Todd Harra - Mortuary Confidential - Undertakers Spill the Dirt

I stole a wide-eyed glance at my uncle. He had seen everything in his years as an undertaker. At that moment, though, he was a shell-shocked soldier. With his mouth agape and eyes wide, he clearly wanted to run. Like me, he stayed put, scared stiff by the scream from a dead man. I am not very religious or superstitious, but standing in that room, I felt a powerful energy course through me.

Harold, behind us in the hallway, was the only one with any composure. He strode in, got down on his knees, and dragged a squalling black cat out from underneath the bed. When he let go of the cat’s scruff, it fell over, writhing and still screaming.

“Oh my gosh! Is Ridley alright?” Sue wailed. She rushed over to the cat.

“Your father is dead, tend to him,” Harold said briskly. “I’ll take care of Ridley.” With that, Harold scooped up the squalling cat and took it from the room. My uncle and I made some comments to the effect of “that poor cat,” but we were really trying to mask our feelings of terror.

We made the removal without any further surprises, and back in the station wagon, we sat in the driveway with the engine idling for a minute. “I thought—I thought—” I said, but was unable to complete the sentence.

My uncle said nothing but crossed himself.

The next day Sue and Harold stopped by the funeral parlor, with Ridley the cat, to make arrangements for Sue’s dad. They had just come from the vet’s office, where Ridley’s leg had been set in a cast. My uncle insisted they bring the poor thing in rather than have it wait in the cold car. It was both sad and comical to watch the furry survivor, with his look of obvious irritation, hobbling stiff-legged around the parlor while his masters made funeral arrangements.

To this day, whenever I see a black cat, my mind flashes back to that cold night years ago when I heard a dead man scream.

Contributed by a food bank volunteer

Iwas having a dream that I was late for class. The bell kept ringing and ringing, but I couldn’t seem to run down the hall fast enough to make it to class in time. That’s when I woke up.

Reality was much, much worse. The phone next to my bed was ringing off the hook. I blinked my eyes several times at the bedside clock. It was one of those old alarm clocks where the tumblers turn over new digits. A tumbler turned and the new time read: 4:17.

I cursed and then blanched. My mouth felt like it was filled with cotton and cigarette butts. Next to me, the girl I had met at the party, and whose name I couldn’t remember, stirred. The phone trilled again and I snatched it off the hook. “What?” I growled.

It was my boss. It was a death call.

I took down the address, and slammed the phone back into its cradle. I cursed again, this time loudly, and flopped back into my pillow. The city’s lights filtered in through my uncurtained windows and played across the ceiling. I tried to focus on the bars of light. It didn’t work. Last night’s and this morning’s party had agreed with me too much. The last time I had glanced at the clock had been only two hours prior, and my lady friend and I were hardly in the throes of passion then. I had probably only been out for an hour.

Idiot! Idiot! I mentally berated myself. I knew better than to drink too much when I was taking death calls, but one vodka and soda begets another and I started having too good a time. I threw off the sheets and summoned the courage to climb out of bed. I stumbled my way across the remnants of party clothing littering the floor. When I flicked on the bedroom lights the inert form beneath the sheets didn’t even move.

I did the best job I could dressing myself and on my way out of my loft stopped in the kitchenette and chugged a gallon of water. My place, in the old industrial district of the city, was only a few blocks away from the mortuary, so I didn’t have far to go. Walking in the crisp air helped clear my mind.

I got the old station wagon loaded up with a cot and headed for the convalescent hospital. I drove down into the bowels of the hospital and parked by the loading dock. The smell of rotting garbage and soiled sheets in the contained basement assaulted my senses and I staggered to the front of the wagon to empty my guts. When I had collected myself enough to unload the stretcher, I went inside to the nurse’s station.

“Hello,” I said, trying to smile even though I felt like crap.

I was half-drunk, half-asleep, and the nurse spoke half-English. She glowered at me. “Helwoe,” she replied.

I don’t want to be up either, lady, I thought, and returned the sour look.

“I’m here for—” I had to think for a moment—“Betty Hancock.”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“She’s dead,” I said in a voice reserved for small children and animals, “and I’m here from the mortuary to get her.”

She gave me a blank look.

“Dead!” I gave her a hard stare that finally got her in gear.

She shuffled some papers, made a hushed phone call, and then shuffled some more papers and pointed down the hall. “Forry-sen Bee.”

“Forty-seven B?” I repeated.

“Yes,” she said, agitated. “Forry-sen Bee!”

I shot her a withering stare and loped down the hall, my head pounding. It felt like I walked down three miles of ammonia-smelling, tiled hell before I arrived at Room 47. Thankfully, the residents were all asleep. I didn’t waste time on ceremony and steered the cot into the room. I jockeyed it up next to bed B and went around to the other side of the bed and yanked the sheet down. The person under the sheets moaned, arms flailing in the air.

I let out a scream as I jumped back. I caught my breath and quickly threw the sheet back over the patient. That seemed to soothe her and she (I think it was a she) became still. I rushed out of the room and checked the room number. It was forty-seven. I was about to run down the hallway to scream at the nurse for her incompetence when a light bulb went off in my aching head. I went over to bed D. Sure enough, there was Mrs. Hancock.

As I wheeled her out of the hospital I nodded at the nurse and said, “Forty-seven D—just where you said she’d be.” The nurse looked at me like I was crazy.

Later that night, after a long, miserable, hung-over day at the mortuary, I had just laid down in bed to get some much-needed rest when the phone rang. I cursed and grabbed the forever-offending thing. “What?” I yelled, expecting another death call. It was the girl I had left before dawn.

“Whoa, you sound mad,” she said.

“Sorry,” I said. “I thought it was someone else calling.”

“Obviously. Say, what happened to you this morning? I don’t even know what time you left. I was kind of confused when I woke up. I thought maybe you had ditched me or something.”

“Work,” I said and massaged my eyeballs.

“Work?”

“Yeah, and you wouldn’t believe the day I had.”

“Try me.”

I did. Now I’m married to that girl and we have three grown children. My wife’s name is Liz, or Elizabeth, which is sometimes Betty.

Contributed by a tennis player

It was summertime, an early Friday morning, when I got trapped with the talkers. I was looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend at the lake, where I had pitched in with a bunch of friends to rent a cabin for the summer. My girlfriend and I were both “weekend warriors” at the house, and I knew there was a lounge chair on the dock waiting for me that afternoon, so I didn’t even mind that much taking a death call at 5 A.M.

When I arrived at the house, I backed the van into the driveway to be as discrete as possible. It was one of those Cracker Jack box houses constructed after the Second World War to accommodate the population explosion. The place looked well maintained and the yard was neat. I guessed the couple had bought the house in the late ’40s after the gentleman was discharged from the service and that they had lived there ever since. Sure enough, once I was inside, I found old pictures of the decedent in his military uniform on walls of the bedroom where he lay.