Jazz Funeral

Jimmy Dee was contrite. He could tell Skip was pissed. “Okay, where to start?”
    “Where’d he go to school?”
    “St. Martin’s. Why?”
    “Just checking to see if you knew.” Skip knew it was his little joke—everybody in New Orleans knew where everyone else had gone to high school. And if they didn’t, they asked—usually in the first ten minutes of knowing someone. “Start with the po’ boys.”
    “Always a fine idea. I’ll have an oyster one. Dressed.”
    Steve said, “Make mine potato.”
    Skip sighed. “Okay, I’m ready. How about a gin and tonic instead?” The pot wasn’t providing much social lubrication.
    The men turned back around. “The po’boy,” said Jimmy Dee, “is undoubtedly—despite blackened redfish, Paul Prudhomme, Oysters Rockefeller, Galatoire’s, and the beignet—the zenith of New Orleans cuisine. What I would order for my last meal if I were a convicted felon. Oyster, of course. Not merely the world’s greatest sandwich, but possibly the world’s greatest meal.”
    “Hear, hear!” Steve was definitely interested.
    “This town’s equivalent of the hero, but the very comparison is a travesty and an outrage.”
    “Yes, but what does it have to do with Hamson?”
    “Be patient, my boy.” It was like telling fire to be cold. “You’ve heard, perhaps, of George Brocato?”
    “No.”
    “Well now, he was a poor boy. Or so the story goes. Hence the name.”
    Skip spoke between clenched teeth: “Dee-Dee, you’re being tedious.”
    “Am I?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “I thought I was building dramatically.”
    “To?”
    “Poor Boy’s Po’ Boys, of course.”
    “Ooooh.” Steve sighed, contentment personified. “They just came to L.A. Oh, man! Fast food heaven. I don’t know how they do it.”
    “Well, the high prices help.”
    “Oh, man, worth every penny. Cheap at twice the price.”
    “You’re a real believer.”
    “It’s like having Mother’s in L.A. Or Mumfrey’s. Are you trying to say Ham’s the Poor Boys scion?”
    “Exactly.”
    “So George is the dad, huh?”
    “Right. You’ll probably meet him tonight.”
    “Well, I wondered why Ham had so much money. Oh, man, maybe they’ll serve po’ boys tonight.”
    Skip thought she’d never seen Steve reduced to such a pure level of infantile pleasure.
    It was the eve of the second weekend of JazzFest, second biggest annual party in the world’s most serious party town—a Wednesday, with JazzFest to swing once again into full gear in another few hours. It would wail Thursday through Sunday, as it had the previous Friday through Sunday. When it was over, some 300,000 people would have had their ears massaged and palates tickled at eleven stages and sixty-four food booths.
    In other towns, thought Skip, festivals lasted one weekend, and weekends started Friday evening at the earliest. But here they were, kicking this one off on Wednesday. Sometimes she was glad she hadn’t stayed in San Francisco, where she’d once fled. Back there, she thought with distaste, you had to be up and jogging at six. Here, that was considered a good time to go to bed.
    The party they were going to was a benefit to which Steve had been invited because of the little job he was doing for Ham, the promotional video for Second Line Square. Second Line Square was Ham’s dream, some said his obsession. Ham had a plan to keep JazzFest going year-round—or something approaching that.
    He wanted a permanent structure, down by the riverside, that would house an ongoing festival of New Orleans music and become, according to his dream, the city’s leading tourist attraction. The Jazz and Heritage Foundation’s own two projects, the Heritage School of Music and WWOZ, the jazz radio station, would be housed there, with the Heritage School much expanded. Preservation Hall would move there too, if Ham had anything to say about it. Five or six important groups would play at once, every night, and there would be lectures, films, interviews with artists, every cultural experience that could be dreamed up to showcase the city’s musical heritage. There’d be food and crafts booths too, but all carefully monitored, only the highest quality. It would be New Orleans’ answer to the Grand Ole Opry.
    The place would be self-supporting—which meant it would have to be huge, and therein lay part of the problem. People said the same things they always said about development—it would wreck the view, it would take up space