Cherie Booker (4:25)

Judgment.

Host (4:35)

Oh yes, it is on. We are here at LA's historic Orpheum Theater. A crowd full wait in the shadows, not knowing who's gonna take this stage and share their tale. They're gonna be delighted. Cause I've got a secret. We've got SNAP royalty. A dear friend of mine, Dr. Raymond.

Dr. Raymond Christian (5:22)

I was about 12 years old and it was one of the hottest days I could remember. Just hanging out with the boys. A group of six or seven of us, the combination of which changed frequently. A hot, oppressive day, just hanging outside when we were out of school. The heat radiating from the pavement, tar sticking to our shoes. But there was one sanctuary for us from the heat, and that was the air conditioned funeral home that was located on the corner between the two blocks where we played. You'd go inside that funeral home in that air conditioning with our skin all moist and you'd be cooled off instantly and refreshed. Now, in our community, it was not unusual for people to come to the funeral home to view bodies of people they didn't even know. They did so out of curiosity. They did so to verify. Is that the man who was killed trying to rob somebody, is that the kid who was killed on the bicycle? Now, the people who worked in the funeral home, they knew that on occasion us kids would come inside just to cool off. And they would allow this on occasion. But they had just one rule. You must sit in the viewing room. Which meant we had to look at the bodies. Not something we wanted to do, but all of us knew the rules of the game. And we would sit there and close our eyes for the 15 minutes or so that we were allowed to be inside. One day we're outside and we're playing kickball and I kicked this ball all the way across the street and it's about to sail over this fence where this vicious dog stayed inside. And every time people got close to that fence or near it, he would snarl and snap and try to attack it. And as the ball was about to head over the fence, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this kid shows up and dives and just slaps the ball down and saves the day. Now, none of us knew who this kid was. How is it that he seemed so familiar? He was like one of us, but yet he was none of us. And that's the first time we met him. And he went inside the funeral home like he had done it many times before. After that, he started to show up all the time. But none of us could ever recall him ever being there. When we started a game, it always seemed as if we'd be playing and running and going around the corner on our bikes, and all of a sudden, he would just appear. There was always one more of us. Now, the fact that he didn't speak, wouldn't answer our questions, was not so unusual to us. We lived in a community where there were lots of people who came from rural areas, we said, the country who had disabilities, both adults and children alike. In fact, I probably knew a half a dozen kids who didn't speak just like this. He was a skinny kid, had a small afro, about 2 inches. He wore a shirt that he didn't button up, cut off pants, tennis shoes with no socks. He was a different kind of kid. One day, I'm outside and I'm looking at pigeons flying around the funeral home, and I'm out with the kid. And without speaking, it seemed as if he said to me, I like pigeons. I like pigeons. Which was shocking to me. So I took him to my house, to my backyard, where I raised pigeons. And like a lot of poor kids, I made my pigeon coop out of discarded lumber, pieces of cardboard, and a couple of old TVs that I had gutted out. The kid was in my backyard, and I could tell the way he looked at the pigeons, the way he touched them, the way he cooed.

Cherie Booker (10:50)

Coo. Cool.

Dr. Raymond Christian (10:52)

To calm them down. I knew that this kid, he loved pigeons well. For me, I had been raising pigeons since I was about 8 years old. And probably what I enjoyed about them the most was, I don't know, the weird way that they used to move around, the way they pecked at the ground. But probably more than anything, it was the fact that you could let them go and they would fly away and come back to the home that you made for them. That's where the magic was. But the kind of pigeons that we were really interested in was a type of pigeon that almost stopped in mid flight and flipped. We'd call this rolling. And some of the better pigeons, they would flip and flip and flip and flip till they'd almost hit the ground and fly right back up. And us kids, we would be so, so excited by this. And every time we got exposed to someone who had rollers or somehow was connected to rollers. And we'd see them in the sky. We would all get together and we'd stand out in the streets and we would holler and scream to excite the birds, to get them to roll even more. Come on, come on, come on. And we would scream and we would holler, come on, come on. But unfortunately, none of us ever acquired rollers. They had to be passed on. And for us poor kids, rollers were pretty much out of our financial reach. And after this, me and the kids started hanging around together all summer. Well, one day me and the kid were taking a walk through one of the back alleys. And as was a habit in our neighborhood, big old vicious dogs would always seem to take over an alley and they would chase you until they get to the end of the alley and they would stop. And that's how it was. This day, we're walking through the alley and a big old dog take after us. And we run and run and run and run and running. And we finally, we get out to the end of the alley and woo hoo hoo. We made it. We made it. I'm so excited. We just did something together. We boys now we experienced this crazy thing. I know you got something to say. And I bend over and I'm coughing and I'm laughing and I look around to see what he thinks about this crazy thing we just went through. And he's not there. Now I'm starting to feel funny about this kid. He shows up the next day. Now I've gotta ask, man, where'd you go? What happened to you yesterday? What happened to you in the alley? How could you have gotten away? There was no way to go. What happened? And he gives me nothing. Sometime later we're taking a walk, but this walk is different. He's taking me to a place that I think he's trying to guide me to. We walk four or five blocks and I think maybe he lives around here somewhere. And we wind up in front of this old house. The house had been burned and abandoned for several years. And as we standing there in front of the house, I remember this is the house that that kid got killed in a fire a couple of years ago. Now I'm starting to feel scared and I look over at the kid and he's just staring at the house. And I say, you ain't that kid that got killed in the fire. I'm not believing this, but I feel like I can't move. And the kid is just staring at the house. And I feel like he's telling me without speaking, coincide the house. I walk toward the house. I start up the stairs. When I reach the top of the stairs where the roof has collapsed over in the corner, illuminated by the light coming in through a piece of broken glass, I see in the corner.

Host (16:27)

Pigeons.

Dr. Raymond Christian (16:29)

There are pigeons in the corner. Wait a minute. This is a pair of pigeons. And they got squabs. Baby pigeons. And these aren't just any pigeons. They are rollers. These are rollers. There are rollers up here. And so I reach up to them and I grab them and I put them inside my arm. And they're all excited and flapping around. And so I start to coo to calm them down. Coo, coo. And they relax and I'm happy and I'm not scared anymore. I've got them in my arms. I want to get outside. I want to show the kid these rollers. How amazing is this? And I get outside and he isn't there. Now, I know he knew I loved rollers, and I know and I believe he wanted me to have those rollers. And when his babies were ready to pass on, he was ready to pass on. And I raised another six or seven generations of rollers right up until I joined the army and I passed them on to another kid, which was the tradition.

Host (18:21)

Thank you, Dr. Raymond Christian. And we've got big news. Cause Spooked Live is about to Rock LA and Oakland later this October. Get your tickets@snapjudgment.org and to find out all things Ray, check out this podcast, what's Ray saying? Or the Snap Judgment show notes. I want to thank the LAS team for welcoming us. John Cone, Rebecca Stumay, Kristin Payne, the Orpheum team. It is such a beautiful theater. Ryan Davis and Sarah Rose Leonard at kqed. The original live score was written and performed by Doug Stewart and Brigean Murphy. The original story was produced by Anna Sussman, and this recording was mixed by Miles Lassie. After the break, a goodbye that goes on longer than anyone ever intended. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the wager episode. Now, we've all had those after school jobs, the cashier, the babysitter, burning story. This is not about your typical side hustle. What if after every shift, you played a vital role in one of the most meaningful and personal days of your customer's life? And what if snappers one day? Well, it got all messed up. Snap Judgment.

Narrator (20:22)

Cherie Booker was only 15 when she got a job at the Wylie Funeral home in Baltimore. She was just supposed to answer the door. But answering the door of a funeral home is never a simple job.

Cherie Booker (20:37)

One day, I was working the front door of a viewing, so I made eye contact with one of the family members that was crying, and I started crying, too. So Mr. Wiley came in, and he's like, if you need to cry, then you look at the wall. This is a business, and you cannot cry every time someone else is in there crying. From that moment on, I stopped crying.

Narrator (21:05)

Cherie took her job seriously, and she wanted Mr. Wiley's approval.

Cherie Booker (21:10)

Mr. Wylie was like a second father to me. It felt like I was a part of the family, and it felt like I was a part of the business.

Narrator (21:20)

Over the next eight years, she worked her way up from greeter to manager.

Cherie Booker (21:26)

So one day, I was in charge. When we had three viewings scheduled, we had three older black women, and that was a lot for one day. It was just Mr. Wally and I there that day. The other staff had the day off. So the viewing takes place the day before the funeral. And, like, it's your responsibility to make sure that everything is perfect. And just so you know, we get really intimate with these families. So I'd already spoken with them and told them that they needed to bring bra, panties, a full slip, stockings, the dress that they wanted their loved one to wear. And then they also needed to bring makeup if they needed any. And most importantly, we needed a photo. This is what embalmers use to make sure the deceased looks like themselves. We brought in the family of the woman in the front room. They came in, they viewed her body, and they were absolutely pleased with the way that she looked. And so the second family that arrived was the family of Ms. Johnson. She was the woman in the back room. And all of a sudden, I heard someone shout, that's not my mama. And so I'm like, what is happening? And I go into the back room, and the daughter says, that's not my mama. I say, ma', am, what do you mean, this is not your mother? She's dressed in the pink shroud, and she's in the pink and white casket that you ordered. That is not her.

Narrator (22:59)

You'd think this would be a surprise.

Cherie Booker (23:01)

I was not surprised. I've seen this a bunch of times. When the deceased doesn't look the way we want them to, or the family member is simply in denial. We don't want to believe that that is our loved one in that casket. I just rubbed her back and consoled her. I know. I know everything's. Gonna be fine. That's not my mother.

Narrator (23:27)

Okay, Cherie thought, time to regroup.

Cherie Booker (23:31)

So I took the family into the waiting area and I said, can I offer you some coffee? And they're like, no, but we would like our mother. I have to fix this. I have to figure out what is going on. I was trying to stay calm about it. I didn't want to lose my cool. But on the inside, I was getting pretty worried.

Narrator (23:55)

Maybe there's a simple mix up. The daughter says the woman in the back room is not Ms. Johnson. The front room is all good, so that woman can't be Ms. Johnson either. But there's one other possibility. What if Ms. Johnson is in the middle room?

Cherie Booker (24:12)

So I asked Ms. Johnson's daughter to follow me into the middle room. And I say, is this your mother? She said, no, that's not my mother. She's cursing, she's yelling, she is pissed. She even walks out of the funeral home. So we don't even know where she's going. And so now the problem is real. I run upstairs to Mr. Wiley. On my way, my mind is starting to race. But I'm also thinking about the advice that Mr. Wally gave me all those years ago. I needed to stay professional. This was not the time to lose my cool. And I just told myself, you have to stay calm. So I get upstairs. Mr. Wiley, there's been a mix up with the bodies. Ms. Johnson's family said that this is not their mother. Mr. Wiley's like, what? What do you mean? We have to find out where we picked this body up from. I look in the folder. This body came from Johns Hopkins hospital. And so Mr. Wally said, let's get them on the phone. Many things ran through my mind in funeral time. If we picked up the wrong body, a whole week has gone by. So that body could be cremated. It could be buried by now. It could have been taken to the anatomy ward. And some future doctors are examining that body.

Narrator (25:50)

While Mr. Wiley is calling the hospital, the last family shows up. The family of Ms. McLean, in the middle room.

Cherie Booker (25:57)

Ms. McLean's son is now calling for me to come downstairs. Excuse me, excuse me, I need to speak with someone. I walk downstairs, I see this face that is kind of in shock. And he says, I just needed to let you know this is not my mother. It was almost like he was sorry for bothering me. And I say, are you sure this is not your mother? And he says, this is absolutely not her. This is my last day at Wiley Funeral Home. This could be the last day of existence for this funeral home. I am so sorry. We have to figure this out. Give me one second.

Narrator (26:51)

Cherie runs back up the stairs to Mr. Wiley now. He just got off the phone with Johns Hopkins Hospital and they said no mix up over there. Cherie then reports that yet another family is claiming they have the wrong mother in the casket.

Cherie Booker (27:07)

You lying. He yelled. He was disgusted. No way. No way that is possible. Ms. Sawale is too through. He lit a few cigarettes while he was on the phone with Johns Hopkins. He was not looking calm and professional at all. I start to feel the pressure of this moment on me. Did I check the bodies well enough to make sure that the right people were in the right casket? Is this my fault? I could feel myself starting to sweat. I'm on my way downstairs to talk to the McLean family and before I can get back to the middle room, the doorbell rings. As soon as I open the door there is a bright light flashing in my face. It is the camera from Fox 45 News with their evening reporter there holding a microphone out. Next thing I hear is Ms. Johnson's daughter. Oh my God. I came to Wiley Funeral Home to view Mama and Mama is not here. There is somebody lying in Mama's casket with Mama's clothes on, but it ain't Mama. I don't know where my mama is. All I know is that Johns Hopkins and Wally Funeral Home done lost my mama. No comment. I just slammed the door because now I'm freaking out. We're going to be on the news. What if this lady sues us? The only thing she's going to get is my student loan debt.

Host (28:57)

When Snap Judgment returns, A surprise revelation sends the hunt for Mama in a whole new direction. Stay tuned it welcome back to Snap Judgment. When last we left, Sheree was staring down a camera crew asking her the question on everyone's mind, where's Mama? Sharee's got nothing to say so she ducks back inside the funeral home where the Mama mystery is wreaking havoc. Snap Judgment.

Narrator (30:07)

Inside the funeral home, no one is at peace.

Cherie Booker (30:11)

More and more people are coming to see their loved ones. People are pacing back and forth in the hallway. The mood has completely shifted from somber to chaotic and at this point extended family members cannot get inside because of the mix up and they really want to know why wouldn't we be able to see our loved one? So many things are going on in that moment. I really just needed a chance to breathe and to think if that is not Ms. McLean in the middle room in their earth tone casket there's still a possibility that Ms. McLean might be in the back room in that pink shroud and pink casket. So I go to Ms. McLean's son and I ask him to follow me into the back room. I need you to take a look at this woman, and I need you to look very carefully. Is this your mother? He walks to the casket. He looks at her very close in that pink casket, and he looks down at her in that pink shroud. He gets a little closer. Yes, this is my mother. I have never been more relieved in my entire life.

Narrator (31:35)

Now that she's matched the McLean son with the McLean mom, I just need.

Cherie Booker (31:40)

To figure out who this lady is in this middle room and make sure Ms. Johnson can locate her mother. The doorbell rings again. I go to the door. This time there's a police officer standing there. The police officer wants to know, do you have the remains of Ms. Johnson here? We're trying to figure things out. Now, Ms. Johnson's daughter is standing there. Can't y' all do something about this? So now we've gone from a PR problem to a legal issue. This woman has elevated this to a missing corpse case. The people outside of the door are waiting to see what's going on. And the hallway is crowded with people. They are anxious. There's a funeral scheduled for the morning. People are confused. People are angry. Meantime, there's someone else at the door. Ms. Johnson's other daughter, she comes in. Where is my mother? I began explaining. I'm so sorry. Take me to my mother. This seems like it's about to all blow up. I'm trying to let you know we're not sure where your mother is. We're trying to figure this out. Please let me see.

Narrator (33:06)

Everything has happened so fast, she's barely had time to take it all in.

Cherie Booker (33:10)

And then I start to think about it again, about how long it took for Ms. McLean's son to recognize his mother in that pink shroud. And I had a flash of an idea about what might have happened, about why maybe she wasn't dressed the way he thought she would be. So I take Ms. Johnson's other daughter to the middle room. She goes up to the casket. She looks at the body. She frowns a little bit. She's looking, eh? What is this? Now, normally, I would think this is a strange behavior, but now I have an idea why she's having such a hard time. And she says, this is her. You see that mole right there? That's her. That's our mother. Now, I don't know whose clothes she's wearing or what caskets she's in. I'm pretty certain we discussed putting her in the pink shroud and pink and white casket. I don't think those are her earrings, but that's her. Thank you, God. This is their mother.

Narrator (34:16)

Now Cherie understood what had happened. It was kind of like that movie Face Off.

Cherie Booker (34:22)

Somewhere along the way, we put the wrong clothes on the wrong person, which we identified with the casket that they were going into. Sadly enough, the pink shroud ended up on Ms. McLean. So we had Ms. Johnson expertly made up as Ms. McLean and Ms. McLean expertly made up as Ms. Johnson. They were unrecognizable by their family. This was a closed switch, not a body switch. I was just so relieved, I could barely speak. Because we were able to locate the body and no crime had taken place, we were able to send the police away, and the news, thankfully, did not cover that story that evening. But this was the biggest mistake that we could have ever made. So we just said to the families, we're really sorry. We're really, really sorry. And they just went home. But my night wasn't over. We still had work to do. We had to take those two women back downstairs to change their clothes. And as I was undressing Ms. Johnson, I started to look at her a little closely. I saw the wrinkles in her skin. I saw that mole on her face. You know, sometimes you try to ignore death, but it just kind of like pops up in you. You know, when you work in a funeral home, you literally hold people's secrets. You see them naked, you hear the things that have happened to them. Everyone doesn't die a beautiful death. You see the bullet holes, you see the slit on their wrist. If I attached to all of those moments, it would be a lot of therapy. I couldn't get personal with them. It made me a little less human. I had become numb. I'd stopped crying. I started thinking of people as objects. I couldn't understand the rage and the calls to Fox 45 and the police showing up. And so in that moment, just alone with Ms. Johnson, I felt those tears that I'd been holding back for eight years start to fall. I was able to get a couple of hours of sleep that night, but I had to prepare for the funeral the next day. The woman in the front room, her funeral went perfectly. Ms. McLean's family, they were still getting over the fact that she was in the wrong casket with the wrong clothes. But once we put her in the new one, they were happy but Ms. Johnson's family, her daughter, did not show up for her funeral the next day. When you think about it, that moment is so important in someone's life. I thought it was heartbreaking that Ms. Johnson didn't show up to pay her final respects to her mother.

Narrator (37:51)

Now, this could all be written off as a rough day at work or a good story to tell over a drink, but this one hit hard for Cherie.

Cherie Booker (38:00)

It just takes one moment to shift everything in your world. I think I checked out after that moment. Keep in mind, this is eight or nine years of me just working. So I asked Mr. Wiley if I could take a vacation. He said, no, you can't go. And at first I thought he was joking. And so I went to him one more time and he said, well, if you don't show up, then you can leave my key. He had told that to so many people before. To leave their key. That was his way of saying that, you're done, you're fired. You know, Mr. Raleigh's standards were high. There were so many things about him that I loved and I wanted to model it. So much so that I was willing to spend a lifetime with dead bodies. But I also wanted this sense of freedom. That moment in the basement when I allowed myself to cry, it was also a freeing moment. So I told him, okay, and I gave him the keys.

Host (39:39)

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Cherie Booker for sharing her story with the Snap. Cherie is an author, a poet, a spoken word artist and a professor. If you want to read more of Cherie's tales from from her near decade of work in the funeral business, check out her memoir, Nine Years Coming of Age and an Inner City Funeral home. Big thanks to Jessica Hankin and Laura Wexler at the Stoop Storytelling Series in Baltimore for introducing us to Cherie. The original score for that piece was by Clay Xavier. The editor was Nancy Lopez. It was produced by Justin Cremont. Now, if you missed even a moment, know an entire world of Snap storytelling awaits in a tiny plot. Our five part series following the journey of a group of unhoused folk that are trying to find a place to call home. It just dropped. And you can listen to it all on podcast platforms everywhere. Right this moment. KQD in San Francisco. Snap Judgment's Orbiting hall of Justice, Snap is brought to you with a team that only makes thoughtful and responsible wagers. Except of course, for the uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristage. Whatever it is, he's all in. No. Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. On Team snap, the union represented producers, artists, editors and engineers are members of the national association of Broadcast Employees and Team Technicians, Communications workers of America, AFL CIL Local 51. Now there's Nancy Lopez, Pat Merceni, Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Gorio, John Facil, Shayna Shealy, Teo Dicott, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, Regina Bediaco. And this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, you could not be entirely sure where someone's mother is, and you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.