Sampiro! BIG HUGS
Welcome back. You’ve been missed.
No, she hasn’t, and it’s damned disappointing. I thought that surely if I’d ever have “strange and unexplained” experiences it would be after her death, but…
I mean, for Og’s sake I’m living in HER house (well, technically it’s my house but it will always really be HER house) with HER stuff and MY gay ex-boyfriend who she once threatened to kill and there still hasn’t even been anything out of the ordinary. Were there truly a world beyond she’d have somehow managed to overturn his bed or burn him with spectral cigarettes or something by now you’d think, but nope.
Well, there were the dove and butterfly incidents= my sister had a dove that sat on the roof of her house for three days until after the funeral, but I think that might be in part attributible to the fact that a church a mile down the road from her keeps doves in a large cage out back and sometimes they get out and it’s generally believed by zoologists that doves can fly. And then there was the time I visited her grave and as sitting on the floral arrangement was a live orange butterfly. (Butterflies were rivalled only by cigarettes and overstatements among her favorite things- there must be a thousand of the damned things in her house from cheesy little $.10 refrigerator magnets to cheesy but expensive Limoges boxes in her house- her funeral was closed with Dolly Parton’s Love is Like a Butterfly [and her coffin carried out to the Auburn “War Eagle” Fight Song, but I digress].) It would be nice to view it as comforting, but the fact that she’s buried in a place with tons of orange butterflies in summer probably played a part.
And I’ve heard her voice a few times but once was when waking from a dream about her (pretty sure that was just a hypnopompic or hypnogogic projection, whichever is waking- I get them confused and don’t want to google it) and the other times it probably had much to do with the fact I’d just pressed the “Play Announcement” button on the answering (either that or she really did come back just to tell me “For some reason I’m not able to take your call right now…”, which still makes her more interesting and lucid than the dead folks John Edward communicates with). But generally speaking her house is now the new Andersonville* for me.
Perhaps that will change. Things didn’t get really scary at the house I grew up in until years after my father died there, and I hope to be gone from her house/my house/The Mamaleum long before then. But c’est la vie {or c’est la after-vie} I suppose. Perhaps she simply no longer exists or perhaps she’s found peace or perhaps she’s too busy chewing out my father for the next century (“HOW COULD YOU CANCEL THE @(#@(*#**(@# MORTGAGE INSURANCE WITHOUT TELLING ME YOU SON OF A *(@#@(#*@*(#$ AND SPEAKING OF WHICH, WHERE’S YOUR MOTHER, I’VE BEEN SAVING UP FOR THIS…”) but whate’er the case nothing inexplicable.
Though speaking of afterlife, if I had any doubts I’ll go to hell they ended this weekend when I told an 80 year old relative and the last surviving resident of Weokahatchee AL to please die and decay or otherwise stop calling me. That’s a story that also has to do with the funeral- she’s my father’s “twin cousin” (born the same week) and the only person ever to have been physically evicted from my mother’s house and a person who renewed contact at and after the funeral and found out I’m not quite as sweet as I used to be where certain breaches of etiquette are concerned. And she’s nuts and I hope she drops dead but not before I get the stuff she stole from me and my mother back, but I digress.
The point is that I really really like chicken wings.
*I used to live 5 miles from Andersonville, the Hell-on-Earth Civil War POW camp that’s now a national park and home to a well worth a sidetrip to see national POW museum (for all wars). You would think that if anyplace in America were haunted it would be a place where tens of thousands of men were starved to living scarecrows and thousands died drinking shit filled water and exposed to the elements in conditions that rivalled Auschwitz and all in the course of just a year, but instead it’s just a hill surrounded by pine trees with a few monuments and absolutely no sense of horror or the supernatural at all save for the irritation you get the fifth time you eavesdrop on tourists discussing how Jane Fonda personally decapitated three American soldiers or some other nonsense they got on an email.
You really don’t know how to tell a story, do you? What KIND of chicken wings?
VERY LONG, DON’T READ IF YOU DON’T LIKE MY STORIES OR LONG STORIES IN GENERAL, ALL DISCLAIMERS IN PLACE.
THE POST MORTEM ADVENTURES OF MAMA SAMPIRO, VOLUME I
ISSUE 1: By Señor Wences We Conquer
WHILE A BIT MORBID, THIS ONE’S NOT REALLY DEPRESSING, THOUGH STRANGELY IT IS TRUE. (In fact I’ve deleted some of the more tasteless remarks.)
My mother died at 2 a.m. on a Saturday. I spent all of that day in Gulf Shores, hours of it spent sitting in the window of a cannonade at Fort Morgan looking at Mobile Bay and nothing in particular in some order and most of the rest of it sleeping. The following morning we all rose early to embark by caravan for the Holy City of Monkeytown, there to make preparation for interment.
For once we acted as a unit. A very strange unit in a wildly eccentric cadence perhaps (or, an Italian unit if you prefer) but one with common purpose no less. A stranger thing is that all of us, including my brother who’s not often known for a sense of humor, were working not only in Marx Brothers ad-lib unison but we were all “on fire” as it were. It was the shock, the lack of sleep, the sheer surreality of the World Without Blanche perhaps, but whatever it was, it was.
The salesman on duty for Montgomery’s leading cemetery and mausoleum space was a 60 something Midwesterner of hoary mane and considerable girth with a more than passing resemblance to Charles Durning (hence the occasional reference to him as “Charles Durning” rather than his real name in this narrative). Since mausoleums were the first choice for all of us, we had called Mr. Durning early on Saturday to ask about available drawers (pretty much a monopoly in Montgomery as every mausoleum at every cemetery in Montgomery is owned by the same company). He wasn’t sure any were available at the moment but agreed to find out for us.
Not knowing if there were any mausoleums available in Montgomery would seem an odd omission in the knowledge for a guy who sells mausoleums in Montgomery. It wasn’t the only knowledge of omission we’d find; to foreshadow a bit, Charles Durning dude is essentially a retiree who took this job to earn some extra retirement income and has no idea how to do it.
The next morning, Sunday, we met him at his office, a mausoleum like room of sample headstones and dollhouse sized crypts that would overlook a large cemetery if it had a window. He had good news for us.
“I found one! Technically, I found two. You see, it’s a double mausoleum drawer, but it’s in a beautiful location overlooking a pond.”
Me: Does it have a window?
Him: Uh, no… mausoleums don’t have windows…
My sister: Then why is it a selling point that it overlooks a pond?
Durning: Well, it’s… it’s for the family really, it gives the… um… semblance of… a restful…
Sister: Rest is one thing I don’t think she’s gone have a problem with. Besides, Mama would rather look out over people.
Me: Do you have anything that overlooks an apartment complex or maybe a dysfunctional neighborhood? That she would love…
My brother: But only with a window.
Me: We’ll supply the binoculars and the cell phone.
Durning (not sure if we’re serious): Oh… no… the Lakeside Duplex is the only one I have at the moment… well, not one… it’s two…
Sister: Two? What’s that mean?
Durning: Well, it’s a double drawer. It’s particularly built for husbands and wives, but it doesn’t have to be for married couples only, any two people can use it.
Me: That’s good. Mama’s probably not going to be getting married.
Durning: Well, is your father still living?
All Mama’s Children in Unison: “I hope not. We buried him in 1982.”
Brother-in-Law: Know what Elvis would be singing if he was alive today?
Durning: I’m sorry to hear that… is there no plot next to your father then…
Brother: Yes, there’s a plot next to him. We own it in fact. Know anybody wants to buy a plot up in Elmore County?
Brother-in-Law: [singing]I’m caught in a crypt….
Durning: Ah, were your parents divorced?
Me: No they weren’t divorced.
Brother-in-Law: [singing] ….I can’t get out…
Me: But for 24 years she said she did not want to be buried with him.
All Mama’s Children in Unison: “The contract was specific. Til death us do part.”
Brother-in-Law: [singing] Because I let you bury me, baby…
Durning: Well then, about the mausoleum…
Sister: I always heard Way down where the music plays/Way down like a tidal wave/Way down where the fires blaze…
Durning: Blaze… did you want your mother cremated?
Sister: Hell no! I’m talking about Elvis.
Durning: Elvis wasn’t cremated. He’s buried at Graceland in fact, I’ve seen his grave many times.
Sister: But if he was alive he’d be singing that.
Durning: Do you think Elvis is alive?
Sister: Don’t know don’t care. Great singer. How much is it?
Durning: I’m sorry… how much is what? Graceland’s admission price?
Sister: The mausoleum.
Brother: The reason we’re here.
Brother-in-Law: How much is Graceland’s admission price?
Durning: Oh…uh… about twenty dollars last I heard…
Sister: The mausoleum is twenty dollars? Sold American…
Durning: No, Graceland’s admission is about twenty…
Sister: Who the hell cares. We’re done with Elvis. How much is the mausoleum?
Brother: The double one, not Elvis’s…
Durning: Elvis has a grave actually…
Sister: Would you please quit changing the subject to Elvis? Our mama’s dead…
Durning: I didn’…uh… I’m sorry, the mausoleum…
Sister: Damn. Mama’s dead.
Me: Sounds weird doesn’t it?
Brother: Hmm.
Durning: Yes, sorry to hear about your mother if I haven’t mentioned it.
Sister: Thanks. How sorry are you dollar wise?
Me: Ever see the movie CLEOPATRA? The Liz Taylor version?
Durning: Man that was a beautiful woman.
Sister: Mama?
Durning: No… your brother said Cleopatra and I…
Sister: Look, no disrespect but I don’t care what Cleopatra looked like and she had a pyramid, not a mausoleum…
Jon: No she didn’t actually. Just a tomb, long lost to history.
Sister: I don’t care if she’s buried at Graceland. How much is a mausoleum?
Brother: How’d we all get onto Cleopatra?
Me: Line formed after Mark Antony.
Durning: Nine thousand dollars.
Brother-in-law: Jon brought her up.
Sister: Nine thousand dollars! For a big safe deposit box?
Brother: What’s Cleopatra have to do with anything?
Durning: Well, see, it’s actually a discount. It would ordinarily be twelve thousand…
Jon: Not her so much as a quote from the movie.
Durning: A single mausoleum is six thousand…
Sister: Which is what we want…
Brother-in-Law: What’s the quote from the movie?
Durning: But the only one available is a double.
Sister: Then will you sell us half of it?
Me: It’s what Octavian says when a soldier tells him ‘Mark Antony is dead’.
Durning: I’m sorry, you’d understand better if you saw them, it has to be both or none.
Brother-in-Law: What’d he say?
Durning: I said it has to be both or…
Brother-in-Law: I heard that. I mean what did Octavian say in that movie?
Durning: I’m sorry, who is Octavian…
Me: Cæsar’s great-nephew and adopted son. He says "Is that how one says it? As simple as that? Mark Antony is dead. The soup is hot, the soup is cold, Antony is living, Antony is dead.
Sister: Hmm. Can you sell us the double for six thousand then since you haven’t got a single available?
Durning: No I can’t do that.
Me: “Shake with terror when such words pass your lips, for fear they be untrue! And Blanche cut out your tongue for the lie, if not true!”
Durning: It’s true! I promise! They won’t let me.
Brother: Don’t pay any attention to him he’s still quoting Shakespeare or whatever.
Me: Hollywood. Cleopatra. 1962. “For your lifetime boast that you were honored to speak her name even in death! The dying of such a woman must be shouted; screamed! It must echo back from the corners of the universe. Blanche is dead! Blanche lives no more!” A commentary on the surreality of the statement “Mama’s dead.”
Sister: Hmm. I never liked Shakespeare.
Durning: Yes… well then… the $9000 is more expensive than the $6000 single vault…
Sister: That I understand.
Durning: But it has the advantage of having two tombs, which means that one of you would have a burial place already paid for.
Durning: And actually I’ll give you a further break… I can sell it to you for $8,600. Now that doesn’t include opening it or sealing it, there will be an additional $1,700 charge for that, now and whenever the second drawer is opened.
Brother-in-Law: And can we sell the second drawer?
Durning: We ask that you not… besides, the drawers are…well, I wish we were there so I could show you… they’re very close to each other, practically touching, it should be only someone with whom the deceased was very very close.
Brother: Don’t want people to start gossip.
Durning: That’s righ… ugh… well, you see, there’s a…
FM: When will a single mausoleum drawer be ready?
Durning: Not til after Christmas at the earliest. And it won’t be lakeside, it’ll be on the side facing the woods…
Me: Is there a window?
Durning: No! None of the drawers have windows.
Me: Anything with a view of Amish Country? She loved Amish country…
Durning: Do you have Amish in Montgomery?
All: No.
Durning: Well… You know we have 'em in Indiana where I’m from. Used to see 'em in…I have a feeling I’m being joshed. The point is though that all I have at the moment is the double mausoleum. Now, we can reserve a single mausoleum and in the meantime we can send your mother to Columbus, Georgia where we have a corpse storage facility…
SISTER: Is it climate controlled?
Durning: The mausoleum?
A: The corpse storage facility?
Durning: The cor… oh, yes, as a matter of fact, no. It’s basically just a temporary mausoleum where she’ll be held until her new mausoleum is ready. But you know, the new single drawers are going to be about $7,500, and they don’t have a lake view, and the double one is two spaces for just $1,400 more and it’s with the lake view and it’s on the highest level…
Me: So you’re saying it’s really top drawer?
SISTER: Is there a window?
Durning: Look, isn’t there anybody you know who could use the other space? Are you all married?
SISTER: Jon’s not.
Durning: Well, would you be interested in spending eternity with your mother?
Jon: I already have.
SISTER: What about Mardi?
Jon: Now there’s a thought.
All: Yeah, Mardi… she’d probably love to have Mardi with her…
Durning: Ah. Who is Mardi?
Us: Her dog.
[Durning is weighing us to see if we’re serious, which in fact… we are]
Durning: Oh. Well, no, I’m afraid we couldn’t allow that. We have strict rules…
Us: Don’t worry about his barking. I don’t think any of the neighbors would complain.
Me: Besides, he’s not dead yet. We’re not gonna just toss the little guy in with a rawhide chew and some chicken wings. He’s probably got a good 7 or 10 years left on him…
BROTHER: Especially now that Mama’s not around to overfeed him.
SISTER: He’s looking good since Jon’s been keeping him, lost about three pounds, that’s like fifty for us…
Brother-in-Law: You ever see him when he was so fat he’d lay down on his right side and his left legs would stick up in the air like a dead horse? Now that’s when he was too fat…
SISTER: Or the time [convulsive laughter] the time when he got his fat little head stuck in that canned chicken can… [convulsive laughter all around rudely interrupted with]
Durning: No, I’m sorry, but they don’t allow dogs or animal remains of any kind. Only human.
Me: What about fur coats?
Durning: Excuse me?
Me: Fur coats are animal remains. Do you allow them?
Durning: Well, yes, I suppose we do…
Me: Alright, when Mardi dies we’ll make him into a stole and dress up Mama…
Sister: Just start over feeding him again and he’ll be a damned coat…
Durning: Yeah… uh…. Heh….heh…
Ultimately it’s decided that we don’t want to pay extra for the extra mausoleum because none of the speaking members of the family wish to spend eternity next to Mama and the dogs aren’t allowed. Besides, the seal on the mausoleum “can only be broke if she’s going to be reinterred” and can’t be open weekly with a combination (we asked) so going out on weekends and rolling Mama down to the lake for a picnic isn’t an option. So we move to the subject of conventional graves.
“Now, here at Greenwood Cemetery we have spaces available in three of our nine gardens. There’s Eternal Peace, Gethsemane and Tranquil Grove…”
All: Which one is cheapest?
Durning: Well, they’re all about the same price give or take a few dollars. I think Eternal Peace is the cheapest because it’s an older section and the grave is less convenient to the road.
Me: Do you have like a Galilee Ghetto or Hades Flats section that would be less?
Sister: Yeah. I think for once Mama’s not gone be bothered by the neighbors.
Durning (still not certain when we’re serious): Um, actually, we do have a Galilee section. But it’s only for our Jewish residents [sic]. Was your mother Jewish.
Me: Sometimes. She switched religions a bit…
SISTER: She was Jewish when she wasn’t more Nazi in her views. She always liked Nazis for some reason.
Me: Just the uniforms I think. You know the last time I went for an interview I had my hair and beard cut really short and I was wearing a black shirt and black silk tie and she told me ‘You look just like a Nazi officer’ and she meant it as a compliment.
SISTER: She always liked German men. The blonde and blue eyes.
Brother: And big men. She thought Raymond Burr was really sexy.
Me: Nearly killed her when she learned he was gay.
Sister: Perry Mason was a queer? I don’t believe that…
Durning: Well, anyway, if she was Jewish…
Brother: Mama would have liked Mr. Durning here, actually.
Durning: Me? No, I’m not gay. I’m just divorced… Anyway, if she was Jewish that changes things…
Me: Anti-semite are we? Do we have to have little stars on the coffin?
Durning: No, no, no, no, no… not at all, it’s just that there’s extra paperwork and less space. The Jewish graves are handled by the synagogue…
Brother: She wasn’t Jewish.
Sister: Not usually.
Me: She also liked James Earl Jones.
Sister: Don’t tell that damned story!
Durning: Was she when she died.
Me: Don’t know. She couldn’t talk.
Brother-in-Law: What story?
Brother: Isn’t this the funeral home where they have the Jewish rooms?
Me: The story… oh, I know, one time Sister tried to convince Mama to go camping…
Brother: Now that’s ambition…
Durning: Yes, in fact there are two Jewish rooms in fact.
Me: And Mama didn’t want to and Sister said ‘Oh camping’s great, you get to cook outdoors and sleep looking up at the stars’…
Sister: And Mama said…
Me & Sister: “The only two stars I ever wanted to sleep under were Raymond Burr and James Earl Jones.”
Durning: I love camping.
[long silence]
Durning: You know, here’s something you might find interesting. The orthodox rabbis are licensed by the state to treat the body because you know they have all those special requirements.
Sister: Like what?
Me: The body must be buried before the second sundown after they die, unless that is on the Sabbath.
Brother: No nails in the coffins.
Mr. Durning: No member of the opposite sex can touch or view the body unclothed…
Brother: No embalming…
Me: No shrimp or pork chops in the coffin…
Sister: Hmm. I wonder why. Is that in the Bible? Did they even do wood coffins then.
Me: No, they buried in tombs or if they were rich enough in caves. They’d let the body rot essentially and then they’d put the bones into a limestone box called an ‘ossuary’…
Brother: Like that one they said was Jesus’s brother James…
Me: But now they think it’s a forgery…
Durning: So was your mother Jewish?
Sister: Now that makes more sense, really. None of this ridiculous double tomb with a view for $9000 and no pets allowed stuff…
Me: Do you have any caves available Mr. Durning?
Brother: With a window?
Sister: Lakeside view preferred but we’ll take something overlooking the zoo if she’s got it.
Me: Mama loved those white tigers.
Durning: I… um… she wasn’t Jewish then?
All: Don’t think so.
Durning: Okay… well, let’s see here, let’s go ride out and take a look at… Gethsemane. That plot is close to the driveway.
There’s not a whole lot you can say good or bad about an 18 square foot piece of flat grassy ground. “Looks fine to me” we all agree.
Sister: Really plain though. Would it be okay to put in some of her rose bushes or some azaleas as long as we promise to keep them watered?
Durning: I’m afraid not. She’ll have a vase on the marker, but there’s a strict policy that nothing can be planted here.
Five of us looked at him and at each other. Say what you will about us, none of us would go for such an obvious straight line. Instead we just started laughing.
Durning: Alright, I’ll do this one… “nothing can be planted except for the Beloved”.
We all act mortally offended and he begins to apologize. Then we all start laughing. Finally Mr. Durning was far more mellow.
Back in his office it continued.
“Okay, the grave itself is $4,400, then there’s the digger’s fee that’s $290, and the Permanent Seal vault which we really recommend over the cheaper Rest Chamber because it’s guaranteed waterproof is another $1,400 unless you want to upgrade to our Everlasting model which is thicker and has a vacuum seal but is $2,300…”
Me: I don’t’ anticipate opening the vault very often to see how she’s doing.
Brother: Well, at first maybe, but not after a while.
Durning: Well, Everlasting has a 50 year guarantee and Permanent a 20 year guarantee so if you need to move her it may be best to do it within 20 years…
Me: Yeah, cause after then her clothes are going to be so out of fashion.
Durning: Um, yes… The total comes to $7,109. Now how much would you like to pay today and I can discuss the options available on the rest…
Me (opening my wallet and tossing out some bills): “Here’s twenty-three.”
My (taking the $23 and pulling out his checkbook) I’ll write a check for the rest.
Sister: I’ll cover half of it.
Durning: Half would be… $3,554.50.
Me: Minus twenty-three.
Durning: Hmm? Oh. Minus twenty-three, that’s eleven thousand…wait… I’ve done something wrong… okay… $7,109 minus twenty three… that’s…
All of Mama’s Children in Unison [as he’s still pushing buttons]: $7,086.
Durning: Seven thousand and eighty six… hey, how bout that! Half of which is…
AMCU: $3,543.50…
Durning: Three thousand five… hey, you guys are good!
Sister: So my share is three thousand five hundred forty three and fifty cents.
Me: That’s thirty-four one-hundred-dollar bills, two twenties, three ones and two quarters. Your hundreds are usually in your left pocket, aren’t they shug? You can cut up some of this paper and stuff it in your stocking to make up the weight.
She semi-sneers/semi-laughs, Brother laughs and Mr. Durning actually laughs. By now Durning is actually laughing a lot more, partly from nerves and part from thinking we’re actually funny and not quite as serious as he’d thought originally.
Of course just how serious we are or aren’t becomes a real grey area with him once again when my sister reaches into her purse, takes out a white envelope with a grocery list, doodles and various scrawled notes on it, counts off two twenties from the front and thirty-four one-hundred bills (all the old-style [small-Ben Franklin] bills) from the back and slides them across the table to Brother.
Sister: I owe you three dollars and fifty cents.
Mr. Durning [either impressed or stunned, one or the other, especially at how thick the envelope still is]: I’m assuming you don’t usually carry that much cash on you?
Sister: Okay.
Mr. Durning: So then… oh, I forgot, the cost of the marker comes with her name, her dates, and one ‘decoration’. What type of decoration would you like on the marker?
Me: Ribbons? What do you mean by decoration?
Durning picks up a folder that is literally falling apart, it’s photocopied pages in total disarray and falling out. “I’m afraid I dropped this a couple of weeks ago and never have gotten it all back right, but these are what’s available.” It’s essentially clip-art quality simple drawings of everything from dogs to crosses to Masonic emblems to flags to flowers, etc…
Me: Mama loved butterflies. Let’s get a butterfly.
We scan through the book and can’t find any- there are dragonflies (?), birds, etc., but no butterflies. We ask about the availability.
Durning: Well… that’s not really all of our stuff… you know, we’ve got about 8,000 designs on the web site…
Me: Then let’s look for a butterfly online…
Him: Uh… I don’t have an Internet connection here.
Me: I can access it from Brother’s car. What’s the web site?
Durning: It’s…uh… to be honest, I don’t know the address. Or the password to order one. So… well, I guess it has to be something from that book after all.
[A moment of not altogether respectful silence.]
AMCU: Okey-dokey then.
We flip through the book, still can’t find butterflies, ultimately settle on a cross. But there are hundreds of different types of crosses and a disagreement begins.
Sister: I like Celtic crosses.
Me: Mama wasn’t Celtic.
Sister: She was almost full blooded Irish.
Me: Only about 1/16. The rest was German, French, English and American Indian. She was as much Jewish as she was Irish.
Sister: Well, the cross will take care of that. I like this one.
Me: That’s a crucifix. Nope. She hated crucifixes. And that one’s cheesy.
Brother: I like this one, the I.H.S. banner and all.
Sister: What’s that I.H.S. mean?
Brother: In His Service.
Me (simultaneously): In Hoc Signo.
Brother: Which is Latin for “in his service”.
Me: It’s Latin for “By this sign.” Too militant for a grave.
Brother: Is it ‘by this sign?’ Oh well, you learn something new everyday.
Me: Originally it was “In Hoc Signo Vinces”.
Sister: Wasn’t Señor Wences the guy who had the puppet with his hand?
Me: Signo Vinces. “By this sign we conquer.” It was the motto of the Knights Templar.
Durning: I remember Señor Wences! “Hallo! 'Ello!” Heh heh… he was on Ed Sullivan all the time…
We all look at him as if he’s gone mad and we’re trying to be polite about it.
Sister: Templars. They’re bad news, that Leonardo Da Vinci code Opie movie and all… we’ll get something else. This one’s unusual.
Me: Yeah… let’s get that one… it’s the Huguenot Cross. Most of Mama’s ancestors were Huguenots from France and Switzerland.
Sister: Who were the Huguenots?
Me: Fat astronauts. Sorry, old joke.
Sister: Know why they don’t send donkeys to school?
Durning: Fat astronauts… oh I get it! Huge o nauts! Ha ha!
Sister: Cause no one likes a smart ass… Let’s go simple. This one.
AMCU: Fine. Plain and simple, no ornamentation.
Me: And no butterfly unfortunately.
There’s a general glaring at Durning as we know there’s a butterfly in that damned book somewhere.
Durning: Well, I’ll tell you what… usually it’s just the one decoration, but if I can find that code for the butterfly I’ll put it on the order and have them add it on at no additional charge.
Me: That would be a bit busy.
Sister: Yeah. The names, the dates, the sheaves or whatever at the side and the cross…where would the butterfly go?
Durning: We could put it in the middle right here…
Me: That would just look like a crucified butterfly. Or one about to be crucified…
Brother: Passion of the Moth.
Me: Give us bar-Abbas… or the butterfly, either one.
Durning: Okay… the Señor Wences cross then…
AMCU: No! This simple one here.
Me: Señor Wences wasn’t crucified. Or a butterfly.
Durning: Okay, which one’s that, what’s the stock code?
AMCU: 421-H.
Durning (filling out order form): And what type of cross is that? It asks for a description.
AMCU: Plain.
Durning: But is it Gothic, Crusader, or what exactly?
AMCU: It doesn’t say. Just 421-H.
Durning: Hmmm… can you look up which one it is…
Me: That’s your job.
Durning: Ha ha… that’s funny…
He notices none of us are laughing or smiling.
Durning: Okay… I’m gonna say…. Gothic. But with the stock code it should be fine.
AMCU: Better be.
Durning: Okay… now then… anything else?
Me: He was over 100 year old when he died you know.
Durning/Sister/Brother: Who was?
Me: Señor Wences.
Durning: Really? I didn’t know that.
Me: Way over. One hundred and five I think. He kept performing til just before he died.
Sister: And Perry Mason was queer and Mama wanted to shag Darth Vader and aren’t neither of 'em buried at Graceland and Shakespeare sucks. We all finished here?
Durning: Ah… yes ma’am, I believe that does it. Now here’s my card and you’ll notice it has my home number on it. Feel free to call me until 10:00 at night if you have any questions or concerns. I do ask you stop calling at 10 though.
Me: After that we’ll just drop by.
Durning: Ha ha ha…
He looks and sees all of us are totally deadpan. He thinks we’re joking but isn’t sure. (We are.)
Durning: And may I just say that of all the families I’ve dealt with yours was the most… informative. And interesting.
Brother: How long have you been doing this?
Durning: About eight months.
AMCU: That’s all?
Durning: Yep. Just came down here to be with my daughter and her kids. I was a disk jockey for forty-two years, retired last January.
Brother: How do you go from being a disk jockey to selling graves?
Me (in my best [for no apparent reason] Liverpudlian accent): He had too much ‘dead air’.
Durning damned near busts a gut laughing, and it seems sincere even though it’s not that funny.
Durning: THAT is good! I’m gonna use that! With your voice you should consider radio incidentally…
Sister: He’s already got one.
Durning: Well, I hope we all get together under better circumstances some time. It was nice meeting all of you.
Us: Likewise.
Durning: Oh, and I’m sorry about your mother. I lost my mother fifty years ago this November.
AMCU: Did you ever find her?
Durning: Wh… Oh… ha ha… well… anyway… y’all take care. And I gotta say that if I see any of you on the street, you are some customers I will most definitely remember. You don’t get to laugh a whole lot in my line of work as you can imagine.
After he’s driven away from the office (he’d only opened up for us) Sister says “He’s weird.” She was serious.
Next door at the Georgia revival mansion style funeral home the bald man with the tattooed on sympathetic smile showed us upstairs to a small windowless conference room with a glass-on-wood table to await "Miz Beebee.
“She’s our most experienced Funeral Director, you’re in good hands. She’s running just a tad late today and she sends her profuse apologies but she’ll be here in just a couple of minutes. We’ve made some coffee and she’ll join you in just a moment. If you’ll excuse me there’s another family I’m attending to but you shouldn’t have to wait long.”
As we sit around the table in our blue pleather office chairs looking like we’re gathered to discuss the Peterson Merger save for the walls adorned with photos of coffins, headstones and flowers SISTER gives instruction on etiquette and presentation.
SISTER: Okay, this has been a weird day. We were all blowing off some steam and stress and shock and all with the grave guy and that’s cool, but let’s keep it together and business like on this one. Let’s try to act like what we are, a group of middle aged grown ups burying their Mama.
We all nod.
SISTER: That goes for me too, and it goes for everyone, but especially goes for you Jon. Capece?
Silence.
SISTER (to me): You do know that I’m talking specifically to you, right?
Jon: I’d had suspicions.
SISTER: You gonna behave.
Jon: Yes darlin’, I’ll be good. I want to make you proud of me so I get to go to summer camp…
As I’m finishing this the door opens and in walks, if you can call it that, Miz Beebee. She’s about 118 years old, has wrinkles on her face that touch the back of her head, is wearing gobs of red lipstick and some of it actually on her lips, a fake eyelash on one eye and half-off the other eye, a purple dress and a necklace of black beads and white orthopedic shoes and she’s literally saying under her breath but still very audible “Sampiro family… Sampiro family… Sampiro family… Sampiro family…”
As she arrives at the table a minute or so after she entered the door five feet away she looks at us and asks "Are y’all the… … … …
…
…
…Sampiro family?"
My sister looked from Miz Beebee to me and then repeated, and simply said (also under breath and yet audible) “Oh shit.”
<grins>
I do so want to hear about Miz Beebee…
and mama’ll haunt you yet–she just needs to work up to it. 
Oh, there’s no question why you used a Liverpudlian accent. That was totally a Ringo line.
You do have an interesting family. I think my favorite sentence so far is
I also loved the description of how All Mama’s Children in Unison calculated who owed what to Durning faster than he could calculate it.
A sad back story that will actually be relevant in a moment or two:
My maternal grandparents, Mustang and Meemaw, married in 1921. Since Mustang’s job on the railroad took him away from home for days at a time and since Meemaw’s parents had a large house, were both addicts (her father was an alcoholic and her mother was addicted to morphine) and needed her to help in the store and help control her wild younger sister (later a bona fide flapper) they moved into her parents home so she would have protection and company when her husband was away and she could help out and so that Mustang could save his money and either build or buy a house that was free of mortgage.
Meemaw was by all accounts a classically and objectively beautiful woman. She was a decade younger than her husband, from a “better” family (his parents were actually fairly well-to-do but they were hillbillies with 15 children and not a high school diploma in the bunch while hers were essentially the Billingsley, Alabama version of the Olesons from Walnut Grove. Mustang was a very bright young man with a rather considerable libido and sexual history (I know this because almost 60 years later when he was on his death bed he talked of almost nothing else on his deathbed) who’d contented himself with prostitutes and loose women on two continents until he found the ideal woman to settle down with and when he did he absolutely worshipped her. He also could not say no to her, and she was a very pampered and by all accounts self absorbed woman who was not shy about asking for what she wanted.
Their first child, my “sorry sumbitch” uncle, was born a year after their marriage. Three months later she was pregnant again (much to her disgust) and her moods, later attributed to her diabetes but probably more a low grade bipolar disorder, became uncontrollable. She could not get along with her parents anymore (especially when they criticized her maternal instinct or lack of), loathed her sister (as did Mustang- they had a lifelong Fred Sanford/Aunt Esther mutual disdain) and insisted that she needed her own house and she needed it IMMEDIATELY!
Mustang wasn’t ready to move out, he didn’t have enough money saved to buy or build, but he gave in. His in-laws bought the lot next door to theirs and gave it to the couple, the only compromise Meemaw was willing to make about remaining at home (she’d originally wanted a home in Montgomery), and through this gift and through spending his savings on buying the materials and doing most of the work himself or with his many brothers he managed to build a very charming bungalow (still there, still lived in, the only place from my childhood I’d like to own one day- Mustang gave it lots of quirky features, but I digress) while incurring very little debt (about $300).
Unfortunately Meemaw wanted new furniture, IMMEDIATELY. So he borrowed money from his in-laws (which he hated to do) to buy some and bought the rest on credit, pretty much maxing himself out. By the time the baby arrived he was broke, totally tapped out and couldn’t borrow anymore.
The baby, Earl, was born slightly premature and sickly. Though delivered at home like most babies at the time he had to go to the hospital when he was a few days old and then again a short time later. He died when he was just over a month old and Mustang was away with the railroad. He got back as soon as he could, built a coffin himself (a nice one- he learned coffin making while in the army during World War I) and the child was buried in his in-laws plot. However, the child was not embalmed for one simple reason- the law did not require it and the only embalmer only accepted cash in advance for his work, and Mustang was broke. After the service he was taken aside and told that because the child was not embalmed and because there was no vault except the homemade one that Mustang had created with bricks, the grave would have to be filled with concrete in order to protect the child from predatory animals (the cemetery was on the edge of town and there were still wolves and wild dog packs and the occasional coyote at the time) and to protect the town’s water table. He complied, but it bothered him tremendously, particularly since his in-laws would not loan him the money to buy their grandson a real vault or to cover the grave with a marble or granite slab. (They did buy a marble marker with the obligatory little lamb and “suffer the children” verse on it.) The grave then as now (it’s at the foot of Meemaw and Mustang’s own graves) has a very “homemade” or “unprofessional” look to it- a mess of concrete with a name scratched into it (probably done before the marker was erected).
Later when his financial situation improved he wanted to exhume his son and reinter him with a vault and a slab. He was advised against this because, essentially, the coffin and the little boy’s remains were by now probably so intertwined with the concrete it would be difficult to separate them and it would just be extremely traumatic for all concerned, so he left it as it was. He hated it and it was one of very few points in his life on which he was extremely sensitive.
Almost fifty years after the child’s death Meemaw’s sister, Aunt Reed, dropped in for a visit while I was staying with Mustang for a few days on summer vacation. By this time Mustang was 80 or thereabouts and Aunt Reed was herself a multi-married chain-smoking hard drinking rapid cycling bipolar pathologically lying senior citizen with more than a passing resemblance to Ruth Gordon [though from Rosemary’s Baby rather than Harold and Maude due to the cheap fur coats and ludicrous hair color] and who every child in the family for three generations including me thought was hands down the coolest old woman on the planet, the only old person anywhere near as cool as Mustang (and we couldn’t figure out why they hated each other so- there’s a story there too in addition to what I’m about to tell). She and Mustang got into an argument that quickly went from Fred & Esther like jabs to really truly heated- they were screaming at each other (something Mustang NEVER did- he was usually one of the calmest people you’d ever meet even when his wife or daughter was going off). Aunt Reed said something to the effect of “and when you were a young man you were so sorry that my parents had to bury your son!”
He stopped screaming. She knew she had seriously overstepped. After a moment of silence this 80 year old (or thereabouts) man told this late-60 something (or thereabouts, but she claimed 50) fake fur clad and pastel hair colored tiny woman in a very calm and collected voice “Get your ass out of this house or I will get my pistol and end you.” She left without saying another word; save for a nod at her sister’s funeral a year or two later they never saw each other again, and this was more than fifty years after the child’s death.
But life goes on even if sex does not. Two years later my aunt was born and afterwards Meemaw and Mustang had a Come-to-Jesus life changing talk. It was then that Meemaw confessed: she wasn’t particularly like sex but she LOATHED being pregnant. She only had her third child because the second one had died and she wanted a replacement. There were to be no more children and preferably no more sex. What Mustang did while he was away from home was his business and she would not ask questions or hold grudges so long as he brought home “no bugs and no bastards”, but he wasn’t getting any at home whenever there was even a possibility she could get pregnant. Then as now it wasn’t a situation a husband wanted to be confronted with, but divorce in small town Alabama in the 1920s was something good people just didn’t do, and he already had two children to support with her and remarriage was a sin (for while Mustang wasn’t particularly religious and had probably already decided “Thou shalt not commit adultery” wasn’t one of the most important commandments, he did have his views, and after all Jesus himself condemned remarriage after a divorce…. So he complied.
It helped a lot that soon he was a foreman on the railroad and his schedule was similar to that of a modern day long haul truckdriver. He left for work on Monday morning at 10 a.m. and he returned home Saturday afternoon, the time in between spent on the railroad wherever construction was needed. He didn’t bring home any bugs or any bastards but he got his Coolidge and Hoover era freak on wherever he could. Then the Depression happened, Alabama was hit very hard, soon he was only working half-time and then in 1933 he was laid off altogether, and he had to spend his time at home. He supported himself any way he could (including mortgaging the house for unbelievably small amounts), but sometime over the next year he told his wife “I can’t live without it, I gotta have it, and I’m not away from home- you put out or I’ll have to find it elsewhere and this is a very small town”, and she closed her eyes and thought of England, and that’s how my mother was conceived (and her own mother, by all accounts an ice queen when she wasn’t a fire queen, told her the story, which is one of the ways I know it). Then he moved to Charleston to work in the shipyards during the last years of the Depression and then again during World War II and then returned to the railroad and the old arrangement resumed. My mother, who married when she was 16 and he was still working, knew her father one day a week, the most time she ever spent with him being when she joined him on Sunday fishing trips or helped him in repairing the house.
All that’s not relevant, but this is: Mustang til his dying day was embarrassed by Earl’s grave. Until his dying day he never bought another suite of Living Room furniture or Dining Room furniture or bedsteads (though he did spring for new mattresses upon occasion). When his aunt, tired of hearing her mother kvetch about the age and out-of-fashion nature of her living room set, bought her a new one with her own money and Meemaw installed it, she and Mustang had a rare noisy fight (that ended with him taking a cast iron skillet to the head and needing medical attention). The reason was this: while he loved his wife very much even as he came to probably resent and loathe her at the same time and did not vocally blame her for the death or shoddy burial of their child, he saw in the household furnishings the decent burial his second son should have had. When he consented to the new living room furniture it was only with the proviso that the front bedroom be made into a second living room and the furniture was removed into there. Though built in the 1920s it’s great furniture- my sister still has it in a small parlor at her river house, now beautifully recovered in silk instead of the original dusty velvet that covered it when Mustang died (1979). She refuses to hear the story of why that furniture was kept for all those years, however.
And believe it or not, this long ass story will be relevant (except for the part about how my mother was born ten years after my grandparents stopped having sex, that part really won’t but I just kinda threw it in as a lagniappe).
Miz Beebee, played in a brilliant performance by the late and slightly decomposed Sylvia Sidney, enters the room, takes her seat and unzips a large satchel. She is the last living Montgomerian to have been wet nursed by slaves; even her initials are covered in wrinkles. Her fingernails are all long and bright red with “LEE PRESS ON” almost visible save for the one that’s black and knarled.
“Sampiro fam’ly…” she continues to repeat, her countenance exuding all the warmth of an anaconda who’s stumbled into a petting zoo. “I used to know somebody with that name… been about fifty years…. Ned was his name. I used to know a Ned Sampiro. But he was black.” She looks at us as if waiting for a response, so I give one, and it’s quite honest.
“We used to have a dog named Beebee. She was a St. Bernard.”
My brother snickers, then snickers harder as he writes something down on paper and pushes it to my sister. Miz Beebee nods her intake, seemingly neither offended or amused. My sister reads the passed note, turns red, her chin is trembling and she looks at the wall with a tear forming in her eye. The one advantage making arrangements to bury your mother as opposed to being in sixth grade is that when you do this after reading a note people will think that you’re crying instead of making fun of them. (The note, I later learned, read “I wonder if this one is also called BB because it’s short for Blossom Butt”, which the St. Bernard was.)
Surprisingly it didn’t get totally out of control, emphasis being on the totally. Miz Beebee reviews the information- dead mama, needs coffin… hmmm… Somewhere along the line while summing totals and citing statutes about burial in modern day Alabama and checking schedules for the chapel she expresses her disdain for computers and the Internet and DVD recordings and digital music and other modern technologies that have been coopted by the Industry of Disposition. “I’ve been in this business since I was a young woman, before we all had this technology and all this electronic mumbo jumbo and had to use our brains…”
My passed note: “Which look like the ones we pulled out of the Beloved’s head through his nostrils back in those days”. My brother gets it, my sister doesn’t.
“Nowadays folks can’t do a thing if it doesn’t require pushing buttons on a dang keyboard… I am not a fan of this computer stuff at all. Not at all.”
While Miz Beebee doesn’t mind expressing her disdain for modern technologies, there is one area where she is as contemporary and as up-to-date as Bill Gates, however, and that is in pricing.
“The basic package for embalming is $5,150 and then cosmetological services should run from $450 to $720… no wait, $755, we just went up on hairstyling… and coffins vary widely of course, from our cheapest which is $495 and I’ll tell you now you don’t want that on up to the most beautiful model you ever saw, The Elysian, which I’ll show you in just a moment… you’ll think it was designed by Michelangelo it’s so beautiful.”
NOTE PASSED TO ME BY MY BROTHER
“Does that mean it’s got a naked Jewish teenager mounted on it?”
MY RESPONSE
“Or the Final Judgment. I wonder if she’ll model it for us for an extra thou.”
“Now then, if this is to be cash as I’m told the grave was…
That news traveled fast, and Miz Beebee flat has consigned it to the hard drive of her memory.
“… then you’ll be glad to know there’s a significant discount of about 15% so long as it’s paid in full within thirty days. Now I take it your Mama did not have funeral insurance?”
“Yes, she did” I state. I’d already told my siblings this, but there was a slight problem.
“Alright, my father bought funeral policies for all of us and for his mother and aunts back in the early 1960s. My mother gave my brother and sister their’s when they married back when we still lived at the house in Weokahatchee…”
“By far my favorite wedding gift” says my brother. “Beats the daylights out of the toasters and china gravy boats.”
“I do know” I continue, “that the policy was bought in 1968 from Lib…”
“Liberty Mutual” says the suddenly alert Miz Beebee with not even remotely concealed hostility on her face, the name of the company vocalized in much the same way the grand marshal of a Gay Pride Parade would say “Fred Phelps”.
“Yes, Liberty Mutual. I know from burying my grandmother and aunts some years back that it covers…”
“Embalming and the cheapest metal coffin and sanctuary rental and….” She reels off it’s exact coverage as if she’s the one who’s going to be forced to pay it. She is, no exaggeration, visibly displeased.
“Aye. But here’s the problem. My mother has moved several times in the past few years and a lot of stuff has been lost.” I don’t add that “my mother and I moved from a 4,000 square foot house in Weokahatchee with the clothes on our back and what we could load into one Chevette and one pickup bed. “I honestly don’t know if it’s still in her possession and I haven’t had an opportunity to check the house.”
The old bitch visibly brightens. “Ah… well then, you’re not sure if she has the policy.”
“I am positive she has the policy, but I’m not positive where it is…”
“Oh, well then, ‘fraid it’s worthless. We can’t do anything if we don’t have the physical paper policy.”
“Yes, but…” I continue. “My grandmother and my great-aunt both died back in 1989 and we did not have the policy, but the company was able to verify its existence and its number and faxed a copy to the funeral home in Elmore County, and they were able to use that.”
“Well, they won’t do that anymore” says Miz Bebe with a clear “end of discussion” voice.
“Oh I quite assure you, yes they will” says my sister in a voice that would make Julia Sugarbaker have just a few ccs of bladder leakage.
“Well, even if they did, we wouldn’t accept it. It’s in our contract…” and she points it out perfectly with one long scarlet prosthetic cuticle without even having to look for she has clearly done this a few hundred times before. “Burial insurance must be provided in writing on or before the day of the funeral, no exceptions.”
“But the funeral home in Elmore County was able to…”
“They had different policies from us then” she saids. “And I’ll bet you they wouldn’t today.” She leans forward to us and says semi-conspiratorially in an Amon Goeth “How much is the life of one Jew worth to you, Schindler?” sickening sweetness, “I’ll be honest, Liberty Mutual is a dirty word in our business. You see, we agreed to take those policies back when coffins and embalming were a whole lot cheaper. Those things were bought for maybe a hundred dollars back when a funeral cost $700, but today that $100 is going to pay for about $8,500 worth of services and equipment. There’s not a funeral home in the biz who’s gonna take the policy unless they have to, that’s just the simple truth. You’re free to call around since you hadn’t signed yet, you wouldn’t owe us anything but handling the body which isn’t here yet anyway, but I guarantee you won’t find an exception.”
I officially hate this old bitch now. However light the mood at the grave sellers we are nonetheless a family in mourning for a powerful force-of-nature matriarch we all assumed would live forever, and this crone is positively gloating over the “we are going to screw you” angle of the industry. She needs to retire, preferably with the aid of an unleashed rabid and absolutely starving pit bull.
The bad part about funeral homes is that they’re not like Hyundai dealers or furniture stores- you can’t just say “Well hell, I’ll just go across town to the other dealer or wait until I find a nicer salesman and a better deal”. You pretty much have to inter Mama pretty soon, even if we walk out now we’re going to owe them money somehow, and it’s not likely the other funeral homes will be much better. My siblings and I discuss this and decide we really can’t go bargain shopping at the moment. We just resolve to look for the policy.
Now Miz Bebe goes over the details of the prices of services.
All of Mama’s Children in Unison: “$295 to dress a dead body in clothes that we are providing?! $30 to fix what little remains of her hair?!”
Miz Beebee (about as sympathetic as a prison matron): “That’s actually $55 now for the hair.”
All of us in some distribution and order and in terms this frank exposit that this is a closed casket funeral and frankly we don’t care if she’s buried wearing nothing but clown makeup and a birthday. One thing we are all three united on and that our felt even stronger about is that we think funerals are the biggest racket going and being a funeral director is slightly less honorable than pimping (a trade whose wares cost far less and bring far more pleasure to the buyer). But Miz Beebee is completely unmoved, unsympathetic and deaf and I swear to Yahweh damned near enjoying this. The $295 is non-negotiable to dress the body even if we are supplying the clothes, and we cannot do it ourselves.
The list continues.
“$500 for the hearse to take the body to the grave site half-a-mile away. Goddamn! I once BOUGHT a hearse for less than that! I sold it for parts!” She’s not even trying to put up a civil front now. She hates being gouged.
$450 for the lease of the chapel for one hour
Me: Does that come with an omelet bar at least?
$250 to bring the flowers from the funeral home to the house
We’ll just take them ourselves, we say. Twixt us we’ve got several “haulin’ vehicles.
“Sorry”, says Miz Beebee, who clearly isn’t save in character. “They have to be got out of the room before the next funeral and we’ve got one using that room right after your Mama, so less y’all can send someone home with ‘em between the funeral and the burial…
$300 if we’d like to rent a limo to the grave (we do not)
$500 if we’d like to hire an organist (if I were going to pay $500 for somebody to fiddle with an organ then it would be mine and it would be an Atlanta hotel room rather than a Montgomery funeral home)
$25 if we’d like to bring our own CD and have it played during visitation/service (a bargain for having somebody actually put a CD into a stereo and push a button at the right time)
$200 for the “bereavement package” of signature book and cards. We ask can’t we use our own. “Nope.” No, we would not like to hire wheelchairs at $75 per for distraught attendees, but thanks for asking…
And the music starts as the walls of the law firm like office and the blue pleather chairs transmogrify into a seedy French tavern and Miz Beebee’s hair turns red and her wrinkles disappear as 200 pounds of fat appears and her purple dress turns to a tattered filthy barkeep gown and the oily evil man who appears out of nowhere sings to the chorus…
*Welcome bereaved, set yourselves down
And meet the best morticians in town
As for the rest all of ‘em suck
embalming the corpse with cement and muck
Seldom do ya see
Old bats like Bee-bee
Senile farts with dusty hearts
Who are content to be
Master of the house dresser of the dead
She’ll tip Chiron a buck and see Cer-ber-us is fed
Charge ‘em for the box Extra for the locks,
Ten percent to inoculate the corpse for pox
When it comes to grimly reaping profits
There are lots of tricks we hunt
And how it all increases Miz Beebee’s bits and pieces
Jesus! What a wrinkled soulless cu*
What? Oh, yes. Let’s go choose the coffin.
Sampiro, I am so glad you are back with us.
I feel like I’m watching Six Feet Under -uncut and uncensored.
The funeral home that helped us with my sister was pretty decent. We wanted the bare bones from them (cremation, one step up from cardboard box etc. We didn’t see the point in an expensive casket that would burn–we had no visitation, just a memorial service). They were quite fair, but I know that chicanery like you describe does exist.
nothing like making a difficult time harder-bless their hearts…not.
I believe we need a new word to capture the greatness that is the reading of a Samporo Story after a long absence.
I nominate: " 'Pirogasm".
They actually have discount funeral chapels here in Columbus. I’m sure they’re still not cheap, but at least they’re starting to recognize the “I refuse to spend more than absolutely necessary” market.
So nice to read another story from you, Sampiro.
GT
The children of Wang Lung had more personal given names than the cheaper coffins in the showroom, not that we much cared.
Miz Beebee:“This is called the Silver Basic. It’s what’s covered by that policy… if you can find it. It does not have a gasket. It does not seal. It does not have the new ‘test tube’ feature.”
Some of the newer coffins come with a test-tube shaped insert that identifies the deceased both in print and on a piece of microfilm so that should a Katrina like event destroy the cemetery and the coffin is found doing the backstroke in the next county you’ll know whose it is. It’s a nice feature but Montgomery isn’t at high risk for natural catastrophe, and frankly I’m not overly concerned with what becomes of the remains even of somebody I genuinely loved. Strangely, neither are my siblings.
Still, I have to admit that treating the cheaper coffins like those shoes at K-Mart that are sold in bins and undeserving of their own box is a clever gimmick.
Miz Beebee: “Now, for your mama, it would have to be the Silver Basic XL. The size of her body is on this chart from the undertaker down in south Alabama and she has broad shoulders for a woman…”
AMCIU: Yep, she sure did. Had to take out shoulder pads in most of the dresses and blouses she bought.
Miz Beebee: That upgrade is $340 and it is NOT covered even if you find the policy. Now, if you can find the policy you are not allowed to upgrade to any nicer model, so if you should wish to bury your mother in something lovelier then that will have to be purchased entirely.
My brother: If it’s tight it won’t be a problem.
Miz Bebe: “Well it will look awful strange and uncomfortable…”
All: I don’t think comfort’s an issue…
Miz Bebe: I’m thinking of the comfort of the loved ones…
Us: It’s a closed casket funeral.
Miz Bebe: Well, I don’t think we can legally put her in one that’s too cramped…
Bullshit, but whatever.
Miz BB: Now let me show you our nicer caskets, and they are larger and most will not require the upgrade…
All of us: That’s not really necessary…
Miz Beebee: Oh, but I want you to see the difference…
There are a few upgrades (The Brass, The Ornate Basic, etc.) before you get to one that actually has a given name. At about $10,000 you reach “The Resurrection” and then in increments you upgrade to “The Serenity Deluxe” and “The Swan” until finally you reach… The Elysian.
Miz Beebee is finally emotive and truly kindly as she caresses it. “This is the Elysian. This is what I will spend eternity in.”
Whispered: “Go ahead and start now. We’ll help you in.”
Miz Beebee: “Mahogany with metal handles plated in 10kt gold lines, the pillow… did I mention the Silver Basic does not have a pillow? The gasket is completely waterproof and it has every amenity. The lining is silk, the pillow is down.”
It also costs twice as much as the most expensive car I’ve ever owned and the markup is around 400%.
She asks us then “So, which is it to be? And for a cash payment I can work with you on the price a bit.
All of us: The Silver Basic XL.
She eyes us as if we’d just said “The Bound for Hell Refrigerator Box”, but all is not lost.
Miz Bebe: Well then… let’s turn to the subject of accessories.
Me [as Lisa Loopner]: Let’s not and say we did.
Miz Bebe: This cross can be held between the loved one’s hands and…
SISTER: Two hundred dollars! Jesus! I’ve seen prettier ones at Kirtkland’s for $40!
Miz BB: This is handmade…
Me: “Odd then that you can see the imprints from the factory mold.” (And you absolutely could.)
BROTHER (who of us is the one with a temper most like our mother’s): Miss Beebee, this is a closed casket service. It is for a dead rotting piece of meat my mother used to inhabit. She is not that piece of rotting flesh anymore, it is not our mother, I really do not care what happens to it but it’s for the whole social expectation thing but she flatly doesn’t need grossly overpriced trinkets. Now let’s write up the Silver Basic XL and be done with it.
There’s a brief staring contest, then she nods her head with “Some people find comfort in this, some do not. Do you know that we had a gypsy in her a couple of years ago who was buried wearing a 12 carat diamond ring and holding a 500 year old cross? His family had to be given permission to stand around the coffin all night long.”
Brother: We are not gypsy.
Miz Bebe: Well it would look nice should anybody wish to see her…
Me (also officially “over” pretenses of politeness with Miz BB): They’ll be looking at a dead body of someone they love. I don’t think they’ll be saying ‘What a pretty overpriced mass produced by hand cross…’
Miz Bebe: Well then…is there any jewelry you would like to see buried with her? That you’ll be glad to know there’s no charge for, though it will be removed and placed…
Us: No.
Me: Her only gold jewelry was her wedding ring and that she sold twenty years ago to…
Brother and Sister: Would you shut the hell up with that?
Miz Bebe: Very well. Follow me.
And we return to the conference room, she having yielded the field on the coffin upsale but most certainly not having surrendered in any other arena.
“Now about the coffin… you do want to have it covered in flowers? For we have arrangements with various florists for family spreads that will…
Sister: We’ve already made the arrangements for the family spread from a family friend.
Brother: Though we would prefer to use a pall and then the spread over the pall. Do you have a pall?
{For those not familiar: a pall is a custom that doesn’t seem to be widespread but I know it’s used in parts of the south, parts of New England and among some Irish and Italian families. A pall is a large cloth, usually embroidered but sometimes brightly covered velvet, often owned by a church or sanctuary. It covers the coffin completely. Its origins are ancient but it had a major comeback during the Depression when families had no choice but to bury their dead in the cheapest possible coffins. With the pall in place you cannot tell if it’s the Throw-Her-Away-Ziploc model or The Elysian at the front of the church.}
Miz BB, without the slightest trace of sympathy or embarrassment: “No we don’t. They’re bad for business. Now will this be cash?”
Brother & Sister: If we do not find the policy, yes, it will be cash. And whatever the difference is will be cash.
In a completely non-sequitur moment Miz BB confides something that, while interesting, was so random there’s no real way to lead into it.
“I told you about that gypsy funeral. Well, they paid cash. And I’m talking cash, ones and fives and tens and twenties and hundreds that was dirty. It literally stank! Paid to the penny though.” This concluded Miz BB’s personable chit-chat portion.
TO BE CONTINUED/CONCLUDED
Wow! Sampiro, what a fascinating story. I’m totally looking forward to the next installment.
Mustangian Flashback: The house was paid off before my mother was born in 1935 and thanks to their garden and chickens the family didn’t starve (as some absolutely did) but there was absolutely no money. The in-laws lost their store when customers couldn’t pay their accounts, sold their house for a fraction of what it was worth before the Crash and moved in with Mustang and Meemaw which added some friction once the baby came and Mustang was at home full time and there was absolutely no cash to be had. In 1935 things got so bad that Mustang mortgaged the house and all of its furnishings (with the exception of clothes, kitchen ware and tools- those things are excluded- I have the actual mortgage) for $80, even then a tiny fraction of what it was worth. By 1936 that was up to over $1,000 through various agencies and high interest loan companies and now did include his tools and all family heirlooms. Had he not found work in the Charleston shipyards it would have been lost and the family dispossessed. After the railroads rehired he returned to work 6 days per week, but during World War 2 went back to the Charleston shipyards strictly because they paid more and he had to pay down the house as there was almost no money left for anything besides the mortgage and food. (I mention this for a reason.)
00000000000000000000
Back to Miz Beebee.
We returned to the consultation room with the blue pleather chairs and begin hammering out the obituary and various other details. We are reading her a list of pallbearers.
“The next is Edmond Moore… that’s E-D-M-O-N-D M-O-O-R-E. Edmond Moore… okay, then there is Jacob G…”
“Hold on!” snaps Miz Beebee as if she’s still bitter over the company firing Gloria and never giving her that Easter ham. “I’m still writing this out… Edmond Moore. That’s spelled …. M……O…. N… D…”.
While she’s writing it my brother and I tag team an obituary and then have my sister recopy it. It includes all the pertinent data of my mother’s life in extremely concise form, the survivors, the pallbearers, etc… It is clear and legible and everything in it is spelled correctly including the odder names in the family. We hand it to her to let her copy it over which she agrees to do. (The next day the obituary appears hopelessly mangled and with punctuation added like paprika to a cook’s first potroast, including my aunt’s home in Fort Walton Beach, FL’s identification as “Forth, Walton Beach, Florida”.)
Around this time we learn by messenger that the hearse has just arrived. Miz Beebee gives us the price for that- at $2 per mile it comes to
“NINE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS!” says my sister. “It’s only 170 miles from the hospital to here!”
“But it had to go through Mobile” she’s informed.
“That’s bull… rubbish! You don’t go through Mobile to get here, it’s 50 or 60 miles out of the way easy!”
“The funeral home in Baldwin County had to take her to Mobile to find a hearse that could transport her here.”
“Well that sounds like a their problem! And two dollars per mile? A dollar I could understand but… damn, that’s just… they’re making a mint off this! And I’ll bet you apeshit to applejacks that if Mama was penniless they’d have put her dead ass in the mail! Holy shit, Mama’s dead…”
She may be a millionaire but she hates spending money. ‘Her frugality overrides even her grief’ I marked down for future reference.
“There’s also a note from the driver” says Miz BeeBee. “He says the hospital called him on the way up here and told him they forgot to send your mother’s teeth. You got another pair at home we can use?”
Sister informs that no, we don’t, but she’ll be returning to the beach tomorrow if not tonight and can have them here in time for the funeral.
“She’ll already be processed by then” says Miz Beebee, nice images of lost luggage and Jewish bodies in showers and cheap cheese all surfacing at the prospect of my mother’s remains being “processed”. “So don’t worry about it. What they do when they don’t have the dentures is put a pie shaped piece of Styrofoam in her mouth. It serves the same purpose and looks as natural.”
Odd the degree to which a silence can say “Ew!” in triplicate.
‘There are details of your art and skills’, I inform Miz Beebee, ‘that I do not wish or need to be privy to’, and the notion of my mother with a polystyrene ball gag on Judgment Day is high on the list.
“Well, lessee, I got the obituary info and the signatures that you’ll pay if you don’t have the Liberty Mutual policy and…” yadda yadda… “now, I’m not altogether sure we have a Silver Basic XL in stock so let me go turn this in and check.” And Miz Beebee leaves the room.
The conversation turns to the surreality of Mama being dead, to what to do about a variety of issues including the intestate estate, to how much of her moves Miz Beebee remembers from her career as a topless pole dancer in Bugs Moran’s club, estate lawyer and credit card bills and shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. Then there’s silence. And after almost an hour goes by we begin to wonder if Miz Beebee is coming back.
“Oh Miz Beebee” says the one guy we flush out of the back offices. “She’s not coming back, she went home. We do have a Silver Basic XL in stock though.”
Well that’s good. Mama might get pissed off a bit about the taste of polystyrene after a while but at least she’ll have wiggle room. ( I wonder if Miz Beebee ever had people skills or if she just got burned out after the last outbreak of bubonic plague or something, but no matter, after this week we don’t have to see her again and soon enough she’ll be in Elysian slumber.)
My friends who had a key did an absolutely outstanding job cleaning the house for me as they knew the family wouldn’t feel like it. It was spotless when we arrived there and the floral arrangements they’d brought were gorgeous. I mention this mainly as a thanks to any who may read this- an incredibly well appreciated gesture, especially by my sister who cannot conceive that some people have friends who do things like that. (This is foreshadowing- her friend [notice, I do not say “one of her friends”] will be a major player in the funeral, which is actually preserved on DVD.)
So we all entered the spotless house for the first time since the death of its mistress, the Force of Nature that spawned us three strikingly different but today weird in unison people. It was… pretty much the same as any other time. Poignancy is less a well trained lapdog to summon than a cat that comes when and if it damned well feels like it. Closure is the Messiah who never comes at all. A blue moon comes on average once every two years and Halley’s Comet every 76 years or so.
We went into her bedroom, exactly then the way she’d left it. I knew I’d seen a firebox in her closet and after tossing away a few dozen layers of comforters and third-tier clothes I found it. Inside was a 27 year old steno pad with a detailed inventory of Mustang’s estate and the distributions of funds from same, the subject of an ongoing lawsuit with my mother’s sorry sumbitch brother (the one who unfortunately didn’t die at birth and never got mingled with concrete but did have the decency to die a long and ignoble death of brain cancer a few years back). Then there were birth certificates of my mother and my father and their children, and then behind them, found two seconds after opening the box, a Liberty Mutual Insurance policy dated 1968. There was a group cheer (and major surprise that we found it so quickly).
My Brother: “That’s $5,150 Chuckles the Crone won’t get to put in her gold pile!”
Me: “Leave it to Mama. She came to Montgomery with a small car and a truck bed full of stuff and left mountains of furniture and clothes and stuff behind but in her ever loving cheerfulness her burial policy came in that one trip. Gotta admit pessimism works.”
There was a rubber band around the policy and some other things attached to it. I slid off the rubber band and behind it was another Liberty Mutual burial policy, also 1968, this one in my name from when I was a baby, and I put it aside to see what else was there.
“Buying a burial and embalming policy for a baby is just gross” observes my sister. “Mama and Daddy would have to be the only people who’d ever do that.”
“No they aren’t apparently” I tell her as if in a bad movie of the week. “Mustang and Meemaw did too” and with that I hand her two more burial policies. The first has a face value of $300 and is dated 1947, a year when my mother almost died from a ruptured appendix. The one behind it, a bit yellowed but otherwise in perfect condition and with my mother’s name on the front, was dated February 1936. My mother was five months old when it was purchased and the face value was $100.
I’m not sure how much the policy cost but it was of course paid in full 70 years before. I wondered why and then remembered the stories of Baby Earl, a couple of which I’d heard directly from Mustang or been witness to. At the same time when his house and his furnishings were mortgaged for $80 (which even in Billingsley AL in 1936 was absolutely nothing compared to the home’s value) my grandfather had found money to buy his infant daughter a burial policy.
No other child of his, even an accidental second daughter conceived solely through an International Depression borne loophole in the “special arrangement” with his wife, was going to end up covered in concrete. Mama would have a full burial and embalming, or at least would have had she died in 1936.
Touching and morbid. And above all else convenient.
We called the companies listed on the policies the next morning (we had until late that afternoon to drop the policies off) to find out if the company was still in existence (yes) and if they would still honor the policy. The company of the same name now dealt exclusively in mortgage and property insurance and had long since sold the policies they had issued to their parent company, the famous and dread Liberty Mutual. They were still good. A bit moreso in fact.
Now I have absolutely no idea how these policies work. I don’t know if the insurance company pays some sort of flat rate to the funeral home and they lose money or have to sell at cost or if the funeral homes receive an HMO type payment from the companies or what, I just know that according to Miz Beebee the policies are a dirty word in the business. When we all three took them into her that afternoon she fingered the 70 year old policy, having obviously nostalgic flashbacks to 1936, a time when the world was still a place of hope and grace to her, a single woman of only 53 who had only begun to reap the benefit of bating in peasant blood.
“I will be glad when we see the last of these things” she said gracelessly. “But I might as well not be. It sure as hell won’t be in my lifetime” (i.e. not before nightfall).
Here’s another oddity about how the things work. If anybody knows anything about this end of the Death Business I’d love to understand more to know just why these things are such a sore point with morticians or how the policies work so differently. But however they work, this is what happened:
The 1968 policy purchased by my father would have covered my mother’s embalming and the cheapest metal coffin, a value of around $8,000, but it was not used for that. It was redeemed for cash, but more than $800 (around twice that in goods and services somehow).
The 1947 policy was for $300. It was worth $300. No more, no less. I can only assume it was a different type of policy.
The 1936 policy was for $100, but it covered services, not costs. That $100 policy bought I’m sure for less than face value during the last days of the Depression paid for my mother’s embalming and the Silver Basic XL. That $100 policy in other words was worth more than $8,000. Again, I’m not sure exactly how this works, but it did.
The full price of my mother’s funeral was just over $600. That was the price of the hearse from Mobile minus $300 applied to it from the 1947 policy. Apparently one or the other policies covered everything else- chapel rental, dressing the corpse, etc…
Whatever the case it was the one pleasant surprise in a 24 hour period of being gouged like the eyes of a Byzantine heretic. (What the hell do the families of people who die indigent do?) And if I ever decide to die I take comfort in knowing there’s a Silver Basic XL just waiting for me to climb aboard (though I’d really rather have a XXL as my shoulders are broad regardless of what my weight does). It’s a shame really that I want to be used as a cadaver and then cremated (unless I’m in power in which case black and gray and blue marble mausoleum with IMAX and pop-culture museum and an embalming that would make Evita Peron’s look like a slab of smoked bacon).
Miz Beebee shed another skin and slinked back to her lair (it was less of a letdown at least than the time that spoiled little trustafarian in the bad marriage guessed Miz Beebee’s boyfriend’s name) and we returned to ours. I hugged my brother for the first time since my father died (there at least was some closure- I won’t be having to do that again) and both siblings departed and I spent a strange night alone in the Mamaleum, strange because absolutely nothing happened other than I watched TV and slept.
That was the same night my mother decided to pay a call on my cousin, her niece, the 60 year old hippie. Supposedly. The afterlife is evidently in the un-air conditioned and parrot strewn living room of my cousin J’s living room in Forth, Walton Beach, Florida, or else Cousin L, the 60 year old hippie, is just nuts. (This is the same woman that I may have mentioned before- my hand on my loin testimony that this is absolutely true- L is the woman who introduced the family to her fiancé, the much younger man who was to become her fourth husband, at her third husband’s funeral because “it seemed a good time, everybody was here and there were flowers and wine”.)
And she became the female lead in my mother’s funeral and afterward, for which, another soon to be time (and again, this one is actually caught on DVD).
Oh, I know what they are. We have one, black with white and silver embroidery. It’s sort of a very large blanket, only with that kind of motif I don’t think anybody would mistake it for an actual, regular blanket. My aunt keeps it; she totes it out for all the funerals of our relatives and to cover the family’s pantheon for Difuntos… Funny how people will happily steal each others’ live flowers but the pall and the white silk roses (which another aunt put on the pantheon for her 11-yo son) are left be.
Sampiro, if I steal the commemorative futon, will you autograph it for me?
<sigh> I just spent the day, in stolen moments, reading the epic which is Mama’s departure from this world. I’ve thought of you much, Sampiro, in these last weeks and wondered how you were doing. It’s so good to see you again, and live for a while in the magical world you create with your words.
Let me again extend my sympathy for your loss, and cheerily welcome you back to your friends here at the Dope.