“Sorry. I'm not interested. I can’t afford to die just yet.”
“Ahh, so many people think they can't afford our services. But that’s simply because they don’t know how easy—financially, I mean—our low-budget payment plans can make one’s passing over. You owe it to yourself to make arrangements now. Think how much easier you’ll be in your mind if you know that your funeral and interment have been all planned. Think of these you love, the ones you leave behind. Do you want them to be faced with the emotional strain of having to arrange things hurriedly and to feel that they haven't the time to act in accordance with your wishes? Wouldn’t it be better to make sure all the loose ends are taken care of before you leave this earth of ours?”
“Frankly, I don’t give a damn."
“Please, sir! You forget where you are. Surely if profanity is out of place anywhere, it’s out of place here."
“You’re right. Out-and-out obscenity would be more in keeping.” I walked away from him, following a sign with an arrow that said “East Chapel.” I could feel his eyes boring a Ku Klux shotgun blast in my back by way of punishment for my heresy.
The doors to the chapel were closed. I stood in the hallway and smoked a cigarette. After a moment or two the twin brother of the character who'd greeted me made an appearance. Picking invisible lint off his blue serge uniform, he sidled over and determined that I was waiting for the next services to begin. “Perhaps you’d like to look at our private display of caskets while you’re waiting,” he suggested.
It was something to do. I followed him back down the hallway to a pair of doors. He swung them wide and ushered me inside, carefully closing them behind us.
“Most people prefer to consider their final bed privately," he explained.
“I’m not really in the market -” I started to reply.
But he ignored me. “Here’s a model that's exclusive with us.” He rattled off the spiel like a well-rehearsed encyclopedia salesman who isn’t about to remove his foot from the door until he’s finished. “Genuine mahogany. Oversized, you’ll notice. Silk-lined in purple and white. And notice the scrollwork on the lid—that’s a special feature. Even the hinges are genuine bronze. We’re having a special on this casket this month. Only twenty-four hundred dollars3 .”
“That is a bargain!” I put him on. “Why, it’s almost worth dropping dead for!”
“Of course, that’s just for the casket, you understand," he continued blithely. “It doesn’t include funeral arrangements, or interment costs, or the cost of a plot, or a crypt, or a mausoleum. As a matter of fact, I can’t even guarantee you space, I’m afraid. We have quite a long waiting list, you know.”
“Yeah. I hear people are dying to get in here."
“Heh-heh.” His laugh was a dry, polite rebuke. It said he’d heard it before; it said it had been in bad taste then and it still was.
“Dying to get in here! Get it?” I slapped him on the back. I couldn’t resist it. “Isn’t that a gasser?" I chortled. “A gasser! Get it?”
“Very amusing, sir. Now, as I was saying, this deluxe model is really a steal at the price. Still, if your financial situation is such that a more moderately priced casket is desirable, let me show you some of the more inexpensive models.”
“Well, I’ll look at them. But I want you to know right now that if I can’t die with status, I’m just not gonna die.”
“Here’s a slightly cheaper model for only two thousand dollars.” The coffin echoed hollowly as he rapped on the side of it.
“What's the difference between them?”
“It’s six inches shorter . . .”
“Well, I’m not that tall.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that you’d be cramped” sir.
“Are you sure? Maybe I should try it out to be on the, safe side.
“If you like, sir.” He obviously disapproved, but a sale was a sale.
I climbed into the coffin and stretched out full-length. “Not much room to turn over,” I observed.
'“Well now, that won’t be concerning you when you embark on the Long Sleep, will it sir?”
“I don't know. I’m a pretty restless sleeper. And I suspect there might be some activity around here that just could make me want to turn over in my grave.”
“Heh-heh. Well, you will have your little joke, sir. Here, let me help you out.” He gave me his hand and I pulled myself up out of the coffin. “Still, if you feel the lack of length might bother you, let me show you this model. It’s the same length as the first, but six hundred dollars cheaper.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The wood is cedar, not mahogany. The lining is only imitation silk. The lid is unadorned, no scrollwork. And the hinges are iron, instead of bronze.”
“Iron? Won’t they rust?”
“In time I’m afraid they will, sir."
“Make it kind of hard to open, won’t it?”
“Well . . . That really won’t be concerning you, will it, sir?”
“Why not?” .
“The Etemal Sleep . . .” He paused delicately.
“You mean death?”
“We don't like to use that word, sir.”
“Sorry. But if the hinges won’t be concerning me, then I guess that for the same reason it shouldn’t make much difference if the lining isn’t real silk and the lid has no scrollwork.”
“There are those who prefer to look at it that way, sir,” he said cautiously.
“And it really doesn’t matter if the wood is cedar instead of mahogany, does it?” I persisted.
“Mahogany will last longer.”
“But it won’t last for Eternity, right?”
“That is true.”
“So what difference will a few years make?”
“Well, sir,” he floundered and then flubbed badly. “The worms -”
“-- crawl in, the worms crawl out,” I finished for him. “Yeah, I know. But the fact is that when we’re dealing with Eternity, the fact that cedar may last twenty years less than mahogany is kind of a minor point, don't you agree?”
“Well, I suppose so. Certainly if you feel that the cedar will be adequate to your needs -”
“What needs? I’ll be dead, won’t I?”
He winced. “You’ll have passed over; that's true, sir. But out of consideration for those you leave behind -”
“The hell with ’em!"
“Sir!”
“That’s right. If they’re stupid enough to give a damn whether I’m buried in a cedar coffin, or a mahogany coffin-—" .
“Casket! We prefer to refer to them as caskets!” he remonstrated desperately.
“Coffin!” I insisted. “If they’re that stupid, then the hell with them.”
“I know that a consideration of one’s inevitable future may frequently prove upsetting, sir.” He tried to soothe me. “Still, once you've made your plans, you will find yourself filled with a great tranquility, a great peace, a great calm.”
“I’m already filled. I’ve made my plans."
“You have?" His eyes said the sale was slipping through his fingers.
“Yes. I'm to be buried in a plain pine box in Potter's Field. And I refuse to pay one nickel for the privilege!”
“You can't be serious, sir. Morally -"
“Morally!" I exploded. “What the hell would you people know about morals?”
“Enough to know that it's not moral to rely on charity to pay for your burial!" he fired back. “And that’s what’ll happen. If you don't make arrangements, and your heirs don’t, then the state will have to pay for burying you."
“Tough! The pine box and the gravediggers shouldn't come to more than a hundred bucks. As a matter of fact, they can skip the box and just shovel me under. Anyway, whatever it costs, I figure I've already paid for it with my taxes. All they have to do is incinerate one less Viet Cong and my burial’s paid for."