Carnell, Thom - No Flesh Shall Be Spared

Luckily, the preparatory work for her upcoming service had gone well. The acrid embalming fluid that Jeffrey had pushed through her arterial system via the Sawyer machine had completed its chemical alchemy, preserving her tissues at least long enough to last through her wake and funeral. When she’d died, Mrs. Harvey had fallen face first onto the floor and remained there for as long as it had taken for her to be found and for the Medical Examiner to arrive and assess her cause of death. The dark purple discoloration from post-mortem lividity where her blood pooled had almost completely faded from the side of her puffy face.

After death, blood settled in whatever the lowest point was in the anatomy: the back, feet and hands. Gravity’s laws demanded to be obeyed above all else. Marilyn Monroe died lying flat on her photogenic face and it had been a certified mess by the time the embalmer was able to begin his ministrations. The timely removal of such settling was one of the trickiest parts of the job. If not caught early, the red blood cells would burst, forever staining the surrounding tissues. The condition was called "post-mortem stain" and it was best to clear the circulatory system out as soon as possible in order to achieve the most eye-pleasing results…

…for the family’s sake.

With an exhausted sigh, Adamson squatted down and picked up the trocar. Standing up, he took a moment and checked it for damage or dirt. The instrument was an imposing length of rigid metal with a sharpened point at one end. Three small holes were visible just before the tip of the point. At the other end, a ribbon of rubber hose was attached to the handle. The pale rubber tubing snaked away, its far end plugged into to a delightful little apparatus called a hydro-aspirator which, in turn, was fastened discreetly under the table’s drain. The metal instrument was used to remove any fluids trapped in the abdomino-thoracic cavity of the deceased by the use of the vacuum created as water ran through the aspirator.

The point of the shining steel shaft was designed to be inserted roughly two inches to the right of and two inches above the navel and pistoned back and forth allowing the vacuum to suck up all of the blood and other fluids from within the cavity.

Insertion point is two inches lateral and two inches superior to the umbilicus, perforating the rectus abdominis, he recalled from Embalming class.

Upon completion of this motion, Jeffrey would redirect the tube into the lower abdomen through the same hole in the skin and remove any blood, urine and watery wastes that remained in the lower gastrointestinal tract. Once all of that was done, he would use the same procedures to pour a highly concentrated formaldehyde solution called "cavity fluid" into the same areas in order to preserve the now perforated viscera. The procedure took a little getting used to since it was so similar to repeatedly stabbing someone in the belly, but with enough composure on the part of the embalmer, it soon became just another part of the job.

So much to do…

As he set about taking care of Mrs. Harvey’s internal organs, he silently considered his busy night so far. He’d already embalmed Mr. Lodene and now that he was almost finished with Mrs. Harvey he only had one more case to complete before calling it a night. After that, there was minimal cleanup that needed to be done and then it was all quiet on the Western front until his shift ended.

Adamson enjoyed working the overnight shift at the Howard, Fine and Howard Funeral Home. The place was nice and had over the years developed a solid reputation. The late hours allowed him to work out from underneath the anally retentive eye of his boss, Mr. Marshall Howard, and let him care for the dead in the manner—and with the respect—he felt they deserved. In the past, he’d worked for too many firms that gave little to no care for the amount of consideration afforded to those who had passed on. For many people in this profession, the job was more about making money than any real sense of compassion; more about financial gain than offering any tangible psychological benefit to the bereaved. In some cases, the bodies themselves were tossed about like sides of beef in a slaughterhouse. In fact, many morgue workers often referred to the moving of bodies as "throwin’ meat." This was the kind of sentiment that Jeffrey neither understood nor condoned. It was crucial to Jeffrey that the dead be given their due. Working the late shift allowed him to see that quality care was given to each and every case that came under his watchful eye.

"Jeez," he said aloud, his voice sounding alien in the silence of the room. He checked his watch and raised an eyebrow. "Four hours." He rubbed the back of his wrist across his forehead in an effort to relieve some of the tension there. "I’ve been at this shit for four hours."

He absentmindedly let go of the trocar still inserted deep into the belly of Mrs. Harvey and pulled the latex gloves from his hands with a loud snap. The lance stuck up phallically from her midsection and pointed toward the ceiling.

"Break time," he muttered, unstringing the stays at the back of his plastic apron. He stepped away from the table and pulled the cords from around his neck. The muscles in his back complained silently the moment his arms were raised over his head. As he took an appraising look at his handiwork, he draped the plastic apron across the foot of Mrs. Harvey’s table.

Mrs. Harvey was a big woman with great rolls of flab cascading from her thick frame. Years of overeating with little or no thought ever being given to her health contributed to the stroke. A lifetime of Funyuns and root beer floats were not exactly conducive to longevity.

A doctor had once told Jeffrey as he’d signed off on yet another death certificate, "You never hear the expression big old man or big old lady… It’s always little old man or little old lady." Most folks never seemed to get that.

On the table before him, the woman’s hair laid slick with water against her skull, giving her face a "standing in a high wind" appearance. Her chubby cheeks hung like sacks of water from her face. All in all, it was a look that was not in the least bit flattering.

Adamson turned to the small sink behind him and picked up a bottle of green antibacterial soap. The stuff looked as if it might have smelled of mint, but instead gave off an aroma of old socks and fungus. He washed his hands, first one and then the other, repeating the procedure until he was good and sure they were disinfected. With the amount of bugs and disease he worked with, sanitization was an important aspect of his job. Any embalmer who didn’t think that was so, usually ended up on a metal table himself. After shaking any excess water from his hands, he then dried them and unrolled his shirt’s sleeves. He walked to the door of the room and turned to look back at his workspace, feeling a genuine sense of pride at how well the night’s procedures had turned out.

One more to do.

He looked toward the last case which was a Mr. John J. Robinson, according to the toe-tag wrapped in one of the hospital’s plastic shrouds. The man’s arms crossed his chest, bound by a length of thin twine designed more to keep them in place than for any aesthetic purpose.

Jeffrey figured that after he completed the necessary work on this last guy, he would be free to spend the last few hours at the end of his shift either reading or doing homework for the Business Administration class he was taking at the local city college.

"I’ll be bawk," he said in a put-on Austrian accent as he opened the door and stepped through. As usual, he made sure to close it until he heard the click of the bolt mechanism falling into place.

As he stepped into the dark hallway, Jeffrey heard the phone ringing in the main office. The radio he kept playing during his shift to remind him that there was still a world of activity going on somewhere out there droned on despite no one being there to hear it.