Jazz Funeral

before the cop came. Being alone was bad. Sitting on the bed, she looked in the mirror and hated what she saw. A crying, pathetic waif. Definitely not a dynamic, take-charge kind of woman, the kind who could have gotten from where she’d started to where she was now, on the brink of really making it big. If she didn’t take charge right now, what was left of her life was going to fly apart like a bomb hit it. She found a pair of socks, put them on, got down and crawled, looking for her running shoes. Then she remembered Andy Fike had been there cleaning up—they’d be in the closet.
    She got in her car and started driving. She was halfway across the causeway to Covington when it occurred to her to wonder where the hell she was going.
    To find Johnny .
    But Johnny doesn’t live in this direction.
    There was no turning back in the middle of the lake. Where in the hell was she going to look for Johnny, anyway? She already knew he wasn’t home. Where the hell would he be? Practicing? More likely getting ripped with people she’d hate.
    She was driving like a sleepwalker. She turned off the AC and rolled down the window, hoping the breeze would keep her alert. Why had she gotten on the causeway? Instinct, she thought. She probably just needed to keep moving for a while, and she needed to be outside. She’d walk when she got to the other side. Go to the banks of the Bogue Falaya and be with the world in a way that she couldn’t in New Orleans.
    The wind on her face was familiar, the whole situation was.
    No wonder I’m doing this. I always run from the bad stuff.
    It would get hot like this when she was a kid, the wind would be hot, and yet refreshing. Moving through it would make her feel alive. Being on her bike. She would get on her bike and pedal so fast her calves hurt, her calves nearly killed her, her chest felt raw, but that was okay, she was getting away.
    “M’ay Ellen?” (Not “Mary.” Her dad could never get the “r” in when he was drinking.) “M’ay Ellen, bring me a Bud.”
    The words echoed in her head as if they hadn’t been uttered nearly twenty years ago. Twenty years ago she’d heard them, or nearly that long, a lifetime ago, and she hadn’t thought of them since.
    They hadn’t had air-conditioning, and all the windows were open. Outside someone was cutting his lawn. The drone was pleasant, borne on the afternoon breeze with the sweet scent of the mown grass. Another drone came from the living room, this one not nearly so pleasant, in fact ugly, to Ti-Belle, depressing. It was the baseball game on television.
    She didn’t know why it depressed her. Because it reminded her of darkened rooms on a beautiful day, she supposed. Because her father was glued to it, not available to play, to take her out, even to get groceries for the family. Because it was the most important thing in the world to him, and she sometimes thought she was the least. Because it dominated the household with its horrid drone and everyone’s schedule planned around it. And because it was so utterly his territory.
    She wanted to go lie down on her bed and let the tears run out of her eyes while she clutched her green and purple stuffed rabbit, her last year’s Easter bunny, holding it to her face so no one could hear her sob. The ball game took her that way. But she couldn’t do that, even though she didn’t have to babysit today, because Jimmy was over at a friend’s house. She had to figure out how to make macaroni and cheese. She had told her mother she could do it, and she was smart, she knew she could.
    Then her dad called for that Bud. He’s forgotten, she thought. She could go in there and remind him that Mama had one of her headaches and couldn’t be disturbed. But then he’d get mad. She didn’t know why he got mad about things like that, but he did, and she’d be the one he yelled at.
    He’d say, “Shit! Goddamn headache! Goddamn! Again?” She’d try to leave at this point, but he’d say, “Don’t turn your back when I’m talking to you!” And he might throw something. He might do that whether she stood respectfully or whether she tried to get out of the way; there was no way to tell.
    The best thing was to bring him the beer herself. She went to the refrigerator. “M’ay Ellen? M’ay Ellen!” Oh, no . There weren’t any more. But there had to be some beer—her father always drank beer when he watched the ball game. It had to be here.
    There it was on the table. She remembered