"Nothing You Can Do Can Help A Dead Man"

Edwin died in his sleep of natural causes.
He was 74. A musician and composer,
he had gained some fame in the 1980s
both playing jazz piano in local clubs
and writing a jazz opera called Attention!
that was well received
on the west coast.

When he died he had been out of the limelight
for a very long time, though he still
played a gig now and again
and according to his son
who lived in Europe and seldom
saw his father, though they wrote,
Edwin was frustrated about being
forgotten, which is what his life felt like.

In fact, the son pointed out at the funeral,
since no one else seemed to remember,
in 1985 Edwin was named by the newspaper
to be one of the 25 creative persons
in the city who were most responsible
for the city's cultural life in
the past 25 years. One of 25!
Yet so quickly forgotten.

Until death, that is, because the local
music critic came out of retirement
to write a very glowing and very long
post-mortem on Edwin and his piano playing
and his composing, especially of the jazz
opera, and as a result all his CDs
in the library now had waiting lists
and at Amazon the CD of Attention!
was selling briskly, and suddenly
Edwin seemed to be more popular dead
than when he was alive.

But when a reporter said to the son,
You must be proud to see how your father
is held in such high esteem
the son exploded

You fucking asshole!
Why didn't you write about him
when he was alive and could have
appreciated it?

and with this the son caught
the first plane back to Europe
and remembered why in hell
he had left America
in the first place.