Reconcile

We learn. Or we don't. Then we die.

Sid wondered just why he was here. The guy had called, sounded reasonable, even intriguing. Former coroner in this small town but now retired and wanted to talk.

Sid had agreed to the meet on his day off. It was a compromise. He couldn’t afford to cut into his clinic time. He was doing two ER weekends a month on top of the clinic work and call. His days off were dear, but not making him money, so that’s what he shared. And here he was.

The guy looked old. Not decrepit, still spry, just old. Sid guessed late 80’s. In fact, maybe a candidate for his coroner services soon.

So this old guy’s coroner time might have been twenty or forty years ago. Who knows? Sid figured he was going to hear about it.

When he had started, Sid had no clue about what he wanted from this job. He still didn’t. Did this old guy have any clue? Maybe Sid would learn.

They were sitting downtown after the breakfast crowd had left and before the lunch rush. Sid’s kids had gone off to school, and he could be fixing the weak west fence. The posts were rotting. But here he was. Sid got coffee. The old guy got tea.

He rambled on a bit about the old days. It seemed he had delivered babies in their homes. The hospital was a death trap. They both laughed about that.

Sid couldn’t escape his internal 15-minute clock. You work in the clinic, it gets imbedded. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

The old guy sipped his tea. His tweed jacket was worn. His skinny forearms jutted from the frayed wool cuffs. Sid was in just jeans and shirt. Sid thought a tweed jacket might be nice.

The old guy looked down at the table or maybe at the cup as he set it back in the saucer. It was like he was familiar with the fifteen-minute limit.

“I had some painful times back when I was coroner.”

Sid did not roll his eyes. He had hoped this was not why the old man had called. Some old misstep, some regret, and now the old guy could seek solace in Sid. And Sid couldn’t charge him for the consult, the caring. Jesus, Sid thought, God dammit, I’m supposed to be paid for this therapy shit.

But he just listened. Or tried to. He did take a breath. That always helped. And so, he just looked at the old man.

The old guy faltered, maybe teared up, though his eyes were pretty rheumy. Sid couldn’t be sure about the emotions over there; the face was so wrinkled and the eyes always watery. He’d just have to wait.

The old guy sipped tea and composed himself. “I’m not here to tell you how to do the job.”

Okay, can we get to it? Just listen.

The old guy put the cup in the saucer. His face seemed younger suddenly. “I investigated a young woman’s death. I made a horrible mistake.”

Okay, dump your mistakes on the new guy. Everybody does.

Sid kept listening.

“She was a college student. They found her body in a dorm up on campus. She was beautiful.”

Here the old guy seemed to relax. Like her beauty gave him some solace.

Sid knew this. He had gazed down on the beautiful dead women. While he had never felt solace, he had appreciated their dead beauty. Dead women can still be beautiful. Sid even thought all women were beautiful. The really fat ones even. But some had a spark. Even dead.

The old guy sipped tea again and Sid just waited.

“I looked into it, but I never understood.” The old guy started sobbing there across the table and Sid was just himself, distant, inadequate. He didn’t rush over and hug. He didn’t get up right then and leave. He just sat there and let his mind wander.

Sid had all the right questions. Tell me about the scene, the history, the evidence. But he didn’t ask the frail old man who was crying across from him to expand. Sid just sat there and looked at the old guy’s tears above his tea.

Jesus, Sid thought. He’s carrying something. And he’s going to hand it off to me over coffee and tea in this diner?

Sid got the steam up to walk out right then. That’s what he should have done. But he didn’t. Then the old guy gathered himself, wet cheeks and all, and glared at Sid. “Sit there. You need to hear this.”

Sid looked back at the bleary grey eyes. “So she was beautiful.”

The phone rang its old jangle back in the day. He listened and left the house, his wife kept watching TV.

He got calls all the time for dead people. He was the funeral home director. He had only agreed to be coroner when his buddy at the Elks insisted he run. It was an elected position, but he had not seen any issue. It was just some government thing, coroner. He did have some more paperwork to do, but what the heck?

He just picked up dead bodies for burial or cremation. And the services he offered on top of those. What is this coroner shit? He got elected. It was a small town. Nobody else wanted the job.

And now he’s spilling his guts to some young guy who doesn’t give a shit. He suddenly thinks he’s too old to be doing this. But she was so beautiful. That dead young woman, so beautiful. “Sit there. You need to hear this.”

Sid heard his story. He thought about what he might have done differently. But when the big folks push…

The old guy’s cheeks had dried. For some reason he seemed almost younger.

“So I didn’t stand up to them.” He said again glaring at Sid. “That is what I wanted to tell you. Don’t be afraid to stand up to them.”

Sid sipped the cold coffee. This old guy felt bad about what he had or hadn’t done. And Sid was supposed to learn something from this. The elected position of county coroner is almost an afterthought. The old man had served, and so now Sid was too.

Sid thanked him for the story. It wouldn’t have been how he did things, but, Sid accepted, he wasn’t in those shoes.

Thank you for this. I have to go to the bathroom. Sid got up and went back to pee. As he wound his way back through the empty tables he wondered if he could have stood up to them. That’s what the old man regretted. His spinelessness. Sid had to pee bad. The spine question was put to the side.

Sid looked at the white tile and let the stream flow. It was just going out. Where? Where does our piss go? He thought of the sewage treatment plant, guys opening and closing valves, doing what they do. He finished.

As he was buckling up the door bumped in softly. And there was the old guy, shuffling in.

I gotta go too he mumbled.

Sid touched his tweed sleeve. Thank you, he said. And he left the old man to pee.