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THE LIFE OF THE PARTY, by Mark Pryor

The invitation arrives on my birthday, as it does almost every year. That fact is pure chance but the irony is not lost on me: an invitation to the annual Austin Mortician’s Party reaching me on the forty-fifth anniversary of my birth.

In truth, I’m a little surprised to be invited this year. Not really, everyone gets to go, but for the past decade my business has been getting smaller and my financial circumstances are, you might say, becoming grave. Two national companies are fighting for territory and Austin’s not like it used to be. Small businesses everywhere are feeling the squeeze.

The only thing saving me has been the city’s expanding population, which means an uptick in, well, tickers not working.

My reputation, too, that is a life-saver. For me, I mean, life-saving in general isn’t my cup of tea, quite the opposite. But I’m known in south Austin as the reliable, red-headed undertaker in cowboy boots. I’m the guy who buries Austin’s old-school residents, the ones who want their man in black to wear cowboy boots as he powders their unbreathing noses and cotton-balls their sunken cheeks.

They don’t want the new breed of body-snatchers, the wing-tipped greasers from the east who paint and polish their plywood caskets and call them “heartwood,” as if the grieving can’t tell the difference between that and “hardwood.” They have their “eco” caskets, and charge a super-premium for “wrapped caskets” that are covered in pictures of the deceased person’s family, just like those tacky cars you see on the highway that advertise insurance or the latest protein powder.

Look, I’m all for making a buck, but someone needs to explain to the family interested in a wrapped casket that it’s about to be buried under six feet of earth. Since the dead fella inside isn’t enjoying the pictures, and no one on the surface is, you’re paying a couple extra grand for the viewing benefit of some worms.

No, I’m a traditionalist and I offer you the basics: three casket options, and my valuable time making your loved one look presentable for the viewing. And, as a traditionalist, I’m pleased that I am still an invitee to the Austin Mortician’s Party, despite my throw-back ideas and ideals.

My one worry is that I might get the hard sell. Rather, the hard buy. A couple of the larger outfits want me to sell my business to them and have been quite pushy about it. Polite inquiries turned into lengthy letters and a couple of months ago I got a visit from two men who wouldn’t identify exactly who they worked for. They came to my office on a Monday afternoon. One perched on the desk while the other stood looking out of the window.

“My boss doesn’t take no for an answer,” Mr. Perching-man said. He did all the talking for the two of them, which I found weird because he was also the muscly one. What was the other one there for?

“I’m not selling,” I told him. “I have no reason to, it’s all I know.”

“You’ll accept his offer, or we’ll give you a reason to.”

“You haven’t even said who your boss is!” I protested. I mean, what’s the point of threatening someone if you give them no idea who to be afraid of? “I’ve had several offers, you know.”

“Trying to negotiate now?” he asked, thick eyebrows rising.

“No, it’s true. But I’m not selling to you or anyone else. And I don’t appreciate being threatened.”

“No one ever does,” he said.

“I’m going to the Association. I won’t take this lying down, believe you me.”

He got up from the desk and ambled to the door, his partner following him. Before he let himself out, he turned and looked at me. “Lying down. That’s a good one. Very appropriate.”

I made that complaint and even called the police, but no one did anything about it.

* * * *

The night of the party, I lay out my clothes on the bed. Black suit, dark gray shirt, a tie that is actually blue but looks black. A gold tie pin that my father gave me, and that his father had given him.

Which reminds me, I need to find a wife, otherwise this tie pin will be going into my casket when that time comes. You’d think the pretty women of Austin would be all over a guy who runs his own business, who’s good with his hands, and who can take care of a woman not just in sickness and in health, but even in death! I can cook, too, although I probably should quit pointing that out right after talking about dead people.

Problem is, I’m not good at the bar scene and my personality doesn’t seem to come across when I try the online dating thing. Or maybe it does and that’s the problem. Either way, seems like the moment a girl finds out what I do she acts intrigued while taking several steps back. Usually into the arms of another man, from what I can tell.

Last year there was an associate undertaker at the AMP I quite liked. Maybe she’ll be there again this year and I can actually talk to her. I was too shy last year. And it has to be talking because there’s no dancing at these things, everyone just a bit too, well, stiff, for that.

Standing in front of my bed in my underwear, I decide to wear a dark purple pocket square to shake things up. Of course it looks black from a distance but when I get close and talk to people they’ll be in for a surprise.

My party clothes are all blacks and grays, but I like to see myself as a progressive traditionalist, pocket square notwithstanding, so once I’m dressed in the suit I sit on the bed and pull on my cowboy boots, a pair of square-toed Tony Lamas, made from worn goat-leather. Three shades of brown that I keep polished to a glowing shine for my rare attempts at a social life. I’m proud to say that I don’t even own a pair of wing-tips.

I take an Uber to the party, which is at the premises of Austin’s largest mortician over on the east side, basically the Wal-Mart of our industry. My driver’s all interested in what I’m up to and I’m all interested in her, until I make the mistake of actually answering her questions and then she goes quiet for a moment, glancing back at me in the mirror as she turns up the radio. Maybe I should have sat in the front seat, maybe that would have made her more comfortable. Not.

I arrive at the party at ten minutes to seven, which is fine because I like to be in bed by nine, ten at the latest so an 8:00 p.m. start time doesn’t work well for me. Except the parking lot is basically empty and I hate being the first one there, standing out like that. I have the idea that I can help set up, get to know a few people that way. Maybe that associate undertaker, who happens to work at the host’s place of business, will be one of the people setting up for the party.

In fact, she’s the one who lets me in the door and her name tag reminds me that she’s called Belle. I’m surprised I don’t remember that because she is. Very.

“Oh,” she says with a straight face, “it’s the life of the party.” She has this flat affect and I don’t know if she’s joking. She cocks her head. “What was your name again?”

“Andrew Banks. My friends call me Drew.” If I had some they would.

I look behind her and see that the party is set up and ready to go. As usual, they’ve gone heavy with the creepy theme. I guess it’s hard to do anything else when you’re holding a party in a room full of caskets and a couple of old coffins. I get that question a lot, What’s the difference between a coffin and a casket?

My answer is always the same: Two.

Here’s why: a coffin is one of those six-sided, not-quite-rectangular boxes you see on television, especially westerns. A casket is what we use nowadays, a simple rectangular container, usually with a curved, smooth top.

Predictably, they’ve gone for the crypt-look with lots of red velvet drapes and candelabras, and I have to admit they’ve done a good job disguising the bland, corporate feel of the place. They haven’t put the food out yet but there are bottles of wine and champagne scattered about the large room. I wonder how much it costs to put this on, knowing I can’t afford to.

“Drew. Right. You’re very early. Is that tie blue or black?” Her tone doesn’t change and I feel a twinge of disappointment because her lack of personality is making her seem less pretty to me; I notice that even though she has beautiful brown hair it’s pulled back so tight it looks like it should hurt, and she has no make-up on. She’s wearing an expensive tweed suit, very dark green with that fine herringbone pattern that you know costs a fortune. But she’s just an undertaker’s associate, which to my cynical mind suggests she has a boyfriend with money.

A boyfriend like the guy standing at the back of the room, watching us. Starr Davidson is handsome enough, fifty maybe, and owns the place. He looks more like a used car salesman than a mortician, though a lot of them do these days. Hair slicked back, eyes that never look in the same direction for more than a few seconds, a perma-smile. White teeth. He starts towards us and Belle backs away at the same time, which looks weird because there’s no way she has eyes in the back of her head. Maybe she’s on a string.

“I like your boots,” she says as she drifts away from me, and again I can’t tell if she’s joking. Probably not, they’re nice boots.

“Thanks.”

She stops her backward retreat. “What size are they?”

“Seven.” I have small feet, and blush a little when I tell her that.

“Me too.” She turns to walk away and brushes shoulders with Starr Davidson who’s almost upon me.

He shakes my hand. “Andrew, nice to see you.”

“Sorry I’m early,” I say, wishing even more desperately that I wasn’t.

“You’re not,” he says. “I invited you for seven, I wanted to talk to you.”

Flustered, I pull the invite from my jacket pocket and see that he’s right. The printed “8” is crossed out and he, or someone, has written “7” just above it.

“Oh,” I say. “Good.”

“I wanted to resume the conversation we started on email. Doesn’t make sense to have that kind of talk by email, does it?”

I know what he’s talking about, his offer to buy my business for a hundred grand. I wonder if he’s the one who sent those men but I don’t ask because, as far as I’m concerned, that conversation is over: he asked, I said no, done. But here I am an hour early and everything’s set up. What else am I gonna do?

A glass of red wine appears in his hand and he offers it to me. “Have a drink, Andrew.”

I take it. “Thanks.”

He steers me to one side of the room, gesturing to a plush-looking casket. It’s blond wood, silk-lined and padded throughout the interior. And this is what I’m talking about—look, our clients are dead. The ones who go inside these things, anyway. Selling luxury caskets like this is almost a sin in my book because no one needs anything like this. The salesmen are taking advantage of the bereaved in a moment of weakness; it’s as good as stealing from them. In my view, anyway.

“What do you think of this one?” he asks, wafting a hand over it. I smell his cologne now, and I think I might be allergic to it because I sneeze. I glance down and am relieved to see I haven’t spilled wine on or in the casket.

“Looks expensive.”

“It is. Six grand, just for the box.” He’s smiling, like a crocodile sizing up a cornered zebra.

“Waste of money,” I say.

“No.” He shakes his head. “I mean, for some people it might be but we think the customer should have options.”

“All your options are a waste of money.”

“We do offer a higher-end product, I admit,” he says. “We leave the cheap end of the market to you.”

I know he’s trying to insult me, but he’s not succeeding. I have faith in my business model, in my product. And if it’s so cheap, why’s he wanting to buy it?

He tells me. “But Austin does have a growing population of folks who prefer the more … affordable options. Business is good, right, all those immigrants from Mexico, California, New York, all coming to town and dying?”

“Some,” I admit. That has been a growing market for me. Or harvest, as my dad used to call it. I get my sense of humor from him.

“So. Last chance, I won’t bring it up again. A hundred grand for your business, lock, stock, and barrel.”

I’m tempted by the money but there’s no way because I have nothing else I want to do with my life. I buy a few moments by running my hand over the silk interior of the casket. The lid is one of those that opens either as one, or in two separate halves. The head section is open and Davidson opens the lower half of the lid, too.

“Nice inside, isn’t it?”

I nod, but say, “Dead people don’t need that much padding.”

He laughs gently. “This is in case we bury someone who’s alive. They’ll be more comfortable.”

I pick up his joke and run with it. “And with all that padding you won’t hear them scream,” I say, “which would be bad for business.”

“Precisely!” He rests a hand on my shoulder. “Your caskets, well, they’d kick their way out in a moment and come sue you.” His grin drops into a grimace. “Not that they’d recover much money, am I right?”

“Yeah, well,” I start, but have nothing to finish the sentence with.

He leaves his hand on my shoulder and pushes me to the end of the casket. “Here, I want to show you something. Special feature, you might call it.” We stand at the bottom of the casket and he puts his hand on the panel where the feet go. He pushes something and the foot panel swings open like a door. “What do you think of that?” he asks, smug.

“What’s the point of it?”

“Several points. If need be, you can get the body out by sliding it instead of opening the top and lifting it out.”

“When have you ever needed to do that?” I know I haven’t.

“Also, it’s a way people can put things inside once the lid is closed. Like, for kids to put in something without having to see the body.”

“Huh,” I say. I guess that could happen but it seems like just another reason to charge more for this box.

“And,” he’s saying, “a reason that wasn’t originally intended but that helps me sell them. When it’s open, the customer can do this.” He turns his back to the casket and perches in the little open doorway. “Think about it. People want to know that their dead relative is comfortable, but who’s going to climb into a casket to make sure?”

“No one, I hope.”

“Right. This way, they actually sit on the end and feel for themselves. Just sit here like this, or even lie back if they want to, without having to clamber in and out.”

“I guess.”

“Try it, feel how comfortable that is.” He slides off and gestures for me to perch where he was.

“Okay.” I disagree that caskets need to be silk-lined and padded, to this extent anyway, but this is his party. At least he’s stopped asking to buy my business. I’m a little shorter than him, so I hop up and kind of settle in. I’m sitting down and it is soft.

He moves alongside me, putting one hand on my back. “What do you think?”

“That dead people don’t need this.”

He laughs. “Andrew, don’t be such a curmudgeon. We sell peace of mind, and you know it.”

“For six grand.” I sound petulant, and wish I didn’t.

“Right.” His other hand moves to my shoulder. “But once you try it, it’s hard to say no. Lay back and see.”

I groan inwardly but decide to play along. He’s powerful in the Association and he’s my host, plus if he’s not dating Belle maybe he can put in a word. And this casket is very comfortable. More like a bed.

“And plenty of room,” he says, as he lowers the lower half over my legs. “You can almost put your knees up, right?”

“Well, not really, but I see what you mean. It’s pretty roomy.”

He swings the foot panel inwards and it shuts with a quality click. Now I feel like I’m in a cocoon-slash-sleeping bag, and I worry that my boots will tear or dirty the silk. I see a small metal circle flush with the wood at about knee level. “What’s that for?” I ask.

“The casket is airtight,” he says, patting it. “And with this beauty we can offer our dearly departed extra longevity once they’ve passed to the other side.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that after we’ve embalmed the client, we pop that little disc and suction the air right out of the interior.”

“But that would—”

“Mummify them,” he interrupts, that smirk on his face. “A thousand years from now, someone could be popping my caskets open and finding the people buried inside just as we laid them out.”

“They’d want to do that?”

“Of course! Explorers wet their pants when they find mummified bodies, don’t they?”

“I suppose.” I squirm, almost too comfortable, slotted into that casket as I am. He sees that.

“Lay down. Once our customers actually lay in this thing, they don’t go with anything else.”

“You mean the live or dead ones?”

He doesn’t laugh at my joke and to fill the awkward moment I ease myself onto my back. In the further recesses of my mind a worry is sharpening its edges on the possibility that he might try and scare me, shut me in or something. But people will be here soon, lots of them, and since he’s a serious (perhaps too serious) businessman, and not a prank-pulling teenager, I ignore that concern.

“A hundred thousand dollars and a free casket,” he says. “This very casket. That’s an incredible deal for your business. Final offer.”

“It’s not for sale,” I repeat, for what feels like the fiftieth time.

“But you could retire. When does social security kick in? You must be nearly there.”

“I’m forty-five.”

“Oh. Well, you look older, which tells me this business isn’t good for your health.”

“I’m perfectly healthy, thank you.” Which sounds strange considering I’m saying it while stretched out in a casket.

Davidson leans over me and I can feel the warmth of his breath, which smells slightly minty. “You’re absolutely sure it’s not for sale?”

“Yes. Positive. You’re not going to threaten me again, are you?”

“I have no idea what you mean.” He sighs and shakes his head. “Anyway, we’re past that.”

Before I can react, he steps back and pulls the lid of the casket towards him, slamming it down on top of me. It’s pitch black but I’m seeing red because he said he wouldn’t threaten me, which clearly was a lie. And trapping me in a casket isn’t going to change my mind. He can leave me in here a full hour, if he wants, I’m not selling.

I shout for him to let me out but hear nothing in return. Nothing at all until, a minute later, the casket shakes a little and a point of light arrows in at my right knee. Then it goes dark again and I hear a whirring sound, one that confuses me until I realize he’s sucking the air from the casket. I try to wiggle, to move the damn thing, and I’m shouting because this is taking things too far. He could actually suffocate me in here. I’ll show him. My hands tear at the smooth silk above me, finally ripping into the cloth and I feel ribbons of it falling around my face, soft as snow. I wonder if he’ll have the nerve to try and charge me for repairing it. He almost certainly will.

Within a minute I feel myself gasping for breath and I’m beginning to panic because I’m sure he’s never done this with a live person in here and so how does he know when to—?

The whirring stops.

A square of light opens by my feet and I feel the air rushing into the vacuum so I breathe deeply, my chest filling with air, and it swells, too, with the knowledge I’ve won this little contest. But I’m angry at his attempt to bully and humiliate me.

I feel hands on my feet, tugging, and I wonder why he doesn’t just open the damn lid to let me out. He tells me why, his voice funneling up to my ears from the open end of the casket.

“Belle likes your boots. Same size she wears, can you believe that?”

The left boot slides off, and when his hands seize the right one I twist my foot and try to resist but I have no leverage, nowhere to twist to, and it comes off easily. I start to wriggle my way downwards, intending to slide out but strong hands push me back inside. The end of the casket swings shut and I’m enveloped in darkness again.

My thoughts make fun of me: So, you’re the life of the party. Not for much longer, at this rate. And you’re taking this lying down, after all!

Then I shout at my mind to be quiet, to do something useful like think of a way out of here but now my thoughts are scrambled, trying to calm my brain while letting it know how much danger it’s in. I thump at the lid of the casket as best I can and shout at Starr Davidson. Shout for him, maybe, to help me. For someone.

Anyone.

Then the whirring starts again.

I let out a scream, fear and anger fueling my body as I thrash up and down, side to side, knees and toes and fists pounding at the sides and the lid, but the soft silk and expensive padding literally cushion every blow, like a loving father palming his toddler’s flailing fists.

Once our customers actually lay in this thing, they don’t go with anything else.

The memory of his voice makes me angrier, makes me hit and kick harder, but after thirty seconds my energy is gone and I lie there, panting in the blackness, my body wet with sweat and the realization that if that whirring doesn’t stop soon, I’ll die.

* * * *

My breathing slows and I push my stockinged feet against the panel at the end, just in case. It’s soft but doesn’t give way, like the muddy bottom of a lake. I close my eyes and cup my hands over my gold tie pin.

The whirring doesn’t stop.