Page 55 of Jazz

My jeans were still wet on the radiator that sat under the curve of the window. It put out the tiniest of heat, just enough totake the cold off the top of the coated steel, not enough to heat the room.

I opened Baz’s wardrobe, thumbing through. Old suits, dust thick on the shoulder pads, musty shirts, hanging damp. I moved on, looking for something else. Something fucking wearable. Jeans. T-shirts, jumpers, that would do. I pushed my leg into some old Levi’s. They were tight. Definitely didn’t fit Baz’s growing gut now, so I doubted he’d miss them too much.

The stairs grumbled under my feet, and I was sure the actual steps were bending under my weight. I found him sitting in the living room when I reached the ground floor, staring at the old boxy TV on the pine stand in the corner. The sofa was old, faded and fucking floral, like everything else in this house, and the room stank of weed, fresh and heavy. Baz’s way of keeping the edges blurred.

“Hey Baz. Thanks for last night.”

The man turned, eyes red-rimmed and slow to focus, lids half-dropped like the weight of the world was pressing them down. His hair stuck out in greasy clumps, what was left of it, the centre just a patch of stubble and baldness, the sides he hadn’t even bothered to shave off. The half-smoked joint trembled between his fingers. His skin had that washed-out look, pale yellow, like nicotine and cheap lightbulbs had seeped into it. He looked older than he was. Worn down and the kind of tired that sleep couldn’t fix.

Pity hit me before I could stop it. Baz wasn’t weak. Just surviving the only way he knew how. The joint wasn’t about getting high anymore; it was about making the world a little quieter, softening the sharp edges that came from holding up a life that was crumbling around him. The smell hung thick in the air, clinging to those floral curtains, the sofa, him.

Baz nodded eventually when my words finally filtered into his brain.

“How long you here for?”

“Dunno, pal. Maybe another day,” I answered, rubbing the back of my neck as Baz reminded me I had no fucking plan. “You said you’ve got food in that freezer?”

“Aye. Chips and that.”

Chips would fucking do. Anything.

He was on his feet when I came back in with a bowl of fries.

“Help yourself to whatever’s here, but keep the noise down.” He looked at me pointedly. “She’ll be asleep. But the sleeping tablets don’t keep her totally knocked out. You won’t hear from her, though. She can’t talk anymore.”

He didn’t look sad as he said those words. They were just a matter of fact. Like he’d accepted it. I wanted to ask, but we weren’t friends. He just needed to keep his trap shut, and we’d clear out of here soon, once Jazz was ready to move again.

Baz shrugged into his jacket, pulling a black beanie hat over his balding head. But as he got to the door, he stopped, turning back to me.

“If you’re here, who am I handing over the gabapentin to tonight?”

Good fucking question.

I shrugged. “Dunno. But there’ll be someone there in a Rats’ patch. Just act surprised it’s not me.” Baz nodded, his hand turning the lock on the old wooden door. “And Baz. Don’t fucking tell them where I am, huh?”

He raised his eyebrows half in exasperation and then thought better of it before nodding and pulling the door open. Behind me in the kitchen, the cooker bleeped.

*****

Jazz was still asleep; the pizza I’d brought her up was long cold, and I’d given up and eaten half of it, anyway. But as I sat in the dark corner of the room, hiding from floral and chintz, she began to stir. She struggled up onto her arms; the bed covers dropping off her, and even in the shadows I didn’t miss her tits. I leaned onto my elbows, gripping my nose, looking away, trying to think of something else and not my dick. But I still sat in the corner like a fucking stalker.

“You need to eat, Tiger,” I said eventually, letting her know she wasn’t alone.

Jazz didn’t answer. But I could tell she was staring, her eyes fixed on me, even though the corner I sat in was dark and I was all but a shadow to her.

What was she thinking? Was she plotting an escape? Regretting last night? She said nothing, and she didn’t move. Not at first.

“What’s wrong?” She asked eventually, the words taking me by surprise.

I’d expected something else. Rebuttal. Rejection and at the very least retaliation.

“Just thinking.” I answered.

“What about?”

“What to do with you.” It wasn’t a lie. Maybe just in a different context.

“And what have you come up with?” That ring to her voice was back. Strong, composed and with more than a hint of defiance. Just the way I’d noticed it when I first met her. But perhaps with a little less anger.