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families you know ain’t permitted no phones and we certainly do not
have
a phone, and I was thinking about you and I decided, I was going to call Miss Moore at home and find out how she was. And I called information and they gave me the number just like that and it was you. How are you, Miss Moore? You still ain’t told me.”
    “I’m fine, Willie,” Elizabeth says. She finds that she has drawn the sheet up above her waist, is clutching at her pubis: symbolic referent indeed! “What can I do for you?”
    “Well,” Willie says after a pause, “the thing is this and I don’t quite know how to put it. You know, I been having a lot of trouble at the school. You know?”
    “I know that. But I thought that we were helping you make an adjustment.”
    “Well, I’m making a fine adjustment but I’m still having trouble. Like they call me a truant and things like that just for missing a roll check. And I want to tell you, it’s been making me very depressing Miss Moore. Because school is mighty important to me; I want to be a physician as you know and finish up my studies. I take that stuff seriously. Otherwise I would surely quit now at eighteen and get a job and help get my family off relief because I am
ashamed
that they are on relief but then so is everybody in the neighborhood. What can you do? Anyway, I’ve been sitting in this phone booth in this grocery store very depressing and I said to myself, maybe I’ll call up Miss Moore. She cares about me; she knows what my problems are and how to fix them. I was thinking,” Willie says in a different tone, his voice dropping an octave and assuming sudden alertness, “I was thinking that I could drop over to your place tonight. To talk to you a bit.”
    “I’m not feeling very well, Willie,” Elizabeth says and realizes that this is the wrong tack; a social worker can never show personal weakness nor allow her own personality to extrude in a client relationship, “well, I’m feeling fine, but that’s not it. I just don’t know if you should come over. It would be better if we kept our relationship — ”
    “Now our relationship,” the voice says, “our relationship Miss Moore is already a
very close one
, you know? You very important to me and I’d feel terrible, just terrible, if Miss Moore didn’t want to see me. Because, you know, it would be like the whole world, the only person I could trust, turned away from me and what would happen then? Anyway, I thought I could come over and talk over my troubles with you. Of course if you don’t want that — ”
    It is not as if they have not established a relationship. Three times already she has had intercourse with Willie Buckingham III, breaking through various levels of resistance, sullenness, hostility and fear and in a way the fact that he has reached out to call her at home is one of the most moving things which has yet happened to her; it proves that she is coming through. And she cannot pretend that she doesn’t feel well because the fact is that ever since she left Schnitzler she has been feeling better and better; it was only the momentary upheaval, looking at the scrolls, which must have unsettled her. “All right, Willie,” she says, “if you want to come over.”
    “I don’t know your address, Miss Moore. They gave me the number at information but they don’t give no addresses.”
    “I’m on Henry Street,” Elizabeth says. “Can you remember that? 270 Henry Street, on the third floor. It’s a walkup and you’ll have to ring but the bell is broken so the best thing to do is just to wait around until someone comes in with a key and just follow them. There’s a lot of traffic in the building so you shouldn’t have any trouble.”
    “Well, fine,” Willie says. “That’s just fine. You don’t worry about me getting in; I get in and out at various places. I be along there in about forty minutes, I don’t think you’re too far at all. I’m going to bring a