Ronin

Aloha.

2011-01-17T16:47:00.000-10:00

Aloha from Hawaii.

I am on the island of O'ahu in the city of Honolulu, Waikiki beach district.

I am once again working as a bouncer for a local night club.

I have come to a good format for the book. It will include expanded and more detailed accounts already posted here, others not yet shared and accounts regarding death and loss from my own experiences. The book is in progress. I have secured a publisher and would like to make copies available free of charge (notwithstanding shipping, of course) to my faithful readers. I will develop this more as things progress and announce how it will be executed when the time comes.

Thank you to everyone who has followed my writing.

In the meanwhilst, I will be providing this site in German, French and Japanese and will have the updated links available soon.

Mahalo.

July 2nd, 2006 - Part II.

2010-12-09T21:24:00.002-10:00

The sun stretches out in slender, meandering patches across the hardwood floor, interrupted by shadows of kitchen furniture and the cross-marks of window panes. I forget, if only for a moment, about the pain in my head and the twisting in my stomach. I do not sit down. "Okay," I say. The left side of my face is warm and greasy from the plastic phone pressed against it. There is a sigh and what sounds like a choked sob on the other end of the long-distance conversation. "I don't know how to tell you this, kid," my father says. There is a seemingly forever kind of pause. I do not breathe. He continues. "Last night...last night Kyle shot himself." The sensation that follows is total and complete. It reaches across all dimensions of my being from my perception of myself, to my physical self, to my spiritual self, to my mental self. They begin to tear. The ripping of the fabric of my reality sounds like a white-noise scream. Shock and awe. My infrastructure is immediately destroyed. Tanks roll over the on-fire citizens flooding the streets to flee their burning houses. Faceless, nameless death squadrons rape and murder every woman and child. The men are all beaten, stomped, clubbed, shot, burned to death...their charred remains devoured by foot soldiers and thin, black wolf dogs. Concrete is reduced to rubble and shattering glass embeds itself in the eyes and fleshy parts of the people. There is much screaming. There is much lamenting. People beat their chests and gnash their teeth. Everyone is drinking each other's blood. There is a great flash and a deafening roar. The winds blow from the center of the earth outward and in a blinding storm everything is turned to so much ash. And then there is darkness and nothing lives inside the city walls ever again.

I start to cry a little. It is the kind of cry a child cries. The cry of a lost person or animal. The cry of someone so beyond the reaches of help. A quiet choke before a drowning person's lungs suck in that first breath of water. Everything is over.

"I am so sorry," my father says. He begins to cry as well. Our conversation is brief. It is undoubtedly as difficult for him to deliver such news as it is for me to receive it. I know not what to do. I hang up the phone and sit down on the floor. Disbelief. "What happened?" asks my sister. I look at her and tell her. "Oh no, brother," she says. She hugs me and I cry again. After a moment I wipe my eyes and seeing that the phone is still in my hand, I dial the only person I can think of that needs to know about this. I call Kevin and tell him what has happened.

"Kyle shot himself last night."
"Noooooooooo."

I hang up the phone and stare out the window to the street at every car that stops and every car that goes. They are all to or from somewhere. None of them appear to notice what has happened and I do not know how they do not know. Why are they not stricken with grief and cutting their own throats and drowning in their own blood? Why are they not sacrificing their children and hanging themselves from the telephone poles and pressing the accelerators of their vehicles all the way through the floorboards of their cars and smashing into each other in glassy, metallic, bloody sprays of gasoline and nightmares? Why are people not smashing their teeth out of their heads on the curbs of nearby sidewalks and why are they not blacking out their eyes with jagged sticks and broken bottles and why are they not stomping burning dogs to death and with white knuckles and splintering fingernails tearing their own faces off? Why are people not stabbing themselves in the stomachs with samurai swords and reaching into their intestines to pull them out and devour them like blind and ravenous sharks? Why?

I do all of these things and at the same time I swallow a 55-gallon drum of sulphuric acid and swan dive from the Empire State Building into a pool of bayonet-toothed Great White sharks and atomic bombs.

I spend the rest of the day smoking on the deck and staring through the world into the nothingness that has become my life and existence. Catatonic with my eyes open. Nearby the crack and bang of store-bought fireworks snaps me in and out of reality in an instant. The crack bringing me back to the present moment and the bang reminding me of what it may have sounded like when he pulled the trigger that fired the round that tore through the soft tissue of his throat and shattered the bone and tore through the brain matter that sprayed out the back of his head when he made the Ultimate Decision.

ul·ti·mate
b: last in a progression or series.

de·ci·sion
3: promptness and firmness in deciding

ul·ti·mate de·ci·sion

1: the decision to take ones life or the life of another.

The warm summer air and smell of drifting smoke and fresh cut grass blows gently all about me as the evergreens whisper secrets to the rustling maples who tell them only to the dandelion skeletons who carry them forever to somewhere else. Cigarette after cigarette, smoke spirals down and to within and coils upward to without into the darkening evening sky. Long after the street lights come on do I rub out the last smoldering bit of ash in the ash tray.

Jesus Hates It When You Smoke.

July 2nd, 2006 - Part I.

2010-12-07T14:08:00.001-10:00

I sit, as I have many times before. Cigarette between my lips, staring into the screen, recalling the past. Walking backward in time.

I wake to the low hum of a window air conditioning unit in my attic room. The sun pours in through the windows. It is 11:00 a.m. and I can tell the day outside is already hot, even in these morning hours. I push the sheets away and lift myself up to sit on the edge of the bed. My head aches, an uneasy feeling washes over me, and though I try to put the feeling out of my head and away from me, it persists. As I stand and stretch, my fingers brush the low vaulted ceiling. I bend down and touch my toes and breathe. The feeling persists.

I carry on about my morning routine of showering, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, eating breakfast and packing my lunch for the day ahead. By 12:00 p.m. I am out of the house, on my bicycle and pedaling toward the train station to catch the train to the north end of town where I will ride my bike two more miles to work. I consider calling in sick.

The train ride is uncomfortable and my head pounds. It is hot and stuffy in the train car, the recirculated air unbreathable. Moments of relief arrive almost too late as the train stops at each station and the automated doors open, letting a rush of thick, warm air in. I consider calling in sick.

At the last station, I take my bike down from the rack and step out of the train car. I step over the frame of my bicycle and begin to pedal toward my job.

A few minutes later the rubber tires of my bicycle coast onto the gravel parking lot of the oil refinery. Tanks loom overhead, forty, fifty, sixty and eighty feet, casting shadows over the gravel and concrete workings. I park my bicycle in front of the office/break room and enter.

It is cool inside and smells of coffee. The cheap kind. The kind that comes in yellow or brown or red plastic buckets with black snap-on lids. The kind that men with tattoos, lifted trucks, sunglasses tanlines and greying ponytails savor as many times throughout the day as they have ex-wives. I pour myself a cup, tear open a package of hot chocolate and stir it in with a straw. I take one drink. It further sours my stomach. I drop the cup into the large grey Roughneck trash can in the corner. It falls in slow motion, the coffee cup a small trash can falling into a giant one.

Marv, the refinery manager, lines out my tasks for the afternoon. Pressure wash the concrete pads around the silos, drain the recirc pool, other things. I nod and "okay" then go up the stairs to the locker room where I don hickory-patterned Cintas coveralls. My head is pounding. I sit down on the bench in the middle of the room. I wonder if it is too late to call in sick.

Outside the sun beats down in an unforgiving way. I wonder if it knows how horrible it makes me feel. I imagine it as some eternally-apologetic abusive parent.

I sweep. I pressure wash the conrete pads. I drain the pool. I check silo temperatures. I crush oil cans and filters. I double over in pain at the can crusher. I have to go home.

I find Marv and tell him I am sorry, and that I must leave. There is no further conversation. His demand for an explanation will be addressed later. For now I walk ten thousand miles across the gravel lot to my bicycle. Jim is riding it. "Marv just fired me, I have to go." Jim gets off my bike. His request for an explanation will be addressed at a later date.

I ride down the cracked concrete back road out to the thoroughfare, across the Expo Center parking lot to the end-of-the-line train station and wait. There are spots in my field of vision. Ink in water. Spreading and dissipating.

The train comes and I repeat my trek to work in reverse order. I arrive at my station and leave with my bicycle, ride back home, all the while my stomach knotting tighter, my head pounding harder, the sun getting hotter. It's been only three hours since I left for work.

I drag my bicycle up the stairs onto the covered deck of our house and lean it against the railing. I open the front door and step inside. The house phone rings. I hear my sister answer. "Yeah, hold on" she says. She appears from the kitchen and hands me the red cordless phone. "It's Dad," she says, "he sounds...". I take the phone and hold it to my head. There is cordless crackle, I cannot tell if it is on my end or his. "Hey," I say. He begins to speak, his voice is high and strained. Something is amiss. "Hey kid," he says, "you need to sit down".

Bullets.

2010-12-05T20:26:00.000-10:00

The bullet comes so close to my head I can feel it. A slight and sudden breath. A faint smell of burnt something and metal. There is a solid zip-thwack as it is buried deep into the punching bag just behind me and to my right. "Whoa! Chris, you need to fucking relax!" says Little Nick and takes the G-17 from Chris' hand. I am three months past caring. For a gunshot it makes little noise. A short percussive burst. Anyone familiar with Glock armaments knows this sound. Angry, I go out to smoke, leaving Nick and Kit with Chris.

The neighbor in the adjoining duplex is outside on the small raised concrete slab step, also smoking. He doesn't look the least bit surprised. "Is everything ok?" he asks. "Yes", I respond. He nods. I light my cigarette and blow smoke into the sky, above the lights of downtown, into the stars. "Chris drunk again?" the neighbor asks. I am staring straight ahead, but can see in my periphery that he wears no shoes, only jeans and a white wife-beater tank top. "Yes," I respond. "This ain't the first time", he adds.

The night started like so many before it. I arrived downtown an hour before my shift to get a feel for the night, to get my thumb on the pulse of the city. You never know what to expect at night, down here...so you just have to expect everything and get the feel of the night before you get thrown to the wolves.

I sit for a moment in Pioneer Square. The evening air is warm and smells of food carts and drifting cigarette smoke. People walk by laughing, talking. Summer is something else in this town. I walk down Morrison, turn onto 2nd, pass the used book store, the strip club, turn again on Alder, past the Ross Dress-For-Less and turn right onto 5th. At the corner of 5th and Washington I look east toward the river just a few blocks away. I love this sight. Everest College. Kelly's Olympian. And the Greek. My Greek. Our Greek.

Jake and I slap hands in the doorway of Kelly's as I pass by. Some nameless shitty punk band unloads their crap on the sidewalk in front. I dodge a kick drum and weave through a small group of button-shirt morons and head for the door. Emeric is at the club entrance setting up. People are already lined up. I flash a finger at him to catch his attention and walk on, past the large glass front of the building to the entrance.

Chris and Mike are outside smoking Newports like always. I bum one like always. We smoke and laugh like always. Compliment eachother. Discuss nothing. Look at women both awful and beautiful. These two are like brothers to me. I finish my cigarette and before going through the door I lean in to hand-slap/half-hug Mike. He slaps my back. There is an audible "smack". "Oh shit...like that, huh?" he says and laughs. He's referring to a fresh layer of Class IIIA armor under my shirt. There have been a lot of shootings downtown this summer. "My mom worries about me, you know." I say. Mike and Chris laugh. "That's fuckin' awesome" Chris adds. I pull the door open and step through the threshhold into the restaurant area.

Rachel is just inside the door at the hostess stand. She hugs me like she always does. I hug her back like I always do. The restaurant is full of families and couples, the bar is full of people waiting for the club upstairs to open.

It smells of delicious Greek food. The place is alive. I can hear Brett's bozouki upstairs. I say my hellos to the restaurant staff and go upstairs. Up five steps, then nine more and into the Taverna. The lights are low, Ted is leading men in a dance and Brett plays on. Amber and Harry are at the main bar tonight. I look across the taverna and see Cody is at the small bar.

The Greek Show blends into an hour of Brett DJ'ing while Chris, Mike and I transform the taverna into a makeshift dance club. We push tables to the side, stack and carry chairs up a flight of stairs to be stowed. After about thirty minutes the restaurant is gone and the floor begins to move with people. Brett gives up the decks for someone, I can't remember who. Probably DJ George. D-D-D-D-DJ George.

The night drags on. We look at women and comment on their bodies and things we would like to do to them. There are fights. The club closes. We kick everyone out. We kick everyone off the sidewalks. The police kick everyone off the streets.

We stay and drink. And drink. And drink.

We leave at 5 a.m., exiting out the side door. Chris, Nick, Kit and I walk next door to Peterson's 24-Hour Store. Nick, Kit and I stay outside while Chris goes in to buy cigarettes. I keep an eye on things all the time, drunk or sober, rain or shine. We have enemies down in this part of town and it pays to keep a sharp eye. Nick hands me a cigarette out of his box. I am a regular smoker, yet never have cigarettes. The three of us light up and inhale. The end-of-summer air is beginning to chill. Exhale, and smoke in brilliant blue and white coils into the night sky, illuminated by the neon sign overhead. I notice someone run into the store. I look in, a young African American man runs straight at Chris. Chris does not see him. The young African American man draws back to strike. Slow motion. I drop my cigarette. It burns as it falls through eternity to the sidewalk. Before it hits the pavement in a showerburst of fleeting sparks my SuperStars cross the metal threshhold of the market and touch the linoleum tile inside. There is a solid and definite skin-on-skin sound as the young African American man's fist hits Chris in the side of the face.

I grab the back of his jacket at each shoulder seam and as I pull downward and twist with my hips to the right, quickly kick the back of his right and then left knee and drag him to the ground where I stomp one time on his face. The Drill Instructor played by R.L. Ermy in "Full Metal Jacket" is screaming in my head. "WHY ARE YOU NOT STOMPING HIS GUTS OUT!?" In a north-south mount I choke him as hard as I can. It is not my intention to kill him, but I probably will. Chris is on the ground, he has hit his head and is unconscious. Another man, the young African American man's associate, has entered the store to save his friend. I look up and see him as he pulls a black-handled folding knife out of his pocket. It is the cheap kind you can find at some convenience stores on the north side. I let go of his friend, and turning my attention toward him, stand up and punch him as hard as I can in the throat. He makes a half-gurgle half-yell sound and drops the knife. We both dive for it. It is spinning on the floor, balanced on its hinge pin. Our hands reach for it, but his reaches it first. He rolls over on his back and scoots away with his feet while I get back onto mine. He is leaning over Chris now, the knife is raised in the air no more than two feet away from Chris' face. The knife is coming down, the blade is pointed straight at Chris' throat. I kick as fast as I can and hit the second young African American man under the chin, snapping his head back. The store clerk jumps over the counter. The knife is again sliding across the floor. I jump for it, it lands just out of my reach. I turn to see the store clerk coming at me, he does a head-down tackle dive move, the kind of move that can less a man some teeth, and grabs me around my waist. Nick is in the store now, he is on the store clerk's back. I am driving both of my thumbs into the store clerk's throat, just below his Adam's apple. His eyes look like they are going to explode. Nick punches him what seems like 1,000 times in the side of the face. Chris is getting up, his eyes are already dark. He is dazed. The first African American man is on his knees, getting up. Now the second, reaching again for the knife. Chris steps on his hand, Nick and I throw the clerk back to his counter and we all end up on opposite sides of the store. The two African American men run out the door. I apologize to the store clerk. "I'm sorry. Is there anything we can do?" I look around at the store. Magazine racks are knocked over. Shrink-wrapped flat cases of soda are broken and spilled all over the floor. There are candy bars of many varieties, packaged peanuts, Auto Traders and bent metal racks all over the front of the store. "JUST GET THE FUCK OUT AND I WON'T CALL THE POLICE" the store clerk shouts. The thre of us run out the door, grabbing Kit by the arm on the way across the street to the parking garage where we get into Chris' car.

Chris drives back to his duplex apartment on the east side, all the while swearing to kill the two from the store fight.

We arrive at Chris' duplex.

Inside he punches holes in the wall while I stand in the middle of his living room watching him. Kit is bothered. Nick and I are used to these things. There are bottle caps pressed into the ceiling which spell out the word "Solamente". We are all alcoholics and crazy drunks.

Chris flips over a couch cushion and reaches for something. I can't see what it is, as his back is to me. He turns, not knowing I'm standing where I'm standing and points a gun at the punching bag nearby.

The bullet comes so close to my head I can feel it. A slight and sudden breath. A faint smell of burnt something and metal. There is a solid zip-thwack as it is buried deep into the punching bag just behind me and to my right. For a gunshot it makes little noise. A short percussive burst. Anyone familiar with Glock armaments knows this sound. Angry, I go out to smoke.

Around The World. (Play It).

2010-11-25T23:51:00.001-10:00

In the end it was no longer the city I fell in love with some ten years ago. The majority of the past decade has been spent in Portland, OR, alternately working as a firefighter in the summer and a bouncer in the winter and spring.

The city looks largely the same as it did all those years ago. But, if you know it like I do, you know that the similarities end there.

This notion became apparent to me just two days ago. I was on a bus downtown to meet with my attorney. The bus was crowded, as it was midday and below freezing. I stepped off the bus, not exactly sure of which stop I was at and was suddenly caught in many memories.

I stood in front of the Oregon Pacific building, located at 418 SW Washington. This is the former home of the Greek Cusina restaurant, Greek Taverna bar and the Minoan Banquet Room, which was actually Oregon's largest night club, operating on three levels.

The last time I had been here was nearly one year prior, New Year's Eve 2009. I had come down to have a drink at Kelly's Olympian and see what the business was at my former employer The Greek. Arriving at Kelly's the bar back and sometimes door guy Jake says "Hey, did you hear the Greek's closing?" This had been the word on everyone's lips for years, as the owner was constantly at odds with the city to protect his business against unscrupulous and unethical use of city authorities. I noticed however, that by the entrance of the club, many of my past coworkers were gathered by the door. I decided to go over and check out the situation.

I stepped up to the door, a place I'd been approximately 2,440 times before. Kyle, Theo, Chris, Big Jay, Spice, Harrison, Mayne, Newman and Rachel stood under the single light of the club's unfinished marquee. Rachel had an especially sad look on her face, her eyes hidden by the shadows cast from the light ahead. She looked at me and exhaled a lung full of smoke, something I'd seen her do before...during better times. "What's going on, guys?" I asked. Solemn looks all around. Talk took place. In the end it was all true. The city had enough humiliation at the hands of the Greek's savvy owner and had imposed several liens against the property which the owner solidly refused to pay. This created a legal grounds for the city to close the club. This was the last night it was to be open. I was devastated. I had spent almost every day of the last three years on this block, in this building, keeping an eye on everything like it was my own. This family had to go their ways now.

A rush of cold brought me back to my senses. I had been standing across the street staring at the empty building for nearly twenty minutes in below freezing wind. Its windows were covered with brown butcher paper. The lights were still on after being vacant for nearly a year. It wasn't fair. "We won't!" had been spray painted in one of the upstairs windows in purple and yellow, our old colors. Prosperity and royalty were no more.

I crossed the street and stood in the same spot I had been standing the New Year's before when I got the news. The same spot I smoked my nightly cigarettes while I examined the line for would be toughs and possible troublemakers for years before. The same spot Jay shoved a tough guy into the street lamp and knocked cold. The same spot Mike and I once pocketed over $700 in tips on a Thanksgiving night. The same spot I thought I killed a guy that put his hands on his girlfriend. The same spot Chris and Mike and I squared off against a Vietnamese gang. The same spot Chris had a .38 pointed at his face and told the guy on the other end to fuck himself. The same spot Rachel, Harry, David, Jessica(s), Amber, Marcus, everyone smoked. It was over.

I took a step back, remembering the fight in the convenience store around the corner, remembering every homeless person that remembered me, remembering macing a gangbanger before he got a chance to shoot me, remembering the man that was gunned down on New Year's Eve 2006 that I watched die right across the street. Remembering how Chris and I would tell all the girls we were twins. Remembering how Rudy could not pronounce the word "shorts" to save his life. It always came out like "chorts". Remembering the night Chris almost blew my head off on accident. Remembering shooting guns on drives home. Remembering being the baddest motherfuckers around.

It was empty. I walked to the windows in front and stood on my toes to see over the butcher papered window. Everything was gone but the lights were still on. Probably the ghosts. Probably the ghosts kept them on because they liked it better that way, they liked it when people were around. They liked us.

Everyone has gone their ways. I don't know what became of Amber, Cody or Marcus. I haven't seen Kevin Price in at least a year. I still talk to Mike. He's still doing his thing here, holding it down. Chris moved away and opened a dispensary. Harry moved back to Arcata. I don't know where Jay went, or where Harrison went, or where David, Jessica, Theo, Sean, Josh, Stan, Lexy, Dara, Rachel, Maria, Ted, John, or anyone else went. I don't see anyone anymore. No Emon. No Newman. No Jamie. Nobody.

It was freezing and I started to cry a little bit, missing everything that we all went through together. It was the most fun we had ever had being completely miserable. We had eachother.

The city just wasn't the same anymore. I couldn't walk a block without having five conversations with five different people I knew before. And now it was gone and over.

I walked the rest of the way to my attorney's office in the below freezing wind with nothing but a pair of jeans, some dress shoes and a suit jacket on. Also a shirt. I finished my business with him.

In 5 hours and 11 minutes I board flight 877 to Honolulu International Airport. This marks the end of Chapter 1.

A Place Where The Wind Blows Forever.

2010-11-11T15:36:00.001-10:00

I've returned home. In all truth, I've been home for some time. I returned nearly two months ago, leaving the city and setting out for the small ocean-side town where I spent the first eighteen years of my life. When I arrived everything was new. Everything was old. Everything was just the same as it always had been and I realize now after two months of thought on the topic that there's never anyone to blame but yourself. You can't fault where you are for how you are.

It was still summer when I arrived and the seasons have notably changed from warmth and wind to cold and wind and rain. The sky is gray most all of the time and though the days get darker earlier now each day seems longer than the last. The wind blows steadily and it rains frequently, sometimes six times a day. I remember it being said by a geography teacher during my grade school years that our area received more rainfall in one day than did the Nevada desert in an entire year.

My father was able to get me a job with him at a local plumbing business doing work like digging holes and burying pipes. I once heard that there are no shortage of holes to be dug. By that logic I suppose there are no shortage of holes to be buried.

It has been two months--two separate months. One of hard work every day and, conversely, one of relaxation and recreation. I took up cooking with my significant other. We've begun to learn Japanese. I spend a lot of time watching old samurai movies, more specifically, the works of Akira Kurosawa. My favorites being Yojimbo and Sanjuro. There is something about the black and white that captures so much more than color ever could. I pursued my love of music by joining a local ukulele club which meets every Wednesday at the local senior center. It has been a most comfortable existence. But something is stirring. Much like the windswept trees which face the ocean in our town, things within me do not lie long undisturbed.

Today is Thursday. I spent most of today cleaning my quarters, washing laundry and selecting items for donation to the second hand store. I have trimmed my personal belongings down to just one duffel bag, one backpack and an ukulele.

On Saturday my significant other and I will rent a car and travel back to Portland where she will board a plane to Hawaii and I will spend the next few weeks with my mother and sister and stepfather, awaiting a settlement check from a car accident eight months ago and a "participation mandatory" Candomble procession. Following this I will buy a one way ticket to HNL and fly to Hawaii to meet thousands of years of indigenous history and my significant other.

There is more to say.

2010-11-02T02:18:00.001-10:00

The money didn't matter to us. It came and it went. When we had money, it didn't last. There were too many clubs and bottles and strippers and new clothes and limo rides and too much cocaine and weed and ecstasy for what money we had to last very long. We partied too fuckin' hard. But mostly, we were broke. Who fuckin' cared? Not us. We didn't do it for the money. We did it because we loved to do it. We did it because we loved each other and we loved our block that we swore to protect no matter what and no matter who. And when there was a shooting or a stabbing or a fight and the police came they talked to us. They showed respect for us like we showed respect for them. We were doing the same job, only we were all criminals. Ha, so were they I guess.

Fights were a staple in the club. The real thrill was the adrenaline. You could hand pick the best looking girl out of the whole pile and the feeling didn't come close to the feeling you got when without warning everything just blew up.

I remember my first night at work. It was a Friday night in the summer of 2007. It was early June. I just landed the position at the club and was on for the first time in a new spot. About two hours after I clocked in there was some kind of argument all the way across the floor on the other side of the club. Before Chris and I could get over there it erupted into a full on brawl. The kind of shit most people only ever see in movies or in wars. I didn't know what the hell was going on, but a couple of guys were tearing their shirts off and coming at me and Chris. One of 'em I smacked pretty hard in the face and he went down. The other one did some sort of football tackle on me. The kind of move that gets your neck broken or your face all kneed up in a fight. A stupid move. I let him push me backward into the wall with his head under my arm and he ended up smashing his face into the marble wall tile. Just then I looked up to see what the hell was going on and there were people running everywhere and girls screaming and there's Chris shoving some guy into an elevator. He turns around to keep a third guy off me and right then from across the hall comes this pint glass out of thin air and smashes Chris right in the teeth. I threw the guy I was dealing with down the back steps and ran over to Chris. He's got blood all pouring out of his mouth and he looks up at me and goddamn if his fuckin' front teeth aren't smashed out. Son of a bitch. Welcome to Oregon's biggest night club.

Ever since that night, we were all thick as thieves. Me, Chris and Mike.

Me. Less Articulate.

2010-05-10T15:46:00.001-10:00

Well. I think that's about all she wrote on this topic.

Thanks to everyone for everything. I mean that in the sincerest way.

I. Quit.

2010-05-08T18:50:00.001-10:00

I quit my job. It's stupid and I'm over it.

Q&A Part III.

2010-05-06T10:56:00.000-10:00

Grim writes:

1. Dead people are one thing. What are your views on and how do you deal with the living?

Very good question. As one might imagine, I am not the most tolerant or personable human being on the face of the earth. I hold people to a high standard and anything below that is met with distrust and disgust. I have zero tolerance for any deviation in human characteristic from what I deem to be rational, logical, professional and trustworthy. Which, plays hell constantly because I live in one of the most heavily-saturated human waste areas in the United States: The Pacific Northwest. Let's set the scene. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest. Please, no cars here. And no produce, either, unless it's organic. And please, feel free to have dreadlocks, breast feed in public, steal cultural practices from other people for the sake of your own fashion and style and by all means, roll out of bed, pursue an untrained art career and get drunk all the time! No worries here folks, you can pay your rent with a song! Bills stacking up? No problem! Volunteer two days a month and all your sins are forgiven.

Plainly, I hate it here. It is a hippy la-la land. And to clarify, I don't have anything wrong with hippies. Hippies changed our entire national history...in the 60's and 70's. Now they don't do anything.

If you're not intelligent and you allow your emotions to make your decisions, chances are I hate you and want to stomp your maggot guts out. So how do I deal with it? I just hate everyone all the time. It's a good security blanket. :)

2. Favorite death related movies/music/books?

Nekromantik gets an honorable mention here. It's a disgusting film about a man with my same job, only in Germany. And since it's in Germany, naturally, he absconds with the decedents and takes them home for him and his girlfriend to have sex with. Basically, it's every boy's coming of age tale. Wrong.

STIFF also gets an honorable mention...because it's STIFF. It's one of the best death books ever written.

The Egyptian Book of The Dead...1.5 thumbs up. A little boring.

Music? Death music? Like, death metal? I like death metal because it is exactly what it's supposed to be: over the top, ridiculous, overt messages of death and brutality, fast, edgy, dark. I love it. The lyrical content is absolutely ridiculous and in no way should it be taken seriously. Nile, Devil Driver, Nailbomb, Napalm Death, etc.

3. What did you do/think the first time you ever saw a rotted corpse on the job?

Shmeh. Guess I should take my suit coat off and tuck my tie in. 1, 2, 3, whoops-a-daisy, Carter, there's goes this poor bastard's arm! Alright, let's get out of here so we can go grab a burger somewhere. Officers, if you wouldn't mind, could you please clean up your own vomit? Thanks a million! The end.

4. Did your interest in the dead develop more so after you were hired or was it an interest you've always had that has now started to wane?

Well, the dead are quite uninteresting. They are bothersome and are given to be quite foul and malodorous. My interest in them is nil. However, how they died, now that my friend is something to delve into.

Dead bodies alone, are not that fascinating or scary or whatever you think they might be. They are just what they look like, lifeless skin suitcases. Without the life in them, they're nothing. I think a person needs life and a body to be a human being. Without one of the two they are just meat furniture that needs to be moved before it starts to stink, or starts to rot, or starts to rot any more in any case.

Death has been a theme in my life since I was young. I lost my first friend at age 12 in a drunk driving accident, followed by a string of other deaths including friends being murdered, three ending their own lives, one by the rope, two by the bullet (one of which I cleaned up in my house), 9 by helicopter crash, etc. etc. I think the total is over 20 right now, people I've lost that have been close to me. It's something totally different from what I do though. I never think about the other things when I'm working, and I never think about work when I'm thinking about the other things. It's not so much a dissociation as it is a superior separation of the two, logically. They have nothing to do with each other, and there is nothing gained by comparing them to one another.

5. Do you creep people out when you enter the room? Is your morbid fascination with death a deterrent to most people you meet? How do you handle situations like this?

Let's clear the air (no pun intended). I have no morbid fascination with death. I am interested in the actual physiological happenings that are the cause of death, but I don't dwell on it. I just present the facts as I have witnessed them in my experience.

I wouldn't say I creep people out. Most of the time when I go somewhere, nobody knows that's what I do for a living. That is of course, outside of work. More than anything I think my demeanor is intimidating. When I enter a facility somewhere, the nurse's desk always knows why I am there. I am the only towering person wearing an all black suit in the vicinity. Usually they just point to the morgue when I walk in. It really works like that. I had one woman tell me "I know why you're here." I didn't even have to say anything to her. She just directed me to the morgue, I nodded, and off I went about my/our business.

But as far as being creepy? No. Intimidating, yes. But it's always been that way.

6. Anything "paranormal" ever happen to you on the job?

Of course not, silly. Don't you know that science can explain everything?

There was this one instance.

I was in the basement of a very old funeral home (dating back to the early 1900's). The place reeks of haunt. While in the basement I am checking a body into the cooler and notice something moving around in my periphery. Something like an upright human walking by every time I turn my head. I got a little...nervy. "What do you need?" I asked. There was no reply, of course. So I go back to what I'm doing, and just as I'm turning my head I see this figure float by again. Well, now I'm really thinking I would like to be out of this basement as soon as possible. So I finish my case, ditch my gloves and leave. I'm getting ready to turn the basement light off and leave when I notice the figure again...and my eye feels strange, so I rub it.

It was just a piece of cobweb hanging off my eyelash.

I've never seen anything strange happen. The feelings I get though, are heavy and of much concern. My partner Collins agrees and has this to say on the subject. "Don't think it's not real. They are feelings that are thousands of years old, and they are there to protect you".

That sums it up.

7. Do you ever see yourself writing a book/memoir on your experiences (or on anything else for that matter, fiction or otherwise)?

Oh absolutely. As far as fiction goes, not so much. With reality this strange, who needs fiction? The Stephen King books that used to scare me are clearly now just primers for people who have strange jobs. *Hearty laughter*

Another successful(?) Q&A. I hope that's what you wanted to hear/read.

P.S. if you don't live in the PNW, don't ever visit here. It's stupid.

2010-05-05T17:47:00.000-10:00

Q&A Part II.

2010-05-04T21:10:00.001-10:00

From CH:

My wife helped to come up w/some questions for ya! Thanks for the great blog...

1. Do you get habituated to seeing dead bodies?

No, I don't get accustomed to seeing dead bodies. And the odd thing is, that it's not the really bad ones that bother me. It's not the brain matter, or the full post body with their shoes shoved back inside their body cavity, or the rotting, slipping, spewing flesh that bugs me. The ones that really get to me are the ones that don't look dead, the ones that are just lying there on a prep table when I turn the light on in some funeral home basement morgue. Those are the ones that scare me. Or the ones in the cooler I do not expect to see. Sometimes on a rolling table, sometimes on a rack with the plastic not covering their faces. Those are the ones that make me jump...downright scare me.

2. Do you believe in God or some higher power more or less because of your work?

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I think I believe whatever the person believed. That's my job, to believe what they believe long enough to get them where they're going. Myself, I am a faithless man. When I go home, and I have a problem, I don't say a prayer, or when I am given something, I don't thank God. I'm...singularly faithless and unimpressed by divinity right now and I think my job has a direct correlation. PERSONALLY, I believe less in anything now than I ever did before...because I know that it's just grim, no matter how you stack it.

3. Do you have to dehumanize people to do the job?

Yes, I do...but not the ones you would think. The only people I really have to dehumanize to make it through particularly emotionally charged calls are the alive ones. Sometimes when I show up, and everyone is so beside themselves they can't even think, and they're making ridiculous suggestions they don't even understand, I look at the deceased and it almost takes everything in me to not say out loud to the dead "You are the only person that makes sense in this room right now". It's ridiculous. The things people think are good ideas when they are bereaved. Take our shoes off? Use some rope? Are you serious? I KNOW how to handle this situation. It's clear to me nobody else does except the dead person. It's like a play, where the main character is the deceased, and the side kick is me, coming to get them out of a bind and bring them back to the base. We know how to play our parts. Everyone else seems like a villain's henchmen that got drunk and lost their lines and are acting so, so utterly ridiculous that I cannot believe what I'm seeing. So, I use my fake smile, sign the fucking paperwork please and for the love of anything sacred let me get this person out of here with some dignity because you are all acting like disgraceful messes right now. That made sense to me. I hope it made sense to you.

4. When you cremate people, does it smell like pork?

I do not personally cremate people, so no. HOWEVER, when our cremationist cremates people it smells more like turkey than anything. It is not a pleasant smell, because the smoke smells like whatever the person smelled like. So, if they were covered in shit, they smell like roast turkey and poop. If they were rotten, they smell like rotten roast turkey. Not a pleasant smell usually. I did one day show up to work and get an inexplicable hunger for BBQ meat, when I realized it was just the retorts firing away. I was immediately appalled with myself.

5. Ever seen someone sit up or move after death?

No. Plainly. And I've never met any medical examiner, funeral director, embalmer, police officer, removal technician, pathologist or undertaker that has. I'm all but willing to write that off as an urban legend. The story is that the body comes to the embalmer on the table. It's after hours, he's had a long day, it's dark, the place is locked up and he's there all alone with this dead body. Well he starts to work on it and it sits up or moans or something. Well, I don't buy it. It would take an awful lot of gas, probably more than the human body could handle or hold, to make a dead body sit upright. I have, however, heard a body fart. I laughed when I heard it because I was so shocked by what had just happened. I was driving around alone, and it was so quiet I had almost forgotten I had someone with me when all of a sudden "pffffffft". Then I heard this real quiet voice say "Sorry man." Ok, so the last part is a joke, but it does happen.

6. What kind of tools are important to getting the job done (obviously the GPS needs to be faster!)?

1. A van that has been modified to fit at least one mortuary cot in the back. This entails having all the seats rear the driver and passenger removed and replaced with a plastic or metal floor for the cot to slide into.

2. A phone on which to receive dispatched calls.

3. Keys and codes to all the funeral home locks and keypads.

4. Paper.

5. Pens.

6. A mortuary cot, on which are found zip ties, toe tags, plastic barriers, gloves, sheets and towels. The sheets are for wrapping and drawing hard to move individuals. The gloves, obviously, are to prevent spread of disease and contact with bodily fluids. Zip ties for securing the toe tags (now made of Tyvek to withstand moisture) to the individual's right ankle. The plastic barriers are required on all removals and are designed to reduce malodor and contain any lost bodily fluids.

7. What do you do to get your mind off the job when you aren't doing it?

Well, physical activity helps. As does consuming a lot of alcohol on a regular basis. Then there's the normal stuff like spending time with friends, etc. An odd thing that happens is that I'll be driving somewhere, not on duty, and will drive right by a house I've been in. I will say to whomever I am with "I've been inside that house." They will then say, "For what like a party or something?" To which I will reply "No to pick up a dead guy". They will then stare at me for a moment as I drive on in silence. Awkward. Movies are great. Watching horrible videos on THEYNC while eating pasta helps prep the stomach for the tough calls. The norm.

8. Does it make it tough to date or do other things without thinking about death all the time?

Hmm. Well. I think about death all the time. Does it make it tough to date? Hmm hmm hmm. Well, if I had time to date, it might. But usually, on shift, I do not. It definitely puts a death-oriented spin on things. I will never look at a coffee spill the same again, or any non-descript red/orange-ish/brown liquid without thinking about someone's brains or something. Also, I start to judge people based on the level of difficulty for removing them. Say, I see an obese man chainsmoking, I rate him a ten, because he will be difficult to remove from his house. He will die, pants down, face down, wedged into the tiny bathroom of his single-wide trailer. I also try to memorize people's faces that I feel are close to death, so I can see if I will see them sometime soon. So, yeah. Thinking about anything without thinking about death has become difficult.

8. What does you family think about your job?

They think I am doing a good thing for people and they are proud of the work I do. Me, I just think it's gross and mostly stupid and I can't stand the smell of shit. I hate it.

Well that wraps up our second installment of Q&A. I hope it's been fun and informative, because my goal here is education!

Not really.

Q&A Part I.

2010-05-04T07:29:00.000-10:00

KL Writes:

"I personally was never able to post a comment, something with the comment form is wrong and I couldn't enter the capcha.

I love your blog tho.

Cheers,

KL"

Well, K. First, thank you for following. Second, you're not the only one that has had problems posting comments. Overnight I received two other e-mails on the same topic. I have changed some of the settings to allow better/easier use of comments.

==========

AK Writes:

"Also, can you make it so people can leave comments anon? I think the dark subject matter of your blog deters a lot of people leaving comments. Just a thought? Cheers! AK"

Done and done. Anonymous comments are now enabled in a new pop-up form. Apparently there also some issues with the usability of the current comment format, so that has been changed as well. I have also removed the Capcha, which I hated, so that shouldn't be an issue anymore either.

==========

RT Writes:

"haha I like this. I think no one has questions because you explain everything in such a precise manner, its just not necessary to ask questions. But I read EVERY post you make!! Well, since I found your blog that is ;) So I will gladly give you feedback!! I ask... "What other lines of work, have you been a part of? Is this an experiment only, or are you going to keep doing this job that gives you night & day-mares??" :]

Have a good day!
-RT"

I've been involved in several other lines of work prior to this. All of them have either had some degree of a violence or death risk element involved. Which, naturally, is just how I like it. Professionally, prior to this my two main areas of expertise have been:

1. Bouncer
I worked as a bouncer for two years in the city's largest night club. I started in the summer of 2006 and was immediately thrown into the mix. There was really no "break-in" period on this job. My first night on, myself and my newly acquainted crew found ourselves in the middle of a 30+ person brawl. There were six of us, and nobody really knew what sparked things off. But one thing was for sure, guard your teeth. When all was said and done and pepper spray had been used and the police had come, my manager and fast friend Chris had caught a pint glass in the mouth and was bleeding from the face quite profusely. What a night that was. Violence was not in short supply at that job. We catered to a pretty low clientele, then served them tons of alcohol and kinda just waited for things to go awry most nights. Shootings were a hot ticket item that summer, totaling 17 in the downtown area with two fatalities. I spent the majority of that summer working the front door, trying to weed out problems before they happened. With gun play common and death threats even more common, I ended up wearing a level III Kevlar vest the duration of that summer, which really helped keep the heat down. Detect the sarcasm. But I never did get shot. I did however, after the summer had cooled, witness a murder take place across the street.

There was a "rival" club across the street from our club. It was New Years 2006/2007 and as usual I was working the front door. The line was long, people were happy to be out and having fun and they came in droves. Finally, around one o'clock the line dissipated, most having gone inside, some having become inpatient waiting and gone to another club somewhere close by. At approximately 1:20 a.m. I noticed a man stumble out the front door of the club across the street. Something told me nothing good was going to happen. Almost as if on cue with my thoughts, a black car pulled up in front of the night club and stopped at the curb near where the man was standing. I heard a short altercation/argument take place, then gunfire as I literally watched the man get shot in the head and chest and die right there on the sidewalk. Police never caught anyone involved in the shooting, but one thing is for sure. It could have been me any day of the week, and if that is the case, at the risk of sounding like a complete jerk, better him than me.

2. Firefighter
Eventually the bouncing gig became a wet season job as I moved into the world of firefighting. I started with a private contract crew where I received my basic training and a year of fire experience then moved into the government sector. There I stayed for another year on a fire engine in northern California. There were a lot of fatalities during the particular summer I was stationed in CA. In one incident, a helicopter carrying a bunch of guys I had worked with the summer prior went down, and they all died. So I don't talk much about that.

I am currently pursuing a military career because it's basically the only thing on my adrenaline "To-Do" list that I haven't done.

Well, I get to thinking about things sometimes and I notice the wind flutters out of my sails pretty quickly, so I'm going to cut it short here. Thanks to everyone for your questions and comments. I feel like that was a pretty successful little round of Q&A and I look forward to another installment pretty much any time. In the meanwhile, keep up the good work, whatever you're doing, and we will meet again soon.

Seacrest Out.

Choose Our Own Adventure.

2010-05-03T23:29:00.000-10:00

Since January 10th, this blog has seen over 8,000 visitors. I find it hard to believe that nobody has questions or comments about anything. Who knows? I don't, because nobody says anything. Not even so much as disgusted hate mail.

Well, the phone lines are now open. I want to know what you think and hear any questions, concerns, comments, etc.

Feel free to email me ANYTHING related to this blog. I'm particularly fond of answering questions, so fire away.

mylifewithdeath@gmail.com

There Is Still Justice In The World.

2010-05-01T12:08:00.000-10:00

It is Thursday, a.k.a. "Monday Morning". Recent discrepancies as a direct result of my carelessness and inattention to detail while filling out my paperwork as a direct result of my complete disinterest in the unvarying routine of my job have directly resulted in a mandatory retraining on this fine morning. I. Do. Not. Give. A. Fuck. So what if I didn't mark that they had their eyes ripped out by the donor bank? Take a look. See those bloody wads of gauze stuffed into the eye sockets there, the ones with wide X's of cloth tape holding them in? That means their fucking eyes are gone. Just as the middle finger is the universal sign for, "Hey friend, welcome!", the universal sign for, "I DON'T HAVE ANY FUCKING EYES" is two (2) bloody wads of gauze with wide cloth tape X's over them. Take a look, it's in a book, of Bleeding Rainbow.

So here I am. My manager is really trying to mask his disappointment in me not being a "company" man, and is trying to give me a real pep talk to get me back on the winning team. Please refer to Article 35, Paragraph 1, Line 5. I. Do. Not. Give. A. Fuck.

The volume of calls stacking up one on top of another lately has caused me to abandon my routine of careful inspection and adopt a new policy of hasty removal.

Paperwork.
Bag.
Zip.
Go.
Oh, and by the way, sorry, uh, whatever their name is dead. Ok, see ya.

I'm sorry, but if you want to run a funeral service like an understaffed fast food restaurant, including equivalent pay, then by all means, do it. But be prepared to suffer the consequences. That is, after all, why you have insurance.

So today I am to stay at the office and assist the cremationist in checking bodies prior to interment. This entails locating the paperwork in the "TO CREMATE" bin, locate the body in the cooler, match the tag, the paperwork and the name in our cooler log up, log the body out, erase it from the dry erase board next to the cooler, inspect the body for any personal belongings such as jewelry or other effects, review the paperwork notes to determine whether or not to cremate the items with the individual, prepare a cremation tray, roll the body into the retort, set to 450 degrees for approximately 20 minutes and apply direct flame until crisp.

There are four bodies for cremation this morning. Two wrapped in plastic on the shelf in the cooler, two more on "Church Trucks" in cremation caskets. One casket is grey, the other is brown wood-print cardboard. This one is going first.

Name: Patrick Sunter
D.O.D.: 4-29-10
Weight: 285
Disposition: Cremation
Notes: Do not return to family
Funeral Establishment: (Omitted)
Received From: Oregon State Penitentiary

Stop.

Now my interest is piqued. It could be anything in that brown box. Anyone. With new interest in this training session, I wheel the brown wood-print box into the loading and push it over to the first empty retort. I remove the lid and take inventory. The man inside the box is obese. Caucasian male. Mid to late 40's. I look for tattoos. There are none. No group affiliation. I look the body over. No earrings. Holy sweet mother of God, what have we here? On the left side of his face there is a laceration about 3/8" wide, 1/2" deep and approximately 6" long. Severe bruising. Disfigurement. Cha-ching. I continue to inspect the body. Next I look under the shirt. Holy sweet mother of God, what have we here again? Large bruises on the abdomen and rib cage. Footprints. Boot prints rather, very distinct. The waffle pattern is clearly visible. My gears are turning. Having spent some fair amount of time in three separate institutions myself, I know that overweight, middle-aged to elderly white males with no group affiliation usually do not die of natural causes behind bars. In fact, they are usually murdered because they're fucking pedophiles. I do not realize I'm staring at the dead body in front of me until my manager comes in. "Hey," he says, "I know what you're thinking, but it's not our job to pass judgment. We have to reserve our biases and give everyone the same dignity." A cigarette would be great right now. "It's not that," I say. There is long silence. I think about what this man may have done to have earned this departure. I can see it in my head as though I am right there.

Papers are easy to come by in any institution. Every decent convict will check up on everyone that rolls through the gate. I can see him coming in. Probably not into general population. No, scum like this would have gone to protective custody. Maybe he never made it. Maybe someone got to him there. Either way, everyone on the tier saw it coming. It's amazing how much people don't see when things need to be taken care of. Books become more interesting. Art is more important. Sinks get cleaned, beds get made, letters get sorted and push-ups suddenly become priority numero uno. While this happens, one or two will catch the individual in a blind spot, in the toilet, in the shower or in their own cell. In instances when a certain target refuses to leave their house or is in another unit you can push a med kite and have the person sent to the infirmary. You can catch them on the way there. Wherever, whenever, however it happens, nobody sees anything. Even if they're watching, nobody sees.

"It's not that," I say. There is long silence. "It's just good to see that there is still justice in the world." "I know what you mean," says my manager as he nods his head. He turns and leaves and I continue to stand there for a moment looking on. Not everyone in the world gets what they deserve, but when they do, it's something to celebrate.

There is still justice in the world.

The Vascular System Is A Highly Complex Work Of Art.

2010-04-21T11:57:00.000-10:00

The handle of the door is made of a heavy brushed stainless steel bar, bent and twisted into a kind of "L" shape and affixed to the tinted plate glass in some invisible kind of way. I grasp the handle and pull the door open. A bell ting-a-lings overhead. There is no bell overhead, not in our office, I just imagine one sometimes. I enjoy the irony of the thought.

The owner's stupid dog is here. I hate it for a split second every morning when I see its stupid face. Collins all but bursts into the office through the door which separates the front office from the back bay, refrigeration unit, retorts (3x) and embalming room. Business in the front, party in the back. "Dude," he says through a smile, chuckling, "you've gotta fuckin' see what's going on back there, ha ha. Just classic." If Collins is excited about something, I'm twice as excited. I'm excited once to see that he is so excited about something, and I'm excited again to see what's so exciting back there. It's just such an exciting moment. Really, really exciting. I open the door and step into the back. To my immediate left is the embalming room. The door is open and the light is on. Since it is usually under lock and key, I assume that by "back there" Collins meant in the embalming room. I peek my head around the corner slowly to see our embalmer Cristos. He is a giant man. Every millimeter of six feet four inches and every ounce of two hundred fifty pounds. He is down on one knee, staring at something on the embalming table. Something, due to my vantage point, I have yet to see. "Cristos, what's going on?" I ask. He shakes his head and says nothing. This is going to be good. I like to give myself these grim little gifts, ghoulish surprises to haunt me for the day. I step into the embalming room and as I do so my field of view widens and I am all at once fully aware of the direness of the situation before me. On the embalming table is a human torso, the head still attached, but with no arms or legs. Torso, Human. Part #H97422. A human torso with no arms, and no legs. Just four big gaping holes and one wretched looking face. I am reminded immediately of a video from the film series Faces of Death, wherein a man is drawn and quartered by horses. This is about three to five times worse than that.

The head of the individual has been hastily and incompletely shaven. Patches of hair stand out in several places, adding insult to the overall injury. The arms and legs, all four, have been removed at the joints. What is left are deep, bloodless craters. Beneath the skin a small layer of fat is visible. Beneath the fat, a mess of muscle, connective tissue, arteries and veins. The joint sockets are clearly visible--deep pits of bone and cartilage. I cannot ascertain whether this is the remains of a man or the remains of a woman, as the genitalia have also been removed, giving the whole scene an eerie Plainfield, Wisconsin feeling. The face of the individual is twisted and distorted into a horrifying look of sheer agony. One eye is closed, they other partially open. The eyebrows are raised in painful surprise. The mouth is agape, the neck seemingly strained to pull the jaw open so wide. If this person was not in pain before they died, they surely were after they died. This has led me to believe that there is a physiological body response to pain beyond what your nerves transmit while you are alive. I am certain that this person did not die with such a terrible look on their face. I am certain it came after death, as the scalpel was sunk into the skin, as the knife cut away the tissue, as the saw separated joints. I imagine that with each second under the blades the body of this person twisted almost imperceptibly in painless agony until it reached the terrible state it is in right now. Though I've never seen something quite so utterly awful, I'm barely taken aback, if at all.

"So," I say, interrupting the florescent hum to break the silence, "Hm. What the fuck is this mess?" Cristos stands, sighs a sigh of frustration, puts his hands on his hips and looks at me. "Well," he begins, "we just started getting these goddamn torsos from the procurement agency. They're going overseas so they can do work on them there, dissect them or whatever. Students, you know. But I'm supposed to be embalming them so they don't rot during transport. Only problem is..." he chuckles an uneasy chuckle, "hehe, only problem is this. I don't have a closed circuit to work with. So watch what happens." He moves to the counter and dons a pair of blue nitrile gloves, the kind I find in my pants pockets in twos and fours at the end of every day. He then takes a step to the embalming machine, an antiquated looking thing resembling an oversized blender, one a 50's era housewife might blend cocktails in for all her husband's business associates. It has that sort of look to it. Connected to the machine is a long clear tube about one half inch in diameter, attached to the end is a long, slender, steel wand. This, Cristos picks up from the table and inserts into an incision near the collar bone, deep into the carotid artery. "Ok, watch. This is the problem." he says. He turns the machine to on, turns the pressure up. The machine makes a rapid, quiet ticking noise. I watch for a moment, waiting for something to happen. Slowly, fluid begins to drip from the arteries at the open sites of the limb removals. He pushes the pressure a little higher and the fluid begins to shoot from the openings. He shuts the machine off. "See, this poses a real problem." I suppose it does. "Well, what can you do?" I ask. He replies. "I don't know...I'm about to fill a Sterilite and dip it, haha." "Looks pretty grim, my friend." I respond. He just stands there, shaking his head for a minute. I feel as though I am in some sleuth detective video game, wherein you can only initiate so many lines of dialogue with each individual before you run out, and they just stand there, doing whatever it was they were doing before the character entered the screen. "Okay, good luck," I say as I exit. Back in the front office there are some menial tasks to do, some paperwork to examine, some minor mistakes to correct.

Nearly an hour later, there have been no calls and my office chores are completed. I decide to pay Cristos another visit. I exit stage rear and return to stage embalming room. I laugh a laugh of nerve and shock when I see his solution to the problem. "Hey!" he says somewhat excitedly, "I figured it out! Look!" There are clamps and forceps on every exposed vein and artery in each opening. Easily ten to twenty in each gaping hole. It looks like some Frankensteinian experiment. Some mad scientist's idea of a genius and ground-breaking process. "Watch now!" Cristos says as he takes a couple quick steps toward the embalming machine. He switches it on, rotates the large dial in the center to what looks like 60. 60 or 80, I can't see from here. The machine ticks. Several seconds pass...no fluid comes out. After a few moments he says "Huh? Pretty good right?" "Well, played." I say. "I thought so." he replies. The phone rings. Beepbeepbeep. "Hello?" "Hey, buddy, did you take a look?" It's Collins. "Yes, I did. I'm actually looking right now. Where are you?" "I'm on my way back to the office," he answers, "forgot something." "Okay," I say, "I'll see you in a minute."

Several minutes later Collins enters the front office as he enters every room he's ever entered, scarf around his neck, hair out of place, a bit disheveled. He has a certain wind about him. "Dude," I say through a smile, chuckling, "you've gotta fuckin' see what's going on back there, ha ha. Just classic." "Copy that." says Collins. He storms toward the rear door to the embalming room, swings it open, steps through, shuts it behind him. Through the wood and glass of the closed door I hear him laughing. Just classic.

Something Went Wrong.

2010-04-09T14:16:00.000-10:00

Mae Wong began her morning as she began all her mornings. She awoke next to her husband, Ray, and looking at him still asleep, smiled. She quietly rose from bed then stood up and stretched before slipping a slipper first onto her right foot and then her left. She walked softly to the door and slowly opened it as to not disturb her husband, then walked down the hallway to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. As the coffee brewed she sat and skimmed through yesterday's paper, still sitting on the table. With an ink pen she penned notes in the margin, small reminders of her tasks to tend to throughout the day. Her coffee ready, she sat for a while at the table and read a story about a small war in some small somewhere.

After her coffee, she walked back down the hallway to wake the children. Moko was the eldest at seven, her brother Cao five. The children were slow to wake as they always were, but soon they would be out of bed and dressed and wanting breakfast.

As she left the children's room she was met by Ray in the hallway and together the two went to the kitchen to make breakfast and talk as they did every morning.

The morning went as they always did. The children ate, Ray and Mae got dressed and one by one they returned to the dining area and sat until all were present and accounted for. Today Ray agreed to take the children to school, as Mae had to be to the office an hour early to handle some of yesterday's business. Ray meets her at the door and kisses her goodbye. The children run to her and she bends down so they may kiss her at the same time as they always do. Having said their goodbyes, Ray opened the door and Mae looked out. The view from their house on the top of the hill was beautiful and she stopped for just a second every morning to admire it before she made her way to her SUV. "Hey," Ray shouted as she got into her vehicle. "Yes?" she said. "Could you check the mailbox," Ray asked, "I don't think I got it yesterday." "Sure, sure," was all she said.

She backed out of the driveway, pulled up along side the mailbox and rolled her window down...but couldn't quite reach the mailbox. She chuckled and shrugged as Ray and the children looked on. With one foot on the brake, she opened the door and leaned out to open the mailbox. "It's empty!" she called out to Ray. "Mae! You're rolling!" She hadn't noticed but she was rolling forward just a little. The children thought this a funny sight, their silly mother half hanging out of her car, rolling forward. Mae pressed her foot down firmly on what she thought was the brake, and things took an irremediable turn. What she thought was the brake was indeed the gas, and her vehicle, lurching forward, and Mae, unbuckled and half out of the SUV fell from the door, onto the ground. In her attempt to keep a hold on the door she fell under the vehicle and was dragged, down, down, down the hill. The children screamed and cried and Ray pushed them into the house, slammed the door and ran to the bottom of the hill where his wife's SUV sat, slammed into a parked car. As he approached he went white, went sick in his soul. Mae was wadded up under the rear axle. She had run herself over and been dragged several hudred feet. She lie in a quickly-widening pool of blood. Ray called out to her, but she did not respond. He fumbled for his phone, removed it and dialed 9-1-1. When the call was over he fell to the ground next to the vehicle and screamed for Mae to talk to him. The sound of sirens eventually drowned out his calls to her.

She lie now in a casket in the chapel, not more than one hundred feet from where I sit. Her skull was crushed in the accident, her chest run over by her Lincoln Navigator. But for all her wear and tear, she has been cleaned up quite nicely.
A compressed paper "skull cap" has been placed on the back of her head, both to give it it's natural shape and to soak up any fluid which may leak from the wound. Her chest has been reconstructed and her body wrapped tightly in plastic to prevent leakage, then dressed in a nice brown suit. She looks normal. Normal and asleep. Asleep forever.

Never To Sleep, Only To Dream.

2010-04-04T22:44:00.001-10:00

I've been called to a high-rise tenement building in a part of town the city budget had all but forgotten. My GPS unit guides me through streets with trash piled high at each dim corner, the street lights above have been shot out. Silhouetted figures move through the darkness. Ahead, under a lone street light a man in a large hooded sweatshirt is met by several people. A little of the street-level meet and greet. The kind of place you don't get or need health insurance. He's got it all. It is 01:23 when I pull into the front parking area of the high-rise and park near a front door. My van is the only vehicle on the entire narrow lot. I mark my time of arrival and fill in some minor details before straightening my tie and stepping out of the van. I look up at the towering structure before me. Story upon dark-windowed story of cinder block-walled apartments, all, I'm sure, in severe states of disrepair. For the first time in my three plus months I am genuinely frightened. My partner is in another part of the city, he will not be joining me this time.

I close the distance between my van and the large metal entrance door in a matter of seconds, a near sprint. The door is painted some odd shade of red, crude letters and messages scrawled and scraped into the paint reveal the gray metal beneath. The glass in the wire pane is shattered in a still life and will probably never see replacement. I breathe deeply and pull the door open. I do not know why I don't carry a gun. I really should.

Inside the stairwell smells of urine, vomit and alcohol. Faintly of cigarettes. Faintly of cooked heroin and crack cocaine. Faintly of death. Strongly of despair. The decedent in question lies on the fifteenth floor. The stair wells are narrow. There is no elevator, this is the only route to and from.

As I climb the stairs and reach each landing I notice this building is completely quiet. It is silent save the sounds of the street below. There are no noises to be heard behind the closed apartment doors. No radios, no television, no conversation, conflict or confrontation. It is only me and the silence. A draft sends a shiver through my body and chills me to my core. Maybe a door was on some floor was opened by someone somewhere. I do not know why I do not carry a gun. I really should carry a gun.

After what seems like an hour of cautious ascent I reach floor fifteen, indicated by the apartment numbers stencil-sprayed on the brown apartment doors. 1501, 1502, 1503 and so on. I am looking for 1512. The hallway is narrow and poorly lit. To my left, filthy windows look out to the street below, to my right a row of apartment doors. Here we are, room 1512, last door on the floor. Between me and the stairwell lie eleven apartment doors and about one hundred fifty feet of distance. I knock irregularly, one rap and pause, then three in close succession. I fear being mistaken for a police officer and being hit by a barrage of jacketed hollowpoints or perhaps a round of double-ought buckshot through the wooden door. There is no answer. I knock again in the same manner. One rap and pause, then three in close succession. There is still no answer. I wait for an entire two minutes and try once again. There is still no answer. The floor is still dead quiet and something is telling me to run, to get out of this place as fast as I can. I take a deep breath of the stale air and walk calmly, slowly toward the stairwell to begin my descent out of here. On the fourteenth floor I glance through one of the windows looking down onto the street and the lot below. Several people have gathered around my vehicle. More are walking slowly toward the entrance door. I am gripped by fear. I do not know what awaits.

The rush to the bottom floors and the exit is maddening. My mind is racing and heart beating so loud I swear I can hear it reverberating off the cinder block walls. I am sweating cold and scared for my safety and my sanity. Sixth floor. Fifth floor. Fourth and third. At the second I can see a crowd gathered around the door. I reach the first floor and there they wait. I do not know what I have done to upset these people, but they look angry and confused as to why I am here, in their territory. A quick scan of the lobby floor produces a broken broom handle with a jagged spear point at one end. If need be I can use this. Use this to what? To stab someone? To jam the point right through their eye into their brain and kill them? Sure. If need be.

Here goes nothing.

I throw my shoulder into the door and push my way into the crowd. They are silent, nobody moves or says a word. My force, expecting to be met with resistance, is so excessive I nearly throw myself to the ground. I stop in the middle of the crowd and they turn to face me. I look around. Wait. I know some of these people. No, I know all of these people. All of them, faces familiar. There is Otanga, Phillip J. There is Nelson, Neil G. I spin around and there is Wayne, Connie L. and fat Ms. Nanda Jenkins as well. These are all faces of people I've picked up. They look upset. Their faces wrought with fear and anger. "Why?" someone utters. "Yes, why?" "Why have you come here?" "What are you doing here?" Others ask. The questions grow to a dull roar, then ever more cacophonous. "Why did you come back?" "You shouldn't be here." "This is OUR place, you need to leave." They begin to tug at my clothing and I see as they draw nearer they, each and every one, is rotting to the bone. Even as they come ever closer skin falls from their bones, their hair falls out of their scalps in gnarled clumps and the smell hits me, a wall of cold putrescence.

I awake in the dark, paralyzed, unable to scream, to breathe, to move. I feel as though I am possessed, not in control of my faculties. In the confused darkness between asleep and awake I find no comfort, the dream is still a reality which waits to pull me back as soon as I close my eyes. I am terrified and screaming at the top of my lungs, though not so much as a whisper passes from my lips. My bed is drenched in sweat and cold. I do not want to be here like this, nor there like that. I do not want this anymore. I did not bargain for this. After a short while I regain control of my body and sit up, feel my face, my neck, my arms. I am hot and slick with sweat and skin oil. Lord have mercy on me.

The Thrill Is Gone.

2010-03-23T09:18:00.000-10:00

In the words of the great B.B. King, The Thrill Is Gone. The 24th of March marks three months in this position and it has all but become a dreadfully boring routine. Six in the evening is like Monday morning every day. The skies are gray when I awaken and black by the time I make it to work. I see little sun and with the exception of florescent lights in morgues and loading bays I see no light. It's become a nine-to-five, barely tolerable, very routine. Paperwork and coffee and gaining weight from sitting in my office. I have achieved the American Dream.

Dead Air.

2010-02-28T14:30:00.001-10:00

Finding my way out of this place is always a trick. The route in is well marked, with signs every fifty feet or so reading "Morgue" with an arrow indicating which direction the individual in search of the cold storage unit should travel in. On the way out, however, one must read each sign, make the opposite turn and hope one does not miss a sign. The last thing a person would want to do is miss a turn and end up wheeling a cot with a corpse on it into the middle of one of this citadel hospital's many lobbies, one of which, oddly enough, is located a mere one hundred feet down the hall from the morgue. This, in my opinion, is less than ideal placement and has endless potential for a rather upsetting mistake. Now is no time to have no sense of direction.

The typical hospital morgue is nothing more than a large refrigerator filled with shelves of dead bodies. Interestingly, in this particular morgue, there is also an examination area where medical staff perform autopsies in the same room. Cooler to the left, autopsy table in an open room to the right. I always enjoy visiting this hospital morgue for the simple fact that the information of the last body to be examined is left on the large dry erase board. Here I can see the weight of the last person examined and the individual weight of each of their internal organs. (L) and (R) lung, stomach, heart, brain, liver, (L) and (R) kidney, etc. Sometimes is additional information in different colored dry-erase markers notating things such as breast implants, eye donation, irregular organ shape, size or color. It is a bit of a post mortem tell-all, revealing facts about people most of us will never know about one another, no matter how close we are. Unless of course one of us dies and the other happens to see the dry erase board. On occasion, just out of curiosity, I will quickly check the refrigeration unit to see if I can find a toe tag matching the name on the dry erase board. Mr. Jones, it will interest you to know that I am privy to exactly how much your brain weighs. Good day to you, sir. Zip.

Once in the cooler I locate the decedent I am to pick up. Per usual, he is in a standard white plastic hospital body bag. On these cases, there is one toe tag attached to the zipper and another on the toe of the individual. The tag on the outside is to be cut off and placed in the complimentary plastic bag stamped BIOHAZARD then returned to admitting for inspection to ensure that you do in fact have the right person. I check the tag on the outside, unzip the bag and match the outside tag to the inside tag. Ticket number 34298, please claim your prize at the pearly gates. I cut off the outside tag, place it in the plastic baggie, zip it shut, put it in my pocket, transfer the individual from the rack to my cot, zip up and I'm off. All very routine. This takes less than ten minutes if the person is not well above average size and stature.

As I am exiting the morgue, I cannot remember for the life of me whether or not I am to take the second left down the hallway to the right, or take the first right down the second hallway to the left. Years of getting lost tell me to take the simpler route and always stay left if the option is available. So, naturally, I set off to the left. This looks right. However, I realize I have taken a wrong turn only seconds before I literally run into three young nurses coming out of the lobby area. One gasps and covers her face with the collars of her North Face jacket as she presses herself face-first against the brick wall. The two other nurses come to her side and tell her that it's ok, there's nothing to worry about. One nurse shoots me a look that would have killed me were her gun loaded, and the other looks at me as though I've just played the best practical joke of all time. She looks at me for a moment, trying not to laugh. I think that somewhere in her mind, she is half-expecting a co-worker to rip open the bag, jump off the cot and yell something like "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" or "APRIL FOOL'S!" Unfortunately for the young nurse hiding her face, it's only March.

After my thirty second misadventure I correct my route and find my way off the floor and out of the hospital. I laugh to myself as I load the cot into the van. What? It really is funny.

I'm tuned into my favorite radio station, and the woman's voice on my GPS is drowning out a killer song. I cannot decide whether or not to turn the GPS unit down or turn the radio up. I opt for neither, and as she informs me I've missed yet another turn, I turn the radio all the way down and patiently await her instructions. As she is recalculating the route, recalculating the route, recalculating the route, something catches my eye. The digital display on the stock radio has turned from 101.1 to 93.7 on my FM dial. I turn the volume up and hear nothing but what is referred to in the radio industry as "dead air". Seconds of silence interrupted only by moments of harsh static crackle and bleedover from neighboring radio stations. Strange. As I start to turn the volume back down I hear a man's voice come over the radio. A sudden uneasy feeling comes over me. I listen for a moment, wondering if I really heard what I just heard, wondering if it was just some voice from a radio signal close by, a figment of my imagination or more. What I hear next chills me to my core and it is at this time that I fully realize what "hair standing on end" truly means. A voice comes over the radio, broken and barely intelligible at first, then with crystal clarity just long enough to say "I...I just don't know what has happened." The brilliance of the sunny day fades to darkness for a moment as I am gripped by genuine fear. I do not know whether or not I believe in ghosts, heaven, hell, the hereafter or anything other than the certainty of death, but I am terrified and for once in my life I wish I did not have such an active imagination. My mind runs wild and for a split second and my mouth fills with that certain pre-vomit saliva. The air is silent again for several seconds before an old country song comes across the radio waves. It sounds a thousand miles and fifty years away. Marty Robbins. I move the dial to the left. New Country. NPR. I move the dial to the right. Top 40. Hip Hop. Norteno. There is no Marty Robbins playing. I turn the dial back to 93.7...back to the dead air. All is quiet. I drive on in silence for several minutes, listening only to the crackling on the radio and the voice of the GPS instructing me to take turns twenty seconds too late.

This gives new meaning to the term "Dead Air".

No, No I Don't Believe He Is.

2010-02-28T13:13:00.000-10:00

I am torn out of a deep sleep by the ear-piercing scream of the work phone. I rub my eyes and try to adjust to the light, a scene I've seen a hundred times before. The clock on the backlit LCD display reads 0400. I flip open the phone and answer. "Hello?" "Hey," the voice on the other end replies. It is my night shift partner Shane. "You've got a call." "Ok," I say, pulling myself up off the floor where I had fallen asleep, "let me get some paper." I shuffle through the mess on my desk for a pen and a piece of paper. A letter from the Social Security Administration regarding my earnings, an empty CRKT knife box from a recent purchase, a broken pair of glasses resolvent from a drunken headbutt to the face, a wireless mouse, junk mail, a military surplus catalog and finally, a shred of paper and a pen. "Go ahead with the info," I say. He relays the information starting with the destination funeral home, the address at which the decedent is to be received, the decedent's name and the point of contact and phone number which I am to call to report an estimated time of arrival. He begins to rattle off a bunch of impertinent information regarding the facility when I interrupt. "I've got the information, I'll get it handled." I need only four things: Name Of Deceased, Funeral Home, Address and ETA #. The rest you can tell me when...well, never.

I straighten my tie, brush the wrinkles out of my jacket and head for the van. Once inside I legibly print the information in oll kapitol (Thomas Jefferson reference) letters and place a call to the facility. "Hendrickson Health, this is Walter." "Hello, Walter, I'm calling from (Name Of Funeral Home) in regards to (Name Of Deceased). I estimate my time of arrival at 4:30 a.m. "Thank you," says Walter (fake name), "I will see you when you arrive." I hang up the phone and drive.

At the facility, I park the van next to the only other car on the lot. I assume this is Walter's personal vehicle. Impertinent observation. I fill in the Time Arrived At Call line, exit the "decedent transport vehicle" (Astro van) and make my way to the door. "Press red button until someone answers the door" the decal lettering says on the plate glass window next to the door. I press the red button and hold it. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. I'm not going to hold this button down until someone comes from upstairs to answer the door. For all I know it doesn't work. Last number redial. "Hendrickson Health, this is Walter." "Hi, Walter, this is (name omitted) from (Name Of Funeral Home)." "Okay," he says, "I'll be down in just a moment." After a minute or so, an elevator door slides open in the lobby and Walter, all four feet eleven inches of him, comes to the door. He pushes it open and stands aside to let me in. Formal greetings are exchanged. I follow him to the elevator, he presses the button for floor two, and we're off.

The elevator door opens right into a common area. There are recliners, couches, a television, several stuffed animals and colorful pillows. "Welcome To Hendrickson's 'Memory Lane'." A printed sign reads on the far wall. This must be an Alzheimer care facility. I follow Walter out of the elevator, past a semi-conscious woman clutching a stuffed zebra, down the hall to the nurse's station. At the nurse's station I receive a face sheet with information on the decedent. I finish copying the information and take a quick look into the decedent's room to determine how I will go about bringing my cot in for removal.

On my way out, there are now two more elderly women in the commons area, both clutching fleece blankets to their chests, looks of concern and worry on their faces. The do not seem to notice either of us as Walter leads me to the elevator and rides down to the ground floor with me. "Walter," I say to him, "would it be perhaps be possible to divert the women from the commons area when I come back, I do not want to upset them." "Yes, I will do that, thank you for taking that into consideration."

I retrieve my cot and return to the front door, push down the red button, and wait for Walter to come to the door. Back inside. Back to the elevator. I stand back as the door opens to allow Walter to lead the women away for a moment. He takes one by the hand and gently leads her down a hallway. As she is walking away she turns and looks into the elevator, directly at me. "Walter," she says, "who is that man in black, the one in the elevator?" "Oh," he says to her, "that's just a friend of mine, he's here to visit." She shakes her head, worried look still on her face. "No," she says, "no I don't believe he is." Walter looks at me with an apologetic look and puts a hand around the woman's waist, leading her down the hall.

In the room, I turn the light on to see what I am doing. There, in a bed against the opposite wall is another elderly woman, the decedent's room mate. I quickly turn the light off and continue as quietly as possible, as not to wake her. I move silently, methodically donning latex gloves, attaching a toe tag to the deceased, adjusting cot straps and spreading plastic over the cot. I transfer the elderly woman from her bed to the cot, buckle the straps, secure her, zip the cot cover over the cot and exit without making so much as sound enough to even cause the roommate to stir.

In the elevator I ask Walter if her family came to see her before she died. "No," he says, "nobody came." A wave of sadness comes over me as I realize that sometimes, nobody comes for you when you die.

Sometimes I am the only one.

Grave Robber.

2010-02-25T06:23:00.001-10:00

The tempering period is over. After the unfortunate incident with Ms. Jenkins, things seem to be running much more smoothly. I suppose once the worst has happened, there's not much more to worry about. I'd like to apply this to the rest of my life. The worst has happened, now there's nothing to worry about.

My life has been difficult to handle, wrought with trial and tragedy. From an early age loss became a theme in my life. The loss of my childhood. The loss of my innocence. The loss of a pregnancy. The loss of my friends and loved ones to drunk drivers, drowning, cancer, auto accidents, suicides, overdoses and a helicopter crash.

From cleaning up the mess of my best friend's suicide, to saluting under the rotor wash as the remains of the nine friends and brothers that were killed in a tragic accident are being flown in, my memory is peppered with these moments of heartbreak. I revisit these things often. They come creeping in, uninvited.

I do not know how else to process these things. I have no answer as to how to be at peace. I could be a grave robber, the way I keep digging up the past.

It is hard sometimes to see forward when there are such heavy cases hanging as close and fresh in my mind as yesterday, sometimes closer and more memorable.

The talk on the streets is that The Kid is in the wrong business. That he's not cut out for it, that it's depressing him, that it's effecting him negatively. Maybe yes, maybe no. I've always battled with depression, having had so many things go awry and cause instability, depression, suspicion and a sense of impending doom have become quite regular to me. This isn't going to serve me forever. Not for much longer at all. However, I do not feel my job contributes to any negative feelings I may have. I feel quite the opposite is true, that it bolsters my confidence and gives me something to feel positive about. I help people in times of need. I'm a ten minute counselor and hero to people who have just experienced traumatic loss. I respect the dead. I respect the families, even if my entries may lead you to believe the contrary.

There is, of course, a certain degree of defensive mechanism I feel I must adopt in order to get through some of the situations I tend to without losing my mind, without carrying the case home with me, in my head, without losing my composure right there on the scene and grabbing a member of a family not my own and crying. It is difficult. It is so difficult. Thank God(s) for sick senses of humour.

My resolve to remain in this line of work for the entirety of one year is concrete, that is, notwithstanding any catastrophic event which leads to disability, or not at the expense of my sanity.

We don't get instruction manuals for dealing with the things that haunt us. There is no exorcist for these things. At best, peace can be made with the memories. I hope, for my sake, that this is true.

God Is Personally Punishing Us.

2010-02-19T09:13:00.000-10:00

I arrived at work this morning at 6:00 a.m. "Hey," Collins says to me as I am walking up, "I think it's safe to assume you're a little early." "Really?" I ask, puzzled. "What do you mean?" He laughs. "I'm about 99% sure the schedule says you're on tonight, not this morning." "Well, I'll be damned, let me look." I went into the office to review the schedule. Collins is correct. There by my name is 6:00 p.m. Shit. Collins offers me a ride home. I gladly accept.

On the way we review highlights from last nights obesity bloopers reel. I share with him candid details about sounds, smells, etc. He laughs, then shares a story of his own.

"Man, check this shit out," he says, "two days ago I went to the M.E.'s office with Veronica to pick up an autopsy. Dude, I don't know WHAT the fuck happened to this guy. When I got there, I looked into the bag and the guy was SO messed up it didn't even register." "What do you mean?" I ask. "Well," he continues, "I'll tell you". He begins to tell me.

"When I got there, they had the guy in a bag on the exam table. So I went over there to check him for jewelry and whatnot, you know, the usual bullshit. But when I opened the bag, he was so--" he stops abruptly to light and inhale a cigarette, exhales, and continues, "he was so mangled that he didn't even look human. It was so shocking I couldn't even react." "Well, what the hell happened?" I asked, eagerly awaiting the gory details. "First of all," he says, "his head looked like a lit match tip. It was all burned to a crisp and black." "Jeeee-zusss." I say. He goes on in great detail. "Oh, but it gets worse. His brains had boiled and liquefied in his skull and poured out his nose and ears and eye sockets. And as I open the bag more and more, it's like...every body part has sustained a different injury. It was like he had been in a head on collision with a cargo truck that was carrying a great white shark, a refrigerator, a palette of machetes and seven machine guns." I laugh outloud, nearly choking on my saliva on the inhale. He continues. "Yeah, it was like one of those projects where each person works on a section without showing the others. His chest was cut wide open from the autopsy. One of his arms was broken in about fifteen different places and looked like a bendy straw. His legs were all slashed up and mangled, his femurs were stabbing through the skin and one arm had what looked like bullet holes in it." "Good God." I say. "Yeah man, he looked like some kind of demon where if you said his name six times you'd get dragged to the bottom of the ocean by an army of zombies or something." I cannot contain my laughter. I am laughing so hard. What he says next makes me laugh even more. "Veronica said he looked like a Jr. Serial Killer's "Mr. Potato Head", where instead of putting on new noses and smiles and hats he had a bunch of mismatched injuries stuck all over him," I'm losing my shit now. "And to top it all off," he says, "no pun intended, but when they were done with the autopsy they just threw his skull plate and his personal belongings in his chest cavity and put the whole shit in a bag!" "OH my God." I exclaim. "Yeah, I called the funeral home and told them I was putting the toe tag on the outside of the bag, and I wasn't opening it again. I think they knew in advance how bad it was because when I got there they had a tray made up for him already and everything. He literally went from the van, to the tray, right into the cremation machine." I laugh hard again. There is silence for a moment as we drive on.

"You know," Collins says, "sometimes I feel like when we come to work, God is personally punishing us...and every possible absurd and unfair thing in the world happens all in a twelve-hour shift."

If I Give You One, Everyone Will Want One.

2010-02-19T08:31:00.000-10:00

I was recently asked "Does everyone get autopsied?" The answer is no. "Well, what determines who gets autopsied? I've always wondered." It's a good question. I'm sure television has lead a lot of us to believe that EVERY single person in the world that dies gets a full investigation, toxicology report and autopsy. This is simply not the case, no pun intended (death worker humour). No jurisdiction has the manpower to conduct investigations and autopsies on every single person that dies. So, what DOES determine who gets an autopsy? Below are a list of criteria and circumstances under which autopsies or investigations are required by law.

The following is taken directly from my county and state's website:

Revised Statute XXX.090 specifies deaths which require investigation:

The medical examiner shall investigate and certify the cause and manner of all human deaths:

* Apparently homicidal, suicidal or occurring under suspicious or
unknown circumstances;
* Resulting from the unlawful use of controlled substances or the use or abuse
of chemicals or toxic agents;
* Occurring while incarcerated in any jail, correction facility or in police
custody;
* Apparently accidental or following an injury;
* By disease, injury or toxic agent during or arising from employment;
* While not under the care of a physician during the period immediately previous
to death;
* Related to disease which might constitute a threat to the public health; or
* In which a human body apparently has been disposed of in an offensive manner.

So, there you have it. If your grandfather fell asleep during Matlock and didn't wake up for his vitamin regiment before The Price Is Right came on, chances are, unless he was poisoned, violently beaten, stabbed to death or shot in the face, he won't be getting an autopsy.

Sorry, Junior.

It Ain't Over 'Til The Fat Lady Sings.

2010-02-18T20:00:00.000-10:00

The moment I walked in the door this morning the First Call phone rang with a removal for my partner and I. We responded promptly, as we always do. It was, for the most part, uneventful, save for the fact we had to lug the body down two flights of stairs and nearly dropped it twice. I always rather dislike carrying bodies down stairs. You're either the guy on top that can't lean back too far because you'll slip and fall, or you're the guy on the bottom that's basically getting pushed down the stairs and trying to keep up with your own feet so you don't tumble down the steps and end up with a corpse on top of you. In short, the case got handled pretty flawlessly and after departing that was the last I saw of my partner for the day. From there I was called to retrieve a body from a large city nearly two hours away. I made it there and back in record time, as I observed my normal routine of hawk-eying for police patrols and recklessly shooting forward, forward, forward faster than a speeding bullet. Case closed. Off to the next one.

No sooner did I finish my long distance case, was I called away to a small town an hour north of the office. I made it there in record time, as I observed my normal routine of hawk-eying for police patrols and speeding forward, forward, forward faster than a bullet. I arrived at the Coroner's office to have him examine some paperwork and sign a death certificate. As I sat and waited in his office I took note of interesting things about the room. Several plaques and certificates with his name in gold, in black ink, in cursive, in calligraphy. A black shirt with yellow lettering that read "LAST RESPONDER". Very clever. Books, several books with titles like "Crime Scene Investigator's Handbook", "First Responders", "The Merck Manual", "Blood Spatter Evidence Case Files". Et cetera. At each end of the bookshelf stood decorative resin-cast statues of Anubis, the Egyptian god of mummification, the dead and the afterlife. Pictures of skulls, famous death-themed art. A place I could really hang around. Within a few moments he returned with things signed in triplicate, stamped, dated, investigated, on and on. I took the death certificate and departed the Coroner's office en route to the county health department to have it filed. Everything went off without a hitch. The day is looking tits, gov. The sun is shining, the air is warm, and before I know it, I've handled all my cases and am back at base with a full tank of gas thirty minutes before my shift will come to an end. This has been the perfect day.

Almost.

At 17:40 (that's 5:40 p.m.), twenty minutes before I am to close out what is my first perfectly completed day, I receive a call. I take the information and depart. I am upset.

I am driving across a river into a neighboring state to retrieve a body from a hospice care center. A woman by the name of Nanda Jenkins. This is not her real name, but it's close enough. I arrive at the hospice care facility right at my estimated time of arrival. My paperwork is in order, the toe tag is completed and ready to go, all I have left to do now is meet with the nurses and take one Ms. Jenkins into my care, that I may deliver her to her final resting place.

Inside, I meet with Laura. She is sweet, matronly, willing to help. "Right this way," she says, and leads me down a hallway to room number 117, where Ms. Nanda Jenkins awaits. "Oh," the nurse says, stopping in the doorway to turn to me, "she's a rather large woman." I love the way this very minute detail has been overlooked up to this point, at which time it has barely been glossed over. "Ok," I reply, "I will step out and have someone join me to assist, this may take some time." I feign as though I am going to leave to call someone in when she stops me and says, "Well...I guess myself and some of the nurses could help." God forbid, love. I wouldn't dream of putting you out. Bless your soul. I am ever so gracious, miss. May we continue? Thank you, love. If there's one thing people like less than getting involved, it's waiting around. Impatience trumps inactivity every time. Never bet against black. I've said this before.

Within no time we've smoothly transitioned Ms. Jenkins from her bed onto the cot and within no time I've got her secured and ready to be transported. As of right now, she is the most agreeable three hundred plus pound woman I've had the pleasure of working with all day. The other ones in the room, the living ones, I find much less agreeable, as I suspect they are angry lesbians and hate me. All the better.

As I exit, I notice that one of the legs of the cot is not operating as it should, so I make haste to get my case loaded into the van. I am relieved when the cot withstands the weight and loads smoothly, as it should. Ms. Jenkins secure, I fill in the "TIME DEPARTED" line on my paperwork and pull away, en route to the cremation center where she is to be interred.

I arrive at the cremation center mere minutes later and step out of the van to raise the garage door of the receiving bay while I sing a tune to myself. The door goes up, the van goes in, the door goes down. I sing this to myself in a rather cheery mood as I walk around to the back of the van, keys in hand, to unlock and open the rear gate. "Hello, Ms. Jenkins," I say as I open the rear gate and struggle with the cot. Yanking, pulling, shaking. Phew. I notice as I am pulling the cot out of the van that one of the legs is again acting strangely. Not quite clicking into place where it should be? I can't quite put my finger on what is going on with it. It seems to be rolling fine. Nevermind that, I'm almost done, I'll deal with it when I get back to the shop. It is now 18:35. I should be out of here and on the road by 19:00.

I see that the cremationist has set out an extra large press-board tray for Ms. Jenkins, as opposed to the standard-sized thick cardboard trays. It is against the wall where it should be. This makes for an easy transfer. What you do is lower your cot a couple clicks at each end to match the height of the tray, then just push the person off the cot onto the cremation tray. It works for people who weigh 150 pounds. Why should it not work for someone who weighs three hundred? In the famous last words of Steve Irwin, "Let's go in for a closer look". R.I.P. Steve Irwin. We miss you.

"Horrorshow" is a term coined by Anthony Burgess' character Alex in the 1962 novel "A Clockwork Orange". It is used to describe scenes of ultra-violence and horrific events such as, but not limited to, murder. Conversely it is used to denote something that is well and good, a good time. For all intents and purposes of this exercise let the aforementioned term stand for the former definition, something that is horrific.

I click each end down two notches. This brings me just level with the cremation tray, which is situated upon a rolling frame known as a "Church Truck". The wheels are locked, it's stable. Here we go. One, for the might with which we fight. Two for the way we tie our shoes. Three, for, oh fuck. Horrorshow. As I push, in slow motion, both the cot and the tray begin to tip, each shouldering half the load on half their respective surfaces. The cot tips, the tray tips, both surfaces are now raised in a "V" shape as all three hundred pounds of Ms. Jenkins slips right through the cracks and crashes to the floor with a sickening smack. My stomach wrenches. My heart drops to the pit of me. I fight back the urge to vomit. I am sickened through and through. I call my partner. "Holy fuck man you gotta come help me I just fuckin' dropped someone." Good news. He's out on a call with an hour turnaround time, which means at best, I'll be here for an hour waiting. There has got to be a way to handle this on my own. Suddenly, I remember that in my van I have a rigid backboard for just such occasions.

I retrieve the backboard from the van and work frantically to get it under Ms. Jenkins. Once secured, I am sweating profusely. This, of course, is the night that all three cremation burners are running. It is about ninety degrees in this bay and I'm in a full suit. No. No, thank you. I'm quite alright as it is. I have devised a scheme to place one end at a time, the backboard back onto the cot to give another go 'round at getting Ms. Jenkins into the cremation tray. This could work. I lift and place first the feet and leg end of the board onto the cot. It stays. I then walk around to the heavier head end and lift...and just like that she is back on the cot. Thank God. Now. Do I wait another hour for assistance, or do I once again attempt to transfer her from the cot to the cremation tray? To wait for help, turn to page 66. To continue without assistance, read on.

I decide to continue without assistance. What could possibly go wrong? I have since secured Ms. Jenkins back onto the cot using the installed straps, which are really just glorified seatbelts for dead people. She is once again at cremation tray height. This time, I have decided to try to offload using the end-to-end technique, which, with a one hundred and fifty pound person works perfectly. This however, did not. Let me explain.

I begin by standing at the head end and pushing firmly on her shoulders. She slides down slowly. First her feet touch the tray, then her calves, then her upper legs...hey, this is really working. I now have her lower half and part of her upper half onto the tray when I hear a strange sound. *Ka-TING*. Remember the cot leg I was worrying about earlier? Well, it has--under the weight--snapped, collapsing the cot which has literally shot out from under the tray and from under Ms. Nanda Jeknins. The whole mechanism clatters, creaks and bangs across the floor, tips and falls over just inches out of my reach. I am left holding the tray and Ms. Jenkins with my hands. I look down at her, she is hanging limply over the side. The tray, off-balanced and too heavy at this end, begins to tip toward me. I manage to wedge my leg under the whole mess and retrieve my phone from my pocket. I am holding in one hand a three hundred pound woman, and in the other a cellular telephone. I dial for help. Nobody is available. Nobody is available. Nobody is available. I throw the phone to the ground. In an act of adrenaline-fueled strength and fear I've only ever heard about--the kind of story where someone lifts a car off a crushed child--I lift the tray with both hands above my head and shake it in hopes of shimmying Ms. Jenkins down into position. I try this several times, it does not work. After nearly a minute my adrenaline rush is depleted and I have no choice but to let go and again send Ms. Nanda Jenkins, Church Truck, tray and all, go toppling to the floor. This is not like dropping a bowl of cookie dough. This is like dropping a bowl of cookie dough, the mixer, all the utensils and then having the cabinets fall off the wall onto the pile. This is the worst possible scenario and my nightmare, and it's happening right now.

Ms. Nanda Jenkins lies on the floor, face down. I am dripping sweat and shaking, sick to my stomach and somehow cold. I have no cigarettes. I decided to quit a couple days ago. Big mistake. I sit down in a slump next to her dead body, staring at it. "I quit, I quit, I quit," I say to myself, over and over in different volumes, varying tones and inflections, practicing for tomorrow when I will meet with my boss.

Here we sit. Today is my Monday.

Update.

2010-02-12T20:33:00.000-10:00

I am currently writing two more "episodes" about my life which I will be releasing soon. In the meanwhile, some security issues were brought to my attention by a friend. As a result, I've had to make my profile completely private so it does not show up in search results and I've had to do away with my Twitter account, which I know many of you enjoyed. I apologize, but security is of the utmost importance at this time, as my job and livelihood depend on my anonymity.

I would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone that follows, especially those of you in the U.S., Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Thank you also to everyone else, your support and interest in this project of mine means a lot to me.

There is more to come, I promise. Perhaps as soon as tonight.

Yours truly,

My Life With Death
mylifewithdeath@gmail.com

Not Exactly Going Out With A Bang.

2010-02-12T18:27:00.000-10:00

On a second floor balcony of an aged and dirty apartment complex three sheriff await the presence of myself and my partner, Carter. They stand, one next to the other at the walkway railing, looking down onto the parking lot. One officer, whom I have never met before, is a new addition to the force. She is young. She holds a clipboard. I can tell she is a new addition because out of the three, she is the only one doing paperwork. Dead giveaway. I also suspect, if my powers of deduction to not fail me, that I am about to walk onto the scene of a suicide because two out of the three officers, one of whom is the new addition, are wearing green O.R. type latex gloves. Another dead giveaway.

We climb the stairs to the second floor and are met at the landing by a young male officer, maybe three or four years older than myself. DEPUTY SHOLL, his name plate reads. I greet him. "Good afternoon, officer." "Hey, hey," he says, "glad to see you guys." "Man," Carter says, "traffic was a nightmare. Sorry about the delay." "Oh, it's no problem. We're code four with central right now so we're in no hurry." Code four is law enforcement terminology for "Situation is under control, I (we) are ok." "Which is it?" I ask. The officer points to an alcove on the wall of the building approximately fifty feet down the walkway. "Shall we?" I ask. He nods without speaking and leads us toward our target location, apartment number 32. As we reach apartment number 30 I know with ninety percent certainty that we're responding to a suicide. A suicide which I'm estimating to have taken place several days, if not more than a week ago. The aroma of cigarettes and something that smells like feces and rotting fish are unmissable, and we are still two doors away. The smell does not get any easier to handle as we get closer, turn the corner and enter the apartment.

Just inside the front door is a small linoleum-floored entry way. To the right is a bathroom and one small bedroom with nothing in it, the curtains drawn. To the left, around a corner, is a living room with a connected carpeted dining area and a small kitchen, also linoleum floored. I enter, and as I close the distance between the door and the living room I can see a shirtless, overweight man sitting in a large leather office chair in the dining area. I enter with Carter, the officers in tow. Under a single yellow-bulbed lamp hanging from the ceiling sits a man, every bit of 350 pounds, at a makeshift computer desk. He has taken a black vinyl-topped card table and assembled on its surface all the things he needed for survival as well as all the things he needed to complete his suicide, of which I am now one hundred percent absolutely certain. On the table sit two packages of blue-label GPC cigarettes. One is empty and sits with the top slightly ajar, his wrist watch placed around it. The other sits near the edge of the table closest to him, which is to the right from my vantage. In addition to the cigarettes are:

(1) cigarette lighter, plastic, green
(1) ash tray, large, stoneware
(1) laptop style computer, approximately 12"
(2) computer peripheral speakers, small
(1) leather-bound journal, black
(1) pen, black, ball point, retractable
(?) Several pills of varying colors and sizes

In the ashtray are 13 cigarette butts, smoked completely and surgically down to the filter, each exactly the same size, lined up one next to the other in perfect order. On the tabletop next to the ashtray are two small batches of pills, identical. On the top row, three large, round white tablets. On the row below, three small orange circular tablets. On the third, three small oblong tablets, blue. And on the bottom row are two white circular pills split in half, each half placed rounded-side-up. There is enough room between the ashtray and the two spots of pills to suggest that there may have been two, maybe three more little cocktails.

The man's stomach is stretched taught, a thick river of blood has flown from his mouth and nose down his stomach, onto the chair, over the edge and onto the floor. A large scar runs from his belly-button up to his sternum, splitting cleanly in two a tattoo of an eagle, the right side blurred with age, the left side barely visible, covered by what appears to have at some point been a successful skin graft. Below the eagle and slightly off to my right, his left, is a colostomy bag which has since overflown and spilled down the front of him, onto his genitals, over the edge of the chair into a pile on the floor. Black shit and blood. His hands, arms and face are covered in tattoos that look like a cross between a 1950's hot rod paint job and pages from Crowley's grimoires. Esoteric shapes, triangles, various knotworks, flames and skulls. On each cheekbone, a crescent moon, the tips pointing inward. On his forehead, right between his eyes is a tattoo of a flying eye, complete with flames. His hands are a purple brown color. On his right hand he wears a chain necklace, doubled around to fit tightly. A ring on his ring finger. He has in each ear an earring, yellow metal. As the police officers take pictures I begin to remove the jewelry from the man to place on the table next to his watch which will at some point all be retrieved by family members. The earrings come out with little incident. As I begin to remove the ring Carter points something out to me. "He's probably a little stiff still, you're gonna have to put some work in to get that damn ring off." But I know all the tricks. I massage the joints of his ring finger to loosen his grip and begin to twist the ring to free it. As I do so I begin to pull downward, away from the hand. I experience great difficulty, and the skin of his finger begins to come off in one thick mess. Skin slip. Oops. After removing the necklace bracelet, rings and earrings, we are ready to move him to our cot. Pay close attention.

The skin slippage or "gloving" as it is commonly referred to, should have been an indicator that his skin had begun to break down and that the outermost dermal layers had separated from the subdermal layer. But, this was overlooked and as Carter and I each took an arm and a leg and began to pull the skin again slides off in thick, rotting, stinking messes which end up hanging loosely at his ankles like flesh nylons. As Carter releases his grip and steps back he bumps the cot into the man's leg and it splits open. Blood and a clear-yellow fluid spill out onto the carpet. The young female officer chokes. "Is that supposed to happen?" she asks. A Ruth Richards quote comes quickly to mind. "Yes," I say, "it happens to every body that has time to sit. Usually not before four, maybe five days, but yes." "Oh," she says, "cool." At this point the male officer and the senior officer on scene go to the bedroom to check something out. "Holy shit, you gotta see this," says the male officer. I break away for a moment to take a look. In the closet in the empty room is a collection of empty cigarette boxes, hundreds, maybe close to one thousand, all stacked perfectly on top of eachother at least twenty high, four deep and possibly one thirty or forty wide. Years worth of smoked cigarettes. Astounding. Back in the little shop of horrors Carter and I manage to, with the use of a sheet (to establish some stable grip), move our friend from his throne of shit, slipped skin, black blood and ink onto the cot. As we do so, a rush of cold air pushes out of the man's mouth. Up to this point, I had not noticed how much the smell of cigarette had overpowered the smell of rot. Up until this point, and not at all after.

After having secured the man onto the plastic, tagged, wrapped, strapped and bagged, the male officer assists with removing the cot. Out the door, down the walkway to the right to a flight of steps to the back of my van. What could possibly go wrong? The officer and I each take a side of the head end (read: heavy end) of the cot, and Carter guides the rear. One step. Clear. Two steps. Clear. Three steps. Clear. Four steps. This man is getting heavy. On the fifth or sixth step the body shifts in the bag, the head end pushes through the unzipped end of the bag and blood trickles over the mans head and onto the young officer's shirt. "Oh, fuck!" he exclaims. "It's alright, man, keep going," I say to him. Though he is visibly highly disturbed by this, he does not falter, he continues on. I have a feeling the young female officer is all the motivation this man needs to not give up the ship at this time.

Finally, we make it to the bottom of the steps and load our friend into the vehicle. "Check yourself." I say to him. He conducts a visual inspection and finds two small spots of blood on his shirt. "Lift your right arm." I say to him. He lifts his right arm. There is nothing there, but it is not every day you encounter a situation in which a police officer is so wet behind the ears and shocked that he will comply with civilian orders. You must strike quickly and take advantage of such circumstances.

Carter returns to his van and I return to mine. I turn the ignition over and begin to pull out of the parking area then stop and call Carter. After two rings he picks up. "What's up man?" he says. "Hey, are you still in the parking lot?" "Yeah, why?" "Man, I need to grab some smokes off you real quick, this dude stinks like shit. I don't like smellin' that shit, Carter." "I know you, don't partner, come on with it then and get these cigarettes." I hang up, park, exit the van and meet him at his vehicle. "You sure two is gonna be enough?" he asks as he hands me two cigarettes.
"I sure fuckin' hope so. I'll see you back at the office."

I light a cigarette and inhale deeply, the smoke burns in my chest. Exhale. I look back to check the cot. There is blood on the cloth, blood on the carry handle. I smell smoke and cold shit and cold blood.

Baby On Board.

2010-02-05T19:16:00.000-10:00

I am tired. I am hungry. I have not had food nor water for...fifteen or sixteen hours. I cannot remember what day it is. Is it Thursday? No, it is Friday, because yesterday was Wednesday. That's right. I've smoked too many cigarettes. I have not slept since...Thursday at four thirty ante meridian. Perhaps that is an exaggeration. I did wake up this morning, nearly one and one half hour after falling asleep fully clothed, coat and shoes and all. I have been wearing the same shoes, socks, pants, underwear, belt, shirt, tie and suit coat for over forty hours. I have just finished my second day at work. I am scheduled for four shifts this week, one each day for four days. However, I have just worked the majority of four shifts in two days. Each shift is twelve hours long. Not to forget I worked five hours in the middle of the night on...Tuesday? Yes, Tuesday, because the day before that was January. Exhaustion has given way to something else. If I continued this for another day I'm sure I would enter into a realm where I could communicate telepathically and move objects without touching them. For the time being, however, I remain both untouched, and unmoved.

=====

My first order of business this morning was to wrap in a sheet and transfer from our embalming table to a cot, the body of a man my partner and I picked up the night before. I entered the prep room, one I seldom spend time in, and upon seeing the condition of the preparation area immediately recalled something a manager had mentioned to me some days prior. "And our embalmer doesn't really keep things as clean as we would like. I put gloves on before I even go in there." It was not terribly messy, but it was also not terribly clean. The head blocks all had brown smudges of dried blood on them, there was the same color liquid in the corners of the embalming table and the room had a faint odor of feces, cleaning chemicals, wet dog and spoiled meat.

The body of the man lie on the table face up, eyes closed, asleep forever. Cold and wet. Throughout the night, moisture and chemicals had seeped from his skin and formed in droplets all over his body. With a towel, I patted dry the naked man before wrapping him in a sheet. At times like this I would really rather spend the .75 cents and use a plastic barrier, as sheets tend to wick moisture from the body but not retain it, allowing it to form in damp spots and small puddles on our cots. But at the request of my ever vigilantly frugal employer, I used a sheet, as not to waste a "good plastic." I began to wrap the body as I do all bodies, by placing a sheet over it. I placed the sheet "off-center" if you will, to allow it to be tucked back under the body and then grasped at the edges where it meets so it may be used as handles to draw the body from one surface to another. I lifted first the feet and tucked the sheet under from the far side, then through from the side nearest me to complete the wrap. Then, lifting his head, repeated this process around his shoulders. As I began to tuck the sheet around his mid-section, something cold covered my hand, which, very thankfully, was gloved. I pulled back my hand to discover that it was smeared with a thin, brown, viscous liquid. Feces. Not only feces, but feces and embalming fluid. More specifically, feces which had become so liquefied by chemicals and fluids during the embalming process, that it had pooled in the man's bowels, which were evacuated all over my hand as he was being turned and jostled about. I did not go into health care because I was absolutely appalled by the idea of touching someone's shit. Well, here I am. My mother would be proud.

My next orders of business were to shuffle corpses around for a while and run ridiculous errands which took up the majority of my day (one of which included driving an hour into the rural valley to pick up some cookies at the request of the owner), then return to quarters to file the two corpses I had acquired throughout the day under E, R, B for Elderly, Routine & Boring and F, R, S, D for Foul, Rotting, Stinking & Disgusting. As I was wrapping (no pun intended) things up in our cooler, a representative from another funeral home (one with no cooler or cremation facilities) dropped by unexpectedly to stow a cadaver in our refrigeration unit. I unloaded it with the help of my day manager and together we weighed it and began to unwrap it at the feet to check for a toe tag, then worked our way up to discover some...suspicious looking smears on the plastic. Not more liquefied feces, but blood. Dried blood. This was odd. Pulling back the plastic revealed long, thick hanks of hanging flesh and yellow-orange ripply fat bits, beyond which were the remains of a surgically deconstructed chest cavity, now filled with intestines. Oh. It was an autopsy. I do enjoy a good surprise. Sometimes, unwrapping a corpse is like a Jack-In-The-Box.

After our surprise guest was taken care of it was nearing the close of my third consecutive, back-to-back shift and I was feeling a bit tired. As I began my end-of-shift paperwork I was urgently dispatched to the local procurement agency to meet the owner who was working "frantically" to get the donor remains "taken care of." First, I know how "urgent" that is. It's so "urgent" that the procurement agency has the donor remains ready at five every single day, and every single day someone waits until the last minute to take care of it rather than being there at the ready at sixteen forty-five to assist in the processing and onloading of the donor remains boxes. There are aspects of this field in which the word "urgent" means nothing more than "someone dropped the ball/didn't handle business properly now you have to take care of it". "It's not urgent," I told my manager. "This happens every day. It's not urgent if it happens every day." "Yeah, yeah I know," he replied, "but could you hurry with what you're doing so you can get over there and help him?" "No, I'm not going to rush. I make mistakes when I rush. I'll leave when I'm finished." I said. Since I was already finished, I went ahead and left.

At the procurement agency the owner was "handling" business by rattling off a list of things for me to do and how to do them. "This box needs to go up top, take one of the cots off to fit this one on, put the other two in the side door there, trade me vans so I can go take care of some other stuff then go back to the office then come back and pick up the cots--" "Sorry..." I interrupted exasperatedly, "this sounds completely convoluted. I'll just take care of it from here you can go if you'd like". He began to leave when his phone rang. "Wait a second," he said to me, though he was the one leaving, "you are going on a call here in a few minutes." Super. It is now seventeen thirty. Just one half hour more and I would have been "home free". A trend seems to be developing wherein the following shift does not help lighten the workload and everything gets dumped on myself and my partner. "It's an infant," my boss says, "here's the info. Put it in your GPS and then call Carter. He'll be meeting you out there." An infant.

I arrived at the residence shortly after eighteen hundred hours and was met by my partner Carter. I had been stuck in traffic for nearly twenty minutes, as it was rush hour, and he had gone in and done the initial interview with the family. We were now going to enter the residence together to be present for the removal.

Inside, the house is immaculate. White carpet, mocha colored walls, high, open ceilings, hardwood banisters trimmed the sides of the spiral staircase. We were greeted by the father, the grandmother, and the mother, who was smiling through her tear and looking into the face of her child whom she still cradled in her arms. I let Carter handle this one, as my specialty is not so much delicate situations as it is "delicate" situations. "Would you all like some more time?" Carter asked. The grandmother and father declined, but the mother said she would and went upstairs, exit stage right, where she could periodically be heard weeping. Downstairs, the conversation between Carter, the father and grandmother was remarkably normal. They were all very well held-together for having just lost their child. "She was never expected to make it home from the hospital," the father began to explain, "it's been eight months she's made it. We're just glad to have gotten a chance to know her before she went on." He then asked me how traffic was. "Less than ideal for our circumstances." I said to him. He laughed very naturally, not at all nervously. The mother returned from upstairs with the baby in her arms, kissing her and speaking softly to her all the way back down to the living room. Carter continued to speak, as though the minutes that had just passed were nothing more than a breath between sentences. For him, it may have been true. "If you are all ready for us to, we'll go ahead on and take her into our care now, and see to it that she arrives safely." The family nodded, smiling, eyes full of tears, cheeks red, each one choking back their sobs. Strangling their sadness in their throats. Rather than extending his arms for the mother to hand over her child, Carter asks "Would you like to walk her out to our vehicle?" "Oh, yes." the mother replies in a half-sob. The six of us, Carter, myself, the mother, father grandmother and the child form a small procession and Carter and I lead the way out of the house holding open doors and guiding the family outside toward Carter's vehicle. He then approaches, and opens the passenger door for the mother. "Go ahead on, now," he says to the mother. He is someone's grandfather. "you can go ahead and put her right on in there in the seat, make sure you buckle her in." The mother buckles the love of her life into the seat next to Carter's and leans across to kiss her goodbye. The father and grandmother follow in suit, each one crying and saying goodbye. We stand for a moment in silence as they look through the open door in on their daughter and grand daughter. "Okay," says the father through his sadness, "you can go ahead and take her now. We're ready." With that, Carter closes the door and bids them farewell. "My heart goes out to you." He says. I say nothing when they turn to me, just close my eyes for a moment and nod. That is all I ever need say. It is universally understood as meaning, "There are no words for this, and I am sorry for all of it." They thank us for our help and wish us well upon our way, a titanic gesture in their time of need.

A few minutes down there road my phone rings. It is Carter. I answer. "That was a trip, huh man?" Carter asks. "Yes, it was. It always will be. This particular thing always takes you to a place that never gets any easier to go to." "Good lord," he says, "it sure do."

It sure do.

Sleeping In My Uniform.

2010-02-05T04:45:00.000-10:00

I awaken into the darkness. Where is my phone? I feel around for it and find it next to me on my bed. I am on top of my blankets. I switch the phone to on to check the time. It is 0550. I have to be to work in ten minutes. Work is, at best, twelve minutes away, and I still have to get dressed. I quickly rise from bed and turn on the light to discover that I am fully dressed. Shoes. Socks. Underwear. Pants. Shirt. Belt. Tie. Suit coat. Well, this is a pleasant surprise.

The streets are slick and black, tail lights and traffic lights shine upon the surface in broken, beautiful colors that make the concrete look like hundreds of thousands of small pieces of candy in crinkly cellophane wrappers. I speed toward my destination, hoping to make it to the office before anyone else arrives. Success. Two points for me.

I had been standing by all night for a morgue pick-up two hours south of my location, a call which never came. I spent the night staring at the floor and lying in bed fully dressed, as it turns out, though I do not remember the latter.

Blank, dreamless sleep. The sleep of someone exhausted by life.

It is Friday. Hopefully, one action-packed with gory details.

Waiting. Worrying. Sitting. Staring At My Shoes.

2010-02-04T20:58:00.000-10:00

I sit at the edge of my bed, my head in my hands, staring down at the stretched and skewed image of the room around me which reflects off the square toes of my perfectly shined patent leather shoes. I purchased them somewhere, some while back, for some amount of money. I can't remember clearly.

I am waiting for a call to take me somewhere. Anywhere. I do not know where. I have absolutely nothing to do. Nothing to do but wait for someone to say jump, so I can say, "How high?" and so I can jump twice as high as they tell me to for half the price.

I have been on since 0600. It is now 2301. There is a long drive ahead of me. I am waiting. I must be back for work again at 0600 tomorrow. It is almost tomorrow.

I sit and stare at my shoes and the carpet, worrying about everything because I have nothing else to do but worry. So worry, I do. About my health. My weight. My hairline. My bank account. My stupid fucking Oxford shirt. My habits. What happened to me? I'm gone. Worry about my family. Worry about what will happen in the future. Worry about transportation. Worry about dimes and pennies. Worry about my days off. Worry about my social life. Disregard, cancel social life. Worry about what wrongdoing will be pointed out upon my arrival tomorrow morning. Worry about how long I can take it. Worry about falling asleep while driving. Worry about working thirty-six hours straight. Worry about being called on my days off. Worry about...anything. Everything. Worry about whether or not I'm breathing in enough oxygen. Fairly certain I am not.

I sit, slouched, at the end of my bed, staring at my shoes, wishing for something more. Anything more. But there is nothing more right now. There is just this. Waiting. Worrying. Sitting. Staring at my shoes. Nothing happens.

I lie back onto my bed and stare into the light bulb on the ceiling. It blinds my eyes. They have been open far too long, and sleep no longer comes easily, though I am exhausted all the time. The fan on my laptop quietly whirs. I hear the occasional patter of rain. There is no other sound.

Sleep does not come. I wait for it, but it does not come. There is nothing. Nobody.

I sit, for several minutes at a time, watching the cursor flash within the text box before pressing the keys. Once. Twice. Thrice. Seventeen times.

I dread tomorrow.

A Quick Side Note.

2010-02-04T04:47:00.001-10:00

It occurred to me this morning as I sat before my employer being lectured about my "availability" on my days off, that my life is singularly joyless. I have effectively traded in my own life for other people's deaths. Never do I hear an encouraging word regarding my performance, the extra hours I put in or the way I single-handedly accomplish seemingly impossible tasks. Well, I have a suggestion.

Compliments don't cost money, you cheap fucking bastard. So you'd better start forking them over.

This explains the abuse of stimulants as of late. My life has in reality, become so routine and work-oriented that I've resorted to using anything I can get my hands on--the most recent of which is pharmaceutical-grade amphetamine salts--to give me a kick, some sort of rush.

Really, the only thing I enjoy about my job is handling particularly messy suicides. There is always something interesting and new to witness. Some ungodly amount of blood or brain, a new fracture pattern in a skull, a new look on each face. I am quite tired of running death certificates and tending to the corpses of aged individuals. They are about as exciting as an empty McDonald's bag blowing down the sidewalk. Each displays almost exact characteristics. Toothless maw hanging open, stupid look on the face, like that of half horror and half surprise, wrinkly, smelly, etc. Each looks like a half-melted tallow candle with a mouth carved into it. Just...plain boring, really.

"I want my employees to have a life outside of work." my boss says.
"No you don't." I think to myself. When run against what actually happens, what he is saying is easy to identify as being untrue. If he wants each and every one of us to be at the ready twenty-four hours a day, fine. Tell me so. But don't tell me to have a life outside of work, then get mad about it when I don't answer my phone on my day off.

An apology to all...I'm sorry. It's not you, it's me. My life is indefinitely canceled.

I Looked And Behold, A Pale Horse.

2010-02-01T15:22:00.000-10:00

Through the black I drive at breakneck speed down a winding rural highway wrought with turns sharp as an adder's tongue. The headlights of my van do little to penetrate the darkness, and twice as turns appear from out of the beyond I nearly lose control of my vehicle, smash through the guard railing and plummet four hundred feet into the icy river below. Howling winds have littered the highway with coniferous limbs and other floral detritus. Speeding vehicles have littered the road with animal parts and ruddy smears become visible on the concrete before me then vanish under the wheels as I speed forward in chase of a dead man, or dead woman. It is still unknown.

My partner drives in the lead in the Great White, a name I've coined for the large, windowless Chevy van. I am behind in the chase vehicle. We communicate with push-to-talk features, brakelights and headlights. Soon we are out of cellular service. The brakelights on the Great White light up as my partner slows to a stop on the road. I pull up behind him, put my vehicle in park and step out to see what is going on. We are the only two vehicles on the road. I have not seen another car for nearly an hour. We are far, far away from anything. As I approach the driver's side he rolls down his window. "What's going on?" I ask.
"Nothin', I'm just wondering where the fuck we are. You didn't see a turnoff to the left after that bridge back there did you?"
"No, I did not. I don't believe there was one. What were the instructions?"
"Well when I talked to the Medical Examiner he said to cross the bridge, go past the ranger station and take the first left." Ding. This is an M.E. call. I've been waiting for this all week.
"Oh, we haven't passed the ranger station yet."
"Oh, ok. Well we'll keep going then."

I return to my vehicle, put it in drive and drive on. Somewhere at the other end of the radio signal coming through my stereo, a woman is screaming and something is rustling around. It's an audio clip taped on a camping trip, explains the host of the show. This adds an eerie touch.

I drive on, following my partner for nearly twenty more minutes. The host of the show about paranormal activity plays audio clips of unidentified creatures screaming and takes calls from people who claim to have heard similar sounds. The whole thing makes me hyper-alert and a little scared. Without warning my partner veers across the oncoming lane and sends up a cloud of dust as he slams to a halt on the gravel turnout. I stop and roll the window down. "What's wrong?" I yell out to him. "Nothing," he responds, "I'm just tired of fuckin' driving around out here. I'm going to hop in your van and we're going to go check out some of these little side roads." He locks the doors of the Great White, walks across the highway and gets into the passenger seat. "Turn around, let's go back the other way." I turn around and begin to drive in the opposite direction.

After a short while, I see a sign that reads "Ranger Station - 1/4 Mile". I begin to look for a road, which will now be to the right, before we reach the station. In just a moment's time I find it and turn in. It is a narrow gravel road and it winds a short distance taking us deeper into the woods then opens into a clearing revealing a tiny settlement of maybe six or seven residences. This strikes me as odd. A white truck with headlights on is parked in front of one of the residences. I identify this vehicle as the Medical Examiner's transport. Pulling along side, I roll my window down and greet him. "What's our status?" I ask him.
"Oh not much. Just waiting for you guys. Excellent response time, by the way."
"Thank you. Which house are we looking for?"
"This one, right here." He points to the house he is parked in front of.
"I'll go ahead and back into the driveway then tie in with you."
I park the vehicle and step out to talk to the M.E.

"Good evening, gentlemen." He says, extending a hand to shake.
"I'm Jim Taylor, I'll be your waiter this evening." We chuckle.
"Well," I say, "what is on special tonight?"
"Suicide. Single gunshot wound to the head. The family heard a shot and went in to investigate and found our man self-expired."
"What condition is the body in?"
"It's a bit of a mess, relatively fresh. He's been dead maybe...six hours. He's in the beginning stages of rigor and the blood has congealed."
"Is the family still present?"
"No, they've all left."
"Very good. Shall we?"
He leads us into the house.

The house is clean, well lit, warm. A fire burns in the fireplace. On the television, a muted infomercial. Pictures of family members; sons, married daughters and grand children hang on the wall. Nothing is out of place and it is quite cozy. Down the hallway, second door on the left, the light is on. I enter. The scene is in great contrast to the one I witnessed upon entering.

In the middle of the room on a bed with lavender sheets and comforters lies the body of a man departed, a look of confusion frozen on his face. His right arm is rigored at an acute angle, index finger still extended. Without the gun in his hand he looks as though he is trying to tell someone, "Use your head, junior." I look around the room for any spray and find none. I deduce that he has shot himself into the mattress, as not to make too big a mess. This was not an act of compulsion, it has been thought out.

Both the Medical Examiner and my partner watch quietly as I conduct a brief examination. The weight of the body upon the mattress has created an indentation which has filled with blood, now congealing. I kneel down next to him and look into his eyes, still half-open. On the right side of the head, a small, slightly oblong entrance wound. Were this not a suicide I would know from the shape of the entrance wound that he was shot at very close range. When a firearm discharges and fires the forward projectile, it takes a moment for the projectile to stabilize along its flight path. When the projectile enters mass before stabilization the entrance wound is typically oblong or egg-like in shape. Not that this matters to my line of work, as I am a cleaner, not an investigator. I don my latex gloves and continue my inspection. There is no powder burn. This is indicative of a pressure positive point blank discharge. This means that the muzzle of the firearm was pressed so tightly to his head that at the time of discharge there was not enough space between the barrel of the firearm and the mass to allow the heated gasses to tattoo the skin. I stand and roll the man over just enough to see the exit wound. It is approximately two inches in diameter. Jagged bits of skull are exposed. Wads of brain matter ooze from the hole as I turn him. They look like chewed bubblegum. Bright pink. Pieces of skull are stuck with blood to the mattress. They look like eggshell. Bright white. There is, on the front of his sweater, one solitary piece of skull. He smells of nitroglycerin, sawdust, graphite and iron. The thick, heavy, unmistakable smell of death. I've grown to love it.

"Okay," I say, "we'll go ahead and get our equipment and get this taken care of."

As we conduct the removal we chat with the Medical Examiner. He explains to us that he had to perform surgery on the mattress to retrieve the bullet. "Yeah," he says, "it turned out that I had forgotten my knife at home, but I noticed that he had quite the collection, so I used on of his." He motions to the wall behind us where there is a shadowbox containing several antique pocket knives. "I didn't think he would mind," he adds. My partner suggests we take the bedding and all, and we do so. We wrap the body in plastic, secure it to the cot, zip the bag, make our way through the house and load the body into the van.

After dropping my partner off back at his van, we continue onward into the night, into the darkness, into the endless darkness.

“Now he is treading that dark road to the place from which they say no one has ever returned.”
-Catullus

The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall...Down The Stairs

2010-01-27T20:31:00.000-10:00

My job does not pay incredibly well. Granted, I make well above minimum wage but realistically, I'm never going to get rich shuffling corpses around like some kind of graveyard Three Card Monte trick. I could make a decent living if I decided to become a funeral director and start pitching caskets, bereavement travel packages, burial plots and other such ridiculous bullshit, but for the time being I choose to just get by with a little extra. Interestingly enough, the thing that really keeps me going, the thing that weighs in heavier than gold pound for pound every time around is the pure, unadulterated mind-bending horror of a really fucked up call. The feeling I get when I walk onto a high-risk case, a gut-wrenching decomp or a surprise suicide is unparalleled. It is like my soul is being ripped out of my body by a the devil himself, shoved up my ass and beaten back out of me. When the smell hits and you get the urge to vomit, when you pull back the sheet on that bloated, stinking corpse and what you see makes you want to scream your stomach out, when you walk into a room where someone has just killed themselves and it's as cold as the grave and the hairs on your neck stand up on end, that's what pays the bills.

A slow day at the office today. One boring death certificate to file, a body to pick up for cremation, procurement waste to retrieve and check in. That's about it. The only narrowly interesting thing that happened today was a back-up call for a big boy that dropped dead in a basement about 30 minutes south of the city. This had potential to be good.

I arrive at the residence five minutes earlier than my estimated arrival time, smelling like a rose as usual. The newest addition to our team, a young woman named Veronica, comes out to greet me and see me in.

Inside, the family is gathered and bawling. Knock it off, you guys. You didn't know this was going to happen? I make solemn introductions, offer condolences, then worm my way through the person-packed living room, through the kitchen and down a flight of stairs into the basement. This is going to be fun.

In the basement I'm met by Collins. "You old son of a bitch, how you been?!" I say. He looks up from the morbidly obese dead guy on the floor and smiles, "Hey there, killer, what's the word?" "You tell me." I reply. "You ready to move this guy?" "Yes sir, I am." "Good," he says, "You're the best lookin' draught animal I've seen all day." The paramedics had been here just moments before. The telltale signs were scattered about the room. Used and discarded gloves. Sterile packaging for intubation devices, paper wrappers for needles and syringes, plastic backings for defribulation pads, used alcohol and iodine prep pads, and to top it all off, the intubation tube was still jammed down this poor bastard's throat and taped to his face. The works. These fuckin' guys. I imagine them tearing a bunch of shit apart and throwing it around the room just so they can look up and somberly report to the family, "We lost him. Damn it, we lost him." Then I imagine they pack their gear up, whistle the theme song from The Andy Griffith show out the door, hop into the van, tune in an oldies station, light up a fresh one and get rolling onto the next failure. Well played, gentlemen and gentlewomen. Well played.

Collins has done all the prep work for us. He's strapped our portly friend to a backboard, secured his hands to his chest so his arms don't get caught in the handrail bars on the stairs and say, break...or something like that. I attach two additional straps to the top of the backboard, this will help Veronica and I pull him up the stairs as Collins guides the feet and pushes. I don't have gloves on. Whoops. Oh well. This guy doesn't gross me out at all and I feel a little bit sorry for him. "Alright, Big Cat." I say to the decedent as we get ready for the haul. Collins counts off..."One, two...thrughhh," and we begin our ascent. Eleven steps. Brutal. This guy weighs every bit of 350lbs and he's not giving it up easy. The first step is hard, the second more so, the last nine are hell. Collins is sweating profusely, Veronica is having her fair share of difficulty and I'm only pretending to be doing fine. One of the straps slips in its place and sends the body tumbling over sideways..."FUCK," I scream under my breath. With an extra hard pull I right the situation and we're back in business. After 34 hours we arrive at the top of the steps, sweating, out of breath, knees shaking like newborn colts. Now THAT'S fuckin' teamwork. We step out into the bright, cool morning air and give the familya few minutes to say goodbye to their loved one. Sweat has soaked through Collins' shirt, I'm still panting and I've got a feeling Veronica really didn't help that much. The verdict is still out on her.

We proceed with precision, grace and speed in removing the cot from the living room. In a fluid, seamless string of movements we wheel him out the door, carry him down one step, open the back doors of the van, load the cot into the back, spray foaming hand sanitizer onto our hands, close the doors and go our separate ways. Collins and Veronica to the funeral home, and me, off to deliver a death certificate.

A few minutes down the road my phone chirps and Collins' voice comes across. "Thanks for your help back there," he says. "You know it, buddy." Over and out.

Someone Down There, Please Die.

2010-01-24T21:37:00.000-10:00

The lines on the highway bend and blur from white dashes to faded strips of grey. I'm pushing the limits as usual. 85 miles per hour. 90. 95. A local rock radio station plays metal from midnight to five a.m. and keeps me alive.

There comes a point in every shift where I seem to, with an inhale, suddenly settle somewhere between the solid finite world of the living and the dark, skewed world of the dead. There is a quiet calm and for a moment, I am relaxed, contented.

Coffee surges through my veins in obscene amounts, amounts that would sicken the most seasoned amphetamine addict. Nicotine constricts my arteries, microscopic bits of my heart valves rip and tear with each V8 top-dead-center compression heart beat. I'm losing it. I'm going downhill.

I've forgotten I have a passenger with me, I've forgotten where they're going. Have I passed it? Have I not yet arrived? A quick check of the cot behind me and the accompanying paperwork confirm that this is not a dream. Ok. I still have a ways to go.

Some stupid band with a name like Demonica or something is ripping a decent tune out over the radio waves. My head instinctively nods with the beat. At this moment I am something between a mental casualty of war and a strung-out behind-the-music special.

My knuckles grip the steering wheel, turn white and crackle and pop. I crack my neck, reach into my jacket pocket and retrieve yet another cigarette. It's been...maybe days since I've actually slept.

I stop at a local coffee shop, the only one in the city open 24 hours a day. As I step through the door, as if scripted, all the shaggy beard-wearing pseudo-intellectual liberal hippy scum stop what they're doing at once to stare at me. The guy that's too tightly wound for the city. The wacko in the suit. The man, man. "What." I say. A statement, as it were. Not so much a question. Perhaps above anything else, an invitation. They return to their laptops, iPods, chess games, Sierra Club publications, Haiti relief forms and various local rags and magazines with the classic blue, red and white stencil image of Barack Obama on the cover. The urge to forcefully spit into each one of their faces long enough to blind them with a straight shot to the nose overwhelms me. I walk slowly across the floor in this now library-silent shop. Each step dramatically emphasized with a little extra weight at the heel, and a little extra tap at the toe. I sound like a man walking to his funeral. Or from his funeral.

I greet the woman at the counter. She is cute. Sort of elfish. "Hi." she says. "You are very elegantly dressed, are you coming from a gala?" "No," I reply, "I merely pick up the deceased from the places where they have ceased to live." "Oh, well," she says. "Yes, I feel it is respectful to them to do so and to look this way." "It most certainly is, you are dressed for the part. What would you like?" I look around at the menu, not reading anything. I don't fucking know. Anything? Just give me a cup full of ground coffee and I'll eat it with a spoon, ok? "Um..." I say, "How about a Night Rider?" 16 ounces, four espresso shots dumped into a cup of Americano and lightly sweetened with white chocolate. Horrible stuff. "Room for cream?" She asks. Do I look like the kind of person that leaves room for cream? Really? "No, thank you." is all I say. A moment later she hands me a white paper cup with a black plastic lid. I sip it. Horrible stuff indeed, good brother. "Thank, you." It is so strong it has gone from bitter to sour. It is so strong, my teeth hurt.

Back in the van I light a smoke, slam a belt of that sick, black poison down my throat and turn up the music. I check the rearview and--oh, shit. Where did the body go? Oh fuck. I look into the back and see that the body I had with me is gone. Both cots are there, but the body is gone. Oh no. Remain calm. Check your paperwork. Ok...wait. I've already delivered it. Phew. That was a close one. Right-o then. Onward.

I drive through the city, skillfully weaving and merging in and out of traffic to jockey for the top spot in life, to be the man that gets to where he is going first. To be the winner. Fuck you all. I win.

The rain makes it impossible to see the lines on the streets. The windshield wipers do little to help me see the world through the downpour. I do not care. I am not concerned. The traffic lights are magnified through every single one of the thousands of raindrops on my windshield, refracting the light and illuminating the inside of the cab with brilliant reds, greens and yellows.

Music plays, smoke billows from my nostrils and turns on itself as it hits the inside of the windshield. The cots quietly squeak and creak as I hit potholes, turn corners too fast, slam the brakes.

I head just outside of town, to the hills in the west which overlook the city. I park my van at a good vantage point and watch the night happening all around. The city sparkles and shimmers as cars drive to and from. Buildings are lit and stand tall, magnificent spectacles in their time. I inhale smoke, exhale. "Somebody," I say to myself, "Somebody down there die, God damn it. I'm fucking bored."

It's Never Time To Leave.

2010-01-22T18:39:00.000-10:00

There are fifteen minutes left until the end of my shift. I stand in the middle of the loading bay and I watch each one pass from a clock next to the cooler door. There are fourteen minutes left until the end of my shift.

Collins (not Collin) has arrived early, and today is Charlotte's last day. As she is eager to leave, Collins suggests she go home early and he will take over. She is pleased to oblige, bids us farewell, and is off. There are thirteen minutes until the end of my shift.

The phone rings. Collins answers. "Yes, proceed with the information when ready." he says. He hurriedly jots information on a scrap sheet of paper, some torn in half and partially discarded form. The other half lie on the floor next to the trash receptacle. He is still taking information down when he shoots me a quick glance and motions with his head toward the van, parked half-in, half-out of the loading bay. I can feel the weight of this call. It is great. I know something heavy is coming our way. We're the ones for it.

There are twelve minutes until the end of my shift.

We jump into the van, 1970's police drama style, both doors slamming simultaneously, seat belts clicked and locked, poorly recorded "swoosh" sounds accent our movements as we legibly print information on call sheets, toe tags, First Call forms. There are eleven minutes until the end of my shift. Collins puts a tape of chase music into the tape deck...nothing. "Oh fuck, I forgot this thing doesn't work. Damn." We pull away from the building in silence. There are ten minutes left until the end of my shift.

I click on the dome light and examine the information on the First Call sheet, searching for an ETA contact number. There, on the right side, small print, among a mess of typed font and harshly overwritten corrected information. The name next to the number: M.E. This is a medical examiner call. I knew this was going to be interesting.

Rarely do we know what kind of a scene we're walking into until the moment we arrive. It's information, that for the sake of timeliness, our answering service doesn't collect before they call us with the dispatch. They take only the "important" information. Name, Address, Call #, etc. I dial the number and I'm thrilled to hear the medical examiner answer. "Yes, I'm calling with an estimated time of arrival of 1815 hours. Thank you." I hang up. Time of ETA call placement is marked on the form. Collins reaches into the inner breast pocket of his blazer and removes a package of Marlboro cigarettes. "I'll be having one of those" I inform him. There are five minutes left until the end of my shift.

Traffic is terrible, and even though we're coming from nearly twenty miles away, we make it through rush hour and pull up to the address, a residence, at exactly 1815. Time of arrival is marked on the form. The end of my shift was fifteen minutes ago.

Collins situates the van near two police vehicles parked in front of the house. We each step out of the van and make our way up the driveway. The garage door is open and there are two officers standing with a third plain-clothed person, the medical examiner. One of them motions to us and the M.E. turns, noticing us after a couple seconds. He approaches us and extends his hand. "Good evening, gentlemen. I'm Ron Bott, I'm the medical examiner. Boy, you fellas are right on the dot. Nicely done." We shake hands and exchange basic information. The officers do their hands-gripping-the-front-of-their-belts saunter down the driveway toward us and ask the medical examiner, "Is there anything else you need from us?" Two typical shaved-head, heavily-muscled short men. "No, you are released from the scene," says the medical examiner. We know who runs the show here.

"Gentlemen, if you would please, let us step into the garage. I have some information for you before you go on in." I have not eaten since 0430. I have not slept since...I do not know. My lips begin to tingle. I am floating through space right now. Gotta get it together. "This is a suicide," he says. Bingo. I am instantly awake and I am not hungry. Never bet against black, baby.
Now for the back story. The M.E. looks at his yellow legal pad and begins to dispense the information.

"This is a suicide. Hanging. Fire and rescue was here about thirty minutes ago, they cut her down. The family says she went in to her room just before dinner to take a nap. After dinner one of the family members went in to give her a phone call and found her hanging from the garment rod in the closet. They're understandably very upset." He continues to read off the subject's (circle F for female) information, her D.O.B., her SSN, her T.O.D., all of the essentials. "Oh," says Collins, "Tomorrow is her birthday. Was, rather." She couldn't take another year. After a few minutes the M.E. suggests we go inside, interface (I'm hesitant to use the term "meet", for meetings usually take place in better circumstances) with the family members, observe the scene, make our notes, so on.

As we make our way from the garage to the front door of the house one family member, then another hurriedly walks past us, one is covering her mouth with her hand and shaking her head. I can't tell if she is crying or if she is about to throw up. The M.E. introduces us to the sister of the subject, she will be noted as the Next Of Kin. We speak with her briefly--matter-of-factly but compassionately. The family has calmed visibly. Few people are crying and the sister has calmed enough to carry on a coherent conversation with us.

In the bedroom there lies on the floor in front of the closet a figure covered by a white sheet. The bed in the room has been tipped on its side and leaned against the wall by fire & rescue as to lend a larger area to their life-saving efforts. Thank you, gentlemen. I kneel next to the woman and pull the sheet back. She has not been dead long at all. She is still warm. Her face is ever so slightly discolored, not enough to alarm anyone or even be noticed if we get things done quickly enough. We are ready to get down to business.

I back the van into the driveway, Collins removes the cot from the back and we're back in the bedroom in about two minutes time. Collins takes a moment to wipe a bit of blood from the woman's mouth and out of her nostril. By the time the family is saying their final goodbyes, everyone has calmed and are speaking quietly to one another. The sister approaches and looks down into the face of her loved one. "Oh," she says, "she just looks like she's sleeping," she touches her hand, "you sure were a sweetheart." she says. We zip the bag over the face and exit with the medical examiner, exchange formal goodbyes, load the cot into the van and we're off.

"This was the perfect call," says Collins, "from the time we received the call to the time we left was fifty-five minutes." Time of departure marked on the form. I don't care how many minutes I have left to work. I'm working.

I Will Grind His Bones To Make My Bread

2010-01-22T09:11:00.000-10:00

My first deep and deliberate breaths of the day are taken as I lie in bed, quite some time after another 14-hour shift. First one, then two. Then three and four and before I finish five I am lowered into the silence of sleep and the darkness of my dreams.

I have come to a procurement agency lab and operation center to have a bone-donor body released into my possession. I enter through a back alley, through a heavy metal side door, cross a dimly lit and empty garage/loading bay and pass through long hanging plastic strips, just beyond which are the laboratory and operating room.

I am met at the front of the laboratory where tissue sampling and blood match work is conducted by a woman wearing bluish lavender operating room scrubs and elbow-high black nitrile gloves. She greets me and leads me through an open door at the back of the laboratory into the operations room. On a stainless steel table, under a blindingly bright OR spotting light, lies what was at one time a human being.

"Is this the Otanga case?" I ask her.
"Yes, this is the one." She looks at a clipboard resting on a nearby counter top and adds, "Otanga, Phillip J."

I cannot make out his face. The light is too bright. All I can see clearly is that he is cut open from the neck all the way down to the pelvis, and from the hip to the knee. His skin is laid open all around him, some of it hanging over the edges of the stainless steel table. Surprisingly, there is little blood mess, and all of his organs have been removed. All that is left is his long bones and spinal column.

I step forward and without putting on gloves thrust my bare hands into his chest cavity and begin to snap and rip the rib bones from the sternum and again from the spine. The woman looks on, expressionless. I break the ribs in half and jam them into my mouth and begin to chew. My teeth begin to crack and break, bone shard penetrates my cheeks, my tongue, the roof of my mouth. Blood begins to trickle down my throat and out of my mouth, down my chin, onto the operating table, onto the floor in little pats and little splats. Bone fragments tear through the lining in my throat as I force myself to swallow the jagged, razor-sharp pieces. A long, pointed bit punctures my esophagus, nicks a carotid artery and protrudes through the skin of my neck. Blood half sprays, half dribbles from the site of the protrusion and I begin to choke, I begin to drown in my own blood. The laboratory technician looks on without the slightest shadow of emotion and then starts screaming. She is screaming so loud it sounds like tearing glass. She is clutching her face, her eyes wide in horror. She is digging her fingers into the flesh around her eyes, dragging her nails down to her cheeks leaving bleeding, jagged trails. She begins to shake violently in fright and pain as she plunges her thumbs into her eye sockets and attempts to force her eyes out the black, bleeding holes. Suddenly, there is darkness...there is still silence.

My Job Is Better Than Your Job, Even Though It Pays Much Less // A Thank You To My Readers.

2010-01-19T14:59:00.000-10:00

Your job is boring. It's probably pointless, too. It's probably not only pointless, it's probably not even necessary. Think about what you do for work. Do you file papers? Do you answer phones? Do you mail fliers, brochures, information packages, forms, documents in triplicate? Do you wash dogs? Do you deliver pizza? Do you make coffee? Do you install alarms, doorbells, buzzers, lights, sinks, rubbish disposals? Did you go to school and earn a business degree? Do you manage a business? Do you have a company car? Do you have your own office? Do you make a lot of money? Can you, beyond paying your bills and getting yourself exquisite little coffee drinks and other such frivolities justify what you're doing? Do you need to do it? If you walked out on any given work day, what would happen? Would someone be devastated? Would someone's world as they know it come screeching to a halt just long enough to be shattered into a thousand pieces? Probably not. It would probably be little more than a slight inconvenience which would undoubtedly be shouldered by your now-former co-workers until someone could be found to replace you. And if they left, it would probably be just as little of an inconvenience that their former co-workers would grumble on about, but all would be forgotten when another stack of applications were tossed into some poor paper-pushing drone's inbox.

Side Note:
There are, of course, exceptions to the above statements. Most of you probably fit under the exception umbrella. To those of you that do not, perhaps it's a good time to evaluate what you're doing and resolve to do something you feel makes a difference, regardless of the pay cut. It's not my place to make assumptions or judgments about what a person does to get by, but if you're offended or off put by the statements in the above paragraph, there's a good chance you're just outside the exception umbrella, and feeling a bit defensive because you just got called out for being useless.

I do not make a lot of money at my job. I do not care. When I saw the advertisement, I hadn't even finished reading it before I had a cover letter written with my resume attached, and just as quickly as I had arranged my information I clicked the "send" button. I was called for an interview immediately.

The money doesn't interest me as much as the work. Every day is stressful to the verge of insanity. Every day is urgent, every matter pressing above all others, every responsibility is of the utmost importance. And if the tasks I find myself burdened with within the span of a twelve hour shift do not get taken care of with the highest degree of urgency, accuracy and grace...someone's world screeches to a halt just long enough to be shattered into a million infinitesimal fragments.

If I, or others like me, don't carry out our tasks and tend to our responsibilities there are many heavy repercussions.

"The physicality of a human corpse is undeniable. It is a carcass, with a predisposition to decay, to become noisome, obnoxious to the senses, and harrowing to the emotions. Disposal of such perishable remains is imperative."
-Ruth Richardson

It is of absolute necessity to respond to these matters seriously and promptly, whether or not there are family members present. For sanitation, it is important to "wrap things up" quickly and carefully. For the sake of sparing families further trauma it is important to be as gentle, precise and compassionate as possible.

If I were to quit my job during a call, a dead body would remain right where it lie until someone else came to pick it up. That could be minutes, or it could be days if I failed to notify someone. If a family were present at the time of canceled removal, they would respond with shock, anger and I'm quite certain a great deal of tears. This would be remembered forever (on the time-line of the remainder of their lives) and would have a monumentally negative and lasting impact.

I may make light of certain situations, find humour in some and drive like a madman in still others, but it's all essential to my line of work.

I feel for every family I come in contact with. I understand their loss, having experienced many of my own. I treat each person I have been called upon to take into my care as though they are my own family member. Because of the mental weight I carry, it is important for me to be able to laugh about things, no matter how morbid the humour may be, and it is important for me to get where I'm going quickly so that families and funeral arrangements are not missed or delayed on account of my tardiness.

I just want everyone to know that I'm not a soulless maniac. Kinda.

Without further adieu, I'll step off my soap box and continue with the dark and sordid details of what has become my daily existence.

Thank you for tuning in.

Green Embalming Method.

2010-01-17T18:42:00.000-10:00

I've found myself in yet another shitty-looking prep room in the back of some dumpy mom-and-pop funeral home, seven thousand miles away from civilization. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead and in an odd way make the assorted corpses look more "lifelike". Uniformly shaped and sized plastic bottles filled with chalky pastel liquids line one wall. Orange sherbet in one, lemon chiffon in another. Strawberry milk, Key lime pie, watermelon smoothie, plain milk, red dye, Easter egg purple. The array of soft pinks and oranges and purples somehow remind me of mass-produced pastries and cheap bakery cupcakes you may have eaten during holidays and birthdays in the fourth grade. The kind with cake like dish sponge and frosting like colored Barbasol. Each of these chemicals will later be poured into an embalming machine and pumped through the vascular system of some lucky contestant.

I have my usual entourage in tow, a couple of dead people, their asses undoubtedly caked with shit by this point, either from their lack of muscle control or my driving, or possibly a combination of the two. One of them is relieved to have arrived at his destination, I'm sure. The other has several more hours of sharp turns, swearing, loud music and metal to the floor to endure before they can rest. If I'm awake at this hour, there's no reason they shouldn't be.

The funeral director steps into the room. He is a slight man, small but strong. He has firm features and a well-kept look about him. He extends his hand for me to shake. "Good morning," he says, "a pleasure to make your acquaintance." These formalities and nice-makings are the standard operating procedure for every transfer, pick-up or drop-off that has been conducted since the Egyptians perfected embalming. "Likewise," I say, as I extend my hand. Remember to use sanitizer, I tell myself.

"What have you got for me?" He asks.
"Male, age 63, cause of death unknown, found by a family member about three hours ago." The director pulls aside the plastic and moves the wrap-sheet. Inside, a borderline decomp body that's been sitting for a good couple days. "Oh well, that's not so bad," he says, casually tossing a corner of the wrap-sheet back over the face, "not compared to my other little problem." He motions to a nearby embalming table, topped with a now typical site, the form of a body covered by a white sheet. "What's so special about this one?" I ask. He chuckles and moves over to the embalming table then looks over to me with quite a large smile on his face as he pulls the sheet back. Soylent Green is people. Interesting.

On the table is the body of a rather ambiguous looking creature. Hair short enough to be a man but long enough to be a woman. Features plump enough to be either a he person or a fat she person. But the most notable characteristic of this particular individual is the color of their skin. I've seen purple, I've seen rotting, splotchy, mottled shades of red and brown and yellow, but never before have I seen green. Secondary color wheel green. This person could be mistaken for a Green Bay fan. The skin is grass green, a perfect marriage of equal parts blue and yellow. Unmistakeably, undeniably, unmissably green. A little shocked, a little amused, I can't help but laugh. "Oh, my. What is this condition?" He's been dying for me to ask him that since before I even arrived, I'm quite sure.

"Well," he begins, "when a person dies, if they've been dealing with some liver failure or kidney problems they usually have some degree of jaundice [yellowing of the skin caused by increased levels of unprocessed bilirubin], when the formalin mixes with the bile in the body it turns everything green."
"Hmm, interesting." I am truly interested. "And this is typical of all cases of jaundice?"
"Yes, it's normal. I warned the family that this would happen and they said they didn't care. They wanted an open casket viewing."
"That's odd. It seems that may be a bit unsettling, and that perhaps they won't be ready for that."
"Oh shit no, they never are. But, you just do what they ask as long as they pay for it."
"I suppose so."
"Yeah, they're coming in tomorrow for the viewing."
"Outstanding."
"The problem is, is you tell them about it, and they say it's ok, but somehow they forget and they get here and think that you botched the embalming."
"Understandable. So what do you do to remedy this little pickle, no pun intended?"
"Lots of makeup. Well, hell, I should get to it. What was your name again?"

Color me green with envy.

Only By The Night.

2010-01-17T07:45:00.000-10:00

The days and the nights have begun to blur together. The go-to-sleep chemicals come on too strong, too early, only to be extinguished by the stay-awake chemicals. I can't tell what is real and what is a dream. I'm having increasing difficulty remembering where I was, when something happened or if it really happened at all. I'm starting to see things that aren't there, or that are there but look different. What I thought was a cow running across I-205 South turned out to be nothing more than someone commuting. What looked like a half-buried corpse digging out of the ground turned out to be a tacky Christmas decoration someone was lazy about putting away.

Falling asleep on the highway. There is heavy metal music blaring in our ears, but only one of us hears it. I am swerving in and out of traffic and punching myself in the face to stay awake. It's not working.

A Strange Night In Nowhere.

2010-01-14T05:24:00.001-10:00

There are funeral homes, morgues and mortuaries in the farthest reaches of rural America. They exist in basements, through back alleys, at the end of gravel roads and down two-lane highways that stretch for miles through the dark.

I am driving. It is late. I should have been off work four hours ago. The lines on the road begin to blur. Headlights from vehicles in the oncoming lane flash and burn like stripes of fire in my eyes. I have been driving for a long time.

In the middle of nowhere in rural Washington, the roads all look the same. They shoot straight out for miles without intersecting or twist and wind so terribly that if you don't end up over the edge, at the very least you end up lost.

After nearly an hour, fifty miles and a dozen wrong turns, my GPS unit alerts me that I have arrived at my destination. I don't believe it. I check a mailbox against my paperwork. Well shit, what do you know, I have arrived at my destination.

It is a long, steep driveway leading up to a large house on top of a hill. There appears to be enough space to turn around at the top, so I proceed nose-in only to soon find out that not only are there about a dozen cars at the house in addition to the Sheriff's vehicle, there is not room to turn around.

The sheriff approaches me, "Do you have a business card?" "I do, standby." I fumble through my book for a moment before finding business cards both for the transport service and for the funeral home the decedent will be taken to. "Are you the only one?" asks the officer. "Negative, I have plus one en route, arriving in approximately four minutes." Just as the officer finishes taking my information, Jocko (my partner for the evening) arrives. Three minutes and thirty-eight seconds. He attempts to back up the steep driveway in a full-sized Chevrolet cargo van. Negative. I walk back down the drive and tell him to stage his vehicle at the bottom of the hill, informing him that I have already positioned my vehicle near the residence.

Together we walk back up the hill and are met by Carl, the next of kin. "I'm Carl, what's the plan?" I shake his hand and introduce myself then begin to explain our process as we walk toward the house, climb the steps and enter. I stop for a minute when I realize there are approximately thirty family and friends gathered. "So you're going to do what now?" the N.O.K. asks? "Before we begin there are a few details I need to get for our records." I dispense with the niceties and take down vital information. What was his D.O.B.? What time did he pass? Was he married, widowed, other? Was he a veteran? What is his SSN? Et cetera. After the information is taken he leads us to a closed door near the living room, which is currently crowded with family members, friends, onlookers.

The smell hits me like a hammer blow to the face, the sick sulfur stench of human shit and a body nearly on the rot. I am standing now in the room with my partner, the N.O.K., his brother and the sheriff.

The body lies on a bed, fully covered by blankets and a comforter. I approach the head and begin to pull the blankets back to see what kind of grim scene we're working with tonight...and grim never disappoints. The face of the decedent is purple, yellow and shades of deep green and blue around the jaw. The man's head is swollen to the size of a basketball. His shirt unbuttoned down to the sternum, I can see that his chest is purple as well. "Was he moved at some point?" I ask the N.O.K. "Yes, when we found him he was half in bed, half on the floor, his upper body hanging out of the bed. We put him back in." Post-mortem stain, or discoloration as a result of settling blood indicated that he had died face-down. There were spots of yellow on the sheets and some on the floor from where the decedent had fallen, vomited, perhaps aspirated, died, continued to purge post-mortem and then leaked bodily fluids for however long he had been lying there before someone moved him. "Ok. If you're ready for us to proceed we'll step out for a moment and get our equipment. If anyone wants a last moment with him they can certainly have one, but I do not advise it under these circumstances." "Oh, I agree," says the N.O.K. "that's why we covered him up and shut the door, we didn't want anyone to see him like this. We'll make sure everyone stays out of the room." With that, Jocko and I exit and retrieve our transport cot from the van.

As we pass by the front window on our way back into the house, I notice that everyone has gathered in the room. Outstanding. We wait for a moment before we are signaled to enter.

This time we shut the door behind us. It is myself, Jocko and the sheriff at this time. Gloves on. Plastic over the cot. One, two, three, transfer from bed to cot. Wrap body. Buckle straps and tighten. Zip up body bag. Exit.

As the cot enters the living room everyone stops and stares. There is an infinite moment of complete silence and shock before a woman starts weeping loudly. At once, those gathered raise their voices in a song so loud the only other thing I can hear is the periodic punctuation of the woman's cries.

We exit the residence and load the decedent into my transport vehicle and debrief with the officer on scene for a moment, all the while the family continues to sing.

It is the middle of the night. I am standing on a hill listening to singing and crying.

=====

I arrive at the funeral home about an hour later, unload my passenger at the rear entrance and wheel the cot into the prep room where I am met by the funeral home owner. "Hi," he says, as he extends his hand to shake. I shake his hand and notice his index finger is nothing more than a gnarled stub. I try not to act shocked. "I have a Mr. Johnson for you." "Okay," he says, "right over here."

We transfer him from my cot to an embalming table and the funeral director begins to unwrap the body from the plastic. "Where did you say you picked him up? How long had he been there? Were there a lot of people there? Were they singing?" He goes on and on. Yes, there were many people there. Yes, they were singing. "Oh no..." he says, "this is old Papadopulos." "Was he a friend to you?" "Yes," the funeral director says, "a dear friend." He stares fondly into the swollen, disfigured face. "I am sorry to have to deliver this bad news to you like this." I say to him. "Oh, it's ok. Man, he needs some mouthwash" he says. He reaches for a squirt bottle filled with blue liquid and sprays several shots of what smells like mouthwash into the face and mouth of the decedent.

Without saying another word I hand him his copies of the paperwork and leave.

Procurement..

2010-01-12T18:30:00.000-10:00

As many of you know, should something untimely happen to you, you have the option to donate your organs for transplant or for scientific research. It's safe to bet that you have an idea about the process. I first thought that surgeons operated on the body with great care and were very precise about the procedure, and that after the organs had been carefully removed from the body, it was then sewn back up and sent back to the family for an open casket or for cremation. Well, I was only partially right about the process, but not at all right about the order those things happen in.

You may be asking, "If I have agreed to donate my body to science, what happens to me when I die?"

1. Your body may be (but most likely is not) displayed for an open casket funeral.

2. You are placed in a waterproof cardboard and wooden box called an "air container" or a "combo" box, on account of its combination of wood and cardboard.

3. You are placed in a refrigeration unit for a few days, then taken from the cooler (wherever you may be), placed into a cooled cargo space on an airplane, and flown to a city with a procurement organization.

4. Once on the ground, you are picked up at the airport, transported to the procurement organization and logged in, then placed in another cooler until it's time to be "operated" on.

5. Once the "surgeon" has made his way through the bodies that came in before you, it's your turn. The surgeon looks at the list of needed parts, opens the box, takes your body out and puts it on a table, and begins his "operation".

6. The operation, however, is nothing more than being routinely and quickly cut open and hacked apart with an assortment of scalpels and saws and having the bits and pieces that are on the needed list removed before your entire body is reduced to a pile of skin and blood, sometimes just blood...because the skin may have been needed.

7. Whatever is left of you is scooped up off the table into a biohazard bag, tied shut and placed into a 36x18x24" cardboard box and picked up by a funeral service, then driven back to their facilities.

8. You are removed in the box from the back of the van and placed into one of the retorts, where you are cremated.

9. Your ashes are collected, bagged and boxed, then sent BACK to the procurement organization.

10. The procurement organization signs for the cremated remains, then mails them back to your family, as if the entire process was handled right there on site, under their care.

You can go out weighing 250, and come back in a box weighing 29lbs. The ultimate post-mortem diet plan, for those of us tight-of-wallet.

You Can Keep The Tie, Thank You.

2010-01-07T20:52:00.000-10:00

Slowly I was lifted out of the fluid warmth of my dreams into the concrete cold of the real, and awoke in darkness to the sounds of heavy wind. Confused and half-asleep I reached over the edge of the bed and felt around for my phone. Once located, I fumbled with the buttons until one lit the screen up. I covered my eyes, its dim light blinding in the blackness. It was 0300 hours.

Without stretching, with no morning workout, I rose stiff and staggering like a B-Movie zombie, my joints popping, my muscles practically screaming as they stretched along my frame of bone and blood and fat. After several minutes of walking aimlessly through the house I returned to my room where I feebly pulled my socks over my feet, buttoned down my stinking filthy shirt, pulled on my pants and tied my tie. I've been using the four-in-hand knot, as it is simple and preferred by most funeral directors. My personal favorite, however, is the half Windsor, but I've grown to appreciate the artistic asymmetry of the four-in-hand.

A couple hours later I arrived at work and before my partner and I were finished preparing for our shift a call came in. The workload maintained that pace for the entirety of the day.

=====

1030 hours.

"She's got HIV man, drop her." is what I thought my partner said, as my second pick-up of the day uncontrollably vomited blood onto my tie. "WHAT?!" I shouted. "I SAID BE CAREFUL MAN DON'T DROP HER." Fuck. The mind plays tricks on you when the body next to you has ceased to live.

She was cold and stiff with rigor, having died some time in the night. There was blood on the pillow by her mouth and she clutched bloody Kleenex in her hands. She had not gone peacefully in her sleep. A look of pain and horror was frozen on her purple face. We turned her body to tuck a sheet under her, turned her again to pull it under and wrap it around her so we could pull her from the bed to our cot. The smell of cold feces was heavy in the air, unmistakable. Blood spattered and sprayed from her nose and mouth each time we moved her with sickening gagging and gurgling noises.

Initially, we thought the cot would not make it through the narrow mobile home hallway and into the small bedroom we found ourselves in on this particular morning. Our plan was to park the cot in the hall and pick her up gently and lay her onto the cot. Once she started vomiting blood and bile onto the bed and floor, we somehow made the cot fit into the room, as we did not want the family, who waited patiently in the living room just down the hall, to see our little horrorshow happenings.

We spoke in bursting whispered shouts through gasps for air and struggled with our uncooperative friend for several minutes before getting her to the edge of the bed. "Just grab her here and we'll pull on three, ok?" One...two...three...a solid tug followed by a sloshing sound in the body and a split second later a gag and full mouthful of blood spat from the post mortem's mouth onto my tie, which was hanging down in her face; over the edge of the bed and onto my shoes. "FUCK" I whisper-screamed. "It's cool man, we're almost there," my partner replied. At long last we had our friend on the cot. We pulled the plastic up and over the body, buckled her onto the cot, zipped the bag around her and then wrestled the cot through the door and into the hallway, where we tried our best to look cool and collected. It was well received.

A lot of this business is smooth sailing. However, every once in a while something like this will come along. I think the best thing to compare it to is accidentally farting in front of a new significant other. It can only go one of two ways, and the time between the fart and their reaction seems like an eternity. They will either be cool with it, or it will be a disaster. We waited for what seemed like ten thousand hours until her sister finally said "Thank you so much". It was ok.

Back in the van, we each lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and didn't look back as my partner pulled away from the house.

"I don't like fuckin' with that blood shit, Carter." I said to him.
"I know it man, I could tell from the look on your face."

The first call phone rings. Carter answers. "This is Carter. Alright, we're heading there directly." Another one.

Day Shift.

2010-01-06T02:15:00.000-10:00

It is 04:15 and I am sick. Partially from quitting smoking and partially due to recycled meatwagon AC. Breathing in the dead.

Today I am on the day shift, working with a new partner.

Night shift is pretty straightforward. Minimal paperwork, a lot of calls and little interaction with administration.

On day shift there are more things to take care of, like filing and picking up death certificates, running paperwork to and from county facilities, funeral homes, hospitals and nice-making with staff. I do not particularly like any of these things. I prefer the "vampire life", I always have.

The nightmares have subsided for the most part, for now. That or they've ceased to be frightening because I've grown to enjoy them.

There is a spider on the wall in front of me I do not have the heart to kill. Walking slowly, stopping. Spiders come around when you have not cleaned the cobwebs from your life.

It is dark and quite stormy, the rain coming down sideways, pushed about furiously by the wind. I do not know what awaits.

Two Days Somehow Turns Into Six.

2010-01-04T22:48:00.000-10:00

The shift near an end, I find myself above the city, overlooking it all. The deep blue-black of night has begun to brighten as the sun prepares to make an appearance just beyond the horizon. From this height the city lights look like diamonds strewn about the landscape. Distant homes, offices, coffee shops, diners and vehicles shine and shimmer gently down below. A brilliant blue and yellow IKEA sign gives the vast bejeweled expanse away. There are no instructions, only images.

Delirium had set in hours ago, maybe around 0400. My partner and I had been slammed with calls all night. As we finished one, another would come in, first two, then three...finally six. A house an hour away. A hospital morgue an hour away. A home two counties over. Another home two hours away. A hospital somewhere else. At the end of the fourteen hour shift we had traveled through six different counties and covered 250 miles of road.

I could no longer keep the names and faces straight. Last night's pickups mixed with yesterday's pickups and this morning they were all the same to me. There wasn't enough coffee in the world.

A few hours prior, my partner and I are standing in the basement cooler of a mortuary in the lower section of the city. He picks something up off a nearby rack and hands it to me. It is a Ziploc freezer bag with a brightly colored blanket wadded up inside. The colors remind me of something fun, festive, like Birthday Cake ice cream with sprinkles on it. "There's your first dead baby," he says. The sheer unexpectedness of the event perfectly deflects any feelings of shock or sadness and allows me to process this without emotional accommodation. "Oh," I reply, "Just like that, is it?" "Yes," he says, "and for the record, when you see something like that, it's a dead baby, it's not trash that someone forgot." Examining the bag and its contents, it did look a bit like a bag of colorfully printed paper towels, something that someone may have at some point in a hectic night wiped their hands on and put in a bag to contain a mess and then forgotten in a cooler...somewhere. I opened the bag and pushed aside the blanket. One small baby, very small indeed. Two tiny hands, then very tiny fingers. "It's doesn't quite look like trash," I say. "You'd be surprised," he says as takes the bag from my hands, zips it closed and places it back on the rack, "There was a guy a while back, didn't work for us, but a new guy for someone else, came in and found a bag like that and thought it was just someone's trash and threw it away. The garbage got emptied, the next morning the dumpsters got picked up by Waste Management and two days later one of the morticians went into the cooler to process the cremation for this family's baby...and it was just gone. Huge law suit." Grim. We transfer our drop-off from our removal cot to a rolling cooler table and lock up.

As we're leaving my partner hugs the girl working night shift. Back in the van I say "What's that all about, hero?" "Oh yeah, we've been fuckin' for like three months. Sometimes I'll drop a body off late at night, and she'll be the only one here. We'll go upstairs and fuck and then I'll leave." Grim. Exciting.

And we're off again. Nearly an hour passes driving, each of us silent in our sleep deprivation. "Look at the bright side," I say to him, breaking the silence like a sledge to a block of ice, "at least we get to watch the sun come up together." We begin to laugh...two delirious people that just needed an excuse to laugh.

Your Family Member Is The Only Person To Ever Die.

2010-01-03T20:09:00.001-10:00

In the basement of yet another funeral home, wrapping a body in standard white plastic, taping at the ankles, knees, thighs and chest with the tape gun. Writing in black marker the name of the funeral home, the name of the deceased, the date of death.

Just an hour earlier I stood in the living room with a fully dysfunctional (non-functional) family as they talked over one another and yelled drunkenly about the deceased. I stood there with the slightest solemn smile on my lips, one that projected an image of competence, understanding, compassion. Beneath the surface, however, I just don't give a shit about their problems. I'm here for one reason, and that is to take what's due. Talk to a family counselor, talk to a loved one, explain, cry, grieve, be bereaved...but don't think talking to me will change what just happened. I don't care, and it's not out of callousness or disrespect, it's because it's not unique. It's treated as though it's unique but it's not. It's someone's job. It's an in-at-six-a.m., out-at-six-p.m., change-the-gloves, vacuum-the-wagon, shine-the-shoes, straighten-the-tie-job for someone. And tonight, that someone is me.

So there I was, standing stock still and dead silent, nodding at intervals to agree with what my partner was saying and to reassure the family that everything was truly going to be ok. We transferred the body from the bed the family had set up in the living room over to our removal cot, folded the plastic sheeting around the body and zipped the bag up to the chest, leaving that sleeping face uncovered for the family's final goodbye. "We'll just step out for a moment and let you have a final moment with your loved one."

We stepped out into the cold, crisp night, not stopping to stare at the stars in wonder, but going straight for our respective cellular phones to send texts and keep an eye on how long the family is dragging this thing out.

After ten minutes we are motioned to. They are ready for us to enter the house and take their loved on into our care. We move the cot through the living room slowly and carefully. All the while I am thinking to myself "It would be absolute horrorshow if I dropped my end right now", literally exuberant at the thought of being the fuck out of this house.

Our new friend in tow, we pull away from the house slowly.

"Let's go to 7-11 or something man, I'm fucking thirsty."

The Cat's Still In The Cradle.

2010-01-03T14:30:00.000-10:00

December 29th, 2009

Opening the door to the cooler I discover that it is once again full. On each rack a neatly wrapped white plastic package. Very orderly, very clean. Unfortunately, I had come back with two more individuals that needed to be weighed, logged in and placed in the cooler, and there was no room. This is where a little improvisation goes a long way. Instead of double stacking on the cooler, we (my boss and I) decide to move the new bodies off removal cots and place them on the rolling body tables for temporary storage in the cooler.

After transferring the first body from the removal cot to the rolling table, my boss instructs me to locate another rolling table for the second body. After a quick look around I spot one propped up against a wall between two retorts (cremation machines) behind a display casket on rollers. I grab the sides of the casket to move it out of the way, thinking it will be light...but it is not.

"Jesus Christ, why is this display so fuckin' heavy?" I ask, frustratedly.
"It's not a display".
"What? What do you mean it's not a display? What the fuck is it then?"
"Yeah, some family couldn't pay to have the casket buried after the embalming. Spent all the money on the casket and service and forgot to pay for a plot."
"Jesus, are you fucking serious, man?"
"Yeah."
"You mean there's someone in there?"
"Yeah"
"That is seriously fucked off. How long have they been there?"
"Hmm..." he pauses for a moment to think before continuing "Since early September maybe?"

A quick double-check of the cooler log confirms that today's date is in fact the 29th day of December in this year of Our Lord 2009. "Wow" is all I can say.

========

January 2nd - 3rd, 2010

Me: "Did you know that casket out by the cooler has someone in it?"
Partner: "Yeah it's been there for like eight months."

Me: "What? Boss said it was only since September."
Partner: "Shit no, man...we did that one at the beginning of the summer."

Me: "Ok. So what's the plan for it?"
Partner: "I don't know. Nobody's paid for it, so...I guess it's just going to sit
until someone does."

Me: "Weird."
Partner: "Yeah. Hey, a couple of the guys opened it the other day to see what the body looked like, it was pretty gnarly."

Me: "Like, how bad?"
Partner: "It was all falling apart and there was liquid stains all inside and it was all green and shitty looking."

Me: "Weird."
Partner: "Yeah. Hey, let's go make some coffee."

Me: "Yeah, I'm getting tired."

Full Post

2010-01-02T00:35:00.000-10:00

From time to time, depending on what we have to remove from the Medical Examiner's office (or what happens in my strange dreams), I may use the terms "Full Post", "Post", "PME" or some other variation. To clarify, each and any of these terms unless otherwise specified, refers to a medical examination conducted on a body in post mortem state. To avoid confusion, PME is an abbreviation for Post Mortem Examination (autopsy).

This being an area of particular current interest to me, I've included a video of a typical post mortem examination. That's all the warning you get.

Persistence of Vision.

2009-12-30T05:24:00.000-10:00

The subject was a 16-year-old male. C.O.D. was unknown at this point and an examination was in order to help determine what had ended the young man's life. He lay on the examination table, mouth slightly agape, filmy eyes staring at nothing.

The examiner, a tall and serious looking black man, prepared for the examination by first washing his hands. He then donned and tied a paper apron and face mask and stretched a latex glove over each hand, releasing each with a snap.

Next to the exam table was another table, considerably smaller, but also stainless steel. On a blue absorb-a-sheet several tools were laid out. An assortment of scalpels, forceps, small surgical scissors and one large pair of pruning shears. Upon inquiry, the medical examiner explained that they were used for "making clean cuts through those ribs to remove the chest plate, you can't saw through that shit, it makes a mess."

He selected a scalpel with a wide blade to make the "Y" incision. As the blade sunk into the skin on the young man's shoulder, the body jolted suddenly. The examiner jumped back, dropping the scalpel to the floor. "Damn. Sometimes that shit happens. I've heard about it but I've never seen it before. Shit scared me." I could almost see the nervous smile beneath the paper mask. He stooped down, picked up the scalpel and as he rose wiped the blade on the absorbent pad. He slowly continued the incision down to the middle of the chest, carefully cutting through the flesh and thin layers of fat and muscle. He pushed the blade into the opposite shoulder hesitantly, as though expecting the body to shudder again, before drawing the blade down to meet with the end of the first incision. As he began the incision to complete the "Y" the young man's hands gripped the edges of the table, knuckles white and popping. His back arched sharply, his head turned to the side and as he fixed his filmy gaze upon me he opened his mouth and began to scream.

I shot upright in the dark, gasping. A nightmare. I sat for a moment staring ahead into the complete darkness, waiting for my eyes to adjust and fix on anything real, anything that wasn't a nightmare. After several minutes I laid back down and calm returned to me. I began breathing deeply and rhythmically and before long found myself in another dream.

This time I was in an apartment building. A towering glass structure which housed rich young men of money, business importants and myself. My apartment was on the very top floor which belonged only to me. On all sides were windows, thick, couble-paned glass which allowed me to see the wide world in all directions. The sun shone down and lit the apartment. It was quite impressive. The sun drew higher into the sky, seeming to shine brighter. It began to get hot in my apartment on the top floor. The sun grew brighter and brighter still, to the point of nearly blinding me. I was sweating, the air was thick and humid and it began to burn my mouth to inhale it...then in an instant the sun burned out and I was in the dark. Bright yellow spots persisted in my vision for what seemed like hours before my eyes began to adjust to the lightless world around me. I walked blindly through the apartment, bumping into furniture, fumbling for a light switch. After what seemed like a long while my fingers, trembling, felt out a plastic plate on a wall somewhere and flipped the switch. The hum of hundred neon lights sounded like industrial machinery in the quiet black. The lights flickered and tinged before snapping on. I closed my eyes against the pain of the new light and as I reopened them I realized I was not where I thought I was.

All around me were examination tables, each in a varying state of uncleanliness. Some were spattered with fresh blood, some crusted with the brown-black blood of weeks and months ago. Scalpels, clamps, saws and scissors scattered on every table. Near me a sloshing noise caught my attention. I looked to my left and saw that the table nearest me was piled with organs, dumped from the cavity of a posted cadaver. Lungs, intestine, kidneys, stomach, spleen and on top of the pile, a sloshing still-beating heart.

I awoke once more, alone in the pitch black. This is my new world.

Day One.

2009-12-26T19:05:00.000-10:00

I stood in the early morning cold, barely visible through the thick of the fog. A dark apparition, stock still on a city street. A modern day Grim Reaper.

On my feet; parade glossed black lace ups by Bostonian. Black Nautica socks. Black suit pants and jacket by Covington. A white shirt by Kenneth Cole NY offset by a solid black silk tie from the Donald J. Trump collection. Over everything I wore a black wool pea coat by Calvin Klein and at my side, a Solo briefcase containing important papers and bits to eat throughout the day.

I'd been standing on the corner of a numbered street where it intersected with one of the city's main thoroughfares, waiting for a city bus for some time. Just as I began to grow impatient it arrived, lumbering slowly like an aged beast, smoke spewing from its stacks and disappearing into the fog. It lurched to a stop and the doors opened in front of me, welcoming me in out of the cold. I stepped into the warmth and as inserted two crisp dollar bills into the money box, the driver bid me "Merry Christmas" and handed me a transfer slip. "And to you as well" I replied, as I passed to find a seat. I took a seat near a window on the passenger side of the bus, checked the time on my transfer ticket and slipped it into the left inside pocket of my coat. Situating my briefcase in the seat next to me, I settled and watched the buildings pass as the bus began to move, creaking and shuttering toward my destination.

By noon I was swimming through the sickly sweet smell of rotting flesh at the Medical Examiner's Office. I had come to pick up a full post male, age 33, for cremation.

He lie mannequin still on a stainless steel table in the cold, cut from shoulder to shoulder and down to the pubic bone, the incision stopping just above his penis. His organs had been routinely cut, each one separated from their sacs and sheaths, examined, then dumped back into the hollowed out bowl that was his chest and stomach. Blood spattered the inside of the clear plastic and I could clearly see into the body cavity, nearly to the throat. Ribbons of white fat stained with blood which had begun to turn yellow marbled the bright red meat where the ribs had been cut away.

My partner and I toe tagged the body, put it on the cot for removal and disposed of our soiled latex gloves in a trash can near the door. Since nothing was specifically marked bio-hazard in the room, it was safely assumed that everything was a bio-hazard, and I was particularly careful to not touch anything.

After some pleasantries and holiday well-wishing with the examiner on duty, we rolled the cot and body to the back of the van, loaded it in and set off.

A few miles down the road my partner expressed his disdain in our passenger's brand of cologne. It was nearly lunch time. Today, Lasagna.