decked out with tapestries, black lights, lava lamps, and the like. It was truly a bachelor’s paradise.
In return for living for free at the funeral home, I had to work all the wakes and answer the business phone on weeknights. On Saturday and Sunday nights the owner of the funeral home answered the business phone to give me a couple of nights off. I looked forward to those nights, when I could go out carousing. I was single and liked to party. Contrary to most people’s perception of funeral directors, some of us do let our hair down on occasion.
Unfortunately, my living situation sometimes hindered my luck with the fairer sex. I could never bring girls back to my place; they’d think I was a total creep. Whenever I met a girl out at a bar or club, I’d always talk her into going back to her place. It’s kind of hard to get a girl in the mood when she’s scared of a dead person popping out of every corner. To me, there is nothing even remotely spooky about a funeral home, but I’m sure to the average person (let alone a drunk female), a funeral home can be a very creepy place. So, to use a baseball metaphor, I always liked to play on the away field. That is, until the night I met the girl of my dreams, and the situation forced me to use the home field advantage.
What a disaster.
It was a Saturday. I had to work late into the evening. By the time I escaped the funeral home and managed to get to Cues, one of my favorite haunts, my friends were already a couple of pitchers deep. Cues is a dark, smoky little dive at the edge of the city whose only redeeming value is that it has the perpetual special of free pool and two dollar pitchers of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
After I lost a goodly amount of money at pool, my group migrated over to a brewpub for steaks and micro- brews. We were eating and drinking and having a good time. Next thing I knew, it was last call. We all ordered one more round before I piled as many as could fit into my Honda. The rest were left to hail a taxi. I had
The club was just filling up when we arrived. The ubiquitous techno music blared, and the emcee was inviting girls up to dance on the giant clear Lucite blocks on stage. I located my favorite bartender and ordered the usual, Knob Creek, neat. I stood and chatted with some of my friends at a high-top table for an hour or so, throwing back a couple more bourbons until the club had filled up and it was just one big sweaty, throbbing, throng of people. I went out and danced for a bit and did my thing.
After I got the cold shoulder from three chicks, I decided it was time to go. I was drunk, and obviously going to be unlucky on this weekend. I sidled up to the bar next to a raven-haired beauty for one more drink. The girl was gorgeous, and had legs that went on forever up into her black mini-skirt.
“Can I buy you a drink, sweetheart?” I asked, offhandedly, expecting her to tell me what I could do with myself.
“Sure,” she replied perkily. She smiled, exposing a mouth full of even white teeth, dimples lining her cheeks. “Whatcha drinking?”
“A double Knob Creek, neat.”
“I’ll have what he’s having,” she called to the bartender, holding two fingers up. Then she turned to me and smiled slyly. “What’s the occasion?” Her crystal blue eyes sparkled with mischief.
I was speechless, and a little stupid from too much booze. “Uh, no occasion,” was all I could think of.
The drinks came, and the girl knocked her double bourbon back in one gulp, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and said, “C’mon, let’s go dance.”
I had no choice but to gulp mine down as she grabbed my hand and dragged me out onto the dance floor. As the wee hours of the morning progressed, and the drinks kept flowing, the dancing got more risque. I’m not a great dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but this girl made me feel like a rock star. By the end of the night when the club lights went up, my head was swimming and I was in the middle of the dance floor making out with the gorgeous girl, whose name I learned was Paula.
“Let’s get out of here,” she panted.
“Good idea,” I agreed. In fact, I couldn’t think of a better idea. I was really digging Paula.
We ran out onto the curb before the mobs made their exodus and I hailed one of the taxis waiting in the queue. “Where to?” I asked. “Your place?”
“No, yours,” she said.
“I don’t want to go there. My place is just a small crappy apartment. Let’s go to yours,” I urged.
“We can’t,” she said. “I live at home with my parents. I’m on break from Ohio State. They aren’t cool with this.” She made a little turning motion with her index finger. “So, it’s your place or none.” To accentuate her point she put her hand on my thigh.
I froze. I didn’t know what to do. I sat there for a few moments.
“Well?” Paula asked. She massaged my thigh harder, imploring me with her blue eyes.
I knew what I had to do.
“Okay,” I grudgingly agreed. “My place.” I gave the taxi driver the address and off we went.
We made out the whole ride to the funeral home, our hands exploring. The ride was a blur. I remember her raven hair shrouding my face and the spicy smell of her perfume. The next thing I knew, the driver had the dome light on and was demanding his money.
We piled out and Paula exclaimed, “You told me you had a tiny apartment. Look at this place! It’s huge! You live alone?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I live alone.” She obviously was too intoxicated to notice the giant sign that read “Funeral Home” and I didn’t point it out to her. I was too excited at the prospect of what was going to happen once we got up to the apartment to want to ruin it. I had been sampling the goods in the taxi, and I liked what I had sampled thus far. Paula was sumptuous.
I fumbled with the lock on the back door and led her down the hallway to the back staircase that led up to my apartment.
“You have a real nice place,” Paula commented, looking at the artwork on the wall in the darkened hallway. “I love how you’ve decorated it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said distractedly as I opened the door that hid the back staircase as well as the door to the preparation room, “real nice, isn’t it?” I wanted to get her upstairs as quickly as possible and continue what we had started in the taxi.
Behind me, Paula let out a blood-curdling scream. “What the fuck?” she screamed. “I’m in a morgue! Oh God, I’m in a morgue!” She took off down the hallway, banging off the walls like a pinball.
I saw someone had left the preparation room door propped open.
“Paula, wait!” I called and took off after her.
She hit the crash bar to the back door and it swung open. She ran into the middle of the front yard and staggered around in small circles like a punch drunk boxer.
“Settle down, Paula. Come on back in,” I called from the back door. “It’s a funeral home. Not a morgue —”
“I saw a sign that said morgue!”
“Yeah, a sign on the preparation room door. We’re not going in there; we’re going upstairs to where I live.”
“You brought me to a morgue!” she screamed.
I tried to quiet her down.
She was having none of it. “You live at the morgue!”
“I work here. It’s okay. I promise.” I beckoned with my hand. “Come on. It’s safe.”
“I don’t care!” she cried. “You brought me to a place where there’s dead people, you psycho!”
“Keep your voice down,” I hissed, looking around at the neighboring houses. It was just starting to get light out and I didn’t want to cause a scene on the front lawn of the funeral home. “People live around here.”
“I don’t give a shit, psycho! There is no way in hell I’m going back in that morgue.”
“It’s not a—”
“I need a ride home!” she demanded.
“Look, Paula,” I pleaded. “We came in a taxi. I have no way to drive you home.” My mind momentarily flashed to the hearse in the garage, but immediately nixed the idea. “My car is in the city,” I continued. “Just come
