Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (4 page)

“That sucks,” someone said.

“C’mon,” Arnetta said. “You’re lying.”

“I am not.”

“How do you know that’s not just some story someone made up?” Elise asked, her head cocked full of daring. “I mean, who’s gonna do whatever you ask?”

“It’s not made up. I know because when I was looking at them, my father said, ‘See those people? If you ask them to do something, they’ll do it. Anything you want.’”

No one would call anyone’s father a liar—then they’d have to
fight the person. But Drema parsed her words carefully. “How does your
father
know that’s not just some story? Huh?”

“Because,” I said, “he went up to the man and asked him would he paint our porch, and the man said yes. It’s their religion.”

“Man, I’m glad I’m a Baptist,” Elise said, shaking her head in sympathy for the Mennonites.

“So did the guy do it?” Drema asked, scooting closer to hear if the story got juicy.

“Yeah,” I said. “His whole family was with him. My dad drove them to our house. They all painted our porch. The woman and girl were in bonnets and long, long skirts with buttons up to their necks. The guy wore this weird hat and these huge suspenders.”

“Why,” Arnetta asked archly, as though she didn’t believe a word, “would someone pick a
porch?
If they’ll do anything, why not make them paint the whole
house?
Why not ask for a hundred bucks?”

I thought about it, and then remembered the words my father had said about them painting our porch, though I had never seemed to think about his words after he’d said them.

“He said,” I began, only then understanding the words as they uncoiled from my mouth, “it was the only time he’d have a white man on his knees doing something for a black man for free.”

I now understood what he meant, and why he did it, though I didn’t like it. When you’ve been made to feel bad for so long, you jump at the chance to do it to others. I remembered the Mennonites bending the way Daphne had bent when she was cleaning the restroom. I remembered the dark blue of their bonnets, the black of their shoes. They painted the porch as though scrubbing a floor. I was already trembling before Daphne asked quietly, “Did he thank them?”

I looked out the window. I could not tell which were the thoughts
and which were the trees. “No,” I said, and suddenly knew there was something mean in the world that I could not stop.

Arnetta laughed. “If I asked them to take off their long skirts and bonnets and put on some jeans, would they do it?”

And Daphne’s voice, quiet, steady: “Maybe they would. Just to be nice.”

A
S
P
ASTOR
E
VERETT MADE
the announcements that began the service, Clareese Mitchell stood with her choir members, knowing that once again she had to Persevere, put on the Strong Armor of God, the Breastplate of Righteousness, but she was having her monthly womanly troubles and all she wanted to do was curse the Brothers’ Church Council of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized, who’d decided that the Sisters had to wear
white
every Missionary Sunday, which was, of course, the day of the month when her womanly troubles were always at their absolute worst! And to think that the Brothers’ Church Council of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized had been the first place she’d looked for guidance
and companionship nearly ten years ago when her aunt Alma had fallen ill. And why not? They were God-fearing, churchgoing men; men like Deacon Julian Jeffers, now sitting in the first row of pews, closest to the altar, right under the leafy top of the corn plant she’d brought in to make the sanctuary more homey. Two months ago she’d been reading the book of Micah and posed the idea of a Book of Micah discussion group to the Deacon Jeffers and he’d said, “Oh, Sister Clareese! We should make
you
a deacon!” Which of course they didn’t. Deacons, like pastors, were men—not that she was complaining. But it still rankled that Jeffers had said he’d get back to her about the Micah discussion group and he never had.

Clareese’s cross-eyes roved to the back of the church where Sister Drusella and Sister Maxwell sat, resplendent in their identical wide-brimmed, purple-flowered hats, their unsaved guests sitting next to them. The guests wore frightened smiles, and Clareese tried to shoot them reassuring looks. The gold-lettered banner behind them read: “We Are More Than Conquerors in Christ Our Lord,” and she tried to use this as a focal point. But her cross-eyes couldn’t help it; they settled, at last, on Deacon McCreedy, making his way down the aisle for the second time. Oh, how she hated him!

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.

“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.”

I
T 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.