Elizabeth finds that the Buckingham apartment is jammed with youths: five or six of them, maybe seven or eight (it is difficult to count) in various positions around the living room and kitchen, some of them smoking, others looking sullenly at their nails, all of them regarding her with vast and hungry interest as Willie opens the door and moves her in. She thinks that she can recognize George Jones as one of the youths but then again it is difficult to tell; all of them look the same in this light and she is under a great deal of nervous strain. She wonders if Oved will really put her up on charges for running out on emergency duty and is already thinking about how she can get back to the welfare center as quickly as possible, maybe with apologies. “It was an emergency, didn’t I tell you?” she will say to Oved, “but I was able to settle things right down and now I’m back.” She is not exactly sure what she will describe the emergency as being. Maybe Willie will give her some ideas.
But Willie does not seem in that capacity now: she has never seen him so tense nor, for that matter, so detached from the situational fix as he appears now. It must be a neurasthenic block of some kind; he mutters and talks to himself as he leads her back to the living room. “Miss Moore, Miss Moore,” he is saying, “I knew you would come,” and the youths all look at her intently as she is led into the living room and there motioned to the sofa which is empty. She sits uneasily, clutching her fieldbook, holding it tightly against her groin as Willie stands above her and the others circle in. “Yes?” she says finally when she is aware that none of them will speak, “what is it, Willie? What can I do for you? What’s the problem?” Her voice seems high-pitched and nervous; Elizabeth tries to work herself into a professional calm. “There’s no problem I can see.”
“Well, Miss Moore,” Willie says, “Miss Moore, the reason I brought you up here — ”
“Don’t jive her,” one of the youths says. He comes over to the couch, looks at Elizabeth with murderous eyes, stretches out a hand suddenly and runs his fingers insultingly down her sleeve, staring at her. “Take it nice and slow and easy. Willie been telling us — we, by the way, a group of his very best friends — Willie been telling us that you been making love to him and a certain George Jones.”
“It’s the truth, Miss Moore,” Willie says, jumping nervously. He is in a highly agitated state; in some detached way Elizabeth wonders what could possibly be bothering him, how superficial her connection with him must have been if he can be so emotionally blocked, “now you know it’s the truth; you tell them.”
“Our relationship is confidential,” Elizabeth says. “I am Willie’s caseworker; he is part of my caseload that is to say and whatever occurs in that relationship is privileged. There’s no emergency at all, was there Willie?”
“Well,” the murderous youth says, “in a way there’s an emergency, sure. You see, we friends of Willie but we don’t believe him. We think he giving us a line of bullshit.”
“That’s a lady, man,” someone in the back says. “Keep your mouth clean for a lady.”
“Well, then,” the youth says, “we feel that what Willie been telling us is some falsehoods, hypocrisies and lies. We do not find this possible to believe, even if the very honorable George Jones who is not here today also says that Willie is telling the truth. All of us here are very interested in finding out the truth from your own lips so to speak or as evidence in fact.”
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth says, crossing her legs. “I can’t talk about anything of that nature. You must be aware of that fact. Social work is a privileged position.”
“But you are no social worker, Miss Moore. You are a social investigator.”
“Please, Miss Moore,” Willie says. He seems to be in some obscure but real distress. “Please tell them. It’s important to me; I can’t go into explanations — ”
“Willie — ”
“Please,” he says. His eyes become soft, luminescent; sensitivity overtakes Willie’s face, he leans more closely toward her. “It would mean a great deal to me. And I’m not feeling so well, Miss Moore; didn’t you say you would do everything to make me feel better? This would make me feel better.”
“All right,” Elizabeth says, playing with her fieldbook and then looking up to confront the youth squarely in the eye. “If that’s the way you want it. Willie and I have had some sexual contact, yes.”
“Sexual contact?”
“Yes.”
“Sexual contact,” the youth says, musing. “You mean fucking, is that right?”
“I don’t know what you want to call it. And frankly,” Elizabeth says, not liking the situation at all and deciding that she is going to bring it to an end, “frankly,” she says then standing, “I am very upset at having been brought all the way out from the welfare center where I was on emergency duty just for something like this. I’m leaving now. You are not my responsibility. Willie is my responsibility but I’m very disappointed in him.”
“I’m sorry you’re disappointed,” the youth says softly. He seems to give a quiet signal and suddenly the others are around her. There is a juxtaposition of faces, forms, urgency. She feels heat in the room as they form a loose circle, all of them looking the same, cutting off her view of the walls, moving in more closely. Their faces are less threatening than curious; bland, unmoving eyes focusing on her. “Disappointment is a very bad emotion to have. But I am happy to know that Willie Buckingham was telling the truth. Now and then he has a lying problem.”
“You can’t intimidate me,” Elizabeth says. “You are not my cases. None of you are my responsibility. I’m going to leave now. Willie, I don’t like your attitude. I don’t like it; you’re abusing our relationship.”
“Miss Moore,” Willie says, showing his palms, “I couldn’t do nothing. These cats wouldn’t believe me, that’s all. I couldn’t lose face with my friends now, could I? It would have hurt my self-image, just like you were telling me. You got to build up my self-image.”
“Cut it out, Willie,” the apparent leader says. He turns back toward Elizabeth and gives her an enormous wink. “Bet you think that you got a right to be afraid now,” he says, “isn’t that so?”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Bet you think that we got you up here to have a party and that you are going to be raped by a bunch of niggers, isn’t that the truth?”
“I don’t like that word. I’ve never used that word in my life.”
“Well that’s fine; that proves you’re real liberal and I’m pleased. But that’s the thought in your mind.”
“No it isn’t,” Elizabeth says. She makes a space for herself in the line, eases her way through. They do not resist. She walks toward the door. They do not come for her. At the door she turns. “You don’t understand at all, any of you. I’m not afraid of that because if I thought that it would do any of us any good it wouldn’t have to be rape. There’s no such thing as rape. But that isn’t going to happen because none of you except Willie are on my caseload and there’s nothing at all I can do for you.” She is vaguely aware that she does not seem to be making sense; nevertheless, they are at bay. Furthermore, she has no fear at all. This is one of the interesting aspects of this encounter; tensional elements are utterly lacking. If anything did happen in here it would, in the long run, probably be cathartic anyway. “Willie,” Elizabeth says, “I am ashamed of you,” and she walks through the door, closes it behind her and heads down the steps.
Whether or not there are sounds behind her means nothing. She does not even try to listen. Her primary feeling as she comes out onto the street is rage: rage that Willie would break the confidentiality of their relationship, rage that Willie would so misapprehend her motives as to hold her up for contempt and ridicule. But the rage wafts away like smoke as she walks toward the bus; wafts away in the realization that Willie is still sick, her efforts to the contrary he is a very sick boy and if he is still capable of behavior of this sort … then she must accept the fact that somehow she has failed him. She has failed them all. She has too much in opposition; there is too much to overcome, she was wrong in feeling that it would be easy. Nevertheless, she must try.
She must try: sitting on the bus now she can only hope that what she has done has been for Willie and that it has, in whatever way built up his self-esteem. For an instant, looking out the back window, she thinks that they may be pursuing her but it is merely a clump of high school boys on the street running from the yards (they all look the same to her, still: she acknowledges this) and her thoughts shift onto other terrain; she wonders, then, what she will manage to say to Oved.