She grew up in, lived in, got drunk and arrested in and basically did everything but die in the Vieux Carre. To a lot of folks, Ruthie was the Vieux Carre -- unconventional, incorrigible, over-emotional, overly opinionated, charmingly cantankerous, generally intoxicated and to hell what you thought of her anyway. She certainly didn't care, as long as you opened your door or your wallet or preferably both. In truth, after her status as the French Quarter's primary duck specialist (how many others there might have been remains unrecorded to this day), her most acclaimed talent was an astonishing proficiency at garnering free meals, drinks and smokes at some of the area's finest dining establishments, most of which presumably waived their right to refuse service to domesticated waterfowl to accommodate this extraordinarily beloved denizen of the night. And the afternoon. And, truth to tell, most mornings -- if the previous night's adventures allowed for it.
At the intimate requiem Mass at the Jacob Schoen Funeral Home on Canal Street, Jo Anna Palmer, a lifelong friend of Ruthie's -- and a Jackson Square artist -- gave a brief invocation. "She was the tiniest little thing," Palmer said. "She did not walk the stage a poor player. She was just Ruthie. She was a light that was happy and alive. This thrilling little person -- she gave just by being herself."
As several of the assembled partook of the traditional Catholic Communion service, an older, blind black man with a long white beard, wearing overalls as well as a hospital wristband, pulled out a mouth harp and began a mournful dirge, something along the lines of "Amazing Grace," but with some other, improvisational elements in it. The mourners, already prone to tears from the service's beginning, fell further into -- what was it, exactly: Sorrow? Remembrance? Nostalgia?
In the back of the room, sitting on a folding chair, there was a second-line grand marshal on hand, a former Jackson Square artist named Jennifer Jones. Dressed in spats and mostly black parade garb, with her long hair braided in gold bands, she had been sitting in the back of the chapel, wiping away tears throughout the service. But at the final prayer's conclusion, she stuffed her Kleenex in a sleeve and rose to perform a silent pantomime. She approached the casket from one side, moving slowly, mournfully. She worked her way around the casket and once on the left side, she began a high-stepping dance, now fast and celebratory, spinning her umbrella with vigor. On the top of her second-line umbrella, where a white dove of peace traditionally resides during a funeral service, she had attached a small stuffed duck for the occasion as well. Her silent movements were oddly surreal in the absence of the traditional funeral band. " 'Sending them off right' " is what they say in the jazz business; giving someone their due respect," Jones told me. "The dance signifies a spiritual portal onto the next life. I guess you could call what I do a liturgical dance. A New Orleans jazz liturgical dance."
As six pallbearers led Ruthie down the aisle, joining the procession out of the chapel -- and seemingly from out of nowhere -- was a large brown puppet that appeared to be some kind of Muppet on the down and outs, and it made me consider where I might wind up if I were a drunk Muppet in the waning years of my career. Exactly! New Orleans. At the cemetery, the crowd had dwindled to perhaps two dozen, and Massett made haste of the interment ceremony for practicality's sake.
Ruthie, it should be noted, died Sept. 6 at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, after residents of the nursing home were evacuated to that city as Hurricane Gustav approached. The official cause of death was cancer, but many speculate that the stress of the storm and relocation hastened the outcome. My own inexpert opinion -- and this is not an implausible theory -- is simply that her time had come. Suffice to say that neither abstinence nor moderation were among her marked characteristics. A life well lived or good health thrown away, really what is the difference in New Orleans and what does it matter now?
One of the French Quarter's most revered eccentrics has passed on to the great juke joint in the sky, to a corner of the Everlasting where, no doubt, there is no repentance for cussing, the drinks are all doubles -- and on the house -- and you're still allowed to smoke. And there's probably a lot of ducks. In his last words of the funeral service -- acknowledging Ruthie's proclivities toward the steadfastly unholier activities of this material world -- Massett made a simple and quite appropriate request of the gathering of mourners. "Maybe," he said, "we should say a prayer for God."
