The Losers (18 page)

Flood’s tone was harsh, contemptuous, and his descriptions were a kind of savage parody of Raphael’s earlier observations. It was almost as if the silent passage of Patch had somehow set him off, somehow made him so angry that he went beyond the bounds of what he might normally have said. Raphael watched him and listened closely, trying to detect the note of personal ridicule he knew must be there, but Flood was too smooth, too glib, even in his anger, and the flow of his description moved too fast to be able to pin him down.

It had been private before, a kind of passive observing that hadn’t harmed anyone, but he had made the mistake of telling Flood. He should have known that the dark young man with the obsidian eyes would twist it, pervert it for his own amusement. Raphael began to wish that he had kept his mouth shut.

iv

Raphael had been swimming, and he had spent an hour in the weight room at the YMCA. The car made getting around much easier, but it had definitely disrupted his exercise routine. Since Flood had arrived in Spokane, Raphael’s life had suddenly become so full that he no longer had time for everything. All in all, though, he preferred it that way. He thought back to those long, empty hours he had spent when he had first arrived in Spokane, and shuddered.

Frankie was waiting for him again when he got home. She stood on the sidewalk wearing a sleeveless blouse. It had been warm for the past week, and Frankie had started to work on her tan. Her arms and shoulders were golden. Her eyes, however, were flashing, and her lips were no longer tremulous. Her raven’s-wing eyebrows were drawn down, and she looked very much like a small volcano about to erupt.

Raphael crossed the sidewalk. “Hi, babe.” He leered at her. “You wanna go upstairs and fool around?” He had begun to use innuendo and off-color remarks to keep her off balance.

Frankie, however, was not off balance this time. “
‘Sfacim!”
she almost spat at him.

He bunked. He had a sort of an idea what the word meant, and it was not the sort of word he expected from Frankie. Then she said a few other things as well.

“I didn’t know you spoke Italian,” he said mildly.

“Bastard!”

“Frankie!”

“Get up those goddamn stairs!” She pointed dramatically. This was
not
the Frankie he knew.

He went around to the side of the building and started up the stairs. He could hear her coming up behind him, bubbling curses like a small, angry teapot.

“What’s got you so wound up?” he asked her when they reached the roof.

“You got me in trouble, you son of a bitch!”

“Come on, Frankie, calm down. We’re not going to get anywhere if all you’re going to do is swear at me.” He went over and sat down in his chair.

“Why didn’t you
tell
me that you’d gone to work?”

“I didn’t think it was particularly important. It’s not much of a job.”

“You’re supposed to report
any
kind of a job. You’ve got a hole in your progress chart you could drive a truck through. You didn’t even go to vocational rehab. What were you
thinking
of?”

“You didn’t tell me the rules. How was I supposed to know?”

“You stupid, inconsiderate bastard!”

“If you feel like swearing, Frankie, you can probably handle it without having me around. ”
Cabrone!”

“Spanish, too? You
are
gifted.”

“We had Spick neighbors when I was a kid.” She drew in a long, shuddering breath and seemed to get control of herself. “We have to fill out reports, Raphael,” she told him, her dark eyes still flashing. “Am I going too fast for you?”

“Be nice.”

She made a somewhat elaborate obscene gesture that involved both hands. “There’s a procedure, Raphael. First we discuss various occupations and decide what sort of job’s compatible with your disability. Then you go to vocational rehab to get the training you need to qualify you for the job. Then
we
set up the interviews for you. You didn’t do any of that. Now I’m going to have to fake all kinds of reports. My supervisor thinks I’m incompetent.”

“I’m sorry, Frankie. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you were too busy trying to talk dirty to me to see if you could embarrass me.” She laughed derisively. “Fat chance. I’m what’s known as a tough little broad. You couldn’t embarrass me no matter
what
you said.”

“What was all that puppy-dog stuff about then?”

“You use what you’ve got, Raphael. It makes other people feel superior, and then they go out of their way to help you. It makes my job easier. I thought I had you all tied up with a neat little bow, and then you turn around and stab me in the back. Now we’ve got to fix it.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning, Frankie?”

“All right. You’ve been assigned a number.”

“Who’s idea was that?” His voice was cold.

“My supervisor’s. She’s queer for numbers. She even assigns numbers to the pencils on her desk. You can be sure it wasn’t
me.
I know how you feel about us, so I thought I’d handle you sort of informally. Then Goodwill sent in their quarterly report, and guess who’s name was right at the top of the list of new hires. My supervisor got all over my case for not reporting your progress. I told her that I hadn’t had time to fill out all the reports.”

“You lied,” he accused.

“Of course I lied. I had to cover my ass.”

“You’re gonna burn in hell, Frankie.”

“Whatever. How did you learn to repair shoes without any training?”

He shrugged. “Something I picked up.” “It takes
weeks.”

“Not if you don’t spend the first twelve sessions having somebody explain to you how a sewing machine works. I ruined a few pair of shoes when I started, but what the hell? They were throwaways to begin with anyway. I’m getting better at it now. Would you like a leather brassiere? I’ll make you one if you’ll model it for me.”

Her hands went to the neck of her blouse. “Do you want to check the size? My left boob’s a little bigger than the right one.”

He almost choked on that. This was
definitely
not the Frankie he’d known.

“Do you still want to play?” she said. “Or should we get down to business?”

“Sorry, Frankie.”

“Let’s get to work then. I’m going to need to put down dates and names for the progress reports—all the usual dog doo-doo. Nobody’s ever going to read the reports anyway, but we have to have them in your file.”

“You’re a fraud, Frankie.”

“Of course I am, but I’m a very good fraud.” She started asking questions and taking notes. “If anybody ever asks, tell them that I sort of guided you through all this. I’ll put in enough comments about your initiative to keep our asses out of the soup, but you’re going to have to cooperate.”

“It’ll cost you.”

“Anytime, Raphael, but you might just be biting off more than you can chew.” Frankie knew about his condition, of course, but for some reason she chose not to let that knowledge modify her comments. Raphael rather ruefully admitted to himself that
he
had been the one who had started it, and this new Frankie he had just discovered beneath the disarming, little-girl exterior would not back away from
anything.

She sighed. “Why do you have to be so different, Raphael? Why do you insist on not fitting into any of the compartments?” “It’s a gift.”

“It’s a pain in the ass. And
why
do you have to be so damn good-looking? Those cute remarks you’ve been making came very close to getting you in all kinds of trouble.”

He thought of something he’d been meaning to ask. “Frankie—is that short for Frances?”

“Sort of.” She said it evasively.

“Sort of?”

“All right, smart-ass, it’s Francesca. Francesca Dellamara. Happy now?”

“That’s gorgeous, Frankie. Why don’t you tell people?” “I don’t want them to know I’m a wop.” “You ashamed of bein’ a wop?” “Blow it out your ass.”

When she had finished taking notes, she looked around, her soft lower lip pushed out in a kind of thoughtful pout. Her dark eyes, however, were twinkling mischievously. “This is a very nice roof you’ve got up here,” she said. “A girl could get an all-over tan up here if she wanted one. I could tan places that don’t usually get tanned, and I wouldn’t even get arrested for it.” She looked at him archly. “You could watch, if you’d like,” she offered.

Raphael suddenly blushed. He couldn’t help it.

“Gotcha!”
she squealed delightedly.

“You’re a naughty girl, Frankie.”

“Do you want to spank me?” She opened her eyes very wide with a little-girl eagerness.

“Stop that.” Somehow she’d shifted the whole thing around, and now
he
was on the receiving end.

Then Flood arrived. Raphael made the introductions, and Frankie told them that she had to go back to work and left.

“She looks good enough to eat.” Flood smirked.

“Don’t pick on my caseworker,” Raphael told him.

“Your
what?”

“My caseworker. I made a mistake when I got here, and now I’m in the toils of the Department of Human Resources. Frankie comes by now and then to make sure that I don’t cheat—sprout a

new leg while they’re not looking or something.”

“You actually let those leeches get their hands on you?” Flood seemed amazed.

“Frankie’s not hard to manage. She’s young and pliable. I’m molding her character—making a closet dissident out of her.” In the light of what he had just discovered, that might not have been entirely true.

“Why in hell did you ever go near those people?”

“I was playing games with them, and the games got out of hand. Social workers are notoriously devoid of any kind of sense of humor—except for Frankie. There might be some hope for that one.”

“Don’t ever bet on that,” Flood said darkly. “Social science was my first major. You knew that, didn’t you?” “You don’t seem the type.”

“You’ve got
that
right, baby. The smell drove me off.” “The smell?”

“Haven’t you ever noticed? Social workers all smell like rotting flesh—the same way vultures do, and probably for the same reason. Do you know what their ultimate goal is, Raphael?”

“To tend the wounds of the casualties of life—or so they say.”

“Bullshit! Their goal is to take over—to take over everything and everybody—to make us live
their
way, and to make us pay for it, of course. It’s all money and power, Raphael, the same as everything eke. Once a social worker gets her hooks into you, you never get well, because you’re a renewable resource. Anytime they need more money, they screw around with you until you have to go back into some kind of therapy—at so much an hour. They never let you get free, because someday they might want to squeeze some more money out of you or out of your insurance company. And power? What greater power can you have than to be able to make somebody not only
do
what you tell him to but
think
what you tell him to as well?”

“Aren’t you exaggerating a bit?”

“Grow up, Raphael. Their magic word is ‘programs.’ They’ve got programs for everything, and every program is based on thought control. They’ve already taken over the schools. Every teacher in the public schools has a de facto degree in social work. I doubt if you could find a real English teacher or a real history teacher anywhere in America. Johnny can’t read because his teachers are too worried about his ‘relationships,’ and their major tool is ‘the group.’ Modern Americans are sheep. They herd up by instinct. You won’t find no Lone Rangers out there no more, Kimo Sabee. Peer pressure, bay-bee, peer pressure. That’s the club they use. Americans would sooner die than do anything that runs counter to the wishes of the peer group. Before I finally threw the whole thing over, I spent
hours
taking notes in those group meetings. If I ever hear anybody say the words ‘y’know’ again, I’ll throw up right on the spot.”

Raphael remembered the endless, monotonous repetition of the ‘y’knows’ during his enforced attendance at AA meetings when he’d tried playing games with a new caseworker. “They
are
sort of fond of that, aren’t they?”

“It’s the Ave Maria and Paternoster of the groupie. It’s a part of the recognition system, the badge of membership in the cult.”

“Cult?”

“God, yes. They’re all cults, Raphael. They’re based on the mind-destroying success of AA. You can cure somebody of
anything
if you put him in a cult and grind off all his individuality and alienate him from such distractions as friends, families, wives—little things like that. Be glad you’re not married, my friend, because the very first thing your cute little caseworker would have done would have been to poison your wife because your marriage hadn’t been approved by the group—whatever group it is she’s hustling for.” Flood’s expression was strange, intent, and he seemed almost to have his teeth clenched together. “Have you ever noticed how much they all want you to ‘talk about it’?”

“Of course. That’s what they do—talk.”

“Do you want to know why? Social workers are almost all women, and women
talk
about problems. They don’t
do
things about them. If John and Marsha’s house catches on fire, John wants to put the fire out. Marsha wants to sit down and discuss it—to find out why the fire feels hostility toward them.” “Get serious.”

“I am. Most social workers are women, and they know that they can control women by talking to them. It doesn’t work that well with men, so the first thing a social worker does to a man is castrate him.”

Raphael stiffened. How much did Flood know?

Flood, however, didn’t seem to notice. “Social workers have to castrate their male clients so that they can turn them into women so that they’ll be willing to sit around and
talk
about their problems rather than
do
something about them. If somebody actually
does
something about his problems, he doesn’t need a social worker anymore. That’s the
real
purpose of all the programs. They want to keep the poor sucker from really addressing his problem. If he does that, he’ll probably solve it, and then he gets away. They won’t have the chance to leech off his bank account or his emotions anymore. The bitches are vampires, Raphael. Stay away from them. The content of any social-science course is about fifty-percent vocabulary list—the jargon—and about fifty-percent B. F. Skinner behavior-modification shit. And as I said, the whole idea is to get everybody in the whole goddamn world into a program. They’ve probably even got a program for normal people—a support group for people who don’t need a support group—a group to screw up their minds enough to make them eligible for the really
interesting
programs. Give those bastards a few years, and ninety percent of the people in the United States will be social workers. They’ll have to start branching out then—spread the joy to other species. Guide dogs and cats through the trauma of divorce. Death counseling for beef cattle—so that we can all get happy hamburger at the supermarket. Eventually they’ll probably have to start exhuming the dead just to have enough customers to keep them all working. How about ‘Aftercare for the Afterlife’? Ten social workers to dig up your uncle Norton to find out how he’s doing? ‘How’s it going, Nort?’ ‘Bout the same—still dead.’ ‘Would you like to talk about it?’”