For always supporting me and all of my crazy ideas, I love you.
Rebecca Nicole Sylvester
Without her incredible editing this story would never have made it this far.
John Branham
For providing me with original cover art and sarcasm.
“You ain't no pre-vert or nothing are you?”
“What? No!”
“Just makin sure cuz about a year or so back we hired a fella and I come down here to lock up for the night and found him humpin’ a dead high school girl that killed herself with sleeping pills.”
My new boss, Tucker, wasn't at all what I had pictured. For some reason I always assumed that all undertakers were pale, thin, creepy guys in dark suits like in the movie Phantasm. Tucker wasn't any of those things. In fact, he was about as far removed from that stereotype as you could get: Late forties, short, beer gut, flannel shirt, John Deere hat and a seventies porno mustache topping it all off. Not at all what I had pictured when I applied for the job.
It’s a universal rule that during the first few days of any new job you are going to get a little hazing. I’ve learned that you have to roll with the punches and be ready when your new co-workers fuck with you. It's all part of an age old, new employee ritual that probably started around the time people were building pyramids. I could tell that Tucker was testing the waters with me, seeing how far he could push me and if I had a sense of humor, which I've since learned is a requirement for working with dead bodies. He rattled on about people doing crazy things with dead bodies as we made our way down the steps into the basement of the funeral home.
I followed Tucker through a set of double doors at the bottom of the steps and found myself standing in a long white tile hallway. The basement reminded me of a hospital with the obvious exception that everyone here was already dead. There were two sets of large metal doors on the left side of the hallway and two single doors on the right. At the far end was another set of double doors and for some reason they made the hair on the back of my neck stand up when saw them. I took in my new surroundings while Tucker proceeded to give me the lay of the land.
“That’s the office; you can leave your coat and stuff in there if you want.” Tucker pointed to the first doors on the right. “That’s the storage closet.” he nodded to the door next to the office. “The doors at the end of the hall lead to the embalming room where we get people ready for their last hoo-rah.” He chuckled at his own joke and then walked towards the first set of double door to our left. “This is where you will be spending most of your time.” He pushed a metal plate on the wall and the automatic doors swung open. “We call this room the fridge!” Tucker waved a hand towards the doorway as my queue to enter.
Cold storage, or the fridge, looked just like I had imagined. The back wall was a series of stainless steel, three by three, refrigerator doors just like you see in the movies. Each of them was numbered and a little tag hung on the handle with the name of the current resident printed on it. In the middle of the room were two stainless steel gurneys that were thankfully empty at the moment. The only other furniture in the room was a small metal desk and filing cabinet in a corner.
“This will be your kingdom!” Tucker threw his hands out to his sides in mock bravado as he entered the room. “After we finish the tour, I will help you get settled in and explain your duties to you.” He turned and we walked back out into the hall. “That there is the oven.” Tucker pointed with his thumb to the other set of double doors next to the fridge. “That’s where we cremate folks and if you smoke you can sneak a cigarette in there and nobody will be the wiser.” He patted his left shirt pocket, letting me know he had a pack of cigarettes hidden there. Tucker walked over to the office door then stopped. “Now let me introduce you to Lori. She's an artist so be sure to give her shit about her hair!” And with that Tucker threw open the office door.
Lori wasn’t what I had expected, either. She was dressed from head to toe in black, tattooed and pierced wearing black lipstick and eye shadow. Her hair was raven black with the ends dyed blood red. She was sitting at a desk listening to an iPod when we entered the room. She looked up at us from the magazine she was reading rolled her eyes and went right back to her magazine.
“Lori!” Tucker shouted.
She looked up and gave us both a disgusted look before tossing her magazine on the desk and pulling on the wire connected to her ear buds.
“What?” She growled.
“This is Vince.” Tucker said while giving me a few approving slaps on the back. “He will be working over in the fridge and helping out with the embalming.”
“A pleasure, I’m sure.” Lori said while giving me a half hearted smile.
“Lori gets the stiffs dressed and does the make-up and hair.” She rolled her eyes again at Tuckers explanation of her job. “You want some coffee? It should still be pretty fresh.” Tucker pointed to a coffee pot and Styrofoam cups on a nearby table.
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
With coffee in hand Tucker gave me the rest of the tour. The first place he showed me was the storage room. It turned out that it wasn't used for mop buckets and bleach like I had first thought. It looked more like a huge walk in closet. Tucker explained that this was where they kept the clothes family members brought in for their loved ones to be buried in. This was Lori’s domain, and in addition to clothes there was a large cabinet filled with cosmetics, hair care products and all manner of things Lori used to make the dead look more alive. Tucker explained the process of dressing and grooming the bodies and told me that from time to time I might have to assist Lori with this.
In the embalming room Tucker gave me a rundown of what happens to a person once they have “kicked the bucket” as he so delicately put it. I also learned that Tucker was a third generation embalmer and it turns out his great-grandfather was the town first undertaker way back at the turn of the century. Tucker was quite proud of this fact and went on for fifteen minutes telling me stories about his family. After the embalming room, we headed over to the crematorium. I got a basic play-by-play of what happens when a person gets cremated while Tucker chain smoked at least four cigarettes. I was a little shocked to learn that you don't end up as a nice neat pile of ash. He explained that most of the time there are some teeth or little bits of bone left over that don't get burned., all of which just gets dumped into a cardboard box unless the family has purchased an urn.
Over all my first day was going pretty well, and when I checked my watch I realized that it was almost lunch. Tucker and I had returned to the office and I was busy filling out the customary, “first-day-on-the-job” paperwork. We went over the normal stuff like health and dental insurance, contact information if I got hurt, and all the standard information an employer needs to know so you get a pay check at the end of the week. Once we were done Tucker took all the papers and put them in a folder on his desk. He explained to me a little more about what I would be doing and told me that first thing tomorrow we would get down to business showing me the ropes. As we talked I got the feeling that there was something else he wanted to tell me. For the first time all day, Tucker seemed a little out of sorts. He wasn’t making eye contact anymore and seemed like there was something he needed to tell me, but didn’t know how to approach the subject. Finally he leaned back in his chair, rubbed his forehead, and cleared his throat.
/> “Now let me ask you something.” He looked at me very seriously and spoke in a hushed tone. “Have you ever been to a funeral? Ever seen a person get buried in the ground I mean?” I noticed that even Lori had put down her magazine and turned off her iPod to listen to him.
“Yeah, sure. My Grandfather died a few years ago.” In all honesty, I had very little experience with funerals or dead bodies. I only took this job because my unemployment was about to run out and the funeral home called me back and offered me an interview. I never actually thought I would get the job, even if the add said no experience was necessary.
“You ever notice how people aren't just buried in a casket and put in the ground anymore?” Tucker was rubbing his hands together nervously. “Caskets are sealed up and then put in big concrete vaults and then those are sealed up tight. You ever stop and wonder why?”
“Not really. I always assumed it was to keep bodies from rotting or the EPA made you do it or something like that.” I chuckled to try to lighten the mood, but Tucker wasn't having any of it.
“I’m sure that’s what most folks think, but it isn’t the real reason.” Tucker looked right at me with a grim expression on his face. “It's in order to keep the dead from crawling out of their graves.”
There was a long silence and then I lost it. I nearly doubled over laughing. The first day on any job you expect get fucked with but I had expected more from Tucker. I would have never thought he would try to scare me with some bullshit story like this. I must have been laughing for a good minute before I realized that Tucker and Lori were both just sitting there looking at me with an expression on their faces that could only be described as pity. When I saw the looks on their faces I stopped laughing.
“Get the fuck-out-of-town!” I grinned nervously at both of them, still waiting for the punch line.
“Christ, this guy is a dip-shit!” Lori leaned back in her chair with a sour look on her face.
“You weren't any better when you started here.” Tucker snapped at her, “Don't be a bitch just cuz you know what's going on and Vince doesn’t.” I sat there with my mouth hanging open just staring at both of them.
“You’re fucking with me cuz I'm the new guy right?” Both of them just sat there.
“Listen.” Tucker leaned back in the office chair again and crossed his arms over his beer gut. “There are a few things you are going to need to know before you can start working here.”