Tod Goldberg - Gangsterland

“Because, as you know, we don’t do much restorative work unless the family asks for it,” Ruben said, “and in this case, uh, Mr. Berkowitz’s family was very specific that he be left alone.”

“Ruben,” David said, “do you mind if I call you Ruben?”

“Of course not, Rabbi Cohen.”

“Ruben, do you know what happens to the Jews when the End of Days comes?”

“No disrespect,” Ruben said, and David had to stop himself from grabbing Ruben by the throat and choking him to death, “but I’m not really up on a lot of the more religious aspects of Judaism. I appreciate everything you do and Rabbi Kales, too, but I’m just not a believer in that way.”

“That’s fine,” David said. “What happens is that the dead are flushed with the Dew of Resurrection, and we return as our most vibrant selves, and then we roll through a series of underground tunnels to the Mount of Olives in Israel.”

David hoped Ruben wouldn’t question him on that, since it was one of the strangest things he’d learned in all the eschatology he’d read. “The point, Ruben, is that even the most horribly disfigured Jews will eventually be whole again,” David said. He paused for a moment, trying to think of something else he could add to convince Ruben that whatever he was about to see was not going to make him pass out. “It is one of the thirteen principles of our faith, Ruben, and when the time comes, it will make sense. That is what we believe.”

“Okay then,” he said. Ruben opened the door, and David followed him past a reception desk, where a young woman sat reading People magazine, and down a narrow hallway, which led to the morgue. Ruben stepped through a set of double safety doors, and the first thing David saw was the body of a naked man, belly up on the embalming table.

There was another young Mexican kid, this one in medical scrubs, cleaning the body. The room smelled like a mixture of disinfectant and body odor, though David didn’t know if that was coming from the dead guy or the one cleaning him, along with a pungent smell that reminded David of rotting lamb (and which, he realized, would forever preclude him from eating lamb). There was a refrigeration unit against one wall and then three other tables, which David was pleased to see were empty, and the room was lit with bright halogens that gave the space a white glow. He didn’t know the guy on the table; all he knew was that he didn’t have a funeral the next day, so it must have been one Rabbi Kales was doing, or someone working freelance was coming in.

“Miguel,” Ruben said to the kid working on the naked dead guy, “this is Rabbi Cohen. He’s taking over for Rabbi Gottlieb.”

“Pleased,” Miguel said, and he gave David a shy smile. He was just another person doing a dirty job, David thought, which made David examine Ruben more closely. He was wearing a conservative suit, but it was cut precisely, and he had a thick gold watch on his wrist, an absurd topaz pinkie ring, perfectly shined black shoes on his feet. In fact, the more David examined the suit, the more familiar it looked, since he had a matching one in his own closet. Salary, benefits, and probably whatever they could pinch off the dead or get on the cheap from Bennie’s contacts , David thought.

David followed Ruben through another set of double doors and into a well-lit waiting room that housed two coffins — both simple pine boxes — on wheeled platforms, two chairs, and another velvet sofa. A door led out of the room and onto the service road that wound through the cemetery. David saw through the one window in the room that there was already a hearse parked outside, the driver standing next to it, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

“From now on,” Ruben said, and David realized he didn’t know if Ruben had been talking the entire time, he’d been so focused on keeping everything as normal and blasé as possible, “maybe it would be easier if you just came down in the morning before a service, so that we don’t need to reopen the coffins, since I know that’s against Jewish law.”

“Yes,” David said. He didn’t know if that was strictly true, though he figured if Ruben knew that fact, it probably had some truth in it.

Ruben went around and unlatched the top of both coffins, but didn’t open them. “Should I step out?” he asked. Polite guy. Probably was a real comfort to the actual grieving families. His manner even made David feel at ease.

“Yes,” David said, “because of the Jewish law.”

“I’ll be outside,” he said. “Just let me know when you’re ready, and then we can take Mr. Berkowitz down to his resting place.”

“Which one is Mr. Berkowitz?”

“The one on the right,” Ruben said.

“Great, thank you,” David said, then he thought maybe he was being too informal, so he added, “And bless you for the work you do.”

David waited until Ruben was engaged in conversation outside with the hearse driver before he opened the coffin completely. He noticed a few things almost immediately. The first was that he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at. Obviously, there was a body in the coffin, a head, a neck, a chest, he could make those out. . but the head was missing its ears. And it wasn’t like they’d been severed in some kind of accident. David could see the jagged cuts that were made around the ears, even with all the dried blood that was gathered there. Though, that wasn’t what killed him. Getting his eyelids slit off hadn’t killed him either, nor had the cigarette burns on his face. All were survivable wounds.

David didn’t know anyone who could survive without a throat, however, and they’d done a good job with that, cutting Paul Bruno’s neck in a full circle, likely using piano wire from the front, the way Fat Monte always liked to take out snitches, so they could see it happening.

Bruno the Butcher. Poor bastard. He’d been snitching for years, but no one really gave a shit, since he only dimed out the people the Family wanted him to dime out, the loose threads, the idiots who were working on the fringes, guys like Lemonhead, who’d tried to blackmail a straight-edge city councilman over some prostitution shit. Ronnie was always smart about letting people like Paul Bruno do the dirty laundry for them.

What the fuck was going on in Chicago? He’d known Paul Bruno his entire life, could remember playing jacks with him out front of the butcher shop while his dad and Paul’s dad talked shop inside. Paul’s dad gave them turkeys every Thanksgiving, free of charge, after David’s mom disavowed the Family and money got scarce; Paul’s mom always brought over soups and casseroles and magazines and books. Jennifer’s family was tight with them, too; the Frangellos and the Brunos bowled and played bridge together, just like regular people.

Paul so confused growing up; David remembered that, too. Tried to be a tough guy. David remembered Jennifer telling him how she’d always known he was gay, from back when they were kids.

And now here he was. Not just done ugly. Done ugly and personally — the cigarette burns, the eyelids. And that Paul was here, not just thrown into a ditch somewhere, told David that whatever information Paul had given out was not the negligible shit of the past, because the Family would make an example out of him if that was the case, leave him somewhere as a message to other snitches. This was private and personal, and that gave David pause.

David closed the coffin and wheeled it back into the morgue. “Miguel,” he said, “you need to clean this body.”

“The man?”

“Yes, the man,” David said.

“I’m sorry, Rabbi, but Ruben said that the family requested he not be touched, which I understood to mean that he wasn’t to be cleaned.”