Brad Parks - Faces of the Gone

“Sometimes, I think I could just stare at her picture all day, too,” Tynesha said, walking up alongside me. I suddenly became aware they were waiting for me.

“All right, let’s go,” I said.

Our departure brought about much less Nextel blurping than our arrival did. The white man hadn’t been that interesting, after all-he had come and gone without arresting anyone or buying anything.

I fired up the Malibu, flipped the heater on high, and drove us downtown to one of the funeral homes that had been serving Newark’s black community for more than a hundred years. I had never been to this one before, but knew the type. And I could practically guarantee the folks there were tired of burying people like Wanda Bass. In this city’s death business, the customer demographics had skewed young far too long.

We didn’t seem to have an appointment, but we were still ushered into the office of Mrs. Rosa Bricker, who had the role of funeral director down pat. She was friendly, but not too friendly. She cared, but not too much. She was warm, but in a detached kind of way. She dealt with death the same way an accountant deals with taxes: as a practical problem worthy of attention but not hysteria. She was, above all else, professional.

After we were properly introduced-having a reporter in the room didn’t seem to faze her-she slid a packet labeled “Price List” across the desk at Miss B. The basic services included embalming, dressing, viewing ceremonies, transportation, and so on, and they went for around $3,500. That didn’t include the casket, which ranged from your basic three-hundred-dollar pine box all the way up to the Z64 Classic Gold Solid Bronze Sealer With Velvet Interior. It went for a hair over 10 Large. Calculating in monetary terms I could understand, that was about 2.8 used Malibus.

Miss B was doing her best to keep her composure, but it wasn’t hard to see how floored she was. She obviously didn’t have enough savings to get Wanda near the cemetery, much less in the ground. There was a grim joke in the funeral home business that the shorter the driveway, the more expensive the funeral. Rich people just wanted to get on with probating the will. It was the poor folks-the ones who couldn’t really afford it-who felt the need to have showy funerals.

Miss B didn’t even have a driveway.

“Do you. . do you offer payment plans?” she asked.

“Naturally,” Mrs. Bricker said. “But if I might make a suggestion, you might want to make an application to the Violent Crimes Compensation Board. They pay up to $5,000 for funeral costs. We can assist you with that.”

“I would appreciate that,” Miss B said, then started breathing normally again.

Mrs. Bricker pulled some paperwork from her drawer. Much of it had been filled out in advance. This obviously wasn’t her first time with a murder victim.

“We have a package we offer for families who are using Violent Crimes money,” Mrs. Bricker said, pushing a piece of paper across her desk at Miss B. “It covers all essential services, including a burial in a sealed casket with a headstone. You would be responsible for any additional costs, although we’ve tried to make the package as inclusive as possible.”

As Miss B began filling out the required form, I caught myself feeling relieved, which was odd. I didn’t know Wanda. Up until an hour ago, I didn’t know Miss B. And I grew up in a house with a long enough driveway that pricey funerals struck me as pointless. What did I care if Wanda Bass was buried in a pine box? More to the point: what did she care?

But I did care. I cared because of Miss B and Tynesha. I cared because the girl in those pictures had had a lousy life and an even lousier death. She deserved a little something unlousy coming her way, even if it was too late to do much good.

Miss B caught me off guard with her next question.

“Can I see Wanda now?”

My innards did a somersault-back handspring combination and for a moment I thought I was going to regret some of the previous night’s overexertion. Mrs. Bricker’s smooth surface didn’t ripple for a moment. Instead, she folded her hands on her desk and looked straight at Miss B.

“We can certainly see her if you wish,” Mrs. Bricker said. “But I will tell you we had to do quite a bit of restoration work. It may be difficult for you to view her right now. You may want to wait until we’ve had the chance to dress her, do her hair, and put on some makeup.”

“I can handle it,” Miss B said.

“It can be traumatic,” Mrs. Bricker said, more firmly. “I’d advise against it. It will be a much more positive experience if you wait.”

“I will see my daughter now,” Miss B said with a certain edge that seemed to settle the matter.

“Very well,” Mrs. Bricker replied, smoothly picking up the phone on her desk. She said a few soft words to the person on the other end and hung up.

“Come with me,” she said, rising from her desk.

I was hoping someone would ask me to stay in the office, which I would have happily done. It’s not that I have anything against dead bodies. I just prefer living ones.

Alas, no one said a word. So I brought up the rear as we were led downstairs and through a door marked STAFF ONLY. The room we entered was brightly lit, slightly chilly, and tiled from floor to ceiling. Jugs of pinkish liquid-embalming fluid, I assumed-were stacked against the far wall. In the middle were three stainless steel gurneys. Two were empty. The third was very much occupied and draped with a white sheet.

An underling, dressed in scrubs, nodded at Mrs. Bricker as he departed.

“We don’t allow families in here if there is more than one body present-out of respect to the other families. But as you can see, Wanda is alone here today,” Mrs. Bricker said, and it seemed to be for my benefit. I guess she didn’t want Eagle-Examiner readers thinking her funeral home lacked discretion.

Miss B, who didn’t seem to be hearing anything, stood about five feet from the gurney, her eyes locked on the figure underneath.

“I’m going to roll back the drape now,” Mrs. Bricker said.

When Miss B nodded slightly, Mrs. Bricker neatly folded back the sheet.

It wasn’t Wanda. Well, technically, it was. But it was some grotesque version of her. Her face barely resembled the beautiful woman I had seen in the pictures. The cheeks were swollen. The eyes were sunken. The forehead looked like it had been shattered and put together again-which it probably had been. All the features were just slightly off.

“Are you sure that’s Wa-” Tynesha began, then stopped herself.

“We started the work as soon as we received the body from the medical examiner yesterday,” Mrs. Bricker said, answering the question Tynesha sort of asked.

Miss B uprooted herself and approached her daughter’s corpse. She first touched the hair, then gently cupped the jaw, then brushed her fingers across the lips. The tears were rolling down both sides of Miss B’s face, onto her chin, and into the folds of her neck. But no sounds were coming out.

“As I said, the restoration was extensive,” Mrs. Bricker continued. “I worked on her myself for several hours.”

“Can I just be alone with her for a moment or two?” Miss B asked.

“Of course,” Mrs. Bricker said, nodding at me and Tynesha. I didn’t need to be asked twice, and made quickly for the door.

“Oh, Tynesha baby, stay here,” Miss B said.

Tynesha rushed to her side. As the door closed, I saw them embrace awkwardly. Miss B’s eyes never left her daughter’s broken face.

Back in the hallway, Mrs. Bricker leaned against the wall and crossed one foot over the other. The sudden relaxing of her posture surprised me. Up until that point, she had been nothing but formal. Now that she was out of eyeshot of the customer, she felt she could stand down just a little.