Grissom's First Time
When Grissom Met Robbins…
Young Gil Grissom performs his first autopsy.
Trouble
Sixteen year old Gil Grissom walked along the beach. Gil was a tall and handsome young man. He had light brown curls for his hair and his face was clean shaven. He wore a shirt that had once belonged to his father. It was long sleeved and loose on him. Gil wore tight fitted jeans with brown sandals. His build would suggest that he was an athletic young man, when in truth, he was just adventurous. It was his adventurous spirit that had caused him to be in good shape from a very early age.
He was headed to the Rib Shack. It was a great place to get a pulled pork sandwich and it would allow him to observe the people there. Gil walked up to the counter.
"Hey Marty! One sandwich over here" Gil said. Marty turned around and nodded.
"And let me guess a beer?" Marty asked jokingly. Gil huffed a laugh and began his ritual of watching the tourists.
There was a man, probably in his forties with a much younger woman. As the woman spoke, the man looked around. Married with a mistress. Gil thought. He had seen them coming here for the past two months.
There was a family of two sitting at a table, closer to the exit. They sat there just in case one of the kids got rowdy. That way they could pull them outside to quiet them. The wife seemed overworked and the husband did most of the talking to with the children. Now at first glance, one might have assumed that the husband just got home from work and the wife was tired of caring for the children. But the excitement in the woman's eyes when her drink came said that she had a drinking problem and probably could use some help.
To the far right of the diner there was a girl. Probably twenty. She sat alone at a table with a book in her hands. It was a romance novel. Her plate came to her and it was a basic salad with shredded chicken on the top. She had a bad break up or hasn't had a boyfriend in a while. She's eating light so that any guy looking at her will think she is self-conscious enough to care for herself, when it is actually the complete opposite. She might order dessert, but she'll eat it on the way home. About ten minutes later, the girl ordered a soft ice cream cone and left a nice tip on the table. Once again, Gil had been right. Single girls tend to leave good tips to waiters who have a sympathetic ear.
Just then, Gil got his plate. He thanked Marty and dove into the greasy, sloppy sandwich. Gil smiled at the thought of what his mother would say: It will be a miracle if you make it to thirty with that heart!
In the distance, Gil heard the singing of two familiar voices. Mark and George headed up the beach singing an upbeat pirate shanty. Gil shook his head. How did I wind up with friends like these guys?
"Good Moro to thee men!" Mark announced loudly.
"Mercutio! My heart may rest now that mine eyes rest upon you. Pray tell me, how doth your day go?" Gil said with a smirk.
Mark was quite possibly the most interesting character Gil had ever encountered. Mark (or Mercutio as everyone called him) only spoke in Shakespearian tongue. He had been speaking like that since the seventh grade, when his older sister told him the story of Romeo and Juliet. It was hard to remember how Mercutio spoke before that.
George (or Georgie – boy) was the normal one their little group. George was an average, hard working guy with three older brothers, who wailed on him at any free moment. He and Gil had met in first grade. They were best friends, mainly because George was one of the only people who would talk to Gil. Gil was not social at all. Students were afraid of him for a while because he barely spoke three words a day. Although Gil was a nice and generally friendly guy, he had always managed to mess things up in a group. George was kind enough to look passed Gil's social inhibitions and find the nice guy he really was.
"Grand, my friend, grand!" Mercutio answered. They joined him at the front counter for a moment.
"Oh please, don't encourage him. In a couple of years, he's going to have to work in a normal work environment." George said.
"Then why is he hanging out with us?" Gil joked.
The friends laughed and talked about their lives for a while. By the time they were ready to go, the sun had set. So in the dark they walked home. Gil was about a mile from his house when he noticed something lying in the street. So, naturally, Gil walked over to investigate.
It was a dead cat. From the looks of it, it had been dead for about five to six hours. Gil looked around to see if anybody was watching. No. Good.
Gil found a quiet spot so that he could work on the cat. Gil almost always carried his kit with him in his pocket. The kit consisted of a scalpel, a flash light and a face mask (just in case the animal was diseased.) Gil got his tools out and set up. He began to cut open the cat when police lights went off from the street.
"Gilbert Grissom, don't tell me you're at it again." Officer Panofsky said.
"Okay." Gil shrugged. No sense in bringing it up. Panofsky sighed as he got out of his squad car.
"Gil I told you last time, you can't keep on doing this. They made it against the law." He said.
"But that's only for-"
"Animal carcasses too. I looked it up this time." The officer looked at Gil with a smile. The last time Gil had been caught performing his own necropsy; he had convinced Officer Panofsky that animals were not included in the "Defacing Bodies" law.
"Gil, I'm sorry. I've got to punish you this time. And you've got to tell your mother this time." Panofsky said. Gil sighed. The past few times Gil had been caught, he hadn't mentioned it to his mother. She would just worry.
"Okay, what's the fine?" Gil asked.
"I've got a better idea. But first, you've got to talk to your mother. Meet me at the station tomorrow night at eight o'clock. Now come on, I'll take you home." He said and he directed Gil to the backseat.
Moments later, Gil arrived home. The lights were on. Damn. He thought. That meant his mother was still up. Gil walked to the door and let himself and Officer Panofsky into the house. Gil stopped twice to let his mother know he was home.
"Hi mom" Gil signed. "This is Officer Panofsky. I've offered to help him tomorrow night at eight. I'll be at the station okay?" His mother nodded then Officer Panofsky stepped forward.
"Gil's a good kid, just needs something to do. We don't want him to get into further trouble." He said. Gil translated:
"Gil's a good kid. His observational skills are good. We want to see if he can help us out tomorrow."
Gil tried to hide what the Officer had said, but his mother had watched his lips and she had seen the one word Gil dreaded the most: trouble. Rose Grissom looked at her son with eyes of disappointment.
"What did you do now?" She asked. Gil pursed his lips together. He knew telling the truth might be the better thing to do in this situation. But he lied anyway.
"George's older brother was drinking. I had a couple of sips from his beer." Gil signed. Rose sighed heavily and pointed towards upstairs, where Gil's room was.
"Now" She said. Rose couldn't speak well, but what she did say, Gil understood perfectly. He ran up to his room, and went to bed. He tried to sleep, but he couldn't stop thinking of all the possible punishments that Officer Panofsky might possibly do to him.
Crime and… Punishment?
Gil awoke to his mother shaking him wildly.
"Okay, okay: I'm up." He signed. When he looked at his clock, he noticed it was time for him to meet with Officer Panofsky. Gil had taken a short nap to ready himself for a long night of work.
When Gil got downstairs, Officer Panofsky was waiting.
"You ready to work?" He asked. Gil nodded and said good bye to his mother. Gil was quickly ushered into the squad car and told to keep quiet. It was already dark out and it was hard to see where Panofsky was taking him. Gil began to get nervous. Surely Panofsky wouldn't actually hurt him, maybe he was taking to jail for a night.
But when Gil saw the lights of Los Angles become brighter, he knew he was in for something big. Maybe he's convinced a judge that I'm clinically insane. It's not a far stretch. I'm a little quirky. Gil thought. He looked at Officer Panofsky. The officer was staring straight at the road and refused to make eye contact with Gil. He knew that if he did, the big surprise would be revealed.
A few minutes later, they pulled into the Los Angles County Hospital. NOW Gil was scared. He's going to do it, he's going to lock me up and throw away the key! I'm not crazy! I'm not crazy!
"Where are we going?" Gil asked. Panofsky didn't respond.
"You know I'm not crazy right? You don't need to lock me up in some sanitarium. I'll stop cutting up bodies. I promise." Gil offered. He had learned his lesson. Well if the lesson is don't piss off the only cop that likes you enough to let you slide on curfew.
The car pulled into a dark, barely lit parking lot. It was the back of the hospital; where the morgue was. Okay, now I'm officially scared for my life. He's going to kill me and make it look like my body's been donated to science. Not a bad way to go though, as long as he kills me quickly. I'd prefer not to suffer at the hands of an old friend.
Officer Panofsky parked the car and turned it off. He looked at Gil.
"Get out." He said. Gil (not one to argue with his soon to be killer) did what he was told.
The two of them walked to a side door of the morgue. Officer Panofsky knocked hard on the metal door twice. The knocking was deafening. This night was turning into a real horror story. Gil couldn't help but recall the Twilight Zone episode where the night nurse says to a woman: "room for one more, honey."
The door opened slowly. An old man appeared before the two of them. This man was tall, lanky and looked old enough to be Gil's grandfather. He wore an old army hat and a lab coat. He had white gloves on that had blood smeared all over them. He first looked at Officer Panofsky, and then he looked to Gil. Gil's heart had to be beating close to 185 beats per minute. Suddenly, everything went black.
Gil regained his consciousness, but kept his eyes closed. He heard two voices.
"So this is the kid you got me?" One man said.
"Yeah, he's perfect for the job." Officer Panofsky replied.
"He passed out before I even got to say hello!" The man said. Officer Panofsky chuckled.
"You don't understand. Gil is… Different. He doesn't get people much. He's sharp but innocent. Well, that and I might have tried to spook him a little on the way." Officer Panofsky explained. "I wanted to see how he'd react."
"Well, you've got your answer." A new voice said. This voice sounded younger than the other unknown voice. He heard what sounded like foot steps.
"Hey kid, you can wake up now. We're not going to kill you."
Gil opened his eyes. He was lying on a gurney in the morgue.
"Well, we're not going to, but Al might. He can get a little competitive around the newbies. He likes to show off; make sure you know your place." The older man said.
Gil sat up and took a look around. He was lying on a slab next to three covered bodies. Across the way, were counters with several tools Gil had only seen in books. There were a few sinks to rinse off organ and body parts and there was an area with two stools and a ton of unorganized files.
Gil then looked to the two unknown men standing by his gurney. The older man had short, white hair that was hidden underneath the old army hat. His hair was unkempt at best. Gil now noticed the wrinkled white shirt and dark green slacks under the white lab coat. The bloodied gloves were gone and his long, boney hands were exposed. This man looked as if he hadn't seen the light of day in over forty years.
The other, young man was shorter, but Gil suspected that was only because of the crutch he used. He had short, brown hair and wore a beard over his slightly chubby face. The man wasn't overweight, but working in e morgue for countless hours of the day, probably caused him to order take out more times than he preferred to. His man couldn't have been over twenty-five.
"Well, aren't you going to introduce yourself?" The young man asked.
"I'm Gil Grissom." Gil answered.
"I'm Cornel Russell Kenneth. You can call me Cornel." The older man said. "This here is Albert Robbins, my assistant. He's a local around the hospital." The young man nodded.
"A local? What do you live her or something?" Gil asked.
"My mother works here. I'm working here for the summer so I can get a few extra courses under my belt before I head east." Al explained.
"Oh. Where do you live back east?" Gil asked.
"I don't live there; I'm going to attend John Hopkins." He explained proudly.
"So, I hear you cut open cats and stuff to take a look inside." Col said.
"Yeah, I like to know how they work. Or how they used to… work." Gil answered. Albert gave Gil a look of confusion.
"What pray tell got you into that?" He asked.
"My dad. He and I used to open up dead cats, dogs, possums, whatever we'd find on the beach." Gil explained. "It's fun."
"Fun. Right. You really know how to pick him." Al said to Officer Panofsky.
"See what I'd tell you? The kids a natural." Panofsky said.
"Well, now wait a minute. He's never even seen a real body. He'll keep the job if he can handle it." Col said.
"Handle it! He's a kid!" Al said angrily.
"I'm not a kid! I bet a can figure out what killed a guy before you can!" Gil threw back.
"You're on kid!" Al said and they began to dish out the bodies. Of course, Gil got the nastiest, oldest and most decomposed body of them all. Well, you got yourself into this. Gil thought. Now you just got to get yourself out…
The First Cut
"You know how to make a Y incision?" Col asked.
"Yeah. You take a scalpel; make a Y in the guy's chest down to his belt line." Gil said. Al chuckled. Does that mean he likes me? Gil wondered. He didn't need Al to like him: it would just make things easier.
Gil got to work on his DB. The body reeked but Gil didn't mind. He was used to the smell of dead bodies. Gil worked diligently so that he could impress his new boss and colleague. Gil knew he could do this. He knew he could… Then why can't I make the first cut?
Gil had spent the first forty minutes looking over the outside of the body. He collected any evidence off the body, so that it could be analyzed later. But now he got to what should have been the easiest and fun part of performing an autopsy and he couldn't do it. Col had stepped away for a moment and Gil and Al were left alone.
"Albert?" Gil called.
"Don't call me that, just call me Al." He responded.
"Okay. Al, I need help." Gil said. Al came over and looked down at the body.
"You said yourself you know how to make the incision. What's the problem?" He asked.
"I can't cut. I don't want to hurt him." Gil admitted. Al smiled.
"It's alright kid, he won't feel a thing. He's dead remember?" Al replied. Gil nodded.
"Yeah, but how do you know?" Gil asked.
"Look into his eyes." Al said. So Gil opened the eyes to see nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was something different about this man that was like nothing Gil had ever seen. He was one. There was nothing there in the eyes, no glimmer of something. No soul left. He was a shell: like a cocoon of the man he once was. When Gil realized this, he cut into the chest and Al went back to work.
"It happens to everyone on their first one. You're afraid you're going to be the one to kill him. It's the 'House of Usher syndrome'." Al explained. Gil nodded.
"Thanks. I've worked on animals and I never had a problem because I understood that animals die. I didn't know how different people were." Gil thought aloud.
Hours passed as they both worked on their bodies. Gil's body had died of heart disease. The man had a long history of stroke and it was a simple heart attack that did him in. So after cleaning up, Gil watched Al work on his body. It was a young man who seemed to have been poisoned. They would have to wait until the toxicology report came back and that could take weeks. When Al was closing the body, Gil noticed something and stopped him.
"Wait. Look at his eyes. There's petikia in the eyes. Maybe it wasn't poison after all." Gil pointed out.
Al took a look for himself. Then he quickly made a cut on the center of the DB's neck. The checked the hyoid bone for fractures.
"Well I'll be damned!" Al said. "You're right. He was strangled. But this guy was well like in his community, who'd want to kill him?"
"Maybe it was his wife. Look, there's no strangulation marks on his neck. Possibly because she isn't strong enough to leave any marks. Maybe he was having an affair." Gil said.
"Well that would explain the foreign insects found in his pants." Al said and took Gil over to a slid that had the specimens set up.
"He has crabs." Gil responded.
"How do you know what crabs look like?" Al asked.
"I like bugs. They fascinate me." Gil explained.
"Huh. An assistant coroner who's an entomologist in his spare time. That's unique." Al said. Gil smiled.
"So, are we friends?" Gil asked, testing the waters.
"Yeah, what the heck. I need all the friends I can get." Al said.
"Cool." Gil said and they proceeded to close the body.
Time Served
"Well Grissom, it's been two weeks, you're free to go." Col said. Gil pursed his lips to try and hide his disappointment. "Unless of course, you'd like a job here."
"YES!" Gil shouted. "I mean, yeah. That'd be great."
"Good, you start getting paid tomorrow. I'll you then. Night." Col said and left the morgue. Gil was so excited: he couldn't wait to tell his mother and friends. But he had something to do first…
Al came into the morgue and checked on the list to see which bodies were his tonight. He was a little disheartened to hear that young Gil Grissom's time was over. In the past few weeks, he had grown to like the kid. He was smart, quick on his feet and understood a lot more than he let on. Al would truly miss him.
The first body of the night was a car accident victim. A sixteen year old male driver. Such a shame. Al thought. He pulled open the cabinet door to reveal the slab. He pulled out the slab and-
"BooAHHHHH!" the body yelled from underneath the sheet.
"AHHHHHHH!" Al yelled and quickly stabbed the shoulder of the screaming body.
"AHHHHHH!" The body yelled back. "AL! IT'S ME!"
"Gil?" Al asked.
"Yeah." Gil answered. "Ow! You stabbed me!"
"Yeah, you scared the crap out of me!" Al defended himself.
"Why would you stab a live body anyway?" Gil asked.
"I don't know: it was a knee jerk reaction!" Al answered. "I'm sorry." Gil pulled the sheet covering him off slowly and realized that the scalpel was still in his shoulder. He began to remove it when Al spoke up.
"No, no. Let me help you." Al begged.
"I think you helped me enough." Gil said. "Stab a live body." He continued to grumble as Al helped him remove the scalpel from his shoulder.
"Let me patch you up." Al said. Gil allowed Al to stitch his wound up and cover it in case of infection. "Have you had a tetanus show lately?"
"Yeah. Don't worry. I should have known better than to scare a guy who carries around a scalpel all the time." Gil said apologetically. Al smiled and they both had a good chuckle over it.
"I wanted to let you know. I'm staying here." Gil said.
"Yeah. Good. You're good at this." Al said.
"Yeah?" Gil asked.
"Yeah. I'm going to miss you when I head to school in a few months." Al admitted.
"There's this really cool invention now: it's called phone. It allows people to talk to one another from far, far away." Gil teased. Al punched Gil in the arm as he laughed.