writing from
Scars Publications

Audio/Video chapbooks cc&d magazine Down in the Dirt magazine books

 


This appears in a pre-2010 issue
of cc&d magazine.
Saddle-stitched issues are no longer
printed, but you can requesting it
“re-released” through amazon sale
as a 6" x 9" ISBN# book!
Email us for re-release to order.

cc&d v198

Order this writing
in the book

Laying the
Groundwork
Laying the Groundwork
paperback (just issues) 5.5" x 8.5" book w/ b&w pages: $15.95 paperback perfect-bound 5.5" x 8.5" book w/ b&w pages: $17.95 paperback
6" x 9" cc&d perfect-bound book w/ b&w pages: $21.95
paperback
6" x 9" cc&d perfect-bound book w/ color pages: $114.95
Sic Transit . . .

Pat Dixon

1


    Roy owned the only drive-thru funeral business in Maine.
    “The terrible economy, some great technology, and a very amiable divorce settlement converged about four months ago to make me one of the great pioneers in my field,” he told the semi-pretty TV reporter from Bangor, who had been sent over to Oxcan on July 12th to interview him.
    Wendy Li of Channel 22 had not mentioned that her editor’s wife had seen a twenty-two second video clip about him on an “Oddball” segment of Countdown with Keith Olbermann two weeks earlier, but Roy Blount rightly guessed that some such luck had befallen him. His business had tripled since that spot first aired on cable and had then been posted on YouTube by his fiancÉe and three others. He now expected that the free publicity of the present interview would further enrich him.
    “This here building was just a regular funeral parlor when my first wife’s mother owned it,” said Roy, gesturing behind him. “For eight years I worked for Martha Blount as head embalmer and coffin salesman, and when I married her daughter, May Blount, I was proud to take their last name as my own. ‘Burials by Blount’ has been the proud name of the business for over seventy-two years, and it seemed a respectful and a wise thing to do.”
    Roy modestly glanced downward, moistening his lips with his thin tongue. Wendy Li pulled her hand-held microphone back towards her own mouth.
    “Mr. Blount, could you share with our viewers and I a bit about those two factors which led to your—”
    She consulted a slip of paper on the palm of her free hand.
    “—to your ‘revolutionary conceptual breakthrough’?”
    “A pleasure, Ms. Li. I do not see this as an unparallelled, world-shaking paradigm shift—nor myself as the Philo Farnsworth of funerary foresight. Mr. Farnsworth, as you know, is widely regarded as the inventor of television—although four big companies made all the profits and left him in the dirt. In my case, Ms. Li, the converging three forces were the economy and two other things. The economy, as viewers will appreciate, can crush the dreams of the small business owner with recessions—or when big corporations undercut the small person’s fair prices. Alhough our industry’s motto—‘There will be one funeral for every person ever born’—is still true, our market share here Blount’s was dropping and sinking and dwindling away. And that disaster leads me to factor number two: material opportunity—the actual premises behind me.”
    Roy held up two fingers towards the video camera and smiled, nodding his head.
    “As you can see, Ms. Li, ‘Burials by Blount’ does not possess any parking lot. You may think this unusually odd—so let me briefly explain. That large lot on the left, belonging to that seafood restaurant—it once was—all ours.”
    Roy sighed, flashed a professional smile, and continued.
    “When my first spouse and I amiably parted, our agreement was that I get the building and its furniture and equipment, hearse included, and continue running Blount’s for at least a year as an unwed entity. She, on the other hand, took full title to the adjacent parking lot—as well as the house we’d owned jointly—and also the house we inherited from Martha Blount, her mother.”
    Clay Vance, the cameraman, focused briefly on a huge sign behind Roy. In large red letters vaguely resembling crustacean legs or claws, it said: “Foah Great Lawbstah, Pawk Yah Cah In This Yahd!” Beneath these words, in smaller black letters, was a less inviting message: “Customers Only! Violators Will Be Towed Away At Their Own Expense By Michael Gorton’s Wrecker Service!!”
    “May Blount, my first wife,” continued Roy without pause, “decided to lease that lot—at a price I was unable to even consider—which was precisely the spur I needed. Technology of all sorts was awaiting to be adapted to this problem—and it is the third leg of the stable stool of my enterprise, Ms. Li. Once ‘Burials by Blount’ was limited to its driveway and whatever on-street parking our patrons might find, it was forced to evolve—or die. Fortunately I, with the aid of my new soulmate and fiancÉe, have been able to adapt to the changing times. Our original insight came from her noticing how one of our Oxcan banks looks like a big ol’ ice vending machine from the outside.”
    Roy gestured towards the south, and for a moment Clay Vance’s video camera faced in that direction.
     “That—um—would be—oh—ten blocks from here,” said Roy frowning slightly and clearing his throat.
    “Here at Blount’s,” he continued brightly, “as I am certain you already know, we now feature drive-thru viewings of all of our currently held remains—at any hour, any day, day or night. During regular business hours six days a week, I or my fiancÉe are on duty, much like tellers at any drive-thru bank. At all other hours, we have an automated self-serve system in place. All anyone needs to do is drive up on our west side there, make a nominal $3.00 donation via cash or debit card, similar to what can be done in most post offices—or most ice vending machines. They then select a particular Loved One from our ‘menu’ using our simple little keypad. We have a conveyor set up indoors that brings the appropriate coffin or urn to the plexiglass window for their respectful viewing for up to five full minutes. If the viewers wish to purchase flowers for the deceased, they can make their selections from another menu and pay in a similar manner. And if they wish to buy a CD containing an array of the Loved One’s favorite music and a slide show of photographs of his or her career from childhood up till—well, that is often available to them in a similar way for a mere pittance. Of course, Ms. Li, Blount’s does right by the copyright holders of recorded music, and that is figured into any costs.”
    “Well, Mr. Blount,” said Wendy Li, brushing her long bangs from her eyes, “this sounds very thorough—and very very unique. But let me ask you another question. I gather that you’ve had a great many—um—favorable feedbacks from your satisfied—um—clients?”
    “Oh my lord, yes, Ms. Li. All in all, most of our clients find that ‘Burials by Blount’ has provided exactly the proper amount of deeply caring support and service for their means, especially in these difficult times. It’s been said with much truth by the bard that ‘We mortal millions live alone,’ and in these times many of us scarcely know three or four of our own neighbors and have almost no relationships with anyone we work with. Who can afford now to rent a large hall in a funeral home to have a service for—say, as a typical number—only five or six mourners—or often fewer? We at Blount’s scale things back to what is real—and eliminate the expense of costly refreshments. Did I mention that, for another nominal charge, folks driving through to pay their respects can leave recorded messages about the deceased persons? This further eliminates the discomfort often suffered by the surviviing relatives when they’re button-holed by folks that get way too long-winded—or are too—too inappropriate in any number of ways which we’ve all of us experienced. Here, as with, say, your own home answering machine, you can just conveniently skip past anything you don’t want to hear and go straight to the next message.”
    “How—very interesting, Mr. Blount. I understand that you are currently residing on the—uh—premises? Yes? Doesn’t that—well—get a little—creepy, sometimes?”
    “Oh, most assuredly not, Ms. Li. For anyone with a proper mindset, such as I and my fiancÉe Gloria have—that’s Ms. Gloria Mundy, a state certified cosmetologist and the true inspiration of this enterprise—living in a funeral home with ‘human remains’ downstairs is the most normal and natural thing in the world. Of course, since we are not yet wed, we most properly and definitely do have our own separate rooms—with locks on our doors. No, Ms. Li, it’s not the least creepy at all, I assure you. And—it’s far quieter than living over a bowling alley! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”
    “How very—um—interesting, Mr. Blount. Now—could—you—”
    Wendy Li again consulted the slip of paper in her free hand.
    “—could you—please tell our viewers in your own words just one or two facts—one or two details about—a recent client or two? If—that is—if it would not be any—privacy—any invasion of anyone’s privacy. Channel 22 always is a great respecter of privacy—human dignity—as our viewers appreciate.”
    Drawing himself up to his full five feet nine inches and squaring his slender shoulders, Roy Blount nodded his head vigorously towards Clay Vance’s video camera.
    “It would be a pleasure, Ms. Li. I don’t want to sensationalize the passing of any human being—but three of our more interesting—uh—‘adventures with mortality,’ to coin a phrase, have to do with—uh—incidents that were fully reported in our local paper, the Oxcan Bi-Weekly Independent. But I would bet that not many viewers elsewhere—uh—Down East—uh—have heard about them yet—and I would even bet that a few local Oxcans are totally unaware that ‘Burials by Blount’ handled the—uh—the services in our new manner for them. They were among our first—uh—uh—services.”
    Roy paused to clear his throat, flash a little grin at the camera, and run his right hand across the side of his glossy black hair.
    “Briefly speaking, Ms. Li—and I trust that none of this will shock to your feminine—uh—system in any way, shape, or form. I’m sure you, as a highly trained and experienced and attractive professional, are accustomed to seeing all sides of life—uh—many sides of life. Briefly speaking, we at Blount’s handled—provided for—the remains of Leroy Shanker when he was shot three months ago while cruising up and down the main street of Buena Vista, our sister village, in his customized off-road pick-up truck. Mr. Shanker’s life partner could not afford a lavish—uh—service, and in any case it had to be a closed casket affair, since his little body was—well—he was shot maybe two hundred times—allegedly shot—by Billy Bob Singleberry. Thelma Lou Hunter, his soulmate who shared his trailer, had tried to—but never mind that. Mr. Shanker was our first big ‘draw,’ so to speak. Maybe our biggest so far—over nine hundred and fifty drove through just to see the casket.
    “And then there was Charlie Bennett. Mr. Bennett was a highly respected retired French teacher in our Oxcan high school—over seventy years old. One Saturday, about a month ago, he was visiting his very elderly mother over at the Trudeau Center for Health and Rehabilitation—our local nursing home—and he just stepped into a lavatory and locked the door—and had a fatal heart attack, right there on the—on the seat. Wasn’t found till late the following Monday. My fiancÉe did a wonderful job with Charlie. You wouldn’t believe how much he soiled—he—. Can—uh—you edit this tape—uh—back in your studio? You can? Good. Excellent. No need to get too graphic for the viewers right at dinner time. My own intended, my Gloria, worked her magic on Mr. Bennett, and the result was just wonderful. He was in an open casket, and well over five hundred folks came to pay their respects. His poor dear mother has no idea how he died—nor even that he died. And we heard from his nearest kin—a niece in Virginia, who arranged his funeral by phone—that his mother doesn’t remember she ever had any kids nor even was ever married. She just—well—you know.”
    Wendy Li pulled her hand-held microphone back to her own mouth.
    “Well, yes I do, Mr. Blount. I guess a lot of our viewers have been there! This is Wendy Li, reporting for Channel 22 on an amazing new phenomena—the first drive-thru funeral home, here in beautiful Oxcan, Maine! And—cut.”
    “Uh—Ms. Li—I would be glad to redo any of those examples—or even tape another to replace one of them. Currently we are preparing the—the remains of a college professor—Arthur Hamilton Welles—who was allegedly stabbed by his wife after winning a little bet about math with her. She used—allegedly used—an icepick right in their—. No? Well, I’m sure you’re the best judge, being a professional newswoman—and it is still a pending case—but then so is the Leroy Shanker matter, legally speaking—but—.”

2


    A greatly abridged segment of Wendy Li’s special report on “Burials by Blount” aired on Channel 22 four evenings later. Roy’s clever fiancÉe, Ms. Mundy, posted a copy of it on YouTube the next day, and seven more copies of it were posted later that week by four residents of Maine, one of New Hampshire, and two of New Brunswick.
    Business at “Burials by Blount” continued to thrive throughout the summer months, with the bodies of Professor Arthur Hamilton Welles and two others setting new records there.
    Roy owned the only drive-thru funeral business in Maine during the spring and summer.
    In early September, the Fairleigh Funeral Service of nearby Beard, Maine, opened its own drive-thru facility. In mid-September, Talbot’s Memorial Parlor, just seven blocks from Blount’s in Oxcan, followed with one of its own. By late October, the state of Maine could boast of at least sixty-six similar establishments, ten of them owned by a national chain that had been started up from scratch.
    In late November, Roy’s fiancÉe resigned from Blount’s and departed Oxcan to take a position in the metropolis of Orono, teaching three special courses in the University of Maine’s new Drive-Thru-Funeral-Home Design and Management Division.
    Sic transit Gloria Mundy.



Scars Publications


Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.




Problems with this page? Then deal with it...