Mortuary Confidential

If I want to get my wife’s hackles up, I just ask her if she needs a little help with her makeup. She has never conceded my superior skills, but I point out that I have to be able to do both men and women, whereas she is a one-trick pony, so to speak. You’ll see a fantastic example of this type of situation in “Men and Makeup,” which relates the story of a male funeral director doing a (live) woman’s makeup under “interesting” circumstances.

On a more serious note, when people hear the term “makeup” in conjunction with the dead, they immediately think of Bozo the Clown. But the real trick to applying makeup to the dead is to make it appear as if it isn’t there (unless the woman was noticeably fond of makeup). That being said, there is a learning curve, and in my zeal I may have accidentally painted on people what looked like those children’s candy wax lips.

Makeup, body positioning, and arranging the clothes just so are all artistic aspects of the undertaker’s job with the end goal of creating a perfect memory portrait of the deceased. I think the term “mortuary science” is kind of misleading; it’s certainly a science, but it’s just as much an art—especially when embalming a body.

Embalming is the cornerstone of our business. The act of seeing a loved one dead is an important first step in the grieving process. Whereas a scientist follows strict protocol when performing an assay, an artist does the opposite, using whatever means necessary to achieve his vision. When preparing a body, the embalmer must be part scientist, part artist. My uncle likes to say, “Anyone can hit the fastball, but the true test is in that curveball.” Though a cliché, it’s very pertinent to the preparation room because you never know what you’re going to be up against.

The first story in this section is certainly a “curveball,” but not because of the preparation. The fireworks didn’t start until well after the body was embalmed, and the brother of the dead man came in to view the body. I think the problem was that he embalmed him too well; you can judge for yourself in “The Man Who Cheated Death.”

This section is a behind-the-scenes look at how we go about creating a suitable “memory portrait” (through embalming, dressing, casketing, and cosmetizing) of the decedent for the family. So come, join us for a little art, science… and makeup.

CHAPTER 13 The Man Who Cheated Death Contributed by a member of the Sunday Martini Club

I remember well the first body I embalmed solo, but maybe for different reasons than other embalmers remember their firsts. I followed this particular call from the removal to the burial, and it was my first experience outside the classroom as a “real” bona fide undertaker.

The mortuary received the death call sometime in the early afternoon and I went with a colleague to the man’s house to make the removal. He died in a hospital bed set up in the living room. It had been a slow death; I could tell by the lines of pain frozen into the features of his face and the lines of worry etched into his widow’s face. The terminal illness had left a man dead and a woman not quite alive.

I offered my condolences. The widow wept. My co-worker and I did our jobs.

When we got back to the mortuary, my colleague had a bereaved family of his own coming in to make funeral arrangements and left me to my own devices. “You going to be all right?” he asked me.

“Sure,” I replied. “I know what I’m doing.”

He looked at me with concern. “You ever done one by yourself?” The man was a seasoned embalmer, and generally a nice person. The implication in his voice was: This could be a difficult case.

I sidestepped the question. “I’ll be fine. I promise. And if I need help I’ll just wait until you’re done with your arrangements.”

He nodded, seemed satisfied, and went to meet with his family. I had just recently gotten my license and had only started working for the firm two weeks prior. I had been closely monitored and trained during my first two weeks, but on this day we happened to be especially busy, so there was nobody to help me in the preparation room. This was to be my first solo embalming trip.

Death hadn’t spared this poor soul’s dignity—as it never seems to. “Death be not proud,” I muttered the line from Donne as I undressed the man on the embalming table, “though some have called thee—.” I had been a literature major at East Carolina, and after a brief, failed stint in the publishing industry, I had left disillusioned and broken. In the words of Wordsworth, I took a lesson from the dog and returned to what I knew; what I had grown up with—undertaking.

I washed the gentleman down and proceeded to embalm what was left of his earthly remains. Sometimes an illness can really destroy human tissues, leaving them difficult to embalm, but not with this gentleman. He took the embalming solution as though he had the vascular system of a man in his twenties. For my first solo job I was duly impressed with myself. His tissues were firm; he had good skin color and his facial features looked peaceful. Success. That night, I went home and made myself my favorite, an extra dry Kettel One martini with three blue-cheese-stuffed olives to celebrate my first solo embalming.

I made arrangements with the widow the next day. Together, we got all the details of the service set and then she proceeded to pour her heart out to me across the desk. Her husband had done everything for her. She was utterly lost without him. They hadn’t been able to bear children and he was all she had in this life. I felt for the woman; I really did, and I did my best to comfort her.

On the morning of the viewing, I dressed the gentleman in a three-piece navy blue chalk stripe suit, white french cuff shirt with gold engraved cuff links, and an Italian silk gold patterned tie. I laid him out in his solid-walnut, half-couch casket and arranged him so he looked comfortable in the plush champagne-colored velvet interior. I wheeled the casket up under the torchiere lights and applied his makeup, combed his hair, put his glasses on, and placed his rosary in his hands. I stepped back, and I remember thinking to myself, not too shabby for my first.

I set up the flowers around the casket and arranged the family photos so that visiting friends could mosey around the parlor and look at them as though they were in the man’s own living room. I polished his alto sax and placed it on its stand near the head end of the casket. After that, I filled in a guest book, printed up service brochures and memorial book marks, and lit a personalized vigil candle.

The wife was coming in to spend some private time with her husband before the viewing began. As the time drew closer I set out a fresh pitcher of water, put the dead man’s favorite CD on at just the right volume, and checked and re-checked all my handiwork. Everything was perfect. I headed back into the office for my tie and jacket before I met the widow. As I bustled out of the office into the lobby, there was the widow with… the dead man!

There he stood in all his glory. Three-piece navy chalk stripe suit. White shirt. Gold silk tie. Glasses. The dead man was standing in the lobby with his wife. Alive! Talking to her! I felt like I had been sucker punched.

He turned and smiled at me.

The room started to spin, and I got tunnel vision. I grabbed onto the wall as my knees buckled.

To this day I’m glad I didn’t faint because the widow walked over to me and said, “Joe, I’d like you to meet Adam’s twin brother, Carter. Carter, this is the young man who has been so helpful to me.”

I wiped the sweat off my brow with my suit sleeve and staggered over to the deceased’s brother and introduced myself. After which, I stepped back, somewhat recovered, and said, “Do you have ESP or something? Your brother is wearing the exact same thing!” I laughed nervously, still wanting to go in the parlor and check to make sure that the casket was occupied, because I was beginning to have serious doubts. This man looked exactly like the man I had injected with four gallons of formalin solution.

“Identical twins can just sense these things,” Carter said, deadpan.

I laughed nervously again until the widow scolded, “Carter, stop it!” She elbowed him in the ribs. “They both wore matching outfits to Carter’s grandson’s wedding six months ago.” Then she said in a conspiratorial tone to me, “They both have the same sense of humor.”

With that, Carter let out a chuckle. “You should have seen the look on your face, son!” he roared. “You thought—You thought—”

I started laughing and so did Adam’s wife, until we were all laughing like maniacs. After that, I knew Adam’s wife would be all right. With a family like that, how could she not be?

Later that evening, after the viewing, I called my former boss’s house. “Harper Mortuary,” my ex-boss’s wife chirped. I had worked for them in high school, earning extra money, cutting the grass, parking cars at funerals, and taking flowers to the cemetery.

“Hey Jen,” I said and proceeded to tell her the whole tale.

She laughed. “It took almost five years of Dale being in the business until that happened to him, but the twin didn’t wear the same thing to the viewing. Wait until I tell him! He’ll love it.”

When I hung up the phone, my thoughts still on Adam’s widow, I said softly to no one in particular as I mixed an extra dry martini, one of my favorite Shakespearean lines: “No longer mourn for me when I’m dead—”

CHAPTER 14 The Unwitting Smuggler Contributed by a numismatist

My friends say that I remind them of Pigpen from Peanuts because I have this cloud of junk that follows me around. It leaves behind everything you can imagine: pens, papers, keys, candy wrappers, used latex gloves, and little pieces of trash, to name a few. Truthfully, I’d leave my fingers on my nightstand most mornings if they weren’t attached to my hand.

I’ve accepted my Pigpen status because I’ve been that way my entire life. I honestly don’t know how I kept it together long enough to get through school. I’m a mess. And I’m not embarrassed to tell you that it’s almost a weekly occurrence for my live-in girlfriend to call me at work to let me know that somehow I have her car keys on my person and that I need to return home ASAP so she can leave for work. Sadly, she’s always correct.

I’m like a human black hole and pitching machine rolled into one. I manage to simultaneously collect and discard things throughout the day with reckless abandon. So it wasn’t out of the ordinary when I lost my wallet. I have probably lost my wallet dozens of times during my tenure on this earth. Seriously. Dozens. It’s happened so many times I don’t even get upset anymore. It’s a fact of my life.

I called and cancelled my credit cards, got a new health insurance card from Human Resources, and found some new photos of my girlfriend and cats to put in my new wallet. Problem solved. What was puzzling was when a couple of months later a funeral director from Utica, New York, called to say he had my wallet. Utica is over 2300 miles from me. This was a new record for Pigpen.

After talking to the funeral director in Utica, I figured out through brilliant detective work and interviewing my fellow colleagues how my wallet managed to travel 2300 miles by itself. One of my “clients” had unwittingly smuggled it.

It was right around Valentine’s Day when I initially lost my wallet. I know, because that day at the mall I first discovered it was missing when I went to pay for the little bauble I was getting my girlfriend. Earlier that afternoon I was in the back preparing a “ship out” body. A “ship out” is a body whose removal and embalming we do for a funeral home across the country, and then load up on an airplane. The funeral director on the receiving end usually coordinates the services and burial. That particular day, I was coordinating with a funeral director from… Utica.

I had Mr. Foster in his casket, dressed, and was finishing up some quick makeup before we loaded him on his US Air flight to New York when Kaylee, the apprentice, popped her head in.

“Hey, Eric. You have five bucks for Paul’s ‘get well’ arrangement?” she asked in her usual perky manner.

Paul is a co-worker of ours who is a real health nut but had suffered a massive heart attack a couple of days before.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. I snapped my gloves off and reached for my wallet. I pulled out a five spot and handed it to her. “Spend it wisely.”

She laughed and winked. “Thanks, Eric.”

Kaylee can’t be more than twenty and is very attractive; exactly the reason the office manager sent her around to collect money. I would have given Kaylee a fifty if she had asked me for it. As Kaylee flounced out, I put my wallet down on the pillow next to Mr. Foster’s head and called after her.

“Yeah, Eric?”

She was the only person in the firm who didn’t address me as Pigpen.

“I’ve got to meet with a family. Could you see to it that this is put on an air tray and packaged up so I can drive it to the airport later on this afternoon?”

“Sure,” she said, and flashed me a winning smile.

I left to go meet with the family and promptly forgot about my wallet on the pillow next to Mr. Foster’s head. Later in the evening I drove Mr. Foster up to the airport and on my way back stopped at the mall to pick up my girlfriend’s Valentine’s gift, or not—because I had lost my wallet.

I received the call from the funeral director in Utica in mid-April. When they went to move Mr. Foster out of storage, where he had been until the frost had thawed and he could be buried, they heard the sound of “change falling.” The funeral director went digging under the pillow and came up with my wallet. Luckily, I keep paperclips, safety pins, metal shirt stays, collector’s coins, and any number of other metallic objects in my wallet; some of them fell when the casket shifted. Otherwise, my wallet would have been missing until the Apocalypse (like all the other dozens I’ve lost).

I guess my wallet fell to the side of the pillow, and then Kaylee had some people lift the casket into the big wooden tray that protects the casket during air travel. It got jostled down between the side of the pillow and interior of the casket where it stayed on its journey from Oregon all the way to New York State. I’m just surprised it went unnoticed during the two-hour wake and funeral.

Maybe I’ll get one of those wallets with the chain on it like rock ’n’ roll stars have.

CHAPTER 15 Men and Makeup Contributed by a “Proud” undertaker

People assume that because I’m gay I must naturally be good at makeup. That’s not the case. I’m reasonably proficient at makeup because I do it everyday. Before I joined the venerable ranks of the undertaking profession I had never done makeup before, ever. Some homosexuals—we call them fems—do wear makeup, but most of us don’t. In fact, unless you got to know me well, I doubt you’d even realize I’m gay. I didn’t even do makeup on a live person until three years ago.

It was St. Patty’s Day. Jamie, a girlfriend of mine, was hosting a pre-party and then we were heading to a local Irish watering hole called, ironically enough, McEnery’s Wake, for what was, for them, the Holy Grail of the year. They were putting on some extravaganza: all you could eat and drink and ten bands for a hundred bucks, or some deal like that. I’m a pseudo-Mick, last name is Flannery; my great-grandfather came over on the boat, and all that good stuff, so de facto, it’s a holiday for me.

I showed up at Jamie’s house in the early afternoon, mixed up the green beer and green jungle juice, polished the bottles of Jameson and Bushmills, and set out the shot glasses. We finished setting everything up by four o’clock, and with nothing left to do, started drinking. By the time Jamie’s boyfriend came home from work we were already, as the Irish would say, half sozzled.

“What? You two not even planning on making your own party?” he asked when he found us giggling like a pair of schoolgirls on the couch.

“Oh shit, I almost forgot. I have to take a shower!” Jamie exclaimed.

So wrapped up in gossiping and drinking, Jamie hadn’t even gotten ready yet. Sometimes when I drink heavily a little of that limp wrist comes out, and this was one of those times. “Oh, honey,” I said, checking my watch, “you have plenty of time. People aren’t even coming over for another two hours. Let’s have another beer and then you can go up and get fresh.”

“All right,” she said not too reluctantly.

I stood up and went over to the pony keg of Guinness. “Sam? You want one?”

“Hell yeah, I’ve been dreaming about this all day,” he said.

Needless to say, one Guinness begat three and by the time the guests started arriving Jamie still hadn’t gotten ready. I threw on a couple of the Dropkick Murphys’ CDs and the party got cranked up. An hour into the party it looked like an Irish Pride event, there were so many decked-out queens swilling green beer and shooting whiskey. That’s when I found Jamie doing a keg stand. She kicked her feet, the signal to be let down, and everyone cheered.

I pulled her aside. “Honey, why haven’t you gone and gotten ready yet? We’re leaving for the bar in an hour and you’re still wearing your sweats!”

She looked at me with big glassy eyes. “John, good to see you!” she said as if I was just arriving. “You know, you’re right.” She stabbed a finger in my face and squinted. “You’re always right. I need to…” She hiccupped. “Shower.”

“Come on,” I grabbed her arm and escorted her through her house. I knew she wasn’t in any shape to do this mission solo and I had found Sam a few minutes earlier puking his innards out—the lightweight.

“Where are you taking me?” Jamie asked in a little girl voice, and then giggled, as I dragged her up the stairs. “I thought you didn’t like girls.”

“Oh girl, stop it. You know I’m not interested in any of that.”

“You might.”

“Oh stop! I’m taking you to get ready.” I dragged her into her bathroom and turned the shower on. I tested the water temperature and pointed her in the direction of it. “Strip and hop in,” I commanded. “I’ll guard the door so you don’t get disturbed.” I slammed the door and could hear laughing and a couple of loud thumps. She took twenty minutes but eventually teetered out wearing a towel. I dragged her into her room. “What do you want to wear?”

“I don’t care,” she sang and flopped onto her bed.

I rolled my eyes. “This is why I’m gay,” I muttered under my breath. “Women!” I picked out a pair of black sex pants and a dark green camise.

I turned around and said, “How about these?”

Jamie was sound asleep.

I shook her some and she came around, clearly confused. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“You need to get ready. There’s a party at your house and we’re leaving to go out,” I explained as I put the clothes in her hands. “Put these on.”

She slung the towel off and put on the clothes I had gotten out without bothering with underwear. I steered her to the bathroom. “Do your hair or whatever and then we’ll leave,” I said. She seemed to understand and started rummaging around in her drawers. I went downstairs to help myself to a well-deserved beer and was talking to a really cute guy when Jamie stumbled downstairs crying.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her. Her mood had gone from happy drunk to crying drunk. Not a good sign.

Makeup was smeared all over her face. “I can’t go out!” she wailed. “I can’t do it.” She pointed to her face. She looked like a bad abstract painting.

I didn’t want to make her feel worse so I didn’t laugh. “Just leave it,” I said. “It’s fine.”

“No!” she wailed.

I could tell there was no use arguing with her; she wasn’t leaving the house unless her makeup was done. I had a sudden flash of inspiration. “Hey girl, go lay down on the couch.”

“Huh?” she said. She gave me a dumb look.

“Lay down on the couch. I’ll do it for you. I’m qualified.”

She complied.

“Sue,” I said to one of our friends, “run up and grab her grip—er, I mean, makeup kit.”

Sue returned with the makeup kit. “Hey, look!” she called. “The gay undertaker is going to give us a makeup demonstration!”

All the drinking games suddenly weren’t as entertaining as a gay funeral director applying makeup to a drunken girl laid out on her couch. “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” blared from the stereo as the crowd gathered.

“Close your eyes and lie as still as possible,” I told Jamie. I knelt down and from the hooting and cheering around me, you would have thought a cockfight was going on in the middle of the circle.

I’ll admit, I was trashed, and it wasn’t my best work by a long shot. But it was good enough to appease Jamie, and it gave the crowd a good show, as I provided running commentary and took much longer than I should have because I was hamming it up. I think she was too drunk to realize she looked like the Joker from Batman, but for my first attempt on a live person I’d give myself a “D+” grade. Hey, that’s passing!

Three years later, people who were at that party, or have heard about it, still kid me about doing their makeup. Sure, I tell them, but with one stipulation, they have to lie down and close their eyes.

CHAPTER 16 A Solution for Sagging Contributed by an Atlanta Falcons fan

When somebody dies, gravity pulls everything down. Everything. For example, take blood. Since the vascular system is no longer circulating blood, the erythrocytes (red blood cells) get pulled to the lowest point, making those areas of skin dark red. The pooling of blood in those low areas is called livor mortis. Gravity pulls other things down. Most notably on women, their breasts.

If the breasts are allowed to lie as they will, they will invariably fall to the sides. If you don’t compensate for this gravitational phenomenon, women look unnatural when they are laid out for the wake. The average layman probably wouldn’t be able to pinpoint exactly what wasn’t right, but would just know something didn’t look right. That something would be the lack of a bust.

I have talked to embalmers who embalm women in their bras, but I have found that to be wholly un-practical. The bra can get stained with blood if one isn’t careful, and it always has to be dried out after the washing of the body, and sometimes you just can’t get a bra in enough time before the embalming has to occur. So I have to come up with a way to hold the breasts up during embalming. It’s the perfect solution, or so I told my aunts one afternoon.

My aunts Millie and Vicki are my dead maternal grandmother’s only siblings. They live together in a big old plantation-style house on a shady, tree-lined street in your typical southern town. Since I work close to them, I try to sneak away from the mortuary at least once a week during the warm months to join the two old fire-crackers for afternoon tea on their front porch. They drink iced tea on their front porch every afternoon starting at about three o’clock and going until suppertime. As the afternoon wears on they begin pouring a little Southern Comfort in their tea. They get a little sassier with each passing hour; if you happen upon them near dark, it’s damn near like being at the Friar’s Club.

On this particular day I arrived late and they were giggling like schoolgirls, a sure sign of the So-Co.

“Trey, Trey,” my Aunt Vicki waved to me as I crossed the lawn, “we were just talking about you.”

I kissed them both and sat down in a rocking chair.

“Tea?” Aunt Millie asked.

“Please.”

“The special blend?” she asked innocently.

“No thanks, Auntie. I have to get back to work.”

Aunt Millie opened a silver ice bucket and used a pair of dainty tongs to drop three ice cubes into a glass. She carefully poured from a pitcher sitting on the table between her and her sister.

“Mint?”

“Please,” I said.

She dropped a mint leaf into the glass and half a lemon slice.

“Sure I can’t interest you in a little additive?”

“Maybe next week. Too much work.”

“How dreadful. On a beautiful day like this too!” Aunt Vicki said.

“So what were you two up to?” I inquired, taking the highball glass. The three measly ice cubes looked pitiful in the giant glass. I tasted the tea. It was watery. I knew my aunts reused tea bags—a vestige of the Depression.

“Well, Millie and I were just talking, Trey,” Aunt Vicki said. “We went to Mrs. Wilbur’s wake the night before last and were wondering how you…” She giggled, placing her hand over her mouth. “Shall I say un-sag certain things?” She took a sip of tea, her composure one of an innocent southern lady, but her tone suggested otherwise.

I shook my head. “You two. Always discussing the most unladylike things.”

Aunt Millie looked horrified. “Us? Why never!”

I raised my eyebrow and took another swallow of tea. On top of being insipid, it was too sweet.

“We, young man, are the epitome of Southern Manners,” Aunt Millie said, emphasizing her accent.

Aunt Vicki leaned in and winked. “So let us have it, Trey. What’s the secret? Because old lady Wilbur was certainly saggy in life.”

“It’s a secret. I can’t tell you.”

“Come, Trey. Out with it. We won’t tell a soul.” Aunt Vicki crossed herself to prove her point. I guess the booze must’ve been affecting her because the crossing was more like a circular motion.

“Okay then. Since you both promise not to tell.” I put my glass down on the table and leaned in in a conspiratorial manner. They leaned in too. I looked around dramatically and simply said, “Duct tape.”

Aunt Vicki whooped with laughter and covered her mouth and nearly yelled, “Duct tape! Oh, mercy in heaven! Old lady Wilbur would be turning in her grave if she knew!”

“Quiet, you,” I said. “I have Scotch tape, too.”

“What ever do you mean by that, Trey?” Aunt Vicki asked. She snorted a little and took a huge gulp of tea.

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.