Good Mourning (4 page)

I soon knew why Tony suggested a sweater: Monica walked me down to the embalming room, which is kept at a cool-ish sixty degrees and looks like a cross between a morgue and a dental office. I heard the faint sounds of what I thought was Bruce Springsteen humming from a stereo. “Bill's down there, he'll show you what you need to know,” said Monica, wrapping her sweater tighter around her shoulders. “I'm going back up to the desk.”

The smell of disinfectant seeped into my nostrils, and I felt my stomach flip-flop.
I guess this is where they keep the dead people?

I took a few steps into the room to find Bill hunched over a dead body laid out on a stainless steel table. The body itself was covered in a white sheet, but Bill was perched over the head, applying concealer with a makeup sponge. “You're the new girl, I hear. Welcome to Crawford,” he said. I recognized him as soon as he looked up—Bill had done Dad's touch-up just before the wake. Here he was again, adding
some “life” to an otherwise pale face. I probably should have been freaked out by this, but instead, it felt strangely comforting to see the care Bill was taking with whoever's loved one was lying before him.

Bill stood up and showed me both of his hands, which were covered in latex gloves. He was tall, like Tony, but less round, and the same North Jersey accent rolled off his tongue. “You don't want me to shake your hand,” he said. “I've got enough chemicals on these gloves to burn a hole through the floor.” He pulled off the gloves and washed his hands in a small stainless steel sink that looked almost like a water fountain. “Let me just wash up, then I'll take you around. Oh, and welcome to the prep room! Most people are scared of this place, but if you're not one of them, come down whenever.”

I laughed, relieved to be in friendly company after Monica's icy welcome. After Bill had taken off his white apron and put a black blazer on, we walked back upstairs. I'd already seen the six different view rooms available for wakes and funerals. They looked mostly like what you'd expect for a funeral home: formal, a little stuffy, with lots of ornate window treatments, old wallpaper, and prewar moldings. And just about every room had at least one chandelier. Bill told me he had been working at Crawford for almost thirty years. His dad, an Italian guy from North Jersey, had also been an embalmer. “It's just the family biz, you know?” he said, shuffling up a second flight of stairs. He pointed out the two
main offices and then the back room that I had already seen. “You like Italian food? Wait till you eat lunch with us. We get all the good stuff, the galamad, the mutzarell, the braciole. We just order it and all eat it back here,” he said, his accent really coming through. “You've got to eat mints after, though, or else you'll smell like garlic all day. My wife hates that.”

I laughed.

“I guess better garlic than gangrene, though, right?” said Bill. “Wait until you get a whiff of
that
. It'll be your true test of whether you want to be in this industry.” I was equal parts grossed out and fascinated.

After the half-hour tour, Bill went back down to the embalming room to finish up—but first he invited me on what was called a “removal.” I didn't know exactly what that meant, but it sounded a lot better than sorting through folders at the desk.

“I just have to offer it to Monica first,” he said. “As long as she passes, you can come.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, a little confused.
Why does he have to offer it to Monica?

Bill must have read the look on my face. “The union, they pay an extra twenty-seven bucks for a removal,” he said. “And union rules mean that I have to offer the gig to the person present with the most seniority.

“Hey, Mon, you want to do this removal with me?” said Bill.

Monica looked over at me and then back at Bill. If she went with him, I would be left in charge of the reception desk for the afternoon. “I'll pass,” she said.

Bill raised his eyebrows at me and smiled. “Twenty-seven bucks, in your pocket!” he said. “I'll come get you a few minutes before it's time to go.”

Monica was slowly looking through a folder when I sat back down next to her. “I'm excited to do a removal!” I said, as if she would possibly care.

“It's gross,” said Monica. “You're going to freak.” A small piece of me wondered if she was secretly hoping that the removal would be enough to scare me away from this place. A receptionist always had to go along with one of the guys to get a body—company rules.
Is this chick really willing t
o give up almost thirty dollars to get rid of me?
I thought. Just as I was about to ask what I should expect, Monica pointed to a stack of folders and asked if I had any plans of helping with them. The folders appeared to be in no particular order—just a mess of papers and invoices.

“So where are you from, anyway?” said Monica.

“I grew up right around the corner,” I said, regretting it as soon as it came out of my mouth.

Monica raised her eyebrows, not in an
I'm impressed
kind of way, but more to convey,
I have already judged you up and down
. Which is exactly what she did, because the next thing I knew, she was staring at my shoes and mumbling something in her native tongue. To some extent, I under
stood: it didn't seem lost on her that I walked to work, while she and most of the other Crawford employees took hour-long subway rides, emerging in a different world on the other side. I had faith, at least then, that she would eventually come around and realize I wasn't the walking stereotype she assumed.

I was grateful when Bill came up from the basement a couple of boring, filing-heavy hours later holding a set of keys. “You ready?” he asked, already walking toward the door. I grabbed my coat and hurried after him, happy to get away from the desk—or more precisely, the ice queen behind it—and out into the fresh air. It was late March, but the cool sting of winter hadn't melted into spring yet.

Bill asked me to wait on the curb while he pulled up the van. It was pretty normal looking—just like any black minivan you'd see on the street, except the backseats had been taken out, replaced by a gurney. I hopped in the front seat, still unsure about what we were doing, and strapped on my seat belt.

“You a sports fan?” Bill asked as he steered the van south toward Seventy-Second Street.

“Huge Giants fan,” I said. “So was my dad. We always get season tickets. Well, we did, anyway.”

“Giants! Yes! I knew I liked you, Elizabeth,” he said. Then, softening his voice, he added, “Hey, and I'm real sorry about your father. That was a beautiful service you put on for him. A beautiful service. I'd be proud if my kids did that for me.”

Knowing that Bill had seen thousands of funerals, I was flattered that he remembered my dad's service. I didn't know what to say, so I just smiled as we crossed Central Park in the van, bouncing over potholes and speeding by taxis moving in the other direction. “So, before we get to where we're going, do I need to know anything?” I finally said.

“We are picking up a body,” said Bill, like it was the most natural thing ever. “Sometimes when people die at home, we go get 'em at their apartments. It's not like their chauffeurs are going to bring them over.”

Bill pulled the car up to the front of a fancy co-op on the Upper West Side and brushed off his blazer. I recognized the building—it was just a few blocks away from Trinity, the private school I'd attended as a teen. My head was pounding by this point, but I knew I couldn't focus on myself. We were about to enter someone's home, where his or her family would probably be gathered around, going through the same pain I'd gone through just weeks before. I took a deep breath and followed behind Bill. His whole demeanor changed the moment he stepped onto the sidewalk—gone was any sense of casualness. Instead, he walked up to the doorman with an aura of authority, and discreetly gave his name and the apartment number where we would be heading. He also let the doorman know what was about to happen. I listened carefully too (I was just as naïve as the doorman) as Bill explained that we were going to be taking a body out on a gurney, so it would be best if other residents
of the building didn't have to witness the scene. Although he had placed a sign in the windshield, he also asked him to watch the van. The doorman listened intently, letting every one of Bill's words soak in so that he wouldn't mess up the grim procedure, and then stood out on the sidewalk to keep an eye on the van for us.

We didn't exchange a word the whole ride up to the penthouse, the two of us wedged on either side of the gurney in a freight elevator (normal elevators are too small). It was almost like a Method actor walking onto a set. There would be no breaking character. This was serious. Dead serious. My stomach dropped as the elevator went up, up, up. Bill might have been calm, but he was an old pro. I, on the other hand, was majorly nervous. What would we say to whoever was inside the apartment? Should I shake their hands hello? I'd been trained to know a social grace for every situation, but there wasn't exactly an Emily Post guide to picking up a dead body.

Bill slipped on a pair of white fabric gloves, like a waiter at a fine restaurant might wear, and a black hat that I didn't even realize he had been carrying with him. I felt like I should follow suit, so I fixed my pearl earrings to make sure the backs were on tight and pulled down the hem of my black blazer. My feet ached in my heels as we walked out of the elevator and onto the penthouse floor, which opened up into a mahogany and marble entry. Bill knocked lightly on the door, and moments later, a butler opened it. His eyes
were red, like he had been crying, and behind him was a staff of at least ten people—maids, a chef, who knows who else—all with their heads hung low. Bill stood in front of the gurney, took off his hat, and simply said, “I am Bill from the funeral home, and this is my associate Elizabeth. Please accept our condolences. Would you mind directing us to the appropriate room?”

The butler led the way through the grand foyer and down a long, wide hallway. The apartment had the feel of a museum—grand and formal, perhaps like the person who lived there. My heels click-clacked down the hall until we entered a bedroom bigger than many New York City apartments, with ten-foot windows overlooking Central Park. Next to a four-poster bed was a hospital bed—they are commonly brought into homes during hospice care—and in that bed was an old man in blue herringbone pajamas. He looked peaceful, like he was still sleeping, and I instantly felt comforted by the reminder that death—at least the looks of it—wasn't nearly as scary as it was made out to be on TV and in movies. At least not for most people.

Bill went right to work pushing the gurney next to the bed and pulling out a body bag. He requested that the butler leave the room, because nobody should have to watch someone they knew and cared for be stuffed into a plastic bag. Once the coast was clear, Bill turned to me and said, “Okay, are you ready for this? It's a piece of cake. Lucky for you, you have the best possible teacher.” I looked hard at
Bill as he rattled off the rest of the instructions: He would count to three, and then we'd hoist the sheet under the body, lifting the corpse into the bag that was already open on the gurney. Bill would hold the upper half, and I would take the legs. I felt nervous as I moved to the end of the bed and gripped the sheet, but I gave Bill an approving nod. There was no taking this back. I was doing this removal.

The man was heavier than he looked (the term “deadweight” is no joke). My arms shook as I pulled up the lower corners of the sheet and shifted my weight from my left leg to my right. It was a relief to have the body safely in one piece, on the gurney, ready for transport. I was feeling pretty awesome about successfully completing my first removal, when I looked down at my feet. My $600 Gucci heels, the suede ones that Monica had scoffed at earlier in the day, were
covered
in a brownish fluid.

“Oh my God,” I said, lifting up my left foot.

Bill surveyed the damage and shrugged. “Gotta watch out for that. They leak,” he said, before putting his hat back on and leading the gurney out the door.

The doorman was waiting for us in the lobby and gave us the go-ahead so that we could move through with as few people seeing as possible. Bill wheeled the gurney, body bag on top, onto a platform on the back of the van, which lifted with a flip of a switch. Then he closed the doors, slipped off the gloves, and got back in the driver's seat. I was still sulking about my shoes on the inside, but I badly wanted to im
press Bill now that I had seen him in action and wouldn't dare complain.

On the ride back to Crawford, I heard a
thud-thud-thud
sound coming from the back of the van. I felt like the guy we had just picked up, a little blue in the face and dripping God knows what fluids from orifices I was trying to block from my mind, was knocking at us, like,
Hey, assholes, the least you could have done is strap me in
.

“What
is
that?” I asked, the
thud
sound ringing louder and louder as we drove back over the potholes. I looked down at my stained shoes and wondered if this whole thing was maybe a big, messy mistake.

“That?” Bill said, pointing behind him.

I nodded.

“The gurney bangs up against the divider,” he said with a shrug. “Don't worry, you'll get used to it.”