by Alan Emmins
There is little information available for this job. We do know that the victim was twenty-four years old. We know that the parents were on vacation—are still on vacation. There is no mention as to whether the boy had a long history of drinking, but looking at all these bottles lined up like trophies, or like notches in a countdown, he clearly must have done. Even a half-wit would know that drinking in such large quantities is going to lead to death in the short run. If this was his thinking, I mean if he consciously decided to keep drinking until he died, what an awful state of mind he must have been in.
I stand here hoping he didn’t know; hoping he was just on some kind of twenty-four-hour party-crazed drink binge. At least that way he didn’t know. At least that way he wasn’t in the most terrible mental pain. People should not be left to get into a state where they drink themselves to death, no matter what the history. Even though that is what it looks and smells like, with all these bottles and all this blood, like he did intentionally drink himself to death, I hope it wasn’t so.
I didn’t think anything could make more of a mess than a shotgun, but deaths like this one are not instant. You can see by the fact that the blood leads all the way through the house and down to the basement, to the wine cellar, that this person was alive for a while after the liver burst.
When the cleaners are out in their trucks, or taking lunch with their Crime Scene Cleaners T-shirts on, people stop them in admiration. “Wow, you see a lot of blood! How many jobs do you do? How can you clean …?” But with jobs like this there really isn’t that much actual cleaning. The bedroom and everything in it is a mess. The neighbor, who is phoning back and forth with the parents, who are a twenty-four-hour flight away, has agreed that everything should be thrown out. Everything is, after all, caked in blood. So the bed sheets, the quilt, the carpet, the drawers, the clothes, anything that is removable is indeed removed and stuffed into a bin bag or wrapped in plastic. We will be stripping carpet and furniture from his room, the sister’s room, the parents’ room, the laundry room, and all the carpet from the spiral staircase.
“At the end of the day, we’re just glorified janitors,” Shawn says. “People are just in awe because of the blood.”
After a short spell of silence, I hear Shawn walk into the bedroom and turn the television on. I am trying to remember the television. I have an image of the television and find myself wondering if the image I have in my mind’s eye is accurate. I walk back into the bedroom and take a look.
Yep. I had it pretty much spot on.
“Shawn?” I call out. “The television screen is covered in blood.”
Of course he knows this, but I feel a need to reiterate it.
“Dude, I’m not going to watch it. I just thought we’d listen to the news while we worked.”
My natural reflex reaction is to think, Shawn, that’s fucked up! But as I look around the room, I remember that there is great need for Shawn. I can see why and how you have to separate yourself. A part of me feels relief that Shawn is here; that Neal exists and had the foresight to start this company. I don’t care how they deal with it mentally, just as long as they are here to deal with it. As long as this heartrending scene is cleaned up before the parents arrive, who cares how desensitized they are?
“Do you think you’ll ever go back to art, Shawn?” I call out from my enzyme duties in the bathroom.
“Oh, absolutely; I don’t see why not. You know I still, and this is morbid, but you know, there’s times when we’ll go and pull a chunk of carpet out and there’ll be a guy’s perfect imprint—like a body, a perfect print, and all I wanna do is just cut it out and frame it. You know, I mean almost like Warholish. I wouldn’t even put a brushstroke to it … it’s just gorgeous. A gorgeous, morbid soul. But at the same time, I can’t, right now at least, see myself doing anything other than what I do now. I mean, I love my job.”
“What is it you love about the job?”
“Well, I get to meet a huge cross-section of life; death doesn’t discriminate. I meet the white trash and the millionaires. And also, yeah, I believe people need us, and that we take away the gore of death. We remove the visual element, which means they don’t have to physically touch their grief on top of trying to deal with it mentally. We help them grieve. Like this job. Should the parents come home and find their son like this? This mess? This smell? They’re coming back right now, but isn’t the loss of their son enough? What we do in a lot of situations saves a lot of pain, a lot of heartbreak. Then sometimes it doesn’t, but, you know, people don’t want to face this stuff and mom and dad don’t wanna face this stuff and I do, I guess, so it’s good for everyone in the end.”
I understand that the work of Crime Scene Cleaners spares loved ones hurt and pain, but it also spares some of them guilt. If you felt you had played a part in a loved one’s demise, that you had not been there for him or her in life when you should have been, you could be expected to feel guilt. Imagine how that guilt could spiral if you then had to clean them up?
Neal was right: while you can’t schedule it on a daily basis, death doesn’t really fall behind on the overall numbers. It’s ten p.m. and I am racing over the Bay Bridge. As soon as Neal told me about the job, my heart began racing. I haven’t even put my shoes on yet or stopped for coffee.
For the first time in my life, I find myself speeding toward a fresh murder scene and once again living a contradiction. I am excited. I know I shouldn’t be. If a friend were here I would try to hide my enthusiasm. In fact, were anybody here whom I respect, I would try to hide myself.
Can it really be death that has me all pumped up? Maybe, though I don’t think so. I think it is more closely connected with this being so far away from my normal life. It is connected to a fantasy. Not necessarily one of my own creating. It’s one put there by Hollywood, and I am not blaming Hollywood for that. That would be too cheap. Nobody made me watch the film Seven, and still to this day I think it is one of the best thrillers I have ever seen. If it were on at the cinema now I’d go and see it again. I love good thrillers. The fact that I am right now in my rental car racing to a homicide means that I am a step closer to the fantasy and excitement of a good thriller. I still feel coarse and crass. I know that it is not really okay. This after all is not fantasy. It is not a thriller. What I write may be entertainment, but it is not Hollywood. It isn’t even fiction. It’s reality; it’s somebody else’s sad story, and I seem to be gate-crashing.
All writing is voyeuristic, but it’s not all this voyeuristic. I am only one sad move away from being an ambulance chaser. I am far worse than Neal. Who was I ever to judge him? Neal isn’t a bad guy at all. He is certainly more honest than I. With Neal you get what you get and you get it face-on. Neal, it is plain to see, has a purpose here. A need. Hell, he’s even been invited.
I invited myself.
Yet, I am pulled on. Nothing is going to make me turn this car around. Even knowing that the results, my own sad part in this story, the process and drive that makes me of questionable character, are going to be bound in a book for people to read doesn’t stop me.
Maybe that’s the only way I’ll face it. If it remains inside me I don’t ever really have to acknowledge it. I can just put my foot down and race from one story to another, hoping that what I will soon stand before is fucked up and interesting enough for other people to want to read about it. The magazine editors I usually work for are hoping so, too. Just today I had an e-mail from an editor asking why I have not offered them any stories in the last few weeks.
“Have you forgotten us?” the e-mail asked.
But by committing this story to paper, by putting it out there in the public domain, I will have to go through a process of self-reflection. People will see. My friends and family will know. I will know they know.
I see I have arrived at the right meeting place when I spot Neal’s truck parked under the glare of the gas station forecourt. I park my car and jump into his truck, which instantly lets out a roar and pins me bac
k in the seat as we screech onto the road and speed off through a red light.
When we arrive at the scene, we find that it has already been processed. The public has dispersed and all that’s left is one police car. The officer jumps out of his car when we pull up. He shows us what we need to clean. It’s a small puddle of blood, about an inch deep and a foot long, in the gutter of the road.
“You need to be quick here, buddy,” the officer says to Neal. “We’ve got a lot a problems tonight.”
“Yes, sir,” Neal says, on the move. “I’m on it. We’ll be outta here in no time.”
This area is called the “Iron Triangle” after the railway tracks that hem it in on three sides. It’s about one and a half square miles of project housing—of poverty, gangs, and drugs.
“This is a fucked-up neighborhood,” Neal says as he gathers what he needs from the truck. “I’m out here a lot, and I’m telling you, guns are going off all the fucking time here. You just hear them in the distance.”
Neal is suited up and soaking the blood with tissue. He has been on his hands and knees for about two minutes when we freeze at the sound of gunshots—two gunshots that stiffen the spine and dry the mouth. It’s one thing to be told that guns are going off all the time here, it’s quite another to actually hear them for yourself. The gunshots are not on top of us, but the fact that they are within hearing distance is enough. Neal is working fast, fast even for Neal. The police officer continues to stand guard. He won’t leave us out here alone; the area is too volatile. That and the fact that the gunman, or gunmen, responsible for the puddle Neal is mopping up is still out there.
Neal goes almost kamikaze with the enzyme canister. Then we jump back into the truck and wheel-spin away after just ten minutes on the job.
“Did you hear the gunshots?” Neal asks with much animation. “That’s why they call this place the Iron Triangle. Motherfucker, my heart was pounding when I heard those gunshots. I was like, ‘Whoa, clean faster, clean faster!’ Damn! That was fun, though, wasn’t it? We’ll probably get the other one, too.”
“What other one?” I ask, almost drowning in an adrenaline wave.
“From those other gunshots.”
“You think that was another murder?”
“What the fuck do you think? I’d say the odds are in our favor. We get a lot of jobs in Richmond. Guns are going off all the fucking time in this neighborhood! You do not wanna live in Richmond.”
It’s one a.m. and I am back in Richmond and we are working the other murder. Or maybe just another murder? Who’s to know?
What I do know is that chicken, in itself, is not classified as a deadly weapon. That is why I would like to recommend that if you have people coming after you with guns, you arm yourself with something more substantial than a deep-fried drumstick. Certainly, do not pull your car over to the side of the road and start devouring a ten-piece bucket while parked in your own neighborhood. Your focus needs to be not on the greasy bird in the box, but on the gun-wielding maniacs who have designs on putting you in a box.
It may sound like one stereotype colliding with another stereotype: two black guys going at a bucket of fried chicken as they are murdered in a gangland shooting, but that is the scene. It seems that while these two guys were in midmouthful, somebody walked up to the car and opened fire on them.
The bucket of chicken is now splattered with blood.
Crime Scene Cleaners are not to touch the car. This is a crime scene still being processed. Why are we here, then, if these guys were shot in the car? It’s not like we are going to clean the car, after all (not until it goes for auction, that is).
We’re here because the passenger had managed to get out of the car. He tried to run for cover.
He didn’t make it.
His blood is on the street. Both under the car and leading away from it.
Most of the blood, though, is under the car, and so we have to wait for the processing to finish and for the car to be removed. Shawn goes to talk to the tow-truck driver to see if he knows when he is towing the car.
“Did you hear what the tow-truck driver said to me?” asks Shawn, returning. “He says, like, ‘Do you carry a gun?’ and I’m like, ‘No!’ He’s like, ‘Well, you might wanna start thinking about it,’ and I say, ‘Nah, that’s cool’; and he lifts up his fucking jacket and he’s got a gun right there. A total concealed weapon; against the law! I’m here a lot, and when I am I just wanna get in and out. Did I tell you about the job I did a few weeks back where the little girl got shot in the head—through the door?”
“No. I think I would remember that.”
“They’d been having problems; apparently she was part of some Asian gang, or I think her brothers were. And around midnight some guys came and rang the doorbell or knocked on the door and just, like, kind of ran back to a safe distance, and as soon as the door opened they just opened fire. Two guys. This homicide was announced on the radio station as I was driving to it, like, ‘This just in …’ and when I got there, there was media everywhere. TV cameras from NBC Eleven, KPIX, Channel Five, and some FOX affiliate. And there were lots of other people there like journalists or radio. There was a big glow from them. Big bright lights everywhere, because they’re always packed together in the same area. It’s always just a mass of lights. But they all have to stay behind the tape. Then I walk up and I lift the tape and step in, ask who’s in charge, and, you know, do my thing.”
“But how do you know all this about the murder?” I ask. “The story, I mean. From reading the papers the following day?”
“Well, they were pulling bullets from the wall while I was starting the cleanup. We were just chatting, you know. It was actually quite a trip. I mean I was as close to this guy who was digging bullets outta the wall as I am to you now. And then later I saw it on the news and they were like, ‘We need to carry this door outta here.’ And I was there with them when they were pulling the door off to take it for evidence, right there, just inside, cleaning. And then when I saw it on the news it showed them carrying the door off and leaving with it. It was kind of like this weird bubble. It was like, ‘This is what the public sees,’ and I’m looking at it like, ‘There they go,’ and on TV it’s like, ‘Here they come.’ And I knew loads of stuff before the press did, ’cause I knew it was two different shooters because I heard them when they found two different bullets. ‘Here’s a .357 and here’s a 9 mm, oh well if it’s a 9 mm then we’re gonna find shell casings, but if it’s a .357 we’re not.’ You know, they were using all this police jargon. ‘But maybe we’ll find a 9-mm casing and we’ll get a fingerprint, oh look, here’s a 9-mm shell.’ And they were right there digging into the wall.”
We are told that it will be another ten to fifteen minutes before the car at the current murder scene can be moved. There are lots of officers, as well as lots of what appear to be prostitutes, checking out the scene. There are people so screwed up on drugs that it is starting to represent a clip from Night of the Living Dead. It really is odd to see these people openly mixing with the police. Of course, they are aware that, for a short time only, they are of little interest to the men with badges and guns. They are on a reprieve and so they get daring.
The prostitutes and junkies, trying to sneak a peek, edge nearer to the car. Closer and closer they go until one of the officers tells them, “Fuck off!” Then they scamper back like cockroaches, wait a couple of minutes, and then slowly, slowly crabwalk in again. Thinking that by shuffling sideways they will go undetected.
And so the scene repeats itself.“‘Do I ever consider getting myself a gun?’ ” continues Shawn. “Can you believe that? When your number’s up, your number’s up. It’s like Neal says: ‘If you’ve got a gun you’re either gonna use it or it’s gonna get used on you.’ You know, in the United States, supposedly, most gun victims are shot with their own guns. Just look at all the homicides we do, and all the suicides that are done with guns. I mean, do I want a gun? Guess what!”
It’s hard to
know how many gun owners are killed with their own guns; there are no statistics on this, aside from that the idea stinks of urban myth. But of the twenty thousand-odd murders committed in a year, the statistics available state that roughly 68 percent of them will be committed with firearms, 56 percent of the overall total with handguns. Around eight hundred people die every year from gun-related accidents.
Finally, we are working on cleaning the blood from two of this year’s firearm murders. The crowd is smaller now that the victim’s car has been towed away, but there are a few people who continue to mill around, and there are still two or three officers on the scene.
“Look at them. They’re like fucking hyenas,” says Shawn, looking up from his hands and knees at the members of the public who just won’t go away. “It’s a fucking weird job, dude, I swear to God. ’Cause it’s not natural. You know, animals—unless you’re a hyena or a vulture or one of those scavengers—mammals and animals as a whole shy away from death. It’s a natural instinct to get the hell outta the situation. And we go traipsing in there every fucking day. ‘Oh, somebody died in here? Let’s go check it out.’ ”
The next evening I bump into my friend Rachel. Even though I am still living in her house, our paths have not crossed for a couple of days.
“Hey, where’ve you been?” she asks. “Did you get your dead people?”
“Sure did. Actually, it has been mad; suicides, murders, it’s just …”
“Oh, cool. I’m so pleased for you,” she says sarcastically.
I walk off laughing with her, but the reality is that, well, as I sit down on the futon in the bedroom, my reality comes crashing down. I am unsure of who I have become in this last month, or, in fact, who I was in the first place. I thought I knew. I thought I had a sense of decency. I simply don’t know anymore. I have a stabbing suspicion that there is little integrity about me.