So I left the theatre in the West End tonight (Glasgow, not London) and ran for the tube (Subway, not Underground), and I caught the inner circle by the skin of my teeth and whizzed round to St Enoch. And I turn on to Argyle St just in time to see my bus sitting at the lights, so I run again, and I make it, and I celebrate the small victory of making it with the double whammy of securing a whole double seat to myself.
Until I made a pal.
Unlike me, he actually didn’t make the bus on time—it was in the process of indicating and pulling out and swinging away from the pavement with the doors already shut when he decided to flag it down. And I don’t mean yer standard “Haud the bus!” with a wee wave from further down the pavement (which, inevitably, 8.5 out of 10 drivers will ignore and keep going anyway). Naw. This guy’s no for running the risk of being left behind. He comes careening up the middle of Jamaica Street with his shirt wide open, big hairy belly bouncing about like a cheerleader’s doodah’s, screaming “WAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!” like the zombie apocalypse has started and they’ve chased him down the Broomielaw. And he runs full pelt right into the front of the bus, man tits squashed against the windae as the driver lurches and brakes, fists thumping and pounding like a maniac as he edges his way round to the door, the driver shouting “Awaaaay ya clown!” and blaring the horn at him all the while. And you’d think he’d drive off the second the guy’s out of the road, but naw, the genius bus driver decides to open the door and give him verbal:
“Whithyfuckyehinkyerplaynetpal—EH?”
And then He’s on. And he’s panting. And he’s thankfully no longer breenging about like a bull in a china shop. And he’s up the steps, and he’s giving it “Sooooorry maaaaate, ah didnae want tae miss eh bus. Maaaaate, ah’m on ma last warnin, she’d kull me fur et.” And the driver’s pure “Taefuck wae hur, pal, ah near kullt ye. Ye cannae jeest slam yersel in front ae a bus windae.” And the guy’s like “Sooooorry maaaaate” and then he fumbles in his top shirt pocket (which is flapping about the place seeing as it’s no buttoned up, and I’m freezing just looking at him—it’s blinking November?!), and then he finds his card at last, and he slams it down on the wee reader, and he says “Linwood maaaaate”, and the driver gives him a ticket and I swear I hear a wee “Fanny” from up front as the guy stoats up the bus.
Stoats up the bus, looking for a seat.
Up the bus, to where there’s currently an empty seat right beside me.
Aww fur… SAKE.
And so he comes stomping up the bus with his julies jiggling, swinging from the monkey straps like Tarzan then grabbing on to poles as the bus lurches onwards, and I can smell spirits and something like cat pee before he even draws near, and then before I know it… PLUNK.
“Yawrite maaaaate, how’s it gaun?”
And I smile a bit, but look away and keep typing on my phone, hoping like hell he’ll stop talking to me. But he leans in, somehow smelling simultaneously like paint stripper and kippers, and says “Yawrite buddy? Had a guid nicht oot have ye?” And I smile grimly and say “Aye thanks, you?” And then I realise he’s picking at something. He’s picking a wee chunk of what looks like grissly kebab meat out of the hairs on his chest. And he finally gets a hold of it, and he inspects it, and he screws his nose up a bit, sniffs it, and shoves it straight in his mouth. And he says “Aye maaaaate, no bad, no bad. But ah’ve goat tae get up eh road afore she sterts on me again.” And I grimmace, trying not to boak as he swallows, then he nods down the bus “Aht prick tried tae knock me doon, ye see aht? Ah should get a fucken claim in. You be ma witness!”
SERIOUSLY?
I ignore him, but he suddenly thrusts his wrist right in front of my face, and I wonder what the hell I’m looking at as it’s all brown and yellow and purple, and I’m trying to figure if it’s some weird ass tattoo or something when he says “Ah burst aht daein marshall arts et Linwood sports centah. Ah dae karate, shiatsu and nun-chunks.” And I giggle because he said shiatsu, and it turns out that was a big mistake, as he gives it “Whit? WHIT?! You hink a cannae dae karate kid cause ah’m fat?” And it’s not that he’s angry at me, it’s more like he’s determined no tae get the piss ripped out of him, like he’s spent his whole life trying to prove himself to fill some desperate void left by folk that didn’t believe in him.
For some reason, I remember a bit from a book about mothers who microwave their weans’ dinners.
And then there’s a HOUCK, HOUUUCK, HOUUUUUUCK beside me and third time lucky he’s back on his feet. And he’s haudin a pole with his wee purple gimpy hand, the other one cutting through the air like a master chef at a fillet of beef, and he’s going WUOOOAUH, YEEEEHAH, and the driver’s shouting back “GONNAESITOANYERERSE, and then he goes HWAAAAH and tries to kick his leg like Daniel-son but hits the seat opposite, rebounds as the bus stops suddenly and goes crashing down the two wee steps, landing man-boobs first flat on his face. At least he had the airbags ready and deployed… And he’s soaking wet when he stands up, because some wee clart’s spilt a can of Red Bull, and it’s all matted over his hairy chest, and his shirt is manky and his jeans are clashing and he’s hurt his wee purple gimpy haun again. And he starts greetin, and I mean proper girnin, and I feel really bad for him. Me and two other guys somehow manage to half lift him up and deposit him gently on the disabled seats at the front. Well, I say gently, to onlookers it might have looked more like that news footage of the JCBs dropping cattle carcasses in burning craters during foot and mouth.
I pick up and pass him his wee bus card, which had clean flown out his pocket when he did the erseholewinder from the back deck, and I give him some hankies out my backpack, and I say “Ye awrite, pal?” And he looks up at me with big sad drunk puppy dog eyes, and he’s slevering a wee bit down his belly as he cries, and he grabs my be-gloved hand with his wee purple gimpy one, and as he pats it, he says:
“She’s gonnae kull me this time maaaaate. She’s really gonnae kuuull meeeee.”