Dancing Jax

“So forward stepped the Holy Enchanter,” Jezza read, his face alive and alight, “the one thereafter named the Ismus. Only he could command the quarrelling Court and bring order to the squabbling subjects whilst the Dawn Prince remained in exile. Yet first he must endure the Great Ordeal to prove himself…”

Shiela stared in mute disbelief at Howie and Tommo. Then she saw that Miller had retrieved his copy and was nodding in time to the tempo of the words.

“Stop it!” she cried suddenly, snapping her book shut.

“Stop it!” Jezza’s reading ceased and he lifted his gaze to her. His eyes narrowed and a gleam went out in them.

“Call Dave,” he instructed Miller, without releasing Shiela from his glance. “Say I want him here by eight tonight, no excuses. And get Tesco Charlie as well – tell him to bring his lorry. Don’t fail me.”

Miller and the others were blinking and rubbing their foreheads as if rousing from sleep. They closed their books reluctantly.

“Er… sure,” Miller said, pulling out his Nokia once more. “How about Manda and Queenie?”

“Why not,” Jezza replied. “Let’s make a party of it. You can do that on the way, Big Man. We’ve got one more thing to collect from that house this evening.”

“I’m not going back there,” Shiela stated. “It’ll be dark.”

Jezza turned back to her, his face impassive. “I don’t need you,” he said. “I’m taking Howie and Miller this time.”

“I’m not doing any heavy work,” Howie refused.

“Don’t worry, Leonardo, your lily-white handies won’t come to any harm.”

“What about me?” Tommo asked.

“You make yourself useful,” Jezza told him. “Get some cans and anything else you can lift. Those girls are too tight to bring anything.”

“But I’m skint!”

“Howie, give him cash.”

“Why me?” the tattooist cried.

Jezza grinned at him. “Cos we’re in your emporium,” he said. “And you’ll have had a busy day, raking in the readies from the witless drones who come in here wanting to copy whatever mass-market pap idol has been hyped to them this week, only to have them regret it once that particular scrap of ephemera has stopped flashing in the pan. Then there’s the tribal squiggles or bands of barbed wire smothering their pimply skin because they think it makes them look hard and macho or mysterious and more interesting than they really are. Why don’t you simply scribe ‘I’m a mindless sheep’ on their foreheads while you’re at it?”

“Pack that in,” Howie warned. He didn’t mind when Jezza pontificated, but not when he slagged off his clientele and, by extension, himself. Although… he suddenly recalled the nineteen-year-old upon whose back he had once inked, in the early days of his shop, a group portrait of the members of Hear’Say, only for her to return eight months later to ask if there was any chance he could go over it and make them look like the boys of Blue instead. At the time Howie had somehow managed to control himself and politely told her that, as Blue consisted of one person less than Hear’Say, it would be impossible. As soon as she had left in a dissatisfied strop, however, he had almost made himself sick with laughter.

The tattooist grudgingly opened his well-padded wallet. “Here’s forty,” he said, handing the notes over to Tommo. “But I want change!”

“Give him more,” Jezza told him.

“That’s plenty for beers and a cheap bottle of voddy!” Howie protested.

“It’s not for the booze.”

“Takeaways?” Miller suggested hopefully.

Jezza took Howie’s wallet off him and handed it to Tommo. “I want about thirty big bags of charcoal,” he said.

“Barbecue stuff?” Tommo asked.

“That’s right, we’re having a great big luau.”

“On the beach? Cool.”

“No, not on the beach, and it’ll be anything but cool.”

Howie grabbed the wallet back and removed all his plastic, except the Clubcard, then returned it. “Make sure you use that,” he informed Tommo. “I want the points.”

“Points?” Jezza scoffed. “You really think they’re doing you some sort of favour and actually rewarding you for being loyal? Were you born half an hour ago? Wake up, brother. What they’re doing is building up a detailed profile of everything you buy, every time you use that and every other card you’ve got. They know what you eat, what you wear, what you read, where you travel to every day and where you’re likely to be at any given time. They know what music you listen to, what TV you watch, what websites you visit and what you download, what turns you on and what makes you laugh on YouTube. They know what your politics are – it’s all on your file now and who’s merrily filled it in for them? You have, like the good little lemming consumer you are.”

Howie shrugged, “I still get money off,” he said.

“Peanuts,” Jezza snorted. “They’re conning you into building up a comprehensive database about yourself and paying you in half-price spaghetti hoops to do it. There’s a computer somewhere that can calculate how often you take a dump because it knows precisely how much aloe vera impregnated bog roll you buy and when you buy it. They know everything about you, my son. But you, and millions like you, aren’t even slightly disturbed by that. You’re just happy to get your reduced Hovis and bargain garibaldis.”

“Jammie Dodgers,” Howie corrected.

“Are we going or what?” Miller interrupted.

Tommo laughed. “Don’t talk about food when the gasworks here hasn’t eaten for a whole four hours.”

Jezza inclined his head – the sermon was over for now – and he herded them through the door.

“So where we having this barbie?” Tommo asked.

Jezza beckoned them round the side of the building and gathered everyone in the yard at the rear. Then he gestured to the alien landscape of the immense container port.

“In there,” he announced.

No one said anything. They each gazed at the wide prospect of stacked metal containers in the distance.

“You really have lost it this time,” Howie eventually said. “You’re out of it! Totally out of it. Why in there?”

Jezza’s eyes remained on the mountainous gantry cranes on the horizon. “Because the reception will be best,” he said enigmatically. “And you’ll be safer.”

“It’s a mad idea!” Tommo crowed. “And I love it! Let’s go rock that place!”

Howie tore at his beard in exasperation. “You’re both loonies!” he cried. “For one thing, you’d never get inside in a million years – the security is tight as an airport nowadays.”

“Then isn’t it lucky we know Tesco Charlie and his big shiny lorry?” Jezza answered. “He’s in and out of there all the time.”

The tattooist spluttered. “You’re not serious!” he shouted. “Do you know the heavy crap you’ll get into when you’re caught? And you will be caught! They’ve got their own police unit in there. Those guys are all ex-military, there’s no one under six foot five. They don’t play nicey-nicey and accountable like the town regulars. They’ll rough you up, crack your head open – and then throw you in the nick.”

Jezza put a calming hand on his shoulder. “The port’s pigs will be otherwise engaged tonight,” he informed him. “A lovely diversion has been arranged and they, and the fire crews, are going to be so very busy to even notice li’l ol’ us.”

“What?” Howie cried. “Even if you could arrange to get rid of them for a while, which I don’t believe, they’ve got top-of-the-range CCTV in there. Those cameras can zoom into bedroom windows across the water in Harwich!”

Jezza continued to stare at him. “Let this fear go, man,” he said. “Come on, don’t be so uptight. Live a little – or are you really going to miss out on this and stay trapped in your pinball boundaries with your loyalty cards and gas bills? It’s a once in a lifetime offer, Jimmy Boy – come join me. Leave all that just for tonight and follow me… Beyond the Silvering Sea, within thirteen green, girdling hills, come – be a part of something amazing. I promise, tonight will blow your mind.”