your options are a waste of money.”
“We do offer a higher-end product, I admit,” he says. “We leave the cheap end of the market to you.”
I know he’s trying to insult me, but he’s not succeeding. I have faith in my business model, in my product. And if it’s so cheap, why’s he wanting to buy it?
He tells me. “But Austin does have a growing population of folks who prefer the more … affordable options. Business is good, right, all those immigrants from Mexico, California, New York, all coming to town and dying?”
“Some,” I admit. That has been a growing market for me. Or harvest, as my dad used to call it. I get my sense of humor from him.
“So. Last chance, I won’t bring it up again. A hundred grand for your business, lock, stock, and barrel.”
I’m tempted by the money but there’s no way because I have nothing else I want to do with my life. I buy a few moments by running my hand over the silk interior of the casket. The lid is one of those that opens either as one, or in two separate halves. The head section is open and Davidson opens the lower half of the lid, too.
“Nice inside, isn’t it?”
I nod, but say, “Dead people don’t need that much padding.”
He laughs gently. “This is in case we bury someone who’s alive. They’ll be more comfortable.”
I pick up his joke and run with it. “And with all that padding you won’t hear them scream,” I say, “which would be bad for business.”
“Precisely!” He rests a hand on my shoulder. “Your caskets, well, they’d kick their way out in a moment and come sue you.” His grin drops into a grimace. “Not that they’d recover much money, am I right?”
“Yeah, well,” I start, but have nothing to finish the sentence with.
He leaves his hand on my shoulder and pushes me to the end of the casket. “Here, I want to show you something. Special feature, you might call it.” We stand at the bottom of the casket and he puts his hand on the panel where the feet go. He pushes something and the foot panel swings open like a door. “What do you think of that?” he asks, smug.
“What’s the point of it?”
“Several points. If need be, you can get the body out by sliding it instead of opening the top and lifting it out.”
“When have you ever needed to do that?” I know I haven’t.
“Also, it’s a way people can put things inside once the lid is closed. Like, for kids to put in something without having to see the body.”
“Huh,” I say. I guess that could happen but it seems like just another reason to charge more for this box.
“And,” he’s saying, “a reason that wasn’t originally intended but that helps me sell them. When it’s open, the customer can do this.” He turns his back to the casket and perches in the little open doorway. “Think about it. People want to know that their dead relative is comfortable, but who’s going to climb into a casket to make sure?”
“No one, I hope.”
“Right. This way, they actually sit on the end and feel for themselves. Just sit here like this, or even lie back if they want to, without having to clamber in and out.”
“I guess.”
“Try it, feel how comfortable that is.” He slides off and gestures for me to perch where he was.
“Okay.” I disagree that caskets need to be silk-lined and padded, to this extent anyway, but this is his party. At least he’s stopped asking to buy my business. I’m a little shorter than him, so I hop up and kind of settle in. I’m sitting down and it is soft.
He moves alongside me, putting one hand on my back. “What do you think?”
“That dead people don’t need this.”
He laughs. “Andrew, don’t be such a curmudgeon. We sell peace of mind, and you know it.”
“For six grand.” I sound petulant, and wish I didn’t.
“Right.” His other hand moves to my shoulder. “But once you try it, it’s hard to say no. Lay back and see.”
I groan inwardly but decide to play along. He’s powerful in the Association and he’s my host, plus if he’s not dating Belle maybe he can put in a word. And this casket is very comfortable. More like a bed.
“And plenty of room,” he says, as he lowers the lower half over my legs. “You can almost put your knees up, right?”
“Well, not really, but I see what you mean. It’s pretty roomy.”
He swings the foot panel inwards and it shuts with a quality click. Now I feel like I’m in a cocoon-slash-sleeping bag, and I worry that my boots will tear or dirty the silk. I see a small metal circle flush with the wood at about knee level. “What’s that for?” I ask.
“The casket is airtight,” he says, patting it. “And with this beauty we can offer our dearly departed extra longevity once they’ve passed to the other side.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that after we’ve embalmed the client, we pop that little disc and suction the air right out of the interior.”
“But that would—”
“Mummify them,” he interrupts, that smirk on his face. “A thousand years from now, someone could be popping my caskets open and finding the people buried inside just as we laid them out.”
“They’d want to do that?”
“Of course! Explorers wet their pants when they find mummified bodies, don’t they?”
“I suppose.” I squirm, almost too comfortable, slotted into that casket as I am. He sees that.
“Lay down. Once our customers actually lay in this thing, they don’t go with anything else.”
“You mean the live or dead ones?”
He doesn’t laugh at my joke and to fill the awkward moment I ease myself onto my back. In the further recesses of my mind a worry is sharpening its edges on the possibility that he might try and scare me, shut me in or something. But people will be here soon, lots of them, and since he’s a serious (perhaps too serious) businessman, and not a prank-pulling teenager, I ignore that concern.
“A hundred thousand dollars and a free casket,” he says. “This very casket. That’s an incredible deal for your business. Final offer.”
“It’s not for sale,” I repeat, for what feels like the fiftieth time.
“But you could retire. When does social security kick in? You must be nearly there.”
“I’m forty-five.”
