I nearly lost my ass a few years ago on a business venture that bought and sold things off dead folks. An old shipmate named Ray came up with the idea one night at cards in the back of the Walmart he managed. That’s what he says anyway, though I think his wife might have had some part in it, seeing as she was a hospice nurse at the time.
What he did was he got someone to promise they’d leave him their jewelry or car or something valuable when they die, in return for a couple bucks up front. Most people are happy to have some money in their pocket if it just means giving up something they’ll never have a need for when they’re dead anyway, so Ray was doing pretty good off just the people his wife met at her work. They couldn’t go big though, Ray told me, until they had some startup cash for a contract lawyer and a little to pay off some personal debts he accrued in the back of the Walmart.
I gave him about three hundred bucks, which was all of my savings at the time. Then he disappeared and I didn’t hear a word about him for six months. That’s when I saw his mugshot on TV after he got shot hawking a kid’s Huffy for some coke in an alley. It was sad to see him go but everything turned out all right because I went by his wife’s the next day and picked up that fridge he promised me when he was still alive.
Uncle Bernie Says 