Fahrenheit 1600 (Victor Kozol) (4 page)

Chapter 6

Victor the Proprietor

After five years of this monotonous existence,
things were about to change. Albert and Mary’s best friends the Chulak’s
retired from their flower shop and moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. They
invited the Kozols down for a vacation, and they became hooked on the balmy
climate and laid back lifestyle being lived by their friends. Steve Chulak told
Albert that there was a nice little condo nearby coming up for sale by a lady
who went to a nursing home. Albert and Mary made an appointment to see it, fell
in love with the place and quickly agreed to buy it.

They return to Duryea, and the next Monday meet with
Vic to tell him they had decided to retire to Florida. Victor would be the boss
at last! He was taken aback by this sudden change of roles with his father, but
it did give him more freedom. Among the many conditions and stipulations in the
agreement that Victor had to sign with his father, was the one where he would
have to send his parents $3,000 a month as rent for the business and building.
After all of this and a warning from his father that he would no longer be
there to backstop the public relations end of the business. Vic assured Albert
that things would be different, now that he is in charge. By the end of the
summer, the older Kozols were gone and Victor was finally his own boss.

Chapter 7

Victor’s First Year in Business

Once again, Vic made resolution that he was going
to be different and make this work. But, alone and with no one to criticize his
actions or lack thereof, he fell prey to the same apathy that he was prone to
at college.

He handled the funerals when they came in, but the
client families could tell his heart wasn’t in it. The bodies he put out on
display for public viewings didn’t look as good as the ones displayed by his
competitors. The place wasn’t as clean or maintained as well as it used to be,
and worse Vic would sometimes be drunk in town within view of his clients. (In
funeral service parlance, the ‘client families’ are the next of kin left behind
when someone dies, they are the real customers.)

With two other active competitors in a town of only
6,000 people Vic couldn’t afford to alienate many families and stay in
business. If he disappointed and angered enough of his client families they
will soon put out the word “don’t call Victor,” when in need of a funeral
service.

This was the beginning of a year from hell that
would propel him into a downward spiral. Vic’s first year in business was a
series of blunders and embarrassments. Instead of working for his father and
drawing $400.00 per week, for the first time in his life, he was untethered
from the mother ship. If he screwed up this business, there would be no
guaranteed income; in fact there may be no income at all, and that was a scary
thought for Vic.

But for all of his life, Vic never had to put duty
before pleasure, and he was finding it hard to do it now. Many people who start
their own businesses fail because they lose the rigor and discipline of an
organization that used to employ them. They just don’t self-motivate. Vic, was
never really motivated working for his father and this weakness carried over
into his newfound freedom of making his own schedule and lifestyle. Vic kept
falling farther into the abyss.

After receiving a call from an, old mortuary school
friend from Bethlehem, Vic said no to an invite downstate. But after two more
friends called him and told him what a good reunion he would be missing if he
didn’t attend this one in New Hope, Vic finally caved in and when Friday
afternoon came, he left for Bucks County to knock a few back with his old
college chums.

When funeral directors want to take time off, like
doctors, they have to find someone to fill in for them in case an emergency
comes up while they are away. However, Victor wasn’t on any kind of terms with
any other local directors, so he took the chance that someone wouldn’t die at
home while he was away. (If they died in a hospital or nursing home, you had
time to pick up the body later, but at home you had to go immediately.)

When the answering service rang Vic’s cell phone he
was in a bar in New Hope some three hours’ drive from home. The problem was
that the deceased Mrs. Makovsky was lying on her face in the kitchen after she
suffered an apparent heart attack. The children were gathered in the living
room one room away from their dead mother; they had just met with the family
doctor who had pronounced her dead and told them to call a funeral director to
remove the body. For over fifty years the Kozol’s had taken care of deaths in
the Makovsky family; this funeral was to be no different. To have a family call
someone else you would really have to make a negative impression on them, after
they used your firm for generations. This is how Vic’s worse nightmare came
true; he was hours away from Duryea and only a seventy- year-old handyman who
would be incapable of removing the body alone was left back in Duryea. Victor
called the family and lied that he was out on another death call and “won’t be
able to get there for a while.” Victor had no way of knowing at the time that
he wasn’t going to get there at all.

After hastily saying his goodbyes to his friends,
Vic took the two lane roads through rural Bucks County at high speed. It was
now midnight and the roads were nearly empty. Just as he was approaching the
Quakertown interchange of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Vic couldn’t believe it
when the red and blue lights he was seeing in his rear view mirror were getting
closer. Within a minute the State trooper was alongside and signaling him to
pull over. Vic had an expired insurance card and no registration card for the
vehicle he was driving, and he reeked of alcohol. The only worse thing to get
you to spend the night in a local jail would be to run someone over.

Meanwhile back in Duryea, the Makovskys could no
longer reach Vic on his cell phone, and his answering service had no idea where
he was. In disgust, with their mother turning blue, they call Jake Borovich
another local funeral director to remove their mother. Within thirty minutes
their mother was out of the house and Borovich was sitting in the kitchen with
the family making the arrangements.

The next morning Vic’s friend Steve Lamont, a local
attorney wired the money and got Vic sprung from the Quakertown Police holding
cell. Now Vic is $500.00 poorer, has a hangover, and was facing a court hearing
later for additional punishment which would include the near certainty of
losing his driving license if convicted of a DUI. It could be worse, the people
in Duryea don’t read downstate newspapers and the event didn’t get published in
the Wilkes-Barre papers. However, this is all Vic would be able to salvage from
his night of partying.

At least Vic didn’t attend Holy Rosary, the local
Polish Catholic Church (or any other) so he never had to hear in person the
rumors buzzing around how he never came to pick up the body of the president of
the Altar and Rosary Society after her untimely death at the age of eighty
four.

Victor could have billed that funeral out at about
$4,000 (depending on the merchandise chosen). After the cemetery, church,
merchandise, and other miscellaneous costs, he could have grossed about $2,000.
The fixed costs of maintaining the funeral are there anyway. So, the final
profit would be less. However this funeral would have mostly paid his father
the rent for the current month.

Vic not only lost the Makovsky funeral, he had a way
of compounding his problems without ever planning it. When the daughter of
another client family was killed in a tragic auto accident, in which the driver
was her drunken boyfriend. After attending a party in Wilkes-Barre where he
drank too much, Ted was driving Lisa home and missed a turn on River Road
plunging down an embankment and finally hitting a large oak tree which
prevented the car from landing in the Susquehanna River. Ted had only minor
injuries but the tree hit was on the right side of Ted’s Camaro coupe. Lisa, at
only eighteen, was killed instantly. All of this made the nerves and emotions
of the family much more sensitive than with a natural death.

In making the arrangements with the Tibursky family,
Vic was given one admonition by the dead girl’s father, “Under no circumstances
are you to let that drunken, no good SOB into the funeral home to see Lisa’s
body.”

Vic knew Ted Chernowski, the driver and boyfriend
involved, from high school days. The next night while having a drink in Tubby’s
a local hangout, Vic was approached by Ted now out on bail. Ted asked one favor
for old times’ sake.
Could he see his girlfriend one last time? Vic
initially said no, but two drinks later and after more badgering by Ted, he
relented.

“Only if you swear to me that this will be a secret
just between us.”

“Of course,” Ted swore. So, Vic drove him to the
funeral home at midnight to have the private viewing in his morgue. All went
well with the Lisa Tibursky funeral until a week later. Ted was back at Tubby’s
drinking and boasting that he never liked Lisa’s old man (the feeling was
mutual; as he tried to break up the relationship many times, but his daughter
had turned eighteen and wouldn’t stop seeing Ted) but that he had the last
laugh; he had influence with a friend Vic, that got him in to see Lisa for the
last time before her funeral. He was even circulating a picture of Lisa under a
white sheet on the morgue table. When the news got back to Lisa parents they were
so enraged they refused to pay the funeral bill and threatened a lawsuit for
damages. They also threatened to report Vic to the State Board of Funeral
Directors for unethical practices.

Another $4,500 was now in jeopardy and Vic was
furious. He called his lawyer Steve Lamont and recounted “I did all of this
work for them and the funeral went off very well and now they don’t want to pay
me, this is nuts.”

Three days later Lamont phoned back but the news was
bleak for Vic. If the State Board called a formal hearing in Harrisburg, Vic
could face sanctions. They could tell Vic to disavow the bill all or in part;
they could fine him separately; and they could suspend his license for an
indeterminate amount of time. The news got worse; they would publish the hearing
findings in the local newspapers. Steve’s advice to Vic was to write off the
funeral bill and apologize to the Tibursky family.

Chapter 8

Circling the Drain

With a year going for him like this, Victor found
himself in the worst financial condition of his short career. The refrain in
the town “Don’t call Vic”, was taking its toll on Vic’s checkbook. His normal
checking reserves of $6,000 had fallen to below $3,000. From this he owed his
parents $3,000 not to mention the utilities, taxes and other expenses of
keeping the place going. He also needed something to live on.

It worried Vic enough that he even contemplated
playing the role of his father and grandfather before him. Attend church,
volunteer for the bazaars and even ride the rubber chicken circuit of the
bowling banquets. However, these were all long range plans, and Victor needed
cash now. Vic did what he always did in a crisis, nothing. He slid back into a
stupor and became mostly invisible in Duryea. And yes, the business continued
to decline to only twenty-five funerals per year average. This was down more
than half of what he started with.

Immediate action had to be taken, or his parents would
soon know that he had failed them when the next check didn’t arrive. Victor
then called the two local banks in Duryea and got an appointment to see the
commercial loan officers. After reviewing Vic’s books the message was the same
from both bankers. You do not have sufficient assets, cash flow, and collateral
to justify a line of credit for your business. In a final desperate move, Vic
thought of Randy Simcoe, a classmate who made it big with cable TV franchising.
So, he called Randy and explained his plight.

Randy was comforting and interested in Vic’s
situation, but he had invested all of his reserves in another venture and
couldn’t get at them at this time. Vic got the message and knew that he was on
his own. He alone would have to come up with a solution to his problem.

He had to try everything before he gave up. Victor
went to the corner convenience store and bought $400 worth of Pennsylvania
lottery tickets at one time. After scoring a minor $50 hit, he was now behind
$350. Vic mused, for one number I could have won $5,000 instead of $50, I’m
getting close. The next night he got in his car and drove to the Mohegan Sun
Casino outside Wilkes-Barre to try his luck on a larger scale. After hitting at
blackjack on two separate nights for a total of $3,000, Vic had a major setback
on the third night and lost $4,000.

Vic yelled at himself in the car going home, “I was
so close to winning another month’s respite; so close!”

With options closing for him at home, Vic needed to
try one more thing. Finally, as one last desperate move, Vic packed up the car
and headed for Atlantic City; the Vegas of the East. He still had his credit
cards and he needed to make just one big score. If he got $6,000 ahead he could
leave and call it a victory.

On a Friday night, Victor arrived at Bally’s, a
casino on the boardwalk. He checked in. Forgoing supper, he hit the tables.
Luck finally turned in Vic’s favor and by midnight he was up $5,000. Tired from
the three-and-a-half hour drive, he decided to turn in and make his final ‘withdrawal’
the next night. But, Saturday was not to be a repeat of Friday. By 11:00 p.m.
Vic was down $6,000 and he started to hit the booze harder. By 1:00 a.m. Vic
was down $10,000, the five he won yesterday plus five more in the hole. All of
it was gone. He sat despondent at the bar in a cocktail lounge next to the
blackjack tables drowning his sorrows. Just then, a well-dressed man, maybe a
few years older than Vic, took a seat next to him. The stranger looked over at
Vic

“You had a bad night at the tables too?”

Victor sullenly nodded and figures misery must love
company. By 3:00 a.m. Vic knows his new friend is Sam, an attorney from New
York City. Victor tells Sam his sad life story, but Sam stays sketchy on any
details of his life.

One thing leads to another and Sam says, “Do you
ever watch any of the crime shows on TV?”

Vic responds, “I always liked Law and Order.”

Sam responds, “Yes, and that show is a good example
of all of the forensic science available to the police; it’s getting harder and
harder to get away with murder.”

“You’re right, I know of cases back home where
bodies are exhumed years later and enough DNA and other evidence is left to
convict someone who thought they got away with murder.”

Sam responded, “That’s the problem for the bad guys,
unless you atomize the body, it’s still there to be found and analyzed far into
the future.”

Vic says, “The closest thing to atomizing a body is
to cremate it.”

“How so?” Sam asks.

“Look, you take a 200 pound body and in two hours at
1,600 degrees Fahrenheit, the body is reduced to a pound or two of bone
fragments, no larger than gravel, when finally pulverized in a grinding
machine; which is used so that the remains fit into an urn.”

Sam says, “You mean you could never tell who the
ashes belonged to, not even with DNA testing?”

“That’s the way I read it, in fact all states have
laws that delay a cremation for a day or two after death so that a coroner or
medical examiner can order an autopsy if they feel it necessary to investigate
the manner of death of the deceased. They don’t want the body destroyed before
they can get a chance to look at it, because after the cremation any possible
investigation is over.”

“Very interesting … say Vic, do you do cremations at
your funeral home?”

“No, we are too small of an operation, so we farm
them out to a nearby cemetery that has a retort to do them for us.”

Sam responds, “Just how involved is a cremation?

Victor, remembering his seminar at funeral service
school, goes into his dialogue.

“Cremation ovens used to be like large bakery ovens,
but are now more compact and lower in price say about $50,000. In fact they are
about the size of a car and are delivered by truck fully assembled and usually
slid right into position in the intended building. You then wire up, hook up
the natural gas and presto you are in the cremation business. But perhaps I am
oversimplifying. There are permits and other considerations, but the cost and a
garage sized space would be the most significant. Of course, if you need to
build a structure for the retort it would cost a lot more; and this is what the
cemetery we use has.” Vic further elaborates, “It would not be feasible to
install a crematory with his size business, even though more and more people
are choosing this method of disposal each year. The wholesale charge for a
cremation (like we pay the cemetery) is say $300; the retail to the families is
about twice that much. Now you see how many cases it would take to pay back the
initial investment.”

Sam responded, “Suppose someone did cremations for a
select market and paid $10,000 for each case.”

“Sure, it would change the case numbers downward
drastically, but who would ever pay that when they can get it for far less
anywhere else?”

“It depends.”

“No matter, I couldn’t front the money for a retort
anyway.”

“That’s what I do for a living, I work with venture
capitalists. We front the costs for startup or expanding businesses because
there may be a special opportunity that a conventional bank might overlook.”

“Yes, but too good to be true in my case.”

With some final small talk, the two new friends take
leave of each other exchanging business cards and promising to stay in touch in
the future.