Buryin' Walt

Mr. Joyboy, Evelyn Waugh's macabre cosmetician in The Loved One, would be proud of Captain Walter Brubaker. A new California state law permits cremated remains to be buried in the ocean or scattered at sea level, supplanting the old law that required a loved one's ashes to be scattered from an altitude of at least 5,000 ft. A retired Navy captain with a keen eye for commerce, Brubaker converted his 50-ft. luxury fishing boat into a seaworthy hearse. He listed himself in the San Diego Yellow Pages as the "City and County Burial at Sea Service" and waited for the customers.

To make his services even more attractive, Captain Brubaker engaged in a bit of huckstering. As a sort of twist on Marryin' Sam's gimmicks in Li'l Abner, he advertised that he would tailor his services to suit the family's taste. They may have rock, Rachmaninoff or Anchors Aweigh if they so choose.

Brubaker's routine is to pick up the ashes of the loved one himself and escort the bereaved aboard his yacht. (The fishbait tank seemed an insurmountable embarrassment until Brubaker shrewdly camouflaged it as a catafalque.) After the service is rendered beyond the three-mile limit, the deceased is solemnly committed to the deep--from the stern. "If the ashes were dropped from either side," Brubaker explains, "they might blow back into the boat."

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