by R. E. Klein
Somehow he made it to the shed. He flashed his lantern inside. Empty. But there was no bolt on the door. What if Mr. Corson came in the night, bearing something horrible? The words echoed in this mind: “You got to get over bein’ scared, boy. I’m the one to help you do it.” What if—but, no, he mustn’t think of such things. Where was Pa? He wanted Pa. He cried himself to sleep.
He woke. Were those footsteps outside the shed? Was there labored breathing, as of someone bearing a heavy burden?
The door was opening.
“Is that you, Mr. Corson?”
The door closed. The footsteps retreated. He lay awake till morning.
• • •
“Sometimes you got to uncover the head,” Mr. Corson was saying. It was morning again, and they labored in the workroom. A new one came in during the night, his forehead mashed by a lead pipe.
“It takes strength,” the undertaker continued. “First you make the incision—so. You see?”
“Yes, Mr. Corson.”
“Next you plant your foot firmly on his chest, and pull!” The scalp ripped away like torn canvas.
“There. Now you take a little plaster of Paris—not too wet—and rebuild the front part of the skull. When that’s done, you merely paste the scalp back. Nothing easier.”
The boy miserably looked on and nodded.
“Would you like me to sweep up outside, Mr. Corson? Maybe I could go into town for supplies?”
“We’re just beginnin’. Heck, I just patched that skull to show you how it’s done. We got to do that old lady now; her funeral’s tomorrow. Fetch her, will you, while I wash this blood and plaster off my hands.”
“You want me to . . . pick her up?”
“That’s the gen’ral idea. Say, didn’t you tell me you was losin’ your childish fears?”
The boy nodded. He had lied to Mr. Corson. In order to escape the undertaker’s grim fooleries, he pretended to be growing used to the dead. “Just give me a little more time, sir,” he told Mr. Corson at breakfast. Mr. Corson was pleased.
Now his eyes were narrowing.
“Boy, I did a mean thing last night, puttin’ that corpse in the kitchen. And I almost done a meaner one when I thought you’s asleep. I drug the iron coffin to the shed.
“Now look y’here. If what you told me is true about your growin’ used to the work, we ain’t got no quarrel. But if you try to bamboozle me because of babyish fears, I’ll tie you mouth to mouth to a corpse that’s comin’ apart. You want that? Now haul up that carcass!”
It was astonishingly light. He looked away from it as, with arms outstretched, he carried it to the worktable and set it down.
“You’re actin’ like a man now,” said Mr. Corson. “Just take a wet sponge and wash her down.” He sniffed closely. “Gee whillikers, we’d better hurry; she’s beginnin’ to smell.”
He dipped the sponge. After all, she wasn’t a monster or a Halloween skeleton. She looked more like that ’Gyptian mummy he saw at the circus. He began to wash the body. Maybe he had not lied; maybe he was getting used to the dead.
Somebody pulled the front doorbell.
“You go see who that is. I’ve got to put on my coat and tie. And mind you look solemn.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alan returned. “It’s a Mr. Jones; says he’s the foreman over at the mill. I showed him in.”
“Good boy. Now you watch what I do.” They stepped to the waiting room.
“Ah, Mr. Jones,” said Mr. Corson dolefully. “And how may I be of assistance?” Mr. Jones—a short man with a close-cropped head of bristly red hair—was pale.
“It’s one of the hands—got trapped in the big grinder. Just happened. Got him outside in a sack.”
“Ah, I see.” Mr. Corson put his hands together. “Does the . . . unfortunate have any survivin’ kin?”
“I hear he’s got a sister somewheres, but never you mind; I reckon the mill will pay for the buryin’.”
Mr. Corson expanded. “Indeed, I’m sure you’ll want the very best fixin’s—him, no doubt, bein’ a loyal employee. Alan, show the gentleman a casket, the deluxe mahogany and silver one.”
“What’ll I do with him?” The foreman pointed toward the wagon standing in front.
“Never mind about that, Mr. Jones. My assistant will see to it, won’t you, Alan? Mr. Jones, how’s about havin’ a drink to the dear departed?”
• • •
“It’s the best business in the world, m’lad,” said Mr. Corson. “People got to die.” They sat after dinner in the parlor. Mr. Corson took a generous drink. “Once I sold washtubs. I was good, too. But sometimes folks bought, and sometimes they didn’t. Now this business—here—” He laughed. “It’s like I said: People got to die.”
• • •
Another day. Somehow he’d got through. He actually helped Mr. Corson prepare the old lady’s body. Now they were at supper.
“You done good today. I’m real proud.”
“Thank you, Mr. Corson.”
“You’re growin’ up, ain’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Corson took a big bite of lamb and spoke while chewing.
“Why, that old lady—you rouged her up terrific. Say, you’ve got a real talent for them corpses.
“Hah! When I first started, I made some dumb mistakes—like the time I squirted too much embalmin’ fluid into a gent.” He gorged another mouthful.
“It didn’t do no harm, not until the funeral. Ha, ha, ha. They was all there—the family, guests, and, of course, preacher. Well, suddenly—in the midst of things, like—that ol’ corpse, he starts a-sittin’ up, with a oozin’, suckin’ kind of squishy sound. He sits up and—whoosh! he vomits gobs of that black embalmin’ fluid all over everything.
“Preacher—he was the first to light out. The rest? They was a-runnin’ and a-screamin’. I lay low to watch the fun. They all run off, ’cept one small boy about your age.
“‘Hey, you,’ I says to him; ‘why didn’t you run off like the rest?’ He looks at that corpse, and y’know what he says? Says he, ‘I thought he was goin’ to speak to me’—meanin’ the corpse. ‘I thought he was goin’ to speak to me.’ Ain’t that funny?”
Mr. Corson helped himself to whiskey.
“Say, you put that sack in the closet, like I told you?” The boy nodded. “You look inside?”
“No.”
Mr. Corson took another drink.
“You’re my apprentice, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which means you got to do what I tell you, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What if I was to ask you to get that sack and spread the remains all over the workroom table—you’d got to do it, wouldn’t you, ’cause you’re my apprentice.”
“Please, Mr. Corson.”
“You’d do it; you know you would. You’d got to.” He drank more whiskey.
“Now I ain’t sayin’ I’m goin’ to ask you to do that.” He smiled slyly. “And then again, I ain’t sayin’ that I’m not goin’ to, neither. (Here, pass me that whiskey, boy.) I’m sayin’ that I might ask you to spread out those human parts just as a kinda test like—to see if you’s all growed up.”
The boy writhed in his chair. The man’s eyes grew small and mean.
“Let’s adjourn into the workroom.”
Alan never entered that room at night. The oil-burning lamps cast weird shadows.
“Go and get the sack, boy. Let’s see who’s in it.” Alan brought it. “Now undo the string. Undo it! Why’s your fingers shakin’? Here, I’ll undo her.
“Now, as I was a-sayin’, if I ask you to pull out these here pieces, you got to do it, right?”
“Mr. Corson, sir. Please.”
“Right?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, I might ask you to stick your head inside the bag, right? Boy, why don’t you answer? Sure, you’re some scared, just like I figured. Ha, ha. I was jokin’ with you. You clean u
p them dishes and go to bed. I’ll do a little work in here.”
At least he was in the kitchen—no horrors there—no crushed workmen inside misshapen sacks. He washed, dried, and carefully placed each dish in its appointed cupboard. Then he went out into the night.
Compared to the terrors of the workroom, the shack seemed snug and secure. He searched it with his lantern. Nothing. Empty. He removed his shoes and trousers and tried to tuck himself under the covers.
My feet, he thought, I can’t get them all the way down.
He pushed. Some obstruction prevented him from stretching out at full length. His bare feet touched it. It felt like burlap. He sprang off the cot. He wouldn’t look. He wouldn’t let himself look. Gingerly he peeled back the old quilt.
He screamed loud and long. From the house came Mr. Corson’s raucous laughter. Laughter was the last sound he heard as he grabbed for his trousers and ran shrieking into the night.
He dressed quickly as he stumbled along. To run. Anywhere. To get away. His bare feet carried him over the dusty hills. In his panic he ran into the burial yard. Thoughts screamed in his head. They’re reaching for me through the soil. But the ground’s too hard. They’ll never break through in time.
He was out of the graveyard. Take a breath. Better. Where now? To town? Mr. Corson might see him there and take him back.
“I’ll never go back!” he raved. Where then? To Pa. Back to Pa.
• • •
Customarily the old farmer spent his mornings scratching in the fields. Alan could not find him.
“Pa?”
No answer.
Alan went into the house. “Pa? It’s me.”
“Alan?” from the bedroom.
His father lay in bed, his face yellow and drawn. “I’m sick, son,” the old man said weakly. The boy hugged him.
His father smiled. “So Mr. Corson let you come home.”
“No, Pa. Mr. Corson’s a real mean man. I run off.”
The old man raised up in bed, his face white with rage.
“Ya run off? Ya run off from Mr. Corson?” He struck the boy across the face. “Son, they ain’t no name for the badness you done. I give that man all I had. Ya hear me?” He stared for some moments; then he softened. “You have t’ go back, son.”
“Pa, no!”
“Tell Mr. Corson yer sorry ya run off.”
“Let me stay here and take care of you.”
“I ain’t goin’ t’ get no better knowin’ a son of mine was low enough to run off from his indentures. You promise me, son. Promise y’ll go back to Mr. Corson. Promise y’ll become a undertaker.”
“I promise, Pa.”
• • •
Two nights later when Alan returned to the mortuary, Mr. Corson dragged him, shrieking, to the crematorium and locked him in and went away.
“Come back, Mr. Corson. Please come back.”
But Mr. Corson went away.
“Mr. Corson.”
Silence.
Except for the wind.
The eerie wind whistled through the ventilation holes. He was alone in this ash-smelling, dark furnace of human incineration. The wind began to scream like the corpse who screamed at its own cremation—here in this very room, where fires burn the grinning dead to white ash. He could see their skin peel into flame, hear their white bones crack to talcum powder.
“Help me,” Alan cried.
The shrill wind piped uncannily, like a demented organ at a lunatic’s funeral.
He was locked in with the dead.
“Pa, save me. Get me out of this.”
But there was no Pa, no Mr. Corson, no escape.
Only the dead.
“Let me out!” He pounded cold walls with his fists, his arms, his head.
The dead groped for him from unseen corners.
“No,” he shrieked. “Oh, no-o-”
White-shrouded shapes crouched just out of sight.
“Someone help me.”
They sprang with outstretched claws.
“Please.”
Skeleton hands wrapped him in winding gauze. The ashy wind played organ music. Corpse lights burst in his head.
He began to laugh then. He rolled over the stone floor, laughing uncontrollably. He laughed himself to sleep. He laughed all through his dreams. He awoke laughing.
Iron grated. He stood up.
The door opened. Mr. Corson’s burly figure stood in the doorway, etched by morning sunlight.
“Sleep well, boy?” He laughed.
“I guess I’ll go make breakfast,” Alan said.
“I didn’t want to lock you in there. I had to.” He looked at Alan. “It ain’t right to run away.”
The boy nodded. “I won’t run away anymore.”
II
“Now let’s give him some eyes—real glass ones, boy—rejects from the veteran’s hospital. We’ll make some eyelids—out of his thigh there—to cover ’em up. That way there’ll be little bulges under the eyelids instead of holes. I get more for real glass eyes.”
He was sixteen now and mastering his trade. Nearly two years had passed since the night Mr. Corson locked him in the crematorium. In two years he had learned to embalm, to restore, to enliven the lifeless with plaster and paint.
“That’s real good, Alan. I always knowed you was cut out to be a first-class mortician.”
“I’d like to embalm the whole world,” said Alan. Mr. Corson clapped him on the back.
Pa had provided the finishing touch. He came in one day just two weeks short of Alan’s sixteenth birthday. “He’s your pap, boy,” said Mr. Corson, “and I guess you’d better do him.” Poor skinny, overworked farmer. How frail he looked stretched out on the workroom table. His pale chest and legs contrasted harshly with his copper face and arms.
“I’ll do you good, Pa,” the boy whispered. He caressed the tired, worn face.
• • •
The next two years proved even busier for Alan. He studied the dead—their hard white bones, their network of sinew, the marvelous muscles which when properly tamed could frame a face into trancelike slumber, or contort it to a yawning horror. The dead became his teachers, his companions, his only friends. Once there was a timid boy named Alan Patch, but he was burned to ashes in the crematorium one windy November night.
Mr. Corson grew brasher, more dissipated, increased his paunch with fatty tissue. And how he made Alan work. There was more business as the town spread. Alan sweated over bodies far into the night, while, a diamond stickpin in his tie, Mr. Corson sampled the perfumed palaces in town.
On a grim December morning, back from his nightly debauch, Mr. Corson caught Alan striking a dead man and shrieking “Corson, Corson.” He slapped Alan alongside the head, mouthed an obscene word, and drifted to his room upstairs. Alan ground his teeth and said nothing.
Two months after Alan’s eighteenth birthday Mr. Corson suffered his stroke. Too much beef and red-faced whiskey drinking. Too much frenzied dissipation. It happened in town. One moment the undertaker bragged to the barkeep; the next, he collapsed, meaty paw to head, hollered, and went down.
Alan tended him for the six weeks he lay in bed. Alan fed him, bathed him, doctored him with medicine. When Mr. Corson left his bed, he left behind fifty pounds of flesh. Gone were the handsome face, the braggart laugh, the paunch of the successful. The stroke had broken Mr. Corson. He was thin now and prematurely old. And he was weak.
In town, Alan, a slim youth of eighteen sporting a neatly brushed suit, smiled at the apothecary.
“He’ll be his old self in no time,” said Alan. “You just wait and see.”
“Thanks to you,” said the apothecary. “Folks are sayin’ Corson would be dead but for you.”
“He has much to live for,” Alan said, “much to experience before he dies.”
“I guess so. I’m just sayin’ what’s common talk—that you couldn’t do no more if Corson was your own father.”
“He’s like a father to me.” Alan clim
bed into the rig and jog-trotted back to the undertaking establishment.
“Mr. Corson?”
“Hello, Alan. Been to town?”
“To the ’pothecary’s. I brought you some more medicine.”
“Ooh, thank you. I been sick all day.” Mr. Corson limped along painfully. “I feel old, boy. Someday the business’ll be all yours.”
Alan beamed. “Mr. Corson, someday I’ll embalm you.”
“That ain’t funny, Alan.”
• • •
He spent his nights in the bowels of corpses—the knives, the scissors, the embalming fluid, the needles and thread, the paint and putty. Mr. Corson lost more weight but could move freely now, and could work after a fashion. But Alan handled most of the business, Mr. Corson weakly assisting when he was able. Now was Alan grown to a pale, thin, precocious youth. Responsibility—and something else—had matured him. Working silently in dark hours taught him style; reflecting on his employer gave him innovation.
• • •
“A new one for us,” Alan said one morning. “A ten-year-old boy with a hole in his chest you could put your fist through. Gored by a bull.” They stood in the workroom, Mr. Corson assisting as Alan cheerfully poured molten wax. Suddenly he stopped.
“Let’s have a party,” he said. Hastily he lifted four bodies from their respective tables and propped them against the wall.
“Here’s Lantern Jaw and Quasimodo and Elephant Eye and Scary Tommy.”
“Alan,” said Mr. Corson angrily, “you stop that. I was glad years ago when you quit bein’ a-scared of them things, but this sort of conduct just ain’t right. It’s . . . it’s morbid.” Alan whistled as he returned the bodies to their slabs.
• • •
“Happy twenty-first birthday to me!” Alan sang happily. He contemplated the sign.
CORSON AND PATCH
UNDERTAKERS
COFFINMAKERS
Then he strolled inside to join his senior partner in the workroom.
“I never did like doin’ infants,” said Mr. Corson. “Poor little mites.” Alan snatched it from the table and dandled its tiny carcass on his lap.
“Alan!”
“Whoop! Jounce the baby on your knee,” he chanted, bouncing it up and down; then he replaced it on the table.