Halloween’s coming. That puts me in mind of my old buddy Clarence, from Detroit. We went to high school there, back in the ‘70s, and though I haven’t seen Clarence in decades, I still think of him from time to time, mostly around Halloween.I do so because Clarence, for a few weeks in October of 1976, had the scariest job in the world—night attendant at the city morgue.
The Detroit morgue in the 1970s, was—you should excuse the pun—a lively place. People were dying to get in. (Feel free to groan at this point.)
Clarence had no medical experience, nor did he need any. All he had to do was catalog incoming “residents,” file the requisite paperwork, and lock up when his shift was over. The rest of the time he just read or watched late-night programming on a portable, black-and-white TV.
Despite the “creepy factor” of spending nights alone in a tiny office adjacent to a large room filled with the recently deceased, the job was a cushy one. The only downside came at the end of his shift.
To close up, Clarence had to switch off the lights and make sure everything was locked down tight. Problem was, the light switch controlling the overhead fluorescents was on the opposite side of the room from the exit. After killing the lights, Clarence had to walk, in the dark, through a room full of folks who wouldn’t be getting up for breakfast the next morning. Or ever.
For someone with a less active imagination, this might not have been a problem. But Clarence had seen every slasher movie in existence and consumed the entire catalogues of Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. His psyche was primed for what came next.
As he did every night, Clarence steeled his nerves before entering the refrigerated room where the bodies lay. He propped the door open with a folding chair to let in light from the office. A water cooler—the sort with an inverted five-gallon jug on top—stood to the right of the door. Clarence paused long enough to fill a Dixie cup and drink.
Then he crossed the frigid room. Fingers on the switch, he turned back to focus on the rectangle of light slanting in from the open door; the exit.
Clarence flipped the switch, enveloping the room into semi-darkness. The dim yellow glow from the office was now the only illumination; the bodies on the tables no more than vague shapes beneath hospital-blue sheets.
Sticking close to the center of the room, Clarence inched his way toward the exit. He was about halfway there when the folding chair scraped free and the door slammed shut.
Clarence froze in the utter darkness, determined not to panic. Mustering his flagging courage, he eased toward where he guessed the door to be.
It was at this point that two unfortunate things happened simultaneously: Clarence bumped into a table containing a “guest” and the water cooler “gurgled,” making a loud, gulping noise.
Choking off a scream, Clarence stumbled backward. Instinctively reaching out to halt his fall, he grabbed the first thing his hand came in contact with—the arm of the table’s occupant. Clarence hit the floor, pulling the body on top of him.
Clarence arrived at my apartment 15 minutes later asking to borrow my phone. He explained to his supervisor that he hadn’t locked up, that there was a body on the floor, and that, as of that moment, he quit.
I don’t think he even went back for his final paycheck.
I sometimes wonder what Clarence is doing for employment these days. Whatever it is, I hope he’s working with the living. He never got on well with the dead.
More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.
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