Rick's February Tirade
A Grave Story
One evening a few weeks ago, a stranger called and offered to
give me a piece of choice real estate, absolutely free, with only a
single obligation: to be buried there.
This particular parcel of land measured about eight feet long by
four feet wide by seven feet deep: it was a cemetery plot, and it
was mine for the taking. I had never owned land before; my ears
perked at the opportunity.
"Why would you give it away?," I asked skeptically (for
I am, of course, a cynic). The cemetery was conducting a promotional
campaign, the stranger said. If I liked the free accommodations, I'd
tell my friends so they could arrange to be buried there themselves.
Fair enough, I thought. (I should add that I'm an extremely GULLIBLE
cynic.) So I agreed to visit the cemetery and leave with my free
deed in hand; my friends wouldn't be so lucky.
It was a perfect graveyard evening as I drove through the gates:
a light but insistent midwinter drizzle, wisps of mist clinging to
the sodden ground, bare-branched trees like dark sentinels guarding
those who slept below. I thought of Edgar Allan Poe and his
Annabel Lee, of ravens and sepulchres, of Ligeia wakened from the
dead. I peered at a pale tomb and imagined a hooded figure moaning,
"'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"
In short, I liked this place. I could think of worse ways to
spend an evening in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
The office lights glowed directly ahead; I parked and stepped
inside. My guide, a prematurely white-haired gentleman in a neat
gray suit, ushered me into a private room lined with unused
tombstones. Some of them bore bronze bas-reliefs of the dead,
crafted with earnest attention to detail, every tooth visible in
their metallic grins. Others sported full-color fishing scenes or
fire engines, so as to depict with lasting accuracy the earthly
pursuits of the deceased.
My guide presented me with a booklet that I was to fill out as a
handy postmortem instruction kit for my survivors: persons to be
notified, obituary information, financial and property inventories,
choice of burial clothes, music to be played, open or closed casket.
That last item has always left me a little uneasy -- and
undecided. I'm not sure I'd want anyone gawking at my freshly
laundered remains, my mouth tightened into a weird smile, nose
already drooping, physical quirks on view for everyone's extended
perusal. "I didn't realize he had such floppy earlobes," I
can imagine them thinking. "Look at the bulge under his chin;
he should have gone with a larger collar size." "He really
did have one long eyebrow -- a UNIBROW -- didn't he?"
"Look at the honker on him, may he rest in peace." "A
nail-biter to the end." My bald spot would be concealed, but,
through some unwritten rule of coffinmaking, I would be laid out
facing right, with my bad profile on view. They don't make
left-facing caskets for people with unphotogenic right profiles.
Most mourners expect to see dead folks on display, especially
after traveling through rain, snow, sleet and traffic jams to visit
them. A closed casket generally elicits polite disappointment.
Granted, you rarely hear anyone grumble, "I drove halfway down
the turnpike for THIS? A CLOSED BOX?" But you can't blame them
for wanting the real goods: that rare and privileged glimpse of a
silent, motionless object that used to be one of THEM: animated,
intelligent, foolish and proud. Viewing a dead body gives a live
body strange comfort.
But sometimes, whether through illness, accident or botched
workmanship, the finished product can be a nasty sight to behold. I
remember seeing a documentary about a woman who insisted on having
her murdered son laid out just as the police found him when they
fished him out of the river. He looked like a spoiled halibut, and
the horror of it makes me shiver to this day. I don't want to cause
any unnecessary shivering at my funeral.
If my mourners really want to glimpse me in my overpriced crate,
let them take a quick peek under the lid. Too bad there are no
coin-operated caskets: just step into a private room, drop a quarter
into the slot, watch the lid roll back, and get thirty seconds of
viewing pleasure. That way, you can take me or leave me, and only
the most determined visitors need look upon my sad remains.
The man in the gray suit showed me a map of the grounds and
circled my designated plot -- a parcel of earth that normally sold
for $900. It was near the wooded edge of the cemetery, a place where
deer gather in the dusk to munch grass and socialize. I liked the
idea of being near the woods; in fact, I almost looked forward to
the prospect of settling down there.
My guide offered to take me on a tour of the property. The rain
was falling harder now; we drove slowly over the winding road toward
my final resting place, and stopped. The guide pointed. I saw wide
patches of melting ice, black in the dim light. And beyond the flat
field, a slight rise and the dark outline of the woods.
That was my spot, just below the woods. I could look forward to
many decades of peaceful mouldering while generations of deer
frolicked above. I wondered, though, if the rain and melting ice
would seep into my subterranean abode, dampening my eternal rest,
adding the insult of water damage to the injury of bodily
decomposition. It was bad enough that armies of bacteria and fungi
would be secreting their evil enzymes in a willful attempt to digest
me. Rotting away in a wet wool suit isn't my idea of a comfortable
hereafter.
There's always the option of a sealed lead coffin. Naval hero
John Paul Jones was buried in such a coffin, and he still looked
like himself when they dug him up over a century later -- complete
with his original eyelids, nose, lips and everything. Of course,
they took pictures of his naked mummy, hands strategically placed,
before he was reinterred at Annapolis. So it might be more discreet
to rot after all.
Now we followed an uphill road past the family vaults of
Allentown's finest -- the founder of its most illustrious department
store, a former mayor, various stout- hearted burghers whose names I
dimly recognized. I could be buried here, among the most socially
desirable dead people, if I traded my designated plot and paid $600.
No, thanks; I'd take my free patch of earth by the woods, near Bambi
and his clan.
We stopped at the top of the hill and entered a cavernous public
mausoleum. My guide turned on the lights; I gazed up at the glossy
marble walls, pretending to be impressed by the orderly mosaic of
memorial plaques, six rows high. I tried to imagine six stories of
vintage Allentown stiffs permanently sealed inside the walls. Around
the corner were niches for the cremated dead; the spaces seemed
absurdly small, more appropriate for squirrels than men. Human ashes
are conveniently, soberingly compact.
My guide tried to sell me on the virtues of mausoleum burial; he
went into loving detail about the clean, airtight chambers. He said
he had seen bodies removed after ten or fifteen years that looked as
fresh as the day they were entombed. It was a condition to which any
dead person would aspire -- but I still leaned toward a place of my
own beneath the green sod, especially if it was free. And it WAS
free, wasn't it?
My inner cynic should have known better. Back at the office, my
guide itemized the various mandatory expenses that went along with
the free plot. Opening and closing the grave: $950. Concrete
underground vault (to keep my suit dry): $700. Bronze marker plaque:
$1,350. Total cost of my free plot: exactly $3,000.
I listened to the sales pitch, squirming inwardly. My eye muscles
went rigid. I had been royally hoodwinked, bamboozled, hornswoggled.
How could I have fallen for such an obvious come-on, this
masterpiece of flim-flam, this palpable hoax? Worst of all, I had
myself to blame for being snookered. Obviously there's more to a
grave than the real estate; I just didn't think that far ahead. I'm
a marketing professional myself; did I really think I'd earn a free
plot by recommending the cemetery to my peers? Or that they'd come
to my funeral and demand to be interred on the spot? A
well-credentialed cynic should know better.
My guide continued to sell me on the benefits. The cemetery was
owned by a major corporation with a vast empire of funeral homes and
memorial parks under its banner. That meant I could exchange my plot
for a comparable chunk of earth in any of the thousand other sites
they owned. I'd be able to transfer the deed -- and my body -- to my
cemetery of choice, whether I decided to sputter out in Delaware,
Nebraska or California. This company was the Wal-Mart of the death
business.
I listened, I pondered. Did I prefer outside burial in my
"free" plot, or did the dry and airless spaces of the
mausoleum hold more appeal? What about cremation? At least for now,
I preferred to retain my original dimensions -- though I had to
admire the ingenuity of a late artist who had his ashes ground into
his paints for a colorful memorial display: Portrait of the Artist
as Pigment. I've heard of tribes that mix the ashes of their dead
into refreshing drinks. And romantic souls everywhere have had their
cremains scattered over favorite mountains and islands, or miles out
at sea. But what happens if you inadvertently toss them into the
wind? Do the survivors get a faceful of Uncle Harry? Still,
cremation seems to be the conscientious way to go; it saves valuable
land for future condos and mini-malls.
I listened and pondered some more. I turned out to be a
hopelessly poor prospect for my guide, unable make a decision about
my eternal abode that evening. Maybe I never will. I rummaged
through the options on the way home, and one seemed worse than the
other. To rot, to burn, to be sealed behind a wall. You'd think our
species would have come up with more satisfactory means of disposal
by now.
There's mummification, of course, but it's a time-consuming
process that would cost an MBA's annual income today. Buddhist monks
in China created budget- priced mummies by lacquering their dead
like enamel boxes; some of the specimens lasted over a thousand
years. At the other end of the spectrum, certain tribes in Borneo
and elsewhere have made fast work of their dead by eating them at
sacred feasts; we've never been impressed by such simple and
efficient logic.
What about the future? The emerging technology of cryonics might
preserve our frozen remains so future generations of M.D.s can cure
our fatal ailments. But what happens when we finally expire from old
age in 2241? By then, we probably could have the contents of our
minds transferred electronically to our waiting clones, to enjoy a
virtual immortality. Madonna could go on reinventing her image
forever; Donald Trump could keep buying up property in New York
until every building bears his name.
Jeremy Bentham, the British philosopher, might have had the most
novel solution of all: a diehard proponent of utilitarianism, he
believed that burial was a waste of the human body. He proposed to
have the deceased stuffed and mounted for use as indoor-outdoor
statuary. Thus preserved, they could serve a valuable social
function by providing aesthetic pleasure for generations to come.
Bentham was good on his word. Before he died in 1832, he
specified that his own body be stuffed and dressed in his favorite
suit of clothes. Today, honorably ensconced in a wooden cabinet at
University College in London, his mounted carcass is still trotted
out at meetings and debates, his face concealed behind a lifelike
mask.
I like the idea. When I see the man in the gray suit again, I'll
have to ask him for the phone number of a good local taxidermist.
Then I'll see if I can trade my free plot for a wooden cabinet.
After I get done with him, he'll probably wish he had been stuffed
himself.
Here's the complete archive of Rick Bayan's immortal tirades for your reading pleasure:
December 2002 — Hello, I Must Be Going
November 2002 — A Raving Moderate
August 2002 — Is Western Civilization Worth Saving?
July 2002 — To Scam or Be Scammed
June 2002 — I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
May 2002 — Speechophobia
April 2002 — Fanatics on Parade
March 2002 — The Prestige Gap: A Lament
February 2002 — On Becoming a Dullard
January 2002 — Art for Slackers
December 2001 — An Unsolicited Christmas Card
November 2001 — A Tale of Two Tribes
October 2001 — On the Fallen Towers
August 2001 — Why Do We Bother?
June 2001 — Notes from a Doomed Planet
May 2001 — The Museum of Discarded Names
April 2001 — Indecision
March 2001 — A Slight Case of Insanity
February 2001 — Letter to a Conscientious Critic
January 2001 — The Cynic's Inaugural Address
December 2000 — The 50th Tirade
November 2000 — Travel Advisory
October 2000 — Beyond Work
September 2000 — More Work
August 2000 — Work
July 2000 — The Doves' Nest
June 2000 — Great Affectations
May 2000 — Tale of a Virtual Village
April 2000 — The World Is My Obstacle Course
March 2000 — A Living Heck
February 2000 — On the Treachery
of Time
January 2000 — A Letter to the
Future
December 99 — Rare Bird
November 99 — Not Just Another
Obscure Ethnic Group
October 99 — Extinction Reconsidered
September 99 — Good Life, Bad
Life, Better Life
August 99 — Household Relics:
An Elegy
July 99 — A Meditation on Profanity
June 99 — In Praise of Sloth
May 99 — A Bug's Death
April 99 — Obligations!
March 99 — The Courage to Be Ordinary
February 99 — A Grave Story
January 99 — What's Left for
Men?
December 98 — On the Uses of
Friends
November 98 — A Cynic's Thanksgiving
October 98 — Grand Illusions
September 98 — Filth
August 98 — Will the Real God
Please Stand Up?
July 98 — Adventures in Downsizing
June 98 — Lady Longevity
May 98 — Uniquely Human, Uniquely
Clueless
April 98 — The Mathematics of Excess
March 98 — Humbuggery
February 98 — Love and the Single
Cynic
January 98 — By the Sweat of
Your Brow
December 97 — Is Suffering Unfashionable?
November 97 — The Tao of Housekeeping
October 97 — The Sensory Deprivation
Blues
September 97 — Down with Natural
Selection!
August 97 — Noise
July 97 — On Eating Our Fellow Creatures
June 97 — Trouble in Book-Land
May 97 — Interview with an Unemployable
Man
April 97 — The Cynic's Dream
March 97 — Inequalities
February 97 — Flesh and Mortality
January 97 — How to Be a Success
December 96 — Why I Can't Hate
Christmas
November 96 — How I Became a Cynic
