The Undertaking

Abstract

The Undertaking Ellen Rogers (bio) When J began a side job as an undertaker at a funeral home, our partnership was ending—a death of a different sort. J was mainly a sword swallower. He performed in nouveau cirque shows along the West Coast. Even though he had traveled with tents big enough to hold hundreds of awe-struck showgoers across the country, neither of us ever had much money. He took on extra jobs to fill some of the gaps, most of them a little dangerous; prior to becoming an undertaker he worked as an arborist and an electrician. It was as if he wanted to confront death in all the work he chose. Before I knew him, early on in his career, J was rushed to the emergency room after nicking his epiglottis with his sword during a show—blood on the tip of his blade. He could have died. In the first months we dated, I could barely watch any time he performed. But soon the act felt normal, like breathing. To some, the circus might seem like fun and games, just a distraction from real life. But each act looks life and death right in the face: the drop from an aerial rig, the slice of a sword in the throat. It’s risky business. Performers swallow death, then bow. Fatality is always possible amidst impossible feats. Each show shows us all that death will cull and how it could. Then the glorious circus ends, and the train leaves town. [End Page 57] I was awed by these lessons even as I struggled with them. Since J and I broke up, my struggles with these lessons have not gone away. Though I don’t long to resurrect our relationship, this part of my life, even years later, haunts me—the daring I felt I never quite picked up, the wildness I later ceded to comfort, the sense of misdirection in my own life that didn’t end when we did. ________ I first met J at a music festival, not far from the Nooksack River’s teal waters, at the height of blackberry season when the Pacific Northwest teems with sunlight and no one wants to be inside. Even the way he walked was playful. His allure was his rare freedom. We got together and stayed partners for years. J made a point of meeting everyone. He shook any stranger’s hand, then spun his signature black felt bowler hat upside down on his finger and tossed it via triple-flip back onto his head—a little magic for the shuffling grocery store line or someone’s morning commute. For a person who risked his life with each performance, he was jovial and warm, nothing grim about him. I will always admire this, though sometimes I felt drab in comparison back then, forgettable except for the fact that I stood next to him. At my worst, I used to wonder if our partnership was to blame, as if his personality overshadowed mine. Our circus friends were brave and playful and crafty. I admired them too, even though I often felt awkward around them, not cut out for the bold life they led. People use the phrase “when pigs fly” to mean something will never happen. But when a friend wore a pig suit for a comedy burlesque act set to “Harlem Nocturne,” J and the crew figured out how to hoist her through dancing clouds on stage. Every day, what I didn’t think could happen happened. Whatever they dreamed, they did. Rose-petal confetti. A swordfish sword to swallow, a bouquet to swallow, a glowing neon sword to swallow that lit J from within. A tour down the Willamette River on a homemade boat that doubled as a floating stage. Impossibility flew above our heads, then stuck its landing. [End Page 58] The weekend before I broke up with J, we decorated his small circus tent as if for a funeral, his chosen theme for that night’s show. He borrowed a casket from work. We made bouquets of dead branches and dried flowers. We strung fraying fabric strips into white webs overhead and hauled...