Side Door

Side Door

Noel Laflin

6-7-15

Like scouts of old, the two boys would stealthily approach and enter the town mortuary by way of the covert green side door each Sunday afternoon in order to collect their weekly wages.  As they were usually covered in white paint – and did not smell particularly pleasant following eight hours of hard work (and some play) - it was suggested that the embalming room side entrance door was the best way to avoid living patrons, as the painted pair could otherwise be mistaken as reeking ghosts. They could then make good with the boss, and present their progress report.  The boys would latter retrace their steps and depart in the same clandestine fashion.

Quietly paying their respects to those lying prone upon the stainless steel tables, the young men crossed themselves before creping through the small, dimly-lit room, eventually passing down the hallway to meet up with the establishment’s director.  He was also the fellow employing the pair to paint his home across the street.

 

The weekend working gig had been scored by the younger of the two buddies as the mortuary director was also his Scoutmaster. The painting of the ancient wooden craftsman, as well as the equally old and even larger apartment building adjoining the property was a two-month work in progress – strictly a weekend job as the boys were still in school. They were each paid two bucks an hour - despite the amount of paint tossed, rolled or brushed upon one another - and always in cash.  It was a princely sum by 1970 standards and worth the weekly trip through the embalming room.

 

Years later, the oldest of the pair - a man approaching his middle years – made arrangements with this very same mortuary by way of a pre-paid cremation contract.

 

So the next time he enters that place, although it will probably be by the back door and not the front, he takes comfort in the fact that he’ll avoid that green side door - and the small dimly-lit room. 

Nor does he expect to be covered in white paint upon that next trip, and potentially frighten the living patrons within.