Red Flags

Sometimes being unlucky in love is better than the alternative.

Andrew Shick had an unreasonably hard time in the romance department. It wasn’t for a lack of securing first dates. He had formulated a rotation of various dating apps, of which there seemed to be a fortuitously growing roster, to keep the dating pool from getting stale, and between his better-than-average looks, self-effacing humor in his profile, and Pathologist listed as his occupation, matches came about as fast as first dates were exhausted.

A great deal of Andrew’s struggle arose from his affinity for talking about his work, whether asked by his female prospects or not, and his work, at least the parts he enjoyed most, was considered by acceptable human standards as morbid at best, borderline sociopathic at worst. Once online matches made it out of the virtual and met up at a restaurant, bar, coffee shop, ice cream stand, public park, or, once, a zoo, Andrew was a walking red flag almost as soon as initial pleasantries were exchanged and his dates shifted topics, with gross miscalculation and misunderstanding of medical specialties, “Pathologist, huh? Must be so fulfilling to save lives.”

Andrew had worked in the same hospital in Buffalo since he left his job as a Verizon sales associate at the local mall just out of college. A family friend who worked in Orthopedics had told him that the Pathology department was looking for a diener and would train the right person. No medical degree needed.

“No kidding,” Andrew offered with a curious look.

“It’s a pretty cool opportunity, if you’re into it,” the family friend continued. “Your dad said you were into biology, anatomy, and genetics in school. If you want to get into the field, this is about as fast-tracked as you can get. And no med school required. It’s all OJT.”

He was right. A solid C student in high school, Andrew had discovered a fascination with chemistry, biology, anatomy and physiology, and genetics at a local college that unlocked a world of exciting professional research and practice-based possibility. Unfortunately, med school was not an option since it would require a move away from home. A move that would upset, likely kill, his frail mother, since he was her only line of defense against his father, a mean man who didn’t drink, but blamed everyone but himself for, as he was fond of saying, a lifetime of shitty bosses, a terrible wife, and a useless son.

Andrew was the only one who could distract his father from focusing his unreasonable anger on his mother, usually by purposely dropping dishes, breaking windows, leaving doors open so the flies and mosquitos got in, ensuring the garbage cans blocked the driveway for his father’s return from whatever part-time job he had at the time, or any number of tactically “accidental” moves that would draw fire in his direction.

His father never laid a hand on either of them. His shouting threats, throwing things, stomping footsteps, and door-slamming were jarring enough, Andrew figured. But he was certain that in his absence, his father’s anger would only escalate, and his already shell-shocked mother would simply not survive.

“I mean, it does sound pretty interesting,” Andrew said. “But what’s a diener?”

“It’s the guy who performs autopsies,” the friend laughed. “They call them posts. Short for postmortem. They pay something like $100 per post. I can get you the contact for the head of the Pathology lab, if you want. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

Andrew’s fascination with and aptitude for autopsy procedure made him a quick study. From initial Y incision and cracking open the chest cavity to flaying all twenty-five or so feet of intestines and locating the adrenal glands to removing the heart, lungs, and esophagus en bloc for the Pathologist and discarding the viscera into a biohazard bag lining a bright red five-gallon pail to sewing the incision shut, cleaning up the body, and returning the empty vessel to the large walk-in cooler.

Andrew found a rhythm to the work. Almost waltz-like as he moved from step to step around the stainless-steel table and its anatomical wonders. Every body was different in spite of every body having basically the same guts. His amazement never waned, even on days when he was back-to-back for twelve hours straight and had to eat his lunch on the fly at his desk in the morgue.

Within a month, he was performing posts without the oversight of actual Pathologists who collected samples from the organs he removed. Andrew was efficient, precise, thorough, and oftentimes pre-empted doctors’ requests by identifying whatever bodily element needed scrutiny and taking samples himself, which the docs could simply collect and say thank you on their way out.

Eight years and thousands of postmortems later, Andrew was undeniably good at his job, had a nice apartment with off-street parking, and had an affinity for plants, which hung in front of the window over his sink, lined the windowsills in the living and bedrooms, and, in the case of an immense Monstera, overstuffed a corner near his turntable and vinyl collection.

His father had died unexpectedly several years earlier, prompting a miraculous transformation in his mother, who sold the house and practically all her possessions almost immediately and moved to Key West to “make up for lost time.” Andrew was happy for her and happy to have his own place, but felt pangs of loneliness if he sat and listened to the wrong series of Coletrane, Dylan, or Neil Young albums.

Despite his dour luck with finding a partner to share in his enthusiasm for the inert human body — he once tried to illustrate the size and location of a tumor found in one of his posts by making a fist and carefully pressing it against a stunning, and stunned, redhead’s belly while waiting for a table at a quiet little Italian restaurant, prompting her to announce she had forgotten to call her boss about a deadline, she’d only be a minute, and then walking out, never to be seen again — he held out hope that the right woman was out there if he just kept trying.

***

Andrew was mostly seated on a vinyl-cushioned stool with a draft beer in an unfamiliar bar, half turned between the bartender and the dimly lit area of tables and chairs occupied by a scattering of people and two pool tables in an adjacent room when Jamie walked in, making a slow, deliberate beeline toward him. He turned fully in her direction.

“Andrew?” she said from two steps away and closing.

“Yeah. Jamie?” He recognized the needlessness of asking her name, since she obviously had identified him as the person she was meeting. She stopped close enough in front of him that her hip brushed one of his knees. Andrew felt his face flush hotly. Jamie smiled.

“Never been to this place,” she said, looking around, her hip now pressed full against his knee. “I’ve heard about it. I mean, it’s townie, but I like it better than being tits-deep in a crowd of entitlement and small dicks in expensive clothes.”

The truth was, Jamie needed a place for a first date off the beaten path. A place where even if people see you, they either forget in a drunken stupor or simply keep their mouths shut out of distrust of authority. The bar was perfect.

Andrew was momentarily stunned by her frankness. He was also caught by the body that seemed to flow from her hips to her carelessly pulled ponytail more perfectly than he’d ever seen. Disappointment rushed him, and his shoulders dropped a little. This woman was so far out of his league, he doubted if they were in even the same universe. Dammit, he said to himself. I know exactly how this is going go.

Jamie, seeing the defeat start to creep into him, turned and nudged his other knee with her other hip.

“You’re not entitled or have a small dick under those jeans, do you?” She lowered her chin an inch, smiled again, and met his surprised look with a wink. “I’m just kidding with you. Get me a beer. I have to pee.”

Andrew watched her saunter past the pool tables and turn a corner. He shook his head and ordered another draft, his spirits immediately higher.

Jamie dispensed with all pleasantries. “So, what exactly does a Pathologist do?” For her, cutting to the chase meant getting to the fun part of her true desire faster.

Normally, Andrew had evolved into a gentle delivery of what his occupation consisted of on a daily basis. Even though results never varied, and never willing to outright lie about his work, he at least felt as though he tried to soften the inevitable blow. After all, he wanted to meet someone who accepted him as is. Someone who embraced honesty, warts and all.

In a moment of nervous courage, he decided to shoot his shot and test just how bold Jamie was.

“Well, I deal with dead bodies every day,” Andrew spoke in a voice he hadn’t heard ever issue from his mouth. Slightly deeper, confident, almost no-bullshit in how soundly it resonated. “At the hospital morgue in the city. Been there eight years.” He took a swig from his beer, keeping his eyes fixed on hers, expecting the inevitable look of disgust.

“No shit?! How cool is that!” Her face lit up with genuine surprise. Totally caught off guard, her response was the first emotionally honest thing she’d said so far, and she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about being jarred from her normal one-track focus. Andrew almost spit out his swig of beer.

“Like, actual dead bodies? Naked, cold, lying on a table, dead bodies?” Having sat on the stool next to him, she now leaned toward Andrew with a hand on each of his knees, smiling and excited.

“Uh, yeah.” Andrew was just as thrown by her response as she was by his.

“Okay, that’s wild. I’m seriously intrigued.” Jamie sat back and whistled. “What’s it like? I mean, you have to cut them open and, like, put your hands in their guts, yeah? Are they ever still warm?” She was frustrated about letting her guard down, but was too rapt by Andrew’s day job not to ask questions.

“I’d say ninety percent are cold. They died the night before, usually after surgery of some sort. They’re almost all pulmonary embolisms or myocardial infarctions.” Andrew was back in comfortable conversational territory. “You know, throwing a clot. Once in a while, we have to take out a brain, but that’s pretty rare. I’ve done ten in eight years. Head, heart, or lungs. Those are the three ways everybody goes.”

Jamie considered his statement for a second, as if she was looking at the TV hanging across the room. “Head, heart, and lungs. Huh. You’re right, taking out any of those is ultimately what does it.”

“Warm bodies are rare,” Andrew circled back to her original question. “Unless they died that morning. I’m not sure why, but people mostly tend to die in the evening or in the middle of the night. There has to be a reason. Never seen any studies on it though.” Now, Andrew’s thinking was off in the distance.

Several hours passed with Jamie asking questions about things like the position of organs in a standing body versus sitting versus lying down, abnormal anatomy, and the most gruesome death he’d ever had come through the morgue, and Andrew happily answering her questions. It wasn’t last call, but the bar was now empty except for the two of them and the bartender.

“So, what does it feel like? The scalpel into flesh, opening the ribcage, holding organs that were working perfectly well just hours before.” Jamie was probing to see if Andrew felt the same things she did. “Don’t you kind of feel like a god or some sort of powerful being?”

“I feel amazed, mostly,” Andrew shrugged. “It’s mindboggling to think that in the tangled chaos an open body looks like at first, there is a perfect, intricate system that, somehow, worked. It sustained life. And I’ve got the same perfect, intricate chaos inside me. So do you.”

“Perfect, intricate chaos,” Jamie repeated. “I love that.”

Andrew’s face flushed hot again. “I don’t buy into the whole life is short thing, but I do appreciate what it takes to be alive.”

In that moment, Andrew vowed he would spend the rest of his life being alive with this woman.

Jamie, too, allowed the foreign warmth of a daydream with Andrew as a partner she could trust and not be alone anymore. That understood and loved her, every part of her, for who she truly was. She’d never met someone like Andrew. Certainly not like the self-important money manager in Tucson who couldn’t leave his phone alone or the overweight misogynist in Las Cruces with the pit-stained denim shirt and Copenhagen habit or the shiny all-hat-and-no-cattle rancher in Fort Stockton who owned two thousand acres and an ivy league drawl or the beefcake football coach in Beaumont who claimed his wife didn’t understand his needs and kept trying to buy her shots or the obnoxious redneck on the outskirts of Chickasaw in the black MAGA hat or the unremarkable, but no less deserving, faces in various bars in Alpharetta, Lexington, or Toledo.

Finding someone who she would allow to get close to her wasn’t even a remote consideration, even just a couple hours ago. Her singularly driven dark passenger would not abide such distraction. Now, her mind was in a tailspin. She had caught feelings for Andrew that excited and terrified her. Even so, one thought rang in her head clear as a bell. Fuck, I can’t kill him.

“God, I have so many questions!” she said with an overabundance of enthusiasm, trying to redirect herself and thinking up a way out of the current situation.

“Well, I’ve got plenty of time! I don’t go in on Saturdays till ten o’clock.” Andrew would’ve sat right there talking with Jamie about anything till the world ended, work or not

“Oh, I have an early call with my boss,” she lied.

Andrew flinched. He had heard it before. “Right. Phone call. Got it.”

Again, Jamie picked up on his mood change. “No seriously. I’m in medical device sales. I’m headed to Boston Monday. My boss always schedules these stupid weekend check-ins.” To smooth things over, she slid closer to him, squeezing both of his knees between hers. “Meet me here tomorrow night?”

Andrew was embarrassed by his jump to the wrong conclusion. “Sorry. Force of habit. I’d love to meet you here tomorrow.”

Before he could stand, ask for his tab, and offer to walk Jamie out, she leaned in and kissed him, then whispered, “See you tomorrow,” and walked out of his life for good.