by Jack Steen
He used to be a funeral director. Before coming to the Asylum.
I’ve heard of family vocations being passed down from father to son, but never had I heard someone so proud to be a funeral director like the men in his family, as Chef had been.
Proud. Proud of being the caretaker of the dead.
The first visitors book from his family funeral home was his prized possession. He’d shown it to me once. The first date in the book was 1913 and I could barely make out the signed name but he knew it. Burned in his memory he’d said. Burned like family member it belonged to.
His family proudly owned one of the first crematoriums in North America in 1913. He claims there were only fifty-two such places and they held more services than mosts.
He was proud of this.
What fucker is proud of burning bodies? I shouldn’t be surprised by this and yet, because it’s Chef…I am.
I promise you this. Chef’s tale will be the nicest one I’ve ever told.
It’s also entirely possible you’ll recoil with disgust when you realize why he’s here and not back at home attending the funerals like his family before him.
If I could give you one advice to remember for the rest of your life, it would be this…
Never eat the food provided by a funeral home.
Ever.
2
It’s a Monday night, just after eleven and I notice the light on in the Chef’s room.
I’d just come down from that hallway and wasn’t sure I was ready for another pass.
That corridor always smelled like piss and crap. No matter how many times the walls or floors were disinfected, it smelled like hell every single day.
Picture yourself lying in the middle of a pig pen after a day of rain.
Yeah, it smelled like that.
When you think asylum, what’s the first image that comes to mind?
Dark, narrow hallways with half-burnt out light bulbs?
Blood smeared walls, decrepit staff who give a rats ass how their crazy patients are doing?
Do you imagine rooms covered in padding, with only a mattress on the floor and a straight-coat, diaper wearing, drugged-out criminal lying curled up in the corner, softly weeping an indecipherable name?
You would only be half wrong.
There’s no decrepit staff on my ward. We’re all muscular, bench pressing hard-ass men who like to head to the local pub at night to share horror stories of our shift.
The blood, the piss, the crap and even semen are everywhere.
“You want me to tuck the old bastard in?” Ike, the only other male staff on this floor tonight, asked.
I leaned back in my chair, glanced up at the clock and shook my head.
“He’s gonna die soon.”
“Wanna bet on that?” Ike asked.
I nodded.
“Twenty bucks he croaks before shift ends.” Shift was over at six in the morning. I’d make sure of it. Ike owes me a solid fifty all ready, not giving him any more money than I have to.
Ike chuckled, the sound grating like a dull saw against a metal pipe. “They don’t call you the Death Angel for nothing.”
I pushed my chair back and frowned. I didn’t like what he was hinting it.
“Shut up, will ya.” I cuffed him good in the head with my forearm.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Chef dying on me tonight.
There’s not many like him on my ward.
The death ward.
Chef, he’s been here for a few months now. He likes to talk. I prefer to grunt. Doesn’t stop him and I find myself leaning against the wall talking with a convicted cannibal.
You read that right.
The man would probably eat me if he could.
It’s a good thing more people didn’t leave their bodies to science. Easy access for those with a taste for…flesh.
Some days I see that fevered glean and wonder if he was imagining how I’d taste. Thinking about how he’d cook me.
Those days I find myself running to the washroom and upchucking my lunch.
I don’t upchuck often, but when Chef looks at me like that, there’s nothing else to do.
It’s not a quiet night on the ward. We had to sedate a few…frantic cases…but others are moaning, crying, singing lullabies or reciting death poems.
Everyone knows Chef’s time has come.
It’s weird how that happens on this floor. The inmates know before the nurses. We had another resident cannibal on the floor once. He said the body emits a different odour right before death.
A sickly-sweet smell, like almost-burnt caramel or decaying strawberries.
I drag my chair with me, the squeal-squeal-squeal of the wheels along with the rubber sound my shoes make on the linoleum floor causing the residents to yell out.
They’re all tied up, shackled, restrained.
Some even muzzled.
But I hear their words.
Their chant.
“Death angel. Death angel. Death angel.”
My smile widens. Deepens. Darkens.
I drag my chair behind me until I reach Chef’s door. The crack of light from his partially opened door blasts across the hallway floor. I stand outside of that light, watching it intently.
If you look closely enough, you can see the bugs scurrying on the floor. The cockroaches. The flies. The mice hovering at the edge.
It’s a disgusting place and yet it’s home. Been home for so many years. I’m not fit to work anywhere else.
Not anymore.
I edge the door open with the tip of my shoe. I listen to Chef’s voice follow along with the book he’s listening to.
Chef use to read. A lot. When they brought him up here, they included a moveable book shelving unit from the asylum library. It was full of his books.
Memoirs. Stephen King. Recipe books.
Now he only listens to audio tapes. His favorite are memoirs by those he call foodies.
Whatever the hell a foodie is.
His brother had sent an iPod for Chef’s birthday, full of such recordings. There were also a few cook books - I would know because I had to listen to each and every book before we could play them for Chef.
Have you ever listened to a fucking cookbook? I’m not talking about listening to a cooking show on the television in the background, but an actual fucking audio book? Where some bland nondescript voice would read out every single measurement? Imagine, if you would listening to someone describe to you how to make bread.
“Title White Bread. Ingredients one cup all-purpose flour, one cup some other fucking ingredient and so one and so one.”
Can you image that voice trying to make it sound interesting? No? Neither can I because apparently no fucking publishing company can find anyone interesting enough to voice dictate how to make fucking bread.
Chef repeats word-for-word how to make corn bread and I can hear the saliva pooling in his mouth as he speaks.
I don’t blame him, the corn bread they serve here tastes like saw dust.
“Trying to talk yourself to sleep, are you, Chef?” I push the door open further, stepping into the room.
His room is like all the other rooms on this ward.
Cold. Barren. Sterile.
Chef lies in his bed, hooked up to multiple lines that feed his body just enough to keep him alive, lines that monitor his heart and breathing.
Lines that let me know he’s still alive.
He’s bloody tiny in that bed. No more than five three and weighing a little over one hundred pounds, the man is a munchkin.
“Mr. Steen. Come to to tell me a bed time story, are you?” Chef stopped the recording and gave me the death smile I’d come to expect during my years here.
The death smile wobbles with fright and anxiety. It lifts with expectation and hope. It falters when that hope extinguishes and they realize death is but moments away.
My patients always die at night.
Always.
At night. On my sh
ift. It’s like they wait for me.
“I was kind of hoping you’d be the one telling the story tonight.” I hold up the pad of paper in my hand and situated my chair close to his bed.
Generally there are no chairs in these rooms. Why would there be? The patients remain in bed due to paralysis, sickness or they’re confined and let’s face it, this isn’t exactly a visitation ward.
“It’s that time, is it?” Chef looks toward the chair, to the notepad in my hand and nudges his chin towards his chest.
When the inmates come into my ward, they’re here for only one reason.
To die.
As they lay there in their beds, drool pooling at the corners of their lips, their eyes resigned for what’s about to come, I offer them a deal.
Nine times out of ten, they accept.
I’ve been turned down a few times, I’ll admit to that. But it’s not often.
What’s the deal?
I offer them a final chance to confess.
Not any old confession either. Not the kind you read in papers or hear during their trial.
These are the confessions of their soul. This is the story they’ve been waiting to tell, the one they’ve held onto until the bitter end.
“You’ll only write it down, right? You’re not recording it on a device where you’ll sell it to the highest bidder?” The feverish glint in Chef’s eye told me all I needed to know as I sat down in the chair.
He was hooked. He was ready and he really didn’t care what I did with his story as long as he got to tell it.
“No recording device. Just me, this pad of paper and my pen.”
“But what will you do with it after?” He pressed.
I could lie. I could tell the bastard I’d masturbate nightly while rereading the story to myself but even I’m not that sick.
“I’ll put it up online and sell it dirt cheap. The money I make goes to charity. I don’t keep a cent of it.”
I wish that was a lie. But every lie is steeped in truth and one look at me, at the place I call home, at the car I drive and anyone could see I don’t make a lot of money.
I sure as hell wouldn’t be working here if I did.
I don’t do this for the money though. We all have our reasons why we force ourselves to walk through the gates of whatever hell we think we deserve.
I’ve got my own reasons why I stay here.
Just like you’ve got your own reasons for living the life you do - without passion, without purpose.
We’ve all got our own ghosts.
Our own crosses to bear.
“So others will read it?” Chef asked.
I shrugged. “Not many do. You’d be surprised at how few sick fucks there are out there. Trust me, not many will read your words, but them that do…they’re the ones who will know the truth.”
“Or the truth I tell.” The feverish glint intensified in Chef’s eyes.
I smothered the smile on my face.
You’d think that when these sick buggers are about to turn the knob on death’s door, they’d want to unburden their heart, bear heir soul and confess - truly confess.
Not always.
I’ve been in this hell hole long enough to know that how normal people would react to life - and by normal I mean people that are good, kind, the ones who live with a conscious…like your mother or the girl down the street. I won’t say people like you or me because, well…let’s be honest…if we look deep in our hearts, are we really good? Are we really kind and guided by that still small voice preachers tell us is the voice of God?
I stopped listening to that voice a long time ago.
How about you?
“Tell me whatever truth you want to tell.” I tell Chef. “I don’t care if it’s a lie, half lie or if you’re in the mood for complete honesty. Tell me the story you want to tell. The story you need to tell…and I’ll write it down.”
Chef coughed, the force lifted his upper body slightly off his bed.
Chef was paralyzed from the waist down due to a fight in a lower ward, years ago.
I handed him a glass of water, readjusting the straw so he could sip easily. He took a few sips before relaxing back against his pillow.
“You’re one of the good ones, you know that, right?” He said to me.
I snorted.
“You’ve been here long enough to know that’s not true,” I said.
Chef came to the asylum a month after I started, fresh eyed and thinking I would be able to make a difference.
I was the one to clean up his wounds after his first fight. Guess it’s fitting I’m here at the end, too.
“Why do you stay?” He asked.
His question caught me off guard. I gave a half-hearted laugh, the type that sounded more a pen fun of piglets racing around in the mud.
“Jesus. Your laugh could drive a man to death.” Chef stared up at the ceiling, a grimace on his face that I knew was only trying to hide a smile.
“Better be careful. The last person to make fun of my laugh died that night.” I kept my face stern, my voice low with foreboding and stared at the paper in my lap.
I heard the hard swallow and the nervous cough as Chef cleared his throat. He wasn’t sure to believe me or not.
Good. That’s exactly what I wanted.
3
I let the silence grow between us, the awkwardness in the air lengthen.
He’d asked me questions. I didn’t plan on answering them.
“I’m really rather tired.” Chef’s voice was weak. An act I knew he only put on to test me. To see how far I would bend to hear his story.
I might be the night nurse.
I might be the one to wipe their asses and change their piss bags.
But that doesn’t mean I have to give in and play their games.
At this stage in the game…it’s mine they play now.
With a heavy and exaggerated sigh, I stand up and give Chef a look of pity.
“Get some rest then. Hopefully we can do this tomorrow night.” I pull the chair with me, the squeak of its wheels loud within the room.
One thing I’ve learned in all my years here on this ward is this…to never bend.
Show one ounce of weakness and they’re in control.
Show a strong hand of strength and they’re now controlled.
Took me a good many years to figure that out.
It also took a few pints for what Oprah would label as my lightbulb moment.
I closed the door behind me, adjust my hold of the chair so it’s wheels dig in deep on the floor, the squeak now a loud dragging sound, like nails on a chalkboard, as I walked towards the nursing station.
I’ll admit there was a moment of doubt…if walking away was the smart move.
I wanted Chef’s story.
I wanted it more than I would admit.
Why?
There’s one very good and simple reason: he’s never told it.
Not once.
We all think we know what his story is.
Countless psychiatrists and students have been here to see Chef, chatted with him, asked him questions, written their papers about him but no one really knows his story.
No one really knows Chef.
We know what the papers told us.
We know what the police found as evidence.
We know that the jury of his peers found him guilty and sentenced him to life.
But not once did Chef speak for himself.
Not once did he admit to his guilt. Give an excuse or reason.
He never apologized either.
Kind of makes you wonder what type of man Chef is, doesn’t it?
I know I do.
I sat at my desk, working on patient files, chatting with the others on staff when the light for Chef’s room came on.
One hour and thirteen minutes. That’s how long he lasted for.
I was impressed.
Others who thought to play me lasted at most, half an hour. A few went beyond two ho
urs but that didn’t happen often.
I honestly thought Chef would take the longest.
Don’t tell anyone I was wrong - I wouldn’t want word to spread.
I slowly stand, stretching my back as I do so.
“Up for another round, are you?” Ike looked up from the computer with a snarky smile.
“Don’t you have diapers need changing?” I flipped him the bird on my way towards Chef’s room, pulling my chair once again behind me.
The ward had settled down, quieted somewhat, until they heard the sound of my chair.
The chants started up again.
No need to fix a smile on my face, it was all ready there.
I wouldn’t be leaving Chef’s room again until he was dead.
Story or not.
The moment Chef looked at me, I brightened my smile.
Not a sunshine and roses type of smile. More like a spider creeping towards the captured fly in the middle of my web type of smile.
I rather liked being thought of as a spider.
“Rested up, are we?” I closed the door behind me with a soft thud and stalked toward my prey, ready for the story he wanted to tell.
Would it be the truth? A lie? A memory from his own perception?
Who the hell cared. I sure didn’t. As long as it was something no one else knew.
4
IN CHEF’S WORDS:
* * *
All I knew growing up was death.
I would stand in front of the corpses for hours, mesmerized by the death mask on their faces. Each told a different story and yet, in the end, they all said the same thing.
My mother hated all the time I’d spent at the funeral home and would do her best to keep me distracted by errands or chores or her homemade chocolate chip cookies.
Preacher, my brother, was easier to distract. He hated death. Hated the smell, the deafening silence, the hushed whispers that belonged to the funeral parlor attached to our home.
Death was never scary. Never frightening. Never horrifying. Not to me.
Preacher would have nightmares if he saw one of the less than serene corpses in the basement. He’d wake up screaming bloody murder and it would take forever for him to go back to sleep. Eventually I let him crawl in with me after I listened to my parents arguing one night following his night terror. It became easier to soothe him before my parents woke up the older we got.
