“It’s the same principal as a sit-in. Only we carry it farther.”
“Oh. Well, that explains everything,” I said sarcastically.
“Look,” April said patiently, “it’s like this. I belong to the League for Life. 'I'hat’s an organization with one simple principle. We’re for life and against death. This place here, we’ve done a lot of thinking and talking and planning about it lately. It's whole reason for existing is pro-death. It was bad enough when it stuck to huckstering death as a marketable commodity, but now it’s pushing death philosophically and politically. It's become a chief and moving force in the dialectic of death. So we’ve decided to strike back. We've decided to demonstrate. And we decided that our demonstration had to be as representative of life as this place is of death. Now, what is it that stands for life more than any other act?”
“I’ll bite. What?” I played straight man.
“Sex! That’s what. And that’s why we set Wednesday of this week, today, for a lay-in!”
“Today is Tuesday.”
“What?”
“I said today is Tuesday,” I repeated.
“Oh, no!” The glow of dedication left April’s face and a look of distress replaced it. “Don’t tell me I got my days mixed up! Damn! No wonder Dick hasn’t shown up. He’s out lying in front of that troop train. And that’s where I should be. Oh! How could I have been so stupid?”
“You can come back tomorrow.” I shrugged off her distress. “Right now you might as well come back to life, get dressed, and get out of here."
“I suppose you’re ri -” April broke off the sentence, held a finger to her lips, and cocked her head to listen. “Someone’s coming!” she whispered urgently. “Quick! Lie down and pull a sheet over you."
“Why?”
“I don’t want them to discover us. That’s why.”
“I thought you wanted publicity.”
“We do. But not today. It would spoil everything for tomorrow. We have to actually go through with the sex part of the lay-in for it to be effective and get nationwide attention. If they catch wise today, they might hush it up and manage to keep us out of here. tomorrow. You see, tomorrow the reporters have been tipped off to be here. Please, Steve, hurry. Lie down and cover yourself up.”
“Why me? I'm not involved.”
“If they find you here, they’ll be suspicious. You could spoil everything. Please! Do as I say.”
The voices were drawing closer, and footsteps could also be heard now. What the hell! I laid down on the empty slab beside the one on which April was lying and pulled the shroud up over me.
There was a rumbling sound mixed with the two voices. It stopped a few feet away from the slab on which I was lying. The voices, both male, were distinguishable now.
“Hey, Boris,” the first voice crowed. “My shrouds are whiter than your shrouds.”
“Now, wait a minute, Zachary, just let me see.” A small rolling sound followed the second voice, and I realized that each of them must have been wheeling some sort of cart of his own. “I’ll be!" Boris resumed talking after a few seconds. “Your shrouds did come out whiter than mine. Now how do you figure that? We both used the same detergent.”
“But we used a different bleach!” Zachary said triumphantly. “You used that old weak bleach, and I used this new, extra-strength kind with embalming fluid in it.”
“Hmpph!” Boris hmpphd. “Hey! Look at this.” He changed the subject. “This stiff hasn’t been stripped down yet.” He slapped his palm against the sole of my shoe.
“Must have just brought him in,” Zachary replied. “We’d better take care of him before we put on the clean shrouds.”
“Okay.” Boris yanked off one of my shoes, then the other one. “He's got a hole in his sock,” he remarked.
“Now, isn’t that something? How can a guy go to his grave like that? You’d think he'd be mortified.”
“It’s hard to be mortified in a mortuary when you’re dead already,” Boris pointed out with what I though was very good sense.
There was a muffled giggle from under the shroud covering April.
“What was that?" Zachary started.
“What was what?” Boris was removing the sock with the hole in it. His fingers tickled the sole of my foot, and I almost bit through my lip to keep from giggling aloud myself.
“I thought I heard something.”
“Oh, come on now, Zachary. After all these years, you’re not going to start developing nervous tension now, are you?”
“I've always had a nervous stomach,” Zachary said defensively.
“It’s an occupational hazard.” Boris pushed the shroud up over my waist and tugged off my trousers and shorts. Then he pulled the shroud back down in place again. “You should really try that new speedy alkalizing agent that soothes the walls of your intestines while it eases headache pain at the same time.”
“Those things never work on me."
“That’s what I used to say, but this one is different. It's got that new wonder-drug in it, a derivative of embalming fluid.”
“I thought that's what was in the detergent.”
“You mean the bleach. But it’s not the same thing.” Boris was beside me now, his fingers under the shroud unbuttoning my shirt. “Give me a hand, Zachary,” he said. “Let’s sit him up so I can pull off his jacket and shirt.”
I held my breath as Zachary supported me. I made my eyes wide and staring as the shroud fell away from my face. It wasn’t necessary. Boris and Zachary were performing their task by rote, and they paid very little attention to me. Except that Zachary did remark that I was still pretty warm.
“They’re always rushing things,” Boris replied as he helped Zachary lay me back down on the slab. “Business is really on the upswing around here. You’d think they’d give us a raise.” He rearranged the shroud over me.
“Might as well put a clean one on him,” Zachary said.
“Okay.” Boris whisked the shroud off.
I felt a sudden chill in the area of my groin. I trembled for an instant before I got control of myself.
“Boris!” Zachary had seen the movement. “He moved.”
“Nonsense!” Boris spread a clean shroud over me. “You just imagined that, Zachary. You always think things are reacting to you because you're self-conscious.”
“Me self-conscious? Why should I be self-conscious?”
“Zachary, I made up my mind I was going to tell you this. You’re self-conscious because you have bad breath!”
“Bad breath! But how could I? I gargle with a mouth-wash every morning!”
“Well, Zachary, your mouthwash is letting you down. You know why the boss never asks you to lunch? I'll tell you why the boss never asks you to lunch. It’s because you’ve got bad breath, that’s why! Bad breath!”
“My mouthwash is letting me down,” Zachary brooded.
“I thought maybe my deodorant, but never my mouth-wash. And that’s why the boss never asks me to lunch. I thought it was just because he knows I don’t like Transylvanian food.”
“You need a new mouthwash, Zachary!” Boris was very positive. “Your breath smells like when the wind’s blowing from the slaughterhouse. You gotta try that great new mouthwash flavored with formaldehyde.”
“Formaldehyde? Isn’t that what they use in embalming fluid?”
“Yeah.”
“Won't my breath smell like a strong bleach, then?”
“So what? Anything would be an improvement.”
“You sure you’re not smelling the stiffs?” Zachary’s voice sounded plaintive.
“Maybe.” Boris relented. “Now you mention it, this place does smell a little gamy. We better put on the fridge.”
A moment later there was the sound of whirring refrigeration machinery. It was followed by the slam of a heavy door being closed. I waited a minute to make sure they were gone, and then chanced poking my head out from under the shroud. The first thing I saw was April sitting up on her slab.