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Vice Blog

CANADA - JUAN IS RELATIVELY NORMAL FOR A GUY WHO BURNS BODIES FOR A LIVING

Juan wanted to work on dead bodies since he was 10 but back then he thought he wanted to be an embalmer. When he was a kid he was into Tom Savini and KNB effects and Fangoria Magazine and he wanted to do all those effects on real bodies. He ended up going to film school and then make-up school. Then, a couple years after graduating, a friend told him about an opening at the crematorium. He fit the bill, so now he burns people up six days a week, eight hours a day. Fire and crushed bones after the jump.

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Vice: So Juan, how hot are the ovens and how many bodies do you burn a day?

Six to eight. The retorts can be anywhere from 1700 to 2400 degrees Fahrenheit. If you open the door you'll actually see the flame tear through the skull and chip it into pieces.

Sounds like hell. How long does it take the average body to burn?

2 or 3 hours, but a lacquered casket can take as much as 45 minutes longer. Those ornate caskets cost anywhere between $4,000 and $8,000 and they're lined with zinc. At those temperatures the zinc liquefies and it's a huge, horrible mess. They're completely

Well, I once received a woman who weighed about 300 pounds. She came in a cardboard box. Anyway, I was dealing with another family at the time who were here to witness their baby's cremation and as I was about to head into the witness room with them, this woman plopped out of her box. It had basically come apart from all her purge fluid. When you die, your organs start to fill with gases, and they liquefy from the inside out.

Oh fuck.

Yeah, so I excused myself, grabbed the woman, and rolled her over. It's weird how stiff and rigid but at the same time floppy a body is. She was purging out of her nose and mouth and her entire crotch area was blackened. The ground was covered in a greasy slime, like oil. The stuff is sticky and it smells like rotting blood.

Does it smells a little like shits?

Yes, but combine that with the smell of rotten flesh and smelling salts. It's like a punch to the face.

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At first all you can smell is burning hair, but then the smell of the box covers that up. Then after about 15 minutes the first layer of skin starts to burn, and then you get to the fat. That has a sweet smell to it. It's like mesquite barbecue. It's strangely delicious smelling.

Uh huh. So, let's say you haven't eaten and you're hungry and you smell the flesh. Do you ever feel hungry?

Well, at first, no. But I got used to it and then yeah, I might get a craving for the chicken place across the street. But the smell is actually nothing like chicken. It's closest to pork.

Yeah. Have you ever been tempted to try a little?

I've thought about it, but I couldn't.

When tendons heat up they do contract, and all the limbs shoot up: it looks like a dead cat on the ground with its limbs in the air. And dudes get hard ons! I don't know if it's from fluids or gasses, but as the organs heat up they start to swell.

How do different races treat you at a cremation?

Generally, white people will thank you and make comments like "I don't know how you can do it, but I'm glad you're doing it for us." Chinese people, for the most part, don't say much or make eye contact. They're still gracious but not quite as welcoming. East Indians actually pay wailers to come and cry at the top of their lungs. East Indians are like Italians in that way. They really let loose with their emotions. You can always tell the difference between Catholics and Protestants, too. Protestants force a smile, talk about the recently departed, tell nice stories, and try to make each other laugh. Catholics are really mournful and they come through with quiet, subdued faces.

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There are three types of people that come to work in the funeral industry. There are people like me, who can handle it and find it interesting. There are the people who find dealing with the families rewarding. And then there's the type of people who've tried many things before they got here and failed miserably at all of them. They come with a lot of hostility. It seems like every funeral home has one or two. A lot of them are managers, secretaries, or funeral directors. And they're completely deranged people who usually offend the family every time they open their mouth.

Other than that, do you enjoy your job?

I do enjoy it. I like working with fire and watching a body burn. I always think about what I do here and where it stands in the larger scheme of things. It's amazing to me to get on a bus full of people or to go into a bar full of people or to be at a party, to be surrounded by people, when six days a week, I've just come from lighting someone's grandma on fire or setting a couple fetuses aflame.

To me this is a warehouse. I come in, load boxes, feed them into machines, and the machines turn them into ash. It's a faceless job. But sometimes if I see a name, I get curious and I look them up.

Do you ever feel attached to the body you've burned?

I feel a kinship with every single body that comes through here. These are some of the closest relationships that I can build. And they're with dead people. You know what I mean? Because I can't think of anything more intimate than someone saying, "I put the responsibility squarely on you to do away with my body."

INTERVIEW: ROBERT CHURSINOFF   
PHOTOS: JEFF PETRY