The Short Stories and Poetry of Richard Koss
Business As Usual
.....by Richard Koss
Some years ago I had an opportunity to acquire a new business client who
owned a funeral home. His accountant had just died rather suddenly and I
was referred to him by one of my old and satisfied clients. During our
telephone conversation he seemed anxious to make the transition as quickly
as possible so I agreed to visit his place of business the next day.
He was a distinguished looking man in his fifties and after giving me a
brief tour of the upstairs facilities, we settled down in his office. We
reviewed his basic financial reports of sales, cash receipts, cash
disbursements, etc. We talked about the specialized software designed for
funeral homes he was using and about the growing trend of prepaid funeral
arrangements. Then we reviewed his latest financial statements and income
tax returns prepared by his accountant. Everything seemed to be current and
under control.
He then told me the story of how he had married the daughter of a funeral
director and went from a barber to becoming a mortician, working in her
father’s business and finally establishing a business of his own. He was
Italian and his wife was Polish, so he now had clientele from two distinct
nationalities. It had worked out very well for him and his wife.
She took care of all the appointments and miscellaneous administrative
duties while he concentrated on his role as a distinguished, compassionate,
director. You could tell he was quite professional in his demeanor and had
obviously earned the confidence and respect of his clientele over the years.
Just as I was about to thank him for the opportunity to meet with him, he
looked at me with a half smile and said: “Would you like to take a
behind-the-scenes tour?” I don’t think I looked very enthusiastic but I
said, “why not.” So we went downstairs to the basement.
There were two separate rooms downstairs and I could smell something that
reminded me of formaldehyde, coming from the room where they obviously did
the embalming. “I don’t do any embalming anymore unless we’re really in a
bind. Leo is my chief embalmer and he does a great job. I’ll dress up the
bodies and shave the men sometimes, maybe work on styling the hair.” He
walked me around the room. There were three bodies laid out but not fully
dressed. "We’ve got these three for tomorrow. There’s another one due in
early this evening. Busy Week.”
Of the three corpses, two were men, one middle-aged and one much older.
The other was an elderly woman who looked like she must have been quite
attractive in her younger days. Leo was working on the older man when the
director commented, “that’s Chuck Phillips who used to own a restaurant
just down the street. Real nice guy.” Then he looked at the middle-aged
man - “And there’s your predecessor. I hope your not superstitious.” That
did kind of give me the creeps to think that the poor bastard wasn’t even
planted and he’d already found a replacement for him.
As we started back towards the stairs, the director stopped and walked over
to the old woman, inspecting her hair. “Leo, see if you can brighten up
this gray a little. It looks too dull and mousy.” Then he joined me again
and as we walked up the stairs, he said nonchalantly, “Mom was always fussy
about her hair. She’d never forgive me if I let it look like that
tomorrow.”
