At the Autopsy, page 3

BYRON HAS CUT THE BODY DOWN the center of the chest, from around the sternum to the lower abdomen. The flesh and muscle have been peeled away to expose the innards. Perhaps three quarters of an inch thick, the flesh lies hanging off to each side. The flesh and muscle from the upper chest area have been peeled back and c Do the skeleton dance of death

over the corpse's mouth and chin.

The upper face is uncovered, the eyes are closed. The sternum has been sawed down the middle, and a brace holds the ribs open, permitting Byron to have access to the organs. I have studied pictures of body organs, and am able to identify some of them. I do not experience any nausea or shock.

I ask Byron how he got into this kind of work. He tells me he started as a volunteer. ‘Morgues have volunteers?’ I wonder. A doctor with an Eastern European accent comes in. He ignores me. Apparently, doctors supervise autopsies, but unlike an old television show I recall, do not actually do the work. The doctor wonders why the corpse smells so bad. It does have an odor, but not an overpowering "I think I'll pass out" kind of a smell.

The doctor tells Byron to take some samples for biopsy. The doctor and Byron debate whether something they find in the body existed before death, or was caused after death. I do not quite follow what they are talking about, but Byron defends himself, saying he moved the body carefully, and touched very little after opening the body.

THE CORPSE SEEMS UNCONCERNED. Its face is peaceful, almost as if the man had just gone to sleep. I have occasional difficulty realizing the man is dead. My mind seems to be distancing itself from death by noticing that my body has little physically in common with the corpse (my body is slender and white). I counter by imagining lying on the table dead, my body opened like that of the corpse. It works to some degree.

Byron starts to do his thing. He looks at the body's heart, a reddish blob about the size of a fist. He shows me a gray area on the heart, and speculates the man died of a heart attack.

Byron takes out the heart and lungs which are attached to each other. I always imagined the lungs to be gossamer-like and quite large. In fact, they are relatively small and not as thin as I expected, about a half inch thick. Perhaps it is because they are filled with blood. Periodically, Byron suctions off some blood into a plastic bucket, so he can see better. The assistant and Byron are always peering into the body, trying to figure things out.

Byron complains how difficult the corpse is to work with. "He is a piece of work," he says. Apparently, the man has had many surgeries. The surgeries cause adhesions which make removing organs difficult.

The morgue is not a paragon of organization. Byron is constantly having to call to one of the other employees to get this Q-tip or that jar. I guess once someone is dead, there is little need for surgical precision.

BYRON AND HIS ASSISTANT KEEP AT IT. He keeps complaining about how hard the body is to work on. "Jesus" he mutters, both hands deep in the corpse, "I can't find the spleen." His assistant checks some files. It turns out the man has had his spleen removed. They have the same problem with the rectum. A check of the files confirms that the man had it removed, too.

I venture that the man must have had cancer. The assistant says no, it was ischemia. "What is that?" I ask. "You are not a resident," she says? Apparently my answer was a dead giveaway. I confess I am a law school professor. The assistant asks Byron if he really wants law types around. Byron merrily says everyone is welcome.

The assistant tells me that they nicked a vein during surgery, and that some of the removed organs have died due to lack of blood flow. (That is the definition of ischemia.) Medical malpractice, I think, but do not say. Perhaps that is the reason for the autopsy.

Byron is still complaining. Finally, he has cut it loose. He reaches way into the corpse with both hands and takes out the stomach and intestines, a healthy quantity of organs. The stomach is like a small, reddish-brown bag, the intestines like a long hose of differing widths. They are unceremoniously plopped into a large plastic bucket.

THE CORPSE'S BODY CAVITY is mostly empty now. I can see the ribs clearly. They remind me of ribs you get at a barbecue. The flesh hanging over the face reminds me of marbled beef at the local butcher. Bizarre, macabre thoughts enter my mind. Perhaps when I die, I should send my friends parts of my body to help them to detach.

I have been there 45 minutes. The second doctor has left. The autopsy is not yet over, but it seems like the exercise has lasted long enough. I take my leave, breathing a sigh of relief.

Byron and his assistant say a friendly good bye, still intent on their work. I never find out the exact cause of death. The image of the body opened like a side of beef stays with me for some time. One thing is for sure, there is no self in the body.

Walter Schwidetzky has been a student of meditation, primarily vipassana, for ten years. When he is not meditating, he is a professor (of taxation, of all things) at the University of Baltimore School of Law. A number of his friends who are tax professors or tax attorneys are also students of Buddhism, so there may be an as yet undiscovered connection between taxation and Buddhism. This article originally appeared in the Bhavana Society newsletter.

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