6/6/66

by JN Lenz

  Once I met the pair back at the garage, both Clyde and I had a look at the old vehicles Fred had been using for funerals. The service van was by far in the best condition. The hearse was still operational according to Fred but it was old and it looked rough. The disabled Cadillac which had been Fred’s father’s last large purchase sat off the floor on four cinder blocks, covered in dust. Fred had needed new tires on the hearse and with no money to buy them, had stripped the old Cadillac of its tires to keep the hearse on the road. Clyde looked at me and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was; we were going to need a couple of new vehicles as well.

  “Thanks for the tour Fred; I think we are going to take our bags up to the apartment and start cleaning the place up”.

  “Let’s catch up later, I want to ask more about the embalming” Clyde added as we left Fred at the garage and headed back to the house.

  We started cleaning the apartment on the third floor soon after bringing up our two suitcases of clothes. We would get ourselves settled in to our new home so we would get to work fixing the exterior of the grand old house the next day. The two of us had completely forgot about the jobs we had left behind until halfway through that day when Clyde came out of one of the apartments bedrooms asking me if I had called into work sick today.

  The excitement of the new business had relegated our old jobs into distant memory already, the two of us had a good laugh over that before we each called our boss’s and quit. The manager at the Abattoir where Clyde worked started to yell into the receiver which I could hear clear across the room as Clyde held the phone out from his head before the screaming burst his ear drum, having had enough of the outburst Clyde told him to go shit in his hat and hung up the receiver, we were all in on the new adventure now.

  Our forward looking business plan for the Funeral Home had come together quickly and loosely on the drive to Largo. We altered that day and evening as we worked cleaning the upstairs apartment where Fred had been raised. After Clyde and I arrived and surveyed the property and building, we could better determine the priorities that required immediate attention, where to best invest the funds to make the biggest improvement to the place.

  The plan was mostly mine or I guess I vocalized the majority of it anyway, not to say that Clyde would not have planned a similar course. Our number one goal was still the same make some serious coin, now the mission became how to quickly legalize the cash we had on hand and do it as quickly as possible. The Brucker bros. had warned us of the probability of Fred having “substantial leans, loans and mortgages” against the funeral home so the news of Fred’s mounting debts had not come as a complete surprise but six hundred thousand that we had not been expecting. It is not as if we did not walk into this with our eyes wide open.

  We would have just walked if the loans surpassed what we felt we could pull back out in a sale or in running the dam place if that is what worked. I could tell Clyde would be quite happy working for some time in this line of work, I could not believe how captivated he was with the whole realization on the drive across that this would become our new line of work.

  The first priority of the plan was to spruce the place up; we had a clear assumption that if Fred was heavy in hock the place would need some work and it did. After close examination that first day we were not incorrect in our assumptions, but the place could be exceptional if done correctly and the good news was that structurally the place was still sound.

  We wasted no time in having local contractors replace the aging cracked and curled shingles on the Funeral Home roof with new thirty year designer slate style roofing. We also went to work scrapping and painting the trim around all the old wooden windows frames, sealing each window with fresh silicone. The cedar shakes that covered sections of the second floor and the gable ends on the third floor would be replaced and stained, all the interior rooms on all three floors would be painted with Clyde and I working long days to complete the painting in a couple of weeks.

  With just the addition of the new roof and the painting of the exterior windows made an incredible difference to the exterior of the building bringing out the beauty of the stone and brick exterior. All of the lawns on the front and sides of the Home were completely killed off there was just no way to get rid of all the weeds any other way, after killing it all with Round up, we ordered a full trailer load of sod.

  The next two full days we spent spreading the rolls of the grass covering the entire front and side yards of the property. Some existing shrubs that could be trimmed and salvaged had been retained while others that had grown beyond control would be cut down and replaced with new smaller shrubs and gardens across the front of the home and along the walkways leading to the front door.

  New pavement replaced the cracked and pot holed existing drive and the gravel that had previously covered the back lot, all of the local construction firms we hired had little problem accepting cash payments. Clyde and I had spent a couple of days back in the forests surrounding Parsons a few days after first arriving in Largo digging up our PVC tubes stuffed with the one hundred and sixty thousand dollars we had accumulated over the past three years .

  The town of Largo was abuzz with talk of all the flurry of activity and improvements surrounding the Funeral Home, locals would come up to both Clyde and I when we shopped in the local stores congratulating us on the improvements we had been making to the Shackles Funeral Home. Beyond the local trades, Largo’s retail store owners were also more than happy to see our payment of cash for their goods having become accustomed to Fred’s repeated requests for credit for the goods he required in the past.

  The whole project was turning out fantastic and the building and grounds started to look amazing, even the town’s residents had welcomed us like a pair of respectable businessman who were well heeled enough to pour money into a long time staple of the local community and to top it off, in their eyes was the fact that we were even keeping poor old Fred on as our head director. Both Clyde and I decided we needed to keep our personal appearance in a slightly more groomed condition than had previously been our norm. We both shaved our scruffy beards and purchased ourselves several suits for use during services.

  Fred had been fortunate to keep the communities support, after they had all witnessed the severe decline of the services and appearance of the Shackles Funeral Home. Most of them had known the Shackles family for years and felt obligated to continue supporting Fred despite the decline of both the services offered and the appearance of the Funeral Home. Fred’s gambling had become so bad in recent years that the business was beginning to take a real turn for the worse. Fred had long ago laid off all his permanent staff, since then he had relied on a couple of the town’s less than desirable residents to help him pick up the bodies and assist in the services.

  The result of the Funeral Homes neglect meant that not all the towns’ residents remained faithful to the Shackles Funeral Home when there had been a death in their family and some had turned to the services from Funeral Homes in the surrounding communities. Both Clyde and I were convinced that the new renovations would bode well for future business should we decide to continue running the Funeral Home.

  All told we spent the full one hundred and sixty thousand dollars in the first few weeks, after arriving at the Funeral Home. We paid down the numerous small loans and the maxed visa charges Fred had accumulated. There was certainly no issue in paying the small business owners around town in cash, most thought they would never see the day those bills would be paid. Amazed to be receiving any payment, it helped Clyde and I to break the ice with the locals. I believe most of the town fully expected Fred to run himself into bankruptcy, long before they ever received payment of the monies owed to them.

  By the time we had finished the work to the funeral home and paid off all the outstanding debts that we could, there was still the large mortgage remaining. We capped off the total remodel with the purchase of a nearly new 1983 Cadillac Fleetwood Hearse. The car was placed on the market after a large
chain of Funeral Homes had acquired a smaller family run business in the city and the car was surplus to them.

  The distributor out of Cleveland told us the Hearse had only been on the road for a few years, there was less than two thousand miles on the odometer. We matched the Hearse with a brand new nineteen eighty six jet black four door Cadillac, Fleetwood. We purchased the car thru a dealer loan from the local Cadillac and Oldsmobile dealer.

  After fixing up the Funeral Home, purchasing two cars and paying off a number of Fred’s small debts, we would be left with a total mortgage and new car debt of five hundred and sixty thousand dollars. With all the smaller loans now fully paid this would be the sole payment and loan remaining against the Funeral Home, or so Fred had been assuring both Clyde and I.

  Our plan now, was to reduce the mortgage as quickly as possible, to either sell the place or maybe even purchase future Funeral Homes using this one’s equity. That is if we could handle the business, it’s for sure not a profession either of us had ever given the slightest thought to doing for a living.

  The good news on the payment of the bills was that we had our largest crop already well on its way, we debated whether it should be our last crop. Since we owned this property we worried it could all be taken from us, should we be caught with the pot. Over the past couple of months, Clyde and I had taken turns returning to our remote plots of pot which we had planted around Parsons.

  The summer of nineteen eighty six had been hot, with just the right amounts of rain to keep the plants growing. We would turn in a bumper crop that year. Once we harvested our crop, the cash would be filtered into the Funeral Home by overstating the total charge from each funeral service. This increased our gross income and allowed us to start paying down the large existing mortgage.

  Clyde and I were ecstatic at the transformation of the Funeral Home’s exterior, within a matter of a few weeks the place was almost fully restored to its past glory. In some ways it may have been nicer, with items such as a fully paved parking lot, the first time in its existence. The local town’s people had received both Clyde and I warmly, having paid all of Fred’s loans and IOU’s with the small merchants around town helped in that regard. They all seemed to appreciate the freshened appearance of the newly renovated Funeral Home.

  The residents of Largo treated us both like we were of some importance, what with all the money we had spent on the Funeral Home. This created an image of wealth and respectability for the pair of us that we were completely unfamiliar with. Around the town of Largo, we quickly became accepted and revered members of the community. This in stark contrast to our existence in Parsons, where we had been largely discounted as a pair of uneducated red necks, ignored by the towns well to do and socially connected citizens. The unsuspecting citizens of Largo knew nothing of our prior existence; they had no idea of our meager prior employment and lack of education. They may have been shocked at the run down shack of a farm house on the edge of town where we once lived.

  The result in this new found stature within our new community brought about some permanent changes in our physical appearance and grooming standards. Both Clyde and I became regulars at the local barber shop and soon we both sported short haircuts. The scruffy beards would be gone, replaced by a clean shaven look. The days of having a three day shadow beard and long unkempt hair would be over for the two of us. Unless we were renovating or working in the yard of the Funeral Home, our jeans and tees had been replaced by a suit and tie. The transformation in appearance and stature could not have been swifter; I have to admit I started to enjoy getting all dressed up. Funny how something as simple as a change in attire helped give us the confidence to succeed in our new business.

  Clyde had enrolled in the funeral directors course at one of the colleges in the city which was little more than an hour’s drive from Largo. He managed to get a spot starting that very September, meaning Clyde would be gone from Monday to Friday each week. Although we could operate the business under Fred’s license, Clyde and I both felt it would be best that one of us should possess the license required to operate the Funeral Home should anything ever happen to Fred. Clyde was the natural choice and in fact insisted on taking the course which suited me just fine.

  The whole embalming procedure simply fascinated Clyde.

  I was quite happy with this arrangement; I had little tolerance for blood or dead bodies and had zero interest in that side of the business. I hated even going to pick up the dead bodies, but there was little choice in helping Fred with that chore.

  My focus was on getting the cash from that next crop; filter the cash into the business and in handling the paperwork for the business. After some coaching from Fred, soon I would handle all the arrangements and billing with our customers for each Service. Clyde would still be available to drive back from the city if we really needed him, in case we needed help during the evening visiting or a funeral. Clyde rented a place to live in the city, close to the College.

  Fred and I would need to handle the disposals and pickups through the week without Clyde’s assistance. Clyde’s years at the abattoir, had conditioned him well for the handling of the dead human corpses. There would be times when we picked up a body that was in less than favorable conditions, the smell alone on those cadavers that had been rotting for days was enough to make me puke.

  The same rotting stench had little effect on Clyde; he would carry on with the task like there was nothing wrong. Talk about a natural for this line of work. In fact Clyde found it to be so much cleaner and sanitary in the embalming room than the blood and guts of the abattoir. Clyde referred to the difference between the two as a “breath of fresh air”, in going from working at the abattoir to the embalming room. I think he fashioned himself as a version of Quincy, the embalming room was his exploration room for checking out the dead.

  If Fred was saddened by the loss of his family business, he did a good job hiding it. He displayed no outward signs of animosity publicly, nor did he share any resentment or bitterness toward either Clyde or I, as we worked side by side around the Funeral Home. Fred was the product of three generations of funeral directors, what he lacked in business acumen, he certainly made up in the quality of his work. The strong customer loyalty, demonstrated by the local residents despite the clear lack of up keep of the facilities and questionable part time employees, was a testament to Fred’s people skills, and embalming precision.

  Despite the lack of upkeep at the Funeral Home, and its lack of quality employees, Fred was still quite a perfectionist when it came to both the quality of his embalming and for his strong customer relations. Fred attempted to fulfill his customer’s requests and expectations of their loved ones final appearance as best as he could. Apart from the fact that Fred knew everyone’s name, who they were related to, which residents of Largo were their friends and what they had been up to for most of their lives. It was the little things; he somehow always knew some small detail of the dead person’s life that always meant something special to the family.

  Fred was an open history book of the town and an invaluable asset for both Clyde and I, so we could better understand the town and its residents. Sure we could have hired another funeral director until Clyde obtained his license, but how would the residents of town reacted to the change would be difficult to predict, besides that initial salary we had paid him was a pittance. With Fred on the payroll, if Clyde and I decided to sell the place than there was a good chance the new owners would keep Fred on as an employee. He had lost enough, we did not want to see the little man without a job, and it might have been the death of him.

  Once the burden and worry of debt had been lifted from Fred’s shoulders he was free to do what he did best and focus on being a Funeral Director, Clyde and I both learned a great deal from watching Fred run the show his abilities in orchestrating a flawless service after having been so accustomed to completing the whole service on his own in the past was inspiring to watch. The result no doubt of the lack of skilled or respectable emp
loyees at Fred’s disposal over the past years meaning he could only count on them for the most menial duties after the funds for quality employees full or part time had long ago vanished.

  We followed Fred’s lead as he demonstrated the flow of the service; he was a certainly a bit of a master at it. The locals showed their approval of the revamped facilities and the additional service provided by both Clyde and I, we acted on Fred’s advice and began memorizing the names of all the towns’ residents that passed through our doors.

  As the weeks went by many of those same residents would attend several funerals so Clyde and I soon became familiar to them, they would be greeted by name at the door and throughout the facility by all three of us .The addition of Clyde and I helping Fred with the services meant something special to the families we serviced, the extra care and attention was a very simple but critically successful business tactic, one that many corporations and businesses had long ago forgotten. Here we were a couple of pot growers from Parsons and these people treated us like successful moral businessmen, no doubt they would be shocked if they only knew the truth about the two of us.

  But that was our previous lifestyle and hell anyone can change their ways, not that we had really changed it was more like we concealed our illegitimate activities better; the two of us were still the same people just with shorter hair and nice clothes. Our goal had remained the same as before that we could turn the cash from growing pot into something better and legal which looked like it had now become a reality for both Clyde and I, albeit in a business we could never have predicted.

  The place was starting to grow on both of us and one of the original possibilities we held out of selling the place once it was financially back on its feet was becoming less of an option, the two of us soon developed an attachment to the place and wanted to retain its ownership and foster it to success. One Saturday afternoon a couple of months after taking over the business Clyde and I had been out picking up some supplies and had just returned to the Funeral Home from the town’s Main street shops.