Some people think funk is dead. They say it because you don’t hear funk on commercial radio anymore, unless you happen to catch “Super Freak” on the oldies station. But that’s bullshit, because in music, nothing dies. It just waits for rediscovery or reincarnation. Funk is very much alive. And, right now, I’m about to lay some down.

Jarrod steps up to the mic and lingers there, his stare cutting into the audience. His lips are silent, and his body is still. We’re all silent. No one on the stage moves a muscle.

But not them. They are wild. Bodies humming with expectation and alcohol. Their noises bounce around the room, amplifying the energy a thousand times over.

I can only see his profile from where I stand, but I know what Jarrod’s doing. He’s doing what he always does—he’s making them want. Making them need. Even before a single note escapes the stage, he makes them beg, just by looking at them and doing nothing. The waiting and the anticipation will eventually turn them into a frenzied wad of beer-infused humanity, willing to scream until their throats go hoarse. Because Jarrod makes it happen. He wills it to happen. Every time.

He doesn’t move. None of us do. And we won’t…until he’s ready.

Jarrod and I met six years ago, both of us fresh out of high school and desperate for something to resuscitate our rotting lives. I moved north after my father died because I needed to remove myself from the nightmare. I needed to get away from Louisiana and everything that reminded me of my daddy. Not because I didn’t love him, but rather because I probably loved him too much. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done what I did. But Jarrod, he’s a born-and-raised Philadelphian. He’s always known this was his place in the world. He loves it here. Back then, when we first met, he had yet to find his purpose. He needed to clean the shit out of his veins and figure out where he fit. Both literally and figuratively.

Turns out that when we found each other at that bus stop, we both found a home. Together. And we named it Crackerjack Townhouse.

Three full minutes pass before I see Jarrod’s chest fill with a surge of air. That’s my sign. That’s our sign. A split second later, the eight of us strike a single simultaneous note, loud and crisp. It echoes around the room and is immediately followed by more silence. Just a pause really, but the pulsing in the air makes it feel like an eternity. My thumb rests on the E-string while the remainder of my fingers hover below it, ready to go to work whenever Jarrod decides it’s time. The crowd flips their shit the instant they see his mouth open again.

This time, we don’t stop. Stevie, Marquis, and Bryson blast their horns, and my heart starts its poetic thumping, just like it does every time the calloused fingers of my left hand press against the frets. What all those white girls out there in the audience don’t know is that when they’re staring at Jarrod in his tight-as-sin jeans, thinking he’s the one giving them the panty-dropping feels, it’s really me. I’m the one vibrating through their guts, sending them a pulse-quickening message of love. Jarrod may be what they’re looking at, but once the music starts, I’m what they feel. My bass is what all those mascara-laden lovelies sense inside their chests. It’s what they feel echoing in their souls, anchoring them to the song. Not Calvin’s drums or Mark’s keyboard or Stevie’s sax or Jarrod’s gyrating ass. It’s my fingers dancing against this Music Man StingRay bass guitar that makes them want to stay.

Crackerjack Townhouse is funk personified. And it makes me happier than anything else in this world.

* * *

When Jarrod sings the last line of the night, “I am no man. I am dynamite,” his voice is as evocative as ever. Our final note hangs in the air around us like a cloud of pesticide, light as air but heavy with purpose. He wrote the song long before Crackerjack Townhouse fell into place, back when he was more interested in what went up his nose than what came out of his mouth. “Ecce Homo” is my favorite song; it has been since the first time he sang it to me, sitting on the curb in front of the McDonald’s on South Broad.

When Pontius Pilate presented Jesus, crowned with thorns and on the verge of crucifixion, to an unsympathetic horde, he said, “Ecce homo.” Behold the man! I know the story. I’ve known it since I was a little girl because my momma was overly fond of reading from the Bible, terrifying me and my sister with its stories of suffering and contradiction, always just before bedtime.

Jarrod’s lyrics, though, aren’t biblical. They’re a twisted-up version of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s identically titled book, Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is. In fact, the song’s final lyrics, “I am no man. I am dynamite,” are words from Nietzsche himself. And just like Nietzsche’s book, all of Jarrod’s lyrics are self-serving yet self-deprecating. Cocky yet sardonic. Structured yet raw. It’s a funk song gone philosophical. My mother would have a nervous breakdown if she’d existed in my world long enough to hear the song’s heretical and sacrilegious message about the conceit of self-faith.

My father, on the other hand, would’ve loved it. And not just because of the trumpet solo.

When the set ends and the applause begins, a sweet, familiar ache settles into my hands. The bones and tendons there are tired from stretching over the strings. As the audience’s praise sinks into my heart, I rub the fingertips of my right hand across the cobweb painted on the StingRay’s pickguard, remembering the familiar sting of death and how little it changes, no matter how much time has passed. I lift the leather strap up over my head and put the StingRay on its stand. Jarrod raises the mic into the air and pokes it at the audience, before sliding it back into the stand while making eyes at the blonde whose breasts are pressed against the edge of the stage at his feet.

His gaze is not a secret signal. It’s a blatant invitation for her to stick around, and it’s the only one he ever needs. She’ll still be here when we come back out for the teardown. They always are. They wait for him, pretending to innocently chat with their girlfriends while we load everything into Calvin’s van and the sound guy shuts down the house. At some point in the process, Jarrod will flash a smile at the woman, whoever she is, and the deal will be sealed. She’ll be patient, lingering for as long as he needs her to. Then, when the teardown is complete, Jarrod and the woman du jour will walk out the back door hand in horny hand. He’s very unapologetic about the whole thing, as well he should be. They’re two consenting adults, after all, so there’s nothing to apologize for. Both are getting exactly what they want.

When we come out of the back room to start tearing down fifteen minutes after “Ecce Homo” ends, my predictions prove true yet again. As soon as most of the gear is loaded, Jarrod passes me, his arm around the blonde’s waist, guiding her toward the door. He gives me a half-smile and wiggles his eyebrows up and down. She’s too busy watching me to pay attention to the antics of his face. She wants to see if I’ll jump on her out of jealousy. ’Cause just like all the other women Jarrod takes home after a show, she assumes that since I’m the only female in the band, I either want to be his mother hen or his Saturday-night score.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We all keep it professional. Especially Jarrod and I. Because I know where he’s been, and there ain’t no way I’m falling down that rabbit hole.

My amp is the last thing to go into Calvin’s van, and when the doors swing closed, everyone says their goodbyes and heads off to their own worlds. I’m the only one that walks back into the bar. After I hit the restroom, I sling my gig bag over my shoulder and onto my back. The StingRay is nine pounds, five ounces of pure bliss. Twenty-one frets on a red maple neck, a Vintage Sunburst body with a white pearloid pickguard, a hardened steel bridge plate, a humbucking pickup, and stainless steel saddles. It’s my flawless baby. And I use it to forget about the rest of the world, if only temporarily.

I step out onto the street again and head for the bus stop. As the streetlamps buzz their electronic drone, my thoughts uncontrollably shift from the baby on my back to Miriam Hansen and the end of her life. In death, as in life, Miriam Hansen lingers. Her last breath has not yet dissolved into memory; her words have not been forgotten. Miriam Hansen’s death is fresh and painful. She is ratcheted to my heart.

The joy leaves me in an instant, and it’s replaced with uncontrollable sadness. I start sobbing just as the bus pulls up to the curb.