Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory

My excitement at finally squeezing legitimate praise from Mike was short-lived, promptly turning into guilt. I had applied to mortuary school, and had been accepted.

Being accepted didn’t mean I had to attend. This was the end of 2008, the beginning of the economic crisis, a foolish time to quit any stable job, even a job as bizarre as crematory operator. But my life in San Francisco was still bland and lonely, and the Cypress College of Mortuary Science (one of only two mortuary schools in California) was located in Orange County, the suburban wonderland just south of Los Angeles and home to the Real Housewives and Disneyland. I didn’t want to be an embalmer, the trade taught at mortuary schools like Cypress, but I did want to discover firsthand how our national mortality racket was training its future members. Where, exactly, did things go so wrong: with the people who ran the industry, the people who taught them, or the industry itself?

Then there was Luke, more of a consideration than I would then admit to myself, who had been living in Southern California for several years. At the end of college we had planned to move to Los Angeles together, to get an apartment, and to live as penniless but fulfilled artists. Instead I broke north for San Francisco and pursued my wild hare of a death obsession. It was a selfish decision at the time, but things were different now. I knew who I was, my life had a purpose, and I was ready to be with him.

“So, you’re moving to L.A., Doughty? For real this time?” Luke asked, skeptical.

“Don’t be too flattered, buddy. It’s not that I want to move to L.A., per se, I just have to get away from all these corpses. Have you read Explosion in a Cathedral?


“I am tired of dwelling amongst the dead. . . . Everything smells of corpses here. I want to return to the world of the living, where people believe in something.”


He laughed. “Everything smells of corpses, eh? What’s your metaphor with that? Is the crematory made of corpses?”

“Yes, but they are incredibly difficult to build with,” I explained.

“I thought they were pretty stiff.”

“Right, so good for initial bracing. But their constant decay is bad for foundational security. Unpredictable, you know?

“Caitlin, I think you should get out of there before all of those corpses come crashing down around you.”

Luke tipped the scales. I would head south for the winter.

I finally told Mike a week later. He kept a poker face and said, “Well, if that’s your decision.”

It was more obvious that Chris didn’t want me to go. We had memories together, like the time we picked up an elderly hoarder lying in a pool of her own blood on the kitchen floor, the counter cluttered with open peanut butter and Nutella containers crawling with roaches. Many of our memories were disgusting, but they were our memories nonetheless.

As my departure approached, we posted the opening for my job on the Internet, and people applied in droves. The job market must have been abysmal, because people seemed eager to work in a mortuary.

Many people were applying to the job listing, but that didn’t mean many good people were applying to the listing. From one cover letter: “You can trust me because I am a Muslim. I don’t do fraud. There could be a $100 bill on the floor and I would not pick it up. The one thing that motivates me is incentive: If I run 3 miles a day, what will I get?”

Then there were the myriad applications with incorrect spelling/terminology/grammar: “Objective: To aquire experience and gain oppurtunity to work in field of mortuary.”

The real gems came in when we selected several people to fill out an additional questionnaire. I thought that the questionnaire was a little much, in an “if you were a tree what kind of tree would you be?” way, but one has to separate the wheat from the chaff.


Q: In approximately 300 words explain why you are interested in working at a mortuary.

A: I love the death.

Q: Are you aware of, or have you participated in any religious/spiritual rituals surrounding death? Please describe these events.

A: I play with the wigy [sic] board once.

Q: Are you able to be empathetic to people without becoming personally involved? Describe a situation where you were able to do this.

A: I kill a bunch of people once.

Q: Are you able to be flexible with regards to your job duties and description?

A: Oh hell yeah.


These candidates’ qualifications aside, Mike eventually hired Jerry, a tall, attractive African American man. Ironically, Jerry had previously worked for the removal service. He was one of the removal “goons” Mike swore up and down he would never hire just a few weeks prior. I guess when your other candidate’s experience is having played “with the wigy board once,” it shifts your perspective.