Of Food and Jazz and Love in the Gutters

'I had to, I'm sorry.'

'After all you have said about AJ! How could you'.

'I know, I know. But it was bloody good. I'll come with you and have a beer and watch if you want to have one too.'

'I don't think I could stomach one right now. Lets just go and have a beer'.

Our mutual friend AJ had been to Nepal a couple of years previously. He raved and raved and raved about the pizza's in Kathmandu, and had not mentioned once any treks he had been on. Mark had roundly mocked him for this.

Whilst I was unpacking and relaxing in the hotel after the flight from Lukla, not ready to eat or do anything Mark had craftily snuck out and had a pizza.

'You're such a sneak. I'm going to tell AJ about you'.

We went out and had a beer in a cosy place called New Orleans. I ended up eating a beautifully moist chicken kebab, a curried lamb dish, a garlic naan bread, some fries, some pork balls in red sauce, some salad, another beer....

'You're gonna get the meat sweats dude', Mark warned me, but after the plain fare of the mountains I could not get enough. Getting changed before I came out I was surprised at how lean I had become, my jeans were loose around me. I needed the protein.

After dinner, we found a little jazz bar. A trio of drums bass and keyboards were playing standards of Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus and Ray Charles.

'You know all the stories that you collect?' Mark asked suddenly.

'Yes'

'Well do you have any?'

'I'm not sure, let me think' I let the jazz drift over me. 'Why yes, now I come to think about it I do. One about Jazz as a matter of fact'.

'Go on...'

'Well back in the fifties, Jazz was the new thing. It was more edgy, more revolutionary, more dangerous than rock and roll ever was. It tore up all the rule books of music, and boiled them into a bitches brew of madness and magic.

"This story is about a young man in the midlands. A sharp and nattily dressed young man, who played saxophone in a modern jazz quartet. They played dance halls all around the midlands, Coventry and Leicester, bringing a little bit of American romance to the black country.

'Who was he?' Mark asked.

I took a breath. 'He was my father. He was engaged to girl, playing in the coolest band around, one cool cat'.

'Was that your mother?' Mark asked?

'Wait and see! He got called up for national service. The night before he left, they played one last gig. They played the best they had ever played, the solos were inspirational.

'But musicians can be an untrustworthy lot. After the show, the drummer came up to my father, and announced that as he was not going to be around, he was eloping with his fiancee.

'My Father did what any self respecting Jazz musician would do and drowned himself in drink. He had the blues real bad. He ended up in a gutter somewhere looking at the stars, his life crashed around him'.

'What happened!' I could see Mark was involved in the story.

'Well, actually he was rescued. A beautiful young girl found him, and helped him home. And that was how my parents met'.

Mark looked at me suspiciously. 'Is that really true?'

'Maybe. Could be. Possibly'.

We listened to the jazz swirl around us for awhile, its rhythms and cadences sometimes harmonious, sometimes dissonant, spiralling into the cold Kathmandu night.