“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 same 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 else. 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, baybee, 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.