worship.
My parents had impressed upon me, from a young age, that the consequences of a single irresponsible act might appear negligible or even nonexistent but that inevitable horrors would ensue from habitual irresponsibility.
Even with my head tucked down and my cap visor blocking a direct view of the egg-crate fluorescent panels, I had to squint against the glare that ricocheted off the white walls. I should have put on my sunglasses, but I was only seconds from the end of the hallway.
The gray-and-red-marbled vinyl flooring looked like day-old raw meat. A mild dizziness overcame me, inspired by the vileness of the pattern in the tile and by the fearsome glare.
I passed storage and machinery rooms.
The basement appeared to be deserted.
The door at the farther end of the corridor became the door at the nearer end. I stepped into a small subterranean garage.
This was not the public parking lot, which lay above ground. Nearby were only a panel truck with the hospital name on the side and a paramedics’ van.
More distant was a black Cadillac hearse from Kirk’s Funeral Home. I was relieved that Sandy Kirk had not already collected the body and departed. I still had time to put the photo of my mother between Dad’s folded hands.
Parked beside the gleaming hearse was a Ford van similar to the paramedics’ vehicle except that it was not fitted with the standard emergency beacons. Both the hearse and the van were facing away from me, just inside the big roll-up door, which was open to the night.
Otherwise, the space was empty, so delivery trucks could pull inside to off-load food, linens, and medical supplies to the freight elevator. At the moment, no deliveries were being made.
The concrete walls were not painted here, and the fluorescent fixtures overhead were fewer and farther apart than in the corridor that I had just left. Nevertheless, this was still not a safe place for me, and I moved quickly toward the hearse and the white van.
The corner of the basement immediately to the left of the roll-up garage door and past those two waiting vehicles was occupied by a room that I knew well. It was the cold-holding chamber, where the dead were kept until they could be transported to mortuaries.
One terrible January night two years ago, by candlelight, my father and I had waited miserably in cold-holding more than half an hour with the body of my mother. We could not bear to leave her there alone.
Dad would have followed her from the hospital to the mortuary and into the crematorium furnace that night—if not for his inability to abandon me. A poet and a scientist, but such similar souls.
She had been brought from the scene of the accident by ambulance and rushed from the emergency room to surgery. She died three minutes after reaching the operating table, without regaining consciousness, even before the full extent of her injuries could be determined.
Now the insulated door to the cold-holding chamber stood open, and as I approached it, I heard men arguing inside. In spite of their anger, they kept their voices low; an emotional note of strenuous disagreement was matched by a tone of urgency and secrecy.
Their circumspection rather than their anger brought me to a stop just before I reached the doorway. In spite of the deadly fluorescent light, I stood for a moment in indecision.
From beyond the door came a voice I recognized. Sandy Kirk said, “So who is this guy I’ll be cremating?”
Another man said, “Nobody. Just a vagrant.”
“You should have brought him to my place, not here,” Sandy complained. “And what happens when he’s missed?”
A third man spoke, and I recognized his voice as that of one of the two orderlies who had collected my father’s body from the room upstairs: “Can we for God’s sake just move this along?”
Suddenly certain that it was dangerous to be encumbered, I set the suitcase against the wall, freeing both hands.
A man appeared in the doorway, but he didn’t see
My parents had impressed upon me, from a young age, that the consequences of a single irresponsible act might appear negligible or even nonexistent but that inevitable horrors would ensue from habitual irresponsibility.
Even with my head tucked down and my cap visor blocking a direct view of the egg-crate fluorescent panels, I had to squint against the glare that ricocheted off the white walls. I should have put on my sunglasses, but I was only seconds from the end of the hallway.
The gray-and-red-marbled vinyl flooring looked like day-old raw meat. A mild dizziness overcame me, inspired by the vileness of the pattern in the tile and by the fearsome glare.
I passed storage and machinery rooms.
The basement appeared to be deserted.
The door at the farther end of the corridor became the door at the nearer end. I stepped into a small subterranean garage.
This was not the public parking lot, which lay above ground. Nearby were only a panel truck with the hospital name on the side and a paramedics’ van.
More distant was a black Cadillac hearse from Kirk’s Funeral Home. I was relieved that Sandy Kirk had not already collected the body and departed. I still had time to put the photo of my mother between Dad’s folded hands.
Parked beside the gleaming hearse was a Ford van similar to the paramedics’ vehicle except that it was not fitted with the standard emergency beacons. Both the hearse and the van were facing away from me, just inside the big roll-up door, which was open to the night.
Otherwise, the space was empty, so delivery trucks could pull inside to off-load food, linens, and medical supplies to the freight elevator. At the moment, no deliveries were being made.
The concrete walls were not painted here, and the fluorescent fixtures overhead were fewer and farther apart than in the corridor that I had just left. Nevertheless, this was still not a safe place for me, and I moved quickly toward the hearse and the white van.
The corner of the basement immediately to the left of the roll-up garage door and past those two waiting vehicles was occupied by a room that I knew well. It was the cold-holding chamber, where the dead were kept until they could be transported to mortuaries.
One terrible January night two years ago, by candlelight, my father and I had waited miserably in cold-holding more than half an hour with the body of my mother. We could not bear to leave her there alone.
Dad would have followed her from the hospital to the mortuary and into the crematorium furnace that night—if not for his inability to abandon me. A poet and a scientist, but such similar souls.
She had been brought from the scene of the accident by ambulance and rushed from the emergency room to surgery. She died three minutes after reaching the operating table, without regaining consciousness, even before the full extent of her injuries could be determined.
Now the insulated door to the cold-holding chamber stood open, and as I approached it, I heard men arguing inside. In spite of their anger, they kept their voices low; an emotional note of strenuous disagreement was matched by a tone of urgency and secrecy.
Their circumspection rather than their anger brought me to a stop just before I reached the doorway. In spite of the deadly fluorescent light, I stood for a moment in indecision.
From beyond the door came a voice I recognized. Sandy Kirk said, “So who is this guy I’ll be cremating?”
Another man said, “Nobody. Just a vagrant.”
“You should have brought him to my place, not here,” Sandy complained. “And what happens when he’s missed?”
A third man spoke, and I recognized his voice as that of one of the two orderlies who had collected my father’s body from the room upstairs: “Can we for God’s sake just move this along?”
Suddenly certain that it was dangerous to be encumbered, I set the suitcase against the wall, freeing both hands.
A man appeared in the doorway, but he didn’t see
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