Pardon My Hearse: A Colorful Portrait of Where the Funeral and Entertainment Industries Met in Hollywood (3 page)

Back at school, my geology professor announced that any interested students could participate in a field trip to an area known for abundant trilobites, which have been described as one of the oldest-known extinct creatures to ever inhabit the earth. As we gathered on the campus parking lot, we suggested that it might be a good idea for us to lead the motorcade
with our hearse, because there were about twelve cars full of students and our destination was over 100 miles away. The students who didn’t have a car would pair up with someone who did and help pay for the gasoline, but for some reason only one male student offered to go with us in the hearse. To further enhance our little procession, we suggested that all the drivers turn their headlights on, and like magic, other cars on the highway couldn’t get out of our way fast enough.

My teacher also told me about a place that sounded particularly interesting. It was a town that had an extinct volcano featuring a breach cinder cone, meaning one side of it had a large V-shaped opening. A few years earlier, some of the local kids had dragged a number of old tires into the breach and set them ablaze. Everyone in the small desert town panicked because the smoke made them think the volcano had come back to life and was about to erupt. The townsfolk didn’t appreciate the students’ brand of humor, including that of one wit who remarked that if it had been a real eruption, it would just be the mountain getting its rocks off.

During our next school break we drove to Death Valley, a rather apropos place for our vehicle. This was the first time we used my portable black light. After dark we set out to try to locate some fluorescent rocks. When I saw the first object that fluoresced, rather than picking it up, I had Ron run to the hearse for a flashlight. My geology professor had told me something that caused me to hesitate. He said that some snakes and scorpions also fluoresce. Sure enough, it was a scorpion with its stinger up and ready.

The place that fascinated me most in Death Valley was an area called the Devil’s Golf Course in Badwater, the lowest point in North America at almost 300 feet below sea level. We walked toward an area with salt pools and jagged salt spires coming up from the ground.

From my studies in geology, it occurred to me that these ultra-briny salt pools should have salt crystals growing just under the edge of the pools. These crystals took the shape of hundreds of perfect little cubes of transparent salt, all stuck to one another. Ron held my ankles as I dangled over the edge and put my entire arm in the water, up to my shoulder, to pry some loose with a tire iron. A local rock shop owner said that they were the nicest sample of halite crystals that he had ever seen since most crystals are opaque, but these were clear and transparent. The sale of some of these exceptional crystals paid for our entire trip.

Ron was happy to let me do most of the driving. Since our return trip was going to be about a seven-hour drive, he got into the back of the hearse and went to sleep. At one point, my devilish side kicked in, because this was a perfect opportunity to pull a devious stunt on him and liven up the boring trip home. We were on a desolate stretch of highway, so I slid across into the passenger’s seat carefully, while keeping my left foot on the gas pedal. Then, to keep the car driving straight, it was just a matter of resting my arm on the center console and using my thumb and finger at the very bottom of the steering wheel. Because of the darkened interior, I knew he would not be able to see my grip on the steering wheel. When I began yelling his name, he woke up and looked forward to see that we were traveling down the highway with no one in the driver’s seat. He let out a scream but soon realized what was going on because I was laughing so hard. After that, he decided to do the driving the rest of the way home.

After just a few months, the car’s muffler needed to be replaced. Many people, including the muffler shop’s owner, were curious why two kids would be driving around in an old hearse. We explained our camping car concept, and he became very interested. He asked if we would be willing to sell it, so we discussed it and came up with a price of $400. Amazingly, he went for it. With our nice profit in hand, we went to the central servicing garage at Pierce Brothers Mortuary, which was the largest chain operator in Los Angeles. The downtown branch operated a service facility storing a fleet of about thirty funeral cars. They had just bought two new hearses to replace their two oldest ones, so with the $400 we purchased both of them. Now we each had our own personal hearse so we could go places independently of each other.

My mom and dad welcomed Ron into our family, but we needed to find a place for him to sleep. My parents had some extra furniture in the backyard shed left over from our move from Los Angeles to Inglewood, and one of the things my dad didn’t want anymore was a butcher’s block table. We drove to a used-furniture store and tried to sell or trade it for a rollaway bed. The salesman followed us out to the hearse parked in front of the store. When we opened the large side doors, he looked at the butcher’s table and said, “Exactly what kind of business are you guys in?” The trade worked out great, because Ron would roll the bed into my room each night and back out to the shed the next morning.

When school let out, we needed to get some type of employment. Ron had worked the previous summer for a florist delivering flowers to funeral homes so he came up with an idea. We could use our hearses to deliver flowers from mortuaries to cemeteries, even though he admitted that when he had to place flowers next to the casket, his legs would start to shake.

Our first stop was at McGlynn’s Mortuary in Inglewood where the manager, Bob Johnson, was very receptive to the idea. He told us that most of the local funeral homes were using Johnson’s Transfer if they had to hire someone to deliver flowers. Johnson’s Transfer was a furniture moving company that used large canvas-covered trucks. They charged $12 and their employees wore coveralls, so we agreed to charge $7.50 and dress appropriately.

We called our new venture Abbott & Hast Mortuary Accommodation Company and had business cards printed up. That was a real mouthful, so we later shortened it to just Abbott & Hast Company. Within a few months we had talked to almost every mortuary owner in greater Los Angeles, and were getting so many calls that we had to buy a third hearse and talk my father and brother into driving for us on busy days.

We were conducting all of this business from my parents’ home. Soon, our neighbors were leaving nasty notes on our cars, asking us not to park near their houses. So many complaints came in that the police department started leaving notices on our hearses, warning us that it was illegal to leave a vehicle on the streets for over two days without moving it. We started putting 3" x 5" cards in the windows of each hearse stating the day and time they were moved. As a result of neighbors’ continuing complaints, the Inglewood City Council passed a local ordinance that no car could be left on the street overnight. The newspaper printed an article that was headlined, “Inglewood Passes Law to Get Hearses off the Streets.” Of course, they never enforced the law except in our case.

The next giant leap came when McGlynn’s called to ask if we would be interested in picking up a body in Sacramento. We readily agreed but didn’t have the slightest idea what to charge. The manager at the mortuary, Bob Johnson, was apparently talking to us in the presence of the mortuary owner. When we were hesitant to quote a price, he said, “Ninety-five dollars? That sounds very reasonable.”

Now we were faced with another predicament because we didn’t have any stretchers. There were some old ambulance cots in a storage room of the hearse lot, so we called Bob Blake and asked if they might be for sale. He stated that they were very old and dirty, but if we wanted one we could take our pick for $20. We polished it with steel wool and made a trip to the dime store to buy the largest fat man’s belts they sold, because the cot straps on it were stained and worn. That same afternoon, we took it into our living room and practiced picking my mother up off the floor and placing her on the cot.

As we took off the next morning, we marveled at how great it felt to be earning that much money just driving. Sacramento was about 450 miles away, but in those days gasoline was only 19¢ a gallon, so we figured we would net about $75. There was never any thought about the eighteen hours we would be on the road. As we drove we discussed how we would react when actually confronted with a deceased person to pick up, so we were a little apprehensive.

Everything went well at the mortuary, so we headed back to Los Angeles. I had driven all the way up and part of the way back, so just before dawn I woke Ron and told him that he needed to take over so I could get some sleep. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was the beginning of many years of burning the midnight oil. The hearse had a divider
just behind the front bench seat that pretty much isolated us from the rear compartment. We specifically chose our only end-loading hearse for this job because we really didn’t want to be in an open-interior hearse with the deceased. The divider was solid except for a window through which you could see out with the rearview mirror.

Ron immediately started watching his rear view mirror very intently, but not to check traffic. He wanted to keep an eye on the dead guy in the back. Soon he had gained a reasonable amount of assurance that the body wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, he had gotten relaxed enough to start steering the car with only his wrist at the top of the steering wheel. All of a sudden the hearse started to swerve and Ron was screaming, “Allan, Allan.” He quickly pulled over to the shoulder and stopped the car. Needless to say, it was pretty scary being woken up like that. Ron was breathing fast and holding his hand over his heart, and for a few moments it seemed like he might be having a heart attack. He finally calmed down enough to blurt out what had happened.

As the morning sunlight slowly started coming through the windshield, the reflection of his own hand appeared on the glass divider behind his head. When he glanced in the rearview mirror, he thought the guy on the cot was trying to slide the divider glass open to get him. His story was so funny that it was impossible for me not to bust out laughing. Now the time had come for us to decide if we were really prepared to be in such a predictably disquieting line of work, and we needed to know if we were mentally resolved to deal with what was sure to come.

The common term for picking up human remains is “making a removal,” but in the jargon used by mortuary personnel it was “making a first call.” Usually, the first contact with a family member comes when the mortuary is notified by phone that a death has occurred. Some mortuaries preferred using a vehicle that wasn’t easily identified, especially on house calls. In fairly short order, we became aware that there were mortuary vehicles that appeared to be nothing more than a limousine.

Before the mid-’50s, many American cars had standard front doors, but the rear doors opened in the opposite direction. The only thing separating the front and rear doors was a five-inch post from the roof to the rocker panel below. Some companies in the East were modifying early Cadillac limousines that had this door configuration. They would cut this post at top and bottom and attach it to the rear door, so when both doors were opened, it would give unobstructed access for a stretcher to be placed inside.

Groman Mortuary in Los Angeles had a modified 1949 Cadillac limousine first-call car for sale, so we went to see it. We met the embalmer, Tony Martini, who showed us the car. Inside were two bucket seats on the driver’s side and a void on the right side for the cot. Tony suggested that we follow him into the embalming room, where he would relate more details about the car.

The public rarely has any reason to enter an embalming room, and the law in California requires that the door to the “prep room,” as it is called, must have a warning sign stating this restriction. I’m sure it never occurred to Tony that we had never been in a prep room before. After all, we were there to see about buying a first-call car. He proceeded to unwrap a sheet containing the body of an elderly woman they had picked up at a local hospital. They had performed what is known as a “full post.” Post stands for postmortem, and this type of autopsy is referred to as a full post because it includes opening not only the chest cavity, but the skull as well.

By this time, we had picked up only one body, and it had been in a body bag. Now this was the real deal and a journey into uncharted territory, because we still weren’t sure that this was something that we wanted to pursue to the next level. As we watched, Tony proceeded to cut the sutures from the head and pull the scalp back over the face in order to remove the skullcap, or calvarium, which had been cut with a Stryker vibrating bone-saw. The brain had been removed and we found ourselves standing there, peering into an empty brain cavity.

In cases where an autopsy has been performed and the vascular loop has been interrupted in many places by the post, it becomes necessary to inject embalming fluid at different points, a procedure called six-point injection. Not really knowing what to expect, we just remained standing at the head end of the table, showing no sign of anxiety about what was unfolding in front of us.