The Embalmer

I was teaching English Composition at a community college in Oklahoma. It was December, and I had a student who was almost always absent from class. One night he drifted into the classroom a few minutes after all the other students had left for home, and he said, “Mr. Kilpatrick, I need to drop the class. You see, I have no time to study because the morgue I work in is so full of bodies that I can’t keep up with them all. After my father died, I inherited his funeral home, and now I run it all by myself, and it’s more than a full-time job.” I told him that I understood completely, and I asked him if, incidentally, the extraordinary influx of bodies had anything to do with the month; for I had heard that December was the month when most people died, usually old people or people with terminal illnesses—people like my mom, for example, who died of cancer on December 28. He said, “No, it’s not the month. People die at about the same rate every month of the year, but this year has been different: There have been many more bodies—for reasons I can’t understand.” While he was saying all of this, I noticed his eyes: They seemed to look through me with an inhuman gaze—hollow in a way, yet full of experiences that were beyond my understanding. Toward the end of our conversation—after I told him that he was free to drop the class so as to devote his time to his real vocation—he said something that I will never forget: “It’s strange to be handed this position. I never thought I would have it so soon, but my father died early from an unexpected illness, and no one else but I could take his place. So when his body came down into the morgue after his funeral, I put on his shoes, so to speak, and did my job…. I embalmed him.”