Show some goddamned patience. No one—not even a body snatcher—gets rich overnight.
When no one attends the funeral, you might as well leave them to the worms. Anyone worth something draws a crowd—unless the will’s already been read and possessions divided up. The gold teeth aren’t worth it. You might find a silver ring or necklace, but unless you’re hard up for petty drug money, it’s not going to get you the score you’re after. Most of us work in teams. Never bigger than three: a lookout and two snatchers. We look for freshly turned graves. The cut’s never worth it. Two can do—as long as someone’s comfortable with being the muscle.
Hanging around graveyards is a waste of time. I work alone. I like to befriend the mark. You need to treat body snatching like your job—eventually, it becomes your job.
Four years ago, I went down to the paper, paid them $250, and received the daily news for a year. I went down and paid them another $250—guess what, got another year of news. So on. And so on. No digital footprint. No algorithm to detect. In four years, I don’t remember a single headline. I don’t read the front page. I don’t get a single targeted advertisement.
Millionaires will tell you that’s yesterday’s news.
Billionaires tell you it’s months old.
Stay out of the loop. Flip to the personal sections and skip past the solicitors, prostitution advertisements, and ex-cons searching for their next mark. Ignore the free junk section. Less clutter is better. Focus on the birthdays. Every single goddamned day, you will find an elderly person’s name printed in big bold letters. That’s your hustle.
Cross-check the names you find in the paper with the white pages. The white pages get you the phone numbers you need to acquire the addresses. With all the information, you use the internet to figure out the rest. You don’t even have to do the legwork. Post their personal info to an anonymous chat forum. Say something like THIS EVIL B!TCH WON’T STOP TRYING TO POISON MY SISTER’S DOG!! Let strangers on the internet dig up their dirt. We’re talking about what eBooks they read, their favorite recipes; look for their kinks. Everyone’s a pervert.
Then weaponize their lives against them.
Go to their neighborhood. Become a tourist. Dress to stand out—provoke their eyes with soothing colors. Yellow and green tops matched against khaki brown or blue jean. Youth betrays the body. Inconspicuousness survives. It’s in the eyes. You see it when you dig up enough corpses.
The only mistake I made earlier on was being too noticeable. The fact that people could see me coming—me and my no-good habits, eyes drifting toward the shiniest object within reach—and they would still hand over their valuables to me with only the promise not to escape, not to steal, and to return. To even die with it in my hands.
Dying is a fool’s errand—and I don’t know about you, but I haven’t got the time for that at the moment.
Not in this economy.
Once you have the address and you’ve dressed to impress, go to their neighborhood and become a tourist. Be from anywhere other than there; love to gossip; demand to know the talk of the neighborhood. They have what you want and no reason to give it to you—or anyone else, really. All you need is to get a look inside their windows. The ones guarded by drawn curtains. You need to infiltrate that house. You have guesses at the alarm system code. The last four of a Social Security number are useful for that.
By the look of the living room, you can tell whether it’s worth your time to be fly on their shit or not. It’s a numbers game. That’s your lick. Harmless enough. You aren’t here to kill them—just steal their stuff.
Unless the pay is good.
Look around your room. You look blessed. Don’t you agree that in death, all the things you love deserve to be loved again, but even better?
For a minute, a connect with a university professor paid top dollar for fresh cadavers on Sunday nights through the back of the science building, no questions asked. Cash in hand. Paid upon delivery. Something like twenty-eight bodies we gave this guy over a few months. Even people buying bodies don’t buy them in bulk.
The last delivery, he says to me he’s headed for greener pastures. I think this guy is going to kill himself because—well, what do you think he was doing with all those bodies? He tells me he’s retiring. Wisconsin.
Some people just have weird hobbies, I guess.
He killed himself.
Yeah. Never made it to Wisconsin.
The paper reports on his untimely passing. I read the article—such a dear friend. The paper upholds his good name. He is survived properly. Afforded grace. The paper says his place got ransacked. Stripped of all valuables. Looked like someone who really knew what they were doing.
Someone like you—sticky fingers.
There’s an address for flowers.
Some arrive anonymously.
I never stop asking myself, what do you think he did with all those bodies?
You know much about sifting for gold? I picked it up as a hobby about a year ago. I didn’t know shit about gold until I read this article in the paper about sifting for gold—so easy you can do it at home. Well, I like it easy, and sometimes I’m home—so I run down to the dollar store and buy a strainer and pan.
Gold’s high in density. The density makes it valuable. A small amount of space and a large amount of stuff; somehow it fits. We want it to trade for cash. No receipt. No trail.
Head on down to a stream where gold might settle—unsurprisingly, large rocks are the best places to get started, but you can find good locations at bends where sediment builds up, creating a natural barrier for the ore you want. Scoop the goop under the water into your sifter, holding it above the pan. Empty the pan. Empty the sifter into the pan. Add water and shake vigorously.
Everything heavy sinks.
You tilt the pan, water sloshes off the side—don’t make my mistake, ruined a good pair of pants. All I’ve got left are these jeans. Need to get to the store, honestly. Sand and rocks rise to the lip because of their lightness. You continue to repeat this process, reducing the amount of stuff in the space until you’re left with black sand and gold. You work on the black sand the same way.
Once the gold’s visible, you grab your tweezers, and you pick the fine flakes and nuggets from the pan. Be careful with the tweezers. Gold’s heavy—but soft.
Squeezing too hard leaves a mark.
Where do I start? Which body part?
Resurrectionist—that’s what they called us. Bringing the dead back to usefulness. Your things will live again. Someone else will love them better.
The paper will spell your name right.
@Mathew Serback is an urban legend. Say his Instagram handle three times in a mirror and he’ll appear on your feed. More people read his Google Reviews than his poetry. Currently conquering the world with his partner and a rescued border collie.
Image: Etching with engraving by W. Austin, 1773; commons.wikimedia.org
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Heavy Feather Review 