The rituals of death are carefully observed by each culture.
But in the Gutter death brings new rituals.
But in the Gutter death brings new rituals.
Dead Girls Don't Sing by Paul Heatley
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A dead body lies on the
table. It’s hard to tell, but she’s famous. Since the car crash the night
before that snapped her neck and tore off half of her face, she’s the most
famous she’s been in twenty years.
“Had her friend in a
coupla weeks ago,” the attendant says. “That chick she used to do all the duets
with, remember her? She hadn’t been in no crash, but she looked worse, believe
that? Drank herself to death. You shoulda seen the colour of her.” He grins. He
shifts his weight from one leg to the other and adjusts his balls.
There are three men in
the morgue. The attendant is bald on top, though he has allowed his hair to
grow long round the sides and back of his head, and he wears it in a ponytail.
He has a greasy smile that he won’t put away, yellow, crooked teeth beyond
bulbous, wet lips.
Lars works with the
attendant, though not in the morgue. He spreads word. He takes payment. He
keeps one ear to the ground and the other to a police radio for news of dead and
dying starlets, starts advertising before the attendant has signed them in.
The third man says his
name is Henry, but that’s probably a lie. He’s tall, wears glasses. His hands
are in his jacket pockets and they fidget there. It’s his first time, Lars
knows this. He’ll be nervous. His eyes have never left the dead singer’s face,
taking in the halves ruined and untouched.
“I think she was all
messed up about losin' her friend,” the attendant says. “You know what these
famous types are like. Morose. They feel everything more than we feel
things, because they gotta play up for the cameras. I don’t reckon she was
planning on James Dean’ing it when she went rip-roaring through the night.”
Lars shoots the
attendant a look. Sometimes he talks too much.
The attendant clears his
throat. “So. Were you a big fan?”
Henry shakes his head.
“No.”
Lars and the attendant
look at each other. “That ain’t what you told me,” Lars says.
Henry had approached him
in the bar, told Lars he’d overheard him discussing business a couple of weeks
before. Lars was pissed. He keeps his business private, which means Henry was
eavesdropping. But he seemed interested, and looked like he had cash. Asked if
there was anything on. Lars took a guess on his age, figured he might be interested
in the old singer, dropped her name. Henry had cash. He paid. Seemed eager.
“I just had to see it,”
Henry says. “For myself.”
Lars rolls his
shoulders, annoyed. “Look, you ain’t gotta fuck her, but you gotta pay.
It’s a lotta work getting folk in and out of here unseen, you hear?” Lars is
the muscle of their operation, too. If Henry is a flake, he will have to ensure
his silence.
Henry ignores him. “They
all end up here, huh?”
“Most of them,” the
attendant says. “Actors, actresses, singers, dancers. OD’s, murders, suicides
–” He indicates the corpse. “Crashes. Sometimes we even get an honest-to-God natural
causes, you believe that?” He sniggers.
Henry nods. It’s hard to
tell if he’s listening.
The attendant coughs.
“Thing is, when they come in like this, you can never be sure if anyone’s gonna
be interested. I mean, this is a kinda niche market and folk willing to fuck
dead people usually ain’t too fussy about the state they’re in, but then you
got the kind that wanna pretend these celebs are alive still, and everything’s
gotta be pristine.”
“Couple of months ago,
there was another car crash,” Henry says. “You remember that?”
“I’m gonna need
specifics.”
“Actress, twenty-two.
She’d only made three movies, but she was red hot. Critics said she was going
places. Everyone said she was going places.”
The attendant’s eyes
light up.
“Her boyfriend was
driving. He was drunk. She was drunk too, passed out on the backseat.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the
one.”
Henry nods. “She come
here?”
“Oh yes. But you’re a
little late for her, buddy. She’s long buried by now.”
“Or cremated,” Lars
says.
“One or the other,” the
attendant says. “You gotta be quick, man.”
Henry stares at the
corpse still. He takes one hand from his pocket, reaches out and touches her
cold arm. He tries to speak, but his voice chokes. He clears his throat. “Was
she popular?”
“Yeah,” the attendant
says. “She was.”
Lars watches Henry.
“Why?”
“Either of you take a
ride?” Henry says.
The attendant and Lars
exchange looks, then the attendant smirks and shrugs one shoulder.
Henry pulls his other
hand from his pocket. He has a boxcutter. The blade opens Lars’ throat. Lars
makes a choked sound, then his knees buckle. He hits the ground. His blood
sprays between his clutching fingertips, runs darkly through the spaces in the
floor tiles.
Henry turns to the
attendant. The attendant backs off, wide-eyed, hits a gurney and almost falls.
Henry takes off his blood-spattered glasses, folds them, puts them down next to
the dead singer. “She was my daughter.”
