The following day Marcia phoned the SCI headquarters to inquire about the June 1 price increase for the crypts. There was a certain amount of foot-dragging, during which she was shunted from executive to executive; eventually Mr. Pat Geary, manager of Memorial Oaks, yet another SCI mortuary-cemetery combination, rang back to say that there was no increase planned for the crypts, Sandy was mistaken. (Or was she merely following suggestions given in sales courses? Marcia wondered.)

For some days thereafter, Marcia strove to sort out what the total cost would be for Forest Park’s cheapest plan—first, if one of the crypts was used; second, for a “direct burial” or a “direct cremation,” meaning no “viewing” of the body and no religious service.

“Well, I must say, these people really don’t like to talk prices!” she said. David Dettling, funeral director at Forest Park, was less than forthcoming about the first item, “Minimum Services.” “He could not/would not break it down,” Marcia told me. “There’s no way of avoiding that charge, even if we are able to perform most of the things enumerated ourselves.”

Next on the price list: PREPARATION OF THE BODY. Embalming, $425. Refrigeration, $425. “They get their $425 either way,” said Marcia. “If you choose not to be embalmed, then you have to be refrigerated, even if you have direct cremation. Mr. Dettling also told me that an unembalmed body can only be viewed by the legal next of kin, and then only for a few moments. This has to do with liability of the funeral home for ‘blood-borne pathogens’!!” (One of the more dazzling flights of fancy; as any pathologist will tell you, a dead body presents no risk whatsoever of infecting the living when there’s no contagious disease.)

After many telephone discussions with various SCI personnel, Marcia got some figures.

First, direct cremation:

“Minimum Services” for direct cremation (SCI has magnanimously reduced the price from $1,682)	$1,252
Transportation of the body from place of death	$355
Refrigeration	$425
Cardboard box	$275
Crematory charge	$475
Vehicle for picking up certificates	$100
Total	$2,882

Next, assuming that Aunt Jessie breathes her last in Houston and ends up in one of Marcia’s already paid for crypts, the cost would be:

“Minimum Services”	$1,682
Transportation of body from place of death to funeral home	$355
Refrigeration/embalming	$425
Minimum sealed (gasketed) casket	$2,598
Transferring body from funeral home to crypt	$275
Open/close crypt (removing and replacing the faceplate)	$660
Vehicle for picking up permits	$100
Total	$6,095

^{(Opening/closing crypt charges rise to $685 on Saturday, $780 on Saturday afternoon, $975 on holidays. Never on Sunday.)}

I asked why they charge $275 to take the body the two hundred yards from the funeral home out to the crypt. “That seemed exorbitant,” said Marcia. “He said it’s a fixed fee within a fifty-mile radius. Even so close, it’s the same because of the ‘cost of maintaining the vehicles, their insurance, and so forth.’ Outrageous! Also, I asked why the minimum service fee of $1,682 couldn’t be discounted for immediate burial the same as it was for cremation, and he said, ‘Well, they do that to make cremation a little cheaper than burial.”

These arrangements may be all very well for Marcia; she’s obviously not your typical Houston funeral buyer. She’s going to dump Aunt Jessie in an old, unair-conditioned crypt in the cheapest casket, no opportunity for neighbors to come and visit her, no religious service or memorial gathering. Those who are inclined to even a modicum of ceremony would have to add a few items from the FPW price list to the above rock-bottom minimum:

Use of facilities and staff services for visitation (per day)	$ 98
Funeral service in FWP chapel, or	$725
Staff and services in other facility, or	$725
Chapel for memorial service without remains present	$725
Equipment and staff services for service at graveside	$515
Additional charge for use of facilities/staff on Sunday or holiday	$600
Caskets	from $2,598 to $25,145
Copper vault (resists the entrance of outside elements)	$20,378

There is lots more—clothing up to $192, flowers up to $2,000, memorial booklet, commemorative flag case—but why go on? Readers can check out the SCI facilities in their own communities via 1-800-9CARING. [20]

What happens to all that money? According to Graef S. Crystal, corporate-compensation expert, SCI is one of ten companies out of a total of 414 that he studied in 1995 whose directors and chief executives were most overpaid ( New York Times, June 27, 1995). The directors, he reckons, are overpaid by 95 percent, and CEO Robert Waltrip, founder and brains behind the company, by 62 percent.

I asked Mr. Crystal how much the SCI directors get. A total package, comprising annual retainers, meeting fees, stock options, pension benefits, and deferred compensation, of $102,000 maybe more, he said. “Fair pay, considering the size and performance of the company, would be $49,700,” And the CEO? “He gets a total value of $4,321,000. Using the same factors, a fair package would be $2,670,000.” He added that the CEO’s performance has been “unremarkable, neither very good nor very bad, for the past ten years; but it has improved recently.”

Heading the list of these high-priced directors is Anthony L. Coelho, president and CEO of Wertheim Schroder Investment Services, Inc., better known as Tony Coelho, former Democratic congressman from California. In 1989, under a cloud of scandal, he resigned from the House of Representatives, relinquishing his powerful position as majority whip, just one step ahead of a Justice Department and House Ethics Committee investigation involving his personal investment in a junk bond that was completed with the help of a savings and loan executive (Wall Street Journal, March 29, 1994).

As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 1981 through 1986, according to the Washington Post(January 8, 1995), Coelho, some say, “sold his party’s soul by vastly expanding contributions of business PACs and the expectations those contributors felt in return.”

In 1994, rehabilitated by the passage of time, he joined President Clinton’s inner circle of advisors. But like the Grim Reaper himself, Mr. Coelho is a bipartisan sort of fellow: “I love Bob Dole!” he told the Washington Postin an interview. “I have great friends on the Republican side. [Lobbyist] Jim Lake and I are as close as brothers!”

All of which bodes exceedingly well for the future of SCI’s global village of the dead.

17. FUNERALS IN ENGLAND THEN AND NOW

In order to appreciate the changes in the funeral landscape that are currently taking place in England, it will be useful to revisit the scene as it existed thirty years ago.