walk-up apartment. He was getting a "county burial."

I guess I shouldn't say I was the only mourner, because
the funeral director was also there. While the graveside prayers were being
said by the priest, I saw the funeral director, who was standing by, wiping
away his tears, totally saddened that a man should die all alone and friendless.

Even before I saw that, I had always had a great respect
for funeral directors, who are experts, after all, on death and grief,
and more often than not, a great comfort to the families who come to them,
not knowing what to do or how to act.

I think my admiration for funeral directors started when
I was an altar boy. The funeral directors always tipped us, and the money
was used for our altar boy trips to ExcelsiorAmusement Park.

I also admired them for the fact that I saw them forgive
us, on at least two occasions - one time one of us threw up in the back
seat of a new Cadillac limousine, and another time when a careless altar
boy burned the carpet of the plush funeral car with the bottom of a red-hot
censer on the way to the cemetery. And then, at the cemetery, that same
altar boy, standing next to the funeral director, still holding the smoking
censer, threw up on the poor man's black shiny shoes and pants cuffs.

But it wasn't only my Waverly experience that made me
fascinated with the subject of death. Sister Mary Micheas had put us on
to Shakespeare, and it didn't take long to discover that death and dying
were his major themes, and