A Piedmont Porchlight Story
There are people in Piedmont who wouldn’t miss a funeral if you offered ’em a free trip to the Holy Land, first-class accommodations, and a personal introduction to Jesus.
Some go out of respect. Some go because they knew the deceased. Some go because there’s liable to be a good spread afterward, particularly if the Baptist ladies are handling refreshments.
And some go because they ain’t got anything better to do.
I worked at Magnolia Mortuary long enough to know the difference. But there was one gentleman whose attendance I never quite understood. He never missed a funeral.
Not one.
Didn’t matter whether the deceased was ninety-seven years old and had lived in Piedmont since Moses was a corporal, or some poor unfortunate who’d only been in town long enough to get a driver’s license.
He was there.
Always dressed in a dark gray suit, white shirt, and black tie. His shoes were polished to a shine that would have pleased a Marine drill instructor. He wore a narrow-brimmed black hat, which he removed the moment he entered the building. And he always sat in the last pew, on the left-hand side.
Now, I realize there’s nothing particularly sinister about attending funerals. Some folks consider it a civic responsibility, and others just enjoy the opportunity to see who’s still living. But this gentleman had a habit that bothered me. He always arrived early. Sometimes very early.
The first time I noticed him was at the funeral of Mrs. Ada Bell Pritchett, who’d passed away at the age of ninety-three. Miss Ada Bell had been a formidable woman. She taught Sunday school for forty-six years, could quote Leviticus from memory, and once informed a visiting evangelist that his interpretation of Revelation was “a load of sanctified horse manure.”
The preacher never returned.
Her funeral was scheduled for two o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. At eleven that morning, I was arranging flowers in the chapel when I noticed a gentleman sitting in the last pew. I hadn’t heard the door open.
“Good morning,” I said. “Can I help you?”
He looked up and smiled. “No, thank you. I’m just waiting.”
“Funeral doesn’t start till two.”
“I know.”
“Well, you’re mighty early.”
He nodded. “I generally am.”
I left him sitting there.
At the time, I figured he was an old acquaintance of Miss Ada Bell’s, perhaps somebody who’d rather spend three hours in a funeral chapel than three hours at home with his wife.
I’ve known men like that. Hell, I’ve been tempted myself.
Over the next several months, I saw him at every service.
Mr. Clarence Dobbs, who’d spent seventy years repairing watches and never managed to keep one running on time.
Miss Hattie Mae Collins, who claimed she’d been engaged to three different men during World War II, all of whom were subsequently reported missing in action.
And Reverend Silas Boone, who preached against dancing, drinking, and gambling until the day he died, at which point somebody discovered seventeen bottles of bourbon beneath his kitchen sink.
The gentleman attended them all. He never approached the casket. Never signed the guest book. Never spoke to the family unless somebody spoke to him first. And he always left before the final hymn.
One afternoon, I asked Clifford Monk, our night clerk, whether he knew the fellow. Clifford looked thoughtful.
“Gray suit? Black hat?”
“That’s him.”
“Can’t say I know his name.”
“Ever seen him outside a funeral?”
Clifford shook his head. “Come to think of it, no.”
“Well, somebody ought to know who he is.”
Clifford considered that. “Maybe he’s just fond of funerals.”
“Clifford, nobody’s that fond of funerals.”
He shrugged. “You worked here thirty years.”
I told him to go inventory the embalming fluid.
The thing that finally got my attention happened on a Tuesday morning in October.
I’d arrived at Magnolia Mortuary a little before eight, intending to finish some paperwork before heading down to the Coffee Cup for breakfast.
There were no services scheduled that day. No visitations. No arrangements. Nothing. The chapel was empty, or so I thought.
I walked through the doorway carrying a fresh cup of coffee and nearly dropped it. There he sat. Last pew. Left-hand side. Gray suit. Black tie. Hat resting on his knees.
“Good Lord!” I exclaimed. “You scared the everlasting daylights out of me!”
He looked up. “My apologies.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
He glanced toward the front of the chapel. “For the service.”
I stared at him. “There ain’t any service today.”
He didn’t answer. “We haven’t got a funeral scheduled until Friday,” I continued. “And that’s out at the Methodist church.”
He nodded politely. “I see.”
“Well, then?”
He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “Maybe you oughta check.”
Now, I don’t mind admitting that irritated me. I’ve always taken considerable pride in knowing what’s going on in my own funeral home.
“Sir,” I said, “I’ve been running this establishment long enough to know when there’s a funeral scheduled.”
“Of course.”
“And there isn’t one.”
“Very well.”
He rose, placed his hat on his head, and walked toward the door. Just before stepping outside, he stopped.
“Will you be attending?”
“Attending what?”
He looked back at me. “The service.”
Then he left.
At nine seventeen that morning, the telephone rang. It was Sheriff Lyle Booker.
“Jim,” he said, “you better sit down.”
“I am sitting down.”
“Well, stay there.”
That’s never a promising beginning to a telephone conversation. He told me there’d been an accident out on Highway Nine. A pickup truck had crossed the center line and struck an automobile. The driver of the automobile was killed instantly.
I asked who it was. There was a long silence. “Clifford Monk.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Jim?”
“I’m here.”
“He was heading home after his shift.”
I looked through the office doorway toward the chapel. Last pew. Left-hand side. Empty. We held Clifford’s funeral that Friday. The chapel was full.
People stood along the walls and spilled out onto the front steps. Clifford had been a quiet man, but apparently he’d made more friends than any of us realized.
The ladies from Beulah Congregational Holiness Church brought enough food to feed the entire Seventh Fleet.
Curtis Pope arrived wearing a suit I hadn’t seen since the Carter administration. Miss Lorene brought flowers and informed me that somebody needed to dust the windowsills. I was too tired to argue.
But the gentleman in the gray suit wasn’t there. I watched the doorway throughout the service. Nothing.
I looked toward the last pew. Empty. For the first time since I’d noticed him, he’d missed a funeral.
Clifford’s.
And somehow that troubled me more than anything else. About a week later, I was locking up the mortuary when I heard somebody speaking behind me.
“Good evening.”
I turned. There he stood on the sidewalk. Gray suit. Black tie. Hat in his hand. I felt a coldness settle somewhere beneath my ribs.
“Where were you?” I asked.
He looked puzzled. “At Clifford’s funeral. You weren’t there.”
He studied me for a moment. “No,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t.”
“Why not?”
He looked toward the chapel windows. “Because I wasn’t needed.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Needed for what?”
He put on his hat. “Some people need a little company while they’re waiting.”
I stared at him. “Waiting for what?”
He gave me a small, almost apologetic smile. “For somebody to come and get them.”
Then he turned and walked away. I never saw him again. Not at Magnolia Mortuary. Not at the Coffee Cup. Not at church, the depot, or anywhere else in Piedmont. But I did find something that bothered me considerably.
A few months after Clifford’s death, I was cleaning out an old filing cabinet in the funeral home basement. It contained photographs, receipts, funeral programs, and records going back to the early 1900s.
One photograph caught my eye. It showed a funeral service held in our chapel in 1936.
The casket stood at the front, surrounded by flowers. The family occupied the first two pews. Several mourners sat farther back.
And there, in the last pew on the left-hand side, sat a gentleman in a dark gray suit. Black tie. Narrow-brimmed hat resting on his knees. I took the photograph upstairs and examined it beneath the desk lamp.
It was him. No question about it. Same face. Same expression. Same slightly stooped shoulders. The photograph was ninety years old. I turned it over. Somebody had written the name of the deceased in faded blue ink.
And beneath that, in smaller letters, was a note. He came early again.
Now, I’ve had plenty of time to think about that gentleman. I’ve wondered who he was, where he came from, and what business he had attending funerals for nearly a century without appearing to age a day.
But there’s one question I haven’t been able to put out of my mind. If he wasn’t needed at Clifford’s funeral because Clifford had already gone wherever he was going… Then why had he been sitting in our chapel three days before Clifford died?
And more importantly… Who was he waiting for that morning?
Because I’ve gone back through the records. I’ve checked every telephone call, every arrangement, every visitor who came through the door. And as near as I can determine, there were only two people in Magnolia Mortuary that morning.
Him.
And me.
Now, I don’t know what you make of that. But I’ve developed a habit over the years. Whenever I walk into a funeral chapel, I glance toward the last pew on the left. And if I ever see a gentleman in a gray suit sitting there with his hat resting on his knees…
Well, I reckon I’ll take my coffee somewhere else. Some appointments, I’ve decided, are better left unconfirmed.
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