I get on the number 7 at the Pavilion and there’s a man gets on behind me lugging a huge big giant silver ACTUAL 80s GHETTO BLASTER the size of a Vauxhall Corsa, and he sits doon the front rummaging about in his backpack until he pulls out an ACTUAL OLD SCHOOL CASSETTE TAPE (if yer under 21—Google it). He puts it in, and he clicks a massive button, and it goes PRRRREEWWFFTOOOOEEEEWWWEERRRPNNNRRREEWWWWOOOORRWWWEEEEEEENNNNEEEEE as it rewinds for what seems like an age, then it makes a loud THUNK and CLICK and stops as we pass by the King’s, and then he presses play.
There’s a sound of white noise static KKFFFFFFFFFFFTT, then suddenly it’s blaring out Where’s Your Mama Gone, Far Far Away, Last Night I Heard Ma Mama Singing A Song, Oooeeep, Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, and he’s pure loving life and starts bopping his head like an epileptic chicken sitting on a washer dryer during spin cycle, and he’s swaying about and clicking his fingers like it’s 1971 and he’s just about to pull down the Barra’s, and I can’t help but smile at him with a big cheesy grin and a wee giggle.
And then the bus stops outside the bingo hall at Partick and a couple of wee grannies get on, and they shout HAW HAAAAW, HERE WE GO! and suddenly it’s party time and they’re holding on to the poles and busting a few moves as they shuffle round their abandoned Tesco Bag-for-Life’s. And everybody on the bus is smiling and laughing now and no doubt singing along to Woke Up This Morning And Ma Mama Was Gone, Oooeeep, Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep in their heads, and even I’m starting to do wee head nods and bop along—but then suddenly this junkie woman up the back screams GONNAE TURN AHT FUCKIN PISH AHHHFFF.
And I don’t think I can quite communicate here the venom, anger and utter contempt she managed to convey as she spat that word AHHHFFF out at the top of her phlegmy lungs. The two old dears stop dancing. They scowl, there’s a pregnant pause, then they sit down sheepishly, not a word spoken between them. The party’s over. Nobody dares look back. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife in the silence that follows after ghetto dude clicks the tape off. I see his shoulders rise as he takes a big deep breath in, then slowly lets out a big huff of air. He stands up. And he keeps standing up. And he keeps on standing up, until suddenly his huge near 7 foot frame blocks the entire passage of the bus, and he has to stoop a wee bit so as no to clatter his heid as he turns round, his shoulder length grey hair tucked behind his ears, a slight grimace on his face, eyebrows narrowing as he searches then spots the culprit up the back.
I feel my breath clutch tight in my chest as he takes a huge stride up the bus, my testicles jump a foot up in side me (that’s standard male fight/flight reaction, except that the often missed third category of fight/flight/shit-a-brick is more appropriate in this case), and I panic wondering what the hell he’s about to do, and I’m terrified that I’ll have to intervene and I’ll get battered and already I can see all manner of MAN BLOOTERED IN BUS BLOOD BATH Daily Record headlines flashing before me, and then he’s taken another huge stride and is up the wee step half way up the bus, and he seems even bigger now and has to bend over just to fit under the roof.
He stops parallel with my seat, scowls at her, then softens a bit as a wave of apparent recognition crosses his face.
He says “Michelle, is it?”
And a not-quite-as-bold-as-before voice answers back “Ehhh, aye—an whit?” He takes another of those deep, calming breaths and scratches the end of his nose, and I realise I’m still holding mine (my breath, not my nose), and no one else on the bus is breathing either, not even the driver who hasn’t noticed the traffic lights he’s stopped at have been green and red and green again twice over now. And that’s when his face screws up with a look of wicked delight, and he says “Ah’m John Draper” and he leans over the back of the seat, right into her face, and he lets out four words in a deep rumbling tone I expect would drive fear into the heart of any wee toerag or miscreant:
“AH KNOW YOOR DA.”
He turns away to make it clear the conversation starts and ends there, and suddenly he’s back down the front of the bus in one giant step, the whole bus shoogling and bouncing in his wake as though 40 folk just jumped off it, and suddenly a taxi is blaring its horn at our driver seeing as the lights are green for the fourth time, and all us other passengers are looking round at each other perplexed, not quite sure what’s going to happen next.
That’s when Big John clicks play, and the song’s right at the key change bit where the lassie from Middle of the Road shouts ALTOGETHER NOW—Last Night I Heard My Mama Singing A Song, Oooeeep, Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep… but it’s no like before. There’s an awfy atmosphere now, you see. Big John starts whistling along, tapping his big shovel hands on his massive ghetto blaster in time with the beat.
The girl stands up then, ready to move—but just at that point the driver finally takes his foot off the pedal and we all lurch forward in our seats, and she goes flying down the aisle with a WUUUUUH—she manages to catch her balance without falling over, dings the wee bell so the driver will pull over at the first stop, and just stands there awkwardly, careful not to look at Big John or the scowling grannies or any of the rest of us as she waits for the doors to open. And as she’s about to get off, she turns round and shouts:
“YOU’S ARE AW NO FUCKIN RIGHTERS!”
And as the doors draw shut on her and we pull away, she screams up at the windows:
“AN YOU JOHN DRAPER CAN KISS MA ARSE COS AH’M NO BOTHERURT—MA DA’S DEID!”
But Big John’s no caring. Unfazed, he turns to the wee auld dears with a big grin, nods, and sings along: Ooooeeep, Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep.