Fashion Gets Grave
If You Lived Here, You'd Be Dead by Now
By Wayne Alan Brenner, Fri., Oct. 29, 1999
A tisket, a tasket. A green and yellow casket is on display in the small but well- arranged showroom of Caskets by Design at 5915 Burnet Road. Well, not just green and yellow. Green and yellow and pink, to be precise; and those colors are only part of the intricately floral-patterned flocked velvet completely covering the casket's metal shell. Yet this casket barely stands out in the room, displayed as it is with other visually effusive receptacles for the dead: classic pine boxes in blazing Western motif, modern brushed-aluminum models screened with faux marble vistas and images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, beautiful works of funereal craftsmanship outfitted with chromed hinges and all manner of ergonomic gripping rails for the pallbearers. There's even a casket featuring a tropical sea theme painted by Rory Skagen (formerly half of the design wizards Skagen/Brakhage), with sculpted cornerpieces -- modeled after Renaissance fountain fish, no less -- by Black Mountain Art. The perky, highly positive woman in charge of this funky necrotorium -- open for almost three months in an unassuming strip mall at the corner of Koenig & Burnet -- spent the previous decade running the human resources department of a major nonprofit corporation here in town.
Her office walls are heavy with plaques of appreciation, honoring her generous work with the local Jaycees and Center for Battered Women.
The woman's name is Laura.
Laura Slaughter.
No, really.
"It's my birth name," she says, smiling. "I was adopted, and then, after my divorce, I went back to my birth name. This is the first time I've actually used it. But I never thought I'd get into a business like this, and then when I did, it was horrible because everybody says "Oh, are you the Slaughter with the meat market?' Because there used to be a Slaughter Meat Market downtown -- a butcher! So I usually just tell people, "I'm Laura.' And if I do tell them my last name, they just can't believe it. They ask me to spell it. It's an unfortunate coincidence -- but maybe it's predestined." Death is certainly predes-tined: for all of us. Which is why many people like to plan ahead, to choose their final resting place and the vessel that will hold their evacuated meat safe against the conqueror worm. But not everyone wants to exit in quite the same way. "Isn't it neat to say something about someone's life this way?" say Laura, eyes brightening. It's easy to see her enthusiasm, the sincere joy she brings to this work. "It's the last thing you see about someone -- their casket. And a lot of them are very cold, and just one color, you know? And some of them are elegant, but they're all elegant in the same way. And people are as varied as their personalities, so why not have a casket that reflects that?
"And that's what we do," she says, gesturing at the bright containers around the room. "We can put pictures of your life on the caskets. We can hand paint them, or do three-dimensional artwork, we even have -- for those Western ones -- hardware in the shape of horseshoes! We will do whatever it takes to have that life's memory reflected on the casket. And those caskets are cheaper than the ones you'll get at funeral homes.
"That's one of the reasons I got into this business, after I left my old job," says Laura. "First, I recognized a need that wasn't being provided. There were no custom designs or even alterations of existing models. But it really made sense when I saw how overpriced everything was. There are some funeral homes that aren't in it just for the money, they'll try to give people a break if they really need it, even when they're bound by regulations. But most of these places, well --" She shakes her head. "I almost feel this is a community service. People shouldn't have to pay so much for caskets. My prices are way less than theirs, and we'll make them one-of-a-kind."
And sometimes this custom designing is even done on spec, for no one (yet) in particular -- in a kind of "If You Build It, They Will Come" spirit. Which explains why Laura Slaughter is currently finishing a sort of NRA special: a metal casket painted like hunter's camouflage, the insides of which will be fitted with gun racks and camo netting, the outside hardware built from de-commissioned hand grenades or rocket launchers. So it can be used to store your favorite weapons until you're dead. Then, after you've shuffled off this mortal coil, possibly blown away by superior firepower, it can be used to store you.
"It's airtight, it won't rust," says Laura. "It has four bars of steel that go right through it so people can't break in. If someone's trying to break in, they're gonna have to get at least two men to carry it out, and how easy would that be? They're gonna be banging it all over the place, trying to get it out. Or they're gonna have to have these cranks to open it, because it's locked, and most people don't have the right kind of cranks so they can't get it open. So it's going to be a guncase-slash-casket." She grins. "I'm putting an ad for it in Soldier of Fortune."
"The magazine?"
"Uh huh," says Laura, nodding. "That's the one."
Others, too, who might prefer a magazine like Nocturne or the Blackened Angel catalog, provide a ready market for corresponding pieces of port-mortem furniture.
"Gothic kids --" says Laura. "I had one kid come in, ask if we could turn a casket on end and turn it into a home entertainment center. He said he already had a couch and a bed, from Thailand, and now he wanted an entertainment center. There are companies out there that specialize in that, making furniture [out of caskets] -- bookcases or tables. You can take out the shelves, and use the case later for burial.
"And people rent caskets from us, too, like for special occasions, for Halloween every year, or for over-the-hill birthday parties. People use them for a lot of different things, they store beer and drinks, they sleep in them --"
And, since cremation is often high on the Posthumous Top Ten List, there are also urns.
"I have so many people come in," says Laura, "and they have family members on a shelf in a closet. You know, their pets are on a shelf in a closet, their mom is in a dish somewhere at home. It's really -- it's just really something! So we're selling a lot of urns, for people and for pets, and again much more affordably than the funeral homes. We've got lots of different styles available, some really beautiful ones, some hand-glazed ceramics by Lisa Orr; we've got jewelry, too, and monuments -- we're starting to provide monuments, too."
So now Caskets by Design can customize your grave marker as well. A bit of fancy scrollwork to match what adorns your hand-painted sarcophagus, perhaps? Some script on your crypt, a little personal logo to soften your coffin? Why not carry a signature image all the way through, put your body's favorite tattoo on the lid of your lullaby locker and the tip of your tombstone?
Because, hey, you've lived a long, hard life -- if you're lucky. And maybe just resting in peace isn't enough, these days. Maybe you deserve to rest in style. 
