The Shine Journal

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Dying Business

by

Caroline Taylor



Roy owned the only drive-thru funeral business in Maine. He got the idea during a trip to Pensacola several years ago where the guy he was visiting, Vito DiMaggio, drove him past some of the town's more colorful attractions. One of them was the Junior Funeral Home, which up until it closed,offered an optional drive-thru viewing window probably for people who couldn't find a parking spot or maybe were in a bit of a hurry to discharge their obligations to the recently deceased. Roy liked the motto: " In your time of need, put your trust in us. We're friends...like family." But he decided it would probably not be smart to use the same words, considering the story Vito told him.

It seems that Willie Junior, owner of the Pensacola establishment, disappeared the day before he was to be sentenced for bribery, extortion, racketeering, and money laundering. A month later, Junior's decomposed body, along with a few beer bottles and an empty pill container, was found under the house of an ex-limo driver who'd been employed by the funeral home. "They say it was suicide by antifreeze," said Vito. You believe that and I got a bridge I can sell ya."

Roy got the message. Anyway, he didn't have enough letters for such a long message.

Of course, everybody in town already thought Roy was proof that evolution occasionally reverses itself. "Maine isn't Florida," some wise soul would point out.

"No, it ain't," he'd reply. "But I figure if the weather thing worked down there, it'll be even better here."�

That would always provoke a few head scratches, which encouraged Roy to explain himself: "It's so hot down there, you fry your brains ever time you set foot outside the air conditioning. (Ah. So that explains it.) Well, up here, it's so cold, ya gotta bundle up to the point it takes five times longer to get in and out of a view what with havin' to take off yer hat, gloves, muffler, coat, and what-all and then puttin' all that stuff back on after."�

But, still. Wasn't there something a little disrespectful about offering a drive-thru viewing? The town split on the issue. You could hear them arguing about it over breakfast at Maisie's with the pro side being gets it over with real quick like, plus you don't have to deal with all that moaning and carrying on, and the con side being don't you see that's the point? These things are for the bereaved, not the deceased. The widow or whatever wants to see you, dummy.�

Inevitably, somebody would counter with, "but the dead don't give a damn, and, anyway, Roy's got a point. The weather outside is brutal.�

That, in turn, would provoke a response from Maisie along the lines of doing one's Christian duty.

Some folks figured the real reason Roy decided on the drive-thru was because the building he bought for the funeral home used to be a hardware store, and he didn't want to or, more likely, couldn't afford to "brick over that large display window. Why didn't he cover it with some heavy, dark drapes? We're talking Roy, remember.

It took quite a while for Roy to think up the right words to sell his grand idea so much time, in fact, that the pool at Gordon’s Gas and Go grew so large that Gordon had to put the money in the bank where it could earn a little interest while everybody was waiting.

It was with great fanfare that Roy mounted the ladder to the sign that had once offered discounts on snow blowers and keys made in one hour and inserted, underneath ROY’S DRIVE-THRU FUNERAL HOME, which he’d already put up there, the letters of the motto he had chosen: IT’S NOT WHERE U ARE THAT MATTERS.

Depending on your personal view of the gravity of death, you would read that sign and either fall apart laughing or crimp the corners of your mouth together and silently vow to drive all the way down to Portland to make funeral arrangements on that sorrowful occasion when Aunt Ginny finally passed. Then again, that would mean everyone who felt a duty to attend her viewing would also have to drive to Portland and probably stay overnight if they were planning to attend the funeral and interment. And that could be a real problem for some folks, what with gas prices up there in the stratosphere.

Like the seasons, Roy’s business came, and then it went. The coming part consisted of two traditional-style funerals (“We’ll skip the drive-thru, Roy, you don’t mind.”) when mourners discovered they could view both the deceased and the goings-on across the street at Manny’s Pool Palace where people who thought they’d just been hustled would sometimes carry their arguments out onto the sidewalk. Not enough people died to cover Roy’s mortgage, however. The drive-thru funeral home went bust.

“Never would have worked anyway,” said Tom Peabody, the winner of four hundred eighty-three dollars (plus interest) in the Gordon’s Gas and Go betting pool. “Why, a viewing’s the next best thing to the annual church picnic for catching up on what’s happening with folks.”�

“Phooey,” said Maisie. “It didn’t work because the idea came straight from the devil. Them people down in Florida are just this far (she made a circle with her thumb and index finger nearly touching) from Hell. That’s why it’s so hot, ya know? We God-fearing folk up here know right from wrong. I can’t imagine why Roy ever thought he could get away with it, and I, for one, am not a bit surprised to know where he’s headed.”�

Roy lives in Florida now, where the sun shines practically all year and where people aren’t so judgmental and up tight that they refuse to see a good deal, even when it’s spelled out on a great big sign.

 


Motivation: I read about a drive-thru funeral on the internet (now out of business) and decided to relocate it to Maine in a fiction story.

Bio: My stories have appeared in The First Line, The Green Silk Journal, Orchard Press Mysteries, The Chick Lit Review, and the Dan River Anthology 2009.

Image by: Jenny Erickson

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