Sordid & Organized
In the dim basement, I moved from one stainless steel table to the next. I carried a small orange hose in one hand, a slick stainless steel spatula in the other.
The previous table had held a ninety-two year old man, natural causes. Poor old guy had simply used up all his parts. He had passed in his sleep while he was still a bit distinguished looking. Even though he was 6’2” and only 128 pounds, his face had not reduced quite all the way to gaunt.
He was clean shaven, with that peculiar fine pink skin that some older men seemed to acquire. Well, before it drained away. Still, sharp features and not diminished to the gaunt look yet. There were inserts for that anyway. I made a mental note to ask his daughter for a recent photo so I wouldn’t go overboard on the inserts.
The white fringe that marked the baseline of where the man’s hair used to be was usually swept back. Today it was in disarray, after a fashion. Can so little hair be said to be in disarray? Isn’t there a less dramatic word for it? A few strands hung down toward his ear, a few others forward toward his eye. It was mussed, maybe. At least over his left ear. If he were alive, I’ll bet he’d be swatting at those strands near his ear. That has to tickle.
I wonder if that’s why older guys dig around in their ears so much. Or maybe that’s for those little hairs that grow inside. So if you’re being tickled but you’re dead, are you still being tickled?
The suit the family brought in was nice, but it needed work. I decided to ask my wife, Rosie, an excellent seamstress, to adjust the jacket so it would fit the old man better. Nobody should go out being ridiculed by their clothing. There would be enough eye rolling at the funeral, given the guy’s twenty-eight year old wife. No need to give them extra ammo.
Working on that gentleman was very straightforward. It hadn’t taken long and the table was easy to clean. That would be a double score if I was keeping count. But just because the job was sordid didn’t mean it couldn’t be professional and organized. Well, I mean morbid. I get those mixed up sometimes. Sordid. Morbid. You know.
Part of the reason the table was easier to clean was the same reason the job hadn’t taken long. At that age and capacity, there was hardly any viscera left. A great deal of waste though. Lordy, a lot of waste. But it was mostly liquid so—
Well, I gotta shrug it off. You know, just not a lot of effort required there. Down the drain it went, and mostly on its own. Some of it would move only at the urging of the hose. But then, that’s what the hose is for. And the spatula.
There’s always a strand of something here, a small globule of something there that got caught on flaws in the steel that only they could find. At least the more fluid stuff cleaned up more quickly so there wasn’t much time to dwell on the sight of it. Or the smell.
*
The table before that had held a housewife. Seventy-eight, natural causes, passed in her sleep. She looked like everybody’s mom. Or grandma, maybe. She would look completely natural in a dress and an apron. She would be standing in an arched doorway between a kitchen and a dining room, holding a large flat of chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven. The chocolate bits would still be melted and hot to the touch. Remember?
My mouth waters just thinking about those cookies. Odd thing, though— her glasses were perched on her nose when they brought her in. Halfway down. And canted a bit to the left. Strange, the things you notice.
If she passed in her sleep, it does make me wonder, did they find a book or magazine on the bed? Or maybe on her chest or on the floor beside the bed? Or if there was a TV in her bedroom, was it on when she was found? Was her head propped up on more than one pillow?
Often when people are reading or watching TV they prop up their head on an extra pillow. Everybody knows that.
Things like that would matter, I think, if she passed in her sleep. But then, why would a killer put her glasses on her face? If they were on her face when she was killed— if she was killed— it would make more sense to put them somewhere else and remove the book or magazine or turn off the TV. Maybe I should’a been a detective.
At 5’6” and 211 pounds, the mother-grandmother was at least more robust than the older gentleman. Healthier? Maybe at one time. Like yesterday. But not anymore. Once they assume room temperature, they’re pretty much the same.
Working with that one took a little more time. There was simply more mass. Nobody’s fault. Just the way it was. And it took a little more personal attention, guiding the tools and so on. So I had to be more involved. I had to stand closer. That meant I couldn’t stand quite so straight up. So I couldn’t really distance myself. Sometimes I even had to lean in.
And naturally, for the same reasons, that table was a little more difficult to clean. Well, a little more labor intensive. And the same deal during cleaning with having to pay closer attention. There was absolutely zero chance of leaning back a little bit while I was cleaning that one. I really didn’t want to have to pick up anything off the floor. That’s just over my limit of gross.
So the housewife was ripe, actually. Meaning no disrespect. I only mention it because there was no way to escape it. And once you got a snootful, the aroma would be with you for awhile.
The stainless steel seemed to shed it pretty quickly, both the odor and the actual stuff. Really I could even just sling some of it off the spatula when nobody else was around. Like a cook slinging grease off his spatula on the griddle.
Not a good analogy. Sorry. Let’s pretend I didn’t say that, all right?
But when that odor got in your nose, especially up in the sinuses, it sort of clung.
Those nights I didn’t eat supper.
*
You know, the thing about waste is that they all have it. It doesn’t matter who they were in life. How pretty or handsome or rich, how clean or dirty, how big or small, how poor. I’ll have it too. So will you.
Sometimes the bladder or bowels wait to let go until the decedent is in my care. Or while he’s being transported. But in those cases, the ones doing the transporting, the delivery guys, never notice officially until I’ve already signed the receipt.
Then it’s usually raucous laughter accompanied by, “Well, he’s your problem now, buddy.”
That’s all right. It’s what I do.
One time, one guy even pinched his nose and wagged his other hand in front of his face. I swear. And he said, “Whooee! Smells like somebody died around here.”
Real class act.
To the driver’s credit, he stared at his companion for a moment. A quick frown even fired across his face. I thought maybe he was gonna tell the guy to shut up. You know, for some people, advice like that really is helpful. And necessary.
But he didn’t. The frown passed and he laughed right along with his idiot friend. Fitting in, I guess. Like that’s who he aspires to be. Weirdo. “Hey, good one, Clyde,” he said. “Smells like someone died. I get it. I get it. And here we are, backed up to the business end of the funeral parlor. Now that’s funny right there.”
He even faked the hick accent. Anything to get along.
I just signed the receipt.
My job is to release the dead guy from the clutches of those morons. He’s beyond being harmed by their slanders anyway, so I don’t really mind. The sooner I sign the receipt, the sooner the delivery boys go away. Then I can get back to my job, restoring at least a little bit of dignity to people who probably deserve it. Making them useful one final time.
*
Everyone says the funeral is for the living, not the deceased. They’re right. But they always stop short of giving the decedent the correct billing.
Take the guy who was on my third table earlier today. I’ll call him Marvin.
Later, at his funeral, it will go like this.
There lays Marvin. He might or might not be the most accomplished actor in the room. Actors tend to flock to these occasions. But Marvin definitely will get his role exactly correct. And he gets top billing, and he should. After all, it’s the closing scene of the final act of the play that was his life.
He is there solely to entertain, to gracefully receive a very subdued standing ovation. To fulfill the needs of the others who are in the room.
The pastor would gain the good wishes of the family and perhaps a few dollars besides. Everyone would have the good grace not to mention the errors he makes as he eulogizes this man he doesn’t know.
Aunt Maggie and Uncle Mitch are a different matter. They hadn’t seen the deceased— Mitch’s brother— since he and Mitch stopped talking fifty years ago because he asked them for money. But they too would gain at Mitch’s expense. They would garner a reunion with the more forgiving members of the family.
Of course, nobody would note that the family members had nothing to lose. After all, they were forgiving a man for an argument in which they hadn’t taken sides.
Various and sundry other relatives would be there, and perhaps even friends if Marvin had been fortunate in life. And they would have a final gift from Marvin as well. They would enjoy a chance to renew acquaintances, hone their promise-to-get-together skills, and compare themselves silently with the others in the room regarding how much and how gracefully they had aged.
The children who attended and who were school age would get time away from school.
And Melvin, Marvin’s only son, finally would make time to check in on his dad and say a word or two. “Now that he isn’t quite so hard to find,” Melvin would say, and smile and force one tear from one eye by thinking of the current price of gasoline.
The sole surviving brother, Mitch, would decline the offer to speak, and in declining, be thought the gentleman. But he would get in one last punch. “Oh, well,” he would say. “You know, we hadn’t spoken for fifty years, Marvin and I. Somehow starting now would seem less than respectful.”
And that would sound pretty and nice and decent until he slapped his leg and cackled.
They all would get something, and Marvin would be there to ensure it. Without his timely demise, they might have settled nothing, at least not so soon.
And after the curtain call, even Marvin would get his just desserts: a lasting peace.
Marvin was easy to prep too, and his table was easy to clean. Both for pretty much the same reason as the ninety-two year old. Marvin was eighty-seven, very trim, wasting away to waste. Wasting away to come flow down my drain. Parts all worn out and used up.
Nothing there to salvage but time.
*
But the delivery boys don’t know anything about the human drama. They’re too busy avoiding it. Making jokes, laughing.
I seriously thought about catching their attention for a moment. Maybe lock them in my gaze. I know how I look. Kind of a gaunt mix of Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, complete with the eyebrows. Then I would say, completely soberly and in the most evocative tone ever, “I’ll be seeing you, gentlemen.”
It would serve them right. But really, I have too much respect for the dead to use them as leverage, even to shut up a pair of buffoons.
Besides, the joke’s on the morons anyway. They know nothing of professionalism, nothing of organization.
But also, I kind of feel sorry for them. They’re crass and frightened. They’re ignorant, morbidly so, and by choice. I feel sorry for them, but I understand. They’re safe in their ignorance.
They’ll never have to take chances, never have to risk being rejected. It’s easier to make jokes about things you don’t understand.
It’s easier to laugh about things that make you uneasy.
*
The last one of the day, table four, was another woman. A younger one. Wow. Guaranteed, no natural causes there. I mean, it could have been. I’ve seen twenty-something year olds gone, wham, floating away on a brain aneurism.
She was beautiful, even vivacious. Soccer mom, from the looks of the sweats and then the shorts underneath, the sports bra. The ponytail.
And like I said, this one wasn’t any kind of natural causes. At least according to the delivery guy. She was driving a Toyota minivan, ran a stop sign, took all ten cylinders of a 2014 Cadillac SRX right in the driver’s side door. The Caddy was doing seventy miles an hour in a 35 mile an hour zone. Sent her to eternity somewhere around the mid-seat console.
What was maybe worse, all three of her sons survived. Worse for them, maybe. Better for me. I do not like working on kids. And I guess their dad was at work so the kids will still have someone. I mean, just to get the focus off me. It isn’t about me. I mean, I chose to be here.
I’ve always wondered how this particular delivery guy knows so much. Guy probably keeps a police scanner to stay on top of possible clients. Well, client situations. He always said, “Hey, the more you haul the more your haul.” Then he’d laugh just like it was actually witty or something.
Weird. Weird’s what it was. Another escape mechanism, I’m sure. Like the Idiot Twins making bad jokes, but a full class higher.
Every now and then a job comes in that makes me think about reconsidering my choice of occupation. Sheila was one of those. I don’t usually know the name of the deceased until the family comes in. But somehow the first responders had missed her ID. Sheila Morrison. Thirty-one years young and looked every day of twenty-five. The ID was in the pocket of her sweatshirt. Yeah, that’s where she carried it. One of those quirky little habits some people have. Probably a really free spirit, this girl.
She looked like a free spirit, too. Not only that she was pretty and all that, but even all banged up she looked alive. Vibrant. Like she might leap up at any second and giggle and ask some girl named Vivian if she remembered the cheer they used to do when it was fourth and a yard and the coach had told the team to go for it. She was one of those.
Miraculously, there was only a bruise on her head. On the left side of her forehead. And then that bulge on the left side of her neck where her spine had snapped. But most of what was banged up was internal and then her left ribcage, her left hip and thigh and ankle.
Of course, nothing below the abdomen mattered anyway at that point. I mean as far as seeing it. Breaks, tangles, tears— it would all be rough sewn shut and hidden in the long bottom of the box.
The family wouldn’t be in with clothes for the her for a day or two. Still, it was a light day and I had time so I went through the motions, got her ready. Well, the technical stuff. Nothing’s easy or routine working on one that young and healthy.
At least this one was taken. She didn’t use up all her parts and just “expire,” as they like to say.
She had really great eyes. I mean really great. So I took them.
I got those out and put the forms in all right. I mean, I’ve been doing this how many years now? And I guess I’m smooth enough. Efficient, you know. I mean, even with a job this morbid, a guy has to be as organized as he can. But even knowing the forms were under her eyelids, it was still a little difficult to ThanoGlue the lids shut. It seems so final.
And there were other things and I was already in and they were still viable, so you know.
I took the right kidney. The right lung. Her stomach. That was it.
Hey, no need to let those things go to waste.
Well, her heart looked really healthy so I took that too.
Waste. I hate waste.
That wouldn’t go down the drain anyway, but it would be waste if it simply lay in that box or went to the incinerator.
*
Finally I’m finished for the day. The tables are cleaned and ready for tomorrow. All the equipment is cleaned and ready. The tools are in the autoclave.
Guess I’ll head to the house. I’m hoping Rosie will be finished with the jacket.
The heart’s a muscle, you know.
When you slice it just right, the presentation can be quite striking on the plate.
I usually serve it with kidney beans and rice.
Morbid, sordid. I guess maybe it’s sordid after all.
Either way, it’s very organized.
* * * * * * *