keep it hid. We have to work like a thief in the night. I daresay there’s not a one of you that’s ever seen a deceased moved out of a New Yorkapartment house or hotel. No, and you never will. We got ways.” He smiled. “Oh, well,” he said, “no matter how the public feels about embalmers, in the end some embalmer gets them all.”
“You needn’t be so happy about it,” said Mr. Flood. “In the end, some embalmer’s going to get you, too.”
“That’s the truth,” said Mr. Bethea. He sighed. “It’s a peculiar thing. I’m a veteran in my line. If you took all the deceased I’ve attended to and stood them shoulder to shoulder, they’d make a picket fence from here to Pittsburgh, both sides of the road. With all that in back of me, you’d think I wouldn’t mind death. Oh, but I do! Every time I think about it in connection with myself, I tremble all over. What was that other question you wanted to ask, Mr. Cusack?”
“I wanted to ask, do you believe in a reward beyond the grave,” said Mr. Cusack. “By that, I mean heaven or hell.”
“No, sir,” said Mr. Bethea, “I can’t say that I do.”
“Well, then,” said Mr. Flood, “what makes you go to church so steady? You’re there every Sunday in the year, Sunday school
and
sermon.”
“Hugh,” said Mr. Bethea, “it don’t pay to be too cock-sure.”
THE TURN OF THE CONVERSATION made me restless and I went over and sat on the window sill, with my plate in my lap, and looked out over the rooftops of the market. It was a full-moon night. There was a wind from the harbor and it blew the heady, blood-quickening, sensual smell of the market into the room. The Fulton Market smell is a commingling of smells. I tried to take it apart. I could distinguish the reek of the ancient fish and oyster houses, and the exhalations of the harbor. And I could distinguish the smell of tar, a smell that came from an attic on South Street, the net loft of a fishing-boat supply house, where trawler nets that have been dipped in tar vats are hung beside open windows to drain and dry. And I could distinguish the oakwoody smell of smoke from the stack of a loft on Beekman Street in which finnan haddies are cured; the furnace of this loft burns white-oak and hickory shavings and sawdust. And tangled in these smells were still other smells—the acridsmoke from the stacks of the row of coffee-roasting plants on Front Street, and the pungent smoke from the stack of the Purity Spice Mill on Dover Street, and the smell of rawhides from The Swamp, the tannery district, which adjoins the market on the north. Mr. Cusack came over and took a look out the window. He returned immediately to his chair.
“I’m thankful to God I’m not an officer walking the streets tonight,” he said.
“Why’s that, Matty?” asked Mr. Flood.
“It’s a full-moon night,” said Mr. Cusack. “There’ll be peculiar things happening all over town. It’s well known in the Police Department that a full-moon night stirs up trouble. It stirs up people’s blood and brings out all the meanness and craziness in them, and it creates all manner of problems for policemen. A man or woman who’s ordinarily twenty-five per cent batty, when the moon is full they’re one hundred per cent batty. A full moon has a pull to it. Look at the tide; the tide is highest on a full moon. The moon pulls people this way and that way. With some, it’s a feeble pull; they don’t hardly notice it. Others just can’t resist; they don’t know what’s got hold of them. They actpeculiar. They act like bashi-bazouks. They pick on their wives and they get drunk and they insult people twice their size and they do their best to get into serious trouble. They look at black and say it’s white, and if you don’t agree it’s white they hit you on the head. In the Department, we call such people full-mooners. It’s been my experience that they’re particularly numerous among the Irish and the Scandinavians and
“You needn’t be so happy about it,” said Mr. Flood. “In the end, some embalmer’s going to get you, too.”
“That’s the truth,” said Mr. Bethea. He sighed. “It’s a peculiar thing. I’m a veteran in my line. If you took all the deceased I’ve attended to and stood them shoulder to shoulder, they’d make a picket fence from here to Pittsburgh, both sides of the road. With all that in back of me, you’d think I wouldn’t mind death. Oh, but I do! Every time I think about it in connection with myself, I tremble all over. What was that other question you wanted to ask, Mr. Cusack?”
“I wanted to ask, do you believe in a reward beyond the grave,” said Mr. Cusack. “By that, I mean heaven or hell.”
“No, sir,” said Mr. Bethea, “I can’t say that I do.”
“Well, then,” said Mr. Flood, “what makes you go to church so steady? You’re there every Sunday in the year, Sunday school
and
sermon.”
“Hugh,” said Mr. Bethea, “it don’t pay to be too cock-sure.”
THE TURN OF THE CONVERSATION made me restless and I went over and sat on the window sill, with my plate in my lap, and looked out over the rooftops of the market. It was a full-moon night. There was a wind from the harbor and it blew the heady, blood-quickening, sensual smell of the market into the room. The Fulton Market smell is a commingling of smells. I tried to take it apart. I could distinguish the reek of the ancient fish and oyster houses, and the exhalations of the harbor. And I could distinguish the smell of tar, a smell that came from an attic on South Street, the net loft of a fishing-boat supply house, where trawler nets that have been dipped in tar vats are hung beside open windows to drain and dry. And I could distinguish the oakwoody smell of smoke from the stack of a loft on Beekman Street in which finnan haddies are cured; the furnace of this loft burns white-oak and hickory shavings and sawdust. And tangled in these smells were still other smells—the acridsmoke from the stacks of the row of coffee-roasting plants on Front Street, and the pungent smoke from the stack of the Purity Spice Mill on Dover Street, and the smell of rawhides from The Swamp, the tannery district, which adjoins the market on the north. Mr. Cusack came over and took a look out the window. He returned immediately to his chair.
“I’m thankful to God I’m not an officer walking the streets tonight,” he said.
“Why’s that, Matty?” asked Mr. Flood.
“It’s a full-moon night,” said Mr. Cusack. “There’ll be peculiar things happening all over town. It’s well known in the Police Department that a full-moon night stirs up trouble. It stirs up people’s blood and brings out all the meanness and craziness in them, and it creates all manner of problems for policemen. A man or woman who’s ordinarily twenty-five per cent batty, when the moon is full they’re one hundred per cent batty. A full moon has a pull to it. Look at the tide; the tide is highest on a full moon. The moon pulls people this way and that way. With some, it’s a feeble pull; they don’t hardly notice it. Others just can’t resist; they don’t know what’s got hold of them. They actpeculiar. They act like bashi-bazouks. They pick on their wives and they get drunk and they insult people twice their size and they do their best to get into serious trouble. They look at black and say it’s white, and if you don’t agree it’s white they hit you on the head. In the Department, we call such people full-mooners. It’s been my experience that they’re particularly numerous among the Irish and the Scandinavians and
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