These Days, Even Dead Men Have To Tip

Undertaking was an evil-minded field. Lots of creeps, very few bleeding hearts. They all did terrible things to the bodies unfortunate enough to end on their slab. Even the “normal” ones were mutilated and manipulated. At least a ‘little bitty’ slit from taint to tailbone, or a slice under the belly. Things no one would see at a funeral. Long, thin, hidden cuts for a freak’s giggles. It was an odd and cruel profession. Even the bits not for laughs were bloodthirsty. Spikes under eyelids to hide missing orbs. Wired teeth to close a dead man's jaw. Pounds and pounds of makeup to hide death's blue touch.

Hank, on the other hand, wasn’t cruel or odd in the slightest in his opinion. He was just a realist with an eye for opportunity. He didn’t leave marks on his clients; he only took. Watches. Rings. All forms of jewelry and trinkets. Never clothes, though. He was no pervert, just a man who liked to snatch things from people who didn’t need them. A watch is no good in a coffin. Too dark. No relevance of time. Same with a ring. Love and status were irrelevant in the ground. The only warmth down there is from worms and bugs. No pride radiates from the gut. Just foul gas. Hank understood that. He knew what death brought and what it, rather, he could take away. He would often sell these sneaks and trinkets to pawn shops or give them out as gifts. Everyone knew him as a very generous man.  Once he gave a ring to a woman he had begun seeing, but unfortunately it happened to have belonged to her estranged cousin. Hank spent all night convincing her it was an act of fate. She completely bought it. 

Hank now had a man in front of him that was just like hundreds before. Dead as a doornail. He was a broad-chested, crooked-backed man with a pinky ring that had a tiger eye the size of a kidney stone. It was quite a large one, formed by god to draw the eye of potential mates and business partners. It made him look professional in his day-to-day, before it ended in a bad traffic accident. A drunk driver tale ended him off an overpass, sending him into a long haul straight to the bottom of a drainage ditch. He was dragged out just in time for his skin to remain stitched to his bone. 

Hank had to grab that ring. It would be unprofessional not to. It was a gorgeous rock. Its smooth pupil was like a bottomless pit in the center of the ring. A murky whirlpool pulling in the amber streaks and silver surrounding it. It was very imposing, gaudy. There was no doubt that this man was known for his ring, if nothing else. Its absence at the funeral would not go unnoticed. He would have to snatch it between the viewing and the actual funeral, before he was chunked into the clay. It wouldn’t be too difficult. 

The only real issue was the corpse twitching. The last bit of mechanical life zapping through this cold slab. No better than sparklers in a steak. This one was more ornery than most. Hank couldn’t leave him alone without zipping him up in one of the many industrial meat bags in the office. He would routinely go into fits, knocking surgical tables over, even knocking himself off the table once. He incited a nasty mark from the tumble. There was now a large gash about an inch behind his hairline. It was nothing a few staples and smartly combed hair couldn’t solve. 

Now, the broad man was convulsing his elbow, slapping his chest while Hank tried to stuff a hole in his abdomen with a preservative cocktail. His ribs shook when hit and sent fluid and chunks of meat popping back in Hank's face. Not to mention, the man's behemoth chest had already been cracked in half from the crash. If he continued like this, he’d destroy the supports and cushioning inside and pound his ribs through his back. 

“You dumb bastard...” Hank grumbled, reaching over the body. He grabbed the rogue fist and jammed it to the side. The second he let go, the cadaver raised it once again. The fist bounced off the back of Hank's head and landed square against the crushed bone.

“Fuck!” Hank was furious. He slammed his fist onto the metal table. “Dammit. If you were half this stubborn in life, it's a miracle anyone is even paying for this funeral.” 

He turned away from the table and walked towards the other side of the room to calm down and lick his wounds.

“If it were up to me, I'd take your ring and be done with this. I wouldn't waste any more of my time or equipment on you,” he said, looking back at the body. He took note of the man's back. He wasn't sure if the man had broken it or if he had scoliosis. The coroner's report was very vague. It might have well read ‘he fell off the bridge and that was that’.
Hank took no issue with its vagueness. He believed they were not very important.

“Fucking useless, dead or not.” 

Rude, croaked the body. 

Hank spun around. He waited in silence for a second before approaching. The body still. Hank thumped a finger against his chest. Silent. 

“Nearly scared the hell out of me. A less experienced mortician wouldn't stand for it.” Hank complained. Corpses often made noises. Gas moved through the throat and mouth, sometimes letting out a rancid grunt. This one was much more pronounced than most, but this could have been due to his constricting throat. It's not like he spouted Twelfth Night. 

“Anything else, Shakespeare?” Hank mocked the body. He gave up on packing and hoped his client had tired himself out for the night. 

Days later, after hours of packing and slapping and cussing, the body was lying in the parlor with hands crossed across his broad, suited-wrapped chest and his ring perched perfectly at the top. Family spent the day crying and honoring the man while Hank hung at the back of the room, waiting for the procession to the grave. 

While standing at the back, he noticed a little boy in the pew closest to him. He paid no attention to the casket or the mourning. He didn’t even acknowledge that there was anything out of ordinary. He just sat there, eyes glued to a tablet that flashed bright light into his hungry brain. Hank thought it was funny that this kid's complete lack of understanding of death was still closer to the truth than any of his relatives. Death was something to not worry about until it got in the way of the flashing lights and sounds. 

Death is just like darkness, Hank thought. Darkness isn’t a tangible thing, merely the absence of light. It’s not a force or entity; it’s just nothing. It’s impossible to care about nothing. 

After all the tears were cried, and all the sappy stories told, Hank shut the casket and escorted everyone out of the parlor. While they all went to their cars, Hank cracked it open again and fished out the ring and hurried the casket out to the Hearst to be loaded.

Next was the long procession. The family, with their minds fogged by grief, had bought a plot all the way on the other side of town from Hank's parlor. Hank didn’t live in a metropolis, but with the funeral procession's 5 mph cap, it was almost an hour drive.

40 minutes in, Hank had become incredibly impatient. In his boredom, he took the ring out of his pocket and began to admire it again. He put it on all his fingers and found it to fit his left pinky the best. Then, he adjusted the mirror to see how it looked in his hand. He waxed it around as if giving a presentation, or holding court at a party, two things Hank rarely did. Maybe this ring would give him a reason to now. 

While flipping it around to check for any engravings that might need to be sanded down, Hank hit a pothole that sent the ring tingling down into the crack of the seat. 

“Dammit!” He said as he stuck one hand down into the seat. Dug as deep as he could but couldn’t seem to find it. 

“You've caused me nothing but trouble, you useless piece of shit!” In his anger, Hank pulled his hand from the seat and slammed the top of the casket. The pain only made him more frustrated, but he wouldn’t admit to that.

He stuck his hand back down again and felt the ring's cold touch in his finger. He struggled to get a hold of it without knowing what part he was touching, so he began to cut glances down at his hand, just long enough to get his bearings. He did this for what felt like an eternity. Distracted, he missed his turn and instead led the procession over a bridge going the opposite direction of the graveyard. 

Hank finally saw the ring fully slip over the tip of his finger, and with glee he yanked his hand out of the seat crack as quickly as he could, in fear he would drop it again. His fist knocked against the wheel, causing him to swerve into the next lane, where a PT cruiser was. Hank yanked the wheel back into his lane, but realized he had gravely overcorrected when he heard the metal shriek of a broken guard rail. 

Despite all of Hank's certainty and callousness, he couldn’t help but feel complete terror as he stared into the ever-closer watery ditch below. In this terror, he abandoned those convictions and said a quick prayer. 

Dear god, please don’t let some sick son of a bitch take this ring from me. 

*** Digging through some old computer files and found this story from high school ***