Sister Maurice

Sister Maurice is very exciting,
From The Text:
Well, Rose took me by the hand and she brought me over to a window.

We are two stories up, and she said at two 30 this morning you were trying to leap out that window and I grabbed you, and in going down you hit the dresser and you collapsed on the floor.

Now I had developed a vocabulary.

And it went from, I'm sorry, this will never happen again, to leave me alone and I don't care.

And I chose the latter and off I went to do the best I could with my first great children.

Well, if you're in my line of work, that of being a Sister, word gets to headquarters, better known as the mother house.

My superior invited me up to see her.

And in those days, if you were sent for, it was because you were in trouble or because there was some special assignment that only you could do.

I thought she used good judgment in sending for me.

The fact that I was in trouble never entered my head.

Because the rule was the rule.

And I didn't deviate from the rule.

I didn't know how much trouble I was in.

I didn't know that I was in a clash with myself.

And so I went up to see my superior and we chatted a bit and I noticed I wasn't getting my assignment.

And then she leaned across the table and in almost a whisper did she say to me, Maurice, some of the sisters are saying that you drink too much.

And I said, where are they?

And she said, oh dear. They don't even want to be mentioned, and I said to myself, they feared for their lives

Well, being that typical alcoholic.

I said, let us look at the record. I said, my work is a first grade teacher.

Has my principal complained?

And she said, No. I checked with your principal.

And she said, you're a dedicated faculty member and a marvelous first grade teacher.

I said, I'm in graduate school.

I'm doing quite well. I will send you my transcript.

She said, you won't have to do that, Maurice.

And I said, my life as a Sister, has anyone dared to say that I'm not a good Sister.

Do you know any other kind?

No.

Okay.

I check that out wherever I go and she said, no, Maurice, it's not anything like that.

I said, well then what are you talking about?

And she backed off.

She was not the type of woman to back off.

And when I eventually got to treatment and one day we had a lecture in which the teacher told us, as part of our illness that we held people hostage and we manipulated them and we conned them. I got up and threw my desk through the blackboard.

I was insulted that anybody would think that of me.

And I go back to that scene with my superior and she backed off and she said, this is terrible.

And I said, it is.

And she said, I know one thing for sure, Maurice. I will never, ever again believe this about any of our sisters.

And I said, that's a good policy to follow.

And then the grandiosity of the sick alcoholic, I said to myself, if no other Sister has to sit in this position, if one has to go for the good of all, here I am.

She apologized.

I rose to the occasion.

She kissed me goodbye.