Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
At Southwestern I finally blossomed socially. I began drinking and smoking, and on
weekends my fraternity brothers and I drove to Austin for entertainment. We frequen-
ted a coffee house, The Eleventh Door, where I was infatuated with the stunning looks
and clear voice of Carolyn Hester, who'd preceded Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in the East
softly one strained to hear, yet we hung on every word when she talked about Kennedy's
death and sang her sorrowful rendition of Walt Whitman's “Oh Captain! My captain!”
School nights were spent at a Georgetown diner, and late one evening, true to the “Lice
and Mice” café's reputation, a cockroach dropped from the ceiling into my chili bowl.
Because class work held little appeal in the face of such diversions, soon my academic
career was in free fall. I failed French, English, math, and organic chemistry; in a cal-
culus exam, my pencil skidded across the page when I conked out midway through an
equation, exhausted from cramming weeks' worth of assignments into a single sleepless
night.
At the end of my sophomore year, in debt from an ever more expensive social life, I
sought employment at a local funeral parlor. My job involved manning an ambulance,
driving the hearse or flower car at funerals, assisting with embalming, and dressing
bodies, for which I earned lodging and sixty dollars a month. Georgetown had two mor-
tuaries but not enough deaths to make either lucrative. At first I worked for Clarice,
who'd inherited the poorer establishment when her husband died in a plane crash. Mr.
Armpy's fancier facility was across the street, the hostility between the two families so
great that his kids spied on us from a cardboard box in their alley. Nonetheless, he em-
ployed me when Clarice sold out and left the area.
Life in a small-town funeral home resembled the wackier scenes in John Irving's
two kids. My tiny apartment was under their stairwell and directly across from the em-
balming room. Although dead bodies made for a spooky ambiance, wailing mourners
rarely disturbed me, and the rambling old house was usually tranquil. One evening,
however, I was interrupted in my reading by scrambling claws overhead, followed by
high-pitched barking and people hollering. The family's poodle was in heat, and as I
emerged into the hallway a large mutt hurtled over the railing, miraculously landed on
its feet, and exited through a side door that had been left open when we returned from
an emergency call. Within seconds George came running down in undershorts and T-
shirt, clutching a shotgun, and disappeared into the backyard. The 16-gauge boomed
once, George returned upstairs without a word, and soon I heard him calling police
about shooting a stray dog.
Our all-purpose vehicle was a black Cadillac hearse outfitted with siren and red light,
oxygen, a small first aid kit, and two gurneys. For funerals we unscrewed the flasher,
removed the medical gear, and flipped up floor rollers so that a casket could slide in and
out. The ambulance runs mostly moved patients between hospitals and nursing homes;
real emergencies were uncommon, but Williamson County's senior citizens passed away
with some frequency, and my first encounter with a dead person came hours after being
hired. We pushed the gurney up parallel to the elderly lady's bed and, as instructed, I
lifted and pulled from under her knees as George moved her shoulders. The woman's
skin was cool and slack against my hands, and—just as I held a deep breath and he el-
evated her torso—air escaped from her throat with a loud “aaaaahhhhh”!
