by JN Lenz
“What’s up there?”
Clyde was pointing to the top of the funeral home and the cod style dormers that protruded from the sides of the roof.
“There is a pile of rooms on the top two floors of the funeral home, plenty of room for the both of you. I grew up in there, a few years after mom and dad passed, I moved out back here. It’s where the grounds keeper and general helper used to live. I had to let him go a couple of years after the folks died; my father was not a gambling man like me”
“That set up you’ve got downstairs is first rate” Clyde almost gushed, unable to mask his excitement. He was as excited as I was about this place, albeit for some completely different reasons than me.
“I think the three of us working together can make this place really shine like the old days Fred, think how much we can all accomplish working on it together. Clyde and I do have a bit of cash we can invest, use it to spruce the place up, and maybe pay off a few of your more pressing debts.”
“You know I’ll do whatever I can to help you boys out.”
“No question we really need you Fred; the whole town without a doubt knows you and who else is going to show us the ropes? We don’t know a thing about how to run this place, plus you are already living out above the garage, so you stay out there and we will include free rent as part of your salary. The pay won’t be much at first, but once we get rolling we will make sure it gets better”
I tried to do my best to keep the spirits of the diminutive little funeral director up, besides it was the truth, we really did need him. The two of us had never even been to a funeral before, let alone knowing what it would take to run the place, but the last person we wanted to work with some depressed dude.
“Thanks boys, I really do appreciate that. I’ll tell you something; this is a good little business. I just fucked it up, find a way to get rid of these damn debts and she will treat you right. I know the whole damn town, my dad used to play cards with all the old boys and these families have known our family since the mid-thirties. Through all my troubles over the years it has not affected the number of funerals we perform, every year we still do over one hundred and sixty a year.”
“One sixty a year?” I was impressed with the number, though I had no idea if that was a high or low number of Funerals.
“That’s correct, I want the two of you to know that I am going to do my best to help you out, don’t worry about me. I appreciate the fact that I will still have a job, things could have been a lot worse, and I could be out on the street right now. Enough about that now, what is done is done. If nothing else, I am a man of my word, now let me show you the rest of the place” Fred waved as he talked gesturing us once again toward the back door.
“Sounds good, let’s check it out”
We entered the back of the funeral home by going up a small ramp, this allowed wheel chair access, Fred would explain. The ramp led up to a set of wide double metal doors. The back hall was wide and contained three smaller hallways, the widest of the hallways leading straight ahead from the doorway. The hall directly to our right, led to the service stairs and the lift to lower the cadavers into the basement’s embalming room. Slightly up the main back hall, a short hallway led to the main office and a pair of washrooms.
“Let’s check out the basement again, you gotta check this out Jack”
“How about taking a look at the rest of the house first, you morbid shit” I responded as I continued to walk down the main back hall, heading towards the front of the large old home where a pair of French doors with opaque glass sat closed at the end of the hall.
Once open, the French doors displayed the homes grandest room. Inside, the stained and leaded glass windows filled the room with light, bathing the interior with shades of red, blue and green. The carpets had some wear but were in by no means in tatters, they would not require replacement immediately. The oak and mahogany trim and molding with its dark stain finish was surprisingly unblemished, the woodwork flowed through the entire main floor and was complimented by coffered ceilings in this main room. To the side of the grand main room there sat two smaller rooms, each divided by a set of solid ash pocket doors.
“This is the main room we use for services and busy visitations. The doors over here can slide out of the wall, in case you need to divide the room for visiting. Like in the event there is more than one funeral close together, or even on the same day. In that case, I would use the side rooms for visiting”
“Visiting, who’s visiting? Sorry Fred, but I really don’t know a thing about the funeral business, but I love this house.”
“Visiting, that is when the body is on display for a couple of days before the funeral, you know so people can pay their last respects to the family and the deceased. Have you never been to a bloody funeral young man?”
“Never”
“Me either” Clyde added
“Holly Christ, this is going to be interesting. Let’s start from the beginning, I’ll give you a quick Coles notes on what takes place here. I’ll have to call the pair of you green horns.” Fred continued to talk as we walked from room to room; I was half listening to him while my eyes continued to take in the details of the hundred year old home.
On the front side of the home, the solid oak staircase rose grandly through the center of the house up to the second floor. The main floor room within the square turret was sealed behind a set of lead glass doors, off to the one side of the grand staircase. As we opened the doors to look inside, Fred broke from talking about the Morgue and the death certificate to explain
“This room is often used for the families of the deceased to be able to sit down and have a coffee and a smoke in privacy.”
The main staircase which was next to the doors of the square room of the turret was also stained in the same dark color as the trim and crown molding. The deep colored wood stretched majestically up, as it curved to the left meeting the landing to the second floor. The floor plan of the second floor would be similar to the floor below, with the exception of the grand main room of the main floor which had been divided into two large rooms on the second floor.
Fred would explain how there had been even more rooms on the second floor, before his father had purchased the home in nineteen thirty six. Fred’s father had decided to remove several walls from what had been six bedrooms. In place of the existing bedrooms, Fred’s father would use the wide open space of the second floor to display his selection of caskets. The room currently held only a few of the Bracken Brothers caskets
“I would normally have anywhere from six to twelve caskets on display, but you know, with the lack of money that number has dropped. Stan actually gave me these three on loan so I would have something to display. Those boys have been good to me through all my money troubles.”
“That is something we hope to correct then.”
“Customers need to have a choice; everyone wants to have options no matter what they are buying” Clyde added
“Guess the quantity is going to be up to you boys from now on.”
Fred continued pointing out the features of the building, as he continued the tour of the large old home. Pushing a set of solid ash pocket doors back into the wall in the casket display room, would reveal a pair of rooms identical in size to the two rooms directly below on the main floor. The two rooms would be divided by another set of pocket doors which would allow the area to form one large open area. Fred was currently using these two upstairs rooms for the storage of chairs, along with several boxes containing years of paperwork and accumulated clutter.
Located at the back of the casket showroom was a door that led the way to a back service hallway. This hallway contained both the lift that went down to the floor below and also clear down to the basement. The lift carried the bodies of the dead and the caskets to be raised and lowered to the three levels of the home. The shaft and electric pulley was used to haul bodies and or caskets from floor to floor Fred explained, the motors for the pulley were located in the att
ic above. The back service hallway also contained the service stair way which also led to each floor including the basement directly alongside of the lift shaft. Fred led the way explaining each room in the grand old house, stopping to explain the function of each area, including a few stories of things that had happened in each room over the years.
The three of us would climb the back service stairs to the third floor area. The majority of this floor was contained beneath the tall high pitched roof of the large funeral home. The only exception would be the square room of the turrets top floor which rose straight through the roofline at the front of the home.
“This is where he grew up as a child; my parents lived until they both died a number of years ago. Mom was the first to die, boy that has to be a dozen years ago now. Dad was dead within a year of that the top floor contained three bedrooms whose windows all faced the back of the home. Each window was contained within a dormer which protruded out the back of the large homes steep roof. An alley kitchen sat behind the main living and dining area which had a window facing out the side of the roof’s gable end. To the left of the living room was a set of lead glass doors which opened to the three story square turret room.
The floors, kitchen and furnishings of the upstairs apartment were covered in dust with the strands of spider webs highlighted by suns early morning rays shining through the large window at the end of the living room of the third floor. Fred commented that he had not been up here much since his move to above the garage, the place reminded him too much of his father he would explain. I was under the assumption that Fred’s humiliation of running the business his father had built from the ground up into what essentially had become a bankruptcy kept him from these memory filled rooms of his childhood. What worked out great about the place for Clyde and I was that the entire apartment was still fully furnished and all it really required from Clyde and I was a good cleaning and a fresh coat of paint, Clyde and I were quite happy to make this our new home.
“Come on man you have to check out the basement and the bloodletting room”. Clyde piped up following the complete tour of the third floor residence, you could see the excitement in his face” OK let’s your new favorite room” I replied in a far more subdued tone than Clyde.
As we descended down the three flights of service stairs to the basement, a rush of cool humid air could be clearly felt between the main floor and the basement level. The hall that led from the stairwell, was painted in a light colored green paint both walls and cement floor. A series of fluorescent lights on the ceiling illuminated the area with stark white lighting, the smell of formaldehyde and bleach bit at my nose.
The lift that lowered and raised the dead bodies between floors was located at the far end of the hallway close to the double saloon style full length doors leading into the embalming room. As Clyde hustled down the hall toward the embalming room well ahead of both Fred and I he threw the doors wide open to proudly display its hidden contents. The room was covered in a glossy white tile on both the floors and halfway up each wall, there was a large white table with a stainless steel base. The table itself looked to be constructed of some type of glossy ceramic and had a deep trough which ran around the edge of the table, meant to catch the blood I imagined staring at the spotlessly clean white surface. The strong chemical smells and the brilliant white of the tiles and table blasted the senses.
“Check this out Jack, the place is spotless.” Clyde gasped with approval.
“Must say you keep the place spotless down here Fred”
“Thanks boys, I do my best when it comes to the embalming. It’s been the only area of the place I never skimped on, I couldn’t do that to dad.”
“I think he would be proud of the way you have kept this area of the place Fred.” I offered, as I began to walk around the stark white embalming room.
“I always adhered to my father’s principals. Perhaps not the financial ones, but providing the best service to our customers remained very important to me.”
“That’s the important thing Fred, I’m sure the town respects you a great deal”
“I’m sure they all have a good laugh at my expense too, but I have been very fortunate the folks around here have been very good to me, there’s no question.”
“I can believe that” I added.
“He demanded it from himself and of me when I first started in the business. The body has to look as close to living as you can possibly make it, before placing the body in the casket for viewing son. Another lesson he would repeat to me, over and over when I was just a teenager, know your customer. If I can teach you anything about this business, it is one of the most important lessons. It is good practice that you should try to learn straight away, that is getting to know the people of this town. Memorize their names and something about them.”
“You want us to learn everyone in town’s name? Seriously?”
“You will be surprised how they stick; when I was a teenager I used cars to remember names. I knew what everyone drove and that’s how I remembered their names”.
“Hear that Clyde? Just relate the names to something you are familiar with, think Pickerel and someone’s name will pop into your head”
“Like Fish from the Barney Miller Show?”
“Exactly” I replied and we all had a good laugh before Fred continued, I was getting the feeling the old boy was happy to have us here.
“Nothing will garner you quicker respect from the locals, than you greeting each of them by their name the next time you see them after having been introduced once. Better yet get to know a little bit about each of them, it’s a small town and everyone knows everyone here. That is your number one skill you need to teach yourself, memorize every name you can. The next time you see that individual and you greet them by name that means something to everyone. It will help for the two of you to be considered a local yourself, to gain the towns trust and continued business.”
“Makes sense to us Bob” it was a lame joke but I couldn’t help it.
“Funny, the Number two on the priority scale, you have to provide the body with a place of dignity and cleanliness in its last steps after death. Father demanded a spotless embalming room and a quality job on every cadaver. If nothing else I have kept to my principals on both that, and my friendships throughout the town. There may be other areas where I have let the old boy down, but I never forgot his number one and two rules.”
“You know Fred, this really is very impressive.” I replied being truly astonished by the sheer cleanliness and the care taken in preserving the sterility of the room, particularly when comparing it to the lack of care Fred had dedicated to the exterior of the funeral Home.
“Thanks; I have tried not to let my money problems compromise the quality of the work.” “It shows Fred, it really does.”
‘You know what the stainless sinks, drains and table were all the originally installed in nineteen thirty six. Look at the patina on that brass and the quality of the polished chrome; quality like this is rarely replicated by today’s standards.”
“It sure glistens under the fluorescent lighting.”
“Even those glossy white tiles that cover the walls and floor, it all dates back to the original work my father had commissioned after buying the home.”
“Hard to believe it is that old, it is still all in such great shape”.
“Is it ever, look at those tools of the trade over there, this place is brilliant” Clyde sounded like he was in love.
He stood staring at the highly polished trays, with their tools of the trade all located close to the large white table. A large chrome drain dominated the center of the floors which sloped down around it. I could not help but be drawn to it, thinking about how the deceased red blood would drain from a dead body. How the brilliant red would cut a stark contrast between through the bright white tile of the floor. The room’s condition sat in stark contrast` to the rest of the home. If there was a temple in this home this was it, even I felt that much.
Fred led us thru the left back side of the embalming room thru a door that entered back into the main basement hall. Three doors led off the main hallway; to the left was the mechanical room and open basement area. The first door on the right was the cold room to keep the dead corpses cooler. The back walls of this room covered in hundreds of round clay tubes stacked one on top of the other.
“That is where dad kept his wine collection along those walls, the temperature stays close to this temperature year round down here” Fred said as he pointed to the hundreds of empty bottle holders against three of the rooms walls
“I guess other than the electrical room back in the corner of the basement that is it for the Funeral Home. Out back there is the apartment over the garage which has three stalls as you might have noticed when you pulled up. The hearse has been having some engine trouble as of late.
I was forced to retire the Cadillac; we used it to transport the family to and from the grave yard. It was the last car my dad bought before he died, but it just was not worth the money to keep it on the road. I have been using the full size van that is normally used for picking up bodies at the morgue, to transport the families back and forth from the cemetery. That is after I bolt the seats back into it each time.”
“Let’s go take a look then Fred.” Clyde offered although I believe he was content to remain down in the bowels of the Funeral Home.
“Listen Fred where can we park our rusty old Ford pickup, I’m sure that is not going to help the business any?”
“There is a gravel lane extends around to the back, there is a roof that extends from the garage. I keep some of the yard maintenance tools along with some odds and sods back there. Just park the old pickup truck back there.”
“Sounds good Fed, I’ll pull around back and meet you and Clyde in the garage after to take a look at the service cars”.