Z. Packer - Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

She would never forget — never, never, never — the day he came to the hospital where she worked; she was still wearing her white nurse’s uniform and he’d said he was concerned about her spiritual well-being— Liar ! — then drove her to where she lived with her aunt Alma, whose room resounded with perpetual snores and hacking and wheezing — as if Clareese didn’t have enough of this at the hospital — and while Alma slept, Clareese poured Deacon McCreedy some fruit punch, which he drank between forkfuls of chicken, plus half their pork roast. No sooner than he’d wiped his hands on the napkin — didn’t bother using a fork — he stood and walked behind her, covering her cross-eyes as though she were a child, as though he were about to give her a gift — a Bible with her very own name engraved on it, perhaps — but he didn’t give her anything, he’d just covered her wandering eyes and said, “Sing ‘On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.’ Make sure to do the Waterfall.” And she was happy to do it, happy to please Deacon McCreedy, so she began singing in her best, cleanest voice until she felt his hand slide up the scratchy white pantyhose of her nurse’s uniform and up toward the control-top of her pantyhose. Before she could stop him, one finger was wriggling around inside, and by then it was too late to tell him she was having her monthly womanly troubles. He drew back in disgust — no, hatred —then rinsed his hand in the kitchen sink and left without saying a word, not a thanks for the chicken or the pork roast or her singing. Not a single word of apology for anything. But she could have forgiven him — if Sisters could even forgive Deacons — for she could have understood that an unmarried man might have needs, but what really bothered her was how he ignored her. How a few weeks later she and Aunt Alma had been waiting for the bus after Wednesday-night prayer meeting and he drove past. That’s right. No offer of a ride, no slowing down, no nothing. Aunt Alma was nearly blind and couldn’t even see it was him, but Clareese recognized his car at once.

Yes, she wanted to curse the Brothers’ Church Council of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized, but Sisters and Brothers could not curse, could not even swear or take an oath, for neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. So no oath, no swearing, and of course no betting — an extension of swearing — which was why she’d told the other nurses at University Hospital that she would not join their betting pool to predict who would get married first, Patty or Edwina. She told them about the black and white hairs and all Nurse Holloway did was clomp her pumps — as if she was too good for the standard orthopedically correct shoes — down the green tiles of the hall and shout behind her back, “Somebody sure needs to get laid.” Oh, how the other RNs tittered in their gossipy way.

Now everyone applauded when Pastor Everett announced that Sister Nina would be getting married to Harold, one of the Brothers from Broadway Tongues of Spirit Church. Then Pastor Everett said, “Sister Nina will be holding a Council so we can get husbands for the rest of you hardworking Sisters.” Like Sister Clareese, is what he meant. The congregation laughed at the joke. Ha ha. And perhaps the joke was on her. If she’d been married, Deacon McCreedy wouldn’t have dared do what he did; if she’d been married perhaps she’d also be working fewer shifts at the hospital, perhaps she would have never met that patient — that man — who’d almost gotten her fired! And at exactly that moment, it hit her, right below the gut, a sharp pain, and she imagined her uterus, that Texas-shaped organ, the Rio Grande of her monthly womanly troubles flushing out to the Gulf.

Pastor Everett had finished the announcements. Now it was time for testimony service. She tried to distract herself by thinking of suitable testimonies. Usually she testified about work. Last week, she’d testified about the poor man with a platelet count of seven, meaning he was a goner, and how Nurse Holloway had told him, “We’re bringing you more platelets,” and how he’d said, “That’s all right. God sent me more.” No one at the nurses’ station — to say nothing of those atheist doctors — believed him. But when Nurse Holloway checked, sure enough, Glory be to God, he had a count of sixteen. Clareese told the congregation how she knelt on the cold tiled floor of University Hospital’s corridor, right then and there, arms outstretched to Glory. And what could the other nurses say to that? Nothing, that’s what.

She remembered her testimony from a month ago, how she’d been working the hotline, and a mother had called to say that her son had eaten ants, and Sister Clareese had assured the woman that ants were God’s creatures, and though disturbing, they wouldn’t harm the boy. But the Lord told Clareese to stay on the line with the mother, not to rush the way other nurses often did, so Clareese stayed on the line. And Glory be to God that she did! Once the mother had calmed down she’d said, “Thank goodness. The insecticide I gave Kevin must have worked.” Sister Clareese had stayed after her shift to make sure the woman brought her boy into Emergency. Afterward she told the woman to hold hands with Kevin and give God the Praise he deserved.

But she had told these stories already. As she fidgeted in her choirmistress’s chair, she tried to think of new ones. The congregation wouldn’t care about how she had to stay on top of codes, or how she had to triple-check patients’ charts. The only patients who stuck in her mind were Mrs. Geneva Bosma, whose toe was rotting off, and Mr. Toomey, who had prostate cancer. And, of course, Mr. Cleophus Sanders, the cause of all her current problems. Cleophus was an amputee who liked to turn the volume of his television up so high that his channel-surfing sounded as if someone were being electrocuted, repeatedly. At the nurses’ station she’d overheard that Cleophus Sanders was once a musician who in his heyday went by the nickname “Delta Sweetmeat.” But he’d gone in and out of the music business, sometimes taking construction jobs. A crane had fallen on his leg and he’d been amputated from the below the knee. No, none of these cases was Edifying in God’s sight. Her run-in with Cleophus had been downright un-Edifying.

When Mr. Sanders had been moved into Mr. Toomey’s room last Monday, she’d told them both, “I hope everyone has a blessed day!” She’d made sure to say this only after she was safely inside with the door closed behind her. She had to make sure she didn’t mention God until the door was closed behind her, because Nurse Holloway was always clomping about, trying to say that this was a university hospital, as well as a research hospital, one at the very forefront of medicine, and didn’t Registered Nurse Clareese Mitchell recognize and respect that not everyone shared her beliefs? That the hospital catered not only to Christians, but to people of the Jewish faith? To Muslims, Hindus, and agnostics? Atheists, even?

This Clareese knew only too well, which was why it was all the more important for her to to Spread the Gospel. So she shut the door, and said to Mr. Toomey, louder this time, “I HOPE EVERYONE HAS A BLESSED DAY!”

Mr. Toomey grunted. Heavy and completely white, he reminded Sister Clareese of a walrus: everything about him drooped, his eyes like twin frowns, his nose, perhaps even his mouth, though it was hard to make out because of his frowning blond mustache. Well, Glory be to God, she expected something like a grunt from him, she couldn’t say she was surprised: junkies who detox scream and writhe before turning clean; the man with a hangover does not like to wake to the sun. So it was with sinners exposed to the harsh, curing Light of the Lord.