journey home

It’s bank holiday Sunday night, I'm on my way home.

I have been to visit a very good friend of mine and have had a number of items left over from a car boot sale bestowed upon me. I have so many prizes - a large mirror tied up with carry handles and a cumbersome bag full of good quality miscellany, that it would have been sensible to get a taxi. I, however, have chosen to negotiate public transport, carrying my loot, practically wrenching my shoulders out of their sockets.

A Man speaks to me. I can see his lips moving but I am listening to my walkman so I can't hear him. I take my earphones out.

Me – ‘Sorry?’

Man – ‘do you know what number that bus is behind us?’

Me – ‘No, sorry’

I put my earphones back in.

The Man speaks but I can’t hear due to my walkman. I take my earphones out.

Me – ‘Sorry?’

Man – ‘Oh sorry love’

I put one earphone back into my ear just incase the man speaks again.

He does.

I take the remaining earphone out.

We have a conversation about the number 50 bus, the number 16 bus and how the bus we’re sitting on (the number 4) goes right through to Pudsey. We talk about how good the bus service is but that very occasionally the last bus doesn’t run and that he’s been left stranded before, in Burmantoffs, and it’s £17 in a taxi to get home from there.

Man – ‘have you got a pet in there?’(nodding towards my bag which I am clinging on to to prevent it’s contents spilling out)

Me – ‘No, it’s just some stuff left over from a car boot sale - but there’s a giraffe in here’

I produce a wooden giraffe. The man is amused and seems interested in the contents of my bag so I show him the books, the pyjamas, the towel rail, the lamps, the decorative tea light holder, the lemon squeezer, the crystal dishes, the mirror and then finally a free standing cd rack.

Man - ‘Where d’you get yer CDs from? – The market? – they’re cheap in the market, yer can get all sorts - that’s where me Son gets ‘is from’

And the Man tells me all about his Son and how he’s a musician and that he earns £300 a night at Christmas and that he lives for music and that 'he’s got so many CDs that he’s got nowhere to store ‘em all so he puts ‘em in an old broken down fridge'.

Me ‘Ohhhhh – what a good idea’

The Man’s attention turns to the person sitting behind me. This person is asleep. He’s had too much to drink and has dozed off.

I try to wake him up. He opens his eyes but can not comprehend his whereabouts. The journey continues for five more minutes. Then the sleepy drunk person realises that he’s going in the wrong direction and that he missed his stop twenty minutes ago. He stumbles to the front of the bus and the driver lets him off.