Читать книгу Drinking Coffee Elsewhere - ZZ Packer - Страница 11

Every Tongue Shall Confess

AS PASTOR EVERETT 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 Mc-Creedy 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.”

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 silent 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!”

She had not known where this last bit had come from, and, she could tell, neither had he, but she could hear the other nurses coming down the hall to see who was yelling, and though Cleophus Sanders looked to have more pity on his face than true belief, he had come after her when she turned to leave. She’d heard the clatter of him gathering his crutches, and even when she heard the meaty weight of him slam onto the floor, she did not turn back.

THEN there it was. Pastor Everett’s silly motion of cupping his hand to his ear, like he was eavesdropping on the choir, his signal that he was waiting for Sister Clareese to sing her solo, waiting to hear the voice that would send the congregation shouting, “Thank you, Jesus, Blessed Savior!”

How could she do it? She thought of Cleophus on the floor and felt ashamed. She hadn’t seen him since; her yelling had been brought to the attention of the administrators, and although the hospital was understaffed, the administration had suggested that she not return until next week. They handed her the card of the staff psychiatrist. She had not told anyone at church what had happened. Not even her aunt Alma.

She didn’t want to sing. Didn’t feel like it, but, she thought, I will freely sacrifice myself unto Thee: I will praise Thy name, O Lord, for it is good. Usually thinking of a scripture would give her strength, but this time it just made her realize how much strength she was always needing.

She didn’t want to, but she’d do it. She’d sing a stupid solo part—the Waterfall, they called it—not even something she’d invented or planned to do who knows how many years ago when she’d had to sneeze her brains out, but oh no, she’d tried holding it in, and when she had to sing her solo, those years ago, her near-sneeze had made the words come out tumbling in a series of staccato notes that were almost fluid, and ever since then, she’d had to sing all solos that way, it was expected of her, everyone loved it, it was her trademark. She sang: “All-hall other-her her grooouund—is sink-king sand!”

The congregation applauded.

“SAINTS,” the Pastor said, winding down, “you know this world will soon be over! Jesus will come back to this tired, sorry Earth in a moment and a twinkling of an eye! So you can’t use call-waiting on the Lord! Jeeee-zus, my friends, does not accept conference calls! You are Children of God! You need to PRAY! Put down your phone! Say goodbye to AT&T! You cannot go in God’s direction, without a little—genuflection!”

The congregation went wild, clapping and banging tambourines, whirling in the aisles. But the choir remained standing in case Pastor Everett wanted another song. For the first time, Clareese found that her monthly troubles had settled down. And now that she had the wherewithal to concentrate, she couldn’t. Her cross-eyes wouldn’t keep steady, they roamed like the wheels of a defective shopping cart, and from one roving eye she saw her aunt Alma, waving her arms as though listening to leftover strains of Clareese’s solo.

What would she do? She didn’t know if she’d still have her job when she went back on Monday, didn’t know what the staff psychiatrist would try to pry out of her. More important, she didn’t know what her aunt Alma would do without the special medical referrals Clareese could get her. What was a Sister to do?

Clareese’s gaze must have found him just a moment after everyone else’s had. A stranger at the far end of the aisle, standing directly opposite Pastor Everett as though about to engage him in a duel. There was Cleophus Sanders with his crutches, the right leg of his pinstriped pants hollow, wagging after him. Over his shoulder was a strap, attached to which was his guitar. Even Deacon Mc-Creedy was looking.

What in heaven’s name was Cleophus doing here? To bring his soul to salvation? To ridicule her? For another argument? Perhaps the doctors had told him he did not need the operation after all, and Cleophus was keeping his end of the deal with God. But he didn’t seem like the type to keep promises. She saw his eyes search the congregation, and when he saw her, they locked eyes as if he had come to claim her. He did not come to get Saved, didn’t care about his soul in that way, all he cared about was—

Now she knew why he’d come. He’d come for her. He’d come despite what she’d told him, despite his disbelief. Anyhow, she disapproved. It was God he needed, not her. Nevertheless, she remained standing for a few moments, even after the rest of the choir had already seated themselves, waving their cardboard fans to cool their sweaty faces.