My dreams have been infected by stranger beings over the last month, since I started watching Twin Peaks. Sometimes my every day life feels a bit like one of these strange dreams and yet again it is public transport that provides me with the opportunity to witness these characters from a safe distance. It is almost like it provides you with not only affordable and regular travel options, but also a gateway to another, dreamlike world where anything is possible. Sometimes it’s just full of wankers, who are also interesting to watch but from a distance.
As I take the train less and have started using the bus much more, I was under the impression that my travel related tales had vanished for ever. How wrong I was. Since the turn of the year I’ve seen two bus drivers verbally attacked, a Chinese woman scream continuously for the 10 minutes I was on the bus and numerous ‘little people’ and giant fatties.
The first bus driver saw himself as a hero, stopping the bus after a young thug had thrown his ticket at the driver whilst getting off. We jolted to a halt, the doors were reopened and the bus driver threatened the lad that if he ever tried to get on his bus again he’d be sorry and as he never forgets a face, to not even try it! For the rest of the journey you could sense the pride this man was feeling and the adulation he craved from the rest of the passengers. As each got off they thanked him for standing up to the yobbish youth culture of today, a man standing to fight a losing battle, alone, like the British hero we have lost from yesteryear. I gave him a look as if I was about to thank him, then decided against it, as I didn’t appreciate his own threatening nature, in front of a child near the front of the bus. What a wanker with next to no professionalism!
The second driver couldn’t speak fluent English as far as I was aware, or maybe he just couldn’t understand scouse. An inebriated man stumbled past without paying, can of special brew in one hand, a pizza box in the other. When called back, he fumbled in his pocket and showed what looked like a betting slip, when the driver shook his head the drunk stomped his feet like a child and slammed a pound down whilst shouting ”Fuckin’ ell, is that enough for you! treat yourself for fuck sake and let me eat my pizza!” Again the driver shook his head. The drunk fumbled around some more and this time pulled out a fiver and told the driver to just keep it. Once the bus resumed it’s journey the drunk walked up to the back of the bus, stopping at every second person and repeating what had just happened, as loudly as possible and ending each time with ”Some people just need to chill out and get a life don’t they? Could you get more of a twat than HIM?!” He’d forgotten his pizza and it was left at the front for the fattest woman I have ever seen, outside of TV shows, to drool over, and no doubt sneakily take with her when she got off the bus.
The screaming Chinese woman came on a packed bus at rush hour. She had let her little boy run on to the bus ahead of her and her other child (in pram) and had got herself stuck in the queue. As it looked more and more likely that she wouldn’t get on the bus at all, she started screaming at her boy, I presume to get back to the front of the bus, although of course I can’t be sure. She did manage to get on, just about, but her son stayed at the very back of the bus, himself screaming his head off, crying. He was without a seat and wasn’t holding on as the bus moved off and I’m surprised he didn’t fall over and injure himself. His mother continued to scream in a high pitched tone at the very front of the bus and pushed the pram into a man stood in front of her until he moved. This continued and more people had suffered a pram to the leg, until I got off the bus in Kensington and I imagine she went on, as her son was still at the back of the bus crying his eyes out.
The last interesting bus journey I took involved an old woman who sat on her own at the back of the bus, knitting away as if she was in her living room. The bumps of the road didn’t seem to hinder her and I’m sure the cardigan was completely finished by the time she got off. Speaking as a person who feels a little ill on a bus and struggles to read anything whilst moving and sometimes string together coherent sentences, i just don’t understand how she stayed so calm whilst knitting. Just in front of her sat a midget. He was so small that when he pulled a book out of his bag it was almost the size of his body, and he must have been suffering under the weight of it. I hope it was a good read. Also on the bus that night I could hear a young man telling a friend about his exploits in Korea the year before. He was meeting up with Korean friends the next day but hoped that they would speak English with him as he just couldn’t be bothered with the hassle. He wanted his friend to understand that it was easy to learn Korean, he had just lost the will after 6 months over there and had come back without learning anymore than was necessary to just get by. You could however learn to read Korean in 1 day if you so wished, it is that easy a language to learn!
That last journey sure did feel like a dream and the whole while I had the theme tune to Twin Peaks whirring through my mind and thoughts of Agent Cooper were never far away, he would be able to decipher this message from another world surely??
mazzinisfatchildren 