* * *

Why Jimmy? Well, why anybody, really? Because he was there, I suppose. Because people get lonely. And county morgue isn’t exactly a social beehive. It got damn lonely at night, and my days I slept away.

I took the job there after high school. I was interested in cosmetics, wanted to be a makeup-artist, move to Hollywood and do the stars. Without the money for beauty school, I figured I’d get the practice any way I could. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? Well, that’s life.

Mary gave me a job working the night shift, helping her clothe and prep bodies for open-casket burials the following day. Mary was an older woman who had worked at the morgue for over twenty years, and she agreed that it might be good practice for a future career. Then she laughed, pointing at her face, and said, “Look at me, I’ve been practicing with these stiffs half my life, and I can’t even make myself up!”

“Seriously,” she told me, “it ain’t a bad job at all. After a while, you forget they’re even dead. Might start talkin’ to them if you’re not careful.” She laughed again. Mary was a little odd, but she was sweet, and other than old Roland the janitor, who never said a word to either of us, Mary and I were alone in the building at night.

We worked on the bodies together for hours. Most of the dead were locals, and Mary was right—after a while I forgot they were dead, didn’t even seem to notice who they were, or had been. I did prep a man from California once. The paperwork said he had died in town, visiting relatives. They had trucked his body to our morgue rather than pay to move it back west. Probably figured one place is as good as the next to bury a body.

From California. Movie star, maybe, but I didn’t recognize his face. I do remember his skin, though. Smooth as steel. Mary said this came from living so close to the ocean. Neither Mary nor I had ever seen the ocean.

In the fall of my second year at the morgue I met Jimmy. Late night, still dark, and I was outside on the loading dock, leaning against a circular vent in the wall, smoking a cigarette. Whatever sort of air flows out of the vent was steaming, shooting against me, leaving my back pleasantly warm, while my nipples strained against my cotton work tee. I heard someone coming down the inner stairwell. The door opened and a young man, probably in his mid-twenties and very good looking, stepped out and lit a cigarette. He was about halfway through it before he noticed me.

“Hey,” he said. “Name’s Jimmy.”

I nodded. “Lisa.”

He drew deep from his smoke. “Just brought my father in.”

“Oh?” I said absentmindedly. “How’s he doing?”

“Well, he’s dead.”

Oh god,” I said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t--”

“It’s okay,” he interrupted. “It’s early.”

“Yeah. Shit, though, I must be losing it.”

He smiled at me and laughed. “Don’t sweat it.”

I snubbed my smoke and escaped inside, telling him I had better get back to work. I clocked out quickly and persuaded Mary to give me a ride home as soon as the morning crew arrived.

She cracked up when I told her what I’d said. “You should’ve hit on him, tried to get a date,” she said.

“Huh? Why?”

“Because,” she laughed, “you’d never have to meet his father!”

“God, Mary! You’re screwed up, you know that?”

We worked on his father the next night, and soon after I forgot about Jimmy.

Two weeks passed, and he showed up again, this time later in the night, toward the end of my shift. He thanked Mary and I for doing an ‘excellent job’ on his father, and asked if he could take me to breakfast. I was stunned. I hadn’t been on a date in years. I stammered something, then turned to Mary.

“Shit, child! What’re you lookin’ at me for?” she asked, trying to hide a grin. “Get the hell outta here, I’m sending you home early!” She winked at me as I left.

And then we were together. Inseparable. He took me out all the time, to dinner, dancing, to the movies. He bought me dresses and a ring, made me feel sexy. We made love on our third date. Weeks went by. I was happy. Eventually, as all couples do, we had our first argument. So he hit me, but the whole thing was probably my fault in the first place. I got over it. Forgive and forget. After that, though, the arguments started getting nasty.

Some time went by. We stopped going out, and one night Jimmy told me I was going to move into his apartment with him. I didn’t seem to have a choice, but why make him angry?

“I would love to,” I said.

“Yeah, I thought you would,” he replied.

The morning I moved in, Jimmy said quietly that I ought to tell Mary I needed day shifts, so he and I could spend more time together.

“What if she won’t give them to me?” I asked.

“Then you will quit. You’d be better off staying here all day anyway.”

Mary cried on my last day. She needed me for nights, but when I told Jimmy she couldn’t give me days, he managed to persuade me to quit.

From then on I was not to leave the apartment without Jimmy.

I lived this way for a year, sometimes going all week without seeing another person. Eventually, I snapped, I lost it. One day while Jimmy was at work, I left and went to see Mary at her home. It was strange being outside, taking the bus alone, knowing other men were looking at me. I didn’t stay long at Mary’s place, making sure to come back well before Jimmy usually arrived home.

He was waiting for me when I walked through the door. I figured, maybe he loved me so much, he just knew I was gone.

As punishment, I was tied to a chair for three days. Jimmy placed dishes of milk and meat on a table in front of me. Just out of my reach. The milk soured overnight, and flies dug into the meat, but by the third day the pain was so bad that when he untied me I jumped at the food with my fingers and teeth. I was sick for days. Jimmy wouldn’t call anyone. He said he knew doctors, and he wasn’t about to let them touch me the wrong way.

A few days passed, and I slowly began to feel better. As soon as I could walk, I waited until Jimmy was out of the apartment, then I left. I may have been loyal, but I wasn’t that stupid. Mary took me to one of her friends’ house to hide. She offered to buy me a one-way ticket anywhere out of Texas. I told her California. Movie stars.

* * *

There are no sounds anymore. No smells, no movement, nothing. Is it bright? I don’t know. I can’t seem to crack my eyelids. Maybe I don’t need to. I think I feel happy. I do wonder, though. I wonder whether the old couple on the bench in the station got their picture of our kiss. I’m sure it would’ve made a pretty postcard.