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.
Dear Raphael,
There isn’t any easy way to say this, and I’m sorry for that. After your accident I tried to visit you several times, but you wouldn’t see me. I wanted to tell you that what had happened to you didn’t make any difference to me, but you wouldn’t even give me the chance. Then you left town, and I hadn’t even had the chance to talk to you at all.
The only thing I could think was that I wasn’t very important to you anymore-maybe I never really was. I’m not very smart about such things, and maybe all you really wanted from me was what happened those few times. No matter what, though, it can’t go on this way anymore. I can’t tie myself to the hope that someday you’ll come back.
What it all gets down to, dear Raphael, is that I’ve met someone else. He’s not really very much like you but then, who could be? He’s just a nice, ordinary person, and I think I love him. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me and wish me happiness-as I do you.
I’ll always remember you-and love you–but I just can’t go on hoping anymore.
Please don’t forget me,
Marilyn
When he finished the letter, he sat waiting for the pain to begin, for the memories with their little knives to begin on him; but they did not. It was past now. Not even this had any power to hurt him. His apartment, however, was intolerable suddenly, and although it was raining hard outside, he pulled on his coat and prepared to go down to the bus stop. For only a moment, just before he went out, there was a racking sense of unspeakable loss, but it passed quickly as he stepped out onto the rain-swept rooftop.
Willie the Walker, grimly determined, strode past the bus stop, the beaded rain glistening on his coat and dripping from the brim of his hat. Raphael smiled as he went by.
Across the street there was another walker, a tall, thin-faced young Indian moving slowly but with no less purpose. The Indian’s gait was measured, almost fluidly graceful, and in perhaps a vague gesture toward ethnic pride, he wore moccasins, silent on the pavement. His dark face was somber, even savagely melancholy. His long black hair gleamed wetly in the rain, and he wore a black patch over his left eye.
Raphael watched him pass. The Indian moved on down to the end of the block, turned the corner, and was gone.
It kept on raining.
iv
By mid-April, the weather had broken. It was still chilly at night and occasionally there was frost; but the afternoons were warm, and the winter-browned grass began to show patches of green. There was a tree in the yard of the house where Crazy Charlie lived, and Raphael watched the leaf buds swell and then, like tight little green fists, slowly uncurl.
He began walking again-largely at the insistence of his therapist. His shirts were growing tight across the chest and shoulders as the muscles developed from the exercises at his therapy sessions and the continuing effort of walking. His stamina improved along with his strength and agility, and he soon found that he was able to walk what before would have seemed incredible distances. While he was out he would often see Willie the Walker and less frequently the patch-eyed Indian. He might have welcomed conversation with either of them, but Willie walked too fast, and Patch, the Indian, was too elusive.
On a sunny afternoon when the air was cool and the trees had almost all leafed out, he was returning home and passed the cluttered yard of a house just up the block from his apartment building. A stout, florid-faced man wheeled up on a bicycle and into the yard.
“Hey,” he called to someone in the house, “come and get this stuff.”
A worn-looking woman came out of the house and stood looking at him without much interest.
“I got some pretty good stuff,” the stout man said with a bubbling enthusiasm. “Buncha cheese at half price-it’s only a little moldy-and all these dented cans of soup at ten cents each. Here.” He handed the woman the bag from the carrier on the bicycle. “I gotta hurry,” he said. “They put out the markdown stuff at the Safeway today, an’ I wanna get there first before it’s all picked over.” He turned the bicycle around and rode off. The woman looked after him, her expression unchanged.
Raphael moved on. His own supply of food was low, he knew that, and there was a Safeway store only a few blocks away. He crutched along in the direction the man on the bicycle had gone.
The store was not very large, but it was handy, and the people seemed friendly. The stout man’s bicycle was parked out front when Raphael got there.
It was not particularly busy inside as Raphael had feared that it might be, and so he got a shopping cart and, nudging it along the aisles ahead of him with his crutches, he began picking up the items he knew he needed.
Back near the bread department the stout man was pawing through a large basket filled with dented cans and taped-up boxes of cereal. His florid face was intent, and his eyes brightened each time he picked up something that seemed particularly good to him. A couple of old ladies were shamefacedly loitering nearby, waiting for him to finish so that they might have their turns.
Raphael finished his shopping and got into line behind the stout man with his cartful of damaged merchandise. The man paid for his purchases with food stamps and triumphantly carried them out to his bicycle.