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She lifts Vincent’s leg and stacks several wooden blocks under the foot to elevate the limb so that she can view the underside. In death, the limb can’t be rotated. This is the only way to see the back of Vincent’s calf. She removes the damp canvas covering, and lifts away a large flap of skin that she has carefully removed in a single sheet from the shin and sides of the calf. Another large piece overlays the top of the foot. About as thick as heavyweight leather, the flaps are still attached by narrow strips. For now, the skin-flaps serve as an additional layer of protection against dryness. The toes are still encased in skin. Erika hasn’t decided whether to remove all the toe skin or leave some on. Later she will examine the hands and feet of the other cadavers, trying to decide on the presentation that will be most useful to students in the fall.

As she works, Erika speaks in the quiet, half-present tones of a person concentrating intently on a complex task. “When I first went to peel off the skin, it was unnerving. Not so much that I was grossed out or anything. I was worried about cutting the tissue. I worked really slowly, and I was using the back edge of the scalpel blade to protect the skin. I worried about making a mistake because this is someone who donated their body to science. This was his dying wish.”

With delicate movements, she uses a metal probe to pick away tiny strands of yellow connective tissue, slowly revealing a long, ivory tendon. Erika elected to work on Vincent’s foot because she is interested in joints – and to avoid working on the head and face. She plans to donate her own body because she feels “morally obligated now that I’ve benefited from it.” But she can’t bring herself to allow a craniotomy (a surgical opening of the skull to provide access to the brain). “I’ve got really different feelings about my brain,” she says, glancing sideways at Vincent’s shrouded head.

Picking up the bottle of wetting solution, Erika spritzes Vincent’s open shin and the top of his foot. Kenny Loggins is singing: “...listen to your own heart beatin'...own heart beatin’...”
It will take a whole term for her to dissect this one knee-calf-foot. “It takes a lot longer than in medical school,” she explains. “There they just want to uncover a layer and just get rid of it. But we have to preserve everything.”

Apart from the brain, Erika has found a way to be comfortable in the dissection lab. She talks about Vincent and the other cadavers by name and with respect that borders on fondness. “They knew what they wanted,” she says, “and there’s a sense of peace and positive energy about it. That’s made it easier for me. I try to think about how they would feel about it; not how I feel about it.” She still thinks about, and misses, Marge and Marla, the cadavers who were her introduction to human anatomy. “I loved them all,” she says, “I try to think about all the people who’ve loved these bodies.”

Six months from now, Vincent will be looking much worse for the wear. Even with frequent spraying, his tissues will be desiccated. The lungs and other internal organs will feel lighter in the hand. His muscles and veins will shrink and retract. After two terms and hundreds of students, he will be ready to retire. At spring break, someone will drive him back to Oregon Health Science University, along with Sven and Delilah, Tilly and Harvey.

But for now, as today’s lab session comes to an end, Erika gently wraps the skin back around Vincent’s calf, and swaddles his limb in dampened canvas. The radio is playing Simple Minds: “...going to take you apart... put us back together at heart...don't you forget about me...don't, don't, don't you...forget about me.”

ALLYSON WRIGHT is a freelance writer and graduate student in the Literary Nonfiction program at the University of Oregon, where she earned a B.A. in 1981.