Down the main hall we went, past the kitchen, and into the extension wing my ancestors had started years ago.
“Man…this place is, like, a maze or something. It just keeps going.” Clearly awed, James craned his head around, taking in the sights like a kid visiting Disneyland.
“When my great grandfather started the funeral home, it was only ‘bout half this size. My relatives just kept adding on and built this new wing to accommodate the flood of new customers.”
James laughed. “I guess there’s no shortage of old geezers kicking off around here, huh?”
“It’s not just the ol’ folks who up and die in Hangwell.”
That put his laughter on the skids.
We turned the corner into another hallway, leaving windows with hints of sunshine far behind. I reckoned Grandpa figured the dead didn’t need sunlight. The lighting grew dim, small bulbs dangling at evenly measured intervals. James stopped to look at the array of photos lining the wall.
“Who’s this?” He pointed toward Grandpa standing in front of an early incarnation of our home, chest out, and thumbs hooked behind his suspenders.
“Grandpa. The second Caldwell in the funeral home business.”
“Boss! You gonna’ take over the business some day?”
My immediate, post-Hangwell plans had been set in stone and definitely not the tombstone type either. “Heck no! I can’t wait to leave Hangwell and go to college.”
James just nodded. I imagined he hadn’t heard me, completely entranced by the surroundings.
I pushed through a set of swinging teal doors. Beyond the doors a cement ramp descended at a slight decline.
“Too, too much,” said James. “Why the ramp?”
“There used to be stairs, but Dad thought it took too much effort hauling bodies up and down them. So he poured the concrete and built the ramps.”
“Wanna race our bikes down here?”
“Over my dead body.” Recognizing my faux pas, I knocked on the wood paneling, not caring to rile things up. Just a precaution.
The paneling—the last of the homey touches—gave way to red brick walls. James trailed his fingers down the old and seen better days walls. “Man, these are cold.”
“Today they are, but not always.”
“Really? Why?”
“On the other side’s the oven. Where Dad cremates the bodies.”
James yanked his hand away as if bitten by a rattler. As much as he huffed and puffed, I wondered if he was truly prepared for the sights ahead.
Around the corner, we descended a second ramp leading to the bottom level. The floor leveled out into a space large enough to wheel bodies around on a gurney. A solemn wood door, reinforced with steel, stood to the right. Ahead of us sat two swinging doors, well-used and worn down. Color had drained from the original teal color of the doors into an appropriately death-like gray. The sheen of the metal door plates had worn off, buffed into blandness. Fingerprints smudged the plates while dried specks of blood dotted the door bottoms.
I took James through the single door first.
“Wow.” Truly astonished, maybe in reverence to the recently departed, James’ voice melted into a whisper.
“This’s the crematorium. Over there’s the oven,” I said.
Slowly, James crept toward the filthy and scuffed oven door set into the brick chimney. As if afraid of what he might see on the other side, he made several jackrabbit starts and stops before peering through the little porthole window.
“I can’t see anything.”
“Course not. It’s not fired up. Even when it’s on, there’s not a whole lot to see. At least that’s what Dad tells me.”
“How’s it work? I mean, how does he burn the bodies up? Can we open it?”
For the most part, I noticed James’ hep lingo had fallen by the wayside, maybe sticking closer to his true character. And I liked what I saw, no putting on airs, no bluster, just up front and honest.
“I’m not gonna do that. But…let’s see what I remember about it…” Course I remembered. Just like James, the crematorium held a special fascination for my macabre sensibilities, too. “After preparing the body, Dad sticks it in a coffin or container. Then a trolley wheels the body into the retort, which is the chamber where the fire fries ‘em to dust. The walls are made of layers of heat-resistant bricks, so the whole house doesn’t go up in smoke.”
“I betcha the fire gets hot. Really hot.”
“Dad used to use coal, but that was a lot more work. He switched to propane not too long ago. In the olden days, back in Grandpa’s days I reckon, they used to just heap the bodies on a pyre. Living with a mortician, I learn a lot. You should see the newsletter Dad gets.” I rolled my eyes. “Wasn’t ‘till this year, in fact, that the Catholics finally lifted a ban on cremation. Dad says that’s why the town Catholics don’t cotton too much to him.” I moved around the corner to the control panel on the wall. “The big green and red buttons are pretty much self-explanatory, I reckon.”
Flames seemed to dance in James’ pupils, the green button an alluring temptress. Before he gave in to his delinquent calling, I dragged him out of the room.
Still in a dumb sorta daze, he asked, “How do you want to die? I mean, when it’s your time?”
He lobbed the question at me from left field. I’d never given such notions much deliberation, not at my age. Frankly, it spooked me a bit that James had.
“James, we’re still young. We don’t need to be thinking of such things. Now, over here—”
“But, Dibs, we could go just like that.” He whipped a hand up and snapped his fingers. “I mean, any of us, no matter our age. Even if we’re in great shape or whatever. Any of us.” He gripped my arm, held it firm. Glared at me with the conviction of ol’ Judge Wilbur.
“I understand what you’re saying. I surely do. But I’m not gonna live my life that way, looking for the reaper over my shoulder, worrying every lil’ wart and bump and pimple to death. That ain’t living life at all. That’s just waiting. Now, leggo my arm.”
He let go of my arm, but appeared to still be hanging onto his dark thoughts. He rubbed his chin, stared at the swinging doors before him, but I had no clue what he really saw.
I’d never met anyone so dark before, young or old. Frankly, James scared me. Just a scooch. And it also made him that much more fascinating.
Course we were definitely in the right auditorium for such debate. “James…why are you like this?”
“Huh?” Clarity parted the dark clouds in his eyes, a welcome respite from stormy weather. “Ah, forget it. Everything’s copacetic, baby. What’s in here?”
The change happened fast. Contrary to what I’d thought earlier, I welcomed back James’ big-talking, hep cat persona. At least this side of James appeared to embrace life.
I led him through the double swinging doors and flipped the switches on the wall. Overhead, fluorescent lights snapped to life, flickering like a silent lightning storm. The room radiated with a pale yellow color, anything but natural.
“Dad’s workshop.” A nice way of hanging flowers on an ugly mule. Dad did everything down here from preparing the bodies for burial or cremation to shaping them into fair viewing again. It was no secret Dad could apply make-up tenfold better than I could, a fact that left me a might bit jealous. Sometimes Sheriff Grigsby called upon Dad inquiring as to the cause of death in a suspect case. What that entailed only led to nightmares, ‘specially when I looked at some of the tools hanging next to the sink, particularly the one that looked like giant hedge clippers. Sometimes, late at night, I imagined Dad cutting into one of our late neighbor’s chests, just chopping away. In my mind, I heard an awful crunching sound, a horribly similar noise to Dad’s gnawing on his dry cereal.
In fact, for what I imagined to be the messiest job in Peculiar County, Dad somehow kept his work space cleaner than freshly hung linen. He always lined his tools up, biggest to smallest, orderly like so much of his life. On his cart sat all ma
nners of scalpels, something he called a trocar, various ointments and disinfectants (both for him and the deceased, I assumed). The sink, longer than the tallest fella Dad had ever buried by a foot, remained sparkling, fresh out of the box looking. Not even the drain in the bottom or the small crevices trailing to it looked used. Of course it never stopped me from imagining what kind of body fluids made the long trawl to the sewers below.
Next to the sink stood the grey chugging beast of an embalming machine that had scared me to death as a child. Still did, not that I’d tell a soul. But sometimes in my bedroom, three stories above, I could hear the machine gobbling blood and spitting back embalming fluid which carried a particularly nasty odor. On occasion—sometimes just out of the blue—the fluid’s smell struck me on my skin and clothes. Other times, I imagined the machine as a living beast, my dad doing its evil bidding by supplying it bodies. It’d shake back and forth, the tubes snaking from it, wiggling to and fro like living limbs. The metal grate grew giant grey teeth. The knobs above transformed into cold, dead eyes, not unlike monstrous “googly eyes,” the pupils rattling around in the otherworldly orbs. Dad had never let me see the machine actually operate, nor did I care to. In my mind, I’d witnessed more than enough, honest truth.
However, those were the ruminations of a child’s imagination set loose. Nothing I needed to worry about any more. On my few visits down to Dad’s workshop—at least the supervised ones he knew about—I’d never seen a drop of blood.
“Man, it’s freezing down here.” Even though clad in his jean jacket, James rubbed his arms.
“Yup. Dad likes it that way. Keeps the bodies preserved for as long as possible.”
James forgot about being cold, turned left and right, searching for something. and I had a good notion what that might be. Where I’d draw the line.
He strolled over to Dad’s workbench, admired the various sharp-edged tools adorning the wall. Next, he hunkered down, pored over the contents of the cart next to the bench.
“What’re these for?” A line of silver bells, each with a red ribbon thread through the top-loop, caught his eye. Anywhere else the bells’ sole purpose would be to gussy up Christmas. But not here. Not at Caldwell’s Funeral Home.
“It’s kinda silly, but Grandpa used to tie them onto the bodies’ toes.”
“Why?”
“’Cause back in the olden days, it was harder to tell if bodies were actually dead or not. So, if the toe started wiggling, the bell started jingling, and the corpse started singing.”
“Nuh-uhhh! Your old man ever hear any jingling? Wait…did he ever bury anybody alive?” I felt like snapping James’ jaw closed, nailing it shut, his behavior a might bit ridiculous.
“Not that I’ve ever heard.”
“Huh.” Disappointed, James raced toward the opposite wall, the one I wanted to keep him far away from. In front of the walk-in freezer, he stopped, his hand wavering over the door. “Is this…” He latched onto the protruding handle. Ready to pull up on it.
I raced across the lab, grabbed his arm and flung it away. “I told you not to touch anything!”
“Come on, Dibs. Just a look. I won’t tell a soul. Scout’s—”
Again, I yanked his arm down. His nonsense had worn me slick, just not in the mood. “You’re not looking in there, James.”
“But that’s where the dead bodies are, right? I just want a quick peek. Then I’ll—”
“I said no! Besides being disrespectful to the dead, you’re also disrespecting my wishes!” Aggravated, I stuck my hands on my hips, gave him a stare down, and wouldn’t back down come hell or high water.
Finally, he waved a flag of surrender. He sunk his shoulders, tried to work his pouty, soulful charm on me again. But I held firm.
A sudden, unsettling notion fairly gob-smacked me. Maybe James has more interest in the funeral home than me.
“We’re going back upstairs now. Then you’re going home.”
“But, Dibs, I didn’t mean to—”
“I don’t rightly care what you meant to do. You ever hear that actions speak louder than words?”
With one last forlorn look at the hypnotic freezer door, James skulked out ahead of me, his head hanging low. “Sorry.” He said it like a petulant child, just giving service to the words and not really meaning them.
And, dad gum, if I didn’t feel like his mother in that instant, wanting to tan his hide ‘till he screamed for mercy. Not exactly how I’d fancied myself with James, but then again, my fancy seemed fairly unreliable lately.
“Just go.” Before I pushed through the swinging doors, the left one swung inward and thumped James’ forehead. He staggered back, his arms propelling for a smooth landing.
Dad breezed in and, just as I had, stuck his hands on his hips. Through clench-teethed, he said, “Dibby. Who’s your little friend?”
Chapter Five
‘Course I’d heard about deer caught in the headlights and now I knew how the poor varmints felt. Trouble awaited me, no doubt about it, but gauging Dad’s reaction, I couldn’t quite measure the magnitude. Dad always believed in keeping public displays of emotion on the quiet side of never.
I doubted a fanciful fabrication would help me now, so I played innocent. “Oh, hey there, Dad. I was just showing James here where you work. I reckoned you wouldn’t mind as long as we didn’t touch—”
“Of course I mind, Dibby. I mind a lot. You know the rules.” Quietly, Dad simmered, a sneaky teapot.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I—”
“We’ll discuss it later. Again…who’s your little friend?” He sized James up like a side of beef ready for the smokehouse. He tipped a smile, a knowing smile, the kind that said, “Aha! Young love in blossom.” Unlike a lot of parents, Dad didn’t lean toward embarrassing me very often, but every once in a blue moon when he did, he did it up grand like a Fourth of July celebration.
I folded into myself, looked at my feet, and willed them to whisk me away.
To my surprise, James swooped his shaggy hair from his eyes, stepped forward, and jutted out a hand. “How do you do, Mr. Caldwell? I’m James. James Mackleby. I’m new to Hangwell. My parents just moved here.”
The cat got Dad’s tongue, something I didn’t see often. Speechless, he shook James’ hand.
This new James took the wind right outta’ me, too, his hep lingo and brooding attitude gone the way of the wild. Minus the haircut and clothes, he could’ve passed as the most Baptist boy in Peculiar County.
“I apologize for visiting your workshop, Mr. Caldwell,” James continued. “Dibby said you wouldn’t approve. It’s all my fault. I twisted her arm. You see, my Dad’s a scientist, too, and I’ve got a learning nature just like him.”
Dad nibbled at the bait and James reeled him in. Still shaking James’ hand, Dad said, “Oh, you’re the new Durham agriculturalist’s son. I’ve been wanting to meet him.”
“I’m sure he’d be pleased as punch to meet you, too, sir.”
They may as well’ve been pumping a two-handled railroad cart the way they worked each other’s hands, grinning at one another. All but forgotten, I rolled my eyes. Enough was enough.
“Um, Dad…I think James needs to get home,” I said.
“Hm? Oh, right.” He released James’ hand. “You tell your folks I’d like to have them over for dinner some night. I’d love to pick your father’s mind. I find his line of work fascinating.”
“I’m sure he’ll feel the same way about your work, sir.” James showed real cheek by flashing me a wink. If Dad saw it, he overlooked it. “I’ll tell him about the invite.”
“Thank you, son. I look forward to it.”
“Come on, James. You gotta’ get home in time for supper.” Anxious to be done with the boy’s appreciation club, I nudged James with my elbow.
“Bye, Mr. Caldwell,” James called back as I rushed him out of there.
Burning bright and red—a boy’d never winked at me before, let alone in front of Dad—I drove James
fast and hard up into our proper home. Right now I just wanted him gone before Dad set into questioning his intentions with me.
At the front door, James laughed.
“What’s so dog-gone funny? Case you haven’t realized it, I’m in a mess of trouble.”
“Ahh, don’t sweat it, Dibs.” His hair flopped back into its natural state. “I got your old man eating outta’ my hand.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. He’s no one’s fool.”
“Hey, everything’s spiffy. I’m telling ya, don’t sweat it. I know how to handle squares.”
“My dad’s not a square.” Actually, he very well could be. But he’s my square dad and we Caldwells stick up for one another.
“Easy, easy, I’m just pulling your crank. I didn’t mean nothing.”
I opened the door. A last second decision, I gave him a shove to hasten his departure.
He tottered onto the porch and swung around. “Hey! I said I didn’t mean anything by it.”
I followed him outside, planted my feet and tried to grow a couple inches taller. “Say my dad’s not a square.”
“Fine. He’s not a square.” The words fit right, just not the manner in which he delivered them. He huffed and groaned and swaggered back and forth.
In my best Mrs. Hopkins’ manner, I waggled my finger in his face. “You’re darn tooting he’s not. And what in the world were you trying to pull anyway?” Usually, I’m an even keel sort. But James had me hot under the collar.
“What?” He splayed his hands. “I didn’t do nothing. If anything, I got you outta’ trouble.”
“You’re…impossible! You breeze into my town—my school—with your hep language, your gang clothes, your cigarettes—”
“They’re not gang clothes.”
“…and you make me break my dad’s rules and—”
“I didn’t make you do anything.”
“I ain’t done yet! And you get me into trouble with Dad and everything about you is just a buncha phony baloney! I don’t understand you!”
“Welcome to my world.” With a great deal of showmanship and a little bit of resolve, James sighed and lowered himself down to the front steps. He pulled his knees in close and hugged them, tucking himself into yet another James persona, one I hadn’t seen before.
Peculiar Country Page 7
