6/6/66

by JN Lenz

  Our biggest step in achieving the millions of dollars we would eventually earn, came when we purchased our second Funeral Home, on the second day of April nineteen eighty nine. This was the same Funeral Home that Clyde completed his mandatory work co-op, a requirement following the two year College course he completed to become a certified Funeral Director.

  Run by an elderly couple, the Avery’s have been accepting an apprentice from the College for a number of years; they also held the city contract for all government assistance funerals such as welfare and homeless services. A high percentage of their yearly disposals and services were of this low margin government funded variety, but they held a high number of total services every year. The couple had donated much of their time and resources into helping those less fortunate than themselves. Over the years they had continued to undercut all other Funeral Service operators in the city, each time the five year contract for the city services went out for tender.

  There was no business logic to their business proposals to the city each and every half a decade; instead they pursued this business more for the deep seeded obligation. The pair felt that everyone should be treated with respect and dignity in death, regardless of that individual’s station at their time of death.

  Lorne and Hilda Avery had taken an immediate liking to Clyde’s attention to detail in the embalming room, this and the manner in which Clyde paid such close attention to all the details of a service yet still presented himself with his relaxed personality. Of all the candidates that had come from the College for the year long internship at Avery’s (some of who the Avery’s hired on full time following the end of their year long residence) not one demonstrated the same skill and care while performing the embalming on even the most destitute homeless individuals.

  The Avery’s had taken note of the care Clyde performed in making the poorest patrons appearance in the casket, ensuring they looked as close to life as possible. Just as Clyde transformed the look of the cadavers from those who came through the doors of the Funeral Home from a much higher position in life, he would repeat on those less fortunate. It was an almost artistic like ability in Clyde, along the way he had learned of a few chemicals when injected into the bodies during the embalming process gave the cadaver some colour into an almost life like appearance. His tightly held chemical secret along with his new found skill at applying various types of make-up greatly impressed the Avery’s.

  In that first year at Avery’s, Clyde would reconstruct the faces of several car accidents and other death by head trauma cadavers. His reconstruction was performed to such an exacting degree that an open casket service could be offered to the families of the victims. Clyde in one way was similar to the Avery’s when it came to their presentation of death, and that the quality of embalming should be equal for all, rich or poor. The area where he would differ greatly from the Avery’s was that death in others brought out no feelings of compassion from Clyde.

  The human bodies that would pass through the funeral home induced no more emotion within Clyde than the slaughtered cows and pigs that would stream through the abattoir where he once worked.

  This natural ability that Clyde displayed in the embalming room, and the fact that he always displayed an easy going, unassuming country demeanor, went a long way in impressing both Lorne and Hilda Avery. They discussed together that the young impressionable Clyde would have the cities surrounding neighborhoods best interests at heart, and would be a more than suitable replacement for them at the Funeral Home. The bond that Clyde had developed over that first year also allowed me to get to know the Avery’s very well along the way.

  Even though the bulk of the Avery’s business consisted of the lower end variety, the top ten percent of the clientele was very high end and profitable. This group of clients insisted on the extras, such as high end caskets and multiple cars to be used during the service, including limos for extended family members. During Clyde’s first year there the Shackles Funeral Home had worked together with the Avery’s on a couple of transfers between Funeral Homes and the airport pick up as well, all this paved the way for Clyde and I to purchase our second Funeral Home at the age of twenty three.

  They had even approached us with the idea of buying the place from them, instead of the other way around. They would come to Clyde one afternoon in the last month of his one year mandated work cooperative (required for full certification as a Funeral Director). The two of them explained to Clyde how they had been in the Funeral Business for over forty years and were ready for retirement. Lorne Avery explained that since the majority of their funerals were low margin social assistance and government disposals they knew most of the value of the business was in the land and the buildings located in the heart of Toronto but he also knew what had happened to all the property values in the last year and with the high interest rates the values Lorne knew we may have difficulty borrowing sufficient funds from the bank.

  Lorne Avery would offer the Funeral Home to Clyde that day for just fewer than one million six hundred thousand dollars which was an amazing deal but way beyond anything we could afford at that time. Clyde would explain to me later that he was excited about the proposal until he heard that price, not like the place was not worth it the million six price was great deal the land was worth two times that, it was just that there would be no way the two of us could afford it. Then Hilda picks up the conversation, telling Clyde she

  “Likes what she sees in Clyde. Between Clyde and Jack the pair of you will do well, so we have no issue at all in holding the mortgage for the property, no banks would be necessary.”

  Up to this point I had always been the one keeping watch of both Clyde and my finances; normally Clyde could give a rat shit about any kind of business transactions or dealings, as that was my shtick. This offer from the Avery’s to Clyde who called me at his first opportunity had him more excited than I could remember him being in some time, thinking he was going to jump through the phone he was so wound up. It was apparent to even Clyde that this was a deal of a life time, he could not wait to give me the details as Clyde continued to just blurted out the whole conversation he had only moments earlier with the Avery’s.

  We wasted little time following up on the original offer made to us by the Avery’s, the transaction for the purchase of the Funeral Home closed in a matter of weeks. They went so far as to ask for only one hundred grand as a deposit for the purchase of the Funeral Home. It was all the cash we could scrap together in such a short period of time, the couple assured us of their confidence in both Clyde and I offering to hold the mortgage on the property for us. Since the two of them had set aside money along the way and having no children of their own they only required a modest amount of money to live on. After the sale of the funeral home the Avery’s would leave the city entirely, leaving the city to spend their retirement in a small winterized cottage on the shores of Rice Lake.

  Both Clyde and I had wanted to move to Toronto and hire another director to help out Fred in Largo. The business was busy enough that Fred could no longer handle running the place on his own, not in the manner we wanted it run that is. But spending that amount to hire someone for the Largo funeral home at a time when Clyde would have all the staff he required running Avery’s just made no sense. Plus my relationship with Lilly had lasted for almost two years and was going amazingly well so it made the most sense for me to be the one to remain in Largo.

  This business arrangement would form the core structure of our business model for the future; Clyde began to control the day to day operations of our funeral homes while I handled the financial side of the business. The Avery Funeral Home would require Clyde’s full attention, for one it would be the first time he had a full time staff looking to him for direction.

  The Avery Funeral Home was located in a densely populated downtown location of Toronto; the hundred year old structure was situated on a large tract of land on the corner of two busy streets. As in Largo, the Funeral Home resided in what was once a wealth
y individual’s home. Unlike the Victorian style building with the school house orange brick of Largo, the Avery Funeral Home was constructed of large limestone block constructed in a Gothic style design.

  Three sides of the building had ivy which ran up the side walls of the great structure from the base of the home all the way to the tip of the gables on the third floors. The home was beautiful but a little tired looking , yet the place was still by far the nicest building in an area of graffiti covered walls and older deteriorating structures. The once grand home was surrounded by street side shops, many of which had long been abandoned as the shoppers had all migrated to the larger retail malls and plazas that now littered the city.

  I was ecstatic at our new purchase; this second funeral home was going to open so many doors for both Clyde and I. The Avery Funeral Home had averaged over six hundred funerals a year for the past decade, of those six hundred odd funerals over four hundred and sixty of those where government and social assistance funerals. In reality it had been the one hundred and sixty moderate to high end services that had allowed the Avery Funeral Home to remain profitable. For me it was these low end funerals that held a special interest, the reason for this keen interest in the Funerals of these transients and the outcasts from society were two fold.

  Number one was the fact that as we continued to immerse ourselves in the cultivation of pot by partnering with the pair of twin brothers who had been long time friends from back in Parsons. Our two longtime friends Oliver and Fitch had pressed us continuously that first winter after taking over the Shackles Funeral Home when we told them Clyde and I no longer had the time to grow pot. The twins would press us all that winter to either start back up ourselves or show them what they needed to do and get in business with them.

  The whole idea of a partnership made a lot of sense, for one we had previously supplied them with the bulk of their inventory so we knew they could be trusted not to be stupid and get busted. The same arrangement we had previously with our buyer could be maintained, being too busy to grow the crops ourselves Clyde and I would now become the middleman handling the pot just enough to get a cut of the profits along the way to market.

  The prospect of continuing to grow pot had always remained in the back of my mind during that first winter at the Shackles Funeral Home; I had really not wanted to totally give up on that supply of cash. It would be much easier now that we owned the funeral home to funnel most of that cash through the business and make it legal.

  There would have been no way we would have even had the hundred thousand cash to provide to the Avery’s had it not been for continuing to be involved in growing large pot crops. Once we had purchased the second funeral home that additional income would become vital to our future success. With the large number of low margin funerals at the Avery Funeral Home and the high volume of services we performed each year by adding a thousand dollars to each of these funerals we could legitimize well over a half a million dollars a year if we could produce that much pot I had calculated.

  I always had my doubts that the government’s revenue agency would audit the books of the Funeral Home if we began to pay them more in taxes from the increase in revenue we had generated from each service. The second opportunity which I could envision from the purchase of the Avery Funeral Home and would also lend itself to the revitalization of our pot growing operation was the chance to obtain sets of fake I.D’s

  . With over four hundred of the bodies coming into the funeral home from homeless shelters, hostiles and straight off the street they would make ideal candidates to steal their identification for use in the future. No one ever came to these services for society’s outcasts; typically no one cared or knew that these people of the street even existed let alone that they had died. Most family members of these homeless man and women had given up hope after a member of the family had spent years on the streets, usually unsure if their homeless relative was dead or alive.

  The purchase of the Avery Funeral home could never have happened if Clyde and I had not had several conversations on the topic of continuing to grow pot during that first winter at the Shackles Funeral home. One thing became clear there would be no way if we were to return to growing that we could do the work on our own, the twins had asked that we train them, they could be trusted we knew that and who our good friends the twins Oliver and Fitch being the only two that really fit the bill.

  The two of us decided to drive up to the old home town and run through our plan with the twins who we fully expected to be very keen on the plan. Realizing a return to outdoor cultivation would be risky along with the ability to produce only one crop harvest per year, instead Clyde and I wanted to move the operation indoors.

  The Costello twins, Oliver and Fitch liked the idea the minute Clyde and I pitched it to them. They had moved into the old farm house Clyde and I used to rent when we lived back in Parsons, the remote location of the old farm house would be perfect for a grow house. With our plan in place for the old farm house, Clyde and I would use the cash from our last year’s outdoor harvest to purchase the heavy duty grow lamps and poly drip lines feeding the roots the hydroponics system with nutrients and water.

  The farmer that had owned the property had died several years earlier leaving the property to his only daughter that had been living in the town of Parsons for years. She had no interest in ever living back out in the country and had no use for the land but the farmer’s daughter could not bring herself to sell the old homestead. The rent from the house paid for all the taxes and gave her some extra cash each month from the twelve monthly checks she requested at the beginning of each year.

  The farmer’s daughter had never been out to see the property during the two years Clyde and I lived there, Oliver and Fitch had also never seen the farmer’s daughter out at the farm house since they had moved in. This made the decision to use the farm house as a grow op an easy one, we all had our doubts that the farmer’s daughter would ever make the journey from town out to the old homestead.

  The twins had an uncle in the area that drove a bucket truck for the Parsons Municipal Hydro Company, I would give the twins a grand to give to their power line worker uncle to route the power from the line out at the road into the house by passing the meter. The twins would rent a digger and dig a trench from the house to the closest roadside hydro pole, one evening when the uncle was on call for emergencies (which required him to take the bucket truck home in the event of a call) he would bring it over to the remote farm and hook up the free electricity.

  The twin’s uncle having brought a spool of wire from the utilities storage would drop the line in the trench before jumping it into the transmission lines at the top of the pole. He would even run the line up the pole on side of the pole not facing the road in order to be less noticeable from the road. Using the small rented tractor Oliver and Fitch quickly covered the trench and the electrical wire; the pair had told the uncle they wanted to skirt the high costs of heating the old drafty house which still had electric baseboards which was costing them a fortune to heat the place in the winter.

  Since the uncle was in his late fifties at the time and a bit of an old school country boy, the elder brother of Oliver and Jessie’s father had not the faintest idea the power was for the cultivation of pot. The proliferation of indoor grow operations would just be beginning at this point in the late eighties, or the media was not yet publicizing yet anyway, back then the majority of that generation would not have a clue about the inside growing of marijuana.

  Junior had always been our final point of sale for all the pot Clyde and I had produced, the three of us had been friends of Junior for years, his real name was Willard Sardone Jr. For as long as anyone could remember everyone called him junior including his brother Spence who was twelve years older than Junior had been a member of the Hell’s Angels from back in the Owsley acid days of the late sixties. Junior would tell us stories of his brother when he had even hung out at the original day glow tract owned by the author Ken Keesey i
n California.

  The eldest Sardone would leave home at the age of sixteen on a stolen Harley taken from a resident in Parsons; Spence rode that thing all the way to California. He would make it across the border through a sparsely manned border crossing on a rural section of the Saskatchewan- Iowa border. The major junior hockey experience of his youth along with Spence’s Northern Ontario toughness allowed him to fight his way into full membership in the Hells Angels by the age of eighteen. Junior bragged that after four members of the Angels had the living shit kicked out of them they decided Spence would become a member, there would be no striker patch required for him.

  Even behind the bars of the Bakersfield State Penitentiary in California (where Spence was serving a nine year sentence for extortion during the late nineteen eighties), he still had the connections to set Junior up with sale and drop off locations. For the last few years, Clyde and I would drop off our pot for Junior who in turn would deliver to his point person. Junior was really our only contact with the underworld and that is the way we always wanted to keep it. The only change would be the inclusion of the twins, Oliver and Fitch in our cultivation family. Both had had been friends of Clyde and I from grade school and we trusted them completely. Throughout the years, Clyde and I would consistently keep a couple of pounds of pot from each year’s crops for our personal use.

  Our deliveries to Junior after that first year we began to grow large crops for him would be done through one massive drop. The preferred location for the drop was usually on the edge of a bush line close to a side road. On most occasions Clyde would source spot close to a field or in the bush in a remote area, since he knew these areas better than anyone.

  The two of us would dig a hole late at night in the remote location he had established days earlier, once the crop was harvested and cut we would bag it and bring the full amount to the hole in the middle of the night. The hole would be lined with thick plastic, Clyde and I would bury the full fall harvest and cover the hole back over with earth and leaves to conceal its presence.