The Cool Room by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 57

Work started that afternoon with. Although Jonathan and Emily worked together, it was Jonathan who took the lead – having more experience in this level of reconstruction. Placing the embalming tubes was not as difficult as expected. Being heavily burned, the skin was already slipping away from its underlying tissue. Beyond that, every step of the process seemed to be more difficult than it should be. But it was in turning the body over that created an odd event. In general, the lungs of the deceased remained with some amount of air. The smallest movement can release it. Jonathan assumed that the fire had destroyed the deceased lungs, and there was likely a minimum of air remaining. Yet, rolling the body a second time loosened more air than was believed to be present, producing a gurgling sound followed by the gush of fluids. While attempting treatment, the nurses did their best to provide hydration, which included the delivery of fluids into the stomach by nasogastric tube. After passing, the fluids settled, but it was movement that set them loose. Unfortunately, Emily was standing in the wrong place. It wasn’t the sound of retching that brought out an unwanted reaction but being covered by fluids now in a state of decomposition. The interior of a body – living or dead – smells badly enough, but the experience she had been thrown into was beyond unsavory. Emily quickly found herself doing something she had never done on the job as she found her way to the floor with her face in an open trash can.

Recovering quickly Emily got to her feet and immediately apologized to Jonathan for her unprofessionalism.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he replied. “It happens to all of us. It’s happened to me more than once.” After having rinsed her mouth at the sink, she turned to Jonathan in disbelief.

“You?” she asked. “No way.”

Jonathan nodded with a grin and began the story of what he thought was the most embarrassing moment of his career.

“In fact,” he began. “I was here. This was my first job out of college, too. We had a new client come in who had been hit by a bus.”

“Oh, shit,” Emily interrupted. “Sounds bad.” Jonathan raised a hand motioning for silence. “It was worse than that,” he continued. “And I remember all of it. This guy wasn’t just hit. One of the wheels ran him over – right up the middle. It ran over his head just before his brain exploded out through the top of his skull. The medical examiner did what he could to put his head back together, but these guys aren’t funeral techs, and they weren’t able to do it. So, basically we ended up getting a bag full of crunchy soup. Back then, it was just me and Frank. I saw this mess and lost it. I think I even puked in the body bag. It was disgusting. But Frank, I don’t know how the hell he did it, but he put most of the pieces back together – enough for a decent service. It was a god-damn miracle. If you think I’m good at this, you should see what that man can do.” Emily was amazed. As Jonathan told his story, her imagination showed her what words could not. Up to this point, she had seen a lot of dismemberment but hoped to never see anything close to what Jonathan had described. She decided that should a similar case end up on their table it would like the end of her career. After all, she was only human and no matter how strong one can be everyone has their limits.

“So,” she said. “Was Frank your mentor?” Again, he nodded with a grin.

“Yep,” he replied. “Outside of college, I learned everything from him.”

Having cracked the door of his office open, Frank sat behind his desk listening to every word. It was moments like this that made him especially proud of what he was doing -- knowing he was passing on his skills to the next generation.

Looking back down at their new client, they debated on how to proceed. They agreed that the application of clay was a good starting point, but it was back that would be a problem. Jonathan wracked his brain trying to come up with a solution. Whatever they used had to be sealed against odor in the event someone showed up to the service. Jonathan, appearing to have an idea, began searching through the cabinets and drawers. For situations where deep chunks of tissue needed to be dealt with, he thought that art clay might be used. Fortunately, a bag of it was always stored for such occasions. Working together over the next two hours, they had successfully patched the area of missing flesh and to be certain it would stay in place, a sheet of adhesive plastic was applied and sutured on around the edges. However, the body would have to remain on its back to ensure that everything stay in place.

They used Jonathan’s suggestion of applying a thin layer of clay only on parts of the body that would be exposed for the service – face, head, neck, hands and wrists. However, the hair having been burned off necessitated the use of a wig. This would be used last. They found that as they continued to work, more of what they hoped might be the client’s true features were coming out. When they were finished, they called the police and upon arrival the officer took a number of photographs of the face. These would later be rendered into sketches for release to the media. Showing a photograph of a deceased person’s face is always considered inappropriate. Still, there was no one to come forward with as much as a name. Whoever it was that now lay in the funeral home’s cooler would soon be buried by the state as an unknown. But out of tradition and dignity, a service was planned, including a short eulogy from the local priest. There were no flowers, no cards, and no book to sign and no visitors. This was a life wasted; someone who had likely never made their mark on the world. Their next stop was the furnace of a crematory, where the client was rendered to a fine gray ash. The ashes were poured into an urn, handed off to the state and buried in an unmarked grave in Prospect Hill Cemetery. Due to the size of the cemetery, no one would ever be able to locate the grave of what was once a living, breathing human being in possession of a troubled life with no apparent way out.

Frank, Jonathan, and Emily made it a point to attend the burial, believing it was the least they could do to make certain that the unfortunate deceased did not leave their earthly life alone. If there is an undeniable loneliness in dying alone, then there is surely at least the same degree of indignity in being interred without the presence of others. In the end, one should never suffer from the absence of those who have been there for them – some, from the beginning. Even while being placed in the cold ground, civilized people should find themselves gravitating to the internment of one of their own – a fellow human being. And being human, it would be the human thing to do.