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Patty’s Parts

Dietrich Kalteis

    This techie has seen his share of those left behind and the grieving, the tears, the emptiness, even seen the climbers as we call them, the bereaved that clamber up on the gurneys, begging the dead back to life. A morgue does that to people, brings it all out.
    Crazies, oh man, I have seen them come and go, some even work here, and some are laid out on the slabs, their days of making crazy behind them. Lives thrown away.
    The guy that takes the all-time cake was a guy named Morton. Came in to ID the wife about a year ago. Porkpie hat pulled low, dark shades. A man of slight shoulders, he led a walking-dead woman named Gwen by the hand, her with the Morticia Addams hair and get up.
    Peeling his shades off, eyes round, too round, Morton seemed high-wired. Cheap introductions, then a limp handshake, then he asked, “Why the clock?” Looking up at it.
    Gwen looked, too, like she’d never seen one.
    “What do you mean?” I asked.
    “It’s one, man. Think anybody here gives a shit what time it is?” He snorted a laugh, his eyes ping-ponging between the refrigerated doors, probably taking a stab at which door his expired wife was behind.
    “Well, I give,” I said. “I get off at five.”
    “Oh, for you, yeah. Okay.” Morton cackled on.
    Gwen’s purple lips pulled into a tight smile, the same purple I had seen on drowned corpses.
    I led them to the cabinets, him tugging her by the hand.
    “You toe tag her?”
    “What?”
    “Toe tag ... Cardboard thing you write the name on?” Morton asked.
    “No, yeah, I know. Uh, we ... toe tags are plastic mostly ... uh, but we just put a wrist band.”
    “No toe tag?”
    “No.” What did he want, a souvenir?
    “Huh.” Disappointment on his face.
    I opened the stainless door and rolled the gurney out. Slow and easy. I looked to make sure they were both set for this. It’s not easy for the bereaved, looking at a loved one laid out, no formaldehyde coursing through veins to pump up the color. That happens later. In this unit, they’re pasty and sallow.
    “The old body bag, huh?” Morton laid a hand on the pouch.
    “Yeah.”
    “Cold in here,” Gwen said, rubbing, then folding her arms across her chest.
    “Afraid it has to be. Thirty-six degrees precisely. Sorry.”
    “Keeps them fresh,” Morton explained to her. “Like the dairy section.”
    “Something like that.” Here goes, I thought, and drew the zipper down, exposing the face.
    Morton looked at her. Peaceful. Serene.
    I knew he would, even before he kissed her, a long kiss, then he ran his fingers through her hair.
    “Time for you to roll on, Kitten,” is what he said, “Just one little thing, my little Patty Cake.” He yanked the zipper lower, down to her waist and parted the plastic.
    There would be nothing standard procedure about this identification. I mean, come on, who comes high to identify their dead wife and brings a date? At least he didn’t climb up on her, while Morticia Addam’s snapped a pic for the family album.
    “What do you think?” Morton asked her.
    God damn. She was checking out the wife’s breasts.
    “May I?” she asked, stepping closer, reaching a hand out.
    “Course you can, baby doll. They’re all paid for.”
    She poked a finger at a breast like she were checking fruit at the mart, lightly, then her hand squeezed. “Cold,” she said.
    “Uh huh, eh, uh, excuse me,” I said. “You really mustn’t–”
    “Told you,” Morton winked at Gwen. “First rate or what?”
    She nodded. “They’re good.”
    “Good to go,” he cackled.
    “So, uhn huh ...” I cleared my throat.
    “So, what you think?” he asked her.
    “Oh yeah, I’ll take them.”
    He clapped his hands like he just sold a used Buick.
    I wanted to flee. “Uh. Is this your wife, Mr. Morton, sir?”
    “Yeah, yeah, it’s Patty alright, uhn uhn.” Morton looked up at the clock. Only three minutes had gone by. “Thanks again, uh?”
    “Jeff.”
    “Yeah, Jeff. So, how long?”
    “Uh ...”
    “To pop them out.”
    “Them?”
    “The implants.”
    “They’re mine now,” Gwen said.
    “They’re ...” I put my teeth over my lower lip to keep it from trembling, expecting some Funt descendant to pop out of another cabinet. Me, the victim of a Candid Camera hoax.
    “Yeah, I hear implants can be harvested.”
    “This is a morgue.” I looked up at the clock.
    “Come on. You guys do stuff like that: kidneys, autopsies, shit like that. I mean, come on. What’s the big deal?”
    “You’re serious?”
    “Hell, yes, I’m serious. Know what these babies set me back?”
    I shook my head.
    “Just finished paying for them.”
    “I can’t help you. Wish I could.”
    “Okay, so if not you, who do we talk to? Someone higher up?”
    “Uh ... up ... yes.” A shrink. God, maybe. “Yes, up. See Mr. Breen, on the second floor. He’s the, uh, coroner’s assistant. Start with him.”
    As soon as they left, I pushed a chair in front of the door and stared at the fire alarm on the wall. I wanted to pull it.
    Five after one. I tried to phone Breen to warn him; the line was busy. Grabbing my lunch bag, I went out the back way. I couldn’t eat, just wanted to hide in my car awhile.

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