Naked Bodies

It sounded like she said, “Every day when I get home, I find a naked body in the bed.”

It was one of those moments when you double take, but I don’t bother to ask right away. Lily continues stuffing the rabbit in front of her and sighs, as it is giving her trouble.

The overhead lights cast shadows over the murky room, illuminating the vast array of stuffed animals and bones that make up Lily’s small taxidermy shop. A morgue for pets and newly skinned animals that will soon be picked up by the medical students. Tony, the stuffed tiger and the pride of Lily’s collection, stares at the front door with glassy eyes.

“Mrs. Monroe will be here in a moment. I’m going to get Chester.” She says this completely monotone, walking into the back room to fetch the beagle. The smell of chemicals flows from there, where Lily melts off the skin of the unfortunate critters that the college selects for the medical and veterinary programs. The whole back room is full of bones and skulls. That’s Lily’s whole life, really. Skeletons in the closet.

Mrs. Monroe walks maybe two seconds later. She’s about sixty-years-old, with blue hair, a large leather coat, and a face that constantly looked like she had just drank a glass of lemon juice. She tiptoes her way to the counter, where I smile and say, “Welcome to Lamont’s Taxidermy. May I help you?”

“I’m here to pick up Chester.” Mrs. Monroe adjusts her glasses and takes a big snort out of an eye drops bottle.

Ever since Lily opened her shop, Mrs. Monroe had given each of her dead pets to Lamont’s Taxidermy to have her beloved Buttons, Gretel, and Mr. Fluffy preserved forever. Lily once said that she killed her pets on purpose sometimes so they would be stuffed sooner and added to her vast collection. I don’t think she was being serious.

Lily walked out and handed Chester to Mrs. Monroe. “That’ll be fifty dollars.”

“I swear you just keep raising the prices.” But she pulls out her wallet with no hesitation and hands Lily a crisp fifty-dollar bill, then turns and tiptoes out of the shop, holding Chester in her bony arms.

Lily goes back to stuffing the rabbit, grimacing. I go back to sweeping the floor.

“What did you mean?” I ask as Lily begins the business of propping the rabbit on a pedestal.

“What did I mean about what?”

“About the naked bodies?”

“Oh.” She doesn’t stop or hesitate. “I meant just what I said.”

“That you keep finding them in your bed?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds like you have a pretty bad infestation.”

Not even a giggle.

Lily doesn’t speak for a while. Then, after the rabbit has been firmly planted, she says, “I’ve started a new side to the business. Demand went up, so I’m providing the supply.”

I wait for her to continue as I begin dusting the shelves and skulls.

“A lot of people want their significant others stuffed. There’s a whole community for it. I have a few at home that are chilling to stay fresh. I haven’t moved them here yet.”

Double take. “You have bodies in your house.” She turns back to me, completely serious. “Will you help me get them here tomorrow? I know it’s your day off, but I’ll pay you.”

I’m not sure how to take this request. Transporting bodies, particularly human ones, wasn’t in the job description, or the ad that led me here in the first place. Lily must sense my apprehension because she adds, “Double pay.”

“Double?”

“I don’t want to do it myself. Some of them are quite large.”

I sigh. Double. “Alright.” **** Lily’s apartment is located right across the street from the shop. The elevator says, “Out of Order,” written on a piece of paper that looks like it has been hanging there for several years. The stairs creak as I ascend to the fifth floor, and the whole place smells like Lysol. I knock with bated breath, standing before the throne room to take the quest. How many bodies are there, anyway? She hadn’t said.

Lily answers, wearing her usual plaid and jeans. Her waist length brown hair is pulled into a taut ponytail. She nods for me to come inside.

Her apartment looks more like a morgue than the taxidermy. Body bags litter the table and sofa, and the gentle hum of freezers fills the room like a thousand bees hovering above my head. The room itself has also been chilled; according to the thermometer, it is fifty-five degrees in the apartment. Sure enough, there is a body bag on her bed, stuffed with the unfortunate victim and ready for transport. There must be seven total. I’m not sure if I was expecting more or less.

“We’ll need to carry each one down the stairs, to the shop, and into the back room. That’s where the freezer is. My first order is due in five days, so I’d like to get this done as quickly as possible.”

I feel like Dr. Frankenstein, taking bodies from the graveyard back to his workshop. The idea of having to lug each one across the street and into the shop fills me with apprehension. What if someone calls the police, reporting a thirty-something girl in a plaid shirt and a twenty-something boy in a paint splattered white shirt dragging bodies into a store? I consider bringing up this fear to Lily, but she would just tell me not to worry, she had everything under control, as usual.

We start with the one closest to the door, bringing him out of his private little room and putting him into a bag. He is about forty, with sandy hair, a slim build, and a face that looks like he died peacefully, possibly surrounded by loved ones who loved him enough to want him stuffed.

“Jimmy,” Lily says, as if that explains everything.

We carry Jimmy down the stairs. He feels incredibly light and airy, but that may just be because Lily is far stronger than me, and is taking the full force of his weight. I almost trip twice, but if it annoys or startles Lily, she maintains her perpetual poker face. When we finally step out the front door and onto the sidewalk, I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, only to remember that there are six more waiting for assistance. Getting him across the street turns out to be the easiest part after the stairs. The road is quiet today, and we don’t even bother waiting for the light to turn green to cross, despite my rather weak objections.

The back room, besides being home to the skin melting and the tanning, also houses a huge industrial freezer, left over from a restaurant that was here before Lily moved in. We put Jimmy inside towards the back corner. Lily has left a lot of space for the bodies, but from what I can tell, it will still be a tight fit.

“Come on,” Lily commands, starting out back toward the apartment.

The task continues, in more or less the same fashion. We grab a body from a freezer, Lily gives me the name (“Sean,” “Lauren,” “Paul,”), and we hike them down the stairs and across the street to the shop’s freezer. As more bodies are added, I feel almost calm about the whole thing. Sure, it’s weird, creepy, and possibly illegal, but if that’s what people want, who am I to judge.

The last body remains on the bed, still in the body bag. We march back up the stairs to get him, when Lily asks, “Would you like a sandwich or something?” “Um, I don’t have much of an appetite. Paul kind of took it out of me.” Paul had a huge gash on the front of his chest, possibly from a machete or some other big knife.

Lily smirks a little. “Well, I’m starving. Let’s take a break.”

We are sitting at the table while Lily prepares a mayonnaise, pickle, and banana sandwich, which I argue is the most disgusting food right after haggis. I look at the freezers that still clutter the living room.

“Why are you expanding?”

Lily shrugs. “Good for business. Why else?”

“I mean, isn’t this something you can get in trouble for?”

“Why? I recall no law in the books that says that you can’t preserve and stuff people. It’s a niche market. It’s not like everyone is suddenly banging on my door, asking me to help Frank live forever.”

She eats in silence for a bit before going on. “I don’t really get it either, to be honest with you. Why would you want your dead spouse or parent staring at you in your living room, bedroom, or wherever you decide to put them up? Doesn’t seem like a good way to get over grief.”

“But you don’t question it.”

“I don’t question it. I just do it.” She finishes her sandwich and brushes her hands on her jeans. I expect her to get up and grab the final body, but she doesn’t move.

“When I first started here, I felt like I was giving people a chance to hold on to things. Like, your beloved bird dies, and you can’t bear the thought of it getting eaten by worms? That’s what I’m for. The medical stuff helps pay the bills, but the pets, that’s what I loved doing. I liked it when people would get their stuffed pets and smile, even if it wasn’t necessarily filled with overwhelmed joy. It felt like I was giving a service that gave new life to their fluffy family.

“But with this,” she points at the freezers, “I finally see it in a way that I never have before. I’m helping people cling to the past. I’m helping them not have to move on, because Frank or Joe or Marge is still there, watching from the shadows. How can they move on when their loved one is always watching? They bring a new lover home and all they can think about is Frank in the next room, silently listening.”

I have never heard Lily talk like this. In all the time that I have known her, she has never exposed her inner thoughts, preferring to be strait forward and distant. She might try to hide it, but this new venture is weighing on her. She may still be trying to convince herself that it’s a good idea, good for business, good for people, but she is torn because of it.

“Why don’t you just stop? We can send the bodies to the local morgue and apologize to the people.”

“I already promised. Some have already paid. I have a reputation. I can’t back out of this batch.” She stands. “Come on. Let’s get the last one.”

I sigh as I get up and walk into the back room. We lift the final body from the bed and start for the door. The body begins to twitch and move.

We both stop and stare as a low moan can be heard from the bag. I scream and drop the bag on the floor, causing the body inside to exclaim “Ow!” Not exactly my finest moment.

Lily leaps into action, setting down the other part of the bag and retching open the zipper. Inside is a man, no more than thirty-five, staring at us with a mixture of confusion and fear. He sits up just as I feel I might faint. This was definitely not in the job description.

“What’s going on?” His voice is slightly high pitched and nasally. He looks around at both of us and the area that he has found himself in. It’s at this moment that I notice that he is completely naked, though he doesn’t seem to have registered this fact himself. I avert my eyes and try to catch my breath.

“I’d like to know that, too,” Lily says, visibly agitated. “Your name is David, correct?”

“Yeah, I’m… what’s going on? Where am I?”

“You are currently sitting in a body bag in an apartment on fifth avenue.” I have to applaud Lily’s professional attitude, given the situation. “Your mother gave you to me yesterday for stuffing. She thought you were dead.”

“Dead? Stuffing?” David throws up into the bag. He coughs and stutters as more vomit comes up and out of his stomach.

“Get him some water,” Lily says, looking at me. I rush to the kitchen and fetch the tallest glass I can find. David drinks the water like someone who’s dying.

“Your mother said that she was certain you had finally overdosed. She had a letter that said a doctor had proclaimed you dead, though right now, I’m having serious doubts.” She looks at me. “From now on, I’m going to take them to a doctor myself.”

David finishes his water and stares at Lily. “My mother wanted me STUFFED?” A horrified expression crosses his face. “She thought I was dead?”

“You’ve been passed out for over twenty-four hours now. She must have arrived at the conclusion that you were dead. You were certainly convincing.”

“This is crazy, completely crazy.” David looks like he’s about to puke again, but ends up just coughing. “I have to get out of here. I have to find my mom. She couldn’t have actually wanted to stuff me, could she?”

There’s a pleading in his eyes, as if he is begging Lily to tell him that this was all some practical joke. Lily just nods. With surprising speed for someone who just came back to life, David leaps up out of the body bag and runs for the door, still completely naked, still not noticing. We hear him take off down the steps. Lily runs to the window that overlooks the street, and as I get over there as well, we see David take off down the road, heading to his house, or wherever he thinks he is going.

“Should we call the police?” I ask, still partially in shock.

“I don’t think it will be too long before someone picks him up,” Lily states. She walks over to the body bag that David was in and folds it up before putting it in a fresh trash bag.

I continue to stare out the window, even though David is no longer in sight. “Do you think it was on purpose?”

“Sending him here even though he wasn’t dead?”

“Yeah. Seems kind of premature.”

Lily ties up the bag and sets it by the trash can.

“Maybe. The police might investigate.”

“Who was his mom, anyway?”

Lily smiles a rare smile, as if she has concluded that all this is absurdly funny. “That was David Monroe.”