Between Heaven and Earth

By Dave Esposito

Chapter 1 - Origin Story

Juliet V. Mountainview unlocked the main door to the  quiet confines of the  Mountainview  Memorial Funeral Chapel  on a Monday morning in May and proceeded to her office just off the main hallway from the visitation rooms. Her day had just begun at 11:00 a.m. and would not end for the next twelve hours. “Bankers hours",  she'd been told by friends, which was accurate if you looked only at the starting time. She had a list of appointments and tasks in front of her, and sipping her cup of coffee, took on the first one; paperwork for the second pick-up yesterday of a deceased person, one that her father, Randall J. Montainview, had handled.  She was in charge of the family funeral home that day, her father resting from his work over the weekend which included two services on Saturday  plus two pickups on Sunday. He would have come in on Monday like her but she had forbidden him to work seven days a week now that he was nearing 70. Juliet had worked through the weekend too.

She was thin with sharp attractive features,  minimally applied makeup, and brownish black hair pinned in a bun, and. She had just turned thirty one and was single by choice, which wasn’t a choice as much as a fact of being simply too busy with her work, at least for now.

The Mountainview Memorial Funeral Chapel had two viewing rooms, which made it undersized compared to the new mega-funeral emporiums that could handle up to eight viewings simultaneously. They had far more staff  than the Mountainview home, which had just Juliet and Randall,  and one part time person who went with them on pickups and did other tasks as required. At the Mega homes, there could be a dozen fulltimers each having one job to do; Funeral Director, Embalmer, Cosmetician, Driver, and so on.   Juliet and her father did all that and more;  they drove, they picked up bodies, they embalmed, consulted with families, ran the business, and drove the hearse to the church and cemetery. Sometimes they cleaned, vacuumed, and took out the garbage too which consisted mainly of tear-stained kleenexes and small water bottles that were always available to visitors. 

One Wednesday evening during a 4-8pm viewing, the only one in the home that evening, Juliet manned her customary spot near the front door, within eyeshot of the viewing rooms. It was here she sat welcoming visitors and answering questions regarding the next day’s service or, more frequently,  the restroom's location. This evening's viewing had over a hundred visitors, which was a busy night for two viewings let alone one. 

Juliet always kept an eye for anything out of the ordinary, leaving her desk occasionally to  cruise through the lobby and  visitation rooms. She had just returned  to her desk when she noticed an elderly woman, purse in hand,  exiting the women's restroom and looking agitated.  The woman looked left and right and then waved forcefully to someone just out of Juliet’s line of sight. In a moment a young man, probably a grandson or nephew in a neat dark suit, walked quickly over and spoke to her briefly. Then he stepped into the bathroom and disappeared. The older woman remained outside the door, presumably standing guard. Juliet was already in motion and covered the distance to the restroom in a few seconds. The woman, hand covering  her mouth, informed Juliet the toilet was about to overflow and if it did there would be quite a mess. She had sent her grandson son in to see if he could fix the problem.

Juliet excused herself, knocked and walked into the restroom. The young man, who had ducked into the bathroom not thirty seconds before, had already removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and tossed his tie over his shoulder. A pair of cufflinks were neatly sitting side by side on the vanity. He was on his knees reaching behind the toilet turning the water valve off. “Oh my, this is something sir!” He turned towards her momentarily. The toilet was about two inches from overflowing and she could see it was a real mess in there. Don’t these problems generally happen to people in the morning, she thought. She was concerned and mortified, wondering why he hadn’t alerted staff about the issue, but switched her thinking, oddly pleased by his shape and face.   “Please, let me handle it.”she said,  and offered her hand as he was getting up. He took hold and as he got up,  made eye contact and then immediately broke it.  “I’ve turned the water off, would you have a plunger or a plumber's snake handy?” Juliet was about to repeat she would take care of this but changed her mind, why she didn’t know, and instead announced that she would be back in a minute.

 She slipped out of the restroom and walked quickly to the maintenance closet. There were even more visitors in the lobby. She entered the closet and grabbed a plunger and a “Caution Wet Floor'' sandwich board sign, then slipped swiftly back to the women’s restroom, thanking the young man's grandmother who was still standing guard. Juliet put the warning sign in front of the door and stepped back inside. He turned, reaching his arm out for the plunger,  “Great!” he said. She handed him the plunger, handle end first, without a word. He seemed to know what he was doing, and she just hoped  he wouldn’t make the brimming toilet situation worse. He placed the plunger in the toilet carefully, shortened up his grip on the handle, and very slowly but powerfully began plunging. He plunged a couple of dozen times before he backed up. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then the toilet made a gurgling sound and suddenly, what sounded like a large deep “bloop” was followed by a series of huge bubbles that rose quickly to the surface and the toilet drained like a trap door had opened.  He flushed again, and gave her the all clear sign. There was no mess on the outside of the bowl, but he took advantage of the scrub brush and clorox alongside the wastebasket behind the toilet, and in another half minute, had everything clean and fresh again. “Time to reopen,” he said gunslinger-like. She said, “Thank God!” almost adding, “who was that masked man?” He rinsed the plunger in the bowl, and placed it plunger-end first in a small trash bag that she found under the vanity and had it waiting without him having to ask. There was not a single drop of anything awful anywhere on the floor, or on him. He got up, flipped his tie forward, scrubbed his hands quickly in the sink, grabbed his cufflinks and suit jacket and in the next moment they were both out the door. From start to finish the whole adventure lasted maybe three minutes. Not even time enough for a queue to assemble near the restroom. She picked up the sandwich board and he followed with the plunger in its bag, moving discreetly through the still-crowded lobby, to the maintenance room around the corner, 

She had left the door slightly open and she placed the sandwich board just inside, then turned to him. She was struck with how he was looking at her. He was staring but in a surprised, difficult to read kind of way and she took a quick breath and thought she must be imagining things. He had a nice tanned face and green-brown eyes, brown wavy hair with half-formed ringlets that lended his face a cherubic quality. 

Once again, she offered her hand and thanked him. It lay in his hand as if in repose. Then,  “My name is Julie Mountainview. My father owns this place.” “Pleased to meet you, I’m Romy Capulati," he said formally . “So you work for your father too?” he asked. He was still holding her hand which was warm and beautifully shaped and amazing to hold. He snapped out of it wondering if he was holding it too hard. She looked at him, “Yes, since I was in highschool. What does your Dad do?” she stumbled. Then, “What do you do Mr. Capulati”? He looked at her and paused for a moment. “I run the family septic tank cleaning service. My Dad started the business before I was born and he and Mom have been gone for years now. So I’ve been at it since I was 25. Maybe you’ve seen my trucks, Capulati & Son Septic Services.   She interrupted, “We Do Doo Doo! in italics, “That’s you - Mr. Capulati?”, she burst out laughing. He shook his head, “That’s me”, he said, “Please call me Romy”. “Well, Romy, these are strange circumstances to be saying it’s a pleasure to meet you, but thanks to you it is…was” she faltered again. She handed him her card without thinking, god, what the hell is wrong with you shoving a business card at the man who saved the day. She wanted him to take money, offering to write a check right then, but he declined. She tried thinking of something to say or do in appreciation but she could see that he didn’t need anything from her; it seemed doing a good turn was enough for him. Involuntarily, she offered her hand one more time and he took it in his, and looking down she suddenly formed a sweet picture in her mind of a bear claw holding a white powdered eclair .  How odd, …I’m weird, she thought.

Chapter 2 - Rose and Romy

Juliet and her Father were finishing up with eighty nine year old  Rose F. in the embalming room the following Wednesday. She had died two days before and her wake was scheduled for today and the following evening, with funeral services Friday at 11am at the Catholic cemetery about a mile away. 

Rose’s age group comprised the majority of the funeral home’s work: old people who followed the natural order of things, and had moved on to whatever was next. Most of the families were decent, happy, and often relieved, especially if the deceased person had suffered much towards the end.  Most  had ebbed away; they were tired and worn out humans, acquiescing at the end with bravery and even a sense of duty. 

For Juliet, members of this demographic provided calm, non traumatic and peaceful work. To her,  the processes used to prepare a body for viewing were no more repellant than changing a baby’s diaper, which she had done several times and which she did find repellant.  That would fade as well if she ever had a child; she knew that, and she hoped she would give birth one day. This was a  thought she often had while preparing the dead for their families. 

It was a much more somber experience when a young person died, to say nothing of an infant passing. These experiences in particular, were very difficult, and her father helped her out when they were prepared for the family. Juliet and Randall would stand together quietly and do their work carefully and respectfully. Helping families through these tribulations was always difficult but deeply fulfilling work. It mattered to Juliet that she was  doing work that not many others could or would do. There were the accidents of course, and the decomps which could be horrific, but Juliet found that over time she could manage these situations, and even welcome them if it was the family’s wishes, and if she could present the body in such a way as to allow them to bid a final goodbye. 

Juliet usually worked alone in the embalming room, but there was a second body to prepare for viewing early the following week and so her Father assisted. Randall Mountainview stood beside his daughter, doing the embalming, the embalming pump rhythmically whirring and lulling and clicking while Julia applied a cosmetic base to Mrs. F. 's face. He looked on with admiration; Juliet alway seemed to capture the loved one’s essence in a way that he, even with photographs to work from, struggled. She had a gift. She worked quietly, and for however long it took, to achieve calm and peace in what would be the final picture, framed by the casket, the family would carry with them into the future. 

Randall loved his one and only daughter, and was immensely pleased and honored that she wanted to continue at the funeral home, to make it her life’s work, which he slowly had come to realize was a given even though they hadn’t discussed it. He could sense it in the five year plan for the business she mulled over with him: a second hearse, new signage, another branch, expanded marketing. She was finishing an MBA that she had been working on for four years and, early on, he had asked her how or where she would put it to use. “Right here, Dad. This is where I want to be and that is never going to change”. Randall was not surprised at this statement, even so,  he misted up when she said it.  And it was her choice too, as he had never, ever, suggested that she should follow in his footsteps. He had always assumed she would get her degree, move on, get married, adopt a distinct career, and maybe move away from the small city they lived in. She was going to stay put though; she had helped at the business from   adolescence, after school and on weekends, after her mother had passed in her junior year of highschool, and all the way through college. Randall  had always been impressed and thankful for her solidity, focus, and her ability to do difficult things like work with the dead. She also gave him a reason to go on living. She was a wife, a daughter  and a son too.

Juliet had one good friend, the daughter of another funeral director, who helped her through her mother’s loss, but no real friends from high school, not surprisingly because her classmates tended to avoid her for obvious “your father touches dead people” reasons. 

Chapter 3 -The Flood

Romy Capulati drove by the Mountainview Memorial Funeral Chapel at 7am on Saturday morning the weekend after his adventure at the funeral home with Juliet. He was on his way to the first of five septic tank pumping jobs for the day. He glanced over to see if there was any sign of Juliet Mountainview, which of course there wasn’t…he didn’t even know what kind of car she drove, and what would be the chances she would just happen to be out in the driveway at that time of the morning anyhow? He had thought about their five minutes together countless times over the last few days and a surge of energy and life washed over him when he did, daydreaming he had met a kindred spirit  who was on the outside of society like him but cleaner, smarter, married to her work, but still alone in her life and thus thirsting for more. 

He drove on. The tank mounted on the ten wheeler Romy drove held 5000 gallons, and because it was empty,   bounced  a lot as it drove down the side streets to his first job. He had arrived at his office an hour before and fueled up, checked the truck thoroughly, running lights, signals, horn, tire pressure, and most importantly the condition of the pumping hoses, vacuum pump and their connections. He should be able to do all five jobs without having to offload the tank at the treatment facility which was a twenty five mile round trip. That would make his day about 10 hours from the time he pulled out of the shop until the time he got into his car and drove back to his home; a two bedroom ranch, and ironically, on city water. 

About two miles down the road from Juliet’s place, (which was how he now thought of the funeral home), he pulled onto a sidestreet and parked. He had pumped the system at this residence many times over the years and it would take about 75 feet of the 200 feet of hose he carried to reach the tank. This tank had a clean-out at ground level so he wouldn’t have to dig down with a shovel to unearth the septic tank concrete lid, and that would save a  bunch of time and measuring from landmarks on the property to  triangulate on where to dig. It took him five minutes to get into his protective gear which included a face shield, goggles, liquid repellent coveralls, waterproof gloves, and rubber boots. In another five minutes he had quietly run the hose to the cleanout, and begun pumping. He took care to keep the noise to a minimum as it was only 7:30am and he didn’t want to disturb the neighbors. He daydreamed about Juliet while the pump at the truck hummed and thumped lowly, like a slumbering bear whose claw lightly held a white powdered eclair, which made him hungry. 

Thirty minutes later the tank was clean and after seating the concrete lid, he spent another ten minutes cleaning and coiling the hoses and packing up, leaving his PPE on since his next job was close by.

At 8:15 a.m. he was finished and climbed back into his truck setting out for Job 2 a mile and a half away. The truck didn’t bounce as much now that it had some weight in the tank. The blue sky and slanting sunlight lit up his face with a smile. This was a perfect day. He liked the routine and the predictability of his job. He liked working alone. He liked returning to the same customers every couple of years to empty their tank and for remaining repeat customers. They respected and valued the essential job he did for them. He even liked the trip up and back to the treatment facility, though after a day working alone, he would have welcomed conversation.  

He had been driving for about a minute when he saw an out-of-place black ribbon of water a couple of hundred yards up on the  street. It was streaming across the asphalt and breaking against the concrete curb like water hitting a jetty. It was a lot of water! He was just in front of the Catholic Cemetery and thought, uh-oh, probably a water main. He looked towards the cemetery up the hill, and sure enough, another ribbon of water was running across a sidestreet. A fire hydrant spouted a horizontal geyser at passing cars, their wipers motoring at top speed as they drove through the deluge. He caught a movement in the graveyard and saw a woman running toward a tent he could just make out behind the yew bushes and iron rail fence encircling the cemetery. He had a funny feeling. He checked his rear mirror, braked quickly, pulled over to the curb and put his flashers on. The tank on the truck sloshed and then was still. Goggles still on his forehead and protective mask slung back, he jumped out of the truck and ran across the street  onto the graveyard access road. He saw the woman. She was dressed in a dark blue suit and white shirt. She was splashing water as she got closer to the tent but seemed oblivious to that,  one hand on her forehead and punching  buttons on her cellphone with the other. He saw it was her, it was Juliet! She had reached the  open grave with the tent above it and right away you could see the problem. A small river was  running from  the broken main up the street, down into the graveyard and emptying into the grave which was overflowing  out and onto the street where he was parked. She must have heard him coming because she turned around and then a look of shock came over as if she had witnessed a miracle.  “Mr Capulati! Romy!” she stammered. “Miss Mountainv… Juliet”, he stuttered . He walked the final few feet to her, boots sloshing, “You've got a problem!” “Oh my God! I have funeral services at this grave site in exactly one hour. I can't reach the grave diggers or a plumber, or somebody who can pump this out. Then I started looking for your company but I didn’t have your card which I should have asked for the other night but instead gave you mine! How stupid… I had just found the number when you pulled up.” While she was talking he noticed a water department truck, lights flashing,  up by the spouting fire hydrant and a worker with an enormous wrench turning the shut-off valve closed. The ground near the grave was wet with moving water but in a couple of minutes the water stopped running and there was just an open grave completely filled to the top with water. “Just give me a minute, everything’s going to be OK.” She grabbed his hand and shook it fiercely. He took off towards his truck which was maybe 150 ft away.  In a minute, he had turned the truck around and parked it on the cemetery side of the street, in line with the grave which was now closer by twenty feet or so. He turned on his flashers,  set up road cones in front of and in back of the truck, then unspooled a section of hose and fed it through the black iron fence and the yew bushes. In another minute, he had run back into the graveyard and dragged the hose up to the grave and began pumping. He stood near the pump and moved it several times to pump inside and out of the concrete vault box already in place in the grave.  She stood by, about twenty feet away and watched without moving, arms folded and chin resting on her hand. She shook her head slightly several times, she couldn’t believe he, Romy, was there again, truly in her hour of need. Then her father pulled up in his car and he made it over to Juliet and stood there watching too, his arm around her shoulder. At 9:15 the grave was empty of water and the water draining from the cemetery lawn above had stopped draining too. Randall J. and Juliet Mountainview thanked Romy Capaleti and since he refused any payment, calling it a neighborly assistance, Juliet offered him a free funeral. They all laughed and the two men shook hands and Juliet and Romy shook hands, she with both of hers. Romy offered her his phone number and she said she would put it in her speed dial. He said goodbye and wished them good luck for the upcoming service, and they did the same. The sun was shining and the ground around the gravesite where the mourners would be sitting was no longer soggy. Romy got back into his truck, Randall took his car and Juliet took the hearse. She pulled out onto the sidestreet and he pulled onto the street  behind her. For a few moments they drove in single file, then he turned left tapping his horn and waving. She flashed her lights and they parted. The sun hit Juliet’s face and she smiled and she shook as if she had the chills.

Chapter 4 - An everyday courtship

The following week Juliet and Romy had lunch together at the funeral home. She made sandwiches and gave him a tour. He said he wanted to eat lunch in the casket room and she looked at him like he was nuts and then told him as much. They sat amidst the caskets with model names like “Odysseus”, “Aurora”, “Ebb Tide”, and  “Soldier”, which had an embossed flag of the United States pressed into its lid. He asked her about her “free funeral” offer and wondered if he had anything to worry about. Then he asked her out for dinner on Saturday night if she was free. They both had the same  schedules as the previous weekend,  an 11am service for her and a run to the treatment facility at about 4:30 for him. “So how does 7:30 sound?” She replied, “Hold on, hold on, since we're eating lunch in the casket room I have a favor to ask”. “Anything I think,” he replied. He was glad he hadn’t winked. Then she asked him if he would pick her up in his truck for the drive to and from the treatment facility explaining that she had always wanted to drive in a septic cleaning pumping truck. He looked at her like she was crazy, trying to mirror the look she had given him for his choice of the casket showroom they were eating lunch in. “You’ve always wanted to drive in a septic pumper?” “Well a big truck anyway”, she conceded. “I’ve been in a police car and a fire truck and this was on my bucket list.” He shook his head affirmatively but hoped it wouldn't cause her to lose her appetite for dinner. “We're eating lunch in a casket room, and there's a body in that one right over there. Did you lose your appetite for lunch? 

He swung by the Funeral Home at 4:25m Saturday afternoon. She walked out of the garage where the hearse was parked, and they shook hands again. He was grateful for this gesture because he was becoming really fond of her hand. Before he let her into the truck, he asked her to don a fresh pair of coveralls. “They’ll slip right over what you’re wearing and you won’t have to send me a dry cleaning bill.” She climbed into the oversized coveralls, which looked like a garment bag on her, and he helped her find the zipper. He knelt down and rolled up the cuffs so she wouldn’t trip. Then he helped her onto the tall step to the truck cab. Just before he put the truck in gear, her Dad stepped out of the garage and waved goodbye to them,  trying not to laugh. She said, “Look Dad, look at your daughter! Randall called out to Romy, “Have her home by 7:30!”  Romy gave a smile and a salute, “Sir, yes sir”. Juliet yelled over the idling diesel motor, “Go inside Dad!”  Then the truck started moving and she waved back at him with a thumbs up. The Capulati Septic Tank Services pumping truck bearing the italicized, “We Do Doo Doo'' branding, headed down the long driveway and back onto the street. She turned and exclaimed, “Wow”,  this thing really bounces. And he said, “When it's empty you feel like your bones are coming apart.” “It's a sweet ride, though I prefer the hearse," she said.

Randall had worried that he wouldn't be able to think of things to say, or that she would disappoint him with a yuck factor slip of the lowliness of his occupation in the near future. He didn’t foresee what a mad dash to hit it off they embarked on in the casket room that continued now. “It doesn't smell so bad,”she said. He was relieved. He couldn’t smell anything anymore. “You’re lucky, you get to smell flowers when you're driving the hearse”. She shook her head, “Sometimes that can get overwhelming too. Flowers can be sickening at times, like potpourri in a gift shop, which I hate." 

He was quiet for a moment, then turned and asked her why she decided to go out with him, beginning with lunch earlier in the week. She looked at the road ahead while composing her thoughts. “Well I wanted to do more than say thank you of course, and it was my idea when you asked me to dinner that I would treat you, uh…the company would treat you, and that it would be my pleasure." She looked at him again. He said, “It's been hard meeting someone who wouldn't have a yuck factor dating me. I mean there were a few people over the years, but all else being equal,  they would have preferred a guy who had a more mainstream kind of job, a job with the right kind of status. I noticed it, I could tell. I would come home and smell sometimes, not often though. I bought a separate washer and dryer and put it in the basement for work clothes only. Even though most days I would come home cleaner than a lot of office workers I’ll bet. I kept my boots at the shop, I never walked in the house with them.  So I never brought my work home with me so to speak. It’s not a problem  telling people what I do, but I think it was for the women I was seeing.  It’s unavoidable; I don’t blame them. There’s a stigma attached to it…So I left a few of them, and a few of them left me, and thankfully there weren't any ugly scars.” He could see her in his peripheral vision the entire time he was talking. Her eyes were open, staring at him and she leaned toward him and stared.

She looked at the skimming late afternoon sunlight illuminating the lower half of his face. The sun visor cast a shadow on his blue-gray eyes, like a Husky she thought,  but his lips glowed deep red, full of blood and sensuality. She was in a fog. She wanted to reach for his hand but held back.  She gave way.  “I've been a part of this lifestyle, if you want to call it that, since I was a teenager. I wanted my father to have someone close to him that he could rely on, especially after my mother died. And no one, I mean no one ever asked me out.” Romy burst out, “are you kidding?” Uhh, you, well you're beautiful; there should have been a line to your door.”  There was dead silence. He paused for a moment and regrouped. “I wish people would be more understanding and even grateful for people like you.” “Us”, she completed his sentence. “I know, I know, most people are,  a lot of times they seem really interested in my life, but conversations are always a bit awkward.  Maybe I’m a cynic. I find it difficult to believe even well meaning, sympathetic individuals don’t have their hidden prejudices.  It’s so strange though; after all, you are handling their relatives' remains, and I’m handling their excrement,  that's pretty intimate don't you think? Aren’t we practically family?” He continued, “I mean a hundred and fifty years ago, both our jobs would have been handled by families most of the time.” She looked at him again carefully, her eyes were in shadow, her lips warm in the sunlight. She shook slightly, at what was coming to the surface in her and brimming over and for a moment she thought she would cry. She said, “I told you that I did a lot of this for my father, but it's more than that. I do it for myself. I’m glad this is my career.” “Vocation you mean.”, completing her sentence this time.  She nodded, “One hundred percent.” Her words hung in the sunlight; the truck rumbling down the road in front of her, its enormous hood serving up the sky and the horizon.  Then she said, “I haven't missed dating that much, or let me put it this way, I don't feel a sad empty space in my life.”  “Until I Met You Romy.” she thought but didn't say, hoping  one day soon she would.

Chapter 5 - Prologue to a tragedy

She invited him to lunch again the following week. She asked in advance what kind of sandwich he would like. He said anything would do but asked her if she could trim the sandwich in the shape of a coffin. Her father ducked in for a moment and asked, “How are you kids doing?” and then kept going. Romy didn’t notice the caskets anymore. If somebody had propped a body against the wall, he wouldn’t have cared. They mostly smiled quietly together and ate their sandwiches. “Abyss of bliss,”he thought. “Ocean of emotion,”was hers. 

She began coming along on the drive to the waste treatment facility when she didn’t have a late Saturday afternoon funeral or viewing to manage. Saturday’s drive was their special treat, their “uptime”, not downtime, he said. She kept the coveralls he had given her in the funeral home’s garage so she could be dressed and ready to go for their late afternoon outing. The third time she came along was a windy day at the end of May. She turned towards him as he was spotting her on the step to the truck cab, and they melted together. The kiss lasted for several minutes. Her father called out smiling happily, “Just make sure she’s back here by 7:30, " but his words were lost in the wind and he quickly ducked back into the garage where he clapped his hands together. Romy and Juliet looked into each other’s eyes. Her hair blew across her lips in the wind and her eyes grew large. She shivered and he held her closer.  “I can’t believe it”, he said. “There are no words,” she murmured back. 

After the roundtrip that afternoon and dinner that night they decided to go back to his house. She liked his place. He kept it neat and vacuumed. “Is it on septic or city water”, she asked. “That’s for me to know and you to find out”. “Let’s discuss it in  the bedroom,”she explained. 

In the morning they woke up almost in the same instant and stared into each other's eyes, and just like that,  it was all settled.  They had coffee, made breakfast together, and she called her father to let him know she was OK. Romy and Juliet were married one year to the day of their first night together.

In the coming year, their lives spliced together following  the logic of two people who had stumbled on a buried treasure.  They continued with their late Saturday runs up to the waste treatment plant. Romy began helping out at the funeral home as well as maintaining his own business. She began taking him on pickups of deceased persons and giveing  her father more time off which was a goal of hers. This all started when he asked for a ride in the hearse sometime, although she looked at him as if he was strange, what could she say; it was on his bucket list, he informed her. Romy kept the same suit he wore the first night they met, pressed and hung in the garage at the funeral home. If he was coming from work, he would park the truck in the back employees lot out of view, and shower and dress inside quickly before they left. 

Juliet packed a sandwich white powdered eclair  for Romy and drove the black company van that they used for pickups.The hearse was reserved for funeral services only. Once they arrived at the deceased’s address, Romy  removed the gurney and body bag from the back of the vehicle and  wheeled it in following just behind Juliet. She greeted the family and inquired if the deceased person had an infectious disease or wore a pacemaker. They asked why she was asking about pacemakers and Juliet explained they can explode if the body is cremated. Then she and Romy wheeled the gurney to the corpse’s location. They closed the door to the room and worked the body bag  under the dead person,  removing any jewelry and placing it in a bag for the family. Then he zipped the bag closed and they slid the body onto the gurney. After Juliet finished up a moment's paperwork with the family, they drove back to the funeral home. Romy and Juliet never spoke much during return trips; but sat solemnly together out of respect for their passenger. After they pulled into the garage, they wheeled the body down to a refrigerator.

A few Saturday afternoons later, Romy and Juliet were on the return trip in the big truck from their weekly date to the waste treatment facility. She wore his baggy coveralls which she’d  pressed beforehand and as they smiled and looked out their rolled down windows, they began playing out scenarios for their future. Truck-time was dreaming time for both of them and the fresh air of the road filled them both with happiness and anticipation. They both wanted children and they decided now was the time; so sooner rather than later. Their only doubt was whether having children would ruin things for them. Were they tempting the fates who had already gifted them with so much? Were they greedy for even more happiness; like millionaires wanting to be billionaires? They didn’t know, they couldn’t know, so they happily dismissed these thoughts and focused on the plusses. They wanted to bring more life into theirs; to expand their hearts for others too, and a baby would be the highest expression of this desire. Still, they worried the child would be hit with the double whammy of having a septic tank cleaning Papa and an embalmer mortician Mama, and what that would mean for their offspring socially. They had both survived being on the fringe; outcasts even. They were OK; and better than OK because they had each other. And though it took a long time, they made it to each other, and with good parents and good values their children could too…

Romy’s cellphone interrupted their hopeful discussion. He put it on speaker and listened as one of his customers, Mr and Mrs. Laurences explained on speaker  they were getting septic tank smells in their home and so they left the house and were sitting outside just off the front garage. Could Romy stop by as soon as possible and evaluate what was going on? He looked at Juliet who nodded her head and he told them he was on his way. 

Chapter 6 - The Last Chapter

 Sewer gas is not good for you being composed of some or all of the following compounds: hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, and hydrogen. Deaths from inhalation are rare but they happen, usually if a worker is working near a tank in a low lying spot, where the gas sinks, pools, and collects because it's heavier than air.  In high enough concentrations, it can render a person unconscious in just a couple of breaths and  kill in a couple of minutes or less if no one intervenes…

It took twenty minutes for Juliet and Romy to arrive at the Laurence's house. Romy pulled down the sidestreet to the left of the residence and parked in his usual spot from past pumpings. The distance to the tank was near the maximum distance his hoses could reach; about two hundred feet. Romy held Juliet’s hand, they kissed and he told her to close her eyes and take a nap; she looked tired. Her eyes were already closed and he kissed her beautiful round dark eyelids feeling  them  quiver and blink under his lips. It was always difficult to pull away, magnetized as they were to each other.

Romy stepped down from the truck’s high step and closed the cab door quietly. He walked over to the husband and wife who had been watching the street for his arrival. Mr and Mrs. Laurence rose from their lawn chairs and thanked him profusely for coming so quickly. They told him they had lost track of how long it had been since the tank was pumped last but figured  it had been just over three years. Romy asked if they had received a reminder postcard from him  six months ago. “We send a note out 2 ½ years from the last pumping to get our customers on our calendar”. “We did get it but it just slipped through the cracks,”Mr Laurence said, chagrined. We started noticing the smell a couple of days ago but it would come and go and we thought it might be the neighbors, but then it got really bad a couple of hours ago.”  

“Well, it's definitely due for a cleaning then,”Romy nodded, "I'll take care of it; should take about 40 minutes or so”. The Laurence’s apologized again for not calling sooner, and for turning what should have been a scheduled job into an emergency. Romy didn’t smell  gas where the couple was sitting so after confirming there were no other people or pets still in the house, he asked them to stay put while he took a closer look in the backyard where the tank was located. 

Romy walked quietly back to the truck and grabbed the long crowbar he used to lift the cement lid off of the tanks he pumped. He decided to remove the tank lid first and check if there were any problems other than a full tank before unreeling the pumping hose. He looked over and Juliet looked sound asleep with her chin buried behind the large collar of his coveralls and her fair white cheeks set off by her dark eyelids and long eyelashes. He walked over to the tank and everything looked normal. The air was still and quiet. A couple of crows moved about on a nearby tree branch. The air around the tank didn’t smell much, so he hooked the crowbar under the concrete lid and gave it a tug. It resisted so he walked over to the other side of the lid and tried again. Then he felt his back foot sink a bit into squishy ground. There was a dead squirrel lying obscured in the tall grass near his foot. Was that the smell? he thought, but he kept going. He flipped the squirrel out of the way with his crowbar then pulled and levered the tank lid up and down and side to side until it broke free abruptly causing  the crowbar to slip out of his hands and skitter off the lip of the lid.  Romy leaned over the tank lid and picked the crowbar up again to finish sliding the lid out of the way when a whoosh of foul air hit him in the face. Uh, oh he thought again, and the squishy ground and dead squirrel, and dead septic tank workers from Bolivia flashed in his head . His legs buckled and the ground below him began to spin. His fingers straightened went numb and then, watching as if he was a  crow circling from above, the crowbar fell from his hands and clattered on the lid making a loud ringing sound, and scaring the crows  on a nearby tree branch who flapped up and away cawing loudly. 

Juliet woke with a start, disoriented for a brief second; her hands springing to her face. She saw two crows land on a tree branch in front of her.  She turned her head for Romy and didn’t see him standing near the tank, then gasped when she did see him slumped on his left side with one leg crossed over the other and his face down in the grass. She screamed, throwing the cab door open and jumping directly to the ground, bypassing the truck steps entirely and taking off in his direction, tripping and struggling in his baggy coveralls.

The afternoon collapsed around her into a black iron coffin box. She ran blind with fear towards him skidding the last few feet on her knees and in one motion flung the crowbar away while rolling  him over face up. His body rocked once and then was still. She could still hear the crows cawing from their branch near the truck. She screamed again, her hand gripping her mouth at the pallor of the dead, which she well knew, on Romy’s face. The smell around her was awful, and she felt dizzy and confused by a low a riot of sounds and images; the whirring thump of an embalming pump, the sickening smell of strewn flowers,  sprawling graveside figurines toppled and broken, people weeping,  and the reek of wet earth. A flood of tears,  nausea and grief broke over her. She screamed again and her scream cleared her thoughts for a moment. Romy’s eyes were closed and his mouth was open slightly.  His skin was gray and overcast his lips and fingers were bluish-crimson. The dead squirrel was at his elbow. She dragged him towards her away from the stench of the open tank, gasping and confused and flung her mouth on his kissing and breathing into his mouth at once. Her fingers dug into the side of his face and then calmed and stroked him softly while she murmured thought apologies for hurting his face.  She breathed and kissed,  breathed and kissed, stroked his hair and pulled her own, and now she felt warm next to him and he did too but her fingers felt numb and she and her efforts grew quieter and quieter. He was dead and she was going to die with him, she breathed, exhausted. “Better to die with you than be alone in this life forever my sweetest love……..Romy and Juliet, Romy and Juliet”, she whispered sing-song over and over, her voice trailing off to thoughts of them and their baby and ending in quiet.

Then they and the whole world were tumbling and flying about like clothes in a dryer. The sky was the ground and little Febreze clouds were bouncing about like panicked sheep and all around them were sounds of sirens and cawing crows and people shouting, to move, to get something, to tighten the straps and one, two, lift… Then a blur of a man appeared above her face, practically in her face calling her name, his nose was running and his face was gray but his ears were pink and he was coughing and calling her name. What was her name, she thought ? She couldn’t quite locate it but the man kept shouting it…  “Juliet” he shouted, “Juliet, Juliet, Juliet”! And then the man changed into a man in coveralls and she knew him but had forgotten his name…. Then, as if she was in a charades game gone haywire, she called out guessing wildly, “Remy, Romulo, Romulus, Romeo, ... .ROMY!”, she seized on. It was him, he was on his knees in front of her proposing marriage again and again begging her not to leave him and she said, you’re beautiful my love and I’ll marry you again”, and then someone put a mask on her face and she breathed the coolest, most delicious, fragrantless air that was ever breathed, even better than when the two of them were heading up the road in the big truck with the sun on their faces and the windows rolled down.