got something I got to tell you. I mean I have to.”

“Yes Willie,” she says, looking at the panes of his back. He is, from this view, almost beautiful; she can understand how a woman might feel desire grasping him there. Of course
she
has never felt desire; her passions in fornication with the clients have been purely on the professional level but looking at him in this light she sees that one
could
, if one were motivated in that way, find Willie intensely physically attractive.

“I been wanting to tell it to you for a while now but I never somehow got up the guts. But I guess since you’re leaving and all I’d better tell you.”

“Yes,” she says, looking over his shoulder and out at the sunlight; in this aspect Boerum Street could be Fifth Avenue or the Lower East Side: it is beautiful, everything is beautiful; it is only a question of perspective. “Do you want to say something about the way you feel for me? You may, you know. You have a right to these feelings. All of these feelings are beautiful and you have a right to express them without shame.”

“I don’t hear no door closing,” Mrs. Buckingham calls, “but I got my ears at the ready. I don’t hear no sounds either but I waiting to hear them. I give you young folk two more minutes in there and then I clean out the whole place with a broom. What’s to be done is done.”

“Well, it’s not about feelings exactly, Miss Moore,” Willie says. He turns, aspects of light cast shadows on his face; he looks solemn and aged now and she sees some intimation of the man that Willie will be some day if he finds the supportive therapy and casework he needs. Maturity and intelligence seem locked into his features, heaviness and great comprehension of pain. “Not feelings, except maybe in a way because I ain’t been feeling too good.”

“You can tell me, Willie. You can tell me anything.”

“I know I can tell you everything but this one kind of hard Miss Moore.” “Don’t worry. Try.”

“Well,” Willie says, swallowing; she can see his adams apple descend and bob up in his neck and finds herself thinking before she can cut off the thought
all of them have that trick
and then at this vestige of prejudice which she has not, somehow, managed to cancel from herself she blushes, feeling roseate and vulnerable on the bed. What if Willie says that he loves her? Somehow she will have to show them that these feelings can be converted to self-love.

“Well,” Willie says again, running a hand across his forehead, “I make it short and sweet is the best, right? They got this free checkup, you know? Where they bring in the trucks from around the city and they park down by Fulton Street and everybody in the neighborhood can run in and have tests made. They advertise it over the radio and so on that everybody can come in for a free checkup. So my mama, she made me go.” He tousles his hair, looks more vulnerable and boyish than ever standing before her. Elizabeth reminds herself of what she should always have been aware; that Willie really has the mind of a twelve-year-old. That is all he is, all that most of them are: not only sick but retarded. She must hone the edge of her tolerance.

“Go on, Willie,” she says. “It’s all right. I’m listening. Short and sweet.”

“Short and sweet,” Willie says, “that’s right. That’s the ticket.” He gulps. “Anyway, I went down to one of those trucks last week and had this free checkup which they give you. I been meaning to tell you ever since then but even up to now I didn’t have the strength. I told George Jones and he laughed and said I’d better tell you and I told the other guys but they said they didn’t care. I been trying to tell you.”

“What is it Willie?” Elizabeth says quietly. It must be a conversion hysteria of some kind; perhaps the boy has a heart condition or some form of diabetes. Then again, is it possible that he has lung cancer? The trucks, some of them she recalls vaguely, have X-ray machines. “What did you find out about yourself? It’s all right,” she says. “You’ll be okay. They have wonderful medical facilities for welfare clients and you’ll get the best of care — ”

“I already being treated,” Willie says. “I cured. I mean, I going to be cured, very soon. But I have to tell you. I don’t know how to. I guess I’d just better.”

“That’s it,” Mrs. Buckingham says from the next room. “That is the end of the line. I am coming in there with this broom and clean out the mess. Break it up in there. Break it up!”

“Well, Willie?” Elizabeth says softly, standing. She tries to maintain continued professional calm but strictly speaking this is not easy; she feels at any moment the broom of Mrs. Buckingham may fall across her shoulders and what then. What then? “Are you going to tell me or not,” she says with the beginnings of irritation. “I don’t have to put up with this forever, you know.”