Jazz Funeral by Julie Smith Page A

Brocato, was that close to greatness. Of course, the Boucrees were black and so were all the others. Why couldn’t she have been black? Been born into one of those big, warm, loving families where your mom cooked up great pots of red beans and rice while she sang a version of “Amazing Grace” that had passersby stopped dead in their tracks on the sidewalk—on the banquette, Joel would say.
    Now she saw herself as a little girl. The singer-to-be was gone, but she was still black. She was sitting around the dining room table with her three brothers and two sisters and her mom and dad and her two uncles and they were eating greens and chicken and black-eyed peas, all laughing, teasing each other, but gently, with deep affection. It was all good-humored, sweet-tempered, no mean jokes, no nasty stuff like white people got into. Melody was about five. She had light skin and medium-curly hair that hung in ringlets, one especially, that hung down over her right eye. She had a winning smile and people were always patting her, saying how cute she was, not correcting her every two seconds and finding fault. It was so vivid she could almost smell those peas. It felt so good to be loved like that. Her life would have been so damned easy if it had happened to her. Why did white people have to be so fucked up?
    She got off the bus angry, stomped for half a block or so till she came back to the present. But finally it occurred to her that here she was—free at last! She should be celebrating.
    Oh, sure. Celebrating. No friends and no family and I’m supposed to celebrate .
    It went back and forth like that. Just when she’d be feeling good, she’d remember, and then she’d have to get herself back up again. Okay, that was just how it was going to be. She wasn’t going to think about it. She was going to pretend it never happened, those people never existed. She was someone else now, a street musician soon-to-be-a-star. All she had to do was get herself a gig.
    She wandered on down toward Jackson Square, and right in front of the cathedral were two guys and a woman, maybe in their twenties, maybe a little bit younger, playing some not bad to pretty decent music. She listened for a while. They knew a lot of local stuff, some Cajun kinds of things, some country—Melody knew almost everything they did, and thought they were pretty good, but from the looks of things, this was no way to make a fortune. They weren’t really drawing a crowd. On the other hand, a singer could make all the difference. Her palms began to sweat as she tried to get up the nerve to do something. She wasn’t sure what. So she just kept watching.
    The guitar player was cute, and looked young. Maybe not much older than she was. He wore torn jeans and a black T-shirt, and he was blond. Flip, her ex-boyfriend whom she never wanted to see again, was dark. And of course Joel… but she couldn’t get Joel. He was two years older and thought she was a baby, treated her like a little sister. Besides, they had a professional relationship. Or so he said whenever she kidded around, sort of flirting but not really because she didn’t dare. She couldn’t see why you couldn’t be in love with somebody you worked with, but Joel was the boss. He was a pro, so she had to listen. Or anyway, it used to be that way. Today was a whole new ball game. From now on she could make up her own rules.
    The guitar player had good shoulders, slender build, and a cute butt. His skin was tan, not peaches and cream, but it was as clear and delicate as a girl’s. If he shaved more than once a week, she’d be surprised. And something else she liked a lot. He had beautiful hands. Long fingers, very clean. Nice square-cut nails. She watched his hands as he fingered the guitar, and found herself wanting to touch them, wanting them to touch her. She watched so intently it was almost like falling into a trance. It felt as if there was nothing else in the world but herself and those fingers, so