"David Eddings - Losers, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

"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."