Fahrenheit 1600 (Victor Kozol) (22 page)

Author’s Note

I have tried to create this novel in a real-world
context. I have no proclivities for science fiction or supernatural writing, so
you won’t find it here. The Anthracite Coal Region of Northeast Pennsylvania is
filled with a mosaic of rich landscape, culture, and traditions. These descendants
of Eastern European immigrants are no less a part of Americana than anyone else
written about. They are warm and charming people who have remained true to
their birthplace and celebrate it through their unique culture. There is not
much in fiction devoted to this area and its people. If you hear about an
ethnic area in Pennsylvania it will usually be about the Amish. I thought I
would introduce readers to something different.

Yes, these characters are real and could be anywhere
in America. However, this is the America I know best.

I hope you enjoyed following Victor Kozol in his
journey.

About the Author

Born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The
Weber family had operated a funeral home there since 1928. Jerry first
graduated Temple University in Philadelphia and then graduated from the
American Academy of Funeral Service in New York City. He later received a BA in
History from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. After serving in the US
Army in Vietnam, he joined his father and uncle in the family business. After
his father’s retirement he became the owner of the business. This included
three funeral homes and a cemetery.

Jerry has been married for 46 years to Cynthia
Wisniewski who was a nursing educator and also a Pennsylvania licensed funeral
director. They have two married daughters. Annette lives in Baltimore, MD and
Natalie in Berlin, Germany. They have five grandchildren. Jerry flew airplanes
and is a commercial pilot. He is also interested in Antique Automobiles and is
a judge for the Antique Automobile Club of America. Jerry and Cynthia reside in
Venice, Florida.

Preview: Thunder in the Coal Mine

At noon on a Wednesday in May, Karen takes a call
from New York City. It is the Harlem Funeral Home with a “trade call”. These
are calls to funeral homes from other funeral homes usually out of town asking
the local funeral director to pick up and prepare a body that is to be
transported back to the originating funeral home. Mr Doaks, the New York Director
tells Karen that a Josepf Younnes, now deceased, has been released by the
coroner from the CMC Hospital in Scranton. He would like the Kozol firm to do
the local removal and prep work and get the death certificate and removal
permit so that Younnes’s body could be transported back to New York. He tells
Karen, after all of the arrangements are completed by Kozol’s he will make
arrangements to pick up the body. Karen takes all of this information and then
pages Vic who is out on another funeral.

Vic returns to Duryea and gets on this new mission.
First, he calls the Lackawanna coroner’s office to see if the body has in fact
been released. After getting an affirmative answer, He dispatches his intern
and one of the handymen to go to Scranton with the van and get Younnes body.

Later after embalming and preparing the body he
comes out of his morgue and begins to think, this guy really is a mess not even
viewable for a funeral service. What happened? Vic rounds up the Scranton Times
from the last two days and starts looking for accidents to square with the
condition of the body. Sure enough, on Monday night there was an explosion at
the Northeast Stone Quarry in Peckville about ten miles from Scranton. It seems
Younnes who was an equipment maintenance man on the night shift at the quarry
was handling some of the dynamite the quarry uses in its daily operations to
blast loose the solid rock formations.

Vic is confused by this. Why is a guy who is
greasing and maintaining the trucks and other equipment handling explosives?
Did he have to move some of the dynamite to get access to something? Was he
called by his foreman to change his routine and work with the dynamite? Vic’s
thoughts are interrupted by another death call that he had to attend to.

The next day a van arrives from New York with a
driver to pick up Younnes for his trip back to New York. Vic, while helping the
driver load the body, begins thinking about the strange death circumstances,
again becoming curious. He is talking a John Merrill who is the man sent to
retrieve the body. After presenting John with the death certificate and transit
permit the New York firm will need to complete the funeral, Vic strikes up a
conversation with him.

“John, what kind of a clientele do you handle up
there in the Bronx?”

“Well we do a mix of everyone up there. This Younnes
guy is a member of a group that seems to be clustered around a Mosque on 125th
Street. They are a pretty conservative group and stay to themselves. One
interesting thing is that in the City we are all unionized. The gravediggers at
the cemetery have their own union and you have to use them for any burial in
one of our cemeteries. But, the members of this group insist on taking shovels
and burying their deceased themselves. The union allows this because they stand
there and get paid anyway. It’s amazing the vastly different customs that are
practiced, especially in a big city like New York. Vic asks, “John, do you ever
talk to any of them at the funerals?”

“Naw, they are respectful but very cool and aloof
around strangers.”

With that Vic bids John goodbye and safe journey and
goes back to setting up for the Oravitz funeral, which is scheduled to take
place tomorrow.