The Complete Collection. William Wharton

do you think, Jack; they’re afraid the corpses might escape?’

      It does look like a camouflaged Nazi bunker.

      She opens her purse, rummages around in it.

      ‘Darn, I forgot to pack my silver-plated, pearl-handled twenty-two.’

      From then on, we’re into it.

      The doors are dark glass, too; swinging, metal-latched. Inside, the décor is virtually colorless: blacks, pure grays and whites. Everybody’s dressed to match. It must be weird spending your days in a place like this, dealing with sad people; death on the dotted line. I want to turn around and walk back into the clean pollution and glare of Culver Boulevard.

      There’s a lady at the reception desk. She’s wearing a white carnation in the lapel of a gray suit. Her hair is a muted gray but she looks young, not more than thirty-five. Joan does the talking; I’m not paying enough attention. The lady smiles and asks us to wait. I lean toward Joan.

      ‘I think she dyes her hair.’

      I get a smile and cautioning finger.

      We’re ushered into a small room with a non-view tinted window on the street. I’m shocked to see a pinking beige automobile float slowly past outside. Maybe there’s something special in this glass to make things move slowly.

      Inside it’s so still. A young man with undyed blond hair in a combline-visible pompadour is sitting at a desk. He has very white, detached hands folded on the desk in front of him. He brings off the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. It’s the smile of a man with freckles who’s just been told the sun has burnt itself out.

      We sit down. I’m into the act now. I’m even appropriate in a black suit with a gray tie. Mother and Joan dressed me. The suit was designed for Joan’s father-in-law to be buried in. He was dying of emphysema and spent his last gasping months planning his funeral. He had this suit designed for the laying out. It’s black with a silkish paisley, almost invisible pattern and is lined with black silk. There are narrow lapels, trick slant pockets and three buttons in places you wouldn’t expect them. Mr Lazio, Joan’s father-in-law, Mario’s father, was Italian, Sicilian actually, and liked things fancy. He was also only five feet seven inches tall. I’m wearing the trousers as hip huggers, held up by a pair of Dad’s old suspenders let out to maximum. I’m showing about two inches of cuff and can’t breathe deeply.

      The reason Mr Lazio isn’t buried in this suit is because the last week before he died, he decided to change the game plan. Now he wanted a gray suit with a gray casket and a black pillow to set off his gray hair. So they had a new suit cut for him to the dimensions of this one. Carmen, Joan’s mother-in-law, gave this suit to my father, who is also five feet seven, but Dad would never wear it. He said he was afraid somebody would shoot him. So I’m the first one to wear it; probably the last. Some kind of hunched-over, hobbled pallbearer I’m going to make.

      We tell the man we want the least expensive funeral possible. We try to make this sound as if it’s a deep religious conviction but I can tell he pegs us as cheapskates. He moves a small pad from the corner of his desk and starts writing down the figures. He asks questions, we answer. ‘Yes, burial, not cremation.’ ‘But cremation is so much less expensive.’ ‘That’s all right.’ We’ll blow it on a bit of ground. ‘No, we don’t have the plot; we’ll buy it after we’re finished here.’ … No, the corpse isn’t dead yet. But he’s working on it; we’ll deliver, don’t worry.

      There’s some complication about burying them in the same grave on top of each other. There has to be a cement vault, California law. OK, we’re in for a double vault, cheaper in the long run and appropriate.

      Then he quotes the price for the embalming: not much, about seventy-five bucks. Up to this point Joan has done most of the talking, very refined, very capable at keeping things on an even keel. I come drifting in.

      ‘No, please, we don’t want him embalmed.’

      A small squall passes over the unlined, calm, passive features.

      ‘But it’s customary to embalm, sir.’

      ‘We don’t intend to have a showing of the body, so there’s no reason to embalm.’

      ‘But, Mr Tremont, it’s a California state law; the deceased must be embalmed before burial.’

      ‘How about the ones you cremate?’

      ‘They’re embalmed, too. It’s the California state law.’

      He smiles. I figure he’s got us, I don’t intend to do time over an unembalmed body. But then Joan comes on.

      ‘I have a friend who’s Jewish Orthodox; she was allowed to bury her mother without embalming because it’s part of her religion. Is this true?’

      He folds his fingers, interlacing them the other way.

      ‘Yes; it’s an exception to the law; a question of religious freedom.’

      ‘Well, we want a Jewish burial.’

      She turns to me.

      ‘Don’t we, John?’

      I nod. I can see us making arrangements at the local temple, running around sticking up crosses to confuse Mother, Oy veh! But we’re past the embalming part for the time being. We’re into caskets. He leads us down a corridor. I peek in several doors on the way. There are little metal name plaques over each door. Two I can remember: The Everlasting Peace Room, and The Eternal Truth Room. The room at the end has wall-to-wall caskets, three deep, hung on hooks and tilted slightly forward so we can see into them. They look like gigantic jewel cases. Most of them are lined with quilted silk in light colors from white through pink to gray again. The outsides of some are armored like Brink’s trucks.

      Our man is going along describing each coffin, its advantages and disadvantages, quoting prices. There’s no stopping him, this is grooved-spiel time. He has instructions to give us the full treatment even if we are cheapskates.

      We go along beside him, listening, waiting till he’s finished. He’s doing his best to make us feel that if we don’t buy a foam-rubber-lined coffin so Dad’ll be comfortable, with Duralumin or stainless-steel exterior to keep the worms out, we don’t really love him. Joan looks at me. I don’t know what she expects me to say.

      ‘Sir, do you have anything in the line of a plain pine box?’

      He looks down at his shined shoes, then up at us.

      ‘No, the least expensive casket we have is this one. It is pine, sir, and painted metallic gray. It’s priced at only one hundred twenty-two dollars.’

      ‘Would it be all right if I built a casket? My father was a carpenter, so he has all the tools. I’m sure I could build a box he’d like in two days or less.’

      He brings up a hand to smother a cough, probably a smirk or, hopefully, a smile.

      ‘I’m afraid not, sir. We shall be responsible for the funeral, transportation, ceremony and interment; the reputation of our establishment would be involved. We couldn’t allow a thing like that.’

      I know I’m being ornery, dumb; maybe I’m taking it out on death. Joan pulls me by the arm and turns toward the door. She whispers.

      ‘That’s enough, Jack, you’ve had your fun. You know how Dad is. He wouldn’t want anything out of the ordinary. We’re not going to have a hippy funeral.’

      She turns and goes back to the man.

      ‘We’ll take that one there.’

      She points to the one with the metallic gray paint.

      ‘Is it possible to have it unpainted?’

      He smiles and leans forward. Joan can get just about anything she wants. She’s such a handsome woman. When you’re her brother, it’s easy to forget.

      ‘I am sorry, madam, I don’t