A Sibling in Always

What am I to make of you?

The one to whom I will speak

The nature of your design

I am beside of myself

I ask, do you have a name?

Tell me how you want to look

This chance is perfect for me.

It is perfect for you too.

We must have a way to go.

How shall we proceed, my friend?

What will I turn you into?

Someone is hiding in there.

I want to know your true name.

These years you waited to die.

Could there have been anything,

Only madness in the dark.

Darkness is in this light too,

And there are things you may lose.

Did you ever hold something?
You have ever felt possessed,

Since those who are never do.

(Madness is on this side too.)

            I keep saying it is not routine. Dying that is. But neither is living in most cases. People have such a thing as an average life. There is a median income for American families. People have two kids on average. They buy cars and go to movies. They get their teeth pulled when they get old and they buy their grandkids Christmas presents. I know all this. I have seen the family pictures adorning the funeral home. Plucked from mantels and tables from around homes and placed around the coffin in the viewing room. Smiling faces. Cooked turkeys and full bellies. Happy people. I have never had that life, but I know it to be real. I see it time and time again throughout the years. A couple funerals a week: that is what we average. More than enough to keep the home afloat.

            My uncle doesn’t live at the funeral home like I do -- me in an efficiency apartment in the back of the home. Now our new employee is living in the apartment above the garage. I don’t know if he is paying rent or if it was just something he and Seth agreed to, that way Seth could pay him less money. I have no idea. I don’t get into the business. I know my skill and I do it well. I like the challenge of it sometimes. But as violent and dismembering as it is, I am rarely shocked at what I see. I know that people die in violent ways, and that is where I make my mark. It eases people to see the violence removed.

            But no violence tonight. None.

Sometimes I like to think my uncle and I have come to a place of forced mutual respect. We have never operated on a familial level. It is a façade and it took until I was at least thirty to develop, but it is in place now. It is necessary for us to work together as we do. One of the points is we respect each other’s privacy. I never invite him into my home. He does not invite me to his, though I have seen if from the outside, a few miles from the funeral home. Not flashy but elaborate. He makes the money in the place. He has been married for years, but I have only met his wife a few times. She doesn’t consider me family.

            Nonetheless, we respect our mutual privacy. That is our way now. I began living in my apartment when I was young, almost immediately after my mother was committed (we stayed in the apartment above the garage when we lived together). In my twenties it was nothing for Seth to barge in unannounced and uninvited as if he owned the place. In actuality, he did own the place, but it was mine in my head. We fought and argued. I threatened to quit the business dozens of times. Now I have my privacy, but tonight my uncle broke it.

            I had never bothered to have the locks changed, so the key that sat unused on his chain still worked after years of idleness. I was in a deep sleep when he entered, so I did not hear him come into my apartment. He came into my small bedroom, and he turned on the lights.
            “Horace, wake up. I need you,” he says loudly, but not yelling.

            I sprang to my feet: scared and disoriented.

            “What the hell are you doing in here?”

            “I need your help,” he says.

            “Get the fuck out!” I demand, but he doesn’t move. That is odd for me. I rarely used profanity. I did when I was younger, but I accidentally used foul language in front of a customer, and Seth berated me for it. Since then, I have removed it from my language, only letting it out in moments of intense frustration, like now, with my uncle standing in my room unannounced in the middle of the night.

            “It’s business, Horace, get dressed. We have to go to a house on Ingersoll Street. It’s urgent.”

            “What happened?” I ask.

            “There has been a death,” he answers.

            “What’s urgent about that?”

            “The benefactor. The one from the other day with the old man. He has a death in the family and he called me to say it is urgent. He said for me attend to it, and he said to bring you.”

            “Why me?”

            “I have no idea, Horace. I don’t even know how he is aware you exist. Now get dressed and meet me at the hearse.”

            “Should I get Mason to drive us?”

            “The man didn’t ask me to bring Mason, he asked me to bring you. You’re wasting time. Get dressed and meet me at the car. Five minutes.”

            With that, he leaves and I go to my closet. This may be my first middle-of-the-night call, but I know jeans and t-shirt won’t be the appropriate attire. Thankfully, my time spent in the business has afforded me the ability to collect some black suits. I hurriedly dress and make my way to the hearse, still adjusting my tie as I approach.

            Seth drives. I sit in the passenger seat, thoroughly accosted.

            “What time is it?” I ask.

            “It doesn’t matter, Horace. All you need to know is someone has run out of time and someone with a lot of money has an interest in that.”

            “How much of that money will I see?”

            “When we get there, you are to be quiet. Not a sound. Stay close to me.”

            “Who is this man?”

            “I’ve never met him, but I remember him. He helped build this town into something.”

            Ingersoll Street is not far from the funeral home, so we are there in minutes. I had expected there to be people milling about. Cars parked haphazardly with people idly smoking cigarettes, but there is none of that. There is one police car and the coroner’s car. Another black sedan I don’t recognize is there. The policeman is sitting in his car and the coroner’s vehicle is empty. The front door is open and the exterior light is on.

            “Do we knock?” I ask, and my uncle ignores me. He walks through the doorway and I follow him. I can hear muffled voices as we enter. Seth finds the stairwell and begins to climb it unannounced. We approach the voices, and Seth coughs to let them know we are present.

            A man who I assume is in his early fifties comes to greet us, tight, curly locks of hair at the sides of his head. The top is bald.

            “Are you from the funeral home?” the man asks.

            “Yes, we are,” Seth answers. “I am Seth Parsons, and this is my associate Horace Carver.”

            “Call me Randall.”

            “We spoke on the phone, Randall?”

            “No. We didn’t,” he answers. “You had the privilege of speaking to my employer, Mr. Paul. I am operating on his behalf here.”

            The coroner who I immediately recognize exits the room and approaches us.

            “Seth. Horace,” he acknowledges and then turns to Randall. “Tell your boss this isn’t over. He’s going to need to come see me in person. Soon. This may be a police matter.”

            “Are you saying you suspect foul play?” Randall asks.

            “Not foul play, just something foul,” he replies and continues to walk out the door. “I’ll be outside waiting for you, Randall.”

            The house seems orderly, but most of the lights are turned off. There has only been enough illumination to lead us to this room upstairs. I know this house.

            “Gentleman, do you have a gurney of some sort?”

            “We do,” Seth answers, “but we need to see the body first.”

            “It’s in there,” he says, ushering us into the room.

            There is nothing in the bedroom other than a twin sized bed and a rocking chair. The body is covered in a sheet: small – like a child. Seth approaches it and, uncharacteristic of him, pulls the sheet back. He stares at the body for a few seconds and then lowers the sheet.

            “Let me see,” I say.

            “You’ll see soon enough. Help me. We won’t need the gurney,” he says and begins to tuck the sheet under the body. I approach him and begin helping, not knowing why. After the body is wrapped, we pick it up and return to the hearse, placing the body appropriately in the rear of the vehicle. Randall is there still talking to the coroner. The police officer has exited his car and is holding his collapsible baton in his hand.

            “You must understand how critical this is, sir. You must try to understand this is not ordinary!” Randall says to the coroner.

            You would think I would be more curious. I am curious don’t get me wrong, but I am not fully grasping the situation. Nothing seemed urgent to me about it.

            “I’ll be in contact first thing in the morning,” Randall yells at my uncle.

            “I will be too, Seth,” the coroner says.

            We drive away and return to the funeral home in silence. The body is light, and we carry it from the car, through the funeral home, and down into the embalming chamber. Once it is on my table, I turn to leave. When my finger finds the light switch, my uncle speaks, “Don’t you want to see it?”

            “It’ll wait until morning,” I answer. “I want to get a few more hours sleep.”

            “No,” he says, “I think you want to see it now.”

            “I want to be ready for it, Seth. Tonight was weird. Whatever it is, I want to be prepared. I’ll be ready in a few hours.”

            “Okay,” he responds. “Just wait for my word before you do anything to it.”

            I return to my apartment, undress, and go back to bed. I feel myself drifting to sleep within minutes.

            The more perverse among society would say it was sexual -- some sort of sexual release. A corruption in my mind. It was not. It is not. I have grown used to it. The jokes about sex with the dead. People think they are being original with their little insinuations of necrophilia, but I have been hearing them all my life. In high school when people started to joke about such things. Behind my back at the grocery or department store. I’ve heard it while I was pumping gas in the hearse. Some people say it to your face, laughing, as if they are expecting you to laugh with them. Others mumble it when they think I am out of earshot, so I have grown used to it. It is not sexual, but it is a thrill sometimes. There are days when it is little more than pumping pink fluid into a body. The most disfigured have become routine. That is why this was different. This is void. This is without form. This is not a challenge to reconstruct. This is original construction. The blank slate. This is the question no one asked.

            I am about my work.

            I had only slept for a few hours. I woke, showered, and ate. I dressed, and I was back in my embalming chamber by eight in the morning. I still am not aware of the time our night ride occurred, but I knew it was over, and I knew there was something waiting for me. My curiosity was finally piqued. I pulled back the sheet.

            I don’t use the word ecstasy lightly. I know what it implies. Again, this is not about some sort of release. This is about involvement: a connection. I could feel my hands going to work on their own, despite the familiar noise in my ears. This is its own kind of violence. The very act of breathing is an assault on the individual taking the breath. Every day is an attack. How could there ever have been life in this thing? A partial corpse who had never been whole. It’s so hard to say what I am feeling; to express myself right now. I can feel the adrenaline running through me. I can only imagine what this person’s life was like. I can usually get a close approximation to the age of the person, no matter the extent of the damage, but not on this poor creature. Sometimes I suspect society should only exist as a servant to the individual, but this person never experienced society, but only some degraded enrichment of individuality. It could only be itself, but never know itself.

            Something.

            I haven’t been told to start, but I don’t know when to stop. I keep going at it. I am looking for something. It has always been the face I am seeking, but this time there really is no face. I am seeking humanity in a dark room. I am looking for the door god left open.

            Half arms, half legs, a face without features. I am looking for the person who was created within, so I can display them outside.

            I disregard all the conventions of my trade.

            Then I am done, and I look at what I have completed. It wasn’t about applying makeup and shaping the face with my hands. It was about finding the person who never knew their own name. I can’t even use a correct pronoun because I don’t know if there is one. I’ll make it plural because this person must be multitude.

            I am finished, and I am pleased. If what I do is an art form, like Mason said, I have created my masterpiece. I didn’t rearrange mangled flesh; I showed what I think a real human should look like. I stop, and I have nothing left to say about it.

            I climb the stairs and go to Seth’s office, but my uncle is not there. I walk outside to see the sun and feel the warmth very satisfied with my labor. For the first time in a long time, I can’t wait for people to see what I have done.  My uncle is standing in the parking lot. I walk over to him.

            “He is going to pay me more to bury that thing than I have ever been paid for a funeral,” he says.

            “I’m finished,” I say to him.

            “Finished?”

            “Yes,” I say, “I’m finished with it. It’s embalmed and it’s ready.”

            “What do you mean ‘ready’?”

            “It’s my finest work. I want you to see it.”

            “I’ll be seeing nothing, Horace. I told you not to touch it until I gave you the word. What did you do?”

            “I found the corpse and I turned it into a person.”

            “You’re speaking nonsense. What did you do?”

            I remain silent.

            “I asked you a question, Horace.”

            “I already answered you.”

            “Whatever it is that you did, undo it. I don’t know if Mr. Paul is coming or not, but I don’t want him to see anything you’ve done. Embalm it, by all means. Pump it full of fluid, but nothing else.”

            “No. People have to see this.”

            “See what, Horace, some sideshow attraction you have made. This isn’t about you, this is about money. That is why we are in this: to make a profit by doing what people expect of us. I spoke to Mr. Paul, and he was direct. He wants that body in the ground as soon as possible. Tomorrow maybe.”

            “What?” I ask.

            “You heard me, Horace. He wants this affair over with. No services and a closed casket.”

            “Who is that person in there? What is it?”

            “I don’t know, Horace. I just know I have never seen anything like it. Obviously, neither have you, and Mr. Paul hasn’t told me what his relation is to that thing, I just know he is the one paying the bill, so we are going to do what he asks. Now get in there and undo any and everything you did.”

            “What about the coroner? Did he call you?”

            “Yes, he did. I am waiting for him now.”

            “Do you think he will want to see it?”

            “Go, Horace. Now.”

            We all want validation. We all want what we do to matter. I know I have made people’s lives easier by helping them to let go, but I have a feeling no one has ever clung to this person I just prepared for the grave: a mutant in some eyes, a canvas in mine. I can only imagine what its life must have been like. I know I have already said that, but I can’t help but think it. I think that about every person I take care of. I paint a picture in my mind of what their life must have been like. A private movie they star in playing through my mind. I construct it out of the lines on their skin and the last expression on their face. I revise it with the people who come to say goodbye. I have never had anything like this happen before though.

            My mind begins to race. I can’t let this thing go down like that. I don’t know if it is about me or about that person on my table, but I know something has to happen.

            Last night, when Seth said we were going to Ingersoll Street, I was not surprised, but I was taken aback at the house when we arrived. It was a house that every citizen of Always knows. I suspect its reputation extends past Always, to be honest. I know it was a destination for teenagers from Louisville, fresh driver’s licenses in their pockets and up for an adventure. I had passed it a million times in my life, but I had never gone to the door. That was the sport of it. They said it was haunted. I remember the old man I embalmed weeks ago standing out in front of it, shouting at the top of his lungs something evil was in there.

            People would go there at night on the weekends. Sometimes it drew a crowd at Halloween. People were said to work there, but no one lived there. It was that house every small town has. That house of mystery. The one that boasts of a supernatural phenomenon, but this one never said what it held -- just something evil. Kids would peer in the windows, just to be pulled away when one of the workers burst out from inside the house. Whatever secret it kept, it kept it well. I now know what that secret was: a strange, little deformed person, trapped within its walls and kept from the prying eyes of the public.

            It was a secret I was expected to keep. I know that. This Mr. Paul would be paying my uncle a lot of money to keep that secret though. We are not always in the secret keeping business in this sense. Everyone dies with secrets. Tattoos they kept covered, an anomaly on their skin, but this person’s whole life had been a secret, I suspect, and this secret was going to follow it into the grave.

            It occurs to me that I don’t know the dead’s name. I never thought to ask my uncle. I approach it now. I am back in my embalming chamber, and I cover the body. One of the most basic things we possess is a name, and I wonder what this creature was called. Normally I get a folder with all this information and I guess I had just anticipated getting it from my uncle on this one too, but nothing: just the rumor of a Mr. Paul coming to town and late night journey to the fabled house on Ingersoll Street.

            I don’t like all this skirting around. I don’t like the idea of a closed casket. My very existence despises them. Sometimes I don’t complain about them out of boredom, but in this case, I protest. So I wonder what will be of it now?

            I wanted to talk to this Mr. Paul myself. First, I wanted to ask his first name, because I deplore calling people mister or missus. I do it with customers when I must, but my interaction with them is limited at best. Second, I want to know what his kinship is to this person. Is there anyone who cared about this person at all?

            I think we are all due our last respects, whether we will be remembered or not is up to us. We create those memories in other people while we live, and I have not created near enough in other people. I am aware of that, but I don’t want to go to the grave in complete silence. I don’t want that for this person either.

            Night will fall again. I feel that coming. Every day is predictable. If it is up to me this person will be remembered, but first I have to find out its name. Will it even have a headstone: some marker that it was ever here?

            Death, at some level, should create comfort, but death shouldn’t be better than life in my opinion. Maybe there is something on the other side and maybe there isn’t. I don’t know. I speculate and I have my opinions, but they are the furthest thing from my mind at this moment.

            This person on my table may not have been known by anyone, and it may not be remembered, but, as I stand here, it will be seen.