Caveat: Expressions Ardently Unfettered

The Funeral Parlor

Elmer O’Rourke had been Director of O’Rourke’s Funeral Parlor for the last ten years, having inherited the business after his father Seamus had passed away. I say “passed away” now; before I worked for Elmer, I had always said “died” in ignorance of my own insensitivity. Apparently, people weren’t supposed to up and die anymore, instead everyone passes away. I never bothered to ask where exactly they pass to. Anyway, Elmer’d had the run of this place for the last ten years, and I’d worked for Elmer for the last three weeks.

Officially I was a funeral attendant. What that meant was that I decorated the chapels and helped carry caskets. On occasion I had to wash a hearse, which I had a lot of fun with. I’d go to a different hand wash station every time, to keep the surprise fresh. I didn’t usually do anything more morose than requesting that the back be vacuumed well, although I tend to keep an empty in there for effect. Once I was out drinking with a buddy, both of us were hitting the sauce pretty heavy, and he passed out. Being nearly as inebriated as he was, I still can’t figure out how I managed to get him into the empty coffin inside the hearse. But I got him in, alright, and drove about fifteen miles to an all night hand car wash. I left the lid open on the coffin and my immobilized friend. None of the workers said anything about it to me, but they were all white in the face when I drove away.

Right now I was in the Parlor’s office and Elmer was trying to ask me something, but my attention was stolen away by the dizzying floral pattern of the new wallpaper just behind him. The pattern now permeated every room in the Parlor, like a noxious gas. When I’d asked him what was wrong with the old beige stuff, he’d said it was too depressing, that this was cheerier. I thought it was nauseating. I shook off my distraction and tried to pay attention.

“. . .are in the back closet of the embalming room. Hang them in the main hallway.”

“No problem,” I responded, thinking I’d figure out what I was supposed to hang when I got there.

“John, did you hear what I said?” Elmer asked.

“Sure I did, Elmer. I was just heading for the closet now,” I said stupidly.

“I said after the services are finished for the day. I don’t want you pounding holes in the wall while people are trying to mourn.” He looked down his nose at me, his long, pointed nose set beneath horrible plastic, black-rimmed glasses. All he needed was a moustache and I’d swear he’d bought his face at a gag shop.

“Right, boss,” I said, a little irritated at being found out. “Let me go make sure Chapel Three is all set, then.” He nodded brusquely, looked me over once, then walked away. I was really beginning to hate that man. I threw a piece of Juicyfruit in my mouth and chomped noisily down the hallway.

This wallpaper was truly awful. It had a putrid green background and was overcrowded with clusters of blue flowers. It really made the place seem smaller, almost suffocating. Funeral homes were already uncomfortable places for most people, and Elmer must have decided that he would ease their suffering by inducing claustrophobia. I passed down the dizzying, eerie hallway and went to Chapel Three. Somehow it was worse in there than in the hallway.

I’d sooner trust a blind man to redecorate than Elmer, but this was his place. The wallpaper in here was slightly less horrifying, though cream with pink stripes doesn’t make for somber, either. But the real problem in here was the framed art. I suppose Elmer thought he was being cultured, when he was actually inappropriate on several levels. On the wall behind the open casket, just to the right, hung a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. To the left hung Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Both of these timeless, beautiful figures hung suspended, smiling down serenely at death in a box. And there sat the mourning family, quaking beneath these beauteous forms that mocked their pain. Elmer, you’re an idiot.

Everything looked ready, so I left the family to their personal grieving before others started to arrive. Not wanting to be found and assigned another job, I went toward the embalming room, ostensibly to see just what was in the closet that I was supposed to hang.

Once I exited the part of the building that served as the funeral home, the atmosphere completely changed. Bluish carpeting gave way to off-white tile and metallic instruments. Outside of here, death was real and painful and personal. In here, death was mundane and distant.

Dan, our resident embalmer, was working on a corpse at the moment. He looked up and grinned when I walked in.

“Hey, Johnny, how’s it hangin’?” he asked casually. I had to stop for a second and regain a little composure. I’d only been here three weeks, so I was gradually becoming acclimated to seeing bodies every day.

“Not bad. How ‘bout yourself? How are the old stiffs?” I inquired lightly.

“Got one more in the fridge. Might not get to her, though, if this one don’t stop making eyes at me, right sweetheart?” I have to admit, sometimes I admire Dan. He might be a little out there, but you have to be to do what he does and still wake up every morning with a smile on your face. I managed to tear my eyes away from the shell of a human being on the table and strolled over to the back closet.

Opening the door, the sterility of the embalming room disappeared as twinkling particles of dust floated out. I stepped back a moment as the haze settled itself like a blanket onto the floor in front of me. This building was old, and some parts of it had never been cared for. I looked around inside the closet for whatever I was supposed to hang. The only possibilities were a couple of old frames standing against each other behind a mop. I reached for them, feeling the layer of grime over cheap, wooden frames. I wiped off the glass with my sleeve and saw that they contained, not more inappropriate art, but words. Poems. Two by some guy named John Keats. One was called “A Thing of Beauty” and the other “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” I read a couple lines of each before deciding that they were completely beyond me. After all, I only had a high school education. Maybe Elmer understood them.

I brought them over to an empty counter, one far enough away from Dan and his “sweetheart,” and cleaned them off with some disinfectant. Once I figured I had gotten rid of most of the crud, I stood back and surveyed my work. Boy, they looked dingy. But, Elmer wanted them up, and framing art was not in my job description, so up they would go, as is.

As I headed for the door with the frames, Dan turned for a moment and I saw the woman he was working on. She couldn’t have been more than fifty when she died. She lay almost as if she were sleeping, audaciously nude. But I knew she was forever cold and stiff and uncomprehending. The makeup being plastered on her face was a macabre imitation of beauty. No matter how many layers he put on, Dan would never be able to make her open her eyes again.

I shivered and walked out the door.

I was back in the pleasantly uncomfortable atmosphere that this sort of place naturally instills in its inhabitants. Screw Elmer. I was going to hang the damn pictures and take off early. A place like this can really get to a guy after a while, and I think it was starting to get to me. I didn’t know where Elmer had gone, but I managed to find a hammer to put in a couple studs. As I hammered them into the wall, I hoped there weren’t any crazies around who thought the pounding might be the footsteps of doom.

I got them on the wall, almost straight, too. That being done, I stepped outside to have a cigarette before ducking out early for the day. All of my crucial responsibilities were taken care of, so I thought I’d relax for a minute and then take off.

I sat down on the bench outside the front door. Usually, during services, there was someone there, but today it was raining. Even though the bench was situated under a small awning, most people opted to sit inside. Taking my lighter from my pants pocket, I lit up and watched the end of the cigarette smolder. It glowed red, the ember trying to consume as much of the material as it could. I took a deep breath and relaxed, glad to finally be out of the stifling funeral parlor.

“Got a light?”

I practically jumped out of my skin. I hadn’t even seen the guy sit down next to me. Relaxing, I handed him my lighter as he pulled out his own pack of smokes. He was wearing a black suit. I knew he was here for services for someone close, or closely related, anyway, otherwise he would have just left after paying his respects. He handed my lighter back to me, and I kept my eyes on my shoes. I hoped to God he wouldn’t try to talk to me about whoever it was that died. As if he’d read my mind, he started to speak.

“My wife’s in there. In the casket, I mean.” He took a long drag on his cigarette and I didn’t respond. Even if I wanted to, what was there I could say? His eyes were unfocused, but it didn’t seem that he’d been crying. I prayed he didn’t try to start on my shoulder.

“She was twenty-eight years old,” he continued, not caring whether or not I was interested. “She was runner up twice for Miss Illinois.” He frowned a little, staring at the ground. “God, she was beautiful.” Still I didn’t speak a word. He was silent again for a while. I almost thought he was finished.

“She was hit by a semi truck. Fifty thousand dollar car crumpled like a paper bag. Somehow she survived. But she was banged up good. Paralyzed from the waist down and skin grafts on half her face. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her for a month. When I got up the nerve, I had to leave the room before she could tell how horrified I was. I haven’t seen her since.” I sat there, next to this man, this creep, almost unbelieving that he could be a member of the human race. Any respect or pity for this man I might have had went out the window. I stood up to leave without saying a word.

“But you boys sure did a nice job on her, though. Looks almost brand new.” I stood still, sickened. How could anyone this heartless ever have been married in the first place? Yet the monstrosities continued. “Too bad the doctors couldn’t do that good of a job. I might have brought her back home eventually.” He dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath his shoe.

I was suddenly angry. I wanted to beat the living daylights out of this man. I knew it wasn’t any of my business, but someone really ought to have kicked the crap out of him by now.

Angry but under control, I rose stiffly and made to leave. He didn’t try to deter me with anymore complaints of personal tragedy. Unfortunately, Elmer walked out the door just then, a gnarled scowl beneath those hideous specs.

“John, I’ve been looking for you,” he started in an annoyed –and annoying—manner. “I told you not to hang those frames until after the services were finished for the day. Never mind. Get in here, now. Chapel Four needs some help with floral arrangements.”

“Yeah,” I replied, putting out my own cigarette, “okay, I’m coming.” I grumbled to myself the whole way, irked at not getting off early.

Once back inside, the suffocating feeling resumed. Maybe it has to do with the proximity of death, or maybe it was just the bad decorating. Either way, I could feel a weight resettle on my chest the moment I stepped back inside. When I got to the Chapel, the feeling increased. Services were still going on in there, but a couple of people wanted to take the floral arrangements with them. I began to maneuver the flowers discreetly out the door and into waiting vehicles.

When I came back in for the last one, I passed by the casket and glanced inside momentarily. A young woman with jet black hair and nearly perfect features, except for a faint scar than ran from her right jawbone to just above her left eye. This could only be the wife of the creep I’d met earlier.

At once I became very aware of the people around me. There were whispers and laughter. Some sat in silent contemplation. One couple even appeared to be exchanging phone numbers. Above everything else, I noticed that there wasn’t a single person in attendance who was crying. No sniffling noses, no red-rimmed eyes, not a single tear. The indignity of it made me want to scream at all of them, to demand to know why any of them were here at all.

I stopped mid-stride and set the flowers down where I stood. A confused but nonetheless superior glance from the woman I was supposed to be following didn’t even faze me. I walked right past her and into Elmer’s office.

He was on the phone, but I didn’t care. He’d get the message one way or another.

“Elmer, your decorating sucks and I quit.” I turned around and left before he could even respond.

On my way out I caught sight of the poems I had hung earlier. I glanced at the last two lines on one of them: Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all Ye know on earth and all ye need to know. I didn’t know who this Keats guy was, but I knew he was dead wrong. I grabbed both of the old, beat-up frames on my way out the door and brought them with me as far as the closest dumpster. I was glad to be rid of them when I tossed them in. Far from beautiful, death was the only truth.