Jazz Funeral

do?”
    “Melody, what happened to you? What’s going on with you? Can’t you at least tell me that?”
    She flared. “I didn’t kill my brother.”
    “You two were real close, weren’t you?”
    Without the slightest warning, Melody was crying again, shoulders heaving, deep sobs coming up for the eighteenth time. She wondered how long, how many months, how many years, before the crying would stop.
    “Oh, Mel, hey.” Joel had covered the distance between them and taken her in his arms before she had time to realize that was what he meant to do. No one in her family ever did anything like that. If Melody cried, she was sent to her room to do it in private. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.” He was holding her and stroking her hair. She felt like a big doll, not a person at all, and realized that she had done that herself with her dolls, when they had shed imaginary tears; had held them, stroked them. But she couldn’t remember anyone doing it with her. It was almost like having a mother or father. She wondered if Flip would have done it.
    Black people are so warm, she thought, and regretted for the millionth time that she wasn’t one.
    When she was calm again, he held her at arm’s length and looked at her, looked in her eyes. She could have melted, but she saw no passion in his eyes, no romance at all, only worry. “You’re in bad shape, girl. You need your mama.”
    She wrenched one of her arms away and swung at him.
    “Watch out! What you doing? You crazy?”
    “You just don’t get it, do you? If I had a mama, I’d be at home. If I had a dad, I’d be home! You’ve got a mama, you can afford to make statements like that, you don’t have any idea what it’s like not to have one.”
    “Whoa, now. Slow down. You telling me you don’t get along with your folks?”
    “Yes, I’m telling you that!”
    “Melody, I think you underestimate them. Betcha if you called ‘em right now they’d say they love you.”
    Why did I think he’d understand? He doesn’t know. Nobody from a normal family could know.
    The despair was like fading into a bottomless black hole, sinking deeper, deeper, free-floating, no equilibrium, nothing to grab on to, nowhere to put your feet and hands, no night, no day, just falling.
    I’m crazy. I’m going crazy because I can’t talk to anybody.
    But she should try. She should try to explain. There was just a chance, maybe the slightest chance, he would get it. She said, “Joel, what do you think love is?”
    “What is this? A philosophical discussion? After I knock off love, want me to tackle reality? Your parents love you, Melody. All parents love their kids.”
    “Just because they say it doesn’t mean they act like it.”
    “They send you to Country Day. Your mom brings you to school and picks you up every day.”
    “Because she has to. She hates it. She hates me.”
    “Melody, at a time like this, they’ve gotta be hurtin’. You’ve got to think about them.”
    Deeper and deeper into the black hole. And now she was spinning, spinning out of control.
    “Melody. Melody!” He was rubbing her wrists, pulling at her T-shirt. She was lying on the floor.
    “Did I faint again?”
    “Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s what you did.”
    “Good.” She closed her eyes for a second, happy, proud of herself. It’s the only sane response. I wish I could do it on command.
    “You doin’ drugs?” said Joel.
    “No!”
    “Well, don’t get so mad. Come on, now. Sit up.” She obeyed. “Okay, that was impressive.”
    “It’s not fun, though.” She would have lain back down, but he caught her around the waist and held her in a sitting position.
    “I’ve got a place you can stay.”
    “You do?” She suddenly felt better.
    It was another garage, much like the one they practiced in, except that it was professionally fitted out. It was the Boucrees’ studio. Because people sometimes worked there all night, there was a small bedroom in the back, hardly bigger than a closet, with a single bed in it, and there was what her mother called a “half-bath”—toilet and lavatory, no shower.
    “I’ll bring you some food,” he said. “I can’t exactly take you home for red beans and rice.”
    “Why not?”
    “Why do you think? You’re too white for this neighborhood.”
    That made her angry. “Are your parents racist?”
    He looked at her, uncomprehending. “You’re crazy, you know that? Don’t be such a baby.”
    She shut up. If there was anything she