Corpse "out of place"

It's 1974, and I am 14 years of age.  I had seen a couple of dead people before now, but they were where they were supposed to be.  What I mean by that is that they were in coffins.  

I had attended only two funerals by that time, and I remembered them clearly.  One was my Papaw Reno who had died on my 4th birthday, and I remember strolling beside the casket with my mother.  I had not been that emotionally close to Papaw, and being so young I guess I did not have the appreciation I should have had for the loss being felt by my Dad (his son) or by my Mamaw Reno. 

I also remember the funeral of toddler William, who was a step, or even a step-step, "cousin" of mine, once or twice removed, and I was about seven years of age at the time.  William really was not where he was supposed to be--in that coffin--because he was just an innocent little child who had wandered outside of his house and gone into the adjacent Florida canal and drowned.  Nope, he was technically "out of place".  But for the scope of this writing he is not "out of place".

Early one Saturday morning in Twilleytown, AL, a small hole in Walker County and the place that I lived, my best friend Teresa came running excitedly up the hill to, and into, my house.  "Amber! Amber!" she called.  "Come on!  There's a dead man down the road!"  I was thrown off guard at what I thought she had said.  I had not been awake long, and I do not function very well first thing in the morning.  Maybe I had not heard her correctly.  

"Huh?" 

"Get dressed!  Let's go...there's a dead man down the road!  A man dead sittin' in a car...at the stop sign in a car!"  I am already getting dressed--she, grabbing shirt, shoes, etc., and pushing them to me to hurry--as fast as I can trying to absorb what she's saying.  But at the same time I was also asking her for details like, "you sure 'bout this?", "how'd you find out?", "is it OK if we go down there?", and "who's the man?".  You know, that sort of stuff.  I honestly do not remember most of her answers clearly, because I was more focused on the fact that Teresa probably was right about there being a dead man in town. Teresa had the "scoop" on things.  

Teresa was always on top of finding out juice on folks--it kind of fell into her ears on a regular basis, sometimes without much effort on her part--and so I gave her information vault the benefit of the doubt.  I hurried.  As a matter of fact, by then I was feeling a strange, maybe even unnatural, urgency; I gotta' "step it up" before it gets taken away by the hearse or whatever. 

Adrenaline-charged, we ran hard.  Down the hill from my house, and west toward the day's point of interest.  That point was situated inside the fork of the road where our little side road, Twilley Loop, veered onto the main road, Flat Creek Road. The distance from my house was around three or four city blocks' worth, and we were panting.  Breathless, not from running, but rather from the excitement over what we were about to see.  

Upon our arrival, there were only two or three men standing around a dark green muscle car.  The "two or three men" part is really a blur, because at that point a heady sensation had come upon me due to the displaced corpse before me.  I am pretty sure that I was pleasantly surprised that there was not a crowd of people there to hinder us.  We had this almost all to ourselves!  I am also relatively sure that by then I was salivating.  

The bystanders were not authority figures, just locals, and they were discussing the situation amongst themselves.  They didn't pay much attention to Teresa and me, which was beneficial to us, since we were not bothering to hide how elated we were about this find.  We went over to the passenger side window of the car, which is where the dark haired, mustached dead man had ultimately rested his head.  We peered into the car, scanned for blood or other "nasty", and saw nothing of the sort.  I felt a sense of disappointment over that.  I would like to say that I felt a sense of relief at the same time, but I couldn't swear on that last part. 

We mashed our faces up to the glass, pressed our hands all over the door, and would have opened the thing if the men hadn't been standing around.  I was keen to the fact that we were putting fingerprints all over the car, but my excitement overrode any common sense I had.  Besides, I was sure I heard one of the men say that there was no foul play.  They said the man had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.  That's the first time I had ever heard of that.

Now as an adult, in retrospect, I know this scene had red flags all over it.  A lone dead man neatly sitting upright on the passenger side of his car.  Possibly a death at the hands of another, or at the very least, a deliberate self-offing.  

I really knew we shouldn't have been pawing at the car.  I guess though, after we heard the "no foul" thing from the intelligent-sounding bystander, we felt like it was fair game--this car--and we continued to peer through and smear onto the windows to make sure we got a view from every angle. 

I do remember being surprised that there weren't a bunch of cops around already, but back in the days before all the social networking tools, it took longer to get authorities on the scene.  Nowadays when somebody is found dead on the side of a road, the news spreads like wildfire and local Volunteer Fire Department personnel shows up as the First Responder "authorities" to keep everybody else away from the scene of any possible crime.  In this day and age, every dead body gets thoroughly investigated, whether it looks suspicious or not.  

But no, not back in the days before the existence of First Responders.  So it was a "free for all" here on a Twilleytown morn full of fingerprints and nose-mash spots on a dead man's car window.  

The crowd was building up by now, and cars were stopping to check it out.  Teresa and I were being displaced by other onlookers.  We were losing rank in the rubberneck pecking order.  At this point we faced the reality that we could no longer freely fondle the door handles in hopes that one would "accidentally" come open.  

Thoroughly edged out now, we backed away from the intrigue; still watching but in a "hands off" mode.  The ambulance arrived on the scene.  We watched the two ambulance men take out the rigor mortis-ridden corpse.  He was paralyzed in the sitting position, and when they placed him on their gurney, they laid him on his side where he remained a frozen sitter.  His arms were stuck fast to his sides.  His hands were stationed against his thighs in an innocent looking relaxed pose.  He had an "I'm going to sleep" look about him.  

They pulled the sheet over the dead man.

Teresa and I were through here.  Now walking towards home, we didn't go away empty-eared.  By the time we two noseys had left the scene, we knew the dead man's name, who his friends were, where he had been the day before, where he worked, and I think what time he had left his girlfriend's house last night.  Teresa and I had lot's to talk about for a while, and we were almost exhausted as we walked away from the big hubbub of activity behind us.   

This was the beginning of a fairly long stream of dead bodies I would come to encounter in my lifetime, expected and unexpected.  This was also the first of many that would induce adrenaline rush.  I'll elaborate on that at another time.  Reader, please rest assured that I am neither killer nor cannibal nor necrophile.

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Emergency Room Lobby

I decided a couple of years ago to go to area locations in order to do one of my favorite hobbies:  People-watching.  This writing is from my hospital Emergency Room (ER) observations.  The reason why I wrote down my people-watching experiences is mainly because I was taking an Anthropology class, and I had to do it for a grade.  It wasn't supposed to be of any entertainment value, but that's the way it came out for me.

Which ER days do I want?

It would seem that the most logical time to visit the ER for entertainment, or at least to see some action, would be on Friday nights and Saturdays.  Not always so.  Thursdays and Sundays, the days I picked, are quite busy.  

Thursdays are busy because a lot of people get paid on Thursday, so drug-deal beatings, barroom stabbings, and car wrecks at the Wal-Mart intersection occur more often.  

Sunday nights are good for domestic violence, because by then the payday money is all gone, and people have had enough of being with their families through the weekend.  Also, people who hurt themselves on Friday night or Saturday do not want to spend their off-time at an ER, so they wait until Sunday afternoon to get the (by then infected) injury treated.  Another angle there is that they get to miss at least Monday's work day while they heal. 

In addition to all that, I figure heart attacks and sports injuries happen a lot on Sundays because of the weekend warriors.  Those are the baby boomers who never exercise except on Sunday, when they try to catch up on all those days of the week they skipped.  
 

Who is allowed in the ER waiting room?

In my small town, anybody can enter the emergency room and sit in the lobby without actually needing medical help.  In big city ERs, you have to pass a security guard and go through an airport style weapons detector, but none of that here, so here is where I stayed.  I did however tell the receptionist behind the desk about the study I was doing, because I did not want her to think I was a homeless person setting up house.

The "Watching" Part

Thursday

       
There is a young woman standing out front of the automatic sliding doors, and she is smoking a cigarette and talking on her cell phone 90 miles a minute.  She has on Sponge Bob flannel pajama bottoms, flip flops, and a Roll Tide Alabama hoodie.   

Inside the lobby, a television is positioned high up on the wall, and it is tuned in to Law & Order.  Appropriate programming in an ER?  Maybe not.  I guess it could have been on something even less appropriate, like for instance, Dr. G Medical Examiner.  

I get myself seated down in a corner to get the best view of the room’s happenings. 
 

Sitting with their backs to the wall is a young Hispanic couple with two little kids; they look about two and three years of age.  The smallest one looks very sick. Both the kids are quiet, and the couple speaks to each other in really low tones, as if to avoid drawing attention.  In the center of the room is seated a woman, 60-something, and wearing nice dress pants and a jacket.  She is reading a book.  Closer to the TV is a woman about thirty or so, with a boy about 13.  He has one shoe on and his other foot is wrapped up in that beige gauze that sticks to itself.  I think the mom likes Law & Order. 
  

Out of the bathroom come two teenage girls heading towards the vending machines.  Both girls are chatting to each other, and at the same time both are also texting.  One of them gets a bag of Fritos and a Dr. Pepper.  These girls are chopping up some unseen third party pretty good.  They “can’t stan' bein’ 'round her” because she is “skank” and she was “flashin’ it around” the other night at Kenesha’s.  What is “kenesha”?  All the time they carry this on they also text.  How do they multi-task like that?  They go sit against the wall hunched together so they can gossip some more.  Surely neither one of them is waiting to see an ER doctor.

The receptionist calls for Ms. Somebody to come to the desk.  The nicely-dressed reading lady goes over and they whisper some things back and forth.  Reading lady sits back down.  I hear the ambulance outside.  The really gory or otherwise bad ones on gurneys have to be wheeled into another door just to the side of the sliding door, so the lobby-dwellers do not see them.  The nurse calls for Ms. Somebody the book reader, and this time she goes through the treatment door.  She looks alright, so maybe she’s waiting for someone else who is getting treatment. 

   
The nurse comes back out in a bit and calls out a Hispanic name.  The couple with kids goes through the treatment door.  A young fellow with his hand bandaged up comes out of the treatment doors.  He calls out the sliding doors to “Sherry”, the badly-dressed chatty young cigarette-smoking girl, and she comes in to help him listen to the lady behind the desk.  Gossiping girls are still texting.  The 30-something mom is still watching TV, and her teen's head is tilted back like he’s nodding off.  

I hear the rumble of the helicopter coming onto the rooftop.  There is no trauma center here, so it must be picking up the ambulance rider that came in a while ago—a rider who should have been helicoptered directly from his traumatic incident to the big city in the first place.

In come some winners!  

This group of folks has a heavily tattooed guy with his arm completely wrapped up from hand to above the elbow.  It is in a makeshift sling.  Most of his other hand is likewise wrapped up, except for a couple of protruding fingers.  His face has some cuts on it and it looks severely sunburned.  His people include a girl with piercings on her face, two other tattoo guys, and a woman with a very gravelly voice who looks much older than she probably is.  She is extremely skinny, with a face like leather, and her hair is long and scraggly.  She is in charge of the group.  

Everybody hears her mailing address announcement, her smoker’s coughs, and everything else we didn’t want to hear.  What I did not catch is what the injured guy said had happened to himself.  I wonder if whatever he told the receptionist was the whole truth.  I have heard about illegal methamphetamine-concocting contraptions (meth labs) exploding and this looks sort of like the kind of injury one would sustain if that were to happen. 

I should not stereotype people.     

They all go sit down for about three minutes, when Ms. Cough, the injured guy, and one Tattoo go outside to smoke.  So that’s why the hurt guy left a couple of fingers sticking out of his bandage--to hold a cigarette.  I hear another ambulance coming in. 

Nurse calls for the teenage boy with the foot problem.  He hobbles and his mom walks beside him through the treatment door.  After a few minutes, the nurse calls the name of the Cough/Tatoo group, and the pierced girl goes to the sliding door to get the injured guy.  He comes in and goes through the treatment door.  Ms. Cough is behind him griping about something, and coughing quite loudly.
    
That’s all for me today--I'm gone.

    

Sunday 

Three people, a 50-ish couple and 30-ish man, are standing outside the sliding doors, and smoking cigarettes.  

Inside, I sit in a row seat in the middle of the waiting room; there are rows behind and in front of me.  I am facing the treatment doors again but closer in from the wall so I can hear the whole room better.  Not much going on, I guess because it’s too early in the afternoon.  Noisy, heavy 30-something woman with three very loud and misbehaving kids sit behind me.  None appear sick, so I deduce theirs is a routine doctor visit disguised as an emergency due to a lack of insurance (don't stereotype, Reno!).  With an extremely southern drawl, the woman issues criticisms and warnings to her out-of-control kids. 

In front of me the row of chairs are back to back, one row facing me and the other facing away from me and toward the treatment doors.  A blonde girl, about 18-20 and wearing blue jeans, is seated on her knees backward in the chair.  Her back is to me, and she is anxiously facing the treatment doors.  She sniffles softly (I guess, since I can’t hear her over the noisy people behind me) as she brings a tissue to her nose every so often.  Somebody very beloved to her must be in the treatment area.   

Seated at the side wall are a young man and woman, and he has a rag on his eye.  He takes it off and rearranges it some as he keeps his eye squinted.  Other than that, the lobby is empty, so it looks like a short visit for me.  Besides, I do not know how long I can stand the rowdy kiddie crowd behind me.  If the mom has told them once to “be quaiyt!” she has told them fifty times.  She has bribed them with vending machine treats, she has swatted them, she has threatened them, she has cajoled them, and all to no avail.  I felt so bad for the anxious girl in front of me, as I’m sure the racket was not helping her feelings.

      
The nurse comes out and calls a name.  The anxious sniffling girl backs out of her chair and starts walking to the treatment doors.  That’s when I saw the flash.  Sticking out of her right buttock is a shiny crochet needle!  

Now, I know nothing about the art of crocheting, but I do recognize the purplish stick that protrudes out against the blue denim-covered derrière.  It could be a knitting needle, but they are pointed and that would have been easy enough to pull out at home.  That’s why I deduce this to be a crochet needle, with a hooked end that is going to have to be surgically removed.  She has not been worried about another person, she has been crying from embarrassment. 

I wonder how it came to be there, in her buttock that is.  And hey, I wonder how she got here.  Because she could not have driven herself.  She would have had to sit on her side in the passenger seat, and there was no one with her in the waiting room.  I will continue to ponder that--the crochet needle incident--which made this ER trip worthwhile for me.

I have to get away from these noisy kids and their noisy mother.  I'm outta' here.       

      
About the Anthropology assignment:  I didn't get a 100% on this observation--the professor said I had too much fun with it.  She told me to remember that I was not supposed to make a comedy out of it, and that I should keep my snarky opinions to myself.  I did however end up with an overall A in the class--for the record to any interested person reading this.

       

DISCLAIMER

To any readers who think they recognize themselves, or think these descriptions remind them of themselves, or think there is an inkling of a resemblance to themselves:  Know that you are totally mistaken.  If you or any reader claims otherwise, be it known that your claims are bogus.       

  

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Dwell on Chill

I am sitting at a makeshift desk, a.k.a. a rolling food tray, by the covered window of a hospital room.  I am waiting for my mother to be released after the outpatient procedure she had today, and I brought my laptop with me so I could keep up with the rest of the world while I wait. 

This window next to me, covered with heavy grade putty-colored curtains, cannot be enjoyed as a window.  You cannot look through it to the vast outside, to the busy traffic below, or to the hustle of people running quickly to and fro in the parking lot.  

I am in a hospital meant to nurture, but alas, this visitor is uncomfortably cold next to that "no-use" window--the window with inadequate weather stripping.  It is a window with a sill that would solidify melted butter within seconds.  It is a window that, as soon as you pull those drab and heavy curtains aside, allows the hand of the outside bitter cold to slap you.  The slap orders you to "back away and close the curtains quick"; pull away with a violent shiver. 

So I did try. Truly I tried to look out a couple of times, but couldn't stand the chill. Instead of seeing the view, I am now crouched here in the only available chair, my knees drawn up against the feel of cool denim jeans, my nose hovering over a steamy cup of coffee, my fingers still stiff from this morning's trek to "here", and my feet feeling a need to soak in a pan of hot dishwater.  

Yesterday's high was 19° Fahrenheit.  Heading out to work, I felt my hands freeze painfully to the steering wheel of my car, after almost breaking the frozen door handle upon entry.  The heater began working well only upon my arrival at work--by then it was time to exit the vehicle.  To beat the cold outside, I ran everywhere; from Car to In, from In to Car, from Car to Store, from Store to Car, and so on. You can't outrun it. My body was tense all day long, waiting to relax to a warmth that did not happen until I immersed myself in a scalding hot bubble bath last night.

My body is tense again today beside this blanketed yet ice cold window to the stiff outdoors.   

The day before yesterday it never rose above freezing, and there was a stingy dusting of snow on the ground early that morning.  I sat at home looking through the living room window at what I deemed "inaccessible" outdoors. I looked at the yard I love to work in--the world I love to play in, and I thought about the day when it would be warm enough again to go outside without needing to run to beat the cold; without the cold need for speed.  

With arms clenched tight to my side and legs pressed tight together, my body instinctively tries to keep my own warmth to myself.

I long for the warmth of the sun on my body.  I yearn for the pleasures of a summer day.  I want to barbeque burgers after a day of mowing the lawn.  I want to sun-bleach my fine white hand-washables on the clothing rack. I want to hear the melodious buzz of the mud dauber wasp as she constructs her nest.  I want to see the locusts jump in front of me as I make may way through the grass.     

As I sit here at the hospital window, I feel the cold creep out from under this blanket of curtains and swirl around my lower extremities, linger on my nose and over my hands on these laptop keys.  It was 7°F this morning when I headed out of my house, and the high today is an expected 26°F, which will never be realized.  Tonight we are looking for a low of 14.  

I want to feel the heat on my sun-baked shoulders.  I want to be in south Florida once again--Florida, the Sunshine State and my birthplace.  I want to walk in the scrubby forested flatland where scorpions dwell underneath the leaf litter, and where robust roaches scurry noisily from the shedding husks of palmetto trees.  I want to walk barefoot in the Florida sand--sand that is laden with the nuisance prickly sand spur grasses.  I want to step on those sand spurs full force and feel Florida terrain pain.  There is a glowing warmth associated with this déjà vu; the sand spur in my foot.   

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