Dying for a cause

He has been in this business for a long time. I would suspect him to be in his early seventies, but I don’t ask. We follow him back to the preparation room where our deceased person lies waiting for us. The hall is like a maze, every door is shut which gages my curiosity. Don looks at me and asks “are you ready to do this”? I say, “Yes, of course I am ready”. The older man notices that I am with child and offers me a balm for under my nose, he says it will ease the odor for me. I appreciate his offer and concern, but I know that I will need to get used to it, so I refuse. Door opens, my baby moves inside of me, I know that there is life within me, but not in this room. Don immediately goes to the body with a purpose, he sees me surveying the room. I move to the preparation table, it’s draped with a stiff white sheet. He pulls the sheet back exposing the man to his groin; he is rigid and blue in color. His hair is long, blonde and greasy, I can’t tell if it is from death or his life. Don tells me that he overdosed on Heroin and the state isn’t going to release his body until we ID him via fingerprints. That is why we are here today. He shows me a contraption that he has made to fingerprint people that have already been embalmed. The older man interjects saying “Sorry I already embalmed him, his family is waiting to get his body back to Alabama.” Don nods in acknowledgement. It just makes it harder he says to get the finger straightened enough to get a good print; I hear the sound of joints cracking. My body turns quickly to see Don struggling to get the thumb straight, after all the thumb is the best finger to print. This process is necessary or the State of Oregon won’t release his body to the family. Evidently he is a suspect in many unsolved crime in Eugene. I fixated my eyes on his chest, stapled in a “Y” shape from his autopsy, it appears sore, but I know he is dead and cannot feel. Inside I start to chuckle, remembering Don telling me how the Medical Examiner throws all the organs including the brain back into the stomach cavity before stapling the body up. I look to his head again, the crown attached, no brain in his belly I think to myself. Don has moved to the other hand and asks me if I want to give it a crack. Reluctantly I say no. The old man is telling me about the entire process of getting his customer ready. Still at his age I can feel his excitement when he talks. He points out the many tattoos on the man, none of which are done professionally. Don interjects, prison tattoos. I recognize in disgust, the Grateful Dead tattoo, that dances on his upper arm. The sight of it tells me a story about this man, none of which I want to be a part of.

Suddenly I notice someone else in the room and I start to wander closer to the mysterious shape. The old man can see me looking, he offers to tell me about her and how she ended up on that cold metal table. We move closer, she is in a clear body bag; the table that she lies on is tipped at a 25-degree angle. She is draining into the large sink at the end of the table. Her life is gone, and by the looks of it half her body is gone as well. I notice her legs mostly flesh and appear to be too short to hold her stalky body. He explains that she died at age 36 in California, and this is what you body looks like when you opt to donate organs and tissue. You see they take whatever they can use, bone, corneas, skin, he continues on. Tomorrow we will cremate her, for she is in no shape for a standard funeral. I think to myself as my baby moves and kicks inside of me, if the general public saw what this woman looked like there would be no organs to donate. Americans have a strange attachment to the physical being and storing their loved ones in the ground to visit and mourn. What is the purpose really? Look at the man on the other side of the room. He destroyed his body with drugs, yet his family is having him embalmed like he is a king so they can put him in the ground and mourn over the “wonderful person” they want to believe he is. Go figure.

~1996