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My Tale From The Bus. KonstantinL vs. Electricity Man
I've come to believe for some reason that the phenomenon of the double decker bus does not exist in the United States but where double deckers do exist a rule applies - NEVER GO ON THE TOP DECK.
The reason for this is, apart from not entirely trusting the driver to avoid low bridges, is that the top deck of any double decker is invariable a sort of cross between Mos Eisley space port, a turn of the century Tunisian hashish den and a high security prison minus the gates, razor wire or prison guards.
In reality, this is much less fun than it sounds.
Due to this, more often than not, the seats are usually taken on the bottom deck of a bus, as this rule is widely know and stringently adhered to by the decent and proper population of Glasgow (there are a few thousand of us among the teeming hordes of marauding criminals, a small percentage but still more than enough to fill the bottom deck of a bus).
As a result of this it therefore came to pass that on a mammoth journey all the way from Glasgow Cross to the very fringes of the hinterland known as The South Side, I was forced up to the top deck by the unavailability of any bottom deck seats and an unwillingness to stand clinging on for dear life to a wall bar as the bus rattled over the pot holed streets of such unsavory locales of Cessnock and The Gorbals.
Baring in mind the rule, it was with a sense of trepidation that I poked my head over the top of the spiral staircase, with a similar consternation, you might expect, to that of the soldier 'volunteered' to peer over the top of a trench to spot a sniper and who then waits for a few seconds for his skullcap to be blown off.
The scene surveyed, I was relieved to see it was mostly empty excepting two genetically modified rat people (a male and female by the looks of it) clearly held tight in the warm, sleepy embrace of heroin addiction. 'Thank Heavens, for that freely available tranquilizer and, ultimately, euthanizer of the desperate and hopeless', I thought.
When sharing public space with drugged up recidivists its important, nay, essential to put some thought into where you are going to sit. Sitting too close risks some form of social interaction, too far away suggests you are a frightened, lily livered creature who will give up his wallet with little resistance. Using my wealth of experience, I have came to the conclusion three rows of seats would be about right.
Putting theory into practice, this placed me in the second front row directly opposite the stairs and the bus rolled off once more, jerking violently between gear changes before making the next stop. Realising a further stop meant further people coming on to the bus, I kept one beady eye on the stairs to give the once over to the beastly specimens that were likely to come ghoulishly gliding up the stairs, the other I positioned so as to look on straight ahead, giving an unperturbed and steely air, albeit an unperturbedness allied and abetted by some crooked chameleon style eye condition.
It was then that it emerged, like the ghastly, fabled sea serpent rising from the dark depths of the ocean. A head of thin, greasy hair, a malformed earlobe, as it rose further up the stairs, pale clammy skin and a scrawny neck came into view. As the figurative vista fully revealed itself, what was presented was the most pitiful sight my eyes had ever witnessed and having worked myself into a state of sharply honed fear, in which I would automatically throw a savage and debilitating right hook should anyone come within one and a half feet of me, my heart sank into a gloopy goo of empathetic pity.
Of course, this left me essentially defenceless.
The wretched poltroon shuffled towards the front row of seats. He was dressed in what at one time may have been a corduroy blazer but which was now a threadbare approximation of a jacket, misshapen, extraordinarily too tight in some places, too baggy in others, like the work of some maddened golem tailor.
It was matched with a filthy woolen tank top, one suspected home to a plague of lice, which featured knitted silhouettes of animals - giraffes, monkeys, elephants - woven, tragically, oh so tragically, in rows across the front in various shades of brown. The look was completed by a pair of ancient Farrah slacks, thick with dust and adorned with numerous dubious stains and a pair of Coke bottle spectacles patched together with band aids. This, along with fading yellow bruises suggested he was punched in the face on a semi-regular basis by less empathetic individuals than I.
He turned round to face me and my general, everyday sense of dread, already augmented by my riding on the top deck sense of dread, deepened further. "Hi" he clicked with the charm of a carpet beetle. There was no ignoring him, I could only attempt to frightened him off. "HI!" I barked making sure to sound as disgruntled, surly and unfriendly as possible. His eyes rolled, behind his thick lens, like marbles across the tarmac of a school playground. The ability to interpret the real world and its feelings and attitudes towards him was clearly long gone from his lunatic mind. In the absence of this faculty everyone, no matter how disgruntled sounding, was a potential friend.
There was a pause, then "I'm Adam". I said nothing in return, preferring to glare at him in equal measure disgust and murderous intent. The disgust part was easy, natural even, however it's less easy to murder, particularly individuals as abject as this. I relented, "I'm Angus" I said lying, having no wish for Adam to know anything about me, even my name, the prospect of which made me shudder. He sat there, looking round at me, twisted and contorted like some mutated larvae, crackling with the anticipation of letting go the words he knew he was about to let spill from his mouth. "Angus" he said grinned dementedly "do you like electricity?"
The top deck had filled up by this time. No more seats to be had, not even next to the rat people.
'Yep' I thought with unerring accuracy 'This is it starting, 20 minutes of moon man blather, 20 minutes of my finite, oh so precious life, taken up by a disgusting human tragedy and anyone looking on must think we are friends'.
My shoulders slumped, my former steely posture rusted to powder, there was no way out, no escape. All I could do was to unfocus my vision, let my mind wander far, far away from the 57 bus to Cardonald, to let my life flashed before me so I could examine it, in minute detail, in the hope of pinpointing exactly where it had all gone wrong, if five or ten or fifteen years ago, I could have made a different decision that would have meant never experiencing Adam.
Lost in self examination, only a few meager fragments of Adams conversation filtered through. A dead mother, fuses, a souped up vacuum cleaner, how electricity was 'the most amazing thing', at one point a modified alarm clock was produced from a black plastic bag, its new purpose uncertain. But mainly I thought about the 28 year old me, and how I should have married Amy, how if I had done, I would have a house, no, a home, loving children, a career, a car, instead of the grim modern inventory now in my possession, that of a bus pass and a dandruff encrusted crackpot bus companion slavering on about voltage with wacko glee.
'If only it was 2001' I mused sadly 'If only I'd said those four words'.
The 20 minutes passed and the world came sharply back into focus. The unsound face of Adam was still chattering away, his hand now waving some dangerously frayed wires with passionate zeal.
'This is my stop' I told him. He looked visibly distraught. 'Can't you stay on' he pleaded. 'NO, I HAVE TO GO NOW' I said surprising myself with my own authoritativeness. Although it was difficult to imagine Adam looking any more crushed by life than he had already appeared previously, at this moment he did so.
I stood up, trotted down the stairs and exited the bus but the expected sense of relief did not come. Numb with past regrets and fearful for a time not yet realised, I watched the bus trundle off, spewing diesel exhaust fumes, all the while carrying repellent Adam, the future me, off to some cheerless fringe of the city where he probably lived.
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He has arrived, the mountebank from Bohemia, he has arrived, preceded by his reputation.
Evil Dr. K "The Jimmy McNulty of Payment Protection Insurance"
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