Z. Packer - Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

“Hey, sanctified lady!” Cleophus Sanders called from across the room. “He got cancer! Let the man alone.”

“I know what he has,” Sister Clareese said. “I’m his nurse.” This wasn’t how she wanted the patient — RN relationship to begin, but Cleophus had gotten the better of her. Yes, that was the problem, wasn’t it? He’d gotten the better of her. This was how Satan worked, throwing you off a little at a time. She would have to Persevere, put on the Strong Armor of God. She tried again.

“My name is Sister Clareese Mitchell, your assigned registered nurse. I can’t exactly say that I’m pleased to meet you, because that would be a lie and ‘lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.’ I will say that I am pleased to do my duty and help you recover.”

“Me oh my!” Cleophus Sanders said, and he laughed big and long, the kind of laughter that could go on and on, rising and rising, restarting itself if need be, like yeast. He slapped the knee of his amputated leg, the knee that would probably come off if his infection didn’t stop eating away at it. But Cleophus Sanders didn’t care. He just slapped that infected knee, hooting all the while in an ornery, backwoods kind of way that made Clareese want to hit him. But of course she would never, never do that.

She busied herself by changing Mr. Toomey’s catheter, then remaking his bed, rolling the walrus of him this way and that, with little help on his part. As soon as she was done with Mr. Toomey, he turned on the Knicks game. The whole time she’d changed Mr. Toomey’s catheter, however, Cleophus had watched her, laughing under his breath, then outright, a waxing and waning of hilarity as if her every gesture were laughably prim and proper.

“Look, Mr. Cleophus Sanders,” she said, glad for the chance to bite on the ridiculous name, “I am a professional. You may laugh at what I do, but in doing so you laugh at the Almighty who has given me the breath to do it!”

She’d steeled herself for a vulgar reply. But no. Mr. Toomey did the talking.

“I tell you what!” Mr. Toomey said, pointing his remote at Sister Clareese. “I’m going to sue this hospital for lack of peace and quiet. All your ‘Almighty this’ and ‘Oh Glory that’ is keeping me from watching the game!”

So Sister Clareese murmured her apologies to Mr. Toomey, the whole while Cleophus Sanders put on an act of restraining his amusement, body and bed quaking in seizure-like fits.

Now sunlight filtered through the yellow-tinted windows of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized, lighting Brother Hopkins, the organist, with a halo-like glow. The rest of the congregation had given their testimonies, and it was now time for the choir members to testify, starting with Clareese. Was there any way she could possibly turn her incident with Cleophus Sanders into an edifying testimony experience? Just then, another hit, and she felt a cramping so hard she thought she might double over. It was her turn. Cleophus’s laughter and her cramping womb seemed one and the same; he’d inhabited her body like a demon, preventing her from thinking up a proper testimony. As she rose, unsteadily, to her feet, all she managed to say was, “Pray for me.”

IT WAS almost time for Pastor Everett to preach his sermon. To introduce it, Sister Clareese had the choir sing “Every Knee Shall Bow, Every Tongue Shall Confess.” It was an old-fashioned hymn, unlike the hopped-up gospel songs churches were given to nowadays. And she liked the slow unfolding of its message: how without people uttering a word, all their hearts would be made plain to the Lord; that He would know you not by what you said or did, but by what you’d hoped and intended. The teens, however, mumbled over the verses, and older choir members sang without vigor. The hymn ended up sounding like the national anthem at a school assembly: a stouthearted song rendered in monotone.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sister Clareese,” Pastor Everett said, looking back at her, “for that wonderful tune.”

Tune? She knew that Pastor Everett thought she was not the kind of person a choirmistress should be; she was quiet, nervous, skinny in all the wrong places, and completely cross-eyed. She knew he thought of her as something worse than a spinster, because she wasn’t yet old.

Pastor Everett hunched close to the microphone, as though about to begin a forlorn love song. From the corners of her vision she saw him smile — only for a second but with every single tooth in his mouth. He was yam-colored, and given to wearing epaulets on the shoulders of his robes and gold braiding all down the front. Sister Clareese felt no attraction to him, but she seemed to be the only one who didn’t; even the Sisters going on eighty were charmed by Pastor Everett, who, though not entirely handsome, had handsome moments.

“Sister Clareese,” he said, turning to where she stood with the choir. “Sister Clareese, I know y’all just sang for us, but I need some more help. Satan got these Brothers and Sisters putting m’Lord on hold!”

Sister Clareese knew that everyone expected her and her choir to begin singing again, but she had been alerted to what he was up to; he had called her yesterday. He had thought nothing of asking her to unplug her telephone — her only telephone, her private line — to bring it to church so that he could use it in some sermon about call-waiting. Hadn’t even asked her how she was doing, hadn’t bothered to pray over her aunt Alma’s sickness. Nevertheless, she’d said, “Why certainly, Pastor Everett. Anything I can do to help.”

Now Sister Clareese produced her Princess telephone from under her seat and handed it to the Pastor. Pastor Everett held the telephone aloft, shaking it as if to rid it of demons. “How many of y’all — Brothers and Sisters — got telephones?” the Pastor asked.

One by one, members of the congregation timidly raised their hands.

“All right,” Pastor Everett said, as though this grieved him, “almost all of y’all.” He flipped through his huge pulpit Bible. “How many of y’all — Brothers and Sisters — got call-waiting?” He turned pages quickly, then stopped, as though he didn’t need to search the scripture after all. “Let me tell ya,” the Pastor said, nearly kissing the microphone, “there is Someone! Who won’t accept your call-waiting! There is Someone! Who won’t wait, when you put Him on hold!” Sister Nancy Popwell and Sister Drusella Davies now had their eyes closed in concentration, their hands waving slowly in the air in front of them as though they were trying to make their way through a dark room.

The last phone call Sister Clareese had made was on Wednesday, to Mr. Toomey. She knew both he and Cleophus were likely to reject the Lord, but she had a policy of sorts, which was to call patients who’d been in her care for at least a week. She considered it her Christian duty to call — even on her day off — to let them know that Jesus cared, and that she cared. The other RNs resorted to callous catchphrases that they bandied about the nurses’ station: “Just because I care for them doesn’t mean I have to care about them,” or, “I’m a nurse, not a nursery.” Not Clareese. Perhaps she’d been curt with Cleophus Sanders, but she had been so in defense of God. Perhaps Mr. Toomey had been curt with her, but he was going into O.R. soon, and grouchiness was to be expected.

Nurse Patty had been switchboard operator that night and Clareese had had to endure her sighs before the girl finally connected her to Mr. Toomey.

“Praise the Lord, Mr. Toomey!”

“Who’s this?”