Page 81
" 'I'm very sorry, Patsy,' I said. 'But it's not a death sentence anymore, being HIV. There are drugs, lots of drugs. ¡¯
" 'Oh, save it, Little Lord Tarquin!' she shot at me.
" 'Is that going to be my name from now on? I don't like it,' I fired at her. 'I was trying to tell you about medicine, advances, hopes. They have a special clinic for research at Mayfair Medical, that's all I'm trying to say. ¡¯
" 'Oh, yeah, research, fine with your wonderful education, you know all about those things,' she hammered. 'Lynelle's little genius. You haven't seen her ghost lately, have you?¡¯
" 'Patsy, you're not working any gig tonight,' declared Big Ramona.
" 'Are you getting decent treatment?' Jasmine asked. 'Just tell us that much. ¡¯
" 'Oh, yeah yeah, I know all about decent treatment,' Patsy said. 'I'm a musician, remember. You don't think I never shot up? That's probably how I got it, needles, not being tacked to the mattress. And all it takes is one time and all that, and I never shoot up except when I'm drunk, and so there we are, Miss Patsy Blackwood's not long for this world, 'cause she got drunk and shot up with somebody else's needle, but so far she's not symptomatic. ¡¯
"She shoved the money in her shoulder bag and stood up.
" 'Where are you going, girl!' Big Ramona said, standing up to block Patsy from the back door. 'You're not working a gig with your father dead. ¡¯
" 'The hell I'm not, and I'm working it in Tennessee so I got to get on the road. Seymour's waiting. ¡¯
" 'You can't leave here,' I said. 'You can't not come to the funeral!¡¯
" 'Watch me not come to it,' she sneered.
"The screen door banged shut behind her. I ran after her.
" 'Patsy, you'll regret this all your life,' I said. I ran along beside her to her van. 'Patsy, you're not thinking. It hasn't sunk in. You have to go through with this. Everybody will expect you to care enough to be there. Patsy, listen to me. ¡¯
" 'Like my life is going to be long, Quinn! My life? That old man. I told him I was HIV and he went crazy! You should have heard him cursing me and the crowd I run with; you wanna know what his final words were to me? "Damn the day you were born," and then he went down, gasping and throwing up his guts. I wouldn't come to his funeral if he was going to rise from the dead. If you see his ghost, you tell him I hate him. Now get away from me. ¡¯
"She and Seymour were off, screeching tires and all, and I just stood there, feeling the panic again, and within seconds the cold thought came over me that I didn't care whether Patsy came or not. It would do nothing to lessen the pain in me. Probably, it didn't matter to anyone.
"It would just be one of those things that people would talk about all over the parish.
"Only being near to my Jasmine or Big Ramona or Aunt Queen would help me.
"I made my way back inside. I could smell the pancakes Big Ramona was cooking up for me, and hunger seemed a reason to be alive, to put off for a little while telling Aunt Queen that Patsy would not be there for the funeral. In fact, maybe I'd never even mention it.
"The autopsy took only a day.
"Pops had suffered a massive heart attack.
"The funeral was enormous. It began with a long evening wake in Ruby River City to which all manner of people came, including shop owners, repairmen, carpenters, woodworkers -- in summary, the many, many people in all walks of life whom Pops had known and who were devoted to him.
"I was staggered by the sheer number of young boys and young men who looked up to Pops and said he'd been like a father or uncle to them. It seemed that everyone respected Pops and he was much more well known than I had ever imagined.
"Ugly Henderson and his whole clan were there, and so were the Dirty Hodges, all cleaned up, which had never happened before, their only bathtub being full of greasy auto parts. Sheriff Jeanfreau was crying.
"As for Patsy's absence, it was a total scandal. And the excuse that she had a show she had to work in Tennessee didn't cut her any slack with anybody. People had not only expected her to be at the funeral, they had expected her to sing.
"As it was, we hired an elderly woman who all but worshiped Pops for the handyman favors he'd done for her over the years, and she did just fine.
"Next morning when the procession set out for St. Mary's Assumption Church in New Orleans, the church in which Sweetheart and Pops had been married, people everywhere on the sidewalks of Ruby River City stopped out of respect.
"There was an old workman in a straw hat up on a ladder fixing something on the side of his house, and he stopped and took off his hat and held it to his chest as we passed. That single gesture will remain in my mind forever.
"Then to the Requiem Mass in St. Mary's there came another horde, many of them the country people who'd been at the wake, and hundreds of them being Sweetheart's side of the family, the New Orleans Mardi Gras crowd, and the procession had more cars than I could count when it went to the Metairie Cemetery to leave Pops' coffin with all the appropriate prayers at the open chapel vault.
"The sun was pounding down on us out there, in spite of the few lovely oaks that gave a little shade, but mercifully Fr. Kevin Mayfair was brief, and everything that he said, both at the church and at the cemetery, was heartfelt and fresh. I think when I heard him speak of it I believed again in eternal life, and I felt my panic was a sin against God, a sin of atheism.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81 (Reading here)
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199