Cathedral

An unnamed narrator of the story describes how his wife, Patti, decided one day to get a job for the sake of her own self-worth. The narrator works at a hospital in what he calls a “nothing job” (88). Patti becomes a door-to-door vitamin salesperson. While many people fail at this job, Patti excels. She eventually leads a team of two women, Donna and Sheila, who work reliably under her. To the narrator, Patti is the most attractive of the women, while Donna and Sheila are “medium-pretty” (89). Sheila confessed her love to Patti, but Patti had told her that she is not attracted to women.

Around the same time, near Christmas, vitamin sales are low. To improve morale, Patti and the narrator throw a party. Sheila gets very drunk and passes out, hitting her hand on the coffee table as she falls. Patti and the narrator put her to bed, but Sheila wakes up a few hours later while the narrator drinks alone after the party ends. Sheila is angry because she has a headache and a seemingly broken finger. She needs a ride to the emergency room and demands that the narrator wake Patti up. The narrator offers to drive her, but Sheila refuses because he is still drunk. Finally, Sheila announces her intention to quit and move to Portland before storming out of the house. None of them see her again.

That night, the narrator realizes he is attracted to Donna. Still thinking about Donna, the narrator initiates sex with his wife who stays asleep.

A few weeks later, as the narrator and Patti drink together, Patti says she is frustrated with her job. Vitamin sales are still low, and Sheila’s replacement is mediocre. Patti even dreams about work and is annoyed that her husband does not understand nor care about her. Additionally, Patti is the only one who buys her vitamins, and she thinks that she might take too many, worrying, “Can a person get overdosed on vitamins?” (94) Patti complains that the narrator doesn’t care about her. She takes a bath, and her husband goes to work, still drunk.

The narrator describes a bar called Off-Broadway where he likes to go after work to drink and listen to music. The employees and customers of Off-Broadway are primarily Black, and the narrator refers to them using racist language. He brings Donna to Off-Broadway on their first and only date.

Done with work and still a little drunk from drinking before he went in, the narrator invites Donna to go for a drink. After some hesitation, she agrees. On the way to Off-Broadway, Donna complains about work, confiding in the narrator that she will probably need to quit soon and get a job that will pay the bills. In the bar, they order drinks and start kissing. After a while, a musician named Benny comes to their table with a large man named Nelson who just returned from Vietnam. Nelson looks at Donna and the narrator and comments that they are obviously “real good friends” (98). He knows, however, that Donna isn’t his wife and that his wife probably has her own friend. In an effort to deflect Nelson, Benny tells him to show the narrator the ear he brought back from Vietnam. Donna is disgusted and doesn’t want to see it. Nelson offers her two hundred dollars plus a hundred for the narrator if Donna will go outside with him and kiss him. Then, Nelson finds the ear in his pocket and shows it to them. Revolted by the ear, Donna rejects him.

Nelson warns Donna not to leave with the narrator, but they leave anyway and get in the car. Donna is quiet and the narrator apologizes for what happened. Finally, Donna admits that she could have used that money and tells him that she isn’t going to go to work tomorrow. The narrator loses interest in Donna and knows that their tryst is finished. At home, the narrator pours himself another drink. Patti enters in a panic, having woken up from a nightmare and yelling that she overslept and needs to get to work. The narrator cannot bring himself to care or muster the energy to take care of her. He searches for aspirin in the medicine cabinet and knocks some things off of the shelf noting, “I didn’t care. Things kept falling” (103).