The funeral director, Mr. Stephens, stood outside the entrance smoking a cigarette. He was my height but easily outweighed me by one hundred pounds. A balding, middle-aged Black man, Mr. Stephens wore an immaculate navy-blue pinstripe suit adorned with a maroon tie. His wide glasses, each lens could be used as a birdbath, claimed most of his face.

“That is a fine suit you have on, young man.” His voice was a growl in a puff of smoke, yet each syllable carefully enunciated, as though he’d practiced what he was going to say. “Did you wear it to your first communion?”

“Um, no?” My white dress-shirt cuffs mushroomed out of the too-short, blue blazer sleeves. I covered my right wrist with my left hand, but that exposed the left cuff. I tugged and fussed at the sleeves.

Mr. Stephens laughed warmly, and I couldn’t help but join him. (There’s a difference between a bully’s laugh and one that offers commiseration, one that recognizes if not shared experience, then a common frailty. Detecting that difference is instinctual for some, while others learn it only after repeated hard lessons.)

He said, “Don’t mind me, you are dressed handsomely. Art Barbara, I presume?” He stubbed out his cigarette on the bottom of a shoe and wrapped the remnant into a kerchief, which he pocketed. “I’m Philip Stephens. I’m grateful for your volunteering and hope this is the beginning of a continued community-service partnership.”

He ushered me inside and gave a tour of the first floor. The rooms were impeccable but static. Not the same static of a museum, where one at least could imagine the exhibits representing the living, breathing past and present. This place’s static was entropic. Closed coffins surrounded by brightly colored flowers and wreaths occupied half the rooms.

The floors were a dark-stained hardwood and the walls an off-white, shading toward a melancholy sunrise color. That phrase stuck with me as Mr. Stephens said the name of one of the rooms was in fact Melancholy Sunrise. Other named rooms included Moonlight Forest and the more abstract Midnight Wish.

I asked, “Do you tell the guests the names of the rooms?”

“No, the guests are dead.”

“Oh, I meant the visitors, then.”

We returned to the front entrance, went outside, and waited under the awning for the arrival of my fellow clubmates. I smiled inwardly at the thought of having clubmates.

Mr. Stephens fished out his cigarette stub from his pocket, quickly restored its cylindrical shape, and lit it again. “You don’t smoke, do you, Art? A wonderful, terrible habit. Don’t start unless you intend to see it through to the end.”