Train Wreck Girl (8 page)

I'd seen exactly three dead bodies outside of caskets. The first was when I was twelve. My buddy Rick and I were hanging out at his house after school. I went into his garage to grab us a couple of sodas from the refrigerator there. I found his dad's body hanging from the garage door opener, an orange electric chord around his neck, a puddle of urine at his feet. I added my own puddle of vomit to the garage floor.

The second was an old man. He'd been driving in front of me when he lost control and slammed into a telephone pole. He flew through the windshield of his car and headfirst into the pole. By the time I got to the scene, he'd stopped breathing and had no heartbeat.

Both of these bodies haunted me for a while, but they were nothing compared to the third body I found. Libra's. Libra still infested my dreams and clouded my thoughts. And it wasn't just the horror of finding her body. Let's be honest, if I'd seen Libra alive that morning, just sitting on the tracks as I walked to the Greyhound station,
that
would've fucked with my head. A lot of things about Libra being on those tracks bothered me, not just the fact that she was dead. And this is what I thought about on my first day of grim reaping.

Bart and I stood over the body of an old lady. We were in a bedroom in a nursing home. Bart had shut and locked the door behind us because, as we'd walked through the nursing home, every old bastard in the joint stopped us to ask who died and what happened to her and to tell us their life stories and a million other things. It was a pain in the ass.

Now, Bart and I stood over this dead lady. I was thinking about Libra and death. Bart was talking away.

“The first thing you want to do,” Bart said, “is make sure the patient is, in fact, dead. There are a few ways to make certain. The first is to take the patient's pulse. Like this.”

Bart picked up the lady's flaccid arm and placed two of his fingers just below the woman's wrist. He explained to me about how to find the pulse.

I said, “Come on, man. We're not paramedics. They've already checked her. She's dead.”

“They made sure someone was dead,” Bart said. “What we have to be sure of is that we put the right body into the body bag.” I looked at Bart like he was full of shit. He shook his head. “I'm serious,” he said. “When I first started doing this job, the guy I worked with was a total fucking numbskull, and I didn't know what I was doing yet. We went into a nursing home to fetch a corpse. I was just following him. I figured he knew where we were going. We walked into a room and there was this stiff old man in the bed. I grabbed the feet of the guy and Numbskull grabbed the shoulders and, just as we lifted, the old bastard started kicking and screaming. I almost shit my pants.”

“Really?”

“It's no lie. So let's go through this.” Bart picked up the arm again. “First you check the pulse. Try it.”

I put my two fingers below the woman's wrist. No pulse. Rigor mortis was starting to set in. The woman was turning blue. She had soiled herself. She didn't stink yet, but I didn't want to stick around until she did. Bart kept guiding me, telling me to put my ear over the dead lady's mouth, to blow into her eyes to see if she blinked, that kind of thing. I kinda doubted these were even really tests. I reckoned they were just things Bart had made up to make sure a corpse didn't kick. Still, I humored him.

After we'd gone through four or five of Bart's homemade death tests, Bart said, “Okay, take a step back.” I backed away from the dead lady. Bart stepped forward. “There's just one more test.” Bart turned, lifted his leg, and farted on the dead lady's head.

I didn't want to laugh. I really didn't. But I couldn't help myself. A wave of nervous giggling wiped me out. Bart laughed, too. That made things worse. I couldn't look at him without laughing harder.

Right in the middle of this, someone knocked on the door. “Everything okay in there?”

Bart composed himself long enough to say, “Everything's fine.” Then he burst out laughing again, trying to keep as quiet as he could.

I could hear people talking outside the room. Saying things like, “What's going on in there?” “I don't know. Are they trying to resuscitate her?” “I thought she was dead.” “Maybe not.” And so on. The more the people outside the room said, the more nervous it made me, and the more it made me laugh. I couldn't stop.

Bart was just as bad. His face was glowing red and he was gasping for air. Still, he pointed to the lady's feet and grabbed her shoulders. I grabbed her feet. Bart said, “One, two, three.”

I lifted the dead lady's feet. Bart ripped another fart. I started giggling again.

Someone knocked on the door again. “What's taking so long?”

“We're almost done in here,” Bart said.

We wrapped the body bag around the lady, zipped her up, strapped her into the gurney, and started wheeling her toward the door. I was laughing the whole time. Bart was, too. The murmur of voices came through the door. Just as we got to the door, Bart said, “Okay. You've got to pull it together.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. A quick burst of breathless giggles slid out. I took another deep breath. Okay. Composed. I looked at Bart. He'd stopped laughing. He wasn't even smiling. I took another deep breath.

“Ready to go outside?” Bart whispered.

I nodded.

“Here we go.” Bart put one hand on the doorknob, lifted one foot off the ground, and ripped another fart.

“Goddamn it,” I whispered, giggling again. Bart, at this point, was doubled over. Someone knocked. I couldn't take it.

All I could think was that someone outside might actually have hope that this old blue corpse might breath again, and the longer we sat in here, the more hope that someone got. The more I thought about this, the worse I felt, and the worse I felt, the more I laughed. It was crazy. I reached over and punched Bart in the arm. Not hard. Just enough to let him know that we had to get out of there. Bart nodded and stood straight up. I started taking deep breaths again. I resolved to avoid looking at Bart until we were out of that nursing home.

Bart grabbed the doorknob again. “Ready?” he asked.

I nodded. He opened the door. We wheeled the corpse out.

I didn't say a word to anyone until I got to the van, and by then I felt all right.

We hauled the corpse over to the Medical Examiner's office, dropped the van off at Space Coast, picked up Bart's car, and headed home. It was just after five-thirty in the morning. By this point, Bart had farted again and again enough times to make it an old joke. The giggles had passed. I kept my window down and mostly ignored him.

“Jobs like this are gravy,” Bart said. “They're almost as good as the nights when we don't have to pick up anyone.”

I nodded, but I was already done thinking about it. The sun was just beyond the horizon, about to rise but not quite there yet. I didn't have a whole lot to do at Duane's metal shop that day. I wasn't due in until eight or so. I figured I'd get back to Cocoa Beach and join the dawn patrol out there on the ocean. I hadn't seen the sun rise while surfing in a long time. This would be a good morning for that.

Bart kept talking about the job. “It can't all be fart jokes,” he said. “Some nights, you see some fucked up shit.”

“I bet,” I said, but really, my mind was on surfing. Not on farts; not on dead people. I had no idea what I'd signed myself up for.

ITINERARY FOR RECONCILIATION

6:47
P
.
M
. You'll once again have a crush on Helen. You'll want to go see her at her bar, but you know from experience that the worst way to try to hook up with a bartender is to sit at her bar every night and drool over her. Pace yourself.

6:48
P
.
M
. There will be no food in your apartment. Helen serves food. You haven't been to Duke's in two weeks. Decide it'll be okay to go there now.

6:49
P
.
M
. Give your bike a quick once over. You rescued the bike from someone else's trash. It's a beach cruiser. You had to replace the bearings and the chain, but everything else seems okay. Still, check the brakes before leaving.

7:01
P
.
M
. Take a stool at Duke's. All the regulars will be there. Wonder briefly if you look like just another in this row of lonely guys, just another barnacle stuck to a barstool. Tell yourself, I'm different. Tell yourself: my brother—who was really my whole family—died four months ago and my girlfriend—who, sure, was my ex-girlfriend, technically, but still—died just over two months ago. I'm in mourning. The last thing I need now is another relationship.

7:02
P
.
M
. Tell yourself, besides, I'm not just any other guy. I'm Helen's ex-boyfriend. Decide that makes matters worse. Say hello to Helen. Order food without looking at a menu. Order water to go with your food.

7:14
P
.
M
. The bar will start to fill up. Don't pay much attention to this.

7:21
P
.
M
. Start eating your dinner. A surfer-looking guy about your age will sit next to you at the bar. You will recognize him, but you won't remember his name.

7:25
P
.
M
. Helen will introduce you to the guy. His name is Benji Clarke. You went to high school with him. You and Benji will both have a moment where you're like, oh shit, I didn't realize that was you.

7:26
P
.
M
. Say to Benji, “Are you still surfing?”

Benji will laugh and say, “Now and then.”

There will seem to be some joke that you're not getting. There is. Benji surfs professionally. In fact, he's one of the top surfers in the world. He was a close runner up to world champion two years earlier. He's back in town to sponsor a surfing contest. It's been in all the papers. You didn't notice any of this, partly because you've spent so much time since high school drunk or high or both. Partly because you never paid much attention to pro surfing. Partly because you see reading newspapers as tantamount to weed eating.

Helen will explain some of this to you. She'll tell you about Benji being a pro and second in the world and sponsoring the contest. This will make you especially happy when…

7:27
P
.
M
. Benji will say, “I'm still pissed off that you beat me in that Easter contest back in 1986.” Shrug and say, “It was a fluke.”

7:45
P
.
M
. As you finish your dinner, you will notice the bar is now packed. Helen will be so busy you can't get her attention to pay her and leave. Shaggy will be losing his mind in the kitchen. Benji and his crew from the surf contest will take up half of the dining area. The other half of the dining area will be full of guys from a local longboarding club who just happened to pick this night and this bar to have their annual party. They'll all be so excited to meet Benji Clarke that chaos will ensue.

7:46
P
.
M
. Recognize that only two people are working in this packed bar and restaurant. Decide to help Helen and Shaggy.

7:47
P
.
M
. Actually get up to help Helen and Shaggy. Bus your own plate. Walk behind the bar. Gently touch Helen in the small of the back and say, “I'll wait tables. You take care of the bar.”

Helen's eyes will not be able to focus on anything. Stray hairs will be stuck to the sweat on her forehead. She'll take a deep breath and nod. This will be your only indication that she understands. Pick up a pad near the cash register. Walk into the kitchen and say to Shaggy, “Tell me the table numbers and where to run the food.” Shaggy will point to a diagram on the kitchen wall. It shows which table in the restaurant adheres to which table number. It's all pretty logical.

Shaggy will say, “Take the lau lau, chicken katsu, and kalua pig to table seven.”

You've waited a lot of tables in your life. It's all old hat to you. You pick up the three plates, double check with the diagram, and run the food.

7:48
P
.
M
. On the way back to the kitchen, take food and drink orders from three tables. Treat them as if they are all one table, getting all the orders before going back to the kitchen.

7:49
P
.
M
. Run food. Take orders. Pass the orders on to Shaggy. Get drinks yourself from behind the bar. Write everything down on the pad. Let Helen ring up the tickets when the time comes. Bus tables when people finish. Get extra sauces from the refrigerator. When the wheelchair dude shows up, treat him like any other customer. Take his order. Bring him his food. Keep his water glass full. Help Shaggy with the dishes when they pile up too high. Refill Helen's ice. Make more iced tea. Switch out the syrup once on the soda gun. Keep your hands clean. Continue to do these things for the next hour. You'll get the same frazzled look as Helen and Shaggy, but no one will lose their mind.

8:49
P
.
M
. You'll like this frazzled feeling. You haven't been in the weeds like this for a few months. You haven't waited tables for a few years, but since you no longer do it every day, it's kinda fun. It's like taking a holiday in your own past. You'll feel like everything is working out okay. Food service will slow down. Your duties will gradually switch to running drinks and collecting money and cleaning up.

9:32
P
.
M
. The crowd won't really thin out, but they'll stop ordering food. This rush will be over. Helen and Shaggy will have things under control. It's almost time for you to head home, anyway.

9:33
P
.
M
. Helen will say, “You saved my fucking ass. Your dinner's on me.” When she looks away, put the tips you made that night into Helen's tip jar. Shaggy will see you do this. Put your forefinger in front of your lips in a universal symbol of,
keep your mouth shut, Shaggy.

9:34
P
.
M
. You have to get home to be on call for your night job. Explain this to Helen briefly. Wave goodbye to Shaggy. Walk to the door.

9:35
P
.
M
. Helen will call out to you, “You're my hero, Danny McGregor.” Start glowing.

11:17
P
.
M
. Your pager will go off. Things will turn nasty that quickly.