The Man Who Picks Up Dead Bodies

     I was in the middle of my Monday routine at Eagle Fitness doing leg presses on the machine closest to the entrance.  Jason, my trainer, can’t help but acknowledge whoever comes through the door to work out.   It’s his job and his nature.

     I didn’t catch the first part of his conversation with the man with the white, walrus mustache, a robust 60-ish guy with a paunch.  Maybe a truck driver I thought.  Jason had stepped away from counting my reps.  The two men were deep in conversation.  I didn’t think much of it until I watched them glance at me.  The mustache guy  made  that gesture.  You know the one, like someone  hanging themself.

     Jason came back to me in the leg press machine and the man followed him. I was still in a scrunched  position, my knees up to my chest, pushing against a steel plate.  “We’re talking about the fifteen-year old Carson High student who hanged himself last week.”  There was a pause. I wondered, What does this guy have to do with it? Is he the grandfather or something?   Jason answered the question I hadn’t asked.  “This is Mike.  He picks up dead bodies for a living.”

      What followed was one of the most unusual conversations I’ve had in a long time.  Most of it happened  while I was still in my scrunched up position.   It turns out Mike is a real talker. I’m a good listener but also capable of asking what some might consider inappropriate questions.  Sometimes I use my age as an excuse.  Actually, it’s my nature.

 “What is exactly your job title?”  I asked.  “It’s got to be something other than what Jason said.” The guy who picks up dead bodies, I thought.

     “Assistant mortician,” he said.  “I work for the biggest mortuary in town.” 

     “He’s been doing that job for at least twenty years.  Isn’t that right, Mike? “Jason asked.

      “Yep.  Twenty years with the mortuary and a previous ten as a guard at the state prison.”

       They went back to talking about the suicide of the fifteen-year old.  Angie, at the desk,  joined in for a minute  .  Angie said her cousin’s daughter knew the boy.  It was an awful shock to all the kids.

      We talked about suicides, but no more teen suicides.    “Which is more common?” I asked, “Rope or guns?”  “What about gender?  More men or women?”  He didn’t mind my questions. He said that it seemed lately it had been more older women shooting themselves.  He made the other gesture, pointing his finger at his temple and pulling an imaginary trigger. 

      “Up in Reno, not too long ago, it was really strange…two older women shot themselves in the head the same day.  I picked one up and then had to drive to another location to pick up another one.  Same thing.  Older woman.”  He made the other gesture again.

    “Are there any dead times of year?” I asked. 

      He ignored my pun.  “Not really.  Pretty much the same year round.”  He paused, “Well, during covid it was crazy.  Really crazy.”  We ran out of storage.”

     Jason interjected.  “I couldn’t handle the car wrecks. Mike has told me some pretty awful stories.  Bodies in wrecked cars…you know…kids…pregnant women…”

   My legs were starting to cramp.  Both Jason and I wanted to extricate ourselves from the conversation.  Mike followed us to the next machine.  It’s the one that’s supposed to give me buns of steel.

   As if the conversation weren’t weird enough, Jason made the mistake of trying to change the subject. . “Do you know what Mike’s hobby is?  He’s a ghost chaser.  He’s really into the paranormal thing.”

    “Yep!” Mike said.   “There’s an afterlife!  I’m sure of that!  I’ve experienced some pretty amazing things!”  I was sitting upright on a pull down.  Mike was standing adjacent doing arm presses. Even though he was wearing a wife beater,  I could see  every bit of his torso was covered in tattoos.  That’s true of a lot of guys at the gym but Mike’s tattoos were crowded, cryptic.

        Jason, who  is a Christian, said, “I don’t know about that paranormal stuff.  I just leave those things to God…although I do think that sometimes it’s just in people’s minds. “

  You know, the conversation lasted fifteen minutes at the most.  I keep thinking about twenty years, all those bodies and being so close to the last breaths.  Did the departing souls breathe messages on Mike’s body?

II.

How’s Your Day Going?

     I was about to pay, when the bag boy (they probably don’t call them that anymore) at Trader Joe’s said,  “How’s your day going?”  I could almost read his mind.” Oh, I forgot. They told me I’m supposed to ask, ‘How’s your day going?’

     I paused before I answered.  Then I said, “About my day…I’m going to do you a favor and not  tell you the terrible story I heard today.  Here's the thing about stories like the one I’m not going to tell you.   There’s an urge to pass them on.   I’m not going to.  

    He didn’t know how to respond.  I couldn’t blame him.  I’m sure he is only four or five years older than the kids in the story Jason told me this morning at the gym.

    Here’s what Jason told me, as best as I can remember:  “I have this friend.  I’ve known him for a long time.  Haven’t seen him much in recent years, though.  He lives in Reno, has two daughters.  He’s raised them on his own.  His wife took off.”   I knew he meant she was a druggie.

“The older one, Jamie.  I think she’s sixteen or seventeen.  She and her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s best friend and  a couple of other friends were at the house in Jamie's bedroom with the door shut.  I guess she was sitting at her dressing table getting ready to go out.  Well, her boyfriend's friend pulled out a gun…” 

  I was doing squats.  I stood up and looked at Jason, waiting.  “I guess he was just fooling around and then the gun went off.  Killed Jamie. Shot her right in the head.  Killed her instantly. My friend heard the gunshot, ran into the bedroom.  The boy, with the gun still in his hand, looked at him, said, ‘I’m sorry.  It was an accident.’  Put the gun to his own head and killed himself.”

 Jason and I talked and talked about the tragedy as I went from machine to machine.  We couldn’t help it.  In the end, it was too sad for any moralizing.  

  I’m not sure why, but at some point I thought of Mike, the man who picks up dead bodies.   I wondered  if he was the one who had to go into that house, into that bedroom, pick up the bodies of that boy and that girl.  Feel their ghosts.

 I thought that when the grocery clerk or somebody in a store asks Mike, “How’s your day going?”  He doesn't need to say anything.  The answers are written on his body.