Jazz Funeral

now. He’d gone out that morning and gotten it. She pried a can loose from the pack. Warm. He’d be mad about that. He liked his beer good and cold, he was always talking about it. What to do? Ice! She could put ice in it, like tea.
    “M’ay Ellen, what’s taking so goddamn long?”
    “I’ll just be a minute.”
    She pulled a chair up to the refrigerator, stood on it, and opened the freezer door. But the ice tray stuck. It was frozen in there. She had to get down and get a knife to pry it loose. Her dad was yelling again….
    The tray came loose so suddenly she fell backward, toppling the chair, hitting the floor. The knife nicked her arm and it started to bleed. She heard her dad’s footsteps, heavy, threatening, like a bear coming to get her.
    “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” (Except he really said “What in the hail,” which she knew was incorrect from watching TV.)
    “Just gettin’ you a beer.” She was in trouble; big trouble.
    “Look at you! You’re bleedin’. What the hail do you mean you were gettin’ me a beer? You were up in that freezer, weren’t you? What were you doin’ up there?”
    “Daddy, the beer was warm. I was just tryin’ to get you ice.”
    “Ice! Ice! You don’t put ice in beer! What the hail were you doin’?”
    “I was—” She started to pick herself up.
    “Don’t lie to me.” His voice rose, his hand went back behind his shoulder, cocked to hit. “Don’t lie to me!”
    “Daddy, I was just—”
    “You were just. Don’t tell me just.”
    Feet hit the floor and heavy steps came fast down the hall, her mother’s, urgent. She looked awful in an old nylon nightgown in the middle of the day, no makeup, hair every which way.
    “M’ay Ellen, what the hail is goin’ on here?”
    He turned toward her and smacked her hard. Ti-Belle was out the door, fast, the screen slamming behind her. If he caught her, she was dead, but she didn’t think he would. They’d played this scene before, and she’d gotten away. She’d come back crying, sure he’d kill her, and afraid her mama was already dead, overcome with guilt because she’d left her alone with him, but her mama’d gotten away too, the distraction gave her time. She told Ti-Belle she’d done the right thing, to do it again if she ever had to.
    “But Mama,” she sobbed, “when he wakes up, he’s gon’ kill me.”
    “No, he won’t, honey. He won’t remember a thing.” She pushed Ti-Belle’s hair back behind her ears, just playing with it, nervous. “He’ll be sobered up and sorry as he can be.”
    “What’s that mean, Mama?”
    “It means the devil won’t be there anymore. You know when he gets like that? That idn’t really Daddy, honey. The devil gets in him and makes him act like that.”
    She got away this time, too. Grabbed her bike, hopped on and started pedaling, her dad chasing her down the street, a great big barefoot guy in his shorts, yelling like a crazy man. But a neighbor came out, an older man, and said, “Hey, Bobby, you go back in there where you belong.”
    And he had, but by then her mama had probably gone back to the bedroom and locked the door, so she was safe. Ti-Belle was pedaling down the road with the wind in her face, going to a place she knew—a place with a big creek where you could see tadpoles and dragonflies and lots of water bugs. There were trees there, one of them with steps nailed up it by some kids a little older than she was. She could climb up there and sit if she wanted to, just Ti-Belle and the tree, until her heart stopped beating so hard and her face wasn’t red anymore. She sang when she was up in the tree, songs she knew and new songs she made up. She didn’t have to be mad, or sad, or anything when she was singing.
    Ti-Belle felt her face now. Was it red? It always had been when she ran for the treehouse.
    But how did I know that? There was never a mirror.
    It just felt that way, she decided. But it didn’t now. She was cool as cucumber ice cream. But she had to take stock. She focused: Ham was dead and so was that part of her life. Fine. Good.
    It sounds cold, but I can live with it.
    Anyway, he isn’t the first.
    There had been another time when this had happened.
    Jesus Christ. Proctor! Things were bad enough with Proctor here before this, but what now?
    The shit was going to hit the fan in a way Ti-Belle couldn’t imagine in her wildest flights of ballad-writing.
    Oh, Jesus, oh, Mama!
    Why hadn’t she thought of it