mechanical device. Even his arms had a peculiar unsychronized swing like those of a ragdoll shaken at random. His voice sounded like that of a frog resonating in a tin can. The sight of his clothing was enough to stun even the least style-conscious. His outfit was always the same: no jacket, a shirt, no tie, no sweater, red suspenders, baggy dark gray pants, hightop shoes. Year in, year out. In winter he wore an overcoat on top of the same array.
A study of the array in poor Louis’s head revealed other mismatchings. Today he would undoubtedly be designated “learning disabled,” “slightly retarded,” “slow.” Actually, after initially recognizing that fact, nobody thought about it anymore, for Louis became a friend, and friends don’t find fault with each other.
In the old days a mortuary stood not just for death but for life; not merely for sorrow but for a playfulness that ameliorated thought of the former state. The crowd outside was schizoid: they longed for the ring of the phone that signaled a death call, but they rejoiced equally when the answered jangle sent them careening forth in the ambulance to save a life. Only Louis never asked himself how it was that a summons to prepare a body for its final journey compared favorably with a wild ride to the hospital caring for a body that needed mending.
Everybody’s job had three parts: ambulance driver/attendant, junior assistant funeral director, and apprentice embalmer. Each role contributed solidly to the buildup of a young man’s ego. Charging through city streets in a life-green Cadillac ambulance, with red lights flashing and beacons swirly to the scream of the siren, the driver was truly a hero of both day and night Cars and people would move briskly aside, genuflecting to his imperial right to pass. Then they would fall in behind with roaring engines as he led the way. At the scene the police would cut a swath for him and his crew as they pulled the stretcher along—“Make way, folks, make way, please, let them through.” Under such circumstances it was not hard for one to gain a feeling of importance. Louis’s vicarious involvement only heightened that feeling.
The second part of the job was something the state required, some legal angle that necessitated registration as such for protection of the public. It involved driving in the funeral procession, directing traffic, and aiming the grieving friends and relatives toward the right viewing room. Everybody was, you see, apprenticed to the senior funeral director whose job it was to instruct in ways devious and honest as well as cold and compassionate. Louis never understood the sedate side of the job and wanted no part of it, but he probably discerned the contradictions in company policy.
One’s apprenticeship matured in that white-tiled room that received the remains of those who had died, whether someone not reached in time, or one whose demise took place at some hospital, or whose corpse had been discovered in some out-of-the-way place and reported to the police. No dark suits and black ties in this room. Once Louis was observed standing in the hall and staring into the embalming room. No one had ever seen him in this area before. The apprentice’s white lab coat was spattered with blood. Louis blanched and without a word tumbled away past the lounge and out the side door.
Not having been able to save a life, but not yet ready to commit it in death to the grave, the embalmer sought to recreate life-in-death by all the skill he could muster. He dressed the corpse in fresh clothes and applied makeup. Pank particularly approved of this effort to give the illusion of life.
Late one Saturday afternoon Dan and Lindsay were sitting out on the side. Their partner Hugh was still at supper. Round the corner from Rivermont Avenue came Louis. Big wind-up toy. At that moment the phone rang. It was an emergency out on 29 North. A wreck. Three cars involved, said the police sergeant.
Dan rang up the boss, who lived in an adjoining building, and gave him the facts. “Take Louis with you on a double-run,” he ordered. “I’ll catch the phones and wait for Hugh.”
When you got a call, you moved really fast. From the side of the building to the basement, into an ambulance, and at the corner making the turn in just under two minutes. You gave yourself only two additional minutes to make it out of a sound sleep in underwear from the third floor and out.
Louis was literally dancing up and down in overwrought excitement. “Wait here, Louis,” Lindsay shouted. We’ll pick you up as we come by.” Dan could still hear their questionable fellow attendant’s voice chattering out: “Emergency, emergency!” as he descended to the basement garage.
Lindsay leaped into the new Cadillac ambulance, flipped the beacon switch on, starting the red light to arc still in the garage, turned on the running lights, trounced on the siren button, and blasted out through the driveway up D Street, hitting his brakes slightly at the side door of the home as Louis swung aboard. From Dan’s position 15 feet behind in the black combination he could see Louis reach back to a gray half-smock and pull it off the headliner hook and don it.
To reach the accident scene, some four miles away, they had to cross a long bridge just 200 feet from the funeral home, make their way through three blocks of heavy traffic smack downtown before turning left down a hill with a 10% grade, cross the James River, and head up a 15% grade, swinging curves at the top, then on for nearly three miles. By the time they reached the end of the bridge, Dan had been so absorbed in maintaining his proper distance from the lead ambulance that he had to look twice to believe his eyes. Fully half of Louis’s body was leaning perilously out of the window on the rider’s side. He was waving and shouting to his friends standing on the street. But no, he didn’t fall out, for the ambulance slowed up considerably as it negotiated the left turn into 8th Street and zoomed downhill, pulling Louis down into his seat at the same time. In those days there were no seat belts or power steering, and a loose person up front made driving around curves very difficult. It was even hard to hold yourself in place with the wheel. One night, while riding on a call with Hugh, Dan remembered how Hugh had come right over and sat on his lap as they took a curve at 90.
“I’ve got four injured,” the state patrolman said to Dan through the window. “Two look pretty bad.”
“I’ll take the bad ones,” Dan said. “Where are they?”
“Over here. They were thrown clear.”
Dan hated that expression. The “clear” made it sound like there was an advantage to being hurled out of a vehicle, whereas in reality it was a catastrophe. He was grateful that the officer had spoken to him first. Everybody had been forewarned that Louis’s usefulness was inversely proportional to the severity of the accident.
The policeman helped Dan load his victims. Lindsay and Louis were loading theirs. One man was able to walk to the cot. Thank goodness, Dan thought.
The ambulances headed for the emergency room of the nearer of the two hospitals. Dan was in front this time and could see nothing but his partner’s lights in his rear-view mirrors. Louis must have been in the rear steadying the patients around curves.
Dan and Lindsay backed the ambulances into the garage just 45 minutes after departing. By now Louis was back up front with Lindsay and all smiles. “Great emergency!” he announced in the garage as he tossed the soiled sheets into the laundry bin and reached for clean ones immediately.
The rest of the evening was relatively uneventful. There was a knifing on 16th Street and a death call around midnight. Louis had gone home even before the second emergency. Had to pick up some things for his mother at the store, he claimed.
That summer moved inexorably on. Louis came by almost every Saturday night. Sometimes he amused himself by sneaking down to the garage and working the ambulance lights and siren. He didn’t ride along every time, but when he did, somebody had to watch him and hold onto his suspenders. This was his greatest act: Riding downtown at breakneck speed in that gorgeous life-green Cadillac and waving to all his friends on the tame street below. His act was often more subdued at the scene of some tragedy, and everybody saw him scurry off to nearby bushes more than once. Each time after a particularly trying run, he would excuse himself and go and get something for his mother.
Dan got to meet her once. The boss had sent him across town with an urn full of a woman’s husband’s ashes. The goofy woman would call up periodically and demand that “somebody get those damned ashes out of my house immediately.” Two weeks