William Kienzle - Deathbed

So absorbed was he in trying to recall the patients of 2214 and why the memory should disquiet him so, that he was oblivious to the arrival of someone who seated herself at the table directly across from him. Thus, her greeting startled him.

“Father . . . Father!” Ethel Laidlaw felt as if she were awakening someone.

“Oh . . .” Koesler’s attention came back to the scene. He smiled. “Hello. Sorry; I’m afraid I was distracted.”

“It’s okay,” Ethel said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have sat down here. I didn’t have any appointment or anything like that. I just needed to talk to somebody. Probably a priest. And I kinda thought you might be the one who’d understand.

“Sure, that’s fine. You certainly don’t need an appointment. For the time being, I’m chaplain at this hospital and I am quite literally at your service. But I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Father. No, we haven’t. I’m a nurse’s aide here. I’m Ethel Laidlaw.” Ethel offered her hand. As she did so, she knocked over the saltshaker, spilling salt on the table. “Oops,” she said, “got to avoid bad luck.” With that, she picked up the shaker as if to flip a little salt over her left shoulder. Instead, she lost her grip and the shaker sailed across the room, landing with a smack against the wall.

For some reason, it reminded Koesler of the biblical incident of the two disciples on their way to Emmaus on the original Easter Sunday. In their walk they were joined by Jesus but they did not perceive who He was. It was only during dinner at an inn, “at the breaking of the bread they recognized that it was the Lord.” In this instance, it was the fiasco with a salt-shaker that jogged Koesler’s memory. This one was one of a matched pair. Koesler had watched the couple demolish a meal at least once. And he had been duly impressed with their clumsiness. Ethel’s performance with the salt confirmed the image.

Clearly, she was embarrassed.

“Just an accident,” Koesler assured her. “Nothing to be concerned about.”

“‘Just an accident’!” Ethel mimicked reproachfully. “More like the story of my life. I wonder about that, Father: Do you suppose some people are born clumsy?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Ethel. I suppose people have a greater or lesser degree of coordination. I don’t guess it’s any more than that. But that’s not what you wanted to talk to me about, is it?”

“Not exactly, Father, but it’s got something to do with it. Actually, it’s a kind of complicated problem. I don’t know exactly how to tell you.”

“Well, let’s start at the present. What’s the problem right now?”

“The problem right now is I could get fired. In fact I probably will unless something happens.”

“The unemployment rate in this town being what it is, that could be a pretty serious problem. What makes you think you may be fired?”

Ethel shrugged. “Like that saltshaker. I break things. A lot.”

“That many?”

“I guess so. It’s kind of hard for me to tell exactly. I’ve been doing this sort of thing all my life. But, whatever, Sister Eileen said she’d have to fire me if it didn’t stop. Well, Father, I mean it can’t stop. I’ll probably find some way of falling out of my coffin and knocking over all the flowers. That is, if anybody sends flowers.”

“Well, Ethel, if you can’t help being clumsy, you can’t help it. If that’s the way you are, it’s not your fault. But maybe you’re just working in the wrong job.”

“The wrong job?”

“Yes.” It was an opening for one of Koesler’s anecdotes. “Did you ever hear about the guy who went to New York to get a job? He got in a cab and said to the driver, ‘T-T-T-Take me to N-N-N-NBC in a hurry.’ You see, he stuttered very badly.

“So, to make conversation, the cabbie asked, ‘What do you want to go to NBC for?’ And the guy says, ‘I’m going to an au-au-au-audition for a j-j-j-job as an a-a-a-announcer.’ When they reach NBC, the guy says to the cabbie, ‘W-W-Wait for me.’

“After a while the guy comes back and gets into the cab. The cabbie says, ‘So, did you get the job?’ And the guy says, ‘N-N-N-No; they’re p-p-p-prejudiced against C-C-C-Catholics.’”

Ethel laughed. “That’s funny. But, if you don’t mind, what’s it got to do with me?”

“Just this, Ethel: There seem to be an outstanding number of things in a hospital that are breakable. Test tubes come to mind; thermometers; breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes; all the things that are used to carry specimens and medications around the hospital—the list just goes on and on. Almost everywhere you look in the hospital, there’s something breakable. Doesn’t it seem to you that this is not the best place to work for someone who . . . uh . . . has a problem with awkwardness?”

“I suppose. But I gotta work.”

“Well, then, not at a restaurant either. All those dishes. Maybe a dry-goods store. Something with a lot of cloth.”

“It doesn’t matter, Father. I think I’ve tried them all. There’s no place where you can’t spill things, break them, damage them, rip them, and on and on. When I got this job here at St. Vincent’s, I decided this was it. This was where it was going to come together. I would work here till I retire. And now I’m on the verge of being fired.”

“Well, we all have to alter our goals every once in a while, you know.”

“There’s something else.”

“There is?”

“It’s a fella. My first real fella, would you believe that? Yeah, I guess you would.”

“Not really . . .” Koesler attempted to dismiss her disclaimer.

“Sure you would. Anybody would. I mean, look at me. I know you’re a priest and all that, but you’ve got to have at least looked at girls. Marilyn Monroe I ain’t. Not really bad looking, but no raving beauty either: Just barely good enough so that a few fellas have asked me out down through the ages. But once we get out on the date and I spill and break enough things, that’s it! One-date Ethel. Until now. Now I got a fella and I think this one’s gonna take.”

Koesler felt himself desperately hoping that Ethel was right about this upswing in her love life. “Well, that sounds great. Just what the doctor ordered, as it were. If this works out—and you sound pretty confident—this job isn’t all that important. So what if you lose it? Your fella can bring home the bacon and you can gracefully retire and become a homemaker.” Koesler knew that by current standards this scenario reeked of male chauvinism. But for her benefit he was trying to conjure up a padded cell with as few breakables as possible.

“But see, Father, that’s sort of the good news and the bad news.”

“Oh?”

“The good news is I think I got a man and I think I really love him and I think he really loves me. But the bad news is he’s as clumsy as me. That’s why we get along so good. We wouldn’t even think about complaining about each other. It’s more like looking in a mirror.

“Besides, I think he’s so nice he might not dump me even if he wasn’t as clumsy as me. But the thing is, he is. And he’s gonna spend the rest of his life going from one lousy job to another. He ain’t got much of a job now. In fact, it’s a worse job than any that I’ve ever had. But even with all that, he still is a volunteer here at the hospital . . . ain’t that something?”

“That certainly is something.” Koesler got the image of two people slowly sinking in quicksand and being clumsy about it to boot.

“That’s why my original promise to myself is so important, Father. I got to keep this job. I got to prove to myself and the rest of the world that I can hold this job. It may be Bruce who stays home and keeps house. That’s fine by me. I don’t mind working outside the home. But I gotta keep this job, Father; I gotta!”