Bryant has seen many familiar faces on the embalming table. He embalmed his mother, honoring one of her more difficult requests. ‘She didn’t want anybody else but me to do it. So my mother can say at least I minded her one time,’ he says. He’s embalmed his father, brother, aunts, uncles, nephews, and classmates from grade school. When one heavy-drinking friend turned up at the funeral home, Bryant tsk-tsked at the body. 'I told him, “Man, I tried to tell you this was going to catch up with you.”’