Dirty South

24

For the next three days after we found Malcolm’s body on Bamboo Road, it rained. I’m not talking about a slow drizzle or boring patter that we get almost every spring afternoon in New Orleans, but real out-and-out thunderstorms that flooded the lower Garden District and closed parts of the city. I had to drive with water up to the running boards on the Gray Ghost just to make it to this community center in the Ninth Ward where there was a remembrance ceremony for Malcolm. Basically it was just a fancy word for a big wake open to fans and friends. They’d already had a more private ceremony the night before at this Uptown funeral home. I was there but chose to stay outside and offer a few kind words to Teddy. We spoke. But I don’t think he noticed me.

The gravel lot outside the community center was packed with cars. I had to park four streets over on Desire beside some abandoned food mart and walk the whole way past rotting shotgun shacks. The red, green, and blue faded and bleached like something out of the Caribbean. Water had soaked through my boots and into the black blazer I’d picked from the back of the closet for the occasion.

But the rain hadn’t discouraged the onlookers and fans. Some held up fluorescent yellow-and-orange posterboards with words of love for Malcolm. The words, written in black ink, ran and smeared over the paper and down on the arms that held them high. News crews from local TV stations waited in vans with open doors for the right time for a live shot. I saw one cameraman with a BET T-shirt on standing beside a tall black woman with extremely long legs and soft relaxed hair. I followed the echoing sounds of a preacher’s voice into a basketball court where rows and rows of folding chairs had been set up.

“No Jesus, no peace,” said the gray-suited man at the podium. “Know Jesus. Know peace. Our friend brother Malcolm knew peace. Knew it before the Lord came knockin’ on his door. Knew he had family. Knew what family meant. Y’all hear what I’m sayin’?”

I looked around the basketball court and at the elevated stage where there was a purple casket with an inscribed P on the side. Teddy sat wide-legged on a small chair by an older woman who I’d met last night. I think a distant aunt who’d helped raise them. Several long-legged beauties, some holding children, sat closest to the coffin. Many wearing dark sunglasses and nodding to the preacher’s words. Nae Nae was absent.

The thunder rattled the high panes above the bleachers and kept cracking out in the distance. We weren’t far from the channel and I suddenly had the thought of all that dirty rainwater washing out into the port and then into the Mississippi.

Teddy walked up in a draping black suit, jacket falling to his knees, and spit-polished boots. He kept on his shades and the size of his earring made an impact at even forty yards.

“We all family,” Teddy said, holding his hands tight on the podium. Old preacher-style. Even his cadence reminded me of two-hour sermons I’d heard sitting between JoJo and Loretta. “That name. Our name. The Paris name. That’s what it all about. Malcolm and me used to talk about that. When we was growin’ up and used to take the streetcar past all them fine homes, he used to say some hardworkin’ man made that family about two hundred years ago. Ain’t that a trip. We just layin’ it all down for our grandkids…”

Some of the well-dressed women with children shifted in their seats behind the coffin.

“And their kids. That Paris name. We always gonna have that, Brother,” Teddy said, dropping his hands to his side and walking to the coffin. I could only see the profile of Malcolm’s gray face and the edge of a satin pillow. I didn’t want to see. I’d had problems with these kind of things since I was a child.

Teddy kissed the tips of his fingers and touched them to the coffin. He reared his shoulders back and strutted to the edge of the stage, where he stopped. I saw his head drop, his arms shake, and he fell to one huge knee, rocking the entire platform.

I stood.

But two rappers I’d met, T.H.U.G. and Stank, grabbed each of his elbows and helped him down the stairs. He’d reached the back door, near the locker room, when I heard the cry. A deep gut-churning moan and scream that made me drop my own head and pray.

After the ceremony, people stood and talked. The television news crews moved in. Hundreds of flowers continued to be dropped at the base of Malcolm’s body. Cards and little notes written on napkins. Rain-streaked signs and CDs of his music. Some dude even dropped a baggie full of weed into the casket. One woman dropped her red panties.

I pushed past them to find Teddy but he’d already emerged from the back locker room and had a strong gait as he walked through the huge crowd on the court. You could hear his shoes click above all the talking. Strong and confident.

He smiled at me. And I believed he was headed toward me when they entered.

Beneath the exit doors, right beside the “Drugs Kill” sign, stood the entire crew that had wrecked my warehouse. They all wore identical black leather jackets and shades.

Cash grinned at Teddy in the thirty yards that separated them.

He tossed down a white wreath and it skidded for about ten yards before stopping way short of my friend’s feet.

“That’s the way it go,” Cash yelled, his platinum teeth shining with the fluorescent light.

I looked at Teddy.

“He’s a little upset,” Teddy said.

“Why?”

“I had his Rolls torched last night.”

“Why?”

“He set Malcolm off.”

Cash nodded. “Sleep tight, Teddy. Watch out for them bedbugs.”

He and his thugs disappeared.