Uniforms
Preface
Time isn’t linear in The Garden. King told me that when I arrived. I still don’t completely understand but noticed my control over the Kosmos Pnoē changed after I told him I wanted to stay here in his garden.
My most recent viewing brought me to a point in time where an unprecedented rate and pace of innovation and change was occurring. The people were calling it an “industrial revolution” which I found curious. Industries revolting? That might be interesting.
1849 A.D.
War is an on-going re-occurrence. How long had I been watching? A minute or a hundred years? I zoomed in on the Kosmos Pnoē finding a young man fleeing conflict in Spain.
Dominic Rivera stood straight and fixed his hat as he told his father he had seen enough of pointless wars and wanted to leave. Too many of his friends and family made their final earthly journey through his father’s care.1 Moving on from Funerarias Rivera was a difficult but necessary decision.
With his father’s blessing at age 25, Dom booked passage on a westbound sailing ship and did not look back when it set sail. After more than three months at sea, his horizon gazing and constant pacing had worn what appeared to be permanent marks on the ship’s deck.
Upon arrival, he looked preoccupied as he gathered his belongings and made his way to a train station where he booked passage on the multi-day journey by train from New York to Pittsburgh.
“Ticket?” the conductor asked holding his hand out expectantly. Dom handed the man his ticket.
“Dominic River? Riv-ah-er? Riv… How about Restful? Welcome aboard Mr. Restful.”
Dom looked puzzled, but shrugged his shoulders and settled in for the journey.
In The Garden
“The spirits all have different shapes.” I observed aloud.
“Did you just notice?” King asked.
He startled me. I think he enjoys doing it. Appearing with an abrupt question or statement when I least expect it.
I chuckled and said, “I can be a bit slow sometimes. I suppose I’ve known since I first encountered the gateway. Different shapes, sizes, colors, brightness, sound and even scent. Do souls really have a smell?”
“Do you believe you actually have those faculties here, or is it just a memory? King asked. He continued, “Do you believe there are only five ways to perceive?”
I thought for a moment and replied, “I’ve discovered my soul is much more than my kalamos. While writing and annotating continue to be a preoccupation, my dimensions are not constrained to only writing. So yes, I believe the spirits are beyond the five human senses. The senses only extend so far, just as the uniforms people wear over a lifetime come and go.”
King looked genuinely amused.
1853 A.D.
Dom Restful settled into the south side of Pittsburgh and found work with local morticians.2 Most funeral services were held in the homes of the deceased and mortuary services required smaller facilities that could manage the remains in a dignified fashion. Dom knew his trade and quickly became known as the well-dressed and supportive personality that helped family and friends start and progress through the grieving process. Dom Restful looked the part with a tailored black suit, cravat, gloves and top hat. A man that provided the refuge and support to grieve and move forward.
Dom also formed tight bonds with the Irish community in Pittsburgh. In the early 1850’s, a series of Cholera outbreaks made for chaotic mortuary work. During one particularly nasty outbreak in Southside Flats, Dom’s services were requested by the Rooney family. Their oldest son had died from cholera and needed a respectful but expeditious service. Their youngest daughter, Nora, appeared devastated at the loss of her best friend and older brother. And because of the disease, she was not allowed in his room to say goodbye.
Dom’s impeccable attire and peaceful demeanor calmed the family and as he was completing his business with Mr. and Mrs. Rooney, Nora glanced at him and smiled. She looked affectionately at him up and down from his top hat down to his black leather boots. Dom blushed from the attention.
As the cholera outbreak grew, Dom’s work became long and gruesome, but he always seemed to find time to “run into” Nora. She would always smile and say hello. Sometimes they would engage in small talk.
On one particular day she seemed to glow at the sight of him in his work attire and boldly asked him, “Why is it, Mr. Restful, that I always seem to see you in your stunning suit when I am out for groceries?”
With heat rising into his cheeks Dom stuttered, “Um… well, you see.”
Nora laughed. “I shouldn’t tease but perhaps you could be a gentleman and properly ask my father to visit me?”
Dom looked stunned. “Yes ma’am,” was all he managed to squeak out.
The courtship proceeded. Mr. Rooney seemed skeptical at first, perhaps because of Dom’s chosen profession. Dom was always formal, wearing his work uniform whenever he visited Nora.
On a particular day after about a year of courting Nora, Dom looked particularly flustered while speaking with Mr. Rooney. What followed seemed to explain it.
“Mr. Rooney. er, uh... I was wondering if you would be ok if I… um… asked Nora to marry me?”
A loud, happy squeal came from the other room. Mr. Rooney scowled. Dom appeared to be perspiring. Then a huge smile sprouted on Mr. Rooney’s face.
“Call me Patrick, my boy!” said Mr. Rooney.
1856 A.D.
Pittsburgh grew rapidly as people came from around the world fleeing persecution and seeking opportunity. More people meant more business for morticians. The population growth also made less space available in most homes to host funeral services.
Dom saw an opportunity and with Mr. Rooney’s help, acquired a large estate home on the South Side of Pittsburgh that he converted into Restful Gardens Funeral Home, which included living quarters for Dom and Nora.
Coincidentally, as they moved into their new home, Nora announced to Dom and her family the happy news that new life would be arriving soon. Dominic Restful Junior was born a few months later.3 Nora would dress the baby in formal outfits that matched Dom Senior’s uniform.
As soon as Dom Junior could walk, he was attending the funeral services. When he learned to talk and follow instructions, he began assisting his father. Nora dressed him in suits that she made that were identical to his father’s suits.
She would ask him regularly, “What will you be when you grow up?”
To which Dom Junior would gleefully shout, “I’m going to be like Daddy!”
1860 A.D.
“Be a good boy and bring your father his work gloves.” Nora said one day when Dom Junior was about 4 years old.
He grabbed the gloves and ran to the basement where his father was working. “Tell your father I need to speak with him,” she shouted after him.
A new baby was on the way she told Dom Senior. A surprise for both of them because the midwife had told Nora she could not have any more children after Dom Junior’s birth.
A few months later, Jack Restful joined the fold.4
When Jack was barely old enough to speak, Dom Sr. called the boys into his office. He had a strange look on his face, and both boys had a nervous look about them.
“Death is natural,” their father said. “Just like being born, eating, drinking, sleeping and loving. It’s a natural part of life, until men make it unnatural. I saw too much of that back in my homeland and had to leave.”
Dom Jr. was nodding, already wearing the appropriate stoic look. Jack looked a bit confused, but mostly bored.
In The Garden
“Did you see the flashes when those boys were born?” I asked.
King replied, “I don’t watch.”
He was always guarded when it came to my questions and providing details about the gateway and the Kosmos Pnoē.
“I suspect it has to do with birth happening in a place where death concludes.”
King didn’t respond.
I continued, “I enjoy the songs they play on the organ.”
1865 A.D.
When he founded Restful Gardens, Dom Senior acquired a used Mason & Hamlin Parlor Organ. He had some basic playing skills from his younger days at his father’s business in Spain and could serviceably and solemnly play a few traditional hymns like “Amazing Grace.”
Dom Junior did not like organ lessons. Nora would dress him in his mortician’s uniform which pacified him for a while, but at 9 years old, he revolted and told her he wanted to work with his father, not play the stupid organ.
Jack, on the other hand, loved the organ. It was the only thing he did where he would sit still and focus. Everything else he did, school, church, Sunday school lessons, he would be bored, fall asleep or goof off. His teachers started calling him Jackie Restless.5
CLAP, “Jack!” his teacher shouted. “Wake up!”
He kept his eyes shut and growled, “Fine! I’m up.”
His lips were moving slightly, as though following something only he could hear.
By the time Jack was 6, he could play the organ significantly better than Dom Senior and Nora. Nora’s uniform fixation presented a challenge. Nora spent days, sometimes weeks, sewing impeccable suits and shirts for the boys. Much to her dismay, Jack always fought wearing them.
“I hate it!” he shouted before a memorial service was scheduled to begin.
“Just put it on!” she shouted back at him.
It usually ended up with Jack in an untucked state of disarray, messy hair but a focused and excited stare as he pressed the keys and filled Restful Gardens with the peaceful reed organ music.
---
On a quiet day at Restful Gardens, a day where no services were planned and Dom Senior, Dom Junior and Nora were all out getting groceries and various supplies, Jack found his way to the organ.
The intoxicating smell of the lilies and flowers from yesterday’s services was almost visible. The bellows started breathing.
He began playing some notes, then full chords. It was as if the bellows were breathing the floral scents and Jack was seeing the color of the sound. The Kosmos Pnoē started vibrating in rhythm. The organ’s breath was mesmerizing. Questioning. Percussive.
He began humming a melody. Then he began to sing.
In the Garden of Eden…
Don’t you know I love you?
In the King’s Garden…
Don’t you know I’ll be true?
The Kosmos Pnoē pulsed. Darkness. Silence.6
“What was that?” King asked.
1878 A.D.
The need for funeral services had grown rapidly with the city and schools for mortuary services started opening. A few years earlier, Dom Junior enthusiastically went through the two-year program of the new South Side Mortuary School and apprenticed at Restful Homes.
At 18 years old, Jack was expected to follow Dom Junior’s path, but Jack had other plans. While Dom Junior was off at mortuary school and apprentice, Jack would sneak out at night and perform parlor music for people that heard him play at funeral services and hired him to play parties at their homes. He was making quite a name for himself and sometimes had more than one show on a single evening. When Jack played the organ or piano the Kosmos Pnoē would start glowing in a harmonic and sonic fashion. Visible sound.
As he gained more patrons, he also started playing the piano and would perform some adventurous polka music. Including some early versions of what eventually became the beer barrel polka. One of my favorites was when he would start playing and singing loudly:
In heaven there is no beer...
That’s why we drink it here...
And when we’re gone from here...
Our friends will be drinking all the beer!
His regular patrons would always sing along loudly and badly – usually under significant influence from the liquid they serenaded.7
One night, or should I say, one early morning when he was sneaking back in, Nora and Dom Senior were waiting for him.
“Where have you been?” Dom Senior asked.
Jack saw Dom Junior looking at him disdainfully and shaking his head from the other room.
“I was out.”
“You start school tomorrow. Today.” Nora said.
“No, I’m not. I’m playing music. That’s what I want to do.”
A shouting match ensued and concluded with Dom Senior shaking his head and saying in a disappointed voice, “I don’t understand.”
1882 A.D.
Dom Senior’s health had been failing for a few years, but his stoic attitude masked his ailments from his family. It wasn’t until he couldn’t find the energy to get out of bed for the day’s funeral services that Nora finally made him visit the doctor.
Lung cancer. Dom’s smoking and the steel mill air of Pittsburgh had been conspiring against his lungs for years.
“We cannot usually diagnose it until we do an autopsy. Except for rare cases where the patient outlives the prognosis,” the doctor said.
Dom and Nora were speechless.
---
A few weeks later Dom Senior called Dom Junior and Jack into his office.
“I’ll be gone soon. You remember what I said when you were boys. Death is natural. Your job is to make sure our loved ones can grieve and move on, especially your mother.”
He continued, “I ran away from the worst kind of unnatural death when I was young. War steals humanity’s dignity. I was not strong enough to bear that burden.”
He sighed and finished by saying, “Never disrespect your duties, your calling. We are here to serve our family, friends and community by helping them with their natural ending. Just like a doctor heals the sick or a mason lays brick, we guide people through death.”8
Later that evening while Jack was fiddling with the organ, Dom Senior came into the parlor and sat on one of the sofas and loosened his cravat. Jack looked up but didn’t say anything as he slowly started playing his father’s favorite hymn.
“I’ve always been proud of you, son.”
Dom Junior stiffened, appearing to seethe.
Dominic Rivera Restful Senior came to The Garden early the next morning as he dreamt of peaceful rivers.
In The Garden
Sometimes I like to observe arrivals. When Dom Senior arrived, he reached up to his head and exclaimed, “Where’s my hat?”
King looked bored. “It’s not time for work.”
Dom looked confused, “Am I…?” he asked.
“Yes.”
King showed him to the gateway and disappeared.
I watched him for a while. He was standing there staring. Was it a minute or century? Was I distracted?
Where did Dom go?
1890 A.D.
Jack’s music career was booming, and he traveled by train all around the country. People would come from miles around to hear Jackie Restless play parlor music at the homes of wealthy and prestigious families. He rarely returned to Pittsburgh.
Restful Gardens struggled after Dom Senior’s passing. Dom Junior had taken over, but the embalming chemicals were quietly doing their work. The arsenic and formaldehyde had been slowly poisoning Dom Junior and Nora for years.
Over the next few months, both fell gravely ill, and Dom Junior passed away in the early Autumn. Nora seemed too sick to grieve. She sent a telegram to Jack in Boston.
The telegram boy found Jack in the middle of a show at a downtown brownstone in Copley Square. The telegram boy entered abruptly.
“I have a telegram for Mr. Jack Restful.”
Jack stood up from the piano, took the telegram and read it.
Jack.
Dom has passed. Please come home.
Mom.
Jack folded the telegram and placed it in his coat pocket.
“Thank you, young man,” he said handing the boy a freshly minted dime.
Jack sat down at the piano and finished his show. The next day, he found his way to the train station and booked passage back to Pittsburgh. After a two-day journey, Jack arrived at Restful Gardens.9
---
Jack paused as he stood at the front door of Restful Gardens. He seemed to be counting the years that passed since he left.
As he entered, he heard someone speaking.
“…It’s a shame he wasn’t here in time to say goodbye.”
It was his Uncle Sean, his mother’s younger brother. He caught sight of Jack and scowled.
“You ungrateful bastard!”
“I arrived as soon as I got word,” Jack replied.
Sean shook his head and stormed out of the room leaving him alone with John Slater, the funeral director from across town.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said as he handed Jack an envelope. It was a letter from his mother. Jack slipped it into his coat pocket next to the telegram.
In The Garden
I tried to get to the gateway for the latest arrivals, but as with Jack, something kept me where I was. So, I settled for watching on the Kosmos Pnoē.
When Dom Junior arrived, he reached up to his head and exclaimed, “Where’s my hat?”
King chuckled.
“What’s funny?” Dom Junior asked.
King’s amusement evaporated. “It’s not time for work.”
Dom looked angry. “What the Hell is going…”
King and Dom Junior disappeared.
---
A few days later, or maybe it was years, Nora arrived.
She looked pitiful. Her face was a war of exhaustion and grief.
Someone was with King. Handsome and wearing an impeccable black suit, leather boots, top hat and gloves.
“Oh my!” she exclaimed as she ran to Dom Senior.
1890 A.D. to 1914 A.D.
Jack sold Restful Gardens and left Pittsburgh. He never married. He played his music around the northeast US, mostly in Boston and New York City. He even began writing original music.
He loved polkas, especially drinking songs, but he also enjoyed composing and playing ragtime music. Scott Joplin was one of his favorite composers and in 1902, “The Entertainer” quickly became one of the most requested songs when he would perform the music took over the room.
Jack carried the telegram and unopened letter from his mother with him everywhere. When a performance required dirges or traditional funeral hymns, he would slip his hand into his coat pocket and touch the unopened letter. Over time it became an unconscious habit whenever he encountered death, or anything related to his family’s vocation.
1914 A.D.
In July of 1914, Jack was performing at the home of a prominent lawyer when news broke of World War I. The show ended abruptly and Jack found himself at the Café Royal, where he performed regularly. Today he was just a patron.
“Hi Jackie,” Liba greeted him. “Are you performing today? I’d love to hear some of those jazz tunes you’ve been playing.”
“Good afternoon, Liba,” he said, winking at her. “Not performing. How about some coffee?”
“Feh,” Liba said disappointed, but then she perked back up. “Sure thing.” She smiled and went to fetch some coffee.
As Jack sat looking out the café window, watching the people rushing by, snippets of worried and frightened conversations ringing in the air, he reached into his pocket.
He pulled out his mother’s letter, stared at it for a moment. He traced his mother’s cursive writing of his name and paused.
He took a deep breath and opened it.10
1916 A.D.
The smell of smoke, dirt, mud, blood, shit and death filled the air. Jack was hunkered down in a trench in Somme, France. He was by far the oldest member of a volunteer unit that would eventually become part of the United States Grave Registration Service.
“They don’t look human anymore,” a British signal officer next to him said quietly. “It’s like an immense horde of demons as far as the eye can see.”
“I wonder if heaven and hell get overwhelmed processing souls on the bad days?”11
Jack set aside religion in his youth, but that question seemed to stir something in him. He looked down at the blood stains on his uniform, reached in his pocket and touched his mother’s letter.
The noise came before the words did. “Incoming… Take cover!”
The letter was still in his hand.
In The Garden
“Uniform choice…” I started saying.
King rolled his eyes.
I looked at him for a moment or millennia.
“Do you believe it is the ultimate expression of free will?”
An expression flashed briefly on his face and was gone. Was it betrayal?
“A soul doesn’t choose its purpose.” King said slowly, looking intently at me.
Progress?
End Notes:
the sin of an unjust war
death as does birth requires specific vocation and skill
the gateway and Kosmos Pnoē both flashed brightly as the spirit entered time
another brighter flash from the gateway and Kosmos Pnoē
early acedia accusations
the original sound
false idols perhaps, but I’ll admit I was singing along
more uniforms
a closing gateway
sometimes a chosen uniform no longer fits and an older one does
the garden is surprisingly efficient