james Joyce

Jazz Piece
James Martin

Magwire and the Hyphen were early for the gig and Magwire was the earlier of the two easing through the arch, five pints of Guinness happy in his gut as he shuffled towards the squat blockhouse of the venue to his right, the blue shirt of the venue owner a ‘Persil' flash in the dusk.

• Two, he slipped the twenty to the shirt.

• Two?

• Two. The shirt looked nonplussed.

• Do you want to pay twice my friend?

• My friend? Fuck that. – No, the Hyphen will be along in a minute, thin, long tweed overcoat, comb-over, beard, a little younger than me, can't miss him, he's buying a bot… Fuck, nearly said it .

• A, a battery, a battery charger. For his, his phone OK? OK?

• OK.

Half eight and the place was nearly full, he scrounged for a seat, hopeful of two even, spotted an empty table, ignoring the ‘Reserved' signs and slipped into the end chair dropping his hat on the bench seat by the wall. OK. Eye the bar, busy, maybe he'd hold until the Hyphen got in, fucken better not cock up on the bottles. The waitress beside him before he even saw her, a ‘hi' forming on her full lips. Full didn't do it, lips like an inner tube.

• Hi.

• Hi, ah, I'm waiting for a friend. She smelled something, he could tell. – Ah, two reds.

• Two reds?

• Two reds. It sounded like the Ard Fheis of the Irish Communist Party.

• Bottles?

• No, glasses. Weak liver. She moved off. Smart bitch, bottles.

The Hyphen came through the door looking back, still talking to the shirt, he turned left disappearing towards the toilets. Blind fucker, he'd be back .

• Ah, these seats are reserved. Tall skinny guy with two women, looked familiar, looked like a musician.

• Wha?

• Reserved- these seats, the whole table actually.

• Actually not. Look, five ‘Reserved' signs, five only, Magwire pointed them out. – See? Skinny wasn't happy, looked at the taller of the two women, she glared at Magwire.

• I'll fight you for them, Magwire offered. Being over fifty gave you an edge sometimes, though not often. She gimped him a look of pure hatred but he was on a roll. – Hey, there's only three of you, five seats. Magwire pointed to the seats. Skinny shrugged.

• We're expecting friends, but…

• Yeah, I've been like that since Suez. That should confuse them . They sat down.

She was back with the reds, blood streaks on her thumbs. Lips still looked ridiculous, maybe she'd had them, what was it? Botoxed.

• Ten Euros please. Touching them down on the table, another short slop, Magwire stared.

• Nice.

• Ten Euros please.

• Ten. Thank you. Should he mention the lips? Maybe not, give her the old one, lips like petals, bicycle pedals.

The Hyphen was back, smelling of blue block.

• Them are rough toilets.

• Have you a weak bladder or something? Ya went in the Quays.

• Weak bladder? I was pulling the corks. He tapped his coat, his comb-over at attention.

• Oh.

• Two bottles of the very best red, we're sorted now. He stuck his lip in the glass. – Not bad.

• Did ya see the waitress? See her lips?

• Bollixed.

• Botoxed, she's had them pumped.

• Forty if she's a day.

• And you are?

The Hyphen shrugged. A short man in a black, dandruffed polo and black jeans bounded onto the floor near the window, he would have preferred a stage but some venues sucked. He launched into a loud give-it-up-for type of intro which everyone managed to ignore until he got to the name The Trent Trio, and everyone applauded, and three skinny youngish men bounding into the space even better than the flaky guy, attacking their instruments, inflicting minor adjustments and tweaks before launching into a tune, introduced as ‘something we wrote ourselves'.

• We're off.

• Yep.

Magwire loved these gigs, the freshness of the music, that was it with jazz, musical masturbation maybe, but could a good band make it sound fresh? Oh yes good ones could and these guys sounded very fine.

The Hyphen was drumming already, thumb only as usual, you could miss it unless you knew. How long did he know him now? Must be up on four years, yeah four. Met him propping up a toilet door in the Quays, literally propping it, a bunch of ‘staggers' had kicked it off its hinges thinking a mate of theirs was on the throne and they'd got the Hyphen instead.

• Help me with this fucken door. The Hyphen looked rightly pissed.

• Wha?

• The door. He was holding it, free-standing in the passageway by the urinals.

• Wha?

• Jaysus! Wha? Wha? Hold this fucken door for a minute. OK?

Magwire thought about decking him but how could you hit a man holding a door? So he'd taken the door and propped it against the urinals, only then did he notice the trousers around the guy's ankles. And they'd started from there, one pint borrowing another until three or four weeks later one Friday evening, he'd extended his paw and said Magwire. Hyphen.

The band was lifting into it now, tune following tune, classics mingling with their own compositions, the sax player whiffin' through the keys, mad-eye stare, wrinkled brow, the bass player, hunched, finger-plucking the heavy strings, smiling through the riff, the drummer, in khaki shorts, machine-gunning one minute, brushing the next, the high-hat tisking like an irritated spinster, steadying the whole rhythm as it ran.

Filling the glasses was the problem.

• Any man charging ten E's to a full house doesn't deserve to sell us drink.

The Hyphen had said and he was right. Magwire had solved the problem by borrowing two wineglasses from the Quays before they'd finished their pints. So now they took turns with the first bottle, easing the extra glass onto the table from time to time. The staff would notice if they had only a single glass on the table but with three or four glasses the waters were muddied and every so often they would ease one glass off the table and refill it and slip it back when the time was right.

Magwire usually waited for what he called the ‘know-all' clap, that place in a tune when a solo ended and the know-alls in the audience would burst into spontaneous applause. Up she goes and it was easy to drop the empty in the same way, no hassle.

• Do you know yer man? – An elbow from the Hyphen and a quick nod in the direction of the skinny guy with the two women, just launching into their second bottle.

• No.

• Ya do. The Hyphen nodded again.

• No.

• Ya do. Played at Butch Mulligan's retirement ‘do' in Tate's.

• That's him? The mad fucker who was jumping in the middle of the floor and shouting?

• That's him.

• Demolished The house of the Rising Sun.

• Yep, had that guy with him on the rhythm box. What were they called?

• Andy's One Man Band.

• There were two of them, for fuck sake!

• Says it all.

The band called a ‘short break' easing through the crowd to the bar. Magwire took advantage to slip to the loo and the Hyphen had been right, fairly rough. Maybe it was that fact, the toilets, the Quays, which made him think…. Hyphen? That's an odd nickname, he'd never bothered before, asking, but he had thought about it, respecting the need not to know, but now, well why not?

The band was still off, the dandruffed guy in the black polo bending their ears above the canned jazz from the fill-in deck, Magwire, squeezing past him as he confided to one and all that American jazz was dead, dropping Coltrane and Monk along the way, how he loved the esoteric anonymity of the Dutch/Swedish minimalists, the Swedes were at the cutting edge now, Magwire's look of derision sliding off his teflon knowledgeability.

• Wanker alert! Magwire called, slipping into his seat beside the Hyphen

• Wanker alert? The Hyphen made to move away from him. – Hope you washed your hands.

• At the bar, at the bar. Tosspot in the polo is praising the Dutch.

• The Dutch?

• Yeah and the Swedes. Says they're producing the best jazz players now.

• Fuck! I spent a weekend there after I split from Gloria, sat in on a few sessions, more equipment than The Grateful Dead, nothing but squeaks and tinkles, high-hat tickling the odd thump on the base drum, the hashcake hippies clicking their fingers in appreciation. Pure shite.

• Gloria? Your wife was called Gloria?

• No, I called her Gloria, her name was Maureen, Maureen Noone.

• But Gloria?

• Yeah, Gloria because that was what I chanted in the solicitor's office the day we signed the papers. - GLOW-RI-AH! And he let his head back in a howl of pure joy, - GLOW-RI-AH, - the skinny guy with the two women eyeing them both in disbelief.

• Easy, easy!

• That's how I got the name Hyphen ya know.

• Funny that, I was about to ask.

• I'll tell you straight. We came out of the solicitor's, me and the brother and there she was with her terraced family in a huddle on the footpath and I let back my head and let her rip - GLOW-RI-AH and I knew she couldn't let it go. Across she came, the Adams family in tow and asked me wha? So I told her how she would always be Gloria to me, now that I was out of her clutches. She paused for a second and then she floored me with one sentence. Ya know, she said, aren't you the lucky man, Joe Noone that there's no hyphen in your name because then everyone would know that you're no-one and off she stomped down towards Sally Long's her misfit family falling in behind her like bedraggled ducks and the name stuck.

• That's your real name, Joe Noone?

• Yeah, but the brother, the bollix told everyone and now all I get is Hyphen. Howya Hyphen! Seeya Hyphen! Hyphen, Hyphen, so now it's kinda grown on me and I like it.

With that the band were back, launching into another one they wrote themselves, the crowd behind them now, no room around the tables, the bar solid. Hyphen topped the glasses again, the red line dropping in the second bottle.

• Easy now, he crooned, - we're in danger of running out. Tilting the bottle in the weak light.

• Oi, she's back. Magwire leant forward, covering the angle.

• Who?

• Lumberlips, here she comes. He nodded towards the familiar waitress easing her way towards them through the crowd, - Lip alert!

Hyphen eased forward, the bottle safely shielded, he smiled her as she passed.

• Hello.

• Can I help you? Haughty bitch .

• No, just making conversation. Her glare would have castrated a younger man but the Hyphen rolled with it, offering her his mad wink and the double click.

• Jesus! Have you an unrequited need to suffer? Magwire whispered as she brushed past them, searching for glasses, the bass player racing through, the drummer steering, the crowd lit up now with the pace of it all.

• Here, put another tint in that. He lowered the glass.

• Hey! Oh Jesus it was the ‘lumberlips', her hand grabbing the Hyphens arm. – Here. Are you smuggling in drink?

• Wha? I bought it at the bar. Hyphen rising to the challenge. – From your friend, the younger, thin girl.

• Jesus. Magwire groaned, - insult her why don't you, tell her she's fat.

• We don't sell that label. Albert! Her voice carrying above the wailing sax, the crowd beginning to take interest, nods in their direction.

• Ye-as Dawn, he eased through the crowd his Persil shirt still the brightest point in the galaxy.

• These gentlemen are smuggling in drink.

• No, we're not! Hyphen defended.

• We don't stock that label. Dawn on the attack, the sax player rising towards heaven.

• Show me that. Persil man making to grab the bottle from Hyphen's hands, Hyphen hanging on protesting loudly.

• Hey, we don't stock this. Hyphen still holding on, Magwire trapped in the arch formed by their struggling bodies.

• Maybe you need to check your stocks. Magwire offered. The drummer gone into overdrive, punching the skins, eyes tight, hair flying.

• Out! Persil man was having none of it.

• Now hold on, we paid our sub, there's nothing to say we have to buy your overpriced plonk. Which we did anyway. Magwire explained.

• Out! Here, Charlie. Another shirt appeared, this one was black and very large.

• Oh Fuck!

Hyphen let go of the wine bottle without warning, much of the remaining wine shooting from the neck with a force and velocity only scientists with nothing else to do could have measured, it covered the front of Persil man's shirt. Even the drummer missed a beat while the skinny guy with the two women had moved delicately away, their glasses held high, looks of superiority on their thin faces. The taller woman made to retrieve their third bottle from the empties but thought better of it.

• C'mon lads. The ‘black mountain' was courteous to a fault, taking the bottle and setting it down among the empties on the table, Dawn fussing at the front of the blue shirt, Albert dabbing at the stain with a tea towel.

It was about then that Magwire affected an air of genteel superiority.

• My good man, no need for violence, my friend and I will be happy to vacate your worthy establishment, though we have paid our sub, we would not dream of overstaying our welcome. Simply allow me to reclaim the remains of our legitimately purchased alcohol and my hat and, like true Christians, we will be on our way.

• Get it and get out. Persil man stood his face redder than his shirt, a map-shaped stain covering his chest. Magwire retrieving his hat and removed the offending bottle from the number littering the tabletop.

And so through the darkened arch they went the fog off the river rising to shroud them, the cry of the sax curving behind them like a woman's voice pleading for understanding.

• Anything left in that bottle? The Hyphen broke the spell.

• Oh yes! Magwire held the bottle high searching for the Plimsoll line against the weak streetlight.

• Did ya see his shirt? Little bollix.

• Drink? Magwire offered the bottle.

• Hey is this ours? Hyphen hefted the bottle. – Had we that much?

• No, but we have now, belongs to the skinny guy with the two women.

• The One Man Band? You stole his wine?

• He had two women.

• True.

James Martyn has had poems published in The Cúirt Journal, West 47, Books Ireland, Full Moon and Crannóg. He has won the Listowel Writers' Week Originals short story competition and has had work broadcast on BBC Radio. He was shortlisted for a Hennessy Award in 2006.