Ponies can’t snap.
If you’d just look at them for a second, really eye them up, you’d realize they don’t have fingers. Then you’d wonder why you’d ever ask such a stupid question--of course they don’t have fingers. What’s a good horse without good hooves?
You don’t get a pony with good hooves and they’re liable to trip all over themselves. Earth ponies don’t want clumsy ponies--they’d go and muck up the farm work. Pegasi don’t want them either. Can’t land on a rolling cloud without hoof-eye coordination. You’d fall right through. Unicorns--well, I don’t know about them. Seems they can do well enough without hooves, because of their horns and all, but not a lot of them are strong enough with the magic to float themselves around.
That’s where griffons got them beat, I say. Maybe I’m biased, although I’m not really. Wings and nice talons for holding guitars and sitars and strings and things and horns and bells and drums--and drums! Do griffons have ponies beat at the drums. And the saxophone. Say what you will, but a unicorn saxophone with all the keys stripped off just sounds wrong. Plugging holes with magic makes the thing sound funny. Something to do with vibrations and stuff.
So, maybe that was why the performer up on the stage--a unicorn--got such a jarring round of silence after he finished playing his piece. Or maybe it was because I was the only griffon--and the only one with fingers to snap with--in the bar.
I sure as hell wasn’t gonna snap for him. He played jazz like it was music on a page. Let writers make long monotonous sentences. I can’t read Pony anyway.
So, anyway, this poor unicorn is up on stage, rearranging his sheet music like he was gonna play another tune. But his set had already ended twenty something minutes ago. There was supposed to be somepony--I got the pronouns right, see? I’m tolerant--coming on after him, but they must’ve bailed or found a better place to play.
So this unicorn guy stays on stage. The poor guy didn’t really have anything prepared beyond a few aging standards and a couple easy blues compositions. Easy stuff. E flat seven to A flat seven to E flat seven. Then A flat seven. Then E flat seven. Then B flat seven. Then A flat seven and E flat seven again. Real standard stuff. Totally biffed the solos, too. How’d the pony saying go? More clams than a seafood dinner. Weird saying since ponies don’t eat fish, but whatever.
When you think about it, ponies are really exceptionally weird. I mean, for Gods’ sakes, they have hooves. How the hell do you fuck another pony properly with hooves? I don’t rightly comprehend it. Once you go griffon you never go back. The heck that’s true. Mares like griffons the way children do giant candy bars. It’s fun to ogle, but when you get down to the business of eating it you find it’s too big to eat--and what’s worse, you can’t reseal it. So you make yourself sick trying to eat it all or you let it go to waste.
Crazy things, those hooves. Great for kicking, not great for turning sheet music. You could tell this guy was a virgin the way he fumbled with his music. You can tell these kinds of things real easy with ponies. If you want to be a good lover, you have to be dexterous with your hooves, or else you’re just a flailing mess of meat. No pun intended. A flailing mass of meat with hooves that can kick out and hit somepony in a very sensitive place. I’ve seen more stallions than I can count--on my talons--plod in here and get drunk over accidentally kicking their someponies in a bad place. You’d think evolution would make them kinder during their bouts of passion. But hell no! They go wild. Ponies get black eyes and charlie-horses. Sex is dangerous. Then there’s the whole business of intecourse. Calendars are depressing. The days go by so fast you’d think they were flying away on purpose. But I can tell when Spring rolls around. More mares come in, more couples walk out, and more lonely sad accidentally abusive stallions come in. In that order. It’s a cycle. Like a music scale. Which this damn unicorn couldn't figure out to save his life. You flat the seventh when you’re playing jazz. This kid’s fooling around on the naturals like he’s fresh outta music school. They get kids like that every so often. The real reason they’re virgins is because they focused too much on the music. It’s tough to play the blues if you haven’t been roughed up a bit. Not impossible, but tougher. Lotta kids don’t understand the context behind the music. It’s life! It’s fucking and hitting ponies and getting hit and singing about it through a saxophone--that isn’t all stiff with magic I mean. Lotta kids don’t get that. I’ve seen a lot, I guess. Not a fraction of what’s to see, but a small fraction is a lot if you’re a small creature. It’s best to handle the top numbers before you go off trying to comprehend the denominators. 4/4, 4/2, 4/4, 2/4. This kid’s on a new tune now, by the way, and he’s totally mincing his solo. Just awful. No sense of rhythm.
I guess it makes me a regular, being around to see all these shows. Not the best title to have. The bartender knows my name. I don’t always drink a lot. Not as much as some of these other guys. That’s how I know I’m okay: I never drink the most on any given night. i come close sometimes, but never close enough. Sometimes I think I might quit forever, too. Never drink another drop of liquor again. I come pretty close to doing that too, sometimes.
The kid came pretty close to ending. He kinda trailed off until his buddy accompanying him on the piano nodded his head and they both leaned back. They looked pretty relieved to be done too. I guess it wasn’t his fault that time. Just a crap microphone.
I don’t know what happened after that. Probably they just ran out of tunes to play. They stopped, anyway. His bud went away, I don’t know where. He seemed pretty impatient to leave. Probably sped the music up so he could get out quicker. What a jive little shit.
But this sax player stays on stage. He’s looking around, like he’s dropped a piece of music and he can’t find it. His eyes are all shifty. At first I thought he was just one of those shifty types--since the Great War you see a lot of those types. It’s probably mostly because I’m a griffon and the Equestrian Army trains with griffon-shaped targets, but I thought at the time he might have just been one of the shifty types. Maybe he had shellshock or something, who knows.
So he’s up there looking around, and suddenly he locks eyes with me. He was looking down at the floor, but you could tell he was eyeing me up from across the room.
I unclipped my switchblade and hid it in the feathers of my left wing. I’m a righty, you see, but my left wing’s a bit quicker coming out. Just in case he was gonna try and avenge his country’s defeat or something crazy like that.
He stuffs his sax into his case, which is a real easy thing to do given that it’s got no keys to watch out for, and all but jumps offstage. And he starts running at me. Not running, but he’s going pretty darn quick.
I’m ready to stab him, yeah? That sounds bad. I’m not a bad griffon. I fought because I had to. I was ready to defend myself. And then he walks right up to me and smiles and says, “Let me shake your hoof, stranger.”
That threw me for a loop. It went right over me. Shoop. Like a cool breeze. I was all set to stab him still. I might have, too, if he hadn’t taken my hand being raised out of defensive instinct to be a sign of friendliness and grabbed it.
He had a firm handshake. That was nice. Not as firm as a griffon’s, but I didn’t expect much. Mostly up and down. Not a whole lotta grip to it, though to be fair he didn’t have fingers to grip with.
“I’m Sharp,” he says. His voice is real high, like he’s talking to his sweetheart or something.
“Yes you were,” I said back.
He laughed, the loon, like it wasn’t even mean. “I saw you when I was playing. Did you like what I played? I listen to all the greats. I get my hands on all the records I can find that weren’t destroyed in the war.”
“That’s nice,” I said. Most records are of ponies--unicorns--since griffon musicians don’t usually have enough money to buy studio time, but there are a few good 45’s out there if you know where to look. Mostly jazz. That’s Griffonia’s largest export right now. That and griffon-shaped targets.
I tried to say something else, I don’t remember what, but he cut me off.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“Can you--yeah, sure.” Now I was totally lost. Everything was going right over my head. But I’ll be damned if I hadn’t downed my previous drink the moment he came barreling over to me, just in case I had to run away and leave it there. Waste not want not. No sense in almost finishing a good beer. “Nothing fancy,” I said.
He was true to my word and bought me a pony beer. It’s stiff stuff, and bitter too, But it was alright I suppose. Can’t knock it. I wasn’t paying for it.
After I’d had a sip, I noticed he was still standing there, kinda studying me. I put the drink down and asked him what was on his mind. Shouldn’t have done that.
Right away the kid starts yammering. “I can’t believe I have a real griffon to listen to me play!” he was saying. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was here for the music, but he probably wouldn’t have cared either way. “All I ever see are ponies in this bar. It’s a real treat to see a new face--doubly so since yours has a beak on it.”
I’ve been here longer than he has, you see. If I remember correctly, he hadn’t been in this bar three times before tonight. Didn’t matter, really, but it still bothered me a bit having him run around thinking he’s an authority on something. Can’t really think why. Just thought it.
Then he went and said some stupid stuff. I don’t remember what he said, but it was something like, “You griffons are so good at jazz.”
I said thank you like a polite griffon should, but inside I was a bit miffed. A millenia of music and he picked jazz. Not a bad way to go, but griffon is not synonymous with jazz alone, dig?
Anyway, he goes on and says something stupider. Like, “Your people inspire me,” or something weird like that. See how weird ponies can be? Like, what the hell is that supposed to mean? You’re welcome for contributing to my race’s existence, I guess. We’ll pop out another jazz legend one of these days--just gotta keep on fucking until it happens. Griffons are good at that, dig? Fingers and talons. Crazy stuff.
Crazy--let me tell you about crazy. Before I could say a word his saxophone was in front of him. The bell was right in my lap. Like magic!
Kid said, “Lemme play a song for you. Lemme play a song.”
I said, “No, that ain’t necessary. I heard your set just a moment ago.”
Kid said, “Lemme play a song for you. A real griffon song.”
I said, “Ponies can’t play real griffon songs,” real sarcastically. But he didn’t pick up.
“Yeah,” he said, “a real song. Some of the griffon stuff is too abstract for pony folk to enjoy. They like classical structure, you dig it? You know.”
“Really--you got me a drink. That was so kind of you. I don’t want to trouble you for a private performance.”
“Gosh, it’s no trouble. Honest. I want your opinion too. I need you to critique me on my authenticity.”
At that point I was begging the Gods to intervene. I guess it wasn’t in the master plan, though, because I got two earfuls of wild ups and downs before I could so much as scoot back in my seat. Ponies--what nuts.
This kid played alright, I guess. All by himself, too. His piano player friend was long gone by this point. The sax still sounded weird because of the magic, but he played the runs well. The thing about griffon music is, it’s got a lot of nonsense notes. You put those in between your thirds and flat sevenths and roots to build tension. You hit the wrong notes to build up to the right notes, make them stick out more. This kid was doing that alright, except he had too many nonsense notes. He was trying to play the tune strict and academic-like. Trying to make it as perfect as possible. What kind of weirdos try to make wrong notes sound right? Ponies, that’s who.
He finished up, hit the last note. The kid had range, I’ll give him that. He could get up there, really make the sax scream when he wanted to. Still phrased half the damn piece wrong. It wasn’t awful though.
He took the mouthpiece away from his lips and asked, “What’d you think?”
I told him, “Work on your phrasing. Your accents gotta show off the groove, not the other way around. Forte piano crescendo long tones no matter what. Don’t be afraid to be wrong, either. Dress your clams up to look like lobster, dig?”
He just smiled like a weirdo and nodded. Uh huh this and okay that. Student talk if I ever heard it.
When I said my share, I took a sip of the beer to see what he’d do. He was looking at me kinda expectantly, like he knew I wasn’t done giving him an impromptu music lesson.
I ruffled up my feathers--and nearly dropped my knife. Damn thing was still tucked into my wing. That woulda been embarrassing. I ruffled up my feathers and asked, “Something else on your mind kid?” like it wasn’t a bad idea to ask that.
He looked kind of bashful as he replied, “Won’t you snap for me?”
I gave him a funny look. Asked him to repeat.
“Would you snap for me?” he said again. “I’ve never played a griffon club before, and I’ve never heard snapping. All I hear is applause the pony way.” And then he stomped his hooves on the floor. “I’d love to hear you snap for me, if you think I deserved it.”
What kind of a spot was I in now? Kid buys me a drink and then serenades me like he wants to seduce me or something. What am I gonna do, not snap for him?
Now I know for a fact his playing would get him booed out of a real griffon jazz lounge. Those birds take music seriously, though it’s a different kind of serious than pony-serious. Like, griffon-serious is finding the words that sound the best, and pony-serious is finding the words that mean something the best. Emotional versus academic thoughts, dig?
So, I didn’t think the kid deserved it. But I snapped for him anyways. Bought me a beer after all, he deserved it for that if nothing else.
His face lit up like it was the first piece of music he’d heard all day.
Author's Note
E flat seven to A flat seven to E flat seven. Then A flat seven. Then E flat seven. Then B flat seven. Then A flat seven and E flat seven again. Real easy stuff.