Читать книгу Twenty Unusual Short Stories - Dr. Donald D. Hook - Страница 8

Back in the old days the gang at Fauber’s Mortuary, like the boys down at the firehouse, would sit outside on a Saturday evening and wait for ambulance or death calls. They would sit on the sidewalk next to the side door, within earshot of the telephone, on chapel chairs, those squishy-bottomed metal things without arms usually kept stacked in two long, narrow closets at either end of the front of the so-called chapel, actually a multipurpose room more configured as an auditorium than a place of worshipful acts. An observer might well discern some apparent contradictions: the somberness of a funeral parlor, the sacrilegious tilt of chapel chairs against the wall; the black of the ties, shoes, and pants, and the white of the shirts; the grim subject matter of the men’s conversation—literally blood and guts—and the roll of their laughter. Louis Pank, one of several harmless thrill seekers everybody had learned to tolerate, was himself a contradiction. He hated the sight of blood, had a debilitating fear of death, but loved to ride along on emergency calls.

Today most funeral homes are different. Except for a few in the outback of America, none make ambulance runs anymore. That task or pleasure, as the case may be, has been given over to ambulance services operating as private businesses or as rescue units of a hospital or the police. The cycle has been broken No longer do mortuaries create a portion of their own business, as it were, but must rely on other agencies or individuals to send them customers. The emphasis is on that staid side of the enterprise: Prepare the body and send it grandly on its way. As Louis Pank would surely say if he were alive today: “They have taken the very life out of the death business.”

The company did not give its official approval to Louis’s volunteer services. He had had no training in ambulance work and besides, what if he should get hurt or killed? Everybody shuddered to think of the lawsuit that might result. Trouble was, the company president himself could not say no to Louis every time and sneaked him aboard. Who were the attendants not to follow the example of their leader?

If the gang had included women, probably Louis would never have had a ride, for there was no way in this world that Louis Pank could have ingratiated himself with the opposite sex. There was, in fact, only one woman in his life—his mother, with whom he lived, and had lived alone for almost all his 30-odd years. With sagging jowls, too prominent nose, and severely receding hairline, Louis’s face epitomized that hackneyed expression: “A face only a mother could love.”

The rest of him was little better. From a distance, his whole shape gave the impression of an oversized pear being impelled along by legs without knees operated by some rusty, unseen mechanical device. Even his arms had a peculiar unsychronized swing like those of a ragdoll shaken at random. His voice sounded like that of a frog resonating in a tin can. The sight of his clothing was enough to stun even the least style-conscious. His outfit was always the same: no jacket, a shirt, no tie, no sweater, red suspenders, baggy dark gray pants, hightop shoes. Year in, year out. In winter he wore an overcoat on top of the same array.

A study of the array in poor Louis’s head revealed other mismatchings. Today he would undoubtedly be designated “learning disabled,” “slightly retarded,” “slow.” Actually, after initially recognizing that fact, nobody thought about it anymore, for Louis became a friend, and friends don’t find fault with each other.

In the old days a mortuary stood not just for death but for life; not merely for sorrow but for a playfulness that ameliorated thought of the former state. The crowd outside was schizoid: they longed for the ring of the phone that signaled a death call, but they rejoiced equally when the answered jangle sent them careening forth in the ambulance to save a life. Only Louis never asked himself how it was that a summons to prepare a body for its final journey compared favorably with a wild ride to the hospital caring for a body that needed mending.

Everybody’s job had three parts: ambulance driver/attendant, junior assistant funeral director, and apprentice embalmer. Each role contributed solidly to the buildup of a young man’s ego. Charging through city streets in a life-green Cadillac ambulance, with red lights flashing and beacons swirly to the scream of the siren, the driver was truly a hero of both day and night Cars and people would move briskly aside, genuflecting to his imperial right to pass. Then they would fall in behind with roaring engines as he led the way. At the scene the police would cut a swath for him and his crew as they pulled the stretcher along—“Make way, folks, make way, please, let them through.” Under such circumstances it was not hard for one to gain a feeling of importance. Louis’s vicarious involvement only heightened that feeling.

The second part of the job was something the state required, some legal angle that necessitated registration as such for protection of the public. It involved driving in the funeral procession, directing traffic, and aiming the grieving friends and relatives toward the right viewing room. Everybody was, you see, apprenticed to the senior funeral director whose job it was to instruct in ways devious and honest as well as cold and compassionate. Louis never understood the sedate side of the job and wanted no part of it, but he probably discerned the contradictions in company policy.

One’s apprenticeship matured in that white-tiled room that received the remains of those who had died, whether someone not reached in time, or one whose demise took place at some hospital, or whose corpse had been discovered in some out-of-the-way place and reported to the police. No dark suits and black ties in this room. Once Louis was observed standing in the hall and staring into the embalming room. No one had ever seen him in this area before. The apprentice’s white lab coat was spattered with blood. Louis blanched and without a word tumbled away past the lounge and out the side door.

Not having been able to save a life, but not yet ready to commit it in death to the grave, the embalmer sought to recreate life-in-death by all the skill he could muster. He dressed the corpse in fresh clothes and applied makeup. Pank particularly approved of this effort to give the illusion of life.

Late one Saturday afternoon Dan and Lindsay were sitting out on the side. Their partner Hugh was still at supper. Round the corner from Rivermont Avenue came Louis. Big wind-up toy. At that moment the phone rang. It was an emergency out on 29 North. A wreck. Three cars involved, said the police sergeant.

Dan rang up the boss, who lived in an adjoining building, and gave him the facts. “Take Louis with you on a double-run,” he ordered. “I’ll catch the phones and wait for Hugh.”

When you got a call, you moved really fast. From the side of the building to the basement, into an ambulance, and at the corner making the turn in just under two minutes. You gave yourself only two additional minutes to make it out of a sound sleep in underwear from the third floor and out.

Louis was literally dancing up and down in overwrought excitement. “Wait here, Louis,” Lindsay shouted. We’ll pick you up as we come by.” Dan could still hear their questionable fellow attendant’s voice chattering out: “Emergency, emergency!” as he descended to the basement garage.

Lindsay leaped into the new Cadillac ambulance, flipped the beacon switch on, starting the red light to arc still in the garage, turned on the running lights, trounced on the siren button, and blasted out through the driveway up D Street, hitting his brakes slightly at the side door of the home as Louis swung aboard. From Dan’s position 15 feet behind in the black combination he could see Louis reach back to a gray half-smock and pull it off the headliner hook and don it.

To reach the accident scene, some four miles away, they had to cross a long bridge just 200 feet from the funeral home, make their way through three blocks of heavy traffic smack downtown before turning left down a hill with a 10% grade, cross the James River, and head up a 15% grade, swinging curves at the top, then on for nearly three miles. By the time they reached the end of the bridge, Dan had been so absorbed in maintaining his proper distance from the lead ambulance that he had to look twice to believe his eyes. Fully half of Louis’s body was leaning perilously out of the window on the rider’s side. He was waving and shouting to his friends standing on the street. But no, he didn’t fall out, for the ambulance slowed up considerably as it negotiated the left turn into 8^th Street and zoomed downhill, pulling Louis down into his seat at the same time. In those days there were no seat belts or power steering, and a loose person up front made driving around curves very difficult. It was even hard to hold yourself in place with the wheel. One night, while riding on a call with Hugh, Dan remembered how Hugh had come right over and sat on his lap as they took a curve at 90.

“I’ve got four injured,” the state patrolman said to Dan through the window. “Two look pretty bad.”

“I’ll take the bad ones,” Dan said. “Where are they?”

“Over here. They were thrown clear.”

Dan hated that expression. The “clear” made it sound like there was an advantage to being hurled out of a vehicle, whereas in reality it was a catastrophe. He was grateful that the officer had spoken to him first. Everybody had been forewarned that Louis’s usefulness was inversely proportional to the severity of the accident.

The policeman helped Dan load his victims. Lindsay and Louis were loading theirs. One man was able to walk to the cot. Thank goodness, Dan thought.

The ambulances headed for the emergency room of the nearer of the two hospitals. Dan was in front this time and could see nothing but his partner’s lights in his rear-view mirrors. Louis must have been in the rear steadying the patients around curves.

Dan and Lindsay backed the ambulances into the garage just 45 minutes after departing. By now Louis was back up front with Lindsay and all smiles. “Great emergency!” he announced in the garage as he tossed the soiled sheets into the laundry bin and reached for clean ones immediately.

The rest of the evening was relatively uneventful. There was a knifing on 16^th Street and a death call around midnight. Louis had gone home even before the second emergency. Had to pick up some things for his mother at the store, he claimed.

That summer moved inexorably on. Louis came by almost every Saturday night. Sometimes he amused himself by sneaking down to the garage and working the ambulance lights and siren. He didn’t ride along every time, but when he did, somebody had to watch him and hold onto his suspenders. This was his greatest act: Riding downtown at breakneck speed in that gorgeous life-green Cadillac and waving to all his friends on the tame street below. His act was often more subdued at the scene of some tragedy, and everybody saw him scurry off to nearby bushes more than once. Each time after a particularly trying run, he would excuse himself and go and get something for his mother.

Dan got to meet her once. The boss had sent him across town with an urn full of a woman’s husband’s ashes. The goofy woman would call up periodically and demand that “somebody get those damned ashes out of my house immediately.” Two weeks later she would sob out her need for her “husband,” and off an attendant would go to start the cycle all over.

“Take Louis with you. He’ll be company.”

“Good grief,” Dan thought. “Come on, Louis,” he said instead.

“Is it an emergency?” shrieked Louis, dancing up and down—or was it back and forth? Dan never could be sure.

“No, we just have to take the urn back for the second time this month.”’

“Can we take an ambulance?” he implored.

“No, Louis, we’ll take the flower truck.”

“Can we stop at my place afterwards so I can give my mother this loaf of bread?”

Dan sort of knew where Louis lived. Up one of those precipitous downtown streets. Upstairs, second floor.

Louis showed him. Up all right. Top of the hill up Seventh. Third floor. Rickety railing. The place reminded Dan of a building in which he had once helped his partner carry a 300-pound man with heart trouble down the steps in a straight chair. At one point all three of them came close to pitching headlong down the staircase.

They entered the apartment. “Ma!” Louis yelled. “Here’s your bread. I’m going back out. See you soon.”

An old person hobbled in from the back. I’ll be! Dan thought. Same curious walk. They even look alike.

“Don’t you be gone long. You know how sick I am,” barked old lady Pank. “And stay away from that crowd at the mortuary. They’re a bad influence on you.”

Dan was flabbergasted. They were a bad influence on Louis? Indeed! He felt genuine indignation. They were his only pleasure. Now he understood why.

“Who’s that with you?” inquired Mrs. Pank.

“Nobody, Ma, just a guy from the shop.”

“Huh? All right, get back here before 9 o’clock. I need you.”

Dan suggested they stop off at the Texas Tavern, affectionately referred to as the Ptomaine Tearoom, for a hamburger, a bowl of red, and a glass of buttermilk. He was buying. It was fine with Louis.

There at the counter they talked for a good hour. Dan had never known before where Louis worked. “I make screws,” he explained, “big ones and little ones, wood screws and machine screws, with nuts and washers to match.” His voice was already trailing off by the time he said “machine screws.” It was as if he were not quite sure. He added abruptly, as if coming round suddenly, “In that factory, you know, over Fairview way.” Why did the word “screwy” suddenly seem so appropriate?

Louis said he quit school at 16, had not had to go into the service because he was his mother’s sole support. “It’s just as well; I never did take to blood. He had long since given up all power to his mother; his only chance at self-assertion was to face up to blood on ambulance runs.

Dan returned to college the middle of that September 1947. Back home at Christmas he worked a couple of weeks at the mortuary but didn’t lay eyes on Louis again till the following summer.

It was a Saturday night, and there they all sat—all except Lindsay, who had his ear glued to the radio in the lounge listening to police calls. Although it was Fauber’s police month and they would be called as a matter of course to answer initially all accident and violence calls in the area, everybody knew that the competing funeral homes also listened to the radio and frequently tried to beat each other to the scene. An extra minute or so helped immensely.

“Let’s roll,” Dan heard Lindsay call out. They dashed into the foyer just as the elevator door clanked open. It shut behind them and Pank. “Where’s Hugh?” Dan asked. “Isn’t he back from the crematorium yet?”

“Don’t think so. Give the boss a ring on the intercom, will you? I’ll get the gate up.”

They put Louis up front, on the outside. A mistake, no doubt, but Dan needed to be in the middle where he could reach both spotlights if necessary.

The accident was on 29 South, a good five-mile ride across town to the highway and then, according to the police call, just a half mile this side of the airport turnoff. They were there in 12 minutes; God knows how they did it. You never knew whether you’d get through the traffic; you just headed for a clutch of cars and trucks and hoped they’d part. You never slowed up much.

Whitten was already there. Damn them! They had outrun everybody lately. Fauber’s share was a single victim, but the crew had to wait while the cops tried to pry off a door that was jammed tightly shut. The man inside looked like he wasn’t going to make it. His face was white and bloodstreaked, but not much flow was in evidence. That’s bad news.

Louis had been standing next to Dan. Suddenly, without any announcement of his intended action, he toppled forward and grabbed the door handle and with a mighty wrench pulled it open. Dan had seen some strange things at accidents, but Louis came close to pulling the door off its hinges. He did what first a crowbar and then a winch couldn’t do. Together, Louis and Dan eased the injured man out and onto the stretcher.

On the way to the hospital, Louis sat with the patient in the rear of the ambulance, steadying his roll as they made the curves, reassuring him all the way. Dan could Louis’s voice through the sliding glass panel separating the cab from the rear. He did not sound at all like a frog. Tonight Louis was his own man, no echo.

After three years Dan quit the mortuary for other things. He lost track of Louis Pank for several years but continued to drop by occasionally, especially on a Saturday evening when he was in town. Both of the guys had finished mortuary science school and were back, fully qualified.

“By the way,” Dan asked one night, whatever happened to Louis Pank?”

“You mean you didn’t hear?!” Both of them were articulating the question-exclamation.

“No,” he said, “tell me.’

Lindsay volunteered. “It was in the paper about six months ago. He had just quit work at the factory. He and his mother both dead. Asphyxiated. Gas stove. Very clean. No blood. We got the bodies. Fixed ‘em up real nice. Death call, no emergency”

Somehow, Dan felt relieved. He didn’t know exactly why.

(From Psychograms of Sickness and Death: A Partial Autobiography, by Donald D. Hook, Unlimited Publishing, 2002.)