“The Mortician’s Son”

by Ryan Snyder

Friday nights were my parents’ date nights, so many a Friday afternoon

my brother, Chad, and I were sent down the street to Ethel’s baby blue 2-story.

Her husband, Mo, was a pipe-smoking Harley man, who died when I was 5. It

was the first time someone I knew had passed away. The day after, my father

grabbed my hand and walked me into the funeral home.

He asked, “Ryan, do you know what happens to people when they die?”

“Sure, they go to heaven,” I replied.

My father paused, bit his upper lip and said, “Well, Mo just died, and,

well, he’s in heaven now.”

I looked him in the eyes and said, “I’m glad Mo’s dead. He was a bad,

bad man.”

Dad looked at me through his thick lenses, his brows furrowed, and

firmly stated, “Ryan, don’t say that about someone who’s dead. It’s not nice –

they can hear you.”

“I don’t care. I’m glad Mo’s dead.”

I don’t remember why I felt such a hatred for Mo. I only have two

memories of him: Once he teased Chad and I, calling us girls with a smirk while
exhaling pipe smoke through his nose. Another time his pipe was resting in a

black ashtray on the floor; Chad accidentally stepped on it and scattered ashes

across the carpet. Mo leaped from his plaid armchair, shook his finger at Chad

and cussed him out before Ethel could run in from the kitchen to calm him

down. But, the next time I went to Ethel’s house, I didn’t feel a sense of loss

when I saw his empty chair. When I saw Mo lying stiff on the embalming table,

his pale naked body beneath a white bed sheet pulled up to his armpits, to me

he was already gone.

***

Chad and I used to throw sacked lunches into our backpacks, sling them

over our shoulders, and walk through the funeral home with Mom. The garage

was connected to the funeral home, so every morning we had to walk through

the funeral parlor to be taken to school in our black ’79 Pontiac Grand Prix.

We’d pass an open casket at least twice a week. When Mom knew the name of

the deceased, as we called them, she’d tell us the person’s name and what he did

in town. Chad and I would look at him lying solemnly in his navy blazer and

red-striped tie, his hands folded one over the other, then wave and say, “Hi

Bob.”

***

I had to crane my head to see over the dashboard as my father and I drove
to Port Columbus International Airport in the white Pontiac station wagon. We

pulled into a parking lot of semi-trailers and my father backed the wagon up to

the shipping dock. I followed behind as he ascended the concrete steps to the

cargo office. Three people waited in line as I eyed the $.35 orange peanut

butter crackers through the vending machine glass. I slid my finger into the

coin return slot, just in case.

The clerk looked at my father and asked, “Can I help you?”

My father slid a check and a yellow sheet of paper across the countertop

and said, “I’m here to pick up an H.R. from flight 1047.”

The clerk nodded and turned to shuffle through a stack of papers. I

tugged at my father’s brown slacks and asked, “Dad, what’s an H.R.?”

He looked cautiously at the other customers, then leaned down and

replied in a hushed tone, “H.R. stands for ‘Human Remains’. We’re picking up

a body that came on one of the airplanes.”

The clerk turned back to my father and said, “Here’s your receipt. I’ll

meet ya around back.”

Outside, the garage door grumbled as it climbed its metal track. The

clerk pushed the rusty blue manual forklift out of sight and returned with a 6-½

foot wooden plank covered by a cardboard box. He pushed a button beside the

door and lowered the dock to the station wagon’s open rear door. The grown-
ups grabbed the nylon loops stapled into the wood, slid the H.R. into the back

of the wagon and slammed the door shut.

As we drove away my father turned to the back to console our new

passenger. “Hi, Marge! Don’t worry, it’ll just be a short trip back home.”

***

Occasionally I'd sneak into the funeral parlor alone to examine the

deceased in the casket. One morning in particular, a woman in her mid-

seventies rested inside. Her cheeks were powdered pinkish-tan, her mouth

wrinkled into a slight frown and her shriveled lips penciled in to their normal

size. Her white blouse was just a shade off the casket’s cream interior with a

pearl necklace looping atop her breasts. Her left hand, bearing a gold diamond

ring, was placed on top of her right; green veins tracked across her withered

hands. The smell of fresh-cut roses filled the air; Grandma was written in white

cursive letters on the red ribbon that hung from the casket spray.

My father crept in behind me, placed his hands on my shoulders and said,

“That’s Marilyn. She was a hair stylist in town.”

I wanted to touch her, to see what it felt like to touch a dead person, but

was scared. I wasn't sure what would happen if I touched her - maybe I would

die, or get the same cooties that the girls in school had. I asked, “Daddy, what

would happen if I touched her?”

 He replied, “Nothing, she’s dead. She can’t do anything to hurt you. She

feels just like she’s alive, but she’s not.”

“Can I touch her hand?”

“Sure, if you want to.”

I nodded slightly with my eyebrows raised in uncertainty. My father put

his hands underneath my armpits and lifted me up so I was above her. I poked

her hand and arm with my index finger, the way I'd poke Chad’s little pouch of

a belly to tickle him, but this was different - her hand was cold, the temperature

of chilled water from the faucet; her forearm stiff, as if her muscles were flexed,

not ready for the casket lid to close.

***

One Sunday after Reverend Jerry’s sermon, I was walking beside my

mother through the church hallway when Joy, the Sunday School teacher,

firmly grabbed my mother’s hand. Her eyes were wide and she said, “Emily,

you’ll never guess what Chad said today in Sunday school. We were looking at

the nativity set, and I asked the kids, ‘So, what is the baby Jesus lying in?’ He

raised his hand and yelled, “Ooo, I know! It’s a casket!’” She grabbed her

knees and howled with laughter.

I didn’t know what was so funny.

***
 My cat, Rascal, had a pure white coat and green eyes, and every night she

would jump onto the bed, lie on my chest and purr me to sleep. My parents

decided to put Rascal to sleep after veterinarians tried unsuccessfully for 3 years

to remedy her urinary tract infection. I wore an orange shirt with a picture of

Luke Skywalker’s flight vest the last time I held her in my arms. An hour later,

she was lying on her side in a cardboard box packed with sea green bath towels;

a dried bloodstain ran from her neck.

My father packed a shovel in the back of the station wagon and we drove

out to my grandparents’ farm, a couple miles outside of town. We walked out

behind the barn through the knee-high grass; my father carried the shovel and

Mom cradled the box against her chest. My father dug a hole and laid the box

inside. When he slung the first shovel full of dirt atop the box, I ran back to the

station wagon, crying so hard I had to gasp for breath.

***

Mom and I snuck around my grandparents’ white farmhouse, tiptoeing

through the gravel driveway, to the back door where a new litter of kittens slept

with their mother. Mom let out a slight squeal as she bent over the cardboard

box and reached her hand in to pick up the pretty one - a gray and white kitten

whose neck fur spread out like a lion’s mane. The kitten spread across her palm

and purred as Mom rubbed the fur against her cheek.

 I patted the kitty's head, just hard enough to make her open her eyes, and

excitedly asked, “Can we keep her Mom? Please?”

“Well, maybe. Let me think about it.”

The tiger-striped mother lay against the box wall, babes curled up to her

belly; she glared as we picked each one up for a glimpse of new life. I watched

Mom lift the charcoal grey kitten; her eyebrows rose as her green eyes reflected

like a morning lake.

“Awww,” she moaned while examining the little one. “Look, Ryan. His

legs only go down to his knees.”

She placed him on the ground and we watched the little ball of fuzz

hobble around the concrete stoop on his hind half-legs.

One night as I lay in bed, the X-wing Fighter wallpaper exploded in light

as heat lightning flashed across the dark sky. Leah, the cute kitty we brought

home, sat on the windowsill with her front paws tucked under her chest. I

thought about the day we took her from the farm – how we named her after the

princess in Star Wars, and called her twin brother, Luke Thywalker. I asked

Mom what happened to Luke; she said he couldn’t survive on the farm because

of his lack of legs.

I pictured the old man in the sky atop his golden throne, bones stacked
around his feet. A kitten skeleton was spread across his thigh. I hoped to see

Luke again, and wondered if I would when I died. I imagined my trip to heaven,

my bones just another inanimate set among the heap. Reverend Jerry never

explained what heaven was like in his sermons; he simply said it was the place

you went when you died.

Earlier that day, a 1-800 psychic said she could tell who I was in a past

life if I called the number on the screen. “Maybe I was Jesus,” I thought, lying

under the warm covers, picturing myself treading the hot Nazareth sand in my

white robe and sandals. “No, that doesn’t seem right. Maybe I was George

Washington.” I imagined myself in a navy blue jacket with gold buttons, black

boots pulled up over the white pants that stretched down to my knees, and a

sword sheath resting against my left thigh. “Yeah, that’s it. I was George

Washington.”

***

The turn-dial phone rang and I picked up the yellow receiver. The man

on the other end inquired about our antique bed set that was advertised in the

paper. I walked into the funeral home to find my father, and could hear the hum

of his machine running behind the embalming room’s closed door. I knocked

and listened to his footsteps on the faded maize tile floor.

I held my breath and looked up as he opened the door and peaked his
head out. His mouth and nose were covered by a crayon green gas mask; his

eyes glared intensely at me through his glasses. In a nasal alien voice, he

barked, “What?”

“Daddy, there's someone on the phone.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. Some man. He asked about the furniture.”

“Ok.”

As he shut the door, I realized I never knew what he did in the embalming

room. Every time I opened the door to try to peak, the door would creak and I

would hear the clank of his tools against the countertop, his quick footsteps

coming at me and his voice yelling above the machine’s drone. He wanted to

shield me from seeing the naked man on the table, and the hose jutting from the

four-inch slit along his inner thigh, with blood running in rivers down the table.

But I didn’t need to see what was happening to know I didn’t want to be a part

of it. It was that smell – the smell of chemicals so strong they singed my nostril

hair every time the door was opened – that made me glad I wouldn’t have to see

what he did behind that door until I was a teenager. And as soon as I made sure

the door was firmly shut, I exhaled and ran back to the house, trying not to

catch a whiff of formaldehyde.

***
 As soon as the funeral home phone rang, my father was in motion. He’d

rise from the dinner table with a mouthful, step into the funeral home, then

return to his cold plate of food four hours later. If the phone rang at 3 a.m., I

knew when I hugged my father the next morning, I’d cringe from the rancid

cologne smell of formaldehyde when I buried my nose in the collar of his white

button-up shirt. If we heard a voice over the police scanner while watching the

Cosby Show, we’d mute the television to listen; when they mentioned a car

accident or heart attack, my father would go upstairs to put a suit on, so he’d be

ready to take the station wagon to the hospital. A tap on my father’s shoulder at

church meant we’d have to walk home, because he’d immediately leave to

retrieve a body.

And each death call brought with it signs of how family life would be

over the next three to four days. Calling hours from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 meant my

father wouldn’t join us for grilled chicken and corn on the cob that night.

Saturday funerals meant no one would be there to chant Hey batter, batter with

me from the stands at my little league game. An afternoon funeral meant Chad

and I couldn’t play outside, and we’d have to turn the TV down to the lowest

volume once the organ music started.

To me, the deceased weren’t people. They were the obituary listings I’d

help my father cut out of the Morrow County Sentinel; the white plastic letters
I’d use to spell their names on the black felt sign for the front door; the sticky

tang flavor of the stamps and envelopes I’d lick as we placed death certificates

and veteran grave marker requests in the mail. They were the bifocals we’d

place in the armoire to donate to the Lion’s Club, the rings we took off their

fingers to give to their widows, and the folded American flags we handed to

their proud sons. They were the dead flies I’d sweep up with the yellow push

sweeper in the casket showroom, the pink carnations I’d pick up off the floor

after the pallbearers carried the casket to the hearse. They were the moist tissues

I’d empty from the wastebasket.