One Death, Nine Stories Read online

  Down Below

  Initiation

  Just Once

  The Next Next Level

  Running Man

  Making Up the Dead

  Two-A-Days

  I Have a Gun

  Connections

  Afterword

  About the Contributors

  HERE STANDS MORRIS ADLER at eighteen. Waiting.

  He found it funny that people said he was a dropout when he hadn’t so much dropped as drifted through and then away from school. He had had near-​perfect attendance but was never a part of things. Morris Adler. There, but not. Remembers no one and remembered by no one.

  He wasn’t worth the bother to bully or a girl’s crush. He took no interests and had no friends. Engaged in no conversations—small talk or meaningful. Neither the prospect of hooking up on the overnight senior trip nor attending prom inspired him to dive into his senior year. Nor did graduation or leaving home for an out-of-state school. Not even the bribe of a five-year-old Honda with new rims moved him to take his road test. It was the last no-show that got him home-tested for smoking weed. “Pee,” his mother said. No fuss. No argument. Morris Adler peed in the cup. Unfortunately for his parents, there was no positive result. A positive would have at the very least supplied Mr. and Mrs. Adler with an explanation. Rehab might have earned Morris some status among his peers. You know Adler? Quiet Adler? Gone celebrity when no one was looking. Adler’s in rehab.

  His mother took his lifelessness personally. “Why do you sleep your life away? What have I done?” Even his breathing was a hard sleeper’s churn. Sometimes she tapped him hard at the dinner table, thinking he’d fallen asleep while chewing. But he was awake. Staring off into nothing at all.

  Morris wasn’t aware he was doing it. Breathing like a sleeper with wide-open, unfocused eyes. He just couldn’t grab a hold of anything, or nothing grabbed him. So, at the urgings of his mother, who needed to save face at bingo, Morris Adler got his GED and then stood or sat lifelessly around in the house until his uncle Sampson offered him a future.

  “I need some low-paying help. Come into the shop tomorrow morning. Eight. Get your life started.”

  Morris’s eyelids might have risen a little higher than usual, but he didn’t balk. His mother was pleased, as if a great personal sorrow had been lifted from her. Much to Mr. Adler’s unvoiced objection, she threw an extra lamb chop on her brother Sampson’s plate and hummed the chorus to “My Prayer, Divine.”

  Morris’s uncle Sampson, or just Sampson—there were only fourteen years between them—was a good guy. Like Morris, Sampson was a “GED-I Knight.” With his limited reserve of interest and energy, Morris sometimes admired his uncle for getting his equivalency diploma and leaving Queens Village to go off to Iraq. Sampson had enlisted in the army to fly helicopters, then came back to the States a mortician.

  “We have a pickup,” Sampson told him.

  Morris found rising at seven to be at work by eight all too early in July, even with a high beam of sun urging him on through sheer bedroom curtains. He wanted to walk the three-quarters of a mile to work, enter the Eternal Rest Funeral Home. Sit down. Look around. Slowly awaken, then begin his work, whatever that entailed. But his uncle was already pushing him out of the entrance before he made it inside. Sampson tilted his head to the parking lot and walked toward the white utility hearse. Morris followed, trailing over to the passenger side.

  Sampson said, “Uh-uh,” remotely unlocking the doors. He threw his nephew the keys, which Morris failed to catch, and said, “Pick ’em up. Drive.”

  Morris stopped where he stood, the ring of keys at the toe of his sneaker. “I don’t . . .” He never had followed up with the road test, but he did have his permit.

  Neither case concerned Sampson, who had already opened the passenger door and gotten in.

  Morris had no choice but to bend down, get the keys. He sighed.

  The inside of the utility hearse smelled of lemon car freshener. He sat uncomfortably in the driver’s seat before adjusting the rearview mirror.

  “This is just one of your tasks,” Sampson said. “The real money’s at the shop, down below. But,” he said, pointing his finger into Morris’s shoulder, “you’ll need a license for that.”

  Morris wasn’t used to being touched—poked, no less—but he didn’t voice his annoyance, nor did he bother to ask about the license. He had no need for money. His parents provided well for him. He didn’t go out. Had no girlfriend or prospects to woo and entertain. As a result, his wants were few. He could still feel his uncle’s index finger in his shoulder.

  Sampson had once told his nephew about his initiation into the mortuary life. Digging mass graves in Iraq. Incinerating remains or collecting exploded remains to ID then ship stateside. He told Morris about things the government didn’t want home folks to know. Mr. Adler, Morris’s father, sided with the government. He didn’t appreciate hearing about his brother-in-law’s introduction to the funeral business while they ate dinner. Morris didn’t seem to mind, and for a few minutes, he had felt strangely alive while his uncle spoke with color and gusto of his hard, cold initiation over medium-well lamb chops. But Morris could only hang on but for so long, and had soon drifted away, before Sampson had gotten to his days in mortuary school.

  Morris turned toward his uncle, an utterance lodged in his throat. He could drive. He had a permit. It had just been a while since he’d gotten behind the wheel of a car.

  Sampson shook his head as if to cut off an argument with a speaking person. “Gotta drive for this job. Lots of errands. Pickups. Gotta drive. End of story.”

  For all of his hesitation, Morris’s driving was smooth. They went to the county morgue to pick up the body. Morris stood in the outer hall, guarding the company gurney while Sampson viewed the body and dealt with the paperwork. Together, they received the body within its white plastic bag, a long zipper running in a J from top to end, and strapped it onto their gurney, then pushed it out and loaded it into the utility hearse.

  “With reverence,” Sampson said as he showed Morris how to push the gurney with the body up the ramp into the hearse. When Morris tried to hand Sampson the keys, Sampson wouldn’t take them and slid in on the passenger side. Morris had no choice but to get in on the driver’s side.

  “A nice, smooth ride,” Sampson said, although Morris seemed to possess a smooth, steady hand with the wheel. When they returned to Eternal Rest off of Springfield Boulevard, he and Sampson wheeled the gurney around to the narrow side entrance and pushed it carefully down the ramp, even though the long white plastic sack and its contents had been secured.

  “This way,” Sampson told Morris, who was at the front of the gurney. “We have to switch.”

  As awkward as it was to squeeze past Sampson, Morris took a few sideways steps so that he was at the rear of the gurney and Sampson at the head.

  Even though Morris didn’t need or want an explanation, Sampson gave one. “You can’t enter down below. Not yet, son.” Then Sampson pushed in the doorbell and a piano elegy responded in eight mournful bars. Footsteps clomped to the door, and a man with a surgical mask pulled down over thick curly hair that ran down to his beard stood at the opened door, letting out a smell of chemicals and something else that made Morris woozy. Along with the noxious odor escaped a heckling laugh, unmistakably female. TV? No. A hiccupy peal that could only come from an open-mouthed woman. Morris stood back at an angle that allowed him to see no farther than the big-armed, squarish man. He wore a rubber apron and his large hands were gloved in thick latex. The man dipped his head, and said, “Sampson” in a baritone. The man, who Morris decided looked part goat and bull, glanced down at the gurney without giving Morris a thought.

  “Tal
l body,” the man said of the work that awaited him.

  Sampson nodded. “My nephew, Morris. Morris, Omar, our embalmer extraordinaire.”

  Morris, trying to do what his uncle expected of him, loped forward and extended his hand. The man shook his head no and held up both gloved hands to show they were unclean. The embalmer’s stained apron confirmed this.

  “Nothing personal,” Omar boomed, almost laughing.

  Morris shrugged. It made no difference to him. Then he heard the female’s laughter, and that caught his attention. Who was she? What was she doing down there?

  To satisfy the obvious questions, Sampson said, “Nadira. Our cosmetologist,” as if that was enough. Sampson smiled. “Only place to meet her is down below.”

  Morris felt the need to defend himself and said, “I just didn’t think . . .” but then he lost himself and didn’t know how else to put it. That a girl would be down there or have anything to laugh about.

  With the gurney rolled inside, Sampson had already turned to walk up the ramp. He told his nephew, “Don’t you worry. I’m sending you to mortuary school. You’ll be down in the thick of things before you know it.”

  Morris wanted to respond. To speak to the contrary. To represent his own desires, if only he had one. But his words wouldn’t come. An inkling rose up within him, but before it gained enough energy for indignation or anger, the piddling inkling flopped.

  For the rest of the day, Morris did what Sampson told him. He plugged in the vacuum cleaner with the extra-long cord and ran it up and down the aisle, around the casket area, the viewing path, and the family pew in the main chapel. The Reverence. While the machine growled at the white carpet, he let his mind run with actual thoughts as opposed to simply drifting away. He chased dust and thoughts of her. The girl down below. What made her laugh? Does she like it down there, with the dead? With the smell? How can she be down there with a part-goat, part-bull-looking man covered in blood? And again, What made her laugh?

  He ran the vacuum hard, over and over the same spot. He was glad he couldn’t go down below. Glad he never saw the body he’d driven from the morgue. As for mortuary school, he almost laughed, the vacuum’s handle throbbing in his grip. He wasn’t going to mortuary school. He had no desire to get “down in the thick of things,” to touch or look down upon a dead body.

  At the end of Morris’s first day of work, Sampson told him, “The family will be by tomorrow to make arrangements. I’ll show you how to go over their loved one’s obituary. You know. Make sure it tells the story of the deceased, however short their story might be.”

  Morris nodded his yes, although he was certain he didn’t want the responsibility.

  Sampson gave his nephew a hard thump on the back. It was almost enough to make Morris say, Yo, Unc. Easy. Take it easy. He felt those words, but his mouth wouldn’t say them. At the end of a day full of firsts and annoyances that had him awake and moving before he was used to, driving when he didn’t want to, wheeling a dead body down a narrow ramp, and being poked, slapped, and jabbed from eight to six, he felt steam slowly rising up in him, but then receding.

  “Wear a jacket, tie. Nice shirt. Pants. Shoes. No sneakers. And eight o’clock, Morris. Eight. Sharp.”

  Morris’s mother couldn’t contain her chattiness when Morris walked into their bungalow house off of Linden Boulevard. “My son, my son, on his first day of real work. Wash up, quick. We’re eating.”

  Morris washed his hands and joined his mother and father at the table. He nodded to his father, who was already enjoying his meal. His father lifted his head and grunted while cutting into his pork loin.

  “Well, son.” Her smile was hard and expectant. “How was it?”

  Morris hated to look at her, for nothing he said would satisfy her. He’d rather just cut into the meat on his plate. Stab a potato.

  He shrugged. But there she sat. Not eating. Waiting on his words. Wanting too much. Finally, he offered, “We picked up a body,” hoping that would stop her from asking anything further.

  “Who was it?” she asked, almost delighted.

  His father dropped his knife and fork. “Woman, you see this good piece of meat I work hard to buy? You think I want to hear this?”

  Morris’s mother waved her husband off. “Who was it, son? Young? Old? Did he die well, or was he shot up or something horrible like that?”

  “For the last time, woman.”

  Morris didn’t know what to do. Talk and make his mother happy. Eat and allow his father to enjoy his meal in peace. Then it occurred to him. His uncle had spared him from viewing the body, so there was no face to recognize. Omar the embalmer wheeled the body “down below,” where the smell had made him sick and the woman’s laughter pierced him. Even if Morris wanted to make a little mischief at the dinner table, he couldn’t. He only knew what he knew of the body. That it was dead. And according to the embalmer, it was tall. About Morris’s height.

  He stuck a potato in his mouth and chewed. Shrugged.

  “What do you mean—?” His mother imitated the shrug, but with a violent jerk. “Of course you know.”

  He shook his head. Finished swallowing. “No, Mom. I don’t. They didn’t unzip the bag. I didn’t see, so I didn’t know.” This was the most he had said to his mother, or maybe anyone, at one full clip.

  “Well, you should. You should know these things. The people coming in the funeral home. You should pay attention.”

  Certainly, Mrs. Adler was miffed at Morris for depriving her of a little gossip, but the sight of him dressed in Sunday wear—a suit, shirt, tie, and shoes—in the morning more than made up for last night’s disappointment. She was once again holding on to her prayer for Morris. Brimming with hope.

  Morris left the house without sitting down to breakfast—he couldn’t be late, he said, and was on his way to his uncle’s shop. In reality, he meant to make a clean break from his mother. He had heard her stirring around and knew she had been camped at the table. He smelled and wanted the coffee and fried bacon, but his mother wanted to chat, drill, suggest. Encourage him about his future. Truth be told, he was afraid of what would spill out of him if she pushed too hard.

  It was an ideal summer morning for the nearly mile walk to the funeral home rather than riding the bus. Even if he dragged along, the route would take him ten minutes. His walk was made uninteresting by the dozen or so blocks of Queens Village homes, elm and linden trees shading each side of Springfield Boulevard. He saw the same rows of bungalows followed by the same rows of aluminum-siding houses all cramped along tight green plots of land.

  Finally, a change in the scenery. A half a block ahead, Morris spotted a girl, maybe his age. As he gained on her, he saw she was older by a few years. Girls from school didn’t dress like her. Heels, skirt, a fine sweater flung over her back. She was dressed for a job, not to hang out with friends. She carried a leather bag with a handle, the bag the shape and size of a cooler. It was more of a kit than a bag. His eyes left the leather kit in her grip and progressed to the easy sway in her hips.

  His legs were longer than hers. He could overtake her in a few steps if he made the effort. Or even approach her. Be near. Smell whatever she sprayed in her hair or on her neck. Or her lotion. Girls rubbed lotion on their legs and arms. As he passed her, he could speak. Say “Morning,” like Sampson would. Or “Hey, Miss. Hey, Ms. Hey, sweet . . .” No. He wouldn’t say that. He kept walking. Walking was fine. He’d follow as far as she went before he got to the funeral home. And if he caught up to her, then and only then, he’d speak.

  But just as he had expected to lose her, she turned and followed the walkway into Eternal Rest Funeral Home. She swung open the door with no hesitation, like someone at home in Uncle Sampson’s shop. And before he knew it, Morris was also marching up the steps behind her, his reflection in the glass door. Surely she had seen him in the glass, but she turned and gave him a smile of surprise.

  “Hello,” she said.

  He cleared his throat to speak. It was
her. The girl, or woman, with the laugh. He heard it in the pitch of that one word. “Hello,” he managed. Yeah. He got it out and was inwardly proud of his achievement. His pride resulted in a smile, the right response to her broadening, orangey smile.

  “Nadira,” she said, holding out her free hand.

  “Morris.” He jumped right on it, holding the door for them and grabbing her hand, but gently. Creamy. He didn’t want to crush it, but it was soft. He might even have felt her palm with his thumb in the release.

  “Sampson’s nephew.” She smiled even more. “Welcome. I work down below.”

  “I know. Down below,” he repeated. “Cosmetology.”

  Orange never looked so welcoming. Succulent. She seemed all right with having been discussed between him and Sampson. “That’s right. Hair. Nails. Makeup.”

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  “Love it,” she fired back. “It’s for the loved ones.”

  He couldn’t stop himself. Morris kept smiling and talking. She, Nadira, kept returning fire, and even laughed a bit. She wasn’t laughing at him, but with him, when he said, “I guess the fun happens down below.” Then she said, “You’ll never know until you come on down.” And there was another laugh. And Morris was saying to himself, “Down below, down below.”

  Sampson appeared. “Nadira.”

  “I know, I know,” she said, walking away and winking at Morris. “Around the back. Side door. Down below, where I belong.”

  Morris watched the cosmetologist, with her leather kit and her heels, walk away.

  “It’s not a good idea for them”—Nadira and Omar, Morris surmised—“to enter through the front, where the clients are. They touch the dead,” his uncle said.

  “We were just talking.”

  “Morris.”

  “Sampson,” Morris answered back in the same tone.

  “She’s got kids,” Sampson said. “I’m just giving her a break.”

  “She’s nice,” Morris said, fighting the drift. The nod. The silence.

  “Did you hear me? Kids.”

  “I heard,” Morris said. “She’s nice. Funny.” It was so easy to nod. To drift. But he stayed in his voice. In his body. His eyes hurt from fighting the urge to blink. He had never quite done this before. He didn’t know why it had been that way, why he had been that way, nor could he remember if he’d always been that way. But at seven minutes or so before eight, something changed.