by Z. Z. Packer
“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?”
“This is your nurse, Sister Clareese, and I’m calling to say that Jesus will be with you through your surgery.”
“Who?”
“Jesus,” she said.
She thought she heard the phone disconnect, then, a voice. Of course. Cleophus Sanders.
“Why ain’t you called me?” Cleophus said.
Sister Clareese tried to explain her policy, the thing about the week.
“So you care more about some white dude than you care about good ol’ Cleophus?”
“It’s not that, Mr. Sanders. God cares for white and black alike. Acts 10:34 says, ‘God is no respecter of persons.’ Black or white. Red, purple, or green—he doesn’t care, as long as you accept his salvation and live right.” When he was sile
nt on the other end she said, “It’s that I’ve only known you for two days. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She tried to hang up, but he said, “Let me play something for you. Something interesting, since all you probably listen to is monks chanting and such.”
Before she could respond, there was a noise on the other end that sounded like juke music. Then he came back on the phone and said, “Like that, don’t you?”
“I had the phone away from my ear.”
“I thought you said ‘lying is the abominable.’ Do you like or do you don’t?” When she said nothing he said, “Truth, now.”
She answered yes.
She didn’t want to answer yes. But she also didn’t want to lie. And what was one to do in that circumstance? If God looked into your heart right then, what would He think? Or would He have to approve because He made your heart that way? Or were you obliged to train it against its wishes? She didn’t know what to think, but on the other end Cleophus said, “What you just heard there was the blues. What you just heard there was me.”
“… LET ME tell ya!” Pastor Everett shouted, his voice hitting its highest octave, “Jeeeee-zus—did not tell his Daddy—‘I’m sorry, Pops, but my girlfriend is on the other line’; Jeeeee-zus—never told the Omnipotent One, ‘Can you wait a sec, I think I got a call from the electric company!’ Jeeeeeeee-zus—never told Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, ‘I’m sorry, but I got to put you on hold; I’m sorry, Brother Luke, but I got some mac and cheese in the oven; I’m sorry, but I got to eat this fried chicken’”—and at this, Pastor Everett paused, grinning in anticipation of his own punch line—“’cause it’s finger-licking good!”
Drops of sweat plunked onto his microphone.
Sister Clareese watched as the congregation cheered, the women flagging their Bibles in the air as though the Bibles were as light and yielding as handkerchiefs; their bosoms jouncing as though they were harboring sacks of potatoes in their blouses. They shook tambourines, scores of them all going at once, the sound of something sizzling and frying.
That was it? That was The Message? Of course, she’d only heard part of it, but still. Of course she believed that one’s daily life shouldn’t outstrip one’s spiritual one, but there seemed no place for true belief at Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized. Everyone wanted flash and props, no one wanted the Word itself, naked in its fiery glory.
Most of the Brothers and Sisters were up on their feet. “Tell it!” yelled some, while others called out, “Go’ head on!” The organist pounded out the chords to what could have been the theme song of a TV game show.
She looked to see what Sister Drusella’s and Sister Maxwell’s unsaved guests were doing. Drusella’s unsaved guest was her son, which made him easy to bring into the fold: he was living in her shed and had no car. He was busy turning over one of the cardboard fans donated by Hamblin and Sons Funeral Parlor, reading the words intently, then flipping it over again to stare at the picture of a gleaming casket and grieving family. Sister Donna Maxwell’s guest was an ex-con she’d written to and tried to save while he was in prison. The ex-con seemed to watch the scene with approval, though one could never really know what was going on in the criminal mind. For all Sister Clareese knew, he could be counting all the pockets he planned to pick.
And they called themselves missionaries. Family members and ex-cons were easy to convince of God’s will. As soon as Drusella’s son took note of the pretty young Sisters his age, he’d be back. And everyone knew you could convert an ex-con with a few well-timed pecan pies.
Wednesday was her only day off besides Sunday, and though a phone call or two was her policy on days off, she very seldom visited the hospital. And yet, last Wednesday, she’d had to. The more she’d considered Cleophus’s situation—his loss of limb, his devil’s music, his unsettling laughter—the more she grew convinced that he was her Missionary Challenge. That he was especially in need of Saving.
Minutes after she’d talked with him on the phone, she took the number 42 bus and transferred to the crosstown H, then walked the rest of the way to the hospital.
Edwina had taken over for Patty as nurses’ station attendant, and she’d said, “We have an ETOH in—where’s your uniform?”
“It’s not my shift,” she called behind her as she rushed past Edwina and into Room 204.
She opened the door to find Cleophus sitting on the bed, still plucking chords on his unplugged electric guitar that she’d heard him playing over the phone half an hour earlier. Mr. Toomey’s bed was empty; one of the nurses must have already taken him to O.R., so Cleophus had the room to himself. The right leg of Cleophus’s hospital pants hung down limp and empty, and it was the first time she’d seen his guitar, curvy and shiny as a sportscar. He did not acknowledge her when she entered. He was still picking away at his guitar, singing a song about a man whose woman had left him so high and dry, she’d taken the car, the dog, the furniture. Even the wallpaper. Only when he’d strummed the final chords did Cleophus look up, as if noticing her for the first time.
“Sister Clare-reeeese!” He said it as if he were introducing a showgirl.
“It’s your soul,” Clareese said. “God wants me to help save your soul.” The urgency of God’s message struck her so hard, she felt the wind knocked out of her. She sat on the bed next to him.
“Really?” he said, cocking his head a little.
“Really and truly,” Clareese said. “I know I said I liked your music, but I said it because God gave you that gift for you to use. For Him.”
“Uhnn-huh,” Cleophus said. “How about this, little lady. How about if God lets me keep this knee, I’ll come to church with you. We can go out and get some dinner afterwards. Like a proper couple.”
She tried not to be flattered. “The Lord does not make deals, Mr. Sanders. But I’m sure the Lord would love to see you in church regardless of what happens to your knee.”
“Well, since you seem to be His receptionist, how about you ask the Lord if he can give you the day off. I can take you out on the town. See, if I go to church, I know the Lord won’t show. But I’m positive you will.”
“Believe you me, Mr. Sanders, the Lord is at every service. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” She sighed, trying to remember what she came to say. “He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man—”
“… cometh to the father,” Cleophus said, “but by me.”
She looked at him. “You know your Bible.”
“Naw. You were speaking and I just heard it.” He absently strummed his guitar. “You were talking, saying that verse, and the rest of it came to me. Not even a voice,” he said, “more like … kind of like music.”
She stared. Her hands clapped his, preventing him from playing further. For a moment, she was breathless. He looked at her, suddenly seeming to comprehend what he’d just said, that the Lord had actually spoken to him. For a minute, they sat there, both overjoyed at what the Lord had done, but then he had to go ruin it. He burst out laughing his biggest, most sinful laugh yet.
“Awww!” he cried, doubled over, and then flopped backward onto his hospital bed. Then he closed his eyes, laughing without sound.
She stood up, chest heaving, wondering why she even bothered with him.
“Clareese,” he said, trying to clear his voice of any leftover laughter, “don’t go.” He looked at her with pleading eyes, then patted the space beside him on the bed.
She looked around the room for some cue. Whenever she needed an answer, she relied on some sign from the Lord; a fresh beam of sunlight through the window, the hands of a clock folded in prayer, or the flush of a commode. These were signs that whatever she was thinking of doing was right. If there was a storm cloud, or something in her path, then that was a bad sign. But nothing in the room gave her any indication whether she should stay and witness to Mr. Sanders, or go.
“What, Mr. Sanders, do you want from me? It’s my day off. I
decided to come by and offer you an invitation to my church because God has given you a gift. A musical gift.” She dug into her purse, then pulled out a pocket-sized Bible. “But I’ll leave you with this. If you need to find us—our church—the name and number is printed inside.”
He took the Bible with a little smile, turning it over, then flipping through it, as if some money might be tucked away inside. “Seriously, though,” he’d said, “let me ask you a question that’s gonna seem dumb. Childish. Now, I want you to think long and hard about it. Why the hell’s there so much suffering in the world if God’s doing his job? I mean, look at me. Take old Toomey, too. We done anything that bad to deserve all this put on us?”
She sighed. “Because of people, that’s why. Not God. It’s people who allow suffering, people who create it. Perpetrate it.”
“Maybe that explains Hitler and all them others, but I’m talking about—” He gestured at the room, the hospital in general.
Clareese tried to see what he saw when he looked at the room. At one time, the white and pale green walls of the hospital rooms had given her solace; the way everything was clean, clean, clean; the many patients that had been in each room, some nice, some dying, some willing to accept the Lord. But most, like Mr. Toomey, cast the Lord aside like wilted lettuce, and now the clean hospital room was just a reminder of the emptiness, the barrenness, of her patients’ souls. Cleophus Sanders was just another patient who disrespected the Lord.
“Why does He allow natural disasters to kill people?” Clareese said, knowing that her voice was raised louder than what she meant it to be. “Why are little children born to get some rare blood disease and die? Why,” she yelled, waving her arms, “does a crane fall on your leg and smash it? I don’t know, Mr. Sanders. And I don’t like it. But I’ll say this! No one has a right to live! The only right we have is to die. That’s it! If you get plucked out of the universe and given a chance to become a life, that’s more than not having become anything at all, and for that, Mr. Sanders, you should be grateful!”
