The Cool Room by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 40

Returning to his business, Frank retreated to his office, closing the door. Again, he sat at his desk and, opening the vial, used a rolled-up dollar bill to medicate his emotions. His eyes began to tear up as the pain returned, but within a few minutes, he felt his mood elevate as the tears dried. He did not feel like a whole person, as he simply felt better. Under the circumstances, that was the best he could do. Instead of having to clean his desk blotter, Frank decided a small mirror would do the job, and he could hide it with the vial in the locked drawer of his desk. Tapping a small amount of the powder onto the mirror, he bent down and, putting the rolled-up bill to his nose, inhaled deeply. He felt the inside of his nose sting as the drug numbed his face. Soon he felt his dopamine levels rise as a feeling of ecstasy rose from within his drug-saturated brain. Sitting back in his chair, Frank let his bend back as its effects took a firmer grip on his mind. Once again, he felt the pain of grief melt from his damaged soul as a temporary joy took its place. Although he knew the feeling would not last long, he was able to function and do his job. The first order of business was to see how Jonathan and Emily were with their new client. Before locking away his new medication, Frank held up the small mirror, checking for any powdery remnants of the substance that had become his lifeboat, keeping him afloat in his personal sea made tumultuous by the loss of his wife. With the skin of his nose clear, he locked the mirror and vial away from view and, leaving his office, headed for the cool room. An effective boss always checks on his employees, no matter how skilled they may be, and walking into the cool room caught Jonathan and Emily by surprise. Having laid out their new client on the stainless steel table, they were in the middle of preparing it for the service taking place the next day. They had just inserted the tubes for the flow of embalming fluid when the door opened. “Hey,” Frank said. “How are you two doing?” Stopping in their work, Jonathan and Emily looked up and immediately noticed a pleasant expression on his face.

“Um, fine,” Jonathan replied. “This is a pretty straight-forward job. We should be done in a few hours.”

Frank nodded his head and with a smile, spoke a brief praise of the work they were doing, then, disappeared from the room, closing the door behind him. Jonathan and Emily were left wondering about Frank’s behavior, knowing there was something different about him. Yet, they could not say exactly what they were seeing. And yes, they were concerned.

“What was that all about?” Emily asked. Jonathan was just as puzzled, and standing over the body of their client let his mind ramble through a dozen thoughts, but nothing rational presented itself. Certainly, the possibility of drugs had not occurred to either of them, and after a few moments of conversation, they returned to work, finishing in a few hours, just as they had stated to Frank.

The next order of business was a review of the funeral home’s accounting books. Frank kept all his records on a computer file, and turning it on brought up the software he used for his work. Looking over the figures, he determined that his finances were looking positive but could be better. It was just a matter of how to bring in more clients. Developing commercials for a funeral home wasn’t something that was done often. What message would one deliver?

“Hey! Are you going to die soon? Do you want the best care for your useless corpse? Well, look no further than Frank’s Funeral Home. We have the most up-to-date equipment and the finest chemicals money can buy. What’s more, our caskets are guaranteed never to leak. They’ll stay in the cold ground for decades, and if opened, will display your rotting corpse in nearly pristine condition as though you had died only the month before.” After this twisted thought ran through Frank’s mind, he surmised that a commercial would not only be difficult but tasteless. He concluded that the best way to increase visibility was to do what he had been doing—provide superior care for those who had left their families behind. At some point during his life, he heard someone say that if you do what you love, the money will follow. This certainly seemed to be the case, but things were changing, and the funeral business was beginning to wane with the town’s declining population. This had been a constant concern for him for the last twenty years, when people began leaving for larger cities and more opportunities. They would graduate from the local two-year college and leave for Albany or any other university. From there, their world was an open book, allowing them to go anywhere – anywhere but back to a dying town.

The hours went by as Frank poured over the numbers, inspected the caskets he had in storage, and checked on the amount of embalming fluid he had. Carrying a clipboard and notepad, he recorded the item and amount, decided on what he needed to order. Although there was nothing he was in need of, what he was really doing was distracting himself. He decided to take a break from the substance he had been medicating himself with but found he needed something to take its place, and a distraction seemed like a reasonable choice. Before evening darkened into night, Frank distracted himself one necessary task. He had a service to plan for the client, whose cold remains lay in the cooler waiting to be displayed. A minister had been contacted earlier in the day. Fortunately, it was someone known to the deceased, so a eulogy would be fairly straight-forward. As most are, it would be something of a ‘cookie-cutter’ service. All he had to do was stand near the casket with Jonathan as Emily welcomed guests into the viewing room. Standing vigil over the casket was necessary, as some visitors can react irrationally when approaching the deceased. On one occasion, a family member attempted to pick the deceased up at the shoulders to hold them. Swift intervention was needed to prevent purging. There was also the issue of planning the service for his wife. It was set to take place in two days, and her body would need another infusion of embalming fluid. Most people believe that embalming permanently preserves the dead, but the chemicals simply slow the process of decomposition. The process must be carried out every day the body is in storage in order to stave off the odor that typically occurs with the liquefaction of the body’s internal organs.

While Frank had done a fantastic job on Dorothy’s body – that is, according to Jonathan and Emily – he thought it might be best to step away from the process, letting his two talented technicians take the reins while he prepared to deal with his family. It was time for him to stop being a funeral director and start being a mourner. But displaying his feelings – no matter how traumatic the circumstances – was always something he refused to allow. He felt it made him appear weak. Clearly, he did not understand the meaning of strength -- that one can break down into tears and come out stronger for it. Even listening to his favorite piece of classical music did not seem to move him. At least, not from appearances. But the clock in his office stuck at nine o'clock, and Frank, believing the colloquialism “early to bed, early to rise,” prepared to retire for the night.

Dressing for sleep and preparing his bed, Frank decided to forego any use of the cocaine he had purchased earlier that day. The day had been stressful, and lying on his side, Frank sank into deep sleep the moment his head hit the pillow. He lay there for hours, not moving but breathing. He had recently been having nightmares – images, like those moving across the silver screen. Each time, he found himself wandering through darkness somewhere in a wooded place, unfamiliar to him. There was no moonlight to guide him, but he found himself following the coarse call of a raven fluttering its wings as it circled his head. Continuing to venture through the darkness his sleeping mind had created, he felt his feet sink into the inky mud that seemed to be wherever he went. Slowly, he walked, being careful about the trees on either side as they seemed to come to life, swinging their thorny branches as if to flay the skin from his face. Time stood still as fear brought him to a sudden stop. He strained against the silence as the raven ceased its calling – perhaps doing so to torture him with the absence of sound. The dream brought to life everything dark he had faced throughout his existence. But there was one thing it needed to do, and from somewhere in the darkness, the silence metamorphosed into a vague sound. Within only a few moments, the sound evolved into something truly terrifying – something that reached out for him.

“Who is that?!” Frank yelled. “What do you want?!”

The response was not what he expected and arrived as the sound of shattering glass, followed by the screeching of tires. The auditory scene was closely accompanied by voices – none of which Frank recognized.

“Hey, are you alright?!”

“Someone call an ambulance!”

“Don’t touch the car! I think that’s a live wire!”

“Jesus Christ! I think she’s dead!” Unable to wake, Frank dropped to his knees, realizing that he was hearing the chaos of the accident that had so cruelly taken the life of his wife. As if by will, his mind saw fit to torment him, but the play it was performing had not yet arrived at its final act. He covered his ears, trying to hide from the reflection of the life his troubled mind was producing. There seemed to be no escape, and when he felt his faculties teetering on the edge of madness, he felt a soft sprinkling against his face. Uncovering his ears, Frank put his hands out. The sound of chaos was gone, but on his hands there accumulated a fine snow. At first, he found the sight of it peaceful, and as it fell harder, he held his hand to his lips, touched it with his tongue. As a child, he found the snow tasteless but somehow wonderful and innocent. But as his tongue touched the silver-blue flakes, he felt his body experience a horrifying numbness, as though it had been severed from his head. There was no pain, but within moments Frank found himself as a head lying on its side. He was still present and conscious of his condition, but the horror of the nightmare’s final act left him bolting up in bed, streaming with sweat, having soaked the bed linens. This was not just an ordinary nightmare. This was a symptom – a sign of what could become a never-ending battle. Thus far, Frank was ill-prepared to fight it and would continue to apply his band-aid in an attempt to ward off the demons that seemed to take such pleasure in terrorizing his nocturnal life. Sleep is supposed to be healing – a preparation for the coming day. But Frank’s cocaine-saturated brain would have little to do with allowing a peaceful repose. If only Frank could realize how deep the pit of insanity truly was and how close he was to its edge.