Todd Harra - Mortuary Confidential - Undertakers Spill the Dirt

Contributed by a guitarist

Ihad never heard of a gun battle disrupting a funeral until the day I found myself in the middle of one.

It was a spring day, clear and sunny, and after the entire winter of hiding in church vestibules during funeral services, I took advantage of the beautiful day to sit outside and kill time. The service was Orthodox, and those are usually good to go for at least an hour or more.

That church is in the city. I was lounging on the wide stone steps, keeping an eye out for straggling mourners, leafing through Car and Driver, and not really paying attention to the passers-by, when some yelling caught my attention. On the corner of the block, about one hundred fifty feet from where I was sitting, two men were arguing. Their faces inches away from each other, they both gesticulated wildly, obviously irate. Their argument was more interesting than my magazine, and I put it down to watch. They shouted and pointed for a few more seconds and then stormed away from each other, the argument seemingly over. I started to go back to my magazine when I saw guns appear.

The firearms were drawn from under their billowy white tee shirts—almost the way a magician produces a dove. I’m not too up-to-date on my firearms, so I have no idea what type of guns they were except that they were black. It was like a scene from an old western film. The two stood about fifteen feet apart, menacing each other with their weapons for what seemed to be a millennium, but was probably only a second before they just unloaded . They fired and fired, sparks spitting from the muzzles of the pistols, until the slides locked back. Gun smoke swirling around them, they looked down at themselves, stupefied to be unhurt, and within seconds of the cease-fire, took off like frightened jackrabbits in opposite directions.

I sat on the steps, stunned, as the smell of cordite stung my nostrils. Did I just see a gun battle? I asked myself. No! Shootouts were things on the front page of the local section, things of the night, things of abstraction. Shootouts didn’t happen in broad daylight…outside a funeral!

While I was still trying to process the scene that had just unfolded before me, an unmarked police car appeared from nowhere. It was joined seconds later by two marked prowlers, a fourth, and then a fifth. One of the initial officers to respond at the scene ran by and yelled to me, “Nobody comes out of that church!”

His order spurred me out of my trance and I hopped up to man the church doors.

The mourners, having heard so many gunshots in such close proximity, had all made a beeline for the door. My partner and I, along with the limo driver, were at the big wooden doors forcibly holding them closed. I felt like an actor in some ridiculous movie, holding these giant castle-like doors closed against the pandemonium inside. The priest bullied his way to the front of the crowd and I conveyed the situation to him. He managed to get everyone settled down to the point where there was no more shouting, but they still stood just inside the front doors, milling like cattle, ready to stampede. They weren’t settling back down for a funeral when a war was raging outside.

The police cars were joined by a helicopter and two K-9 units as well as several bicycle and motorcycle cops. They searched for about a half hour, but to no avail. I gave a brief statement about what I had seen and the police finally gave us the okay to empty the church. We processed on to the cemetery and the priest did his best to include at the graveside the parts of the liturgy missed in the church.

I checked the paper the next day and it mentioned the shooting. I guess they never did catch those two men. Not to be glib or anything, but perhaps those two men would benefit from a membership to a local shooting range.

Contributed by a veteran

If there is one life lesson I have learned as an undertaker, it’s this: the lies and secrets we maintain in life cannot be perpetuated in death. There is an old saying that goes, “Dead men tell no tales.” That’s true, but the dead also can’t keep a secret. Whether it is a man’s secret stack of Playboy magazines, a couple’s titillating photos that were never meant to be shared with others, or a spouse’s secret bank account, it all floats to the surface once the dead person protecting the secret dies. Many a person has told me of the discrete removal of certain objects from their friend’s or sibling’s house before the parents or children go in to clean it out. But aside from objects, stuff that maybe we shouldn’t have or would be embarrassed to admit owning are the people.

The most common thing I see involving the secrets of the living and dead is the illicit sexual relationship. After a death relationships, which were previously buried in the shadows, are thrown into the light of day for all to see. When the secretkeeper is dead, so is the secret. It’s sad when a good man’s or woman’s name is tarnished after they have died because some information floats to the surface, but it’s human nature to have secrets, and it’s something I’ve seen too many times.

Consider the situation of a man with a wife and girlfriend; or a woman with a husband and boyfriend. Man dies. Come the day of the funeral, wife and children are sitting in the front row on one side and girlfriend is on the other side. Sometimes the girlfriend makes a scene. Sometimes the wife makes a scene. Sometimes it’s amicable. Either way, the girlfriend who was previously unknown, or only whispered about behind closed doors, is thrust into public display. Is it a disgrace to the dead man? I don’t have an answer for that. That’s a question you’d have to ask the dead man; I’m not one to judge the state of his marriage and infidelities.

I know what you’re wondering, and, no, the girlfriend usually doesn’t have the sagacity to stay away from her boyfriend’s funeral. After all, it is the funeral of somebody she loves. Would you stay away from the funeral of somebody you loved? I didn’t think so.

Now consider the other situation, a man with a girlfriend and a dead wife; or a woman with a boyfriend and dead husband. Wife dies. Girlfriend comes to wife’s funeral to support her boyfriend (and possibly future hubby). In fact, I just had a funeral not too long ago when the couple hadn’t been married very long. It was under two years. The wife died suddenly. The husband was ruined. Absolutely ruined. I haven’t seen anyone that distraught in a good while. So it was really surprising to me when his girlfriend showed up at the funeral. Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t obvious about it, but I could tell by the way she touched him (and some things I overheard) that she was his girlfriend. What was so puzzling to me was that this man was so grief-stricken I would have thought they had a perfect marriage. Obviously, it wasn’t so perfect that Mr. X wasn’t stepping outside his marital vows.

I think the kicker of my little relationship sightings was when a husband and wife died in a tragic car wreck. On the day of the funeral, sitting in the front pew opposite the children were the boyfriend and girlfriend of the couple! I found out when I was making the arrangements that “mom and dad couldn’t stand each other.” But I had no idea how complex their lives were. Apparently, the children knew about the affairs and each parent knew about the other’s partner and was okay with the situation as long as it wasn’t out in the open. Their marriage had slid into a marriage of convenience.

I’m not trying to say everyone is a philandering jerk. I just want to remind everyone to think about how you want to be remembered. Once you’re dead, there is no covering the little lies and secrets, and the truth has a nasty habit of finding its way into a funeral.