heard Porky Pig, Dottore Berto, go for it!
As the great Yogi Berra once said, it was déjà vu all over again.
For a moment I was back home, standing in the police morgue beside my mentor, Dr. Corrado Agnelli. Salvatore Gatto, my best and only surviving early boyhood friend Sal, had been brought there. My clothes were still covered with blood and bone spatters from the shotgun blasts that had taken his life an hour before.
Now Sal’s mutilated body lay on the same stainless steel table that had cradled my dead lady, my Marigold Lady, thirteen years earlier.
“Corrado, I can’t go through with this. I can’t!”
The dead lady had decided my life’s work; Sal’s death had made me question my resolve.
“You must, Berto, for Sal’s sake … and your own.”
I watched the police surgeons dissect what had once been a friend, the person who had been my surrogate brother.
You heard Agnelli, Berto. Show me ya got the balls ta do it.
Shut up, Sal
Chicken!
Cut it out, for cryin’ out loud!
Chicken shit, chicken shit!
I took a breath. My hand moved forward and grasped the zipper. I felt my classmates’ hands rest on my own. Together we pulled it down.
Bravo, Dottore, bravo!
Grazie, Sal.
“City Boy, you okay?”
Dave was shaking me.
I opened my eyes.
“Huh? Oh …uh … yeah, Dave. Sorry guys.”
The girls smiled at me. It made me feel good.
Now, wasn’t that worth it, paisan?
Suddenly we heard retching and a male voice crying out, “Oh, sweet Jesus!” and then the sound of a collapsing body.
Hedley and Gable raced to that table and helped our classmate stand back up.
“He worked for my father! He used to play with me when I was a kid!”
Chet’s tearful voice kept repeating those words. Hedley and Gable re-zipped the bag and wheeled the cart out of the lab. Within minutes the morgue attendant arrived with another body.
We began examining our cadaver.
In life he had been a big man, powerfully built, like a boxer. African-American, he didn’t appear to be older than his mid-to-late forties. What could have killed a man like this? We would soon find out.
Hey, Sal, bet this is what you’d have looked like in twenty five years!
No answer.
“Listen up, peepuwl.”
Jeez, now he’s Elmer Fudd!
Hedley continued: “What happened to your colleague this morning is a reminder; death overtakes us all. At some point, each and every one of you will see someone close to you—someone you know—die.”
Carol nodded.
I remembered Angie, Tomas, and especially Salvatore; all my early childhood friends now gone, snatched from life before my very eyes.
“We’re going to remove the brain first. It’s the most fragile and difficult organ to preserve and some may … uh … not be in …uh… good shape.”
Gable and Hedley exchanged glances.
At that remark a group of graduate anatomy students arrived, each carrying an electric circular saw and a large morgue scalpel. One walked to our table, and, as we watched, he made a semicircular cut two-thirds around the cadaver’s scalp. He reached out and in one, sock-removing motion, pulled the scalp up and forward. Then he placed the saw against the now-bare skull, and the rotating blade easily cut through the bone.
Dead bone smells like burning dog hair when it’s cut.
“Voila! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the human brain.”
Our graduate student bowed as we applauded.
Once more the sounds of retching, but this time it was a response to the terrible, rotting-flesh odor filling the air.
“Sorry, folks,” Hedley said, “but as I told you, sometimes the preservative doesn’t reach the brain.”
Damned good thing my brain was fresh, right Berto?
Sal, you didn’t have one.
That wasn’t an insult. One of the shotgun blasts had taken half of Sal’s head off.
Two rows down a foul-smelling pablum oozed from the brain case of the cadaver lying there.
The graduate student at the table cleaned up the mess. Meanwhile Hedley and Gable circulated, eventually reaching us.
“Ah, splendid!” Hedley gushed, as he noted our cadaver’s intact brain.
Well, not truly intact. A large, preserved blood clot had indented a good portion of the left side.
“This is wonderful, students. It’s obvious what killed this man.”
Gable seemed in ecstasy.
Whatever turns ya on, lady.
Shut up, Sal.
Our cadaver, whom we soon nicknamed “Harry,” had died of a massive stroke. A major artery had ruptured in his brain, probably killing him instantly. In life, like many African-Americans, he had suffered from uncontrolled high blood pressure. Unfortunately, like most men of any skin color back then, he probably ignored the symptoms or had no inkling that he had a problem.
I think of the myriad drugs we have today to treat elevated blood pressure and the ethnic-specific drugs that can be even more effective. Back then we had fluid pills—diuretics—and a drug called alpha methyl dopa, which caused people to pass out when they stood up too quickly. Our biggest gun was a hideously powerful and unstable medication called nitroprusside. It often killed more than it helped.
Once more Hedley’s voice changed, this time a close match to Daffy Duck.
Wonder if he can do Bugs Bunny.
Each of you has your disthecting kit, yeth?
His pronunciation of “dissecting” would have made Daffy or even Sylvester the Cat proud.
We all nodded. The wallet-sized, plastic kit held a large bladed scalpel, semi-dull scissors, pointed probe and tweezers.
“For the most part,
