A look at America's ever-evolving dance with the Grim Reaper.

How long, I would ask, are we to be subjected to the tyranny of custom and undertakers?

--Lord Essex

On March 10, the state Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) revoked the business licenses of a crematory and three Neptune societies, all in Southern California. Earlier in the year, state inspectors came across a grisly sight: Bodies entrusted to these four cremation organizations were found with heads, extremities and genitals exposed.

"They found 24 bodies stored improperly; unrefrigerated, unembalmed human bodies. Some were leaking bodily fluids," says Nancy Hardacre of DCA.

DCA charged the four businesses with misrepresentation and fraud, plus negligence and unprofessional conduct. Other charges included the improper handling of three bodies identified as having HIV, AIDS or hepatitis. What''s more, the four entities were already on probation for leaving 54 sets of cremated remains along a creek bed in the Tehachapi area of Kern County.

The reason this story piques the interest is not that the cremation societies involved had shoddy business practices--businesses violate rules all the time. Nor is it the horror film images of decomposing bodies left out to dry or cremation urns lining a creek bed, though these pictures do tend to shock.

The thing that makes this unsettling is that the actions of the four cremation societies were a violation of a sacred ritual, one that is as old as civilization: the funeral. While many of the lives that accompanied the misspent remains were no doubt formally eulogized, that the bodies themselves were treated without proper respect is an affront to established tradition, and therefore offensive to many.

What is that tradition? At its core, it is a religious ritual that varies in detail from culture to culture. But in modern America, disposal of the dead is also a multi-step process involving both the public and private sectors. It is a highly regulated, multi-billion-dollar industry ($800 million in California alone), one which is evolving to reflect the current mores of society.

Funerals are pretty compared with death.

--Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

The 2,100 people who died in Monterey County last year made numerous stops between expiration and their final resting places. Their journey is peppered with red tape and post-mortem procedure, and begins not in a funeral chapel or church, but in the county coroner''s office, in Salinas.

Contrary to what one might expect, the county morgue is not a dark, creepy place where stiffs are stored in drawers in a wall. It is clean and well-lit, and staffed by friendly professionals. Except for the occasional celebrity visit--most recently, John Denver--and the green plastic eyeball in formaldehyde that sits on a shelf next to tissue samples taken from the dead, this place is, pardon the pun, as peaceful as a tomb.

According to Alan Wheelus, division commander at the coroner''s office, every passing that occurs anywhere in the county must have a death certificate stating the cause of death. If, for instance, someone dies in the hospital after a lengthy stay, the attending physician can sign the death certificate. But if there are questions surrounding the death, or if the deceased is indigent with no known family, it goes to the coroner.

"Of the 2,100 deaths in the county last year, 1,200 were reportable to the coroner," says Wheelus. "Of that number, we probably did 300 autopsies last year to determine the cause of death."

If the autopsy turns up something fishy, then Wheelus or one of the three other investigators on staff looks into the circumstances surrounding the death. If not, the coroner''s office signs the death certificate.

At this point, most bodies are transported to a funeral home. Indigents, or people who have no money or family, will be cremated at county expense, their ashes spread over the ocean if no one claims them (see sidebar, page 19).

"We probably do 20-30 indigents per year," says Wheelus. "We can act as a mortuary, but that is not what we are here for. We are here to take care of indigents and others who can''t do it themselves."

Wheelus adds that occasionally family members try to pass themselves off as poor in order to get the county to pick up the tab for their loved one''s burial. "If we find out that is the case," says Wheelus, "we take them to court and charge them three times the county''s costs."

Die now and save 20 percent.

--A paid newspaper advertisement by Lusk Funeral Home, Corinth, Miss., 1978

Bidding adieu to a loved one can be so expensive that it is no wonder some try to claim poverty. If the survivors themselves aren''t indigent before a funeral, they probably will be afterward.

As the body goes from morgue or hospital to funeral home, the cost of death escalates rapidly. Each year, Americans spend billions of dollars to pay proper respect to the dearly departed, purchasing coffins, ceremonies, gravestones, cremation urns, and any number of other funeral-related goods and services considered essential to a proper send-off.

According to the Funeral Directors Association of America, the average funeral in 1996 cost $4,782, though one often hears higher numbers. In Monterey County, 18 funeral-related companies stand by to process and memorialize the roughly 2,100 people who die here each year. They offer everything you want or need, no matter what your financial, ethnic or cultural background.

"You can spend a little or you can spend a lot," says Mose Thomas, general manager of the Chapel of Seaside. Thomas, like all other funeral directors, accommodates the myriad cultural backgrounds of Monterey County''s diverse population.

"It''s like the United Nations around here," says Thomas. "You must accommodate the wishes of families from every group."

This ability to handle both the Buddhist and the Catholic funeral under the same roof is found in almost all funeral homes nationwide.

"This nation is way too diverse for us not to be able to handle any religious belief out there," says Martin Dean, a long-time funeral director currently with the California Cremation Society. "Nothing in the chapel is stationary. You can put in any symbol--the Star of David, the Crucifix, whatever--and take it out again for the next group."

While the symbols and the ritual may differ, the basics of an American funeral--casket, ceremony, burial--are common ground. According to Thomas, caskets are typically priced from the no-frills "pine box" model at $300, all the way up to a bronze number that can set you back $25,000.

Other specialty caskets can cost up to $100,000. "People select caskets based upon their lifestyles," says Dean.

Princess Diana currently rests in a shiny metal number that no doubt set the Queen back a few pounds. JFK''s casket was solid mahogany.

If a body is not buried within 24 hours of death, the law requires that it be embalmed or refrigerated, embalming being a service provided by most funeral homes. While the preservation of the dead famously dates back to Egypt, today embalming is done to temporarily preserve the corpse and to disinfect it.

The procedure itself involves draining the blood from a body and replacing it with embalming fluid. Body cavities are then packed with cotton or other materials. (If you are interested in embalming as a profession, it is listed by the state Employment Development Department as a "growth industry," although "turnover is low.")

Once this task is accomplished, the body is dressed, makeup is applied on those corpses to be displayed, and the deceased is finally placed in a coffin for participation in the service of your own design.

If you don''t like the whole idea of pickling your loved one and putting them in a box underground, your other option is cremation.

According to the California Funeral Directors'' Association (CFDA), cremation accounts for roughly 41 percent of all dispositions in the state, a number which had grown tremendously over the years, but has now leveled off. "Cremation was going up and up and up," says CFDA''s Bill Vlcek. "It has recently come down just a bit because of all the ethnic groups in the state."

Members of more traditional, conservative cultures are the least likely to opt for cremation, while white Protestants are the most likely. California ranks near the top in percentage of cremations. Alabama and Mississippi--conservative, Bible-belt states--are at the bottom with 4.1 and 3.5 percent respectively.

Locally, certain cities cremate more than others. According to Thomas, "60-70 percent" of the dead in Pacific Grove are cremated; In Monterey roughly half are; and in Seaside, with its ethnic diversity, only 27 percent of those who die are cremated.

"One reason for the increase in the number of cremations over the past few years is that it is more economical," says Steve Maze, an arrangement counselor for the Monterey Cremation Service. "Our cremations start at $797 while the average funeral is probably running in the neighborhood of $5,000."

Cremation is the burning of the flesh from the body at a temperature of 1600-2000 degrees Fahrenheit for two-three hours in a "retort," or oven. The flesh and fluids evaporate, leaving only bone.

Interestingly enough, many retorts can''t handle a "morbidly obese" corpse for fear of starting a grease fire and burning the whole place down. Maze says that in this area, fat corpses are sent away to special retorts for cremation.

The remaining bones are then crushed into a fine dust (commonly referred to as ashes, though the experts call it "cremains.") What you are getting in the urn is crushed, sterilized calcium.

"It''s all pretty clean," says Maze. "The heat was so high it has all been sterilized. You just don''t want to breathe it in."

According to Maze, with the ashes you have three legal choices: 1) They can be returned to the next of kin; 2) they can be scattered at sea (three miles out, never over land); or 3) they can be buried at a cemetery.

O Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Where, indeed. Many a badly stung survivor, faced with the aftermath of some relative''s funeral, has ruefully concluded that the victory has been won hands down by the funeral establishment--in a disastrously unequal battle.

--Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death

Because

the death ritual in America has become such big business, and the business is one that gives many the creeps, the funeral industry is now considered one of the most tightly regulated in America, thanks in part to Mitford''s 1963 expos‚.

"There are laws governing almost every aspect of death you can imagine, from morgues to mortuaries and beyond," says Wheelus. "The funeral industry in general is very heavily regulated."

Isolated incidents, like the ones involving the Neptune Societies in Southern California, only add fire to the flame of suspicion surrounding the funeral industry.

"We are tightly regulated, but in the case of the Neptune Societies in Southern California, obviously not as tightly as we should have been," says Dean, who admits there are negative perceptions of unscrupulous funeral directors taking advantage of the distraught.

"We are, what I consider, a picked-on industry," says Dean. "Our industry has been highly criticized of late and yes, there have been problems. But there are bad operators in every industry and in the funeral industry, these few are making it difficult for the rest of us."

"The biggest misconception about the funeral industry is that we are out preying on the bereaved," says Thomas.

Misconception or not, the regulation of the funeral industry comes down like the wrath of God from both federal (Federal Trade Commission, OSHA) and state (Cal OSHA, Department of Consumer Affairs) governments and covers all aspects of the funeral business, particularly where the exchange of money is involved.

To avoid purchasing a $25,000 funeral you don''t need, the Department of Consumer Affairs'' Hardacre suggests that everyone plan ahead, so that decisions are never made in a state of grief.

"They are regulated, but there are still ways for them to take advantage of you," says Hardacre. "This is a topic people don''t like to discuss and often they do wait until the last minute. At that point they can''t think logically."

Funerals

are always occasions for pious lying.

--I.F. Stone

As America gradually evolves from a religious to a secular society, so too will the American funeral ritual. There are those, like Jessica Mitford and Lord Essex, who felt that funerals have always been nothing more than high-priced theater.

But others, like Howard Raether, the former head of the National Funeral Directors Association, see the funeral ritual as an integral, universal part of being human. "Man is an animal that buries his dead with ceremony. Funeral customs prevail throughout the world, some being simple, others ostentatious."

Those customs, particularly in America, are in constant flux. "To a certain extent funerals are changing," observes Raether. "There is a trend to play down the death that has occurred and celebrate the life that has been lived."

And perhaps not investing so much in a long good-bye for a corpse will become more popular. The Associated Press recently reported that on-line funerals, replete with video conferencing, are a cheap substitute for flying across the country to a attend funeral. It is not uncommon to videotape funerals for those who cannot be there. Furthermore, in Massachusetts, caskets are now available for rent, at a fraction of the price of owning one.

As reaction to the incidents with the cremation societies in Southern California indicates, we as a society are far from being comfortable with the dead and will continue to treat the passing of loved ones with reverence. Funerals provide a necessary outlet for communal grieving, but in the end, this expensive, highly regulated, commercialized ritual does nothing for the deceased and leaves survivors neck-deep in red ink.

To quote the late African-American funeral director Napoleon Lusk, "Funerals are for the living. The dead just don''t care." cw