The Removers: A Memoir by Andrew Meredith

Author:Andrew Meredith [Meredith, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Nonfiction, Personal Memoir, Retail
ISBN: 9781476761213
Amazon: 1476761213
Barnesnoble: 1476761213
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2014-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

There were other teachers, too.

“Get the fuck in, get the fuck out. Ya got me? Get the fuck in, get the fuck out. That’s the whole secret.” This is Vince Visco—swarthy, overfed, sideburned, bald—a slightly taller Danny DeVito, the retired cop I’m out with on an afternoon removal. He’s sharing with me the whole secret and I’m too dumb to hear it. My dad has trained me to park the hearse in front of the house and let one of the two men go in to greet the family and reconnoiter. Courteous and practical. This was how the other men did it, too. Vince Visco, though, doesn’t want to waste a second. He figures the stop-and-chat adds precious minutes to the denominator of his imagined hourly rate. There is no hourly rate; we get thirty-five dollars whether it takes us ten minutes or three hours.

We’re in a neighborhood in the Northeast called Fox Chase, a bastion for white-flighters who’ve left places like Kensington and Frankford but still need to live within the city limits to keep their jobs as cops and firemen. When I stay seated after I park the hearse he says, without looking at me because he’s expected this moment, “Come on. Get out.” He drags the stretcher behind him to the front door. I run a few steps to keep up. When a teenage boy answers the door, Vince says, “Where we goin’?” We’re led into a bedroom on the first floor, where we’re greeted by three middle-aged women. “We’re her daughters,” one of them says. I crinkle my eyes and, with my lips squeezed tight, nod at them. It’s a look I’ve been developing. I want it to say, “I’m really glad to meet you. God, it’s awful we’re meeting like this over your dead mom. Good luck to you in everything. There’s a decent chance I’ll be parking your car at the funeral.” I’m afraid, though, that, coupled with my suit and haircut, my look says, “I’ve been different since the war.” Vince barely blinks at them before he’s wrapping the woman in her bedsheet. I look to see if the daughters are upset, but they seem giddy, something I’ve never seen before in my short career. Vince is in such an addled rush that some faint pulse of guilt or better nature must patch itself through to his tongue. He stops just before he covers the dead woman’s face. He eyes her, then turns to her daughters and says, “She looks like a real nice lady.” With great solemnity they all nod thank you, but the act of playing serious and his use of the present tense make them delirious. One laughs despite herself, and then the others laugh at him, too. They’re holding their hands to their mouths, trying to behave. Vince smiles belatedly, but I can tell he doesn’t get it. He’s rattled.

Back in the car, he says, “You see what happens? Why did I have to say something? You

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