— Yes well I hardly…
— She said he sounded quite ecstatic to learn that two billion dollars was spent on funerals last year and you simply must tell him the death rate is climbing steadily imagine, only a hundred and eighty million funerals in America since our dear country was born and we count on two hundred million in just the next forty-five years!
— Yes well I’m, I know he’ll be delighted yes he…
— We get one out of six now in the Fort Lauderdale area and Mother’s been constantly after me to bring in that second one to make it two out of six that would be one out of three I think? You know there are over twenty thousand of us across the country but even the largest single chain has less than one percent of the trade were these the statistics you wanted? Because even one percent just think the Social Security persons estimate a twenty percent rise in the death rate between nineteen seventy and nineteen eighty so there should be enough to go round if we can trim some of these frightfully blatant costs we’ve already tried working something out along the cluster concept so we wouldn’t have ten hearses all out roaring down the roads at once and then all of them standing around empty waiting that’s why Mother’s so entranced with this package approach your J R person wrote her about does he do all his memoranda in lead pencil?
— Yes well you see generally he…
— Crabbed age and youth oh I know but what a delicious name to choose for your nursing homes someone’s been reading South Wind isn’t it the most delicious book ever written! Of course I’d assumed it might be your J R person but when he misspelled Nepenthe among other things and…
— Yes well I’m sure he hasn’t, never even heard of it no he just bought into this nursing home stock when it first…
— Yes how frightfully thoughtful of him all these old dear persons no one wants underfoot to pasture them off in great dank government hospitals at public expense would be quite unthinkable and simply reek of socialism of course free enterprise owes them the dignity of private care after all they’ve done to make our dear country what it is and Mother tells me you have a Senator person leading the good fight for Eldercare so there won’t be those dreary scenes over unpaid bills, and of course the idea of discreet signs placed tastefully about suggesting our services Mother was utterly charmed but I think not in the room itself do you? No near the exits for visitors leaving that delicious old dear person all tucked up in beddy perhaps for the last time just a hint of stained glass and the simplest of messages Uncle Arthur suggested a hearse with the line getting there is half the fun so outré Mother and I thought simply Wagner is ready when you are or do you like they, when they are, of course we thought of when He is but one really must tread on tippy toes it makes Him sound rather like an abductor don’t you think? Or don’t you think…
— Well I really don’t think…
— No of course not Mother feels understatement is always best and I think she’s less than enraptured with your J R person’s notion of little booths set up in the nursing home lobbies to sell the entire package, prostheses the nursing care funeral plot and stone it sounds rather like a midway and of course the organized funeral directors are quite gaga over the whole thing rustling up preneed laws and being most unfriendly but if the darkies have been getting away with their little burial societies for ages certainly anyone has the right to plan those delicious last moments at leisure with none of that frantic last minute embarrassment over bills have you worked out the package cost?
— No and I don’t…
— Know how many packages you’ll offer no but there must be a mad variety or it could all turn into the sort of mass burial I suppose they have in Russia Mother says your J R person wants to approach the young married market but projecting costs so far in the future when the average nine hundred seventy-five dollars now doesn’t even include vault memorial stone cemetery plot flowers burial clothing even the minister of course having the use of all that money for what might be simply ages before that last surprise party when the package is opened and with people rushing about so even that might happen in some utterly inaccessible place he almost seems to be counting on quite an eventual number of no-shows at your vast cemetery somewhere called Union forgive me was that your foot?
— No it’s, it’s just my case let me move it I…
— Oh I hope I didn’t scratch it my new heels are so dreadfully sharp here let me help you, your cabs here are so thrillingly efficient but there’s simply no place in them to sit down and my hat is getting careful, your important papers are spilling…
— Yes it’s, Mister Crawley broke the catch opening it and it’s…
— He does sound like an absolute bear Mother said he oh! It’s all music it’s simply filled with music oh I must see! You didn’t write it?
— Well yes but it’s…
— Oh let me see let me see this passage right here how simply delicious what part is it.
— That’s the, the harpsichord part it…
— Mmmmmmmm! delicious, yes there’s a little Rameau there isn’t there mmmmmmmmmm…
— Well his, his piece The Gnat I just wanted the feeling of…
— And you certainly caught it didn’t you I feel prickly all over now what’s this oh how ominous…!
— Yes well that’s, that’s the string bass but about the cemetery I think you’d better talk to Mister Hop…
— Yes Mother said it was simply vast thousands of acres somewhere nearby called Union Falls? that you’ve taken over an entire right of way for it? Mmmmmm mmm mmmm hmmm…
— Well it’s no not exactly nearby, this cemetery is in the middle of a right of way up near our…
— Mmmmmm hmmmm hmmmm, hmm hmm delicious yes three thousand acres your J R person told Mother and imagine he’s concerned about unprofitable plots of course burying the welfare poor has always been a losing proposition simply noblesse oblige the agencies pay such a pittance but his proposal to make it pay by placing them six and eight deep to a plot when he was describing the entire package idea on the telephone as vertical integration Mother was simply aghast she thought he meant darkies and whites stacked in layers like a giant Dubos torta don’t you just crave one right now? We could slip over to…
— No, no I…
— The Hungarians are so clever with pastries but no all he meant was getting into the monument trade he’d just learned it runs over a third of a billion annually but you must tell him those monstrous granite memorials are quite quite passé the maintenance is simply prohibitive, you’ll want stones flush with the ground so your lawnmowers can simply whirr past overhead oh how brilliant, mmm mmmm mmmmm mmmmm mm mm m how simply brilliant and with your handicap Mister Bast oh forgive me, forgive me for mentioning it but I can only think of those cruel people telling Beethoven they heard shepherds’ pipes where he heard absolutely nothing and that heartrending will he wrote at the time of his exquisite Second Symphony you mustn’t think of taking your life Mister Bast you simply must not…
— No well I, I hadn’t no I, driver…?
— To think of leaving the world before you’ve brought out all you have within you no, no you must promise…
— Yes well I, excuse me yes I think we’re at Ninety-fifth Street, driver…?