Jazz Funeral

make it there. And talented. And she’d died young.
    Like me. I could do it.
    I wonder how?
    The bus plan was a thought. Or maybe she could jump off something. Take an elevator to the top floor of some building, somehow get to the roof, and just walk into space. She kind of liked that one. She might just get paralyzed from the bus, but she’d never survive a crash from twenty stories up. Even ten.
    If she had a hair dryer, she could take it in the bathtub with her. Or any small appliance—but how could she get one? She could shoplift a curling iron maybe—something small. But if she got caught doing it, it was back to her old life. Unless the irony killed her, which struck her as a real possibility.
    There was a bittersweet pleasure in thinking these thoughts. It was kind of creative in a macabre way.
    But I better think about what it’s like to be dead.
    It was hard at first. She tried out words.
    Cold.
    Still.
    Motionless.
    Quiet.
    Like I am right now.
    The thought was oddly appealing. But there was something about Janis that was nagging at her, something that wasn’t quite right.
    It came to her—Janis had a career. She didn’t die before she sang, before she became Janis.
    Melody thought about that for a while. And honestly found she wasn’t all that damned interested in a career right now. Lying here, maybe forever, seemed more appealing.
    She closed her eyes.
    She didn’t know how long she’d slept, didn’t have a watch, but she was afraid it was too long. She felt hot and panicky. She had to replace the Boucrees’ infested sheets before anyone turned up to practice.
    She would stay at the Boucrees’ one more night, catch their set on Sunday, and then decide what to do. If she was going to die, it couldn’t be at their studio. That would be the ultimate betrayal of hospitality.
    She took the sheets with her. She’d now stolen three times in one day. What was next—hooking? She stared out the window of the bus, tears tracing hot paths down her face. Her eyes hurt.
    If I were dead, I couldn’t get the crabs and my eyes wouldn’t burn every time I cry.
    But I wouldn’t cry because I wouldn’t feel a damn thing.
    Her “dead” words changed subtly. Maybe cool and restful was more like it. As if summoned, the smell of loam came to her, of rotting vegetation in the summertime. She had always loved that smell.
    But I’d have no nose if I were dead.
    She couldn’t convince herself. She thought that if you were in the ground, the cool and peaceful ground, where it was quiet and nothing hurt, you could smell that smell; you had to be able to. You would lie in the ground and you would smell the ground and then you would become part of the ground, part of the smell, a component of the loam; you would be the Earth herself, a goddess, some said. You would have achieved immortality.
    I’d be contributing to the ecosystem.
    She liked the idea. At the same time, it horrified her to realize it would have made her giggle if she’d been in her right mind. It wasn’t funny at all now. She genuinely thought it might be the best contribution she could make.
    She got off the bus and made her way to the Boucrees’ garage. No one was there, and she was grateful. Sluggishly, feeling nothing except a vague sense of duty, she ripped off the contaminated sheets, replaced them with the stolen ones.
    Then there was nothing to do but lie down again. But she didn’t. Like a sleepwalker, she went to the piano and sat. She hadn’t yet been able to work on Ham’s song with her instrument, and that was what she found herself doing. It was funny how it happened. She didn’t decide to, it happened. Perhaps alcoholics found themselves drinking with no recollection of having gone to the store for a bottle of bourbon. She knew that compulsive eating was like this, had heard friends talk about suddenly realizing they were holding an empty Oreo package. She thought it odd, what she was doing, but she didn’t stop to ponder. She was running on automatic and it was like lying in the ground; nothing hurt.
    For the first time, she played the song, and was shocked at how good it sounded. But it needed work. So much, such a ton of work! She’d never get it done.
    He gave me ice cream on sunny days and alligator lessons;
    He gave me Janis, he gave me Etta, he gave me Irma—
    He gave me the blues and it made me so happy
    He gave me music. He gave me music, He gave me music!
    When I sang before, it was just the baby blues—
    Now