wouldn’t everyone be jumping from their seats to make a fuss?
See? Situational awareness. The airlines had discovered it could work for and against them.
When Flo and I pulled into the hangar, the lights were dimmed as the mechanics had gone home, though a pair of lunch boxes remained on the picnic table outside the utility office on the right side of the building. Behind the Plexiglas, a security guard leaned way back in an office chair with his back to us and his feet up on the desk. The hangar was so large it could house an entire neighborhood. So large, in fact, that WorldAir opted to place only a single security camera at the entrance of the facility, then sprang for the round-the-clock security officer to address any unlikely intrusions.
Flo directed the tug train toward the starboard side of the mammoth aircraft, the side farthest from the security guard, who hadn’t looked up from his nap. She parked it so that the last trailer was blocked from view by the giant wheel of the back landing gear. She braked the vehicle and I hopped off in a rush toward the caskets. Flo was right behind.
“Where the hell are the ID stickers?” I griped.
“Who cares,” Flo said, thwacking the first crate with the crowbar she’d taken from the ramp worker. Splinters flew but the lid didn’t budge.
“Give it,” I took the crowbar and shoved the flat end into the seam of the lid and partially pried it open, then repeated the maneuver further down the crack until we could get enough leverage to pop open the lid. I didn’t have to take a second look to know it wasn’t what we were looking for. Inside the naked body of a heavily tattooed Hispanic man stared back at us, the Y-shaped coroner’s incision traversing his lumpy, bloated torso. It looked like the coroner used kite twine to unevenly stitch it back together. This rankled a peculiar offense to my sense of decorum. “Oh my God, I hope after my autopsy they sew me up better than that.”
“Promise me you’ll bury me at sea,” Flo said.
We shoved the crate off the trailer to make way for the one underneath. I cringed when it hit the ground with a crash, rolled on its side, and emptied its contents onto the floor. Sorry , I winced, grateful the body was encased in plastic. “Did we break him open? It looks like we broke him open.”
“Focus, Crash,” Flo reminded me. She’d adopted my technique with the crowbar and was halfway finished prying off the lid of the next casket. I placed my palms under the lip of the cover and shoved upward, popping it free. I looked away; inside was a girl who could not have been more than 19. Poor thing. She wore only blue panties. Her cause of death wasn’t discernable from the outside.
The next casket held a guy who must have been in his seventies. The skin on his face and neck was speckled with dried blood, but other than that he looked like he was sleeping.
“Here goes nothing,” Flo deftly pried open the next lid without my help. She was getting pretty good at it now. As soon as she flipped it open, the stench hit us in the face like a cloud of chemical toilets.
First, it’s common for things to go awry during the international shipping of human remains, and this was a case in point. A hermetic seal is just a “tight seal,” not necessarily an “airtight seal.” And if left unattended in a warm climate, a hermetically sealed cadaver can slow-cook like one of those meals-in-a-sack you find in old army rations. I covered my nose and mouth with the crook of my arm and finally noticed the claim sticker on the bottom corner of the crate. It showed the cadaver had come in on a flight from GCM that night. It was hot in the Caribbean this time of year; this casket must have sat on the tarmac at Owen Roberts airport and stewed for a few hours before they finally loaded it.
“Looks like the same sewing technique as the first guy.” Flo lit a cigarette and pointed to the coroner’s incision. The corpse was a pot-bellied
See? Situational awareness. The airlines had discovered it could work for and against them.
When Flo and I pulled into the hangar, the lights were dimmed as the mechanics had gone home, though a pair of lunch boxes remained on the picnic table outside the utility office on the right side of the building. Behind the Plexiglas, a security guard leaned way back in an office chair with his back to us and his feet up on the desk. The hangar was so large it could house an entire neighborhood. So large, in fact, that WorldAir opted to place only a single security camera at the entrance of the facility, then sprang for the round-the-clock security officer to address any unlikely intrusions.
Flo directed the tug train toward the starboard side of the mammoth aircraft, the side farthest from the security guard, who hadn’t looked up from his nap. She parked it so that the last trailer was blocked from view by the giant wheel of the back landing gear. She braked the vehicle and I hopped off in a rush toward the caskets. Flo was right behind.
“Where the hell are the ID stickers?” I griped.
“Who cares,” Flo said, thwacking the first crate with the crowbar she’d taken from the ramp worker. Splinters flew but the lid didn’t budge.
“Give it,” I took the crowbar and shoved the flat end into the seam of the lid and partially pried it open, then repeated the maneuver further down the crack until we could get enough leverage to pop open the lid. I didn’t have to take a second look to know it wasn’t what we were looking for. Inside the naked body of a heavily tattooed Hispanic man stared back at us, the Y-shaped coroner’s incision traversing his lumpy, bloated torso. It looked like the coroner used kite twine to unevenly stitch it back together. This rankled a peculiar offense to my sense of decorum. “Oh my God, I hope after my autopsy they sew me up better than that.”
“Promise me you’ll bury me at sea,” Flo said.
We shoved the crate off the trailer to make way for the one underneath. I cringed when it hit the ground with a crash, rolled on its side, and emptied its contents onto the floor. Sorry , I winced, grateful the body was encased in plastic. “Did we break him open? It looks like we broke him open.”
“Focus, Crash,” Flo reminded me. She’d adopted my technique with the crowbar and was halfway finished prying off the lid of the next casket. I placed my palms under the lip of the cover and shoved upward, popping it free. I looked away; inside was a girl who could not have been more than 19. Poor thing. She wore only blue panties. Her cause of death wasn’t discernable from the outside.
The next casket held a guy who must have been in his seventies. The skin on his face and neck was speckled with dried blood, but other than that he looked like he was sleeping.
“Here goes nothing,” Flo deftly pried open the next lid without my help. She was getting pretty good at it now. As soon as she flipped it open, the stench hit us in the face like a cloud of chemical toilets.
First, it’s common for things to go awry during the international shipping of human remains, and this was a case in point. A hermetic seal is just a “tight seal,” not necessarily an “airtight seal.” And if left unattended in a warm climate, a hermetically sealed cadaver can slow-cook like one of those meals-in-a-sack you find in old army rations. I covered my nose and mouth with the crook of my arm and finally noticed the claim sticker on the bottom corner of the crate. It showed the cadaver had come in on a flight from GCM that night. It was hot in the Caribbean this time of year; this casket must have sat on the tarmac at Owen Roberts airport and stewed for a few hours before they finally loaded it.
“Looks like the same sewing technique as the first guy.” Flo lit a cigarette and pointed to the coroner’s incision. The corpse was a pot-bellied
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