< Situations And Revelations Of Passing Notice In Guyana >
Locket #22
Heard there was a vacancy at the Georgetown hospital morgue. Usually you
hear about these things, you don’t always read a notice inviting applications for
the work.
My good friend Archie works there. Maybe he getting ready to leave; he hasn't
said anything to me.
We’re from the days of knowledge and order; respect for people deserving of
respect. Past fifty now, we moving along through the next ten, and taking no
chances; bracing for impact.
These Georgetown people, with their vehicular lawlessness, have no patience
with someone not their age. Going down Regent Street, through that pounding
noise called music, you taking a chance with your life on a bicycle; like nobody
teaching manners anymore in the home and in schools.
We understand the times, how out of the blue the end might show up with a
message from the morgue.
Archie’s father was the morgue attendant back in his day. When he got old he
thought his son would want to take over the work. At that time father and son
weren’t seeing eye to eye; plus Archie swore he wasn’t going to follow his
father’s footsteps.
For this morgue work, it’s usually one person, the same fellow doing the same
thing year after year. They only think of a replacement when he pass away or
retire. Today no young person would want this work, at least I don’t think so.
I met this fellow from the Congo (don’t ask me how he land up here) who said
he would rather go back home than take that job. Never explained why.
And these days they asking for “qualifications”, for almost everything, like at
least “secondary” schooling.
Archie’s father (he was a tall, skinny man, looking like he had little appetite
for food, and none for argument) had only “primary” when he started. After
many years they must have moved him up. I could just see him coming home
one afternoon and telling his family now he “permanent”.
If you fly back home with “foreign” training and you apply, the locals in
Georgetown might give you a hard time. They don’t like that you went away
and improve yourself. They’ll steeups at your good intentions, shoo you away
with their whippy pride sticks.
Archie and I started “secondary” school, but he fell away and strayed, ignoring
advice to mend his ways. Went to the gold fields, came back; worked on the
North West steamer, stopped. At one stage, his sister told me, he was catching
and selling crabs in the North West District; and he had a child with an
Amerindian woman.
Then his father died and left specific instructions about tending his gravesite
in the Georgetown burial ground, Le Repentir.
You probably heard about our Le Repentir cemetery, how vegetation and bush
take over; how tree root drilling through and cracking the tombs as if jungle life
returning to the city. A staggering sight, if you had relatives buried there.
Back in his day Archie’s father used to cycle home on the roadway cutting
through Le Repentir, with the tall-standing palms and blue sky. He said it was
like passing though a valley of peace and forgiveness.
If you felt stressed out after a day at work, passing through late afternoon you
reach home the same way you left in the morning, fresh and ready.
For many years, was like you driving or pelting through walls of vegetation,
eyes straight ahead, agitated.
Archie came home to visit one day and his mother told him she could no longer
locate where his father was buried. You would not believe what Archie did next.
Went straight to the hospital, told them he was the son of the old morgue
attendant. Said he knew everything about morgue work because has father
taught him (which wasn’t true). Enquired if there was an opening.
Whoever was in charge decided to take him on. Maybe out respect for his father.
I don’t think they cared so long as somebody was doing the work.
It don’t sound all that complicated. The pay is nothing to shout about. Your
“office” could get overcrowded, if you know what I mean, and a call to duty on
a night of cutlass-chopping might sour you up inside.
No "morals" necessary. There is nothing at the morgue you might feel tempted
to steal.
+
But hear this, according to Archie, along with the gloves, a certain “disposition”
is required. The dead in this country have something they want to say before
they reach “totality”. Let me explain.
Just like when bodies arrive at a hospital, doctors and nurses have a way of
handling and dealing with them, so when bodies reach Archie at the morgue,
the treatment is different.
On the trays they waiting for the next stage, the ground and shovel, the
leaving ceremony. But some people here don’t always rush to claim remains.
And most don’t have a clue they might be hours away from blankness and ever
afterness. (Others, you just glad they gone.)
Archie would hear sounds from the tray drawers, like breath in a rush, coming
from a distance.
At first he pretended not to notice. It took him awhile to admit it was an alert.
Some kind of transmission was about to take place.
So he worked out a strategy. Lock the door right away, turn off the lights, pull
out the tray with the sound; then sit motionless, his back to the trays, eyes
closed, like in some kind of sight and sound insulation. After these steps he was
ready.
He heard voices from the trays, blaming or pleading, sounding faraway. First,
hundreds of voices, all talking at the same time, jostling to be heard over each
other. Then one voice broke through over the rest, sounding faint, like the
person trying to speak but catching their breath after the effort to break
through.
He would wait, wait and hold! hold! The breathing from the tray slowed, then
then settled down and became words. What he heard brought tears to
his eyes.
Just one twitch of his muscle, or some noise from outside, and the transmission
ceased.
+
So what did the transits on the trays say to Archie? You know, he never gave
me a straight answer. Only that he finding himself in “a strange situation” at
the morgue. There was a strangeness to his work days, but he was getting
used to it.
I looked at the hard-life lines on his face, and I listened long enough to know
he wasn’t making all this up.
He started paying attention to his work clothes, keeping it clean and neat (like
his work place, he said) and befitting a man of higher, hidden purpose. He
massages his wrist and checks his wrist watch frequently.
He used to be loud and vulgar, now he speaks softly. And I noticed he always
end our conversation with the same three words, makes no difference.
I decided not to pressure him when he stopped by my house (he’s a Guinness
Stout man, using a glass now). Didn’t make jokes like, So what’s the latest
you hear from the trays? And I didn’t ask him if he ever once heard from his
father.
Some situations you need to handle delicately, you know what I mean.
I gave him his right to silence, to close himself off from others. I don’t think
anybody else know about his “situation”. In any case, what could he say that
would convince anyone?
I look at it this way. At the end of life some kind of accountancy (I call it
accountancy) takes place. Not the day to day explaining, which is like a pot of
fart beans and fabrication, because people here don’t have the stomach to
admit guilt or shame. Every man jack want you to believe they completely
innocent.
So at the end point on the morgue tray, all that’s left is some last breath
attempt to explain what really happened, in one clean confession. They gone,
but like they searching now for a new balance, life and no life.
So you see why this morgue attendant work important.
It’s not for everybody, unless like people here you feel caught in the swirling
currents, the waste of years past; and you desperate for something to hold
on to, a floating log with title, anything.
John Burch-Smith
Georgetown, Guyana
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 