Todd Harra - Mortuary Confidential - Undertakers Spill the Dirt

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

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

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

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

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

“You might.”

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

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

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

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

Jamie was sound asleep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No!” she wailed.

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

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

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

She complied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contributed by an Atlanta Falcons fan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tea?” Aunt Millie asked.

“Please.”

“The special blend?” she asked innocently.

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

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

“Mint?”

“Please,” I said.

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

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

“Maybe next week. Too much work.”

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

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

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