The Removalist

by Matthew Franklin Sias

  The Removalist

  On the Front Line of Death Care

  Matthew Franklin Sias

  Copyright © Matthew Franklin Sias 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This is a work of non-fiction, though most names and some details have been changed to keep me from getting into more trouble than I already find myself in on a daily basis.

  Originally self-published by Matthew Franklin Sias in 2017

  Published by Vulpine Press in the United Kingdom in 2019

  ISBN 978-1-912701-41-4

  Cover by Claire Wood

  www.vulpine-press.com

  For Klaire, a most welcome surprise.

  Introduction

  Death and taxes are the only two inescapable realities of this earthly life. Both can be put off for years, but in the end, we’ve all got to pay the Tax Man as well as the Grim Reaper. Since I was never any good at doing anyone else’s taxes, much less my own, I somehow fell into the business of working with the dead. I wasn’t born into the business, as none of my family members held jobs even tangentially related to mortuary science or forensic medicine. How I popped out of the womb with such an interest in a field from which most people would sprint as fast as they could, I haven’t a clue. At any rate, I’ve been at it a while, and have had the dubious privilege to be witness, hundreds of times, to what remains after a soul has taken leave of the physical.

  My first book Silent Siren: Memoirs of a Lifesaving Mortician chronicled both my career in emergency medical services and my experiences in death care. The book spanned a period of over twenty years and attempted to meld my seemingly divergent experiences into a cohesive whole. Whether I was successful at this endeavor is up to the readers.

  This book takes off where Silent Siren left off—not in terms of chronology, but as a more in-depth look at one man’s experiences solely in the field of death care. My hope is that these short stories will make the reader consider his own mortality and what one would like to be remembered for long after one is gone from this earth. Furthermore, I hope to shed some light on the oft-misunderstood interval between the time a person’s heart stops beating and the moment the last shovelful of dirt is tamped down on his grave.

  Though I have tried not to make this book a gratuitous gore-fest, death and the changes a body goes through after the heart stops are not pleasant, so be warned. Those with a weak stomach may want to cover their eyes in places. But for those who don’t shy away from the unabashed descriptions contained herein, I implore you to read on…

  Speed Kills

  There is something profoundly gloomy about plucking chunks of rain-soaked brain from the grass, especially in the dark, and especially when those chunks are arrayed in a six-yard radius from a dead man’s car.

  My numb toes squish in sodden socks. Ten minutes into this call and I have already stepped into a muddy morass inconveniently located between my van and what remains of a car so mangled I can’t even tell if it’s an SUV or sedan.

  Well, that and my camera won’t work properly. What with the rain and the pitch-darkness, the lens won’t focus on anything, so I have to resort to aiming my anemic flashlight beam at an object to get a focus. It sort of works, and sort of doesn’t.

  The beam of the flashlight strikes fractured CDs, glass shards, beer cans…and brain tissue. I walk with my red plastic bag and throw the bigger chunks in. If I’ve left any smaller bits, the birds will eat them in the morning. The circle of life. The fire siren mounted to a nearby station howls, hailing volunteers to another call being dispatched. It’s haunting. Rain pounds.

  The accident scene is a study in centrifugal force. After careening out of control, the car flipped end over end multiple times, flinging bits of itself—and its luckless passenger—yards away.

  The State Patrol detective had surmised that the driver had not been wearing his seat belt, and, as the car flipped, the single driver had pin-balled around the interior until the windows shattered and his head was exposed to the exterior. With a couple of more flips, the contents of his cranium had been flung in an arc pattern spanning several yards.

  The rear bumper, bearing the license plate, is in the street. I take note of the number for my report. The car is in a grassy right-of-way next to several homes. The lights are on in the homes and a few onlookers have gathered to observe the results of the mayhem.

  The Patrol sergeant points out a middle-aged man standing near the patrol cars, holding an umbrella. “He’s a neighbor. Thinks he may know where this guy lives.”

  I introduce myself and attempt to scribble his name on my damp report form before realizing that pens don’t write in the rain. Pencils do, but I don’t have one with me.

  “Terrible driver,” says the man. “Used to drive like a bat out of hell through here every day. Kids and pets in this neighborhood. I figured something would happen eventually.”

  And happen it did. The trail of debris is nearly a half-block long.

  “He lives in the marina,” says the man. “He and some kid. Maybe his son.”

  I thank him for his time and finally turn my attention to the largest chunk of the car and its mortal contents.

  Squished in the passenger’s seat, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans, is what is left of Randy Moore, age fifty-three, according to his driver’s license. The top of his head is gone, fractured skull gaping like the cracked shell of a crab, contents evacuated, pink flaps of hairy scalp splayed to the sides. One eyeball, still tethered by an optic nerve, lolls onto Randy’s cheek. The other is pushed deeply into the socket. Absurdly, his right index finger points at the dash, at the speedometer to be exact, as though he were indicating the speed at which he was traveling. The speedometer is pegged at eighty miles per hour.

  The removal from the vehicle is fairly straightforward. I’m able to pry open the passenger door pretty easily. A police officer holds it open for me as I yank Randy’s remains out and slide them onto the rain-slick plastic liner that lies on the gurney. It’s an indelicate process at best, with nowhere near the care afforded to the living, but Randy isn’t around to experience it. I slide a pant leg up to attach an ID tag. Instead of flesh, I am greeted by titanium—an artificial leg. Perhaps as the result of a previous car accident?

  I load Randy into the van as police strobe lights reflect off the pounding raindrops, and then make my way back to the morgue, where under more controlled and better lit conditions, I take additional photographs and measurements of the body.

  As with most any case, notification of the next of kin is by far the worst part. I sift through the multitude of dilapidated and dog-eared cards in the man’s wallet until I come upon a business card for A.D. Moore Construction.

  I make the assumption that A.D. Moore is a relative and dial the number.

  It seems to come as no surprise to the elderly Mr. Moore that his son has died. He’d had his brushes with the law, with alcohol, and with excessive speed. Wearily, almost resignedly, he hands the phone to his other son, Randy’s brother.

  The son explains that Randy had moved out west for the winter from Wisconsin to be with his son, who lived on a boat. It was too cold for Randy in Wisconsin, so he chose here, which seemed odd. I gaze out the rain-streaked office window. Wouldn’t southern California be a better choice?

  How can I get a hold of Randy’s son in Washington so he can claim Randy’s personal effects?

  I can’t. He’s a fugitive from the law with warrants out of Wisconsin and is going to make himself as scarce as possible.

/>   I tell the other son to make arrangements with a funeral home in Washington State and I will transfer Randy’s personal effects there to be sent back to Wisconsin to his family.

  Since Randy is the sole occupant of the vehicle and his injuries are obvious, I decide against arranging an autopsy. The cause of death is obvious, the manner—accidental—not quite so obvious, and there is nobody to prosecute but the dead man.

  In lieu of a full autopsy, I draw samples of blood and urine for toxicology analysis. Families often want to know the state of mind of a person who dies due to accident or potential suicide and whether or not his judgment had been clouded by drugs or alcohol.

  Drawing a urine sample is fairly straightforward and involves simply plunging a needle into the general area of the bladder, pulling back the plunger, and hoping something yellowish comes back. It is a reliable test for drugs and alcohol, and is preferred over blood.

  Obtaining a central blood sample is a bit trickier. I prefer the subclavian approach, in which I insert a very long needle underneath the collarbone at a fifteen-degree angle and hope to get blood. I am usually successful at this, but sometimes have to resort to jabbing a needle directly into the heart. There is nothing delicate about death investigation.

  With any luck, the toxicology results will be available in about six weeks. The state lab will send us an analysis of any alcohol, narcotics, or methamphetamines they had found in our samples. Due, in part, to the “CSI effect” families expect the results much sooner and often call every week or so until they are given resolution.

  Tired, damp, muddy, and a little bloody, I drive the Big Green Death Wagon back to my home, where my little dog, all five pounds of fluff and unbridled enthusiasm, greets me. He knows not where I’ve been, or even how long I’ve been gone. All he knows is that his “daddy” is home. That and I smell much more interesting than usual.

  Rejuvenated by the scalding hot water of a shower, I crawl into bed next to my sleeping wife. The pager is silent, for now.

  Pet Cemetery

  I was a weird child, precocious but disturbingly so, with a seemingly inborn awareness of the prevalence of sickness and death. As my great-aunt sat in a haze of cigarette smoke, I had very soberly advised her, “Aunt Clarice, the Surgeon General has determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health.” I was perhaps five at the time.

  “Well,” she had hacked, “you just tell the Surgeon General that I smoke low-tar.”

  Aunt Clarice died several years later of lung cancer. As she was lying in her hospital bed, breathing her last, she had apparently asked her doctor, tongue in cheek, “Do you think the cigarettes had anything to do with this?” She never lost her sense of humor.

  I was a bit of a loner, preferring the company of animals to that of humans. They seemed to understand me and were non-judgmental. So my childhood was spent in the company of my cat, Custard, more dog-like than any cat I had ever met, who would run to the end of the driveway to greet me as I got off the school bus in the afternoon.

  Even at ten years old, I seemed destined for a future in death care. Much to my mother’s vexation, I designated a small section of her vegetable garden as an animal cemetery. I would find a robin that had struck the window and perished, wipe the blood from her beak, and place her in a shoebox with a paper towel pulled up to her breast. For some reason, I thought that putting cotton in the eyes was a good idea. A splash of Mother’s perfume to mask the odor of early decomposition, and the robin was ready for an open-casket viewing.

  My experimentation with cremation didn’t go so well. I had found a mole that my cat had mauled to death, and attempted to ignite it, using Vaseline and toilet paper as fuel. I managed only to produce a mole roast that even my cat found unpalatable. Mr. Mole was then buried after a simple, closed-casket ceremony.

  I would often hold graveside services and read from the Episcopal prayer book Burial of the Dead, Rite I. Not surprisingly, I was the sole attendee at these graveside services, which often concluded with the placement of a small wooden cross atop the mound of dirt.

  My family’s reaction to my amateur mortuary business was one of dismay. While my younger brother busied himself with taking engines apart and putting them back together again in the wrong order, I was quite content to fertilize my mother’s zucchinis with the victims of beak versus window accidents and homicides committed by the cat. When my grandmother came to visit, I invited her for a tour of the cemetery. She had politely declined.

  For larger animals, I had constructed a pole stretcher consisting of on old sheet stretched between two pieces of wood, tacked together with staples. The only problem was, there was nobody to hold the other end of the stretcher. Nonetheless, I scooped a few rotting raccoon carcasses off the road near our house and buried them as well. It seemed my duty to play neighborhood animal mortician.

  I fancied myself an amateur pathologist at times and attempting to do postmortem examinations on a variety of small deceased creatures, among them a mouse and a salamander. Unfortunately, I was not very talented at this, and my instruments—safety scissors and a dull scalpel I obtained from a child’s microscope kit—left much to be desired. Birds were especially difficult, what with the feathers and all. My talents certainly did not lend themselves to hunting or anything involving fine muscle coordination.

  On rare occasions, I felt compelled to study the decomposition process. I exhumed the bodies of a bird or two, always finding them in a malodorous state of advanced decay. My neighbor, six years old or so at the time, watched me bury, dig up, and re-bury my clients and, given his young age, mistakenly believed that I was planting bird trees. He would come over every so often to see if the “bird tree” seedlings had sprouted yet.

  From EMT to DOA

  I’ve been in the “death business” for about ten years, in two capacities; as a funeral home removal technician and as a death investigator. While the former simply involved transport to a mortuary for ultimate disposal, the latter was a bit more involved, allowing me to use my sleuthing abilities to arrive at a cause and manner of death. Sometimes this involved an autopsy, but more often it required simply the ability to determine, from examination of the body and evaluation of medical records, a probable reason for the person’s death.

  In both capacities, I was a transporter, a “removalist” as I’d like to say, one whose job it was to get the dead from whichever odd predicament they happened to get themselves into, to their destination, be it a funeral home, crematory, or county morgue.

  I’ve removed bodies from, among other places, beds, bathtubs, backyards, back alleys, rivers, mountains, cars, boats, lofts, cruise ships, planes, and once, from within a hollowed-out tree stump. The bodies have been in various states of decay and mutilation, from a woman still warm after a fatal heart attack, to a man found dead in a sunken car after six months. Each situation has presented its own logistical challenges and occupational hazards. At times I have wondered if this is the last body my aching back can handle.

  The removal is perhaps the aspect of the death business that is least appreciated by the general public. In earlier times, when a death would occur at home, a funeral director would typically respond and help lay out the body for viewing in a home. An undertaker was first a cabinet maker, who fashioned coffins himself, and next a person who would “undertake” the task of preparing the body and burying it. Death was a community event, often with the presence of a horse-drawn or motorized hearse arriving at the residence. Many black communities still expect the formality and tradition of yesteryear, and black-owned funeral homes will still respond to home deaths with a hearse, the director dressed to the nines.

  For most in the United States at large, with the exception of the Deep South, cremation has achieved a stronghold. In contrast with tradition, Grandma is made to disappear quietly out the back door and into an unmarked van, only to appear again days later as a container of cremated remains.

  The basic qualifications of a removal technician ar
e that he or she needs to have a driver’s license, a strong back, a strong stomach, and, probably most importantly, the decorum to know what to say or what not to say to the loved ones of a deceased person. Since the “first call” as it is known, is the initial contact a funeral home has with a family, the way a removal is carried out can make or break the reputation of that mortuary. It’s a simple job, but one that has to be done right. There are no second chances.

  Depending on the area, removal personnel may be unlicensed technicians or licensed funeral director/embalmers, coroner’s technicians, or board-certified death investigators. As society slowly shifts away from traditional burial to cremation, there will be less need for embalmers, but there will always be a need for caring, compassionate people willing to get up at four in the morning and drive to a residence where Grandpa has passed away in his sleep.

  Removal technicians are an anonymous lot. The funeral director, whose public persona puts him at the forefront of a congregation, conducting death’s symphony, is a familiar sight. The highly educated, albeit often bizarre forensic pathologist, whose highly specialized skills and knowledge may put him in the middle of a high-profile murder case, is well known to the public, popularized in such TV shows as Crossing Jordan and Quincy, M.E. The lowly removal tech is akin to a stagehand, dressed in black, who moves set pieces between acts of a play, largely unseen, doing work that is, while necessary, certainly inglorious and thankless. Yet we were out there, at all hours of the day and night, in the rain and snow, in the most austere of circumstances.

  Our equipment is basic. The vans we use to perform our work resemble stripped-down ambulances. Like an ambulance gurney, our cots are wheeled, have multiple positions, and are designed to fit through narrow hallways and doorways. The difference lies in the comfort level. Mortuary cots have no pillows. The mattresses are thin, if they exist at all. A medical examiner’s office where I once worked used three sheets, the first to wrap the body in, the second to cover the body, and the third, a “head soaker,” an absorbent blanket to wrap around the heads of those with severe trauma, thus preventing blood from spilling all over the floorboards of the van. Like an emergency vehicle, our dashboards are crammed with map books, GPS units, communications equipment, and sometimes the consoles for flashing lights and sirens. There are no stethoscopes, no bandages. Only boxes of rubber gloves, body bags, and toe tags. We are the EMTs of the dead.