Located in the Mid-City section of town, Baton Rouge General unfolded like a city within itself; inside, it opened into a vast welter of fluorescent-lit corridors leading to wings in every possible direction. Julian inquired at the information desk, then got onto and off the wrong elevator, found the right one leading to the cardio care unit, and arrived at Matthew Parmenter’s private room.
The room was dimly lit except for the red and green glow of computer panels. The entire room chattered like a thicket of electronic chirps, whistles, and hums—a night garden of life-sustaining noises.
Matthew lay sunken into the white sheets, his white hair thick and tussled in vertical clumps, his skin ghostly pale and veiny, his closed eyes centered in dark rings. When Julian stepped across the room and sat in a wooden armchair next to the bed, the pale gray eyes opened.
A small hnnnn came from Parmenter’s throat, not so much a groan, as Julian first thought, but more a noise of acknowledgement, of recognition. The old man tried to prop himself up with his elbows.
Julian stood and reached behind Parmenter’s head to plump the pillows. “Careful. I’ll help you.”
A faint smile curled Parmenter’s thin lips.
“Doctors,” he said. “One thinks I’m too old to survive surgery, the other thinks it’s the only chance I have. I told them both to leave, and let me be.”
He leaned back and let out a labored sigh.
“Thank you, Julian,” he said. “I hoped that you would come, that I would see you again before I…”
He strained against the pull of cords and tubes, one carrying a supply of blood into his arm, another feeding him oxygen.
“Hell of a way to go, considering, huh?” he said in a near whisper.
Julian guessed at the intended sarcasm. It was true—it wasn’t only hurricanes, broken levees, and floods that moved the hands of fate these days.
Matthew fixed a sharp gaze on Julian, though his voice was paled by exhaustion and a weakened heart. “Have you found him?”
“No sir.”
He leaned his head back and sighed again. “Don’t give up hope, son. You have to keep looking.” He coughed again.
“Don’t worry. I will.”
Parmenter let out a choked wheeze, then sat back on the bank of pillows, and rolled his eyes upward toward the ceiling.
“I am so sorry that nothing came of my inquiries about your father. The police were…well, you would not believe how they’ve struggled with all this.” He pointed to the television, and told Julian about a ninety-year-old man who was found recently in a shelter in Denver, Colorado. “So you see, it’s still possible.”
He pointed to the wooden chair next to the bed, and Julian sat again. “Thank you for coming. Did I say that already?”
“It’s OK, sir.” Julian didn’t know what else to say, so he continued, “I, uh, I got here as soon as I heard. Sylvia called me. Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m feeling lousy,” he said. “But I’ll get right to the point. I know your father told you about our little business deal a few years ago.”
His voice was whispery as words rushed out in a long, labored breath, then another struggling breath and another rush of words. Julian fidgeted in his chair, crossed his right leg over his left.
“And I know you think I cheated your father.”
The man’s bluntness shocked Julian. He looked away a moment, and folded his hands across his lap. “Well, I…”
“You don’t have to worry. You can speak freely to a dying man. You thought I cheated him.” His voice was insistent.
“Yes, sir, I did.”
He nodded, with a faint smile on his lips. “I appreciate your honesty. But let me tell you, I had no idea your father’s recipe would take off the way it did. It was a gamble for both of us. It was entirely possible that the product would not earn even as much as I paid Simon. The fact that it became wildly popular was highly unlikely, but fate is peculiar sometimes. You never know how things will turn out.
“But all that was many years ago. Since then I’ve learned that some things are more important than business. I saw how your father struggled with money when your mother was ill. I offered to help him. But he refused. My wife, Clarisse…” He coughed again, sitting forward, again straining against the restrictive cords.
“Clarisse never let me forget that we had money while Simon struggled, and why things were that way. She thought of me…well, the way you did. I have tried many times since then to get your father to accept money from me, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Your father is a proud, stubborn man.
“So I wanted you to bring your father to me when you found him. As I mentioned before, he owes me something. And I have something for him he’ll not be able to refuse.”
Julian shrugged. He didn’t know what the old man could be talking about. “If….when I find him, and he’s…OK, I’ll bring him here.”
“Good. And I have another favor to ask you.”
Parmenter’s words dissolved into a sharp fit of coughs. A monitor beeped steadily and a nurse rushed in. Julian stepped aside, and as another nurse entered, began to move toward the door.
And that was when he noticed him. Julian hadn’t even heard the stranger enter the room. He was a tall, broad-shouldered black man who looked to be in his late-forties, and dressed in a finely tailored dark blue pinstriped suit that hugged his muscular frame perfectly. His head was shaved; a thick bushy mustache and bristly beard consumed the bottom half of his face, and a diamond stud blinked from his left earlobe. His well-heeled look, given the recent realities in Louisiana, made Julian think he must be an insurance agent (a highly successful one), a lawyer, or a funeral home director.
The man waited silently at the doorway until Julian headed to leave.
“Mr. Fortier. If you have a minute, I’d like to talk to you.”
In the coffee lounge/waiting room at the east end of the wing, the man introduced himself as Cedric Cole, Matthew Parmenter’s attorney. He and Julian sat together opposite each other on low faux-leather sofas in front of a coffee machine.
When the man placed two Styrofoam cups of coffee on the table between them, Julian thanked him and took a sip from the one nearest him. With his black leather briefcase placed on the floor next to his feet, Cole leaned forward.
“Mr. Fortier, Mr. Parmenter has instructed me to hire you—that is, you and your band, or whatever group of musicians you can organize—to play for his funeral. That is, if you’re willing. A traditional New Orleans jazz funeral with parade, second line, the full works.”
Julian was speechless. Stunned, first by the presence of Parmenter’s slick-looking black attorney who dressed like a million bucks, and second by the request itself. A jazz funeral for Parmenter? Well, that figures—everybody in New Orleans wants a jazz funeral. He blinked twice, then leaned back against the sofa pillow, rubbing his knees with his palms.
“Certain things will have to be arranged slightly differently, the conditions in the city being what they are,” Cole continued. “He wants the second-line parade to course through the French Quarter, ending at the location where his restaurant used to be. There are a few other specifics Mr. Parmenter has asked for, certain musical selections, et cetera. And you and your friends will be generously paid, of course.”
Still dumbstruck, Julian looked at Cole in bewilderment, and it struck him that his father’s oldest friend was actually dying. He hadn’t played such an event since he’d lived in New Orleans, and didn’t even know where the guys in the band were, if they were in town, or if they even made it through the storm in one piece. Or, if they were alive and well, would be able to take time from rebuilding their lives to play a funeral.
“Mr., uh—“
“Cole. But call me Cedric.”
“Right. I…I’m honored that Mr. Parmenter would want me to play. I don’t know if I—”
“I know about some of the things you’re dealing with,” Cole assured him. “Your father missing—Mr. Pa
rmenter told me. I know how highly he regarded him. He’s also instructed me to furnish you with as much money as you need to find him. I’m prepared to write you a check today, to hire an investigator, if that’s what you need. Or if you’d like me to hire someone for you, I have a few contacts.”
He reached in his pocket, pulled out his business card, and handed it to Julian.
“There’s very little time, I’m afraid. The doctors say things could change very quickly, given Mr. Parmenter’s deteriorating condition. But he’s asked me to tell you that if your father is found well and healthy while Mr. Parmenter is still alive, he would very much like to see him, to talk to him. He says he has something very important to say to him.”
Julian stroked the back of his neck with his palm, and took a long, tired breath.
Why was the man so insistent about seeing Simon? What could he possibly do or say that would make any difference now? Julian strained his memory, calling up his last conversations with his father for some hint of what Parmenter could possibly want. But Simon and Julian hadn’t talked about Matthew in months. It had been such a thorny issue with them, since Julian hadn’t exactly tried to hide his resentment for the man. And accordingly, Simon had simply stopped mentioning his name.
Parmenter was dying now, and Julian was sorry about that, but he could only think of his father, who had loved this undeserving man like a brother. Whatever Parmenter had in mind now, it was too little too late. Too late to make the past right, too late for deathbed amends.
And now the guy wants a jazz funeral. What was he supposed to do, put together a band with players he might not be able to find, and who probably wouldn’t speak to him?
Six years had passed since the last time he’d seen any of them, and it had been the worst night of his professional career. It was the last weekend of Jazz Fest, a balmy evening in early May, and he and the band were about to perform their last set, a tribute to New Orleans trumpet players—Bunk Johnson, Joe “King” Oliver, Louis Armstrong—in the WWOZ jazz tent. A half hour before they went onstage, Julian had surprised them with an announcement that he was leaving for New York—not in the fall, as he had told them earlier, but in the next few days. He’d lined up a meeting with a recording company executive. And a pianist buddy from Tulane was saving a spot on his couch, and promised him all the freelance jobs he could handle.
Onstage, the music had been cool, stiff, the men unyielding. The silence afterwards still rang in his ears, the cold stares still frozen in his brain. They had a right to be upset, and he’d wanted to explain, tell them that he had to leave—now—while his heart was still in one piece. But the words would not come. After the last chord, the other players clustered together backstage, and no one spoke to him as he cased his horn and started the walk back to his car. Eventually, it was his old friend and trumpet-playing rival, Grady Casey, who came around. “Good luck man,” he’d said, when he came by Julian’s place the next day. “Knock’em dead, up there.”
They went out for a drink that night at Sorrelle’s Hibiscus Lounge at the far edge of the French Quarter near the Market, and under a half moon casting silken light on the river Julian had confessed about his troubles with Velmyra and how it had ended. Grady lowered his eyes in sympathy, saying, “That’s rough, man, I’m so sorry.” And without dropping a beat, added, “So you don’t mind if I call her?” After a deadpan moment, they both broke into outrageous laughter. The rest of the evening, they had drank themselves as silly as rookie tourists, starting at one end of the Quarter—plastic go-cups in hand, loaded with high-octane daiquiris—and stumbling all the way to the other.
He put three quarters in the machine. The ice clanked into the cup, then the liquid. Julian could feel Cole’s eyes on him as he took a swig of the cold Coke. The coffee was lousy, it was hot in the waiting room, and the memory of the daiquiris put him in mind of something to take the edge off his thirst. He turned up the cup and swallowed, long and slow.
He wondered if the man knew he was stalling.
Finally he said, “I don’t know if I can even find them, the guys I played with. I wouldn’t know where to even look for them.”
Cedric nodded. “I understand. But Mr. Parmenter realizes that your friends might need a little financial help at this time. He’s offering a very generous fee for the musicians. Fifteen hundred dollars each. And in addition, he will cover travel expenses from wherever they’ve evacuated to back to New Orleans, if needed, and lodging.”
Fifteen hundred for a funeral? Outrageous cash had a way of smoothing the blunt edges of hard feelings. Nobody in New Orleans made that kind of money for a one-day gig. The guys could use the money, no question. Hell, he’d hardly worked in almost a year; he needed the money himself.
One more thought sealed the deal: if Simon were here, he’d want him to play—no doubt.
Julian nodded. “I’ll do it.”
Cole’s serious face relaxed into the smile of a man who did so rarely, showing two rows of perfect teeth.
“Great. And, ah, there’s one more thing I’d like to ask you.”
He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a CD, its cover showing a chest-cropped photo of Julian with trumpet in hand, looking out over the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris, the cathedral of Notre Dame looming in the backdrop. A closed-mouth, confident smile, eyes in a slight squint from the brilliant sun. Titled “Boplicitude,” the CD was the last he’d made three years ago after his first European tour, and it had gotten him the Grammy. He looked at his image on the cover, self-assured, happy, even cocky, and barely recognized himself. In his air-brushed face, there was no hint of the uncertainty his life held now.
The man on that cover had no idea what was coming for him.
“I’m a big fan,” Cole said. “Maybe you could sign this for me?”
He pulled out a black felt-tip pen. Julian nodded politely, took the pen and the CD, and scrawled his name illegibly across the image of his face on the booklet cover.
“Thanks,” Cole said. “By the way, caught your spot on Leno. Nice.”
They shook hands, and Julian strode away, wondering if his chops would hold up long enough to get through the gig.
Back in the motel, he flopped on the bed and picked up the remote control. But the TV news was all about what the mayor had called “Look and Leave” and the papers had called “Look and Grieve”—the residents of New Orleans coming back temporarily to their city to find, in so many cases, complete chaos: shattered homes, drowned possessions, remnants of what had been normal lives. The local news stations in Baton Rouge covered the influx of the displaced filling up the hotel rooms, grocery stores, shelters, church basements, and the extra bedrooms of every neighborhood in town. Exhausted, Julian remembered how the day had begun so long ago, and didn’t want to hear another word about life gone wrong, about things he couldn’t control.
Sitting up in bed, he reached for his cell phone, wondering what Velmyra was doing, and looked at his watch. The thought of not being with her tonight sank his spirits deeper than the news had, but when he thought of calling her, he rejected the idea. There was a serious conversation in their future requiring thought and energy, and he didn’t have the capacity for either. The truth was, he had no idea what to say to her. After what had happened between them, and given their history, there should be some kind of plan. But he had none. If she were to fit into the weird puzzle of his life at this point, he wasn’t at all sure how it would happen. Or even if it should.
He turned the TV off and tossed the remote onto the nightstand. He needed to talk to someone, and he could use a beer. Within a few minutes, he was back in the car.
The bar and grill in the atrium of the Embassy Suites in Baton Rouge was decorated in a lush, tropical theme, with tall palmettos, yuccas, and elephant ears situated between tiered waterfalls, and sun fed through an enormous skylight six stories high. Julian could hear the sound of the trumpet from the reservations desk, and by the time he entered the bar, sat down o
n one of the five, leather-topped barstools, and ordered a beer, Grady Casey had caught his eye.
It was just a quartet tonight, apparently; his wife, Cindy, a bluesy, dreamy eyed singer, was not around. A young male pianist sat at a shiny black seven-foot grand, a bushy haired man of sixty or so hugged a deep brown upright bass, and a red-haired drummer, the only white guy in the group, kept time with wire brushes swirled against a snare head to the muted tones of Grady’s version of Miles Davis’s “Blue in Green.”
When Grady nodded toward the bar where Julian sat, he gave a quick salute in the direction of the bandstand. The bartender, a smiling young blonde with frosted brown lipstick and a sunflower tattooed on her bare shoulder, poured a light ale into the huge frosted mug before him. Julian closed his eyes as the icy brew slid down his dry throat, and felt as if he could drink this beer until the end of time. If it wasn’t the best beer he’d ever tasted, it was surely the most appreciated one. There were only a few people in the bar; the quiet, relaxed scene was a comfort, almost as if the world were a normal place, as if it hadn’t tilted so far from upright that everyone within a sixty-mile radius of New Orleans (or even much further) was not walking uphill, pushing and bowing against a strong wind.
Julian closed his eyes and listened to the trumpet’s fat, lazy tones, his head nodding as the misty ballad floated around him. It had been a while since he’d done this—actually listen to somebody else play. He’d never really been jealous of Casey before, but after seeing Cole with a copy of his CD, and hearing Grady’s sweet tone filling the air in the bar, he was reminded of his stalled career and a cool sadness enveloped him. The guy sounded better than ever, his tone crisp and clean, as pure a sound as he had ever heard. His head bobbing on the beat, fingers dancing on the valves, carving out melodies and runs as if they were soft clay beneath his nimble hands. This guy, he thought, is the guy who should be known all over the world.
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