Mortuary Confidential

by Todd Harra

  I cupped my hands and approximated Pamela Anderson’s bust. “Duct tape.” Then I moved my hands close to my chest so that they were touching and said, “Scotch tape.”

  “Why, you little scamp!” Aunt Vicki yelped while Aunt Millie roared with laughter, knocking So-Co-laced tea all over her dress.

  I took that as my cue. “Gotta get back to the shop. Don’t forget, ladies,” I yelled over my shoulder as I jogged across the yard, “don’t tell my secrets!”

  CHAPTER 17

  The Glass Eye and Other Expectations

  Contributed by a Girl Scout Leader

  The chapel was full of friends and family of the diAntoni family. They were seated, patiently waiting for the service to begin. The air hung heavy with the muted sounds of a crowd trying to be quiet, but not quite being successful.

  Mr. Joseph diAntoni, age 91, was laid out in the front of the chapel in blissful repose. He wore a blue chalk-stripe suit with a red silk tie, tied in a Windsor knot as Mr. diAntoni’s son insisted. He had on his favorite Movado watch, and diamond cufflinks his dead wife had given him for their fifty-fifth anniversary. All in all, it was very dignified.

  Mr. diAntoni’s family had picked out a solid pecan casket, full couch style, meaning the entire lid of the casket was open. I had put cardboard inserts in the pant legs to give them a crisp, full appearance. Mr. diAntoni looked good for a dead man; I had even managed to tease a small smirk onto his lips during the embalming. Mr. diAntoni’s family loved the way he looked. “He looks ten years younger,” his granddaughter had gushed when she had seen him for the first time. They were pleased, meaning I was pleased.

  I made the announcement that the casket was going to be closed for the funeral service, and anyone not wishing to watch the closing was invited to step into the lobby. After I made the announcement, I invited the family up one last time to say their goodbyes. One by one they stepped up, stepped aside, and went back to their seats. I handed them tissues as they returned to their respective pews sniffling.

  Mr. diAntoni’s son, Lucas, and his wife, stepped up to the casket last. I stood at attention at the foot of the casket, ready to assist them in the covering of Mr. diAntoni with the blanket. Lucas stepped over to me and whispered, “I have some things I want to go with Dad.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, expecting the usual: a photograph, rosary, or something of that nature.

  Lucas dug into his suit pocket and held his closed hand out to me. I put my open palm under his and he released the contents of his hand into mine. I recoiled.

  In my hand were Mr. diAntoni’s false teeth and glass eye.

  Trying not to show my discomfort at holding these items in my bare hand, I said, “We can certainly send these with your dad.”

  I went to tuck the items into the pocket of Mr. diAntoni’s suit, but Lucas pressed up against me and whispered loudly, “Sarah, we want those where they belong.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the entire chapel watching me. There were a lot of people in the audience. A lot. “Uh, Lucas,” I stammered, “these teeth can’t go in his mouth after he’s been embalmed.” Theoretically they could, but certainly not at this stage.

  “Why not?” he demanded.

  His wife tried shushing him, but he brushed her off.

  I leaned really close to him and whispered, “The embalming process basically freezes the tissues. His jaw is frozen shut.”

  “What the hell is in there now?” Lucas demanded.

  “A special mouth guard is in there to give him the appearance that his teeth are in.”

  “You got that in, why can’t you put his teeth in?”

  “It’s too late to remove the guard and put his teeth in.”

  “Fine,” he said nastily. “Put the teeth in his pocket. At least put the eye in.”

  “Lucas, I can’t do that either. You should have let me know this days ago, preferably before you gave me permission to embalm him. It’s simply too late now.”

  Lucas’s voice had risen to a volume that I knew the back rows of the chapel could hear. “Why can’t you put dad’s eye in so he can go to his glory with it?”

  My face was bright red and I was sweating. I was angry and embarrassed. Lucas was being obtuse. I didn’t want to tell him the gritty details of what I had to do to prepare his father for the funeral, but he wouldn’t be placated. “Look, Lucas,” I snapped. “I cannot put his eye in.”

  “Then give it to me. I’ll do it.” His face was flushed and he had a wild look as he held his palm out to me as if he expected me to relinquish the eye. Under any other circumstances I would have gladly given him back the questionably clean prosthetic, but I was afraid of what would happen if I did.

  “No,” I said.

  “Give it to me. Now!”

  “Look, Lucas,” I hissed. I dropped my tone down an octave. “Your father’s eye socket is packed to make it look like he has an eye because you didn’t give this to me days ago. If you want to make all these people wait twenty minutes I’d be happy to take your father in the back and see to it that his glass eye gets in. But this is something that I cannot and will not do in front of a crowd of people.” I added, “And something I’m not going to let you do.”

  Lucas looked daggers at me. “This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!” he announced.

  “Do you want me to postpone the funeral a few minutes? I’d be happy to accommodate you,” I reiterated.

  “No, don’t bother,” he snapped and stormed back to his seat.

  I slipped the teeth and eye into Mr. diAntoni’s suit pocket, hurriedly closed the lid, turned the service over to the minister, and ran into the back to scrub my hands.

  I guess the moral of my little (but very public) confrontation is that people sometimes have expectations that can’t be met. These unreal expectations can also come up unexpectedly. You have to deal with them gracefully but honestly—as long as you’re honest, you can’t go wrong.

  CHAPTER 18

  Tattoo You?

  Contributed by a Rolling Stones fan

  The funeral directors at my firm do the makeup on their own calls. At some funeral homes the body comes out of the preparation room as a “finished product.” By that I mean the body is embalmed, dressed, casketed, and cosmetized. And at some funeral homes the women who come in and do the hairdressing also do the cosmetics. That isn’t the case where I work; the decedent comes out of the morgue embalmed, dressed, and casketed. Then, the funeral directors apply the makeup under torchiere lamps in the viewing alcoves. Torchiere lamps have special colored lights in them to compliment the tone of a decedent’s skin.

  One day, I was doing a favor for a colleague of mine who had a doctor’s appointment and had to leave early. He asked me if I would mind putting some makeup on his call, and then receive the man’s daughter and let her see her father before the funeral the next day. I had nothing going on that afternoon and was happy to oblige.

  I found my colleague’s call to be an old, gnarled man. He was peaceful looking enough, but I could tell life had been hard on him. His wrinkled face was a roadmap that told tales of intermittent joy, but also sorrow and hardship. His hands were tiny balls of arthritic pain, balled as if to prove he went out swinging. His family had brought in a nice dark blue polo shirt and khaki pants for him to be buried in; nothing pretentious; just practical. Practical, probably the way he had lived his life.

  I began doing the makeup. It wasn’t tough. He had been embalmed well and had great skin color. Unfortunately, since he was wearing short sleeves, I had to use considerable makeup to cover up the bruising on his arm. This isn’t uncommon in elderly people, especially if they have been in the hospital prior to death. The intravenous needles can leave post-mortem discoloring. He had the dusky complexion of a Slavic person, and I had to use several layers of increasingly darker tan-tinted makeup before I was able to achieve a uniform color that blended well with his natural skin tone and covered the black bruises. When I was done I was pleased
with how natural he looked.

  The dead man’s daughter arrived at the prescribed time. She had a slight accent that I couldn’t place and looked very similar to her father: dark skin, hard features. I took her back into the small room we have for private viewings. Seeing her father laid out in his casket, bathed in the soft light of the torchieres, looking comfortable and peaceful, she knelt before the casket and wept.

  I gave her some time. When I returned to the room she came to me and said, “Thank you for everything you’ve done. Dad looks better than I’ve seen him in ten years. He was so sick towards the end—” She bit off the end of her sentence.

  Comments like that are why I do the job I do. “I’m glad you’re pleased, ma’am. Is there anything I could do to enhance his appearance?” I asked.

  “There is one thing—” She trailed off and then said quickly, “No, no, never mind. It’s nothing.”

  “No, please, tell me. We’ll get everything perfect.”

  I could tell she was hesitant, but after a second she told me, “I thought my dad had a tattoo on his arm. It was his serial number—”

  “Serial number?” I was puzzled.

  “Yeah, he was Hungarian. Imprisoned originally at Birkenau by the Nazis until they found out he was a Mason, then they transferred him to the Mauthausen-Gusen camps and forced him to mine granite from the infamous Wiener-Graben quarry. He was quite proud of that serial number. Almost as if he was sticking it to the Nazis by surviving their death camp and showing it to the world.”

  A light went off in my head, with a sudden realization. “Was it here?” I asked tracing a line on the posterior of my forearm.

  “Yes!” she said.

  “Oh, ma’am, I’m sorry. I thought the tattoo was bruising and covered it with makeup.”

  “It had gotten all stretched out and illegible in the past couple years. I just never really thought about it,” she admitted.

  “Here, let’s let your father get sent off bearing his badge of honor,” I said, taking a tissue and wiping the makeup from the once-burly arm, exposing his concentration camp serial number.

  We all wear badges in one form or another, and though some fade, some tarnish, and some stretch over time, it doesn’t negate their impact upon our lives. Even in death.

  CHAPTER 19

  Ever Seen a Dead Man Move?

  Contributed by a sun worshiper/beach bum

  I’ve been asked more than once if I ever get scared.

  “Scared of what?” I reply

  “You know… dead people. Aren’t you afraid they’re going to get you?” the inquiring party asks.

  I love that term, “get you.” I guess people think a mortuary is just one big house of the living dead. I am here to tell you that it’s not like the movies where the decedent, laying in the coffin, sits straight up and then proceeds to chase the damsel in distress through the castle. But yes, the dead can move. You heard me correctly. The dead can move… sometimes. Okay, it’s pretty rare, but if the conditions are just right, a corpse can move. It’s pretty eerie, even for somebody who is used to being around the dead all day and isn’t superstitious.

  Don’t worry; the next wake you go to, grandma won’t sit up and do a three-sixty number with her head. I hope.

  The first time I had the crap scared out of me had nothing to do with the dead moving, but breathing—sort of. I was just a young buck, wet behind the ears and green all over. I’m pretty sure I was serving my apprenticeship, doing removals and running errands and things of that nature, or maybe I hadn’t started it yet. Either way, it was late at night and I had been sent to some convalescent home on the other end of the earth to pick up a body. On the way back, I decided I needed a snack, so I wheeled the enormous station wagon into a fast food joint.

  I pulled up to the talk box, listened to the staticky voice welcome me, and yelled my order. Upon being told some type of monetary amount that I couldn’t make out, I assumed my order had been received and I pulled up to the next window.

  It must have been cold out because I remember wearing a raincoat or topcoat and digging around in the pockets trying to find some cash. I found it and waited patiently for the red-eye crew to get my food. The wagon was an old gas-guzzling monster with a vinyl bench seat in the front and a radio that you had to tune. The reception was always terrible and I usually rode around in silence, as I did on that particular night. So there I was, in total silence, waiting patiently.

  After a spell, I began to wonder if the place was still open. I hadn’t caught a glimpse of anyone on the other side of the two little glass doors. Then it happened.

  From the back I heard a loud rattle that I can best describe as a cross between a cough, a gag, and a gargle. I twisted around in the seat and looked at the supine figure under the quilt. The sound got louder, and it was definitely coming from the cot!

  He’s alive!

  By a reflex my foot pressed the gas pedal and the station wagon shot forward in the drive-thru chute. Out of the corner of my eye I think I saw a puzzled counter attendant bringing my food to the window. All that person found was a cloud of blue smoke.

  I’m not sure how I jockeyed that big wagon out of the lot without jumping the curb. It all happened too fast. I just knew I drove. The next thing I knew I was back at the mortuary listening to the decedent’s chest like an idiot, trying to figure out if I heard a heartbeat or could see the chest rising and falling. Nothing. In a panic, I called the manager and told him what had happened. I felt like an even bigger idiot when he told me it was just escaping air rattling through the throat.

  I guess they’re still waiting at the drive-thru with my food.

  That night was pretty eerie, but not nearly as much as the night a former classmate of mine died. His name was Jack. He and I went to high school together and were on the wrestling team. Jack contracted poliomyelitis—or polio—at the age of five. The disease crippled his legs and he was forced to use crutches for the rest of his life. As a result, his upper body was massive. When we wrestled, anyone could knock him off his feet, but down on the mat was his territory. He was as strong as a bear, constantly underestimated because he was a cripple. He had a winning varsity record.

  I don’t know if the childhood polio had anything to do with his failing heart, but Jack began having cardiac problems in his mid-thirties. A heart transplant did little good, and by age 41 he was on hospice care. He made me promise I would take care of him when he passed, and since I was close to his family, I gave them my private number to reach me as soon as Jack died. I wanted to handle everything personally.

  Jack died and I received the call and went to the house to perform the removal. I loaded him onto the cot with some difficulty due to his muscle mass and took him back to the mortuary. Once in the preparation room, I flicked on the lights, wheeled the cot up next to the embalming table, and stepped out to get gowned up. When I stepped back into the room a few minutes later my heart flew into my mouth. The cover over the cot was rustling like the contents were trying to escape!

  The same thought from twenty years before rushed through my head: He’s alive!

  I staggered back and hit the doorjamb. The bright fluorescent preparation room tunneled into a pinpoint of light, as my eyes tried to tell my brain to wake up and process what it was seeing. It took me a few seconds to get my wits about me before I rushed over and unzipped the cover. At that point the rustling had subsided, and I realized what had happened. I had only heard about it before, but there is a phenomenon in which the dead undergo sudden involuntary muscle contractions called cadaveric spasms.

  I told my colleagues about my momentarily terrifying experience and they decided to plan a little surprise for me. The next time I went to do a removal from the hospital, I volunteered to go up to the first floor to get the paperwork signed. When I returned to the basement, I found my colleague standing in the hallway with the body already on the cot.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said and prepared
to turn heel and go.

  That’s when the morgue attendant threw off the cot quilt, leaped off the cot, and screamed, “BOO!”

  My heart stopped. I’m not kidding. It literally stopped for a couple of seconds. I think I even put the back of my hand to my forehead as women do when they’re having a hot flash and did a giant Lemaze-type exhale. While the two jackasses stood there laughing their heads off, I had to sit down and catch my breath.

  Apparently, my colleagues had all pitched in a couple of bucks to bribe the morgue attendant. It worked. They nearly had to wheel me out of that damn hospital that day, and I think I had to throw my underwear away too.

  Now, even with nearly thirty years under my belt, I still find it hard to admit that I’ve had the crap scared out of me by corpses. The dead won’t hurt you, even if they do move a little. It’s the living you have to watch out for.

  PART III

  Family Matters

  The question I’m constantly asked by my friends, mostly people in their mid-twenties, is, “How can you do what you do?” followed by, “Isn’t it depressing?” They’re incredulous that I’d even consider a profession that author/undertaker Thomas Lynch has dubbed “the dismal trade.” But it’s not a depressing job; in fact, it’s an extremely rewarding one, being able to help the bereaved take those first steps in the healing process. Sure, some days are tough, especially the ones involving children and tragic deaths, but there are tough days at any job.

  The first story in this section, “Lesson: Never Go to Bed Angry” is a good example of a tough day, but an important lesson. A friend of mine, who helps peer-edit my work, told me the first time she read it, it brought tears to her eyes, and she called her husband to tell him she loved him. On the surface the job may seem daunting and “depressing,” but how bad can a day be that makes you call your loved one simply to tell them you love them?