Fahrenheit 1600 (Victor Kozol)

by Jerry Weber

  However, since Duryea during this period went from 10,000 to 6,000, the business was now doing sixty funerals per year down from a high of seventy in Stash’s heyday. But, Kozol’s was still the largest funeral home in town, since the other two directors had also lost business due to population declines.

  Albert ran the funeral home from the mid-fifties until the eighties when it was time to begin thinking of the transition of ownership to a new generation. He now had to think of what was to become of his only son after the debacle at Wilkes. Albert decided to give an ultimatum to Vic meeting the problem head-on.

  “Vic, you either go downstate to mortuary school in Bethlehem and get a funeral director’s license, or I am going to sell the business, retire, and you can ‘paddle your own canoe’ from there.”

  Joining the family business was not a prospect that thrilled Vic, but he was astute enough to know that his options could be worse. To refuse his father’s offer would put him on the street looking for work with no marketable skills. This usually meant minimum wage type employment. A job so tiring and boring, you won’t want to party after your shift is over. Imagine, standing at the local hot dog joint window with your white hat asking people all day, “Do you want yours plain or with mustard?” This was a real bummer to contemplate. Victor was trapped, he needed money and his father was no longer going to just give it to him.

  Vic had two cousins downstate. One was a cardiologist practicing in a large hospital in Philadelphia, and the other was an orthopedic specialist practicing with a group in Allentown. This was no longer possible for Vic, no matter how much he yearned for the more exciting greener pastures down state, he had screwed up and he knew it.

  CHAPTER 4

  A New Beginning

  Vic had to get busy if he hoped to not lose any more time getting into his new career. While the Northampton County Area Community College Funeral Service program was not attended by rocket scientists, it was a heavily science oriented curriculum. Vic didn’t have any science courses of C or better to transfer. None of his D’s or F’s were acceptable, so he had to take a full load of science courses at summer school at the Luzerne County Community College in Nanticoke. He still wouldn’t be able to graduate in one year. It would take eighteen months for Vic to get the ordinary twelve month diploma, because the other students already had an education of mostly science courses in their first two years of college. Three years of education was the Pennsylvania requirement. This inability to transfer many of his college credits was the cause for much distress for Vic.

  Whether, he was getting older or was just tired from all of the partying in Wilkes-Barre, Vic was a quieter, more sober student in Bethlehem; not that he didn’t drink on weekends. He no longer hosted parties. If anything, Vic went from motivated to do the wrong things, to just plain apathetic about himself and his future. He was able to keep average grades in school this time, realizing he really wanted to get all of this behind him and start making money.

  Finally, in January the day arrived for Vic’s mid-year graduation from mortuary school. His parents sat proudly in the front row as their son strode across the stage with cameras clicking and people applauding. Pennsylvania, like most States require an internship working with a funeral director for an additional year after graduation before taking the State Board Exams and being awarded a license.

  Technically, Vic’s father could have been the ‘preceptor’ for Vic, but Albert chose to call his good friend Charley Rokowski in Scranton to take his son on. Charley did twice the business that Vic’s father did in Duryea. There, he would get his much needed experience. Earning $200.00 per week, Vic spent the year helping direct funerals and embalm bodies in Scranton.

  Finally, Vic had free time to hit the bars once again. He would get mildly buzzed and go back to his room over the funeral home garage in downtown Scranton.

  With the year finally over, Vic made the trek to Philadelphia and took his state boards. In another month he was notified by registered letter that he has passed all requirements and was officially a licensed funeral director in the great state of Pennsylvania.

  It had been six years since Vic first entered Wilkes University, and he finally had something to show for all of this time. (Not to mention tens of thousands of his father’s money.) Vic was not ecstatic; this was not his chosen field, but rather a fallback or default career. He didn’t relish working for his father, but as he reasoned earlier, doing unskilled labor would be far worse.

  CHAPTER 5

  Funeral Directing in a Small Town

  Vic wasn’t excited to return to Duryea to live full-time after having been away for six years. Most of Vic’s high school friends who remained behind married early and were settled into the service industry jobs that still existed. Vic feared he would appear like an alien to his old friends after being away so long.

  He now lived five miles from the spot near Pittston, where in 1957 the Susquehanna River broke through into a mine tunnel located too close to the river. Most of the miners miraculously escaped with their lives, but the gaping hole poured millions of gallons of water into the mine. Since the mines were all interconnected, all of the deep mines in Luzerne County were permanently flooded. This disaster ended the last of the deep mining of anthracite in the area. Strip mining continued on a smaller scale, but the markets for this form of energy were not to return.

  The federal, state, and local governments poured millions of dollars into the area to try and diversify the industrial base. At first this seemed to help, but then low-wage states down south and cheap overseas labor closed many of these new factories. To keep coal alive, Congress was induced to pass legislation that named anthracite coal as the primary heating fuel for military and other governmental buildings. However, nothing could ever replace the thousands of miners’ jobs now long gone in northeast Pennsylvania. Some businesses found niches and prospered, and the colleges, hospitals, governmental facilities and other institutions in the area did go on and provide a steady source of employment for a smaller labor force. Vic knew that there would not be growth in his area and he couldn’t, in his lifetime, remember when the area was humming with tens of thousands employed by the mines.

  Victor’s parents bought a modest ranch home three miles out of town in Pittston Township, and moved out of the apartment on top of the funeral home. With some leftover furniture from his grandmother, Vic moved into the family manor where he grew up. Working with his father every day was actually easy, because Albert made all of the decisions and Vic was the schlepper. He removed and embalmed bodies, took folding chairs to the widow’s houses, washed cars, hosed off the porches, ran the vacuum, and in short did all of the trivial, and some of the important details, needed to keep the funeral home running smoothly.

  To successfully operate a sixty call a year business in a small town, you might spend two weeks with no funerals and then have three deaths in two days, requiring you to put in an eighty hour week to get it all done. This is where the expression ‘feast or famine’ came from.

  As to the public relations part of the business; Vic was weak in that department. He was seen in church only when doing funerals. Rarely did he attend the other important events like suppers, carnivals, socials, and oh yes, the annual bowling banquets. Then came the block parties, 4th of July parades, and all sorts of local events the funeral director was expected to either attend or help run. All of this mingling was with people who were twice to three times his age. Not to mention the expectations that you not be a womanizer or ever appear drunk in public.

  These were the things Albert could do seamlessly and even seemed to enjoy; but to Vic, this stuff was torture and a waste of time. Albert got tired of cajoling Vic into talking his place in the town and its activities. He knew this was a weakness with his son, but just as in college, he seemed to have no control over Victor when it came to changing behavior. So, a standoff ensued. Albert was satisfied to have Vic did the physical work around the funeral home, while he would remain the public
relations person. This agreement worked well while Albert stayed active in the business, but was to have disastrous consequences down the road. For the time being, Victor was making $20,000 a year, had a car to use, and a place to stay. Maybe not Vic’s idea of a road to greatness, but he wasn’t wanting for anything.

  CHAPTER 6

  Victor the Proprietor

  After five years of this monotonous existence, things were about to change. Albert and Mary’s best friends the Chulak’s retired from their flower shop and moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. They invited the Kozols down for a vacation, and they became hooked on the balmy climate and laid back lifestyle being lived by their friends. Steve Chulak told Albert that there was a nice little condo nearby coming up for sale by a lady who went to a nursing home. Albert and Mary made an appointment to see it, fell in love with the place and quickly agreed to buy it.

  They return to Duryea, and the next Monday meet with Vic to tell him they had decided to retire to Florida. Victor would be the boss at last! He was taken aback by this sudden change of roles with his father, but it did give him more freedom. Among the many conditions and stipulations in the agreement that Victor had to sign with his father, was the one where he would have to send his parents $3,000 a month as rent for the business and building. After all of this and a warning from his father that he would no longer be there to backstop the public relations end of the business. Vic assured Albert that things would be different, now that he is in charge. By the end of the summer, the older Kozols were gone and Victor was finally his own boss.

  CHAPTER 7

  Victor’s First Year in Business

  Once again, Vic made resolution that he was going to be different and make this work. But, alone and with no one to criticize his actions or lack thereof, he fell prey to the same apathy that he was prone to at college.

  He handled the funerals when they came in, but the client families could tell his heart wasn’t in it. The bodies he put out on display for public viewings didn’t look as good as the ones displayed by his competitors. The place wasn’t as clean or maintained as well as it used to be, and worse Vic would sometimes be drunk in town within view of his clients. (In funeral service parlance, the ‘client families’ are the next of kin left behind when someone dies, they are the real customers.)

  With two other active competitors in a town of only 6,000 people Vic couldn’t afford to alienate many families and stay in business. If he disappointed and angered enough of his client families they will soon put out the word “don’t call Victor,” when in need of a funeral service.

  This was the beginning of a year from hell that would propel him into a downward spiral. Vic’s first year in business was a series of blunders and embarrassments. Instead of working for his father and drawing $400.00 per week, for the first time in his life, he was untethered from the mother ship. If he screwed up this business, there would be no guaranteed income; in fact there may be no income at all, and that was a scary thought for Vic.

  But for all of his life, Vic never had to put duty before pleasure, and he was finding it hard to do it now. Many people who start their own businesses fail because they lose the rigor and discipline of an organization that used to employ them. They just don’t self-motivate. Vic, was never really motivated working for his father and this weakness carried over into his newfound freedom of making his own schedule and lifestyle. Vic kept falling farther into the abyss.

  After receiving a call from an, old mortuary school friend from Bethlehem, Vic said no to an invite downstate. But after two more friends called him and told him what a good reunion he would be missing if he didn’t attend this one in New Hope, Vic finally caved in and when Friday afternoon came, he left for Bucks County to knock a few back with his old college chums.

  When funeral directors want to take time off, like doctors, they have to find someone to fill in for them in case an emergency comes up while they are away. However, Victor wasn’t on any kind of terms with any other local directors, so he took the chance that someone wouldn’t die at home while he was away. (If they died in a hospital or nursing home, you had time to pick up the body later, but at home you had to go immediately.)

  When the answering service rang Vic’s cell phone he was in a bar in New Hope some three hours’ drive from home. The problem was that the deceased Mrs. Makovsky was lying on her face in the kitchen after she suffered an apparent heart attack. The children were gathered in the living room one room away from their dead mother; they had just met with the family doctor who had pronounced her dead and told them to call a funeral director to remove the body. For over fifty years the Kozol’s had taken care of deaths in the Makovsky family; this funeral was to be no different. To have a family call someone else you would really have to make a negative impression on them, after they used your firm for generations. This is how Vic’s worse nightmare came true; he was hours away from Duryea and only a seventy- year-old handyman who would be incapable of removing the body alone was left back in Duryea. Victor called the family and lied that he was out on another death call and “won’t be able to get there for a while.” Victor had no way of knowing at the time that he wasn’t going to get there at all.

  After hastily saying his goodbyes to his friends, Vic took the two lane roads through rural Bucks County at high speed. It was now midnight and the roads were nearly empty. Just as he was approaching the Quakertown interchange of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Vic couldn’t believe it when the red and blue lights he was seeing in his rear view mirror were getting closer. Within a minute the State trooper was alongside and signaling him to pull over. Vic had an expired insurance card and no registration card for the vehicle he was driving, and he reeked of alcohol. The only worse thing to get you to spend the night in a local jail would be to run someone over.

  Meanwhile back in Duryea, the Makovskys could no longer reach Vic on his cell phone, and his answering service had no idea where he was. In disgust, with their mother turning blue, they call Jake Borovich another local funeral director to remove their mother. Within thirty minutes their mother was out of the house and Borovich was sitting in the kitchen with the family making the arrangements.

  The next morning Vic’s friend Steve Lamont, a local attorney wired the money and got Vic sprung from the Quakertown Police holding cell. Now Vic is $500.00 poorer, has a hangover, and was facing a court hearing later for additional punishment which would include the near certainty of losing his driving license if convicted of a DUI. It could be worse, the people in Duryea don’t read downstate newspapers and the event didn’t get published in the Wilkes-Barre papers. However, this is all Vic would be able to salvage from his night of partying.

  At least Vic didn’t attend Holy Rosary, the local Polish Catholic Church (or any other) so he never had to hear in person the rumors buzzing around how he never came to pick up the body of the president of the Altar and Rosary Society after her untimely death at the age of eighty four.

  Victor could have billed that funeral out at about $4,000 (depending on the merchandise chosen). After the cemetery, church, merchandise, and other miscellaneous costs, he could have grossed about $2,000. The fixed costs of maintaining the funeral are there anyway. So, the final profit would be less. However this funeral would have mostly paid his father the rent for the current month.

  Vic not only lost the Makovsky funeral, he had a way of compounding his problems without ever planning it. When the daughter of another client family was killed in a tragic auto accident, in which the driver was her drunken boyfriend. After attending a party in Wilkes-Barre where he drank too much, Ted was driving Lisa home and missed a turn on River Road plunging down an embankment and finally hitting a large oak tree which prevented the car from landing in the Susquehanna River. Ted had only minor injuries but the tree hit was on the right side of Ted’s Camaro coupe. Lisa, at only eighteen, was killed instantly. All of this made the nerves and emotions of the family much more sensitive than with a natural death.

  In maki
ng the arrangements with the Tibursky family, Vic was given one admonition by the dead girl’s father, “Under no circumstances are you to let that drunken, no good SOB into the funeral home to see Lisa’s body.”

  Vic knew Ted Chernowski, the driver and boyfriend involved, from high school days. The next night while having a drink in Tubby’s a local hangout, Vic was approached by Ted now out on bail. Ted asked one favor for old times’ sake. Could he see his girlfriend one last time? Vic initially said no, but two drinks later and after more badgering by Ted, he relented.

  “Only if you swear to me that this will be a secret just between us.”

  “Of course,” Ted swore. So, Vic drove him to the funeral home at midnight to have the private viewing in his morgue. All went well with the Lisa Tibursky funeral until a week later. Ted was back at Tubby’s drinking and boasting that he never liked Lisa’s old man (the feeling was mutual; as he tried to break up the relationship many times, but his daughter had turned eighteen and wouldn’t stop seeing Ted) but that he had the last laugh; he had influence with a friend Vic, that got him in to see Lisa for the last time before her funeral. He was even circulating a picture of Lisa under a white sheet on the morgue table. When the news got back to Lisa parents they were so enraged they refused to pay the funeral bill and threatened a lawsuit for damages. They also threatened to report Vic to the State Board of Funeral Directors for unethical practices.