Business Is Dead

Although he was a bit oafy and completely lacked coordination, Thomas Thomas was overall a pretty good kid. His clumsiness was due to his abnormally large head and feet. His head was the size of a large melon and he wore a size 16 shoe. These features did not at all match his 5’ 6”, 200 pound body. 

The way Thomas looked, acted, and that weird name all worked against him growing up. The kids used to chant, “Thomas Thomas, name so nice his mama named him twice.” 

Thomas came home for the summer after his first year of college. To make a few extra bucks, actually, to replace actually getting a job, Thomas sold fake ID’s. His college roommate knew a guy who knew a guy that was able to steal an actual ID maker from the DMV.

Selling fake ID’s took a lot of time out of Thomas’ already busy schedule of playing video games with guys in Russia all night and sleeping all day. When his responsible roommate, Charles, would try to get him up for class the next day, Thomas would look up with his bloodshot eyes, smile and give his usual reply, “Class was canceled, man, class was definitely canceled.” It seemed that late night gaming, and the desire to sleep days away took precedence over learning anything. 

After two semesters, and a whole lot of cancelled classes, Thomas was confronted by his father. Thomas' 1.2 grade point average wasn't cutting it, and his dad would no longer be contributing to the delinquency of a minor. In other words, Thomas would either be paying his own tuition or he would have to quit school and get a job. Since staying in school would require dedication and hard work, Thomas opted to get a job and begin his new career…whatever THAT might be.

Right before the end of the summer, Thomas’ sister got married. The whole family was there, and at Thomas family functions, everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business. "Oh, I heard you lost your job," Aunt Jackie would say. Then Grandma would say to Uncle John, "I heard your divorce was finalized yesterday. Good! I never liked that slut wife of yours anyway."

There always seemed to be one family member who was the focus, and this time, Thomas was the big winner.

Thomas had a very wealthy uncle, Tony. While Thomas was sampling the punch, which Grandma had spiked with vodka, he looked over and saw his dad talking to Tony. Tony looked at Thomas, nodded his head and smiled.

While Thomas continued sampling the punch, Tony approached him. Uncle Tony was a huge man at 6' 5" and weighing in around 300 pounds. He had fiery red hair and pale skin. Thomas' dad used to call him the albino rat. Everyone in the family "respected" Tony, but it was actually fear. He had a pretty nasty reputation as a badass from his bouncer days in Chicago. Yeah, he was a guy you really didn't want to piss off. 

Tony's life joy was making money and he was only content when people were indebted to him. His favorite saying was, “Those with the gold make the rules.”

"What ya say, boyo?" asked Tony, reaching out to shake Thomas' hand. "What up Uncle T?" replied Thomas, grabbing Tony's hand. No need to bore you with the mundane details of the entire conversation; the forced small talk that eventually leads to the point. But in short, Tony offered Thomas a job. This was undoubtedly a brotherly favor being cashed in by Thomas’ dad. But Thomas liked the offer, an opportunity to work at a rather large company that his uncle ran. Tony became wealthy working for this company, and since it was his uncle who ran the company, Thomas could quickly work himself up to CEO, right?

The position Tony offered to Thomas was an offer he couldn’t refuse. Tony ran a company called FBI, Funerals and Burials International. His corporation owned and operated 10,000 different funeral homes, cemeteries and crematoriums throughout the world. 

Thomas started his career at FBI as a General Maintenance Technician and Funeral Director’s Assistant, or to be more precise, he was a janitor.

Though not the most glamorous position, Thomas was excited. He would be living in Chicago, get a generous salary, a free apartment above one of the funeral homes, and full access to company cars. The automobile he generally used was a Ford Bronco.

FBI owned 10 funeral homes in Chicago. Thomas' jobs were to plow their parking lots, clean the offices, general building maintenance, running errands, and performing other duties as needed. Other duties included picking up dead bodies from hospitals, and helping dress dead people for their wakes.

Working at a funeral home when you are 19 might depress most people. You're constantly around death and sadness, and girls don't generally want to date a mortician, but Thomas rather enjoyed it. Thomas had a sick and morbid sense of humor. To be funny, Thomas would go behind a dearly departed who had recently had an autopsy done on them. He would look through the hole cut in their brainless heads, pull open their eyes and say, "So this is how this person saw the world."

During wakes, Thomas tried to lighten the mood by telling jokes to family members, or said stupid things like, “Business sure is dead around here,” or, “Hey, that guy looks a bit stiff." Obviously, nobody thought that these things were funny, especially his coworkers. But as nice of a guy as Thomas was, and as innocent as this stupidity was, he was kind of oblivious and socially awkward. 

The idiocy didn't stop there. Sometimes Thomas would use one of the hearses to pick up a date, just to see how she would react. Usually, those dates didn't turned out the way most guys want dates to turn out. Also, one time he was plowing snow during a wake. He drove like a maniac. He ended up losing control and smashed someone’s tail light. To hide the deed, Thomas threw the broken pieces of plastic into the bushes and packed snow over the tail light area so they wouldn't notice. Geez, those poor people probably didn’t even know they had a broken taillight until the snow melted in the Spring. Jerk! But of all the dumb things he ever did, of all the stupid stunts, I think the topper was the attic incident.

Several of Thomas’ co-workers, including the funeral home Manager, Andrew, thought he was a spy for Tony. Truth be told, they just didn't like Thomas. Andrew gave Thomas a lot of crappy jobs to do just to get him to quit. But Thomas actually didn't mind doing all those jobs. It was just a job, and he did everything he was told without complaint.

Andrew continued trying to find ways to get Thomas to quit. He and the employees at the funeral home would give Thomas dirty looks, and make jokes about him behind his back (even though they made sure he heard them). They all laughed and giggled and gave him the back when he would try to talk to them. What they didn't realize was Thomas was very used to ridicule and bullying from his school days.

Andrew finally realized that Thomas wasn’t going anywhere unless he did something drastic. But Thomas was somewhat protected by Tony, so Thomas would really have to do something epic to justify dismissal. 

After much thought, Andrew crafted the perfect plan. He knew Thomas was a klutz, always tripping over his own feet throughout any given day, so why not use that as part of the plan?

There was a huge wake that night. The man was young and popular, so Andrew knew that the wake would be packed. 

The wake started, and as expected, there were a lot of attendees. Thomas was there, helping Andrew direct.

Andrew continuously looked over with disdain as Thomas would tell attendees jokes and make dumbass remarks. Regardless of his awfulness, this had to be done carefully.

Early during the wake, Andrew told Thomas that the water pipes in the attic may freeze that night. Later in the night, Andrew handed Thomas some insulation, electrical tape, and a ladder. They went into the hallway together. Andrew pulled open a hatch that led to the attic. "Get up there," said Andrew.

Thomas looked very confused and asked, "And do what?"

"Insulate the pipes," Andrew answered.

“But what about the wake,” Thomas replied.

“This needs to get done tonight or the pipes will freeze,” Andrew replied.

Thomas clumsily climbed into the attic. The roof of the building was not high, about four feet at it’s highest, and the pitch brought it down to about one foot at it’s lowest. There was not a lot of room up there. Thomas was going to have to crawl. Naturally, the pipes he had to insulate were way in the back, where there was only about one foot from the floor to the roof. There really wasn't even a floor. There were joyces, and blown insulation that covered the ceiling for the downstairs. This was a nightmare waiting to happen.

Thomas climbed deeper and deeper into the confined space, sweating, swearing and growing more irritated by the minute as the wooden Joyces dug into his legs and hands. There had to be a better way, right?

As he crawled further in, Thomas wondered what was below the blown insulation. He slipped his hand down and felt a hard surface. He tapped the surface with his hand. Is it wood? Of course it is wood, dummy. You don't climb on the Joyces, you walk on the wood under the insulation...obviously! This totally made sense now.

Thomas tested the surface by lightly stepping down. Now for the real test, his full body weight. Aaaannnnnd, steeeeeep...Uh oh! FLODLE-TOT! 

Well, you guessed it. He couldn’t have been more wrong. What he had felt with his hand was a DRYWALL ceiling, and it happened to be directly above the casket in the parlor full of people downstairs. This ceiling that was NOT designed to hold more than maybe 50 pounds. When he broke on through, one foot was on one side of the joyce, and the other foot was on the other side. He absolutely crushed his testicles.

People at the wake watched as two legs come crashing through and dangled from the ceiling. The body of the man was completely covered with drywall chunks, dust, and blown insulation. It was just bad. 

When Thomas was finally able to wiggle himself free, he rolled to the right, which ended up being another huge mistake. He went through again, this time his entire body. The only thing stopping him from landing on top of the casket was his large feet, which got caught in the hole that his body created. He dangled upside down, right above the body, until some compassionate attendees helped him down.

Thomas quickly walked out of the parlor and into the office. He sat behind the desk and waited. 

Andrew burst into the room and yelled, “What the Hell just happened?”

Thomas stared at Andrew coldly from behind the desk with his hands folded. He leaned back in his chair and calmly said, “You set me up.”

“What are you talking about?” Andrew replied.

“You sent me up there knowing something bad would happen,” Thomas said.

“That’s not true,” Andrew defended.

“Look," Thomas scoffed, “What just happened wasn’t good for either of us. You could get me fired, sure, but I can tell my uncle how you sent me up there during a wake. Who is my uncle going to be more mad at?”

Thomas kind of had Andrew by the pills, and Andrew knew it. Since Tony ran the company, it didn't behove him to make an enemy out of Thomas. He might get fired, and with a degree in Mortuary Science, his career options were very limited. Thomas might look weird and act stupidly at times, but he was Tony's nephew, and that definitely was not a fight worth fighting.

Andrew went to the family of the deceased to apologize, but they weren't even mad. The wife told Andrew that Phil, the guy who was dead, was a huge practical joker, and many of the attendees actually thought Phil set it all up as a final joke.

Relieved that he was able to avert a disastrous lawsuit, Andrew helped Thomas clean all the rubble off of the body and did a quick patch on the holes. The two then made a pact that this would go in the vault. Nobody but them would ever know what happened.

After that, Andrew laid off Thomas. In fact, the incident kind of became a private joke between them. 

Andrew had Thomas running errands all over Chicago. One day, Andrew asked Thomas to go to the crematorium to give the caretaker, Jim, an important package. What was in the envelope? Who knows? Call it a MacGuffin. Thomas certainly didn’t know, nor did he care. This kind of errand usually took about two hours, which meant two less hours less of crap work around the funeral home. It was a welcome request for sure. 

Crematorium Jim was a weirdo, so he and Thomas actually got along pretty good. Thomas drove the Bronco through the graveyard, right up to the door of the crematorium and handed Jim the package. Jim started walking towards the crematorium and said, "I have a few minutes while the body in the oven incinerates. Want some coffee?"

"No," Thomas answered, "I have shit to do."

Jim waved as he hobbled back into the crematorium. Thomas sped off in the Bronco, almost hitting several headstones.

When Thomas got back, Andrew had already left. There was a note and another package on the desk that read: 

"Thomas, 

Please bring this to Jim before six. 

Andrew."   

Thomas was annoyed. It was already almost five, and the cemetery closed promptly at six. There was no way he would make it by six in Chicago rush hour traffic, so he decided to wait. After all, he had the punch key code for the front gate, and figured he could just go to the crematorium to drop the package off later.

Thomas grabbed his favorite dinner, Chicago Style Hot Dogs from Portello's. He started watching Monday Night Football. As the game came to a close, he remembered that he still had to go tot he crematorium to drop off the package. “Shit,” he yelled.

Thomas headed for the cemetery. He knew it might be a bit spooky going to a cemetery at night, but he had to deliver the package that night or face the wrath of Andrew.

When he got to the cemetery, he parked at the front gate and walked to the crematorium so nobody would get freaked out that. they saw some guy walking around a cemetery at night.

As he approached the crematorium, he noticed a car parked in front of the building. This car did NOT belong to anyone who worked there. 

Thomas proceeded with caution. He walked up to the crematorium quietly and looked through the window. Inside, two men in black suits were laughing and joking around while they placed a body into the incinerator. 

As Thomas watched, he started to feel ill. Was he actually witnessing a murder take place? A body being disposed of? Who was it? Jim? God, this was awful.

Thomas decided to get out of Dodge. He left quickly very quietly. When he got to the Bronco, he took the added precaution of keeping his lights off until he was a block away.

The next morning, he dropped off the package, and left quickly. He then went to Tony’s office to tell him what happened. 

When Tony finally arrived, he was surprised to see Thomas. “What are you doing here?”

“Uncle T,” Thomas said nervously, “I think something bad happened at the cemetery last night.”

“What do you mean?” Tony asked.

“I saw two men cremating a body,” Thomas answered, “And I know they don’t work for the company.”

Tony got up from his chair and walked over to the office door and gently closed it. He sat down behind his huge desk, looked Thomas right in the eye and asked, “Did you tell anyone else what you saw?”

“No,” Thomas replied, “Only you.”

“Good,” Tony said, sighing with relief, “For your own protection, I think it would be best if we parted ways.”

This was not the response Thomas was expecting. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean you’re fired,” said Tony, “Get the fuck out of here and never come back. Understand?"

"I...uh, no?" Thomas replied.

"You always were a dumb fuck," Tony said, shaking his head, "What you saw was a crew taking care of some business."

"A crew?" asked Thomas.

"Mafia dumbass," replied Tony.

"And you know about it?" asked Thomas.

"Assisting with body disposal is a lucrative racket," Tony replied, "If there's no body, there's no case. What better way to dispose of a body than to cremate it, wouldn't you say?"

This suprised Thomas. He always thought Uncle Tony was on the up and up.

Tony continued, "So get the fuck out of here, never come back, and for your own good, I would suggest never telling anyone else what you saw.”

Thomas left Uncle Tony's office, got all of his stuff from his apartment, and went back home. He couldn’t tell people the truth, so he told everyone that he just couldn’t handle working with dead people anymore. Even though that wasn’t true, it was a good lie because his dad bought it, and thats what mattered most to Thomas.

A few weeks later, Thomas sat down with his father. They had a few beers, and talked about responsibility and Thomas doing something with his life. Thomas convinced him that the semester he had off was a good lesson, and that if he gave him another chance and payed his tuition, he wouldn’t let him down again. Mr. Thomas agreed and Thomas went back to school in the Spring.