The Bright Side of Life

[D/N]

"Aaaaand, always look on the bright side of life.
Do do, do do do do do do.
Always look on the bright side of life..."

David Raymer slid the needle into the neck and watched the murky fluid begin its journey, swapping out Mrs. Gulec's blood as it went.

A correct embalming was a deft art, and although he'd spent most of the last ten years running things upstairs and leaving the grunt work to his employees, he'd never lost the touch. It was just one of many diverse skills needed to succeed in this line of work. You needed to be a doctor. You needed to be a grief counselor. You needed to be a salesman, a minister, a host, and above all else a businessman; and you needed the ability to juggle all those skills if you wanted to succeed. David and his partner Henry Schenn shared those skills, which was how they'd achieved just that.

"For life is quite absurd, and death's the final word.
You must always face the curtain with a bow."

He massaged the body, helping the embalming fluid properly disperse. Given the customer's advanced age (to be kind), her circulation had understandably slowed down in recent years. If the fluid stopped circulating, he'd have to move to a second injection point, adding needless time and effort to the job. Time management was yet another of those abilities you needed to succeed.

"Forget about your sin, give the audience a grin.
Enjoy it, it's your last chance anyhow."

But even more than all those other skills, David Raymer knew that what you really needed was the ability to laugh. He'd been in the mortuary business for 20 years, and he didn't think he'd met one person without a sense of humor who'd lasted very long.

"So, always look on the bright side of death.
Do do, do do do do do do.
Just before you draw your terminal breath."

Accordingly, he was able to whistle Monty Python songs while preparing the corpse of a 97-year-old woman's corpse for her funeral showing. Of course, he kept the lightheartedness to a minimum around his living customers. Most of them wouldn't find it funny. Still, everyone needed to blow off steam, and he could easily joke around with his employees-

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock

Or with his daughter, who was tapping impatiently at the door and peering in over the glass.

"Andrea. Hmmm."

David Raymer seldom used a modesty cloth when alone, but he always kept one nearby, and he shook it over the woman's torso. Then he crossed the room, a tall man with keen but sunken eyes and blonde hair rapidly thinning, and opened the door.

"Hey, dad." Andrea flashed a smile and waved, letting herself in. No hug, of course. Andrea hadn't hugged in years.

At 14, Andrea Raymer looked like the aftermath of an explosion at the Factory of Rebellious Tweens. She'd chopped her hair short a month ago, leaving what remained half blonde and half green, a leftover from her latest dye job. She'd also just discovered the joy of thrift stores, and was sporting a beaten leather jacket three sizes too large atop a Sid Vicious T-Shirt. David was quite sure that his daughter wouldn't be able to identify a Sex Pistols song if her life depended on it.

"You shouldn't be in here, you know," he said, watching her dump her backpack on a chair. "Old Mrs. Gulec wasn't decent."

"Goo-wha?" She wrinkled her nose. "Goulash?"

"Goo-lechk" he said, enunciating carefully. "Goo-lechk, not Goo-lash. It's Macedonian. And she got very angry when people called her Mrs. Goulash."

"Oh you know that for a fact, dad?"

"Sure," he said. "She was the lunch lady at my high school."

Andrea giggled. "No way."

"Oh yes. And we all thought she was ancient back in 1978. Now by my count, she ended up outliving at least ten people from my senior class. So, what brings you to the lab, Andrea?"

She gave a childish smirk. "Notice anything different about me?"

"What, you mean beside that big thing in your nose? Nothing at all." He was checking Gulec's body again, trying to hide his own smile. "You stopped nosepicking years ago, right? I hope so, I wouldn't want to see you break a nail on that thing."

"Dad! That is completely disgusting. And it's just a nose stud, it's like, puny."

"Hmmm." He watched her turn her head, obviously proud. "And what does your mother think?"

Andrea shrugged. "She said it was fine by her. She was busy with a proposal or something when I asked, so, er, I dunno if she was really listening."

"Oh, I'm sure she was," he said. "You know, I'm glad this stuff was never permitted when I was growing up. Knowing me I'd have gotten something ridiculous, like knuckle tattoos. Then I'd never have been allowed out of the basement. Most people don't want a man with knuckle tattoos arranging their funerals."

She was grinning now, which was good. "Yeah, uh, why are you down here Dad? I mean, I asked Bill and he said you were down doing an embalming and I was like 'Whaaaa?' cause I thought you didn't do embalmings anymore."

David turned to the tanks for a moment, building his answer. "Well, sometimes you miss the dirty work. I started out down here after I got my license and had my apprenticeship. You never lose the touch."

"Oh," she said, her voice smaller. They'd moved into an awkward silence, David checking the aspirator one more time before speaking again.

"Plus, I know I've been looking a bit ghoulish lately, and that's not the image you want to present to clients." He smiled, but Andrea just gave a customary twitch of her mouth in response. No grin that time.

Then she began fiddling with the spare tank of fluid, and he knew he had to get it out.

"Andrea, I should probably tell you that next week is, well, it's going to be my last week here. I'm taking early retirement."

Well, that was one way of putting it.

"I've sold all my ownership to Henry and Bill. I think Bill wants to rename the homes to Schenn and Son so he can get his name on the sign, but Henry's assured me that that's not happening so long as he's still kicking."

He saw her work her tongue in her mouth, her fingers restlessly playing with each other. She'd always been so fidgety.

"Well, it's your choice, dad," she finally said.

He nodded, glancing back down at the body. "Yeah. It's tough, kiddo. You've got to know when to hang it up, though. Sometimes you-"

The door closed shut, and by the time he glanced up, Andrea was gone.

Of course, even more than a sense of humor, what you really REALLY needed to succeed in the funeral business was a healthy sense of your own mortality. Easier said than done.

----------------------------

Andrea was sitting on the stairs outside Raymer & Schenn Funeral Home and staring into the distance when her dad found her. His arm slipped easily over her shoulder, which only served to reminder her that she hated how scrawny she was. Thanks, dad.

"You know Andrea, it is OK to cry."

Andrea tried and failed miserably to shrug the arm off. "Yeah well, you never cried, dad. I mean..." She gestured with her hands as her voice began to trail off. "OK, I dunno what I mean."

"I did cry, kid. Once, but yeah, I cried."

Andrea looked up at him. "Seriously?"

"Oh yeah. Day before I told you and Alex. I went for a drive and just started crying. Felt like I was ten years old again. I was half hoping I'd swerve out of control and get it all over with right then."

She stared off into the distance again, looking for something interesting on the horizon. She saw nothing. "So why didn't you?"

"Well, you know. Car accidents can be a messy business. Wouldn't want to ruin my own funeral. That'd be terrible advertising." Andrea felt herself smile a bit. Bah. He always had to make her smile.

"Look Andrea, I've been in the business a long time. I've seen a lot of people younger than me come through those doors, a lot of people who haven't been nearly as lucky as I've been. Sure, lots of people get sick and they feel sorry for themselves, they say it's not fair. I've seen enough stuff that's not fair. For me, I've got you, Alex, it's been more than fair. But it's still tough, kiddo, I know that."

Andrea nodded. Her eyes were actually feeling moist now, and the words were sort of spilling out.

"I dunno dad, it's like part of me is actually really trying to break down and cry, you know like Alex does, and I mean I know he's only ten and all. But uh, then it's like part of me... isn't OK with the whole thing but it just doesn't want to cry and wants to be all stoic and accept things instead and I don't like THAT either. I know Mom and everyone else thinks I'm just trying to be strong but it's not really that, it's more..."

She wiped her eyes and saw that they were indeed moist. Then she snuffed her nose and was actually crying now, and she hated herself a bit for that but hell, at least she was getting it out.

"You're scared that people will think you don't care?" he asked.

"Kinda," she said after a few seconds. "I mean, I don't really care what people think but yeah..." She leaned her head against him.

"Yeah, I know it," he said. "People like you and me Andrea, we've got our own way of doing things. A lot of people think I'm strange because of what I do. And I know you like people thinking you're a bit strange, maybe it's genetic, I don't know. You see how much your brother takes after your mother.

"But you've just got to roll with it. I work with dead people because I love the work. My job's always made me happy. Your mother, she hates her job. She's good at what she does, but I could never understand why she didn't just do whatever made her happy." He shrugged. "We were always different like that."

Andrea thought of up and asking her dad how they'd gotten together in the first place, but she let that thought pass quickly.

"Yeah," she said instead. It was all she really needed to say. She'd stopped crying, thankfully. Wow, really, when was the last time she'd cried?

He nodded. "OK, kid. Besides, like I said, I'm only retiring, there's lots to go yet. Think of all the parental meddling I still have to do!"

"Dad!" She succeeded in shoving his arm off her shoulder this time, but he just grinned and went on.

"So how's school going?"

"Eh, same as always."

"Your last meeting with Mac went well?"

"Oh yeah, went totally fine, everything's, uh, smooth sailing there. Mom stopped meeting with Doc a couple months ago, cause I guess she figures I can handle things on my own, she still needs to get the actual prescriptions and everything of course."

"Hmmm." He stood up. She guessed that was her cue to do the same. "Ah, sometimes I worry about you, Andrea. Other times I just think you're too much like me. You remember what you said about your mom and everyone thinking you're just trying to be strong?"

"Yeah?"

"You don't need to try, Andrea. You are strong. And I know you like to push. But you have to learn how to give, too. I guess that's my biggest worry. That you won't give, and you might let things go too far."

"Eh, you don't need to worry about me dad. If I'm too much like you, that just means I can handle everything, right? You came out like gold, like no knuckle tattoos or anything. You turned out awesome."

Ha, she'd actually made him blush with that one.

"Good as gold? Maybe not quite, but I'll take it. So you promise me the same there, Andrea? No knuckle tattoos?"

"Ewww. No way."

-------------------

About four months later her father was dead. It was a pretty shitty birthday present, all things considered. But hey, the universe had an grim sense of humor, what else was new?

Andrea bore through the visitations, and nodded any time one of her random relatives came up and said stuff like "I'm there for you" like that really meant anything, and did her best to be there for Alex when he looked like he was going to start crying again. But the visitations weren't bad. Everyone was standing around and shooting the shit with each other and they weren't getting too emotional. Visitations were funny like that. They usually ended up being like some big family reunion or something.

Then there was the service. They'd split up the eulogy, so she sat there while her grandpa and dad's girlfriend Monique and Henry Schenn and a couple others got up there and talked. They had a spot for Andrea because she'd said she might say something, and at first she didn't want to because seriously, this was her own damn business and all. But then she decided that the hell with it, she'd say what was on her mind, and that's how she found herself standing up at the podium.

"Uh, soooo, I just wanted to say that... well, my dad was a really great guy. Like, I'd say he was the best dad ever but he was my only dad so I don't really, y'know, have anything to compare him with." She saw a couple smiles in the room and guessed that was a good sign.

"But, uh, you guys already know he was a great guy, cause I mean you're all here, right? Um, unless you just want the free food or something." Ugh. This was lame, but at least everyone wasn't booing her off stage yet. Wow, that would really suck at a funeral, had that ever happened before? It must have happened at least once. Maybe at like, Hitler's funeral. Did Hitler have a funeral?

Stupid coping mechanisms. Now she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"But I know that he uh, he really wouldn't want you to be sad. Because Dad, no matter what, he thought that we should all try hard to be happy in life, like satisfied with ourselves and I know that sounds lame but I don't really know how to put it. So..."

Well, she didn't really have anything else to say.

"Thanks, dad. Love you."

The rest of the service went on, and she went back to her mother and Alex, and Alex was actually smiling a bit when she sat down. That was good. And then there was the procession and the burial and all that classic funeral stuff she'd gotten pretty used to over the years. Then everyone got together at the hall later on and had food and joked around, and she was glad that people weren't staying depressed. Sure, it was sad before, but it was a funeral, that was just the sort of thing that happened at funerals. You deal with it, and move on. Everyone else looked less somber, and they thought she was fine too, and she was fine, and it was all good.

And after everything was done she went home and watched this awesome new show called Survival of the Fittest and stuffed 30mg of Ritalin up her nose.

Oh yeah, she was fine. It was all good.

Good as gold.