Apocalypse Monday
Sep. 9th, 2002 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blustockingMother fuck. Netscape fall down, go boom, lose update. I will be half-way intelligent this time and type this out in Word.
When I left the apartment this afternoon, I went to close the door and noticed a rather odd brownish-orange tint on everything. I turned around and looked up at the sun and saw a hazy, yellowish cloudlike filth covering it. I thought maybe I slept through some bomb droppage or a large fire, but no...that's just Los Angeles.
Currently, the sun is a surreal ball of fire setting on the horizon among a tinge of violet and pink.
I work in an odd industrial/commerical/residential neighborhood. It's as if the best and worst of this town has converged in this area, meeting in waves of strip malls, restaurants, stores, movie studios, a bakery, and a meat packing plant(the meat packing plant's slogan is: "You Can't Beat Our Meat"). I often have to disembark the bus at Meat Corner and walk the two blocks to work. Meat Corner is appropriately named. Imagine rotting beef, fresh beef, and bus exhaust all wrapped in a wonderful heady bouquet.
Morgue.
Mix dead beefy smell, multiply by 10, throw in some bile, rotting flesh, preservatives, and you've got a good idea of what Eau de Morgue smells like. I realize, some of you already know. I won't go into the part about the class except to say that the forensic investigator teaching it was this petite, strawberry blonde girl who seemed rather nice, until you pissed her off, then she was stern and quite mean, to my delight. One fine young offender was in the class for street racing, doing 90mph in a residential 35. He said, "not that fast" and that's all she needed to hear to bust out with "Not that fast? That's fucking fast. You, I have no respect for." Her face changed from nice and inquisitive to pissed off and hard. It was joyous. She singled him out for much of the class. After about an hour of getting settled in and introductions, she showed us slides taken from recent cases she had been on.
The first set was of a girl doing 80mph on the 60 freeway. She was late to work, attempted to get into the number three lane and didn't see the car coming behind her, she corrected and went back into number two...corrected at 80mph, she lost control, spun out, and sailed off the highway into the bushes, flipping her car, ejecting her body, and decapitating herself. There was little blood at the stump because it was such a clean cut. Her head was resting a few feet away. Married, Mother of four.
The second set was of two cars racing, again, I believe, on the 60 freeway. Both were doing 105mph when the bumpers touched sending them both out of control. The driver of one car survived, the driver and passenger of the other car did not. All were in their teens, 17 or 18. The car with the two passengers wrapped completely around a pole and separated into three pieces, the midsection containing the passengers, a girl and a boy. The boy's (driver) seat ended up completely on top of the girl's(passenger). His intestines were spilling out into a fast food drink cup and his neck literally pushed his brain clean out of his skull, splattering it against a pole. His face hung limp tot he side of his head. Her head was still intact, but her pelvis was shoved into her abdomen. In order to identify her, they had to reach into her gut to pull out her I.D. It was her birthday. Her boyfriend had taken her out for fast food and a little joyride. Nice.
So after the slides, we go down to the morgue for about a 20 minute tour. They hand out booties, rubber gloves, and duck bill-like masks and the 20-25 of us are led to the basement. You prepare yourself for the stench and I thought I was being a smartypants by deciding to breathe through my mouth. Wrong. I tasted morgue for about an hour and a half after I left. The smell also permeates your clothes and you stink for about an hour afterwards. You walk in, dead body. At first all you see are toes and feet in various states of preservation and decay. But they're wrapped in clear plastic, so most can be viewed if you want to look. Further down the hallway, bodies are unwrapped to display gunshot wounds. Many gunshot wounds...hello Los Angeles. We're led into a photographing room where a young black man is being laid out for documentation. Gunshot wound to the chest, homicide of course. I should note that most of the bodies don't look real. They look wax, fake, Hollywood...but you know they're not, and that makes all the difference.
Next was "the crypt", a large refrigerated room lined with bodies on shelves like books, only made of rotting flesh. The room was packed with them, many on carts because there was no more room on the shelves. Various states of decomposition. Some bags were simply filled with fluid, an undescribable greenish grey fluid. Many were bloated, many more were blatantly visible, no privacy for the dead mind you. There was a charred victim...the only one I didn't look at. Obviously died in a flaming car as his wrists were broken from the impact and his hands were curled from the fire...like a torched piece of paper. The investigator forced, and I mean forced, as in yelled and commanded the speed racer guy to come and look at that one. Lots of dead, lots of decay, lots of naked, lots of smell...and little cubby holes to place little bundles of dead baby. On the way out of the crypt, I glanced over and saw the most decomposed body yet. His body, what was left, was black and looked like it was caked with dark dirt and mold. No, that was just his skin, now shrinking around his body. John Doe, baby. There was also a security guard who died of a gunshot wound in the crypt. This affected me on some weird level which I'll explain later.
Upon leaving "the crypt" we were shown the autopsy bays, 10, when most places have 3. Los Angeles county has the largest coroner's office in the U.S., if not the world. The county is large, the homicides are large as well...so there you go. Our investigator said she handles probably 5,000 cases a year and she's merely one of many. Autopsies are done 354 days a year. They get Christmas off. I saw open heads, entire rib cages being sawn off, bodies poked and prodded, lovely stuff. A tour of the x-ray room and a drunk driving victim speaking upstairs and I was free to go.
So, thoughts on this whole experience?
I'm stuck somewhere between abject horror and morbid fascination. I solemnly believe that every single one of you, everyone, should have to tour the morgue at least once. For hours, days, after I would look at people and imagine them dead, how they would look, which isn't pleasant, but there you go. When I got on the bus after the morgue, so that I could go to work, I couldn't stop looking at the young security guard riding the bus as well. I kept thinking how easily it could have been him lying there in that cold room, dead from a gunshot wound. How this town is too big for anyone aside from his family and friends to know or care if it did happen. So many people in this town, this world, are disconnected from life. You drive around in your car and you're not forced to deal with other people, when you are, you get testy and anxious. Riding the bus is only a little better, but you're just forced to be more tolerant, more patient. Alas, you're still as disconnected as ever. Everyone should tour the morgue at 15, 25, 35...hell, maybe just every ten years. There are so many stories in this town, so many lives lost, and no one seems to give a damn. Maybe some asshole gang-banger would see one of his buddies lying on a cold slap, being pried open and he would wake the fuck up. Maybe, maybe not...but it's worth a try. That said, my gratefulness noted, my experience filed, my curiosity sated...it was horrible in all the right ways. Me, Jill, sleeper of all sleepers, could not easily get to sleep that night and the next. I just kept seeing dead bodies. I'm fine now. Not much fucks with my sleep. It's my escape, the one place I can go and forget. Ex boyfriends have always remarked at how lovely and peaceful I look when I sleep...that's because I am. Of course, now, in waking hours...I still see them, but it's okay, because I'm grateful. It's something I can use.
Bodies are disgusting, fluid-filled bags. You're already rotting away. How does that make you feel? I don't want to be buried and I don't want to be cremated. I don't know what I want. Either way is pretty disgusting when you think about it. It makes me sad to think of my friends and family having to go to the morgue, being treated like that...but it will happen.
You'll all go there eventually. Just don't be as fucking stupid as I was. I could have died, I could have killed...please learn from my mistake.
I didn't do this justice.
p.s. where's my dirty email, slut.
When I left the apartment this afternoon, I went to close the door and noticed a rather odd brownish-orange tint on everything. I turned around and looked up at the sun and saw a hazy, yellowish cloudlike filth covering it. I thought maybe I slept through some bomb droppage or a large fire, but no...that's just Los Angeles.
Currently, the sun is a surreal ball of fire setting on the horizon among a tinge of violet and pink.
I work in an odd industrial/commerical/residential neighborhood. It's as if the best and worst of this town has converged in this area, meeting in waves of strip malls, restaurants, stores, movie studios, a bakery, and a meat packing plant(the meat packing plant's slogan is: "You Can't Beat Our Meat"). I often have to disembark the bus at Meat Corner and walk the two blocks to work. Meat Corner is appropriately named. Imagine rotting beef, fresh beef, and bus exhaust all wrapped in a wonderful heady bouquet.
Morgue.
Mix dead beefy smell, multiply by 10, throw in some bile, rotting flesh, preservatives, and you've got a good idea of what Eau de Morgue smells like. I realize, some of you already know. I won't go into the part about the class except to say that the forensic investigator teaching it was this petite, strawberry blonde girl who seemed rather nice, until you pissed her off, then she was stern and quite mean, to my delight. One fine young offender was in the class for street racing, doing 90mph in a residential 35. He said, "not that fast" and that's all she needed to hear to bust out with "Not that fast? That's fucking fast. You, I have no respect for." Her face changed from nice and inquisitive to pissed off and hard. It was joyous. She singled him out for much of the class. After about an hour of getting settled in and introductions, she showed us slides taken from recent cases she had been on.
The first set was of a girl doing 80mph on the 60 freeway. She was late to work, attempted to get into the number three lane and didn't see the car coming behind her, she corrected and went back into number two...corrected at 80mph, she lost control, spun out, and sailed off the highway into the bushes, flipping her car, ejecting her body, and decapitating herself. There was little blood at the stump because it was such a clean cut. Her head was resting a few feet away. Married, Mother of four.
The second set was of two cars racing, again, I believe, on the 60 freeway. Both were doing 105mph when the bumpers touched sending them both out of control. The driver of one car survived, the driver and passenger of the other car did not. All were in their teens, 17 or 18. The car with the two passengers wrapped completely around a pole and separated into three pieces, the midsection containing the passengers, a girl and a boy. The boy's (driver) seat ended up completely on top of the girl's(passenger). His intestines were spilling out into a fast food drink cup and his neck literally pushed his brain clean out of his skull, splattering it against a pole. His face hung limp tot he side of his head. Her head was still intact, but her pelvis was shoved into her abdomen. In order to identify her, they had to reach into her gut to pull out her I.D. It was her birthday. Her boyfriend had taken her out for fast food and a little joyride. Nice.
So after the slides, we go down to the morgue for about a 20 minute tour. They hand out booties, rubber gloves, and duck bill-like masks and the 20-25 of us are led to the basement. You prepare yourself for the stench and I thought I was being a smartypants by deciding to breathe through my mouth. Wrong. I tasted morgue for about an hour and a half after I left. The smell also permeates your clothes and you stink for about an hour afterwards. You walk in, dead body. At first all you see are toes and feet in various states of preservation and decay. But they're wrapped in clear plastic, so most can be viewed if you want to look. Further down the hallway, bodies are unwrapped to display gunshot wounds. Many gunshot wounds...hello Los Angeles. We're led into a photographing room where a young black man is being laid out for documentation. Gunshot wound to the chest, homicide of course. I should note that most of the bodies don't look real. They look wax, fake, Hollywood...but you know they're not, and that makes all the difference.
Next was "the crypt", a large refrigerated room lined with bodies on shelves like books, only made of rotting flesh. The room was packed with them, many on carts because there was no more room on the shelves. Various states of decomposition. Some bags were simply filled with fluid, an undescribable greenish grey fluid. Many were bloated, many more were blatantly visible, no privacy for the dead mind you. There was a charred victim...the only one I didn't look at. Obviously died in a flaming car as his wrists were broken from the impact and his hands were curled from the fire...like a torched piece of paper. The investigator forced, and I mean forced, as in yelled and commanded the speed racer guy to come and look at that one. Lots of dead, lots of decay, lots of naked, lots of smell...and little cubby holes to place little bundles of dead baby. On the way out of the crypt, I glanced over and saw the most decomposed body yet. His body, what was left, was black and looked like it was caked with dark dirt and mold. No, that was just his skin, now shrinking around his body. John Doe, baby. There was also a security guard who died of a gunshot wound in the crypt. This affected me on some weird level which I'll explain later.
Upon leaving "the crypt" we were shown the autopsy bays, 10, when most places have 3. Los Angeles county has the largest coroner's office in the U.S., if not the world. The county is large, the homicides are large as well...so there you go. Our investigator said she handles probably 5,000 cases a year and she's merely one of many. Autopsies are done 354 days a year. They get Christmas off. I saw open heads, entire rib cages being sawn off, bodies poked and prodded, lovely stuff. A tour of the x-ray room and a drunk driving victim speaking upstairs and I was free to go.
So, thoughts on this whole experience?
I'm stuck somewhere between abject horror and morbid fascination. I solemnly believe that every single one of you, everyone, should have to tour the morgue at least once. For hours, days, after I would look at people and imagine them dead, how they would look, which isn't pleasant, but there you go. When I got on the bus after the morgue, so that I could go to work, I couldn't stop looking at the young security guard riding the bus as well. I kept thinking how easily it could have been him lying there in that cold room, dead from a gunshot wound. How this town is too big for anyone aside from his family and friends to know or care if it did happen. So many people in this town, this world, are disconnected from life. You drive around in your car and you're not forced to deal with other people, when you are, you get testy and anxious. Riding the bus is only a little better, but you're just forced to be more tolerant, more patient. Alas, you're still as disconnected as ever. Everyone should tour the morgue at 15, 25, 35...hell, maybe just every ten years. There are so many stories in this town, so many lives lost, and no one seems to give a damn. Maybe some asshole gang-banger would see one of his buddies lying on a cold slap, being pried open and he would wake the fuck up. Maybe, maybe not...but it's worth a try. That said, my gratefulness noted, my experience filed, my curiosity sated...it was horrible in all the right ways. Me, Jill, sleeper of all sleepers, could not easily get to sleep that night and the next. I just kept seeing dead bodies. I'm fine now. Not much fucks with my sleep. It's my escape, the one place I can go and forget. Ex boyfriends have always remarked at how lovely and peaceful I look when I sleep...that's because I am. Of course, now, in waking hours...I still see them, but it's okay, because I'm grateful. It's something I can use.
Bodies are disgusting, fluid-filled bags. You're already rotting away. How does that make you feel? I don't want to be buried and I don't want to be cremated. I don't know what I want. Either way is pretty disgusting when you think about it. It makes me sad to think of my friends and family having to go to the morgue, being treated like that...but it will happen.
You'll all go there eventually. Just don't be as fucking stupid as I was. I could have died, I could have killed...please learn from my mistake.
I didn't do this justice.
p.s. where's my dirty email, slut.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-09-09 08:46 pm (UTC)No wonder you were creeped out by the morgue. Sounds like they reserved the most graphic examples for you folks. Ack.
Wow.
Date: 2002-09-09 08:55 pm (UTC)I find myself haunted by images of death, constantly. I have those same thoughts sometimes while talking to my friends-of what they would like dead, of whom I would speak to about the things we do without them around, of what I would say if asked to speak at their funerals-and it depresses me to do such.
I used to wish that I was immortal-that I would live forever and continue onwards and upwards through life and see everything and anything that there was to see. But I realized that I'd have to sit, and to watch. Watch people born, watch them live, watch them die. Not just people; cities, countries, civilizations. Watch despair and suffering and defeat, over and over again. And I couldn't do that.
So I am glad to be mortal; to be a point on a string that has a beginning and an ending, to be going on my journey that will eventually reach its destination, and whatever is beyond that point is unknown.
But still I think about death.
Re:
Date: 2002-09-09 08:56 pm (UTC)Re: Wow.
Date: 2002-09-09 09:01 pm (UTC)People should think about death more often. Maybe then they would respect life a little more.
Mommy, sign my permission slip
Date: 2002-09-09 09:25 pm (UTC)By the way, you did do this story justice.
But isn't it always like that?
Date: 2002-09-09 09:34 pm (UTC)And then September 11th happened. And for a while, it worked-did you hear that story about the woman who sent out a spam message either that day or the following one that mentioned the crash and was promptly released from her job?-we just weren't being insensitive, or mean, or assholes. I mean, sure, some people were, but for the most part, for a while, the whole country, even other parts of the world were like that. But then distrust crept back in, and paranoia, and our government let us down, and the church, and big business....
Now, it seems like we're no closer to any great resolution than before.
no subject
Date: 2002-09-09 10:01 pm (UTC)Your story tonight reminds me of my drive home that night. I was on the middle lane on the 5 freeway. I was going about 70 MPH. When in my rear view mirror, out of nowhere I could see a car coming up fast behind me and they flashed their brights at me. I didn't know what to do, so I stayed in the same lane. It was just like zoom zoom. Two cars that had to have been going over a hundred, the second car tailgating the first. Obviously racing. Scared the shit out of me. I didn't know what to do.
What if I would have gone to the left lane when he flashed his lights for me to (I guess) get out of the way. That would have been "game over" for me.
I don't know.
*hug*
Good to see you and Jacque and Justin and Sarah again.
Re: Mommy, sign my permission slip
Date: 2002-09-09 10:02 pm (UTC)Thank you mommy. :}
Yes, I hope I never forget. I will use this again soon. Heh...now I've been in jail AND been to the morgue. Go me with my story research. heh (given, jail wasn't actually downtown jail, still...)
no subject
Re: But isn't it always like that?
Date: 2002-09-09 10:16 pm (UTC)I was close to someone who had little to none of it. He was shuffled around between recently divorced parents at the exact age you learn empathy. His Mom was a psychologist (automatic fuck up point) and his Dad an asshole. Their son became a mild sociopath. Seems many people are mild sociopaths these days.
People need to be slapped in the face with reality. Sept. 11 did that. People jumping out of windows, choosing flight and a quick death over burning, that hit everyone in the gut. Problem is, most people don't carry that with them. They didn't learn to put themselves in the other person's shoes. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, bad parenting, or some such crap. That lesson wasn't going to stick. Too many "me firsts" out there.
My problem lies more with the fact that I immediately internalize things like this. I immediately switch roles. When people explain gory events in detail, when I see horrible things happen, I put myself in their place. I've become physically ill due to someone just describing what happened to them, having to run to the bathroom to throw up. So maybe I empathize too much, but fucking christ, the world needs more of it.
They should bottle it, put it in the water. Fuck flouride, we need compassion.
I want to have kids now just so I can add a few more compassionate people to this shallow pool of human life
Re: Mommy, sign my permission slip
Date: 2002-09-09 11:43 pm (UTC)I, honestly, should be thanking you for the inspiration. I haven't been too creative in my writing processes lately and needed some fuel in a big bad way. It's the nice thing about LJ- I can usually rely on you to get my motor running again.
*slaps forehead*
Gah, thank the gods I don't write greeting cards. I sound like such a slimeball in my delivery sometimes when I don't mean to... you get my motor running?!. OH my.
All we can do now....
Date: 2002-09-10 12:49 am (UTC)Just my opinion.
Grateful
Date: 2002-09-10 02:07 am (UTC)Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2002-09-10 07:37 am (UTC)Dunno how you handled it.
Part of me thinks that should be required curriculum during driver's ed. Perhaps most of those deaths would be avoided. Perhaps it would just send a lot of kids over the edge. Perhaps it would simply desensitize people to this sort of thing even more than they already are. Who knows? Like you said, may be worth a shot.
Oh...can I print this out and show it to my brother? He's 16, and he's really fascinated with the world of street racing. Also, my mom wants me to show it to my dad (particularly because of the mother of 4 decapitation bit) because he drives recklessly a lot...and without a seatbelt. The thing about showing it to my dad, I'd have to edit it (just "fuck," really) and I'm not sure how you'd feel about that.
One thing I know, I will never drink and drive.
Re:
Date: 2002-09-10 08:48 am (UTC)I do miss talking to you.
:}
no subject
Date: 2002-09-10 09:04 am (UTC)but i can tell you that cloud...i saw it too, looming over the hollywood hills. it was indeed due to the fire in the Glendale hills. I watched it from my balcony at home after work, the big grasshopper like helicopters buzzing a half of mile of my house, sucking water out of Silver Lake and dumping it on the hills.
Ive seen that particular Meat Co.'s truck as well. Catchy.
no subject
Date: 2002-09-10 09:04 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-09-10 09:08 am (UTC)I rarely have time to go through my friends list like I used to. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry your interview didn't go the way it should have. You'll get there. You have the drive and the talent. Most people just have skill or talent, no drive *coughMEcough*.
;)
no subject
Date: 2002-09-10 09:25 am (UTC)The disconnection, I think, (at least for me) is due to the fact that I wish I weren't human 99% of the time. Why would I want to co-exist with other humans? Tolerating them is what I've become prone to doing. The other 1% is my being grateful (selfish?) for the fact that I do possess a lust for life, the ability to love and love deeply, respect for my surroundings and what I've come to know as my home, etc. But for the most part, yeah. I'm a morbid bitch with the attitude that we're all dying the moment we're born, which is one of the biggest reasons why I ultimately don't want children. I can't think of enough reasons why. There are simply too many people, too many bodies. Maybe that's why the Earth doesn't stop spinning on its axis each time one of them takes their own life in something as moronic as an "accident" while racing at 105mph on the freeway.
Go to a county fair. The display is just about as hideous as the brutality of seeing the morgue. I don't know what's worse, to be honest. The bloated, greasy, sweating, living - thumping around in their clinging clothes and frying in the sun while being stuffed full of deep fried twinkies on a stick, or quiet, cold, decaying, dead bodies lying "peacefully", yet glassy-eyed on an autopsy table. All of it is pretty ugly.
As much beauty as their is in life (yeah, there is beauty, I know), there is a certain beauty in death. Not the glamourous, romanticized type, just the simple - end to everything. Access to the ultimate relief. The ultimate "over".
Thank you for sharing this experience here, Jill. You were right when you said that people should pay a visit to the morgue. Me, I see the morgue every day, just walking around, just going to the mall... and especially the people standing in line with their 5 kids waiting to buy Happy Meals. Yeah. They're DEFINITELY dead people walking.
I miss you.
Re:
Date: 2002-09-10 09:25 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-09-10 09:48 am (UTC)not that i read it and couldnt get into.
ever scan a newspaper headline you just dont feel like reading? could be a fine article, you just dont feel like taking the time. same deal.
Re:
Date: 2002-09-10 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-09-10 11:10 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-09-10 11:14 am (UTC)I wonder if any of that affected the guy in my class. *sigh* Probably not.
This is part of the reason I was so quiet and a little out of it on Friday.
Re: Grateful
Date: 2002-09-10 11:45 am (UTC)Re: All we can do now....is give peas a chance
Date: 2002-09-10 11:46 am (UTC)WEEEEEHEEEEEEHEEEEEHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Re: joo can get my motor runnin' anytime baybeh
Date: 2002-09-10 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-09-10 12:42 pm (UTC)Edited because of that darn /, and because I forgot to tell you that it wasn't lame! I even waited to read it until this morning (even though I saw it last night) because I know what sort of writing you're capable of, and I knew it would have given me nightmares. I was right, it totally would have. Take that as a compliment, as that's how it's intended. You're a fantastic writer.
Re: yes! more cats comments!
Date: 2002-09-10 12:43 pm (UTC)Bah, you are witty and clever and funny, so just shoosh.
Re:
Date: 2002-09-10 12:48 pm (UTC)I don't know what to say.
I really thought that was crap, as it was just me getting it out of my head.
Thank you, seriously.
Re: yes! more cats comments!
Date: 2002-09-10 12:52 pm (UTC)you're so sweet.
*salutes*
I will attempt to shoosh and comment at the same time. Dunno how well it'll work though.
Oh! the sound muh new laptop makes when you empty out the recycle bin is:
"Ducks going,
'We're not coming.'
'But there's going to be a huge fuck off flood!'
'Sssssssssso?'"
I'll be throwing things away just to hear that!
no subject
Date: 2002-09-10 12:59 pm (UTC)Your post, I think, will wake them up. It'd probably count as community service as well.
no subject
Re:
Date: 2002-09-10 02:29 pm (UTC)Re: le singe est sur la branche!
Date: 2002-09-10 02:33 pm (UTC)Bwahahaha...now I might have to put on a little Eddie. mmmm...eddie...
Re: le singe est sur la branche!
Date: 2002-09-10 02:54 pm (UTC)Re: All we can do now....is give peas a chance
Date: 2002-09-10 05:20 pm (UTC)Maybe I am a bit, at that. Except I dress more like a beat-nik then a hippie. That and I shower.
Re:
Date: 2002-09-10 07:40 pm (UTC)And thank you, doll. I think, in my nervousness, I must have overlooked it. I apologize.
xoxo
Re:
Date: 2002-09-11 11:19 am (UTC)