Читать книгу Mortuary Confidential - Kenneth McKenzie - Страница 16

Contributed by an artistic gymnastics competitor

It was one of the usual morning staff meetings. All the guys I work with sat guzzling their coffee and I sipped on my Mountain Dew. I can’t stand coffee. I can’t figure out how they can drink it all day long. In fact, I won’t even date guys that drink it. That’s how much it grosses me out.

As with most morning meetings, I was bored. Our manager, Hunter, is a numbers guy. So we have to hear about casket sales this quarter compared to this point last quarter. Up. Down. He whines either way. Just give us our daily assignments and be done with it, I want to scream. But I don’t. I just sit there and sip my green soda and hope Hunter and his spreadsheets will get devoured by a pack of rabid beavers on his way home. I say this because Hunter looks like Howdy Doody, and Howdy Doody is made of wood…you get the picture. I was entertaining my usual beaver fantasy when an old woman poked her head into the employee lounge.

“Can I help you?” Howdy Doody asked. He was clearly annoyed at being interrupted while discussing the things we could do to increase fuel economy in the company fleet.

“Oh, dear. I hope I’m not interrupting,” the woman said. She looked like a sweet old grandmother.

“No, you’re not,” Howdy Doody said in a tone that suggested otherwise.

“My husband died,” the old woman said.

“Oh, my. I am sorry,” Howdy Doody said. He didn’t sound sorry.

Pick me! Pick me! I silently willed him.

“Heather will help you take care of everything,” he said and made a motion with his head as if to dismiss me.

Needing no further urging, I nearly ran out of the meeting. As I turned the corner I heard Howdy Doody pick up his monologue where he left off.

I led the frail old woman, whose name I learned was Mrs. Brewer, to the arrangement conference room and poured her a glass of water to drink while I went and gathered my papers. “Okay, Mrs. Brewer,” I said when I returned, “when did your husband die?”

“Last night.”

I wrote down the previous day’s date on my paper. “Which hospital did he die at?” I assumed it was a hospital because a nursing home surely would have called us to come take his remains as soon as he passed.

“He died at home,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Home?”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“Last night?”

“Yes,” she sounded slightly annoyed at being questioned, but looked so meek and mild sitting across the vast conference table from me. Her withered hands were folded neatly on the polished surface.

“Mrs. Brewer?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Why didn’t you call us to come pick your husband up last night?” I asked slowly, trying not to sound patronizing.

“Oh, dear,” she said and waved a hand at me, “it was far too late, nearly half past eight. You wouldn’t have been open; it was too late.”

“We never close—” I stopped and collected my thoughts. “You can always call us. Anytime. Day or night. We’re a funeral home. That’s what we do.”

“Well, it was no matter, Heather, dear. I got to sleep next to him one last time. The only thing was that I had to vacuum the ants off of him this morning. I didn’t want them on him when you all arrived.” She smiled at me.

I shivered.

“Okay, well,” I stalled, “why don’t we go on over to your house now and get Mr. Brewer. I’ll follow you.”

“Oh, no, dear,” she laughed. “I don’t drive. I walked to town this morning and took the bus in.”

“Where is the nearest bus station?” I asked. I had never seen buses anywhere near the funeral home.

“About two miles from here.”

“Two miles!” I nearly shouted.

She laughed again. “That’s nothing. When I was a little girl I used to walk over five miles to school—”

I gently cut her off. “Mrs. Brewer. Why don’t we ride on over now and get Mr. Brewer. I’ll make arrangements at your house and my colleagues can bring Mr. Brewer back here.”

She frowned. “I don’t see what all the hurry is about.”

I thought quickly. “I am just thinking of the ants. Keep him safe from those ants.”

She smiled. She liked that idea. “Okay. Let’s do it. Can I ride with you or do I have to take the bus back?”

I laughed. “You can ride with me. Hang tight here and I’ll be right back.”

I went and got one of my colleagues from the never-ending meeting and, in hushed tones, told him about the current situation. He nearly yelled, “What?” down the hallway after I told him about Mr. Brewer, Mrs. Brewer, the bus, and the ants.

I called the Medical Examiner’s office and asked them what they wanted to do. The deputy examiner told me she’d call me back.

We drove over to the Brewer house in two vehicles (fuel efficiency be damned, Howdy Doody). On the way over I received a call from the deputy examiner; she had sent a paramedic over so the death could be pronounced. She had talked to Mr. Brewer’s doctor’s office and his death wasn’t unexpected. He was eighty-one, after all.

The Brewer house turned out to be a small cabin on the river, about three miles from the closest town. We had to wait a few minutes for the paramedic to show up and hook Mr. Brewer up to a wireless EKG machine so a physician at the closest hospital could pronounce his death. My co-worker and I performed the removal and then I sent Mr. Brewer off with my colleague while I stayed to make arrangements with Mrs. Brewer.

It was unseasonably clear and sunny for this part of Oregon. Mrs. Brewer invited me out to sit on their deck that overlooked the river and offered me a drink. I declined. She brought out a large glass pitcher of iced tea anyway. Real brewed, she informed me, complete with slices of lemon floating among the ice. How could I pass it up? Birds chirped and swatches of sunlight managed to penetrate the great leafy barrier above us as the sound of the river coursed softly in the background. It was a magnificent morning.

“Jim loved it here,” Mrs. Brewer informed me, breaking my reverie. I noticed she had poured me the glass of tea. I sipped it. “We moved here from Maryland after his first heart attack in the late ’70s. He just couldn’t take the stress of litigation anymore. So we moved out here, he lost forty pounds, and we both learned to enjoy the simple life.”

“You’ll miss him, huh?”

“I will, but I won’t. Jim is all around me…here. This place gave me another twenty years with him.”

“I understand,” I said, but in fact I didn’t understand her not missing her husband. Her acceptance of his death and her total peace were puzzling to me.

“After he’s laid out so our few friends and acquaintances can come pay their respects, I want him cremated so I can pour his ashes on the land he loved…the land that gave him—and me—his life back.”

I stared at her, waiting for her to go on. She did.

“We had the cars. The money. The clothes. But that’s about it. We didn’t realize it at the time—you know—what we were missing. When we moved to Oregon we found that the void was our relationship. Out here we discovered the simple joys of just living an unhurried life, together. Jim and I created a world out here where money is of little consequence and folks don’t call each other after regular business hours.”

Taking another drink of iced tea, I realized she was right about what really matters. After that, whenever Howdy Doody tormented us with his boring rants, I pictured myself on Mrs. Brewer’s porch, enjoying the tranquility of nature’s beauty.