Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt

I washed the gentleman down and proceeded to embalm what was left of his earthly remains. Sometimes an illness can really destroy human tissues, leaving them difficult to embalm, but not with this gentleman. He took the embalming solution as though he had the vascular system of a man in his twenties. For my first solo job I was duly impressed with myself. His tissues were firm; he had good skin color and his facial features looked peaceful. Success. That night, I went home and made myself my favorite, an extra dry Kettel One martini with three blue-cheese-stuffed olives to celebrate my first solo embalming.

I made arrangements with the widow the next day. Together, we got all the details of the service set and then she proceeded to pour her heart out to me across the desk. Her husband had done everything for her. She was utterly lost without him. They hadn’t been able to bear children and he was all she had in this life. I felt for the woman; I really did, and I did my best to comfort her.

On the morning of the viewing, I dressed the gentleman in a three-piece navy blue chalk stripe suit, white french cuff shirt with gold engraved cuff links, and an Italian silk gold patterned tie. I laid him out in his solid-walnut, half-couch casket and arranged him so he looked comfortable in the plush champagne-colored velvet interior. I wheeled the casket up under the torchiere lights and applied his makeup, combed his hair, put his glasses on, and placed his rosary in his hands. I stepped back, and I remember thinking to myself, not too shabby for my first.

I set up the flowers around the casket and arranged the family photos so that visiting friends could mosey around the parlor and look at them as though they were in the man’s own living room. I polished his alto sax and placed it on its stand near the head end of the casket. After that, I filled in a guest book, printed up service brochures and memorial book marks, and lit a personalized vigil candle.

The wife was coming in to spend some private time with her husband before the viewing began. As the time drew closer I set out a fresh pitcher of water, put the dead man’s favorite CD on at just the right volume, and checked and re-checked all my handiwork. Everything was perfect. I headed back into the office for my tie and jacket before I met the widow. As I bustled out of the office into the lobby, there was the widow with…the dead man!

There he stood in all his glory. Three-piece navy chalk stripe suit. White shirt. Gold silk tie. Glasses. The dead man was standing in the lobby with his wife. Alive! Talking to her! I felt like I had been sucker punched.

He turned and smiled at me.

The room started to spin, and I got tunnel vision. I grabbed onto the wall as my knees buckled.

To this day I’m glad I didn’t faint because the widow walked over to me and said, “Joe, I’d like you to meet Adam’s twin brother, Carter. Carter, this is the young man who has been so helpful to me.”

I wiped the sweat off my brow with my suit sleeve and staggered over to the deceased’s brother and introduced myself. After which, I stepped back, somewhat recovered, and said, “Do you have ESP or something? Your brother is wearing the exact same thing!” I laughed nervously, still wanting to go in the parlor and check to make sure that the casket was occupied, because I was beginning to have serious doubts. This man looked exactly like the man I had injected with four gallons of formalin solution.

“Identical twins can just sense these things,” Carter said, deadpan.

I laughed nervously again until the widow scolded, “Carter, stop it!” She elbowed him in the ribs. “They both wore matching outfits to Carter’s grandson’s wedding six months ago.” Then she said in a conspiratorial tone to me, “They both have the same sense of humor.”

With that, Carter let out a chuckle. “You should have seen the look on your face, son!” he roared. “You thought—You thought—”

I started laughing and so did Adam’s wife, until we were all laughing like maniacs. After that, I knew Adam’s wife would be all right. With a family like that, how could she not be?

Later that evening, after the viewing, I called my former boss’s house. “Harper Mortuary,” my ex-boss’s wife chirped. I had worked for them in high school, earning extra money, cutting the grass, parking cars at funerals, and taking flowers to the cemetery.

“Hey Jen,” I said and proceeded to tell her the whole tale.

She laughed. “It took almost five years of Dale being in the business until that happened to him, but the twin didn’t wear the same thing to the viewing. Wait until I tell him! He’ll love it.”

When I hung up the phone, my thoughts still on Adam’s widow, I said softly to no one in particular as I mixed an extra dry martini, one of my favorite Shakespearean lines: “No longer mourn for me when I’m dead—”

CHAPTER 14. The Unwitting Smuggler

Contributed by a numismatist