Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

Chapter 7

Sister Act

With just three of them there, it was inevitable that ConTact's phone lines would jingle like the nickel slots in the Sahara Hotel all night long. Sitting in the overhead fluorescent glare, watching the dots dance on the dingy acoustic tile and waiting for the luck of the draw in terms of incoming calls, was a lot like gambling, Matt often thought.

At least he found himself half-hypnotized by the unpredictable rhythm of it, the dullness of silence and murmuring voices around him interrupted by a shrill ring; then he was off to the races--thinking, talking, judging, guessing, persuading.

ConTact, being a generic hotline, took all comers.

At eight-fifteen, he convinced a rape victim--survivor, Matt grimly revised--to seek emergency-room attention after he reassured her by giving her some idea of what to expect. At nine, the Shoe Freak called. This well-educated sounding woman fretted in precise, academic tones about the worldwide conspiracy to ruin women's feet with high-heeled shoes. Her exhaustive personal surveys of podiatrists and fashion columnists proved her point, and she cited these experts monotonously.

Matt smiled when he recognized her voice. She was a "regular," and harmless, except for monopolizing phone time that could help someone who was out of control. The Shoe Freak was never out of control, which was both her problem and her salvation, in an odd way. She had found her obsessive hobbyhorse and could ride it to death without doing drugs or committing kleptomania or turning to any of another half-dozen pressure-releasing habits that are so destructive. Matt tried to shepherd her off the line as quickly as possible without refusing her a few moments' outlet. He smiled again as he thought of what would happen if he could put Temple on the line in his place some night.

"Brother John," the Shoe Freak was saying in her even, automaton voice, "you know that the reason men rule the world is because they don't destroy their arches in killer shoes."

"Do men rule the world?" he asked the smile still in his voice.

"It's nothing to smirk about. Certainly men rule the world." she began in a tone that promised a new and more predictable ax to grind.

"I'm sorry--another line is blinking like crazy. We're down on staff tonight."

"The only men senseless enough to cram their feet into these contemporary torture machines are transvestites, and my studies show that even they have shockingly high occurrences of bunions, hammer toes and fallen arches, despite the part-time nature of their high-heel wearing--"

"I really must hang up," he interrupted, worried now that someone at the end of his rope might be hanging figuratively from an unanswered telephone line.

"Of course," she said in haughty tones, as if he had be en the crank caller, not she. "I 'll send you a copy of my full thesis when it's written."

On that threat, he punched another button to an open line and braced for the next caller. "ConTact."

"Hello," began a doubtful, elderly female voice.

Matt tried to balance the usual preconceptions with the need to get an instant fix on the sex, age and emotional state of his caller. This one sounded like she was dialing a local pizza place and wasn't too sure of what she had reached. For a moment he wondered if this was a redial from the hesitant woman with the hissing problem.

"I don't suppose this is the ordinary call you get," the voice went on, gaining strength and purpose.

"None of our calls are ordinary," he put in gently as a bit of disarming humor, "and I can't tell yet about yours."

"But I imagine the rules of your vocation are pretty strict."

Something about the phrase rankled. His fingers reached for the pad on which he often doodled during his long hours on the phone with the naked and the damned. A psychiatrist would have had a field day with his free-form inkings in black, blue and red ballpoint, he thought as he made the first stroke.

"We're supposed to talk about you," he reminded her, again gently. Unlike many his age -- thirty-three -- he had eternal patience with the elderly. He'd had experience.

"I'm not the problem."

By now, the voice, though no younger, had grown wry and rueful. It had a personality. Matt found himself beginning to relax. Whatever she wanted, she wasn't on the brink of a pressing personal crisis. He began to grow curious.

"Your situation doesn't sound critical. Maybe you should try Ann Landers."

She sighed. "I'm trying to find someone."

"Or the police."

"Someone I haven't seen in . . . oh, eighteen years."

Matt was momentarily stumped. "How about a private detective?"

"I know where this person is."

"Oh, is it a relative?"

"Not at all."

"And if you know where he--she--"

"He."

"If you know where he is, why can't you approach him yourself?"

"I don't know where he lives. And where he works, he isn't reachable in the normal sense."

"Surely someone where he works can take a message?"

"I don't know, w ill you?"

"Me?"

"I imagine that in your line of work there are rules about not identifying yourself."

"Quite true, we use pseudonyms, just like the people you phone at the classified department of the newspaper. It protects our privacy, and the focus shouldn't really be on us, so we all have nicknames, if you will."

"What is yours, young man?" '

For the first time, Matt felt naked about giving his working name, as if even this false barrier was about to be breached. The ballpoint pens smooth plastic barrel clung to a palm suddenly slightly damp.

"Brother John," he said , A silence.

"Is that you, Matthias?" the woman's voice demanded with a note of suspicion and satisfa ction that tensed his mind and body with an ancient anxiety, and momentary paralysis.

He had to answer. You don't elude a voice like that, the imperious tone of an old and old-fashioned teacher wrapping the innocuous question with invisible barbed wire.

"Ye-es," he admitted, against all the rules, against his inclination. He'd been so relentlessly trained not to lie that even the polite--or protective---social falsehood froze on his lips and then the truth came stuttering through.

Matt hias, No one had called him that in . . . years.

His pen was still, the intersecting red and blue spirals on his notepad bleeding color in a crazy-quilt pattern. The pen, as if on its own, began writing the block letters in a deep, paper-biting childish fashion: M-a-t-t-h-i-a-s A-n-d-r-e-w D-e-v-i-n-e. M.A.D.

"Who are you?" he asked.

That wasn't against the rules. Callers were the ones who were supposed to reveal themselves in this counseling game, not him. Not Matthias, whom he hadn't thought about in a long time. Once he'd turned fourteen, he had made everybody call him Matt.

"Sister Seraphina O'Donnell," came the answer, one that made him both sigh in relief and clench the pen so tightly that he accidentally retracted the point with a snap.

The barrel end pressed the pad and left a tiny "o," like an invisible bullet hole.

"Sister Superfi ne!" he said in amazement before he could stop himself. lt was what all the kids had called her, and it was a kind of compliment.

"So they tell me," she said with a chuckle. "I'm sorry I made you break the rules, but I'm glad you answered my call. I'm too old to feel like a fool on the telephone."

"How did you know . . . I was here?" Surprise was giving way to other emotions: anxiety, even anger.

"You did get a recommendation from the Monsignor at Saint Stanislaus to get the job."

"Oh, that. I 'd forgotten. What can l do for you, Sister?"

There he was, back; back i n respectful, grade-school mode, but with a hard-earned adult confi dence giving an edge to his question.

"I need a . . . personal consultation."