The Losers (11 page)

Most of the time he sat and watched Crazy Charlie next door. He had no desire to know the man’s real name or background. His imagination had provided, along with the nickname, a background, a personal history, far richer than mundane reality could ever have been. Crazy Charlie had obviously once been a somebody—nobody could have gotten
that
crazy without a certain amount of inspiration. Raphael tried to imagine the kind of pressures that might drive a man to take refuge in the demon-haunted jungles of insanity, and he continued to struggle with the problem of the rituals. There was a haunting kind of justification for each of them, the shaving of the head and face, the avoidance of a certain spot on the floor, the peculiar eating habits, and all the rest. Raphael felt that if he could just make his mind passive enough and merely watch as Charlie expended his days in those ritual acts, sooner or later it would all click together and he would be able to see the logic that linked them all together and, behind that logic, the single thing that had driven poor Charlie mad.

It was enough during those snowy days to sit where it was warm and secure, to listen to music and the scanner with an open book in front of him on the table, and to watch Crazy Charlie. It kept his mind occupied enough to prevent a sudden upsurge of memories. It was very important not to have memories, but simply to live in endless now. Memories were the little knives that could cut him to pieces and the little axes that could chop his orderly existence into rubble and engulf him in a howling, grieving, despairing madness that would make the antics of Crazy Charlie appear to be profound-est sanity by comparison.

In time the snow disappeared. It did not, as it all too frequently does, linger in sodden, stubborn, dirty-white patches in yards and on sidewalks, but rather was cut away in a single night by a warm, wet chinook wind.

There were physical therapists listed in Raphael’s phone book, but most of them accepted patients by medical referral only, so he called and made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon.

It was raw and windy on the day of his appointment, and Raphael turned up the collar of his coat as he waited for the bus. A burly old man strode past, his face grimly determined. He walked very fast, as if he had an important engagement somewhere. Raphael wondered what could be of such significance to a man of that age.

The receptionist at the doctor’s office was a motherly sort of lady, and she asked the usual questions, took the name of Raphael’s insurance company, and finally raised a point Raphael had not considered. “You’re a resident of this state, aren’t you, Mr. Taylor?” she asked him. She had beautiful silver-white hair and a down-to-earth sort of face.

“I
think
so,” Raphael replied. “I was bom in Port Angeles. I was going to college in Oregon when the accident happened, though.”

“I’m sure that doesn’t change your residency. Most people who come to see the doctor are on one of the social programs. As a matter of fact I think there are all kinds of programs you’re eligible for. I know a few of the people at various agencies. Would you like to have me call around for you?”

“I hadn’t even thought about that,” he admitted.

“You’re a taxpayer, Mr. Taylor. You’re entitled.”

He laughed. “The state didn’t make all that much in taxes from me.”

“It did from your parents, though. I’ll call around and see what I can find out. I can give you a call later, if you’d like.”

“I’d appreciate that. Thank you.” He signed the forms she handed him and sat down to wait for the doctor. It was good to get out. He had not realized how circumscribed his life had been for the past several weeks.

The doctor examined him and made the usual encouraging remarks about how well he was coming along. Then he made arrangements to enroll him in a program of physical therapy.

Because he still felt good, and because it was still early when he came out of the doctor’s office, Raphael rode buses for the rest of the day, looking at the city. Toward late afternoon, miles from where he had first seen him, he saw the burly old man again. The old man’s face still had that grimly determined expression, and his pace had not slowed.

In the days that followed, because the scanner and the books and Crazy Charlie were no longer quite enough, Raphael rode buses. For the most part it was simply to be riding—to be doing something, going somewhere. For that reason rather than out of any sense of real need, he called the helpful receptionist.

“I was meaning to get in touch with you, Mr. Taylor,” she said. “The people at social services are
very
interested in you.”

“Oh?”

“You’re eligible for all sorts of things, did you know that? Food stamps, vocational guidance—they’ll even pay for your schooling to train you in a new trade.”

“I was a student,” he told her dryly. “Are they going to make a teacher out of me instead?”

“It’s possible—if you want to get a degree in education.” Her voice took on a slightly confidential note. “Do you want to know the
real
reason they’re so interested in you?” she asked.

“Why’s that?”

“Your particular case is complicated enough to provide fulltime work for three social workers. I don’t really care for those people. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just give the money to the people who need it rather than have some girl who’s making thousands and thousands of dollars a year dole it out to them in nickels and dimes?”

“A lot more sense, but the girl can’t type, so she can’t get an honest job.”

“I don’t quite follow that,” she admitted.

“A friend of mine once described a social worker as a girl who can’t type.”

She laughed. “Would you like to have me give you a few names and phone numbers?”

“I think we might as well drop it,” he decided. “It’s a little awkward for me to get around.”

“Raphael,” she said quite firmly, asserting her most motherly authority,
“we
don’t go to
them. They
come to
us.”

“We?”

“You probably didn’t notice because I was sitting down when you came in. I’m profoundly arthritic. I’ve got so many bone spurs that my X rays look like pictures of a cactus. You just call these people, and they’ll fall all over themselves to come to your house—at
your
convenience.”

“They make house calls?” He laughed.

“They almost have to, Raphael. They can’t type, remember?”

“I think I’m in love with you,” he joked.

“We might want to talk about that sometime.”

Raphael made some calls, being careful not to commit himself. He remembered Shimpsie and wondered if she had somehow put out the social-worker equivalent of an all-points bulletin on him. He was fairly sure that escaping from a social worker was not an extraditable offense, however.

He was certain that the various social agencies could have saved a great deal of time and expense had they sent one caseworker with plenipotentiary powers to deal with one Taylor, Raphael—cripple. He even suggested it a couple of times, but they ignored him. Each agency, it appeared, wanted to hook him and reel him in all on its own.

He began to have a great deal of fun. Social workers are always very careful to conceal the fact, but as a group they have a very low opinion of the intelligence of those whom they call “clients,” and no one in this world is easier to deceive and mislead than someone who thinks that he, or in this case, she, is smarter than you are.

They were all young—social workers who get sent out of the office to make initial contacts are usually fairly far down on the seniority scale. They did not, however, appear to have all attended the same school, and each of them appeared to reflect the orientation of her teachers. A couple of them were very keen on “support groups,” gatherings of people with similar problems. One very earnest young lady who insisted that he call her Norma even went so far as to pick him up one evening in her own car and take him to a meeting of recent amputees. The amputees spent most of the evening telling horror stories about greater or lesser degrees of addiction to prescription drugs. Raphael felt a chill, remembering Quillian’s warning about Dr. Feelgood.

“Well?” Norma said, after the meeting was over and she was driving him home.

“I don’t know. Norma,” Raphael said with a feigned dubiousness. “I just couldn’t seem to relate to those people.” (He was already picking up the jargon.) “I don’t seem to have that much in common with a guy who got drunk and whacked off his own arm with a chain saw. Now, if you could find a dozen or so one-legged eunuchs—”

Norma refused to speak to him the rest of the way home, and he never saw her again.

Once, just to see how far he could push it, he collected a number of empty wine bottles from the garbage can of two old drunks who lived across the street. He scattered the bottles around on the floor of his apartment for the edification of a new caseworker.
That
particular ploy earned him a week of closely supervised trips to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

It stopped being fun at that point. He remembered the club Shimpsie had held over his head at the hospital, and realized just how much danger his innocent-seeming pastime placed him in. Because they had nearly total power over something the client wanted or needed, the caseworkers had equally total power over the client’s life. They could—and usually did—use that power to twist and mold and hammer the client into a slot that fit their theories—no matter how half-baked or unrealistic. The client who wanted—needed—the thing the social worker controlled usually went along, in effect becoming a trained ape who could use the jargon to manipulate the caseworker even as she manipulated him. It was all a game, and Raphael decided that he didn’t want to play. He didn’t really need their benefits, and that effectively placed him beyond their power. He made himself unavailable to them after that.

One, however, was persistent. She was young enough to refuse to accept defeat. She could not be philosophical enough to conclude that some few clients would inevitably escape her. She lurked at odd times on the street where Raphael lived and accosted him when he came home. Her name was Frankie—probably short for Frances—and she was a cute little button. She was short, petite, and her dark hair was becomingly bobbed. She had large, dark eyes and a soft, vulnerable mouth that quivered slightly when someone went counter to her wishes.

“We can’t go on meeting this way, Frankie,” Raphael said to her one afternoon when he was returning from physical therapy. “The neighbors are beginning to talk.”

“Why are you picking on me, Raphael?” she asked, her lip trembling.

“I’m not picking on
you,
Frankie. Actually, I rather like you. It’s your profession I despise.”

“We’re only trying to help.”

“I don’t need help. Isn’t independence one of the big goals? Okay, I’ve got it. You’ve succeeded. Would you like to have me paste a gold star on your fanny?”

“Stop that. I’m your caseworker, not some brainless girl you picked up in a bar.”

“I don’t need a caseworker, Frankie.”

“Everybody needs a caseworker.”

“Have you got one?”

“But I’m not—” She faltered at that point.

“Neither am I.” He had maneuvered her around until her back was against the wall and had unobtrusively shifted his crutches so that they had her blocked more or less in place. It was outrageous and grossly chauvinistic, but Frankie really had it coming. He bent forward slightly and kissed her on top of the head.

Her face flamed, and she fled.

“Always nice talking to you, Frankie,” he called after her. “Write if you get honest work.”

His therapy consisted largely of physical exercises designed to improve his balance and agility, and swimming to improve his muscle tone. The sessions were tiring, but he persisted. They were conducted in an office building on the near north side of Spokane, and he did his swimming at the YMCA. Both buildings had heavy doors that opened outward and swung shut when they were released. Usually someone was either going in or coming out, and the door would be held open for him. Sometimes, however, he was forced to try to deal with them himself. He learned to swing the door open while shuffling awkwardly backward and then to stop the seemingly malicious closing with the tip of his crutch. Then he would hop through the doorway and try to wrench the crutch free.

Once the crutch was so tightly wedged that he could not free it, and, overbalanced, he fell.

He did not go out again for several days.

He called the grim-faced old man “Willie the Walker,” and he saw him in all parts of the city. The walking seemed to be an obsession with Willie. It was what he did to fill his days. He moved very fast and seldom spoke to anyone. Raphael rather liked him.

Then, one day in late March, the letter from Marilyn came. It had been forwarded to him by his uncle Harry. It was quite short, as such letters usually are.