Le Petite Corpse: Part Deux

Jacques’ business operation, the Rameau Mortuary, is in the old French quarter, only three or four blocks from Bourbon Street. He sometimes walks down to the old Al Hirt place for an afternoon libation. I don’t think Al is around anymore.

Jacques had a weird idea several years ago, but by all accounts he has made a bundle from it. New Orleans is old, it is wet, and it is growth-constrained by lakes, rivers, swamps, levees, and such. Thus it is no surprise that cemetery plots are expensive. It is almost impossible to get buried underground in the New Orleans area now.

Cremation seems like a logical alternative, and a lot of it gets done. But cremation clashes with some aspects of the French-Catholic culture, and some folks still find comfort in our Elizabethan-based funeral traditions. Visitation, lying in state, and so on. Edgar Allen Poe with his tales of premature burial had a lot to do with all that.

Jacques’ idea was simple. For twelve grand or so, he can sell you a typical New Orleans funeral: casket, sealed vault, and above-ground burial in a low-rent cemetery north of town. This includes some flowers, as well as the usual hearse-rides between church, funeral home, and gravesite. But here’s the deal: for six grand, he can do almost the same thing with a fake body.

You get a miniature corpse, crafted by Jacques himself but one-third size. A six-footer becomes two feet long and is an amazing replica of the larger original. He buys heads, suits, and so on from a ventriloquist supply house. He then applies his embalming skills to produce a lovely doll of your aunt Bertha, resting in peace in a beautiful three-foot casket. The original is cremated and sprinkled where you like. When it’s over, the parts get reused in the next funeral, or the bereaved can buy the doll, casket and all, for five hundred bucks or so. Some of these mini-corpses have even shown up for sale in the off-Bourbon souvenir stores. If the bereaved have no interest, sometimes Jacques actually takes bids from collectors, stores, or whoever.