PROLOGUE:

AN INTRODUCTION FROM THE BUS DRIVER


I’ve been stuck behind the wheel of one bus or another for more than half my adult life. And baring an all too brief stint as a delivery man and an all too unsuccessful stint as a salesman it’s the only job that I’ve ever had. And if your looking for a truthful answer well ‘hell yes’ I do want to do it for the rest of my life.
Now you may look at me and ask ‘what about job satisfaction’ or ‘what about promotion opportunity’s’ and I’ll look right back at you and say I have the first one pretty much in full and I have no wish for the second. I just plain like the job. I like the idea of life on the road, it may only be on the road most days from nine to five but it’s life on the road none the less and I guess that in a strange way it appeals to my romantic nature. My dear wife passed away just shy of her forty-first birthday leaving me with two kids as grown up as their ever gonna get and not much else and the driving is the only thing even close to ‘romance’ a guy such as myself is likely to come across.
I’ve got a fair few years to go before the old gold clock day comes round and I often wonder what I’ll do when that day arrives. The day when Mr. Boss-man comes up to me and thanks me for all the hard work and long hours that I’ve put in over the years and tells me that the next time I walk through the door it will be as a fare paying customer. I’d been spending some time toying with the idea of buying a bus of my own and driving around the country in it, stopping off when-ever and bringing hitch-hikers where-ever. It mightn’t be the best of living income wise but it might pay off it that old ‘job satisfaction’ bracket.
The events of that bus journey have gone a long ways towards making up my mind regarding this after retirement plan, thing is I don’t know if it’s been made up towards the positive or the negative.
It was the damm fire that started it all. It the God dammed electric system hadn’t shorted out well they would have never started the storytelling. Maybe I should have reacted slower and just let the whole thing go up in flames, maybe that would have been better all round.........


TALES FROM A BUS
I
THE PATH LESS TRAVELLED


All votes had been cast and democracy had worked it’s wonders, the way it always does, and we were all on way to our various destinations. In fairness to him, the bus driver did react quickly to the fire. It was never going to be anything life threatening but all the same it was good to know that our driver was quick on his feet and quick with his head. The fire was out and we were all safe, a little cold (due to the non-functional heating system) and maybe a little bored (due to the equally non-functional radio) but sure safe none the less. I had voted to go on, as we all had but as I was raising my head and nodding in agreement I got that unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. You know the type you get just before you do something that you are not totally sure about, like there is wind trapped down by your balls ? Well that was the way I felt just as I voted in the positive. I’ve been around the block for quite a while, and I’ve seen a lot of things that cannot be explained using conventional means and I guess you could say that deep down I knew that something was wrong with that bus journey. Maybe ‘wrong’ isn’t the right word, there was maybe nothing ‘wrong’ with the whole bus journey but I’ll tell you something for nothing; everything was far from ‘right’.
We all sat in without speaking for a few minutes. The only noise coming from the engine and the sound of the driver grinding out the gear changes. It’s a sound that I’ve always found oddly comforting, the sound of the engine revving up, dropping off as the clutch is engaged and then picking up again as the foot goes back down.
I’ll tell you something for nothing, from this day to the end of my time on this earth of ours that the last thing I wanted to do was start talking. But all that kept coming to mind was the story that I felt I just had to tell. The thing was that I didn’t want to tell my story because I knew that if I told a story that the rest would also tell stories and whatever about hearing my story again I knew that the last thing that I wanted to happen was to hear what the others had to say.

I’m no longer what you would consider a young man. I’ve had a long life and I’ve seen a lot of things that I would be hard pressed to explain using rational means. I’ve never seen any UFO’s or aliens, and I’m pretty sure that regardless of all that you might have heard or read in the papers, that Elvis is dead (and dead quite a long while at that). But as I’ve already said I’ve seen some things that I could not explain.
I’ve fought in two wars and I seen more that enough men die in a few years than a whole army of men should see in a lifetime. I had a good friend during the war, (war is both the best and the worst place to make friends), but this one guy, John Keanney was his name and I fought with him at my side for over thirteen months and I can tell you that we saved each others butts so many times that it went beyond count. If there is someone else on this planet that I would feel safer fighting beside I have certainly yet to meet him. John was the perfect soldier, the type of guy that you just pray that your platoon is going to be made up of. He was calm under pressure, was deadly accurate with his rifle and had a great head for small unit tactics. The men of the platoon respected him coz’ he always got involved in the fighting and never left a man behind. I met him when I was less than a week in the place and I guess you could say that we hit it off almost straight away.
There was one time that we got stuck in some shitty little village in France (there are loads of shitty little villages in France) and we’d been ordered to stay behind we about nine other guys to hold a road. We were short in platoon by three; one who was dead, another was on some R&R and another had fallen off a jeep and broken his shoulder (Aaron Tyndel was his name). There were re-enforcement’s due within three days and until they arrive this dead little French village was to be our home. Talk was that HQ had planned to use it as a new BOO (Base Of Operations) but this might well have been just talk. Whenever we were on duty like that the men wanted some reason for putting their asses on the line. Fact was that nobody knew why that shitty little town in that shitty little town was so important to anyone, and if anyone one did know they were saying nothing.
There had been very little German activity in the area and over the past two weeks we’d been having things pretty easy. It was late summer of ‘forty-two and it was still warm and generally we all were feeling as good as you can feel when you’re out there looking to kill people and there are people out there looking to kill you. So there we sat taking shelter behind a wall (only this time it was shelter from the sun and not Gerry bullets) and smoking a bit and maybe sleeping a bit more. The only down side was John. That morning he woke up all pale and worried looking but he wouldn’t say why. We’d been on the job for the last two days or so and it was expected that the replacements would arrive within the next ten hours or so. It took me a long while to get him to talk but when he did he gave me his watch and ring and asked me make sure that his brother back home got them. He said that he didn’t know how but he was sure that the Germans were going to attack and by the end of the day he’d be dead. Another present sent home all wrapped in a big black bag.
Sure enough the Germans came and they hit use fairly hard. They outnumbered us by about four to one and a bloodier fight I never saw. We hit, ran and hid then hit, ran and hid some more. At some stages it degenerated into nothing more than hand to hand combat. It dragged on for well over three hours and I can honestly say that when it was over I had never felt so drained in all my life. John fought like a man possessed that day and I know that if it wasn’t for him we would have all died. Towards the end of the battle the remains of the Gerry attack squad had the last of our platoon (five men in total, one of whom had gone and died on us without so much as a ‘goodbye’) hemmed in some old shack and we were all pretty sure that we would all soon meet whatever Maker was n favour at the time. John, figuring himself to be a dead man already, volunteered to be the distraction that would allow us to get a few shots off before we went down. I didn’t agree with his plan but he did outrank me and all the others left so he got to call the shots. We readied ourselves for the famous ‘final push’ and John made his move.
He kicked open the front doors of the house and ran out with both guns blazing. It was a sight that I will never forget and the image had me so entranced that I almost froze looking at him. One of the others woke me out of my trance and we attacked. One from the rear while one went round either side. When I came around the front of the house I was sure that I’d find the body of my good friend lying in a pool of blood and bullets with bodies pilled high on either side, but I didn’t. The son of a bitch was still standing, which was more than could be said for the Gerry forces. Their bodies lay all around and the wall behind John had just about collapsed with the number of Gerry bullet holes in it. Yet John still stood. The Huns fled and we stayed.
Our platoon, while victorious was in tatters. Myself and two others survived, John was one of the two. Oh he been shot alright, he’d been shot twice, once in the arm right on the elbow and another time right through the hand. I remember him holding that hand up to the sky and I swear to God that the sunlight shone right thru the whole the bullet left. We all had a laugh at this and then a bit of a cry over the friends we had lost.
While we waited for the support to arrive we did a quick clean sweep of the area making sure that they hadn’t left anybody behind. It was during this sweep that John was unfortunate enough to step on a land mine that had somehow remained hidden during the last three days we’d spent in the immediate area and all during the fight. Now mines aren’t just dropped anywhere in the hope that some poor bastard will wander along onto it, they are placed in an area that it’s known is well travelled. This mine was on the side of a road that I had walked back and forward on at least ten times over the few days we’d been there. There were nine men in the Platoon and they’d all walked on the same road as often as I did. Top that all with all the Gerry soldiers running back and across that same stretch of road and you’ve just gotta ask how come nobody stood on the mine before? Well I simply don’t have the answer to that one.
Regardless of all this that mine took his left leg completely off and also took the vast majority of his right one with it when it blew. I was standing about twenty yards away from him when it happened but in the three seconds or so it took for me to reach him he was dead. Now I know that this proves nothing in itself but I think that for whatever reason John knew that day, his number was up. When ever somebody says something about seeing the future I’ll always think about my old friend John Keanney and that unlucky land mine. I don’t claim to know ‘how’ or even ‘why’ he knew but I just know that when he woke up that morning he knew that it was his time.
My point to all this is that sometimes things happen that don’t make sense and that this bus journey was one of those things. I felt an uncontrollable urge to tell my tale and it was the last thing that I wanted to do. But something made me do it, I’m not one for karma our aura but something happened on that bus that day that made us all tell our tales. Destiny is a strong word but just as I’d say that poor John’s left leg was destined to meet that land min back in late summer ‘forty-two and that the five people on that bus were destined to be on it and once on it destined to talk.
So without even wanting to and without taking the time to think out (rationally) what I was doing I heard my own voice speak out;

“Well if none of you folks have any objections I’d like to tell you a little story that occurred a few years back, just to pass the time.”
I prayed for the objections to come, maybe that good looking woman would say that she preferred some silence, or that the baldy guy would turn away, hell I even would have been glad if that snotty nosed little punk down the back of the bus told me to “piss off granddad”. But I knew that they wouldn’t. They all had that same look on their face, more than likely the on that I had on mine. The face of someone who just gotten on a roller coaster and it was moving on up the first hill in preparation for the first drop and only then do you realise that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea and maybe you’d just prefer if they stopped the thing and reversed it back to the beginning so that you could get off. But there was no stopping this roller coaster, there was no stopping the bus and there was no stopping the stories. As I began to talk I was almost certain that my good old buddy John was sitting up in heaven with both his legs intact and was well into the process of laughing them both right off again.

“Truth be told some of the details of this story are more than a little hazy. Memory is a funny thing, you spend the majority of your life with it working 100% behind you and then quite suddenly when you hit my age you realise that you can trust it no longer. It’s like some perverted joke that keeps on tricking you up. You can remember that name of the dog that Bill Danbury ran over in his first car (a 1943 Dodge Coupe) back in 1950 but you be dammed if you can remember what you had for breakfast. All I’m saying is that not to be too surprise if I’m forced to stop this story half way through on account of me remembering nothing more. I haven’t given the events of that strange bus trip much in the way of brain time from then ‘till now and I’m not sure just how much I really will remember. But as long as you’re all willing to give an old man maybe four or five more seconds per sentence I’m sure that we can work this one out.
I was on some bus trip that at the time seemed of little or no importance to me. I was living well outta town and rarely got into the big smoke, the only time I did it was usually for something important but I just can’t seem to recall what this journey was for, memory playing up I guess. I was a lot younger than I am now and was at the age where you figure that you know it all, young enough to still have optimism but old enough to have it mixed with just the right amount of realism. I had been away fighting for my country for the last couple of years and I was the first chance that I’d had to see how much the old home town had changed. The bus ride was the perfect opportunity as it ran from the west side of the city right through the centre and then on out to the suburbs on the north east where I was living with my folks.
I love bus rides, always have. I love sitting up on top, near the back and just watching the people in the city go by. I always have a paper with me that I can turn my attention to if the outside world gets too boring. The bus ride back in those took about one hour and a half which is more than likely not much longer than it would take now but back then it was because of the roads being so poor and the buses not being all that fast. Today things are slow for traffic and not much else.
So there I was sitting in my seat reading my paper, looking out the window or dozing off in no particular order when the smell of paraffin came wafting across to me. I ignored it at first but it didn’t go away and in fact got stronger. I was really close to sleep at this stage so I was weighing up the options of just ignoring it and going full steam ahead into dreamland when I heard a woman scream. This brought me to and I turned in my seat to see what was causing all the commotion.
On the back seat of the bus sat a man on his own. He was dressed quite well and looked like he was in his early to middle forties. Sitting down he looked very small and I’d seen kids of fourteen that were bigger across the shoulders that him. The small shoulders combined with the way he held them (rolled forward and slouched) made his head seem way too big for his body. His face was thin and it sported a rather sad looking attempt at a moustache. The small covering of hair that he had was mostly grey but with traces of red still present. He kinda reminded me of a ‘has-been’ rather sick and rather old fox. When I gave him a second glance over I saw where the smell of paraffin was coming from.
He held a letter of some sort in his right hand and in his left was a can of the lighter-fluid used by some fancy types of cigarette lighters. As I watched him he sprayed the last of the paraffin on his face and chest, coughed and spluttered and dropped the empty can to the floor of the bus. It made an exceptionally loud clang as it hit the floor. People in the seats in front of him on the left and right had stood up and were moving gradually away from him towards the front of the bus. I could see from their faces that while they weren’t too sure what was going to happen next they knew for sure that they didn’t want to be sitting too close when I happened. I stood up in my seat and edged onto the walkway, but unlike the others however I slowly walked towards our paraffin drenched friend.
I seen men who felt, that life for them was over. I’ve seen guys with their arms and legs blown off and there is nothing anything that can be done for them and they know it. So many men have died in my arms, with their blood and intestines spilling out through my fingers that I almost became immune to it, I say almost. The one thing that I found the most disturbing was not the blood, or the guts, or the screams or the the hopeless plea’s from them to help you or even the futility of war, for me it was the look in their eyes. Any of you who ever been cursed enough by the good Lord above to see someone die over a minute or two will know what I mean. The worst thing and the most disturbing part of it is when you see the forthcoming death in the patient’s eyes. The moment when they realise that they will be no last minute miracles, that the governor will not come in with a phone call to put off the execution. That no amount of will power or determination or stamina or fitness is going to get them out of this one. That is the worst thing about having people die. And I’ll tell you that the look in their eyes when they see that all hope is gone is by far the most disturbing thing about war.
When I got to within maybe ten foot of that guy drenched in the paraffin I saw that he had that look in his eyes. As far as he was concerned there was no hope for him, as far as he was concerned he was already dead. He used his left hand, now free of the paraffin tin to reach into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a lighter. I found that I couldn’t move, I was watching frozen to the spot and this guy was preparing to torch himself.
Honestly I’ve never froze like that before, I’m not dead calm in situations like these but I never panic and I certainly never freeze. My mind was working fine and it was telling me to get the guy to talk and calm down buy my body just wasn’t moving. I didn’t freeze, my body just refused to move. Before I could bring myself to move or speak a man brushed past me and stood not five feet from the guy with the lighter. The two held each others eyes for what seemed to me for at least a minute but in reality was maybe a couple of seconds before one spoke.
“Put away the lighter friend. There is always another way.” Our would-be hero was a fair size bigger than our would be suicide victim. He must have been a bit over six foot tall and was as wide across the shoulders as the other one was narrow. I didn’t get a look at his face until later but his hair was light brown and a lot longer at the back then the style of the day. He was dressed in a suit that looked of good quality but was otherwise unremarkable.
“You know nothing about me!” the guy with the lighter screamed back at him. “What the fuck could you know about this?” he held the letter up. It was crumpled from his grip but I did catch part of the heading and it seemed to say The Green Door Co., the rest was obscured from view by both the man’s hand and his waving motions. Our would-be hero looked calmly at the letter and then as casual as you like sat down on the seat just in front of him.
“I know enough to know that what you are planning on doing is wrong, to know that it’s a waste of a human life that can be put to better use. I know that you feel that there is nothing for you, that your life has no meaning, no direction and has no point, but I also know that this,” he pointed at the lighter, “is wrong. There are always other ways.” His voice was calm and soft and reassuring. But there was a tone to it that suggested he was well used to getting his own way.
The guy with the lighter seemed to hesitate, and for just the briefest of moments I thought that I saw a flicker of life return to his eyes but he crumpled the letter in his hand and threw it on the floor of the bus and sobbed, “I have nothing, there is no point.”
At this stage I was full sure that he would touch the lighter to himself and I was figuring out my plan on how to pull the good Samaritan away from the ensuing inferno with the minimum of danger to myself. Instead of pulling away, the Samaritan bent down and picked up the letter. He un-crumpled it and did a good job at smoothing out the creases but he didn’t read it. It was instead folded neatly in two and then folded neatly again and he held it in his hand. All his movements were slow and precise, almost deliberately so. He spoke again in that voice that I’d have bet was capable of putting Rottweiler’s to sleep.
“Friend, there are always options and we always have choices. You, in your grief are blinded to them that I can see so clearly. And believe me Stephen when I say that I can see another path for you take other than this one if you’ll just listen to what I have to say. This,” he motioned to the folded letter, “is not the end of all. What they say,” again he motioned to the letter that he had not yet read, “know little or what I know. It may seem that your life has no meaning now but please don’t waste it, allow me to give it meaning. Please put the lighter down and let me tell you of meaning.”
This was the make or brake stage of the standoff. I knew that the lighter was closer now to the fuel then perhaps it ever had been but it was also quite clear to see that part of the guy so close to his own death wanted desperately to hear what the stranger had to say. That he desperately wanted to have a reason to put the lighter down. The odd couple continued this stand off for a few more seconds before the hero made his move.
He slowly leaned forward in his seat and began talking to the man, they spoke for maybe three minutes and for that whole time I remained frozen to the spot. I wanted to hear what the Samaritan had to say but I just couldn’t move. So I stood where I was and watched one talk to the other. Then to my surprise (or was I really surprise?), I saw the man close the lid of the lighter and then let it fall to the floor. Then the two men embraced for a long while. Then they stood up and walked to the front of the bus. As they passed me the guy who had been on the verge of taking his own life looked at me and I saw that he had the spark of life back in his eyes. As he reached me he nodded his head in acknowledgement that had I been able I would have helped him and then I heard him whisper to me (I think), “There are always options.”
The bus stopped and the two got off and I never saw either of them in the flesh again.
Perhaps a month or so after this there was a very bad fire down at a pub on the docks called Graysons. I remember reading about it in the paper. Back in those days the pumps that gave us all our fresh beers were powered by gas. One of the taps had developed a clot and a young barman, lacking that little bit of experience went about clearing the blockage with a screwdriver. And clear it he did but when he flicked back on the light switch the gas caught and blew the poor fool right through a wooden glass divider and out the front window. His shredded body eventually ended up in the front window of a shop across the road and when the paper said that when the ambulance crew went and picked him up one of his legs and his head just fell clean off. Considering the power of the fire many would say that he had the easy death.
That old pub, nearly all wood, went up like a torch and within seconds it was a blazing, smoke filled inferno. And while seven people died witnesses said that it would have been much worse had it not been for the bravery of one passer-by on the street who had ran into the blazing inferno no less that eight times to drag people from the flames. There was about forty people in that pub when the fire started and well over half of those that survived claimed that they owed their lives to the stranger that was a force of order in the chaos, pointing the way out of the flames to those who could walk and hand carrying those that had lost the use of their legs.
There was a nurse on her way home from the night shift who arrived at the scene first and was giving what emergency first aid treatment that she could on the street said she begged the man to stop going back into the blaze after he had came out the second time. She said that he just smiled and said he would be fine, his hair was on fire as he spoke. When he returned from his fifth trip his clothes had all been burned off and his skin was blistered with the heat. The nurse who had treated burn victims before said it was a miracle that he had not passed out with the pain. On returning from his sixth trip he was actually aflame. A young boy who watched most of the fire develop said that he looked just like one of his hero’s “the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four”. When he came out the seventh time he was no longer recognisable as human. He did not return from his eight trip.
The man had not been identified as yet and the paper said that the police were looking for anyone with information to come forward. There was an artists impression of him at the side of the story. This was in the times before you had computers do up the drawing so it may not have been an exact match but I feel it was pretty close. It was the eyes that really convinced me, the artist had got those perfectly.
I considered looking for the nurse to see if she had anything more to tell me but I knew it would do me no good and more than likely harm to her so I left it at that. It looked like he had found a reason to live after all.


TALES FROM A BUS
II
HIGH NOON

I looked around from one guy to the next. Waiting to see who, if any of my fellow companions would be the next to speak out. I was guessing that if I was to leave it long enough the good looking guy would talk. He hadn’t said anything much on the trip as yet but he gave off the air of quiet confidence and you could just tell that if it push came to shove then he’d have no problems with standing up in front of a group of strangers and talking.
The old man, now finished his piece for the evening lit up another cigarette, and without offering anyone one sat back in his seat to relax. He looked like the type of guy that could relax anywhere. I’d caught him on more than one occasion straining his neck to get a look down the front of my blouse. When he’d seen me looking at him looking at me he didn’t shy away as most men (and in some cases even woman) normally did. He’d continued to look from my face to my chest and then back again, ant then slowly he looked away. He didn’t lower his eyes or anything, just looked away as if he’d found something else more interesting to look at. I’d seen guys try this before and only the most arrogant of them could pull it off. I’d say that old guy could have gone on with another story if he’d been prompted to, but so far no one was prompting.
Other than that options were fairly limited. The young student type guy that sat behind seemed to have little to offer in the way of communication skills. He looked like he’d last seen a bath a couple of weeks back and while I’d yet to confirm it (thank God) I would bet my moral reputation that if you got close enough to the guy that he’d smell just as bad as he looked. He’d spent the entire bus journey so far mumbling to himself and giving all the other passengers (all four of us, five if you included the driver) odd looks. Once or twice I think that I’d heard him hum but over the noise in the bus it was difficult to be really sure.
My afore good looking friend, who sat across for me was still keeping himself to himself. When the story telling session was talked about he’d seemed to shy away from the idea. But looking at him you could tell that he had a story to tell. I can tell you that I was looking forward to hear his story but for the moment he was keeping very quiet.
And finally the middle-aged man in the business suit and briefcase who had at first scoffed at the idea was sitting forward in his seat just waiting for someone to begin. More than likely had no excitement what so ever in his life and the idea that he may soon have something to tell the wife when he got home was getting him just a little wound up. Perhaps he could blow up his own involvement in the whole thing so that he’d get maybe a few extra minutes entertainment over the breakfast table. Sad bastard.
So, as waiting for any of the rest of them to speak up was proving to be a pointless I told my story.

“Yeah, I’ve got a tale.” I said. They all turned there attention to me. Their faces combined looking like a mixture between a kid waiting for Christmas right up to a guy waiting to see his first naked woman. I now had the floor and their undivided attention so I could now go on.
“This all happened maybe three years ago, give or take a couple of months. I don’t normally take the bus. I drive where ever I want to go but this particular time I’d been forced into leaving the car at the pub we’d been at before we headed into town. I’ve never had a problem with having a couple of drinks and then driving, like it’s not as if I don’t know when I too pissed to drive. I’ve seen people who could hardly stand and yet still insisting on driving on to a club. But not me, as I’ve said I know when I’ve had enough and the idea that some wanker in Government can say ‘Yvonnne Kennedy you can not drive after X units of drink ’ is ridiculous. I’m a grown woman, I make million pound decisions every day, people are hired and fired at my whim. I’m well able to decide when I’ve had enough to drink. But anyway, I digress.
This particular time I was out with some guy I’d been seeing. A total waster if memory serves me correct but he drove a Porsche so that was that. The night in question we’d met up in some wine bar and had more than a couple of drinks. Around closing time, (as per fucking usual), he suggests that we go on out to a night-club. Apparently a friend of his was “Well in at Lilies” and that was the proposed venue. As if this was supposed to impress me or something? I mean for fuck sake, it’s not as if I hadn’t been a regular at that dive for the three years previous. But as I’ve said he drove a Porsche and was OK in bed so that made my mind up for me more than his ‘well in’ friend. (If he’d been ‘well hung’ rather than ‘well in’ well that would have been a different matter entirely wouldn’t it ?) Well I digress again.
The two of us staggered out to the car park, he staggered far more than I did truth be told and I think now that I even recalling him having a bit of a fall. When I reach my car he says “There’s no way I can let you drive Yvonne, your far too drunk.” The fucking cheek of him and boy did I let him know that I wasn’t pleased with his attitude. I’m not one of these weak womanly type women and I’ve never shied away from saying what I think in my life. I had no intention of starting that particular moment, with that particular wanker. But anyway as I’ve said before he drove a Porsche and was good in bed and had a bit of money to back him up and I was feeling like a large dose of sexual satisfaction that night so I allowed him to beg me into getting a taxi. The night-club was as Lilies always was and always will be. Posers walking around just hoping that you’ll notice them. I spent my time in the members bar drinking myself to oblivion. I don’t know what time we left at but it was late and certainly past the last legal hour of serving drink. Lillies, while lacking in many aspects did always deliver in the after hours drinking department. We went back to his yuppie apartment and enjoyed a good bout of sex.
The next morning when I awoke I found a love note on the pillow beside me along with a rose. The both of which I promptly dumped and prepared to make my way home. I rang the local cab company to book a taxi but was greeted by an answering machine that duly informed me that due to some government wanker (actually I know that there’ll wankers but this guy took the biscuit) issuing three-hundred new taxi plates all the Dublin taxi men had taken it upon themselves to call a one day ‘lighting strike’. I was asked at the end of the recording if I wanted to leave a message of support? After the ‘beep’ I left a message all right but I can tell you know it wasn’t one of support. And I made a mental note to spend some time in the future to work on a plan to eliminate all taxi-men or politicians or both.
I was near enough to the city centre to warrant a walk and from there I knew that I would be able to pick up a bus easily enough to get to my abandoned car just near the airport. Needless to say that I never again saw that particular wanker again. Forcing me into leaving my car behind, reducing me to public transport and not to mention that cheap rose and love note far outweighed the Porsche, his money and sexual organ. And if the truth is to be told the sex part wasn’t really all that impressive and the Porsche was at the very least two years old.
Twenty minutes later I found myself looking at a long queue of people waiting for the bus that I just had to be on. I was left pondering on my queuing scheme when the bus pulled up and in and all semblance of order was thrown out the window. People pushed and pulled from every corner and a mini-riot nearly broke out. I was thrown back to the side of the queue (I say ‘queue’ in the loosest possible sense) as students with those stupid bus cards elbowed me to the side. But I am built of fairly solid stuff and using those muscles I spent long hours in the gym building and toning up I managed to somehow pull myself onto the bus before that doors swung shut with a ‘hiss’ on the last of those waiting outside, those not strong enough to make it. As is always the way with nature the strong survive and the weak suffer. The weak ones walked away to wait for the next bus. I spotted an empty seat down near the back and after quickly making up my mind not to risk checking upstairs moved rapidly towards it.
It ended up that I was seated next to a vastly overweight man who took up to more than his fair share of the seat and I had to settle on looking at the cars going past in the little space of the window that his vast bulk did not cover up. It was an uncomfortably warm day and while it would have been nice to have the window open the very prospect of striking up a conversation with the fat man beside me to get him to open the window made my already upset stomach turn somersaults. So for once in my life I held my tongue and tried to breath to the side so as not to inhale too much of the smell of sweat that was rolling off my fat friend in frequent and large waves. The noise of the engine sent constant vibration up through the floor that made my seat rock slowly back and forward. I was feeling unwell at best and my night’s drinking was beginning to come back to haunt me but with the fucking’ taxis on strike I had little option but to carry on.
I hadn’t really looked around the bus at my fellow passengers, having already smelt ‘fat-bastard’ beside me I figured that if he was an example of what the average was than it just wasn’t worth the risk. But when a young baby started to cry (I say cry but I really mean scream) I turned my head to look around.
On the seat to my left sat a middle aged woman, who was carrying quite a bit extra weight on her person, also was also carrying a young child on her lap. The kid had all the features of his mother, fat arms, fat body and a fat face. He was screaming and struggling to break free of his mother’s tight grip. For all she tried to calm him he seemed to cry all the louder. I cursed to myself at the prospect of spending the next half hour trapped on this bus, with a smelly fat bastard to my right, a screaming kid to the my left, the constant vibration of the engine all around me and the temperature continuing to rise. I cursed the Gods again and left it at that.
The bus moved well for the first ten minutes and I raised my hopes into thinking that maybe I just might reach my destination ahead of the schedule that I’d planned out in my mind. Then we hit traffic and the bus might as well of stopped.
The bus crawled and the temperature rose. The bus was now becoming uncomfortably hot and the kid still cried. I was perhaps fifteen minutes into my trip when I noticed the man in the long trench coat that was sitting opposite the woman.
It struck me as strange that he chose to wear a long coat out on a day as warm as it was but what was perhaps even stranger was that he had not yet taken the coat off. And as I’ve said already it was hot on the bus and this guy was sweating. For some reason (more than likely to pass the time and nothing more) I watched the man in the trench coat for awhile. He looked very plain. Maybe a little under average height but he was not skinny or anything. If fact he had wide shoulders but he was sitting in a way that they looked smaller than they were. A little thin on top regarding hair but what hair he did have was dark in colour and very neatly cut. His face was non-exceptional bar his nose that was perhaps a little crooked, more than likely from a break that had not set straight. It was difficult to guess his exact age but I put him at around forty to forty-five. What did strike me as strange about the man was that he seemed to be having trouble breathing.
Every so often he’d reach his hand into his jacket and close his eyes and suck in air quickly through his teeth, the way you do when you stub you toe and don’t what to roar out a curse. Not because you’ve a problem with bad language but rather because that if you curse than it’s like admitting that you’ve been careless enough to inflict pain on yourself. He was spending his time between looking behind him to staring at the screaming kid with a look of complete hatred on his face. I guessed that he had a headache and a case of indigestion and was not in the mood for a brat of a child screaming two foot from where he sat.
The bus crawled on into the traffic averaging I’d guess at best two and a third miles an hour. It was so slow, and hot (not to mention noisy thanks to the little ‘bastard child’) I was almost tempted to get off the bus and walk. But I didn’t. For the next few minutes I passed the time looking out at world as it rolled every so slowly past. When a woman in one of those go-karts for old people (who really should be shot when they get that old and useless) passed my window on the inside I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
For a few minutes I’d forgotten about the screaming kid and the sweating man. Bored looking out the window I glanced back to see how their friendship was developing.
It seemed that his indigestion had gotten quite bad, for his face was an odd mixture between pale and flushed and when he touched his side he grimaced and swayed as if he was almost about to faint. I was beginning to think that it was more than indigestion that was bothering him. As I watched he leaned forward and said something that I didn’t quite catch to the woman with the brat on her lap. As I’ve said I didn’t quite catch what he said but it didn’t seem to go down too well with the woman as she pulled the brat closer to her ample chest and gave the man a stern look. The man then nodded his head and obviously to some discomfort to himself reached down and took a silver brief case from the floor by his feet and placed it on his lap, with the opening to himself. I hadn’t noticed the brief case before which is unusual in itself as I’m normally exceptionally observant. I put this down to the sheer volume of alcohol consumed the night before. The briefcase was of a good quality, it was silver but looked as if it was well used but well kept too if you get where I’m coming from. Anyway the man, who first took some time to steady himself, gave the woman a suddenly cold look and tapped his fingers on the briefcase. The woman for her part glanced around the bus and when she made eye contact with me I saw quite clearly that there was fear in her eyes. Some people say that it’s ridiculous to say that you can see fear in peoples’ eyes but I brought enough people into my office to tell them that their fired to know when someone looks scared, and this woman looked that way. This little confrontation had suddenly grabbed my attention.
The child continued to scream out loud and again the man in the trench coat leaned towards the woman, not as far forward as before. As I’ve said I’m fairly observant and I could tell that ‘trenchy’ was having some difficulty even staying upright. If it was indigestion he had then he sure as fuck had a bad dose of it. My own feeling was that it was something much, much worse that a bout of indigestion that he had. This time I strained my head back and listened to what was being said between the two. At first I wasn’t too sure what was said but latter events confirmed what I heard. The man clearly spoke the following words to the woman;
“Lady, if you don’t shut that kid up. I will.”
Christ I figured that this would soon develop into something very interesting so I turned as best as I could in my seat so that I’d have a good view. ‘Fat Bastard’ beside me didn’t seem to mind that I had to rest my left leg almost on top if his right one. And I was content to allow my short skirt to ride up a little more along my tight just to give him something to wank about later that night. The confrontation down the back of the bus was what interested me now. The kid continued to scream and the man, with very slow and with very deliberate movements clicked first one and the then the second lock combinations catches on the brief case. The double click of the case when it opened seemed almost like a gun shot and the fat woman visibly jumped in her seat. The man stopped then and again spoke to the woman. But I wasn’t too sure what he said this time as the bus, now free of traffic, had upped the speed and the noise of the engine drowned out conversation between the two. The woman did speak back to him this time but she stayed in her seat. And as the kid continued to cry, the man opened his brief case. What was inside it was hidden from view form the fat woman as the lid opened away from the man and towards her. But I did manage to get a look inside from my viewpoint and what I saw inside made me take an even greater interest in the way events were unfolding.
You know those films where the profession killer always has a cool gun and a cool case to store it in? Well this guy had exactly that. The case held a gun. Now I’m no expert on guns or the like but I guess that this was some kind of pistol, a semi-automatic as it had an ammo clip. The gun was resting in foam on the left side of the case as I could see it. It was black and a lot bigger than I ever figured a hand gun could be, (in the films don’t they always almost look like toys?). In the centre of the case, again held neatly in place by cut out foam was what I guessed to be a silencer and two separate clips that held the bullets. The man rested on hand on the handle of the pistol and gently ran his fingers across it. It was almost like a lovers caress. He looked back from the case to the woman.
The woman still had the kid crying on her lap and now she did look a bit concerned by the man and the contents of his briefcase. As I’ve said already she couldn’t actually see into the case but she was dividing her efforts into the strain of controlling her child, catching a glimpse of what was in the case and of course retaining that ‘how-dare-you-speak-to-me-that-way’ look in her face. From where I was sitting (as always best seats in the house) she was losing on all counts.
I suppose had I spent the time to think about it I would have asked myself before now ‘why didn’t I do anything ?’ but to be honest with you I saw this as as good a way to pass the time as any. And anyway there was know way I was going to mess with some sick fucker with a gun purely over some fat woman and her shitty little kid. I let things go on, I’m not sure what would have happened if things developed to their natural conclusion or even if things did come to there natural conclusion but that’s’ part of the tale so I’ll get on with it.
The kid continued to cry and his mother stared back to the man with the briefcase with that ridiculous look on her face until the man bent forward again. This time I just had to hear what was said and I literally threw myself back half over ‘fat bastard’ beside me to do so. Never mind about that nights wank, this sweaty bastard would have all his masturbation fantasies sorted for weeks if not months to come. If ‘fat bastard’ seemed in anyway put-out by my actions he didn’t say and I wasn’t really concerned. My aim was to put myself in position where I could hear what was being said and that was exactly what I did.
“Lady, I swear to God, if you don’t shut that little bastard I’ll shut him up for you and I mean permanently.” He finished this with a little cough and this time I was sure that he was going to pass out. His head swayed forward and the hand (that hadn’t moved from his side) tightened its grip. Just when I was sure he would go he bit down hard on his lip, and he seemed to regain some semblance of control. But for a fair few seconds after that his eyes seemed distant. He coughed again, but this time it wasn’t as severe and he wiped his mouth. I could clearly see that his hand came away bloody. And by bloody I don’t mean a small trace of blood from a small cut on the lip, I mean blood blood. He winced, in obvious pain before looking back at the woman and the task at hand. The woman pulled her kid even tighter to her chest, as if she meant to suffocate the poor child, and continued to stare back at the man. She was, I guessed, quite used to getting her way.
The man reached with his left hand into the briefcase and pulled the gun from the foam. With some difficulty he pulled the silencer for its place and screwed it in place on the barrel of the gun. This operation took maybe three minutes to complete and all the time the child cried. Then quite suddenly the man looked across at the woman again. His face was now death pale and he repeated his sentence give or take a word or two. The woman made some answer this time but I couldn’t quite make it out. She just stayed there, eyes locked with the those eyes of the man that sat across from her, holding in his hand a gun that she couldn’t see. She seemed almost daring him to make whatever move he was planning. And all through this the child cried as if he realised the danger he was in more than his mother.
As I’ve said already I’m no expert on guns, on many, many other things yes but guns I’m not up to date on. But I’m telling you now that the gun this guy held in his hand was real. It looked real, bigger than I expected but real none the less.
It seems strange now looking back but I’ve never really thought much about what happened that day. All I saw it as was something to pass the time on a long and overall unnecessary ride home. But the gun, well I’ve thought about that gun on more than one occasion. I’ve thought about what it would feel like to hold, what sensation would the cool metal against my palm give off. And I’ve thought about what it would feel like to put my index finger around the trigger and casually test its pull. And I’ve wondered what it would be like to slowly squeeze (never pull) that trigger and what the ‘kick’ would be like and what my aim would be like and what would happen to my target when the bullet hit it’s mark. I haven’t really given the events of that day too much thought in the two years or so since it happened but the gun...I guess you could say that the gun has been on my mind quite a bit.
Still, I digress yet again. Where was I? Oh yeah, the silencer. The man was getting paler as the journey was going on. He was now almost on death’s door. I say almost because if than guy was not at Death’s Door he was certainly at Death’s neighbours door and making his way down the street if you get my meaning. The long and heavy trench coat he wore was now opened at the side and for the first time I could clearly see where his hand was holding. The whole side of his white shirt was drenched red in blood. But he had the silencer on the gun and still the kid cried. This time the man didn’t even say anything, he just reached back into the case and pulled a clip from the its place in the foam and slotted it into the base of the gun. For this operation he had to use both hands and I think that for the first time the fat woman may have began to guess exactly the predicament she was in. She caught a glimpse of the man’s hand that up until now had been hidden from view, clutching the wound to his side. I saw her face change from one of smugness to one of almost fear, fear mixed with defiance when she saw the red blood on his hand. I’m not sure how I would have reacted if I had seen a sick looking man with a bloodied hand reach to take something dark from a briefcase but I’m almost sure that I wouldn’t have laughed. Still the woman stayed in place, shifting the kid closer to her bosom and freeing up her right arm. Like some boxer moving to the side to allow the stronger arm to come more into use. Still to stand to the woman, for good or for bad she didn’t back down. Things had come too far I think for either of them to back down. At this stage there were going the whole way. The bus was now travelling at a fair pace, the traffic had long since dispersed and it was free running all the way. The bus hit a sudden bump and perhaps because the of the speed of the bus, or perhaps because the man was using both hands on the gun or perhaps because he was loosing a lot of blood and was having trouble staying upright or perhaps because of the bus itself I don’t know, but the briefcase fell and fell right at the feet of the woman.
One look at her face now and you could tell NOW she knew, NOW she knew exactly what type of shit she and her screaming kid had gotten into. The man looked down at the case and then traced the path of her legs, up her waist and chest and eventually to her face. The woman, who for the last few moments had been concentrating on the case were moving slowly up the man’s body and the two reached each others stare at precisely the same time. It was the time that the kid chose to scream again.
The man gritted his teeth and gave the most inhuman grin that I’ve ever seen. His teeth were bunched down and his gums were drawn back, blood stained his teeth and some dribbled over his bottom lip and down his chin. His eyes were wild and vacant and some time when I was looking at the woman he had run his hand through his hair which now was standing up and I could see traces of blood in his hair. He looked like a man possessed, a man that knew that his end was near and that he just didn’t give a fuck. For the face on the woman she was thinking more or less the same thing. He held her gaze for what must have been half a minute during which neither of them spoke, even the child had stopped crying. Eventually he spoke:
“Lady, I don’t have much time left, and what time I have I don’t want to have a child crying in my ears. So I’ll tell you now and for the last time, shut the kid up or I will.”
He put both hands on his pistol and pulled hard on the top or the gun, part of it clicked back and there was an audible ‘click-click’, a sound that I recognised as the lock-and-load sound from the movies. He pointed the gun at the kids head which the mother was now trying hard to cover with her arms and body. His whole body was shaking but the gun remained perfectly still.
And that’s my tale.”

Silence descended on the bus and then shouting.
“What the hell do you mean that’s your bloody story, what the fuck happened -next?” the old man shouted. The bus driver was laughing to himself, the middle-aged man was looking at me with his mouth wide open, the good looking guy hadn’t changed the expression on his face it was still dead calm and quietly confident.
“That’s my story,” I said, “my stop was next and I had to get off, Jesus it’s not as if I don’t have a life or anything!”


TALES FROM THE BUS
III
MOTHERS OF THE DISSAPPEARED


Telling my story was hard. You see I’m not the most confident of people, never have been. I used to stutter quite bad as a kid and for most of my young adult life. All that ridicule and name calling does lead to a little bit of an under confidence complex. The stammering has long since departed, thank God and while most people seemed to grow in confidence with the return of their full flowing voice I didn’t. I was just glad to be capable of carrying out a conversation with those few people I hold close enough that I call my friends. So when I was on that bus and first spoke up it was the bravest thing that I think that I ever did. Those first six words will stay with my forever;

“Excuse me........I have a story.”
They all looked around, even the driver and without exception they all looked surprised. It shocked me to be all of a sudden the centre of attention but I turned my head slightly to the side (never face a problem head on) and then spoke some more.

“This all happened a year or two ago. I take the bus a lot to and from work, it makes more sense you see, more economical and it’s easier for Pat and the kids. And any way I dislike driving in traffic and it gives me indigestion and headaches. When your a migraine sufferer you will not risk anything that may bring on a headache.”
I said this in the hope that it might rise a laugh, but it failed. While I had won my fellow passengers attention I had yet to win over their sense of humour. I swallowed loudly, perhaps blushed a little (perhaps blushed a lot) and carried on with the story.
“This day I had put in a rather hard nine hours at the office and could feel the beginnings of a migraine building at the top of my neck- lower back of my head region. I was walking down to the bus stop not paying much attention to what was going on around me trying to practice the breathing techniques that Doctor Wilson had given me. It was a breathing technique that I was particularly fond of as it normally managed to clear my head and ease the pressure. It must have been six or six-thirty in the evening and it was a mild enough day. My jacket was slung over one shoulder and I was feeling good with myself (or at least as good as myself as God has permitted me to feel). Things in town seemed to be busy but moving well and as I approached the bus I was glad to see that the queue was hardly there at all. I reached into my shirt pocket (where I already knew my weekly bus pass to be) and stepped onto the bus slotting my card onto the machine then moving up the stairs towards the front of the bus. I was delighted to see that my favourite seat (three from the front on the right) was still free and moved into it quickly before anyone else took a seat in such a prime location.
I’m far from what you would call a betting man but most days on the bus home I did wager a bet with my own fantasy bookie shop. You see there was this girl that ran for the bus every day. I mean every day you’d see her come running down the street just as the bus was about to or even in the process of pulling off. And more for my own foolish amusement than any other reason when I’d see her coming I’d give her odds on making or missing the bus. I’d even give a silly little commentary to go along with it. I know this all sounds fairly stupid to you but it wasn’t doing any harm so I saw nothing really wrong with it.
This day just as the bus pulled away the girl walked around the corner and started to run. She always looked the same; buttons half undone, bag falling off one shoulder while a briefcase (nearly always open) was stuck under the other arm. I saw her and straight away put her odds at about five to one against. The bus was already on the move and she was at least twenty yards off the pace. Then, (against the run of play) the traffic lights changed to red and the bus was stopped in it’s tracks. My bookie shop was facing a serious hit, five to one against and now this. But the thing was that the lady didn’t make the bus. She ran down to the side of it and then ran right past it on into the terminal. Now I suppose that maybe she was going some place else that day, or that she had agreed to meet someone in the terminal and was late and at the time I guess that’s what I figured. Looking back on it now I’m not so sure. I think that jus perhaps that lady ran past the bus because she wasn’t meant to get on it, someone somewhere told her that that wasn’t the bus for her. After that the bookie shop folded, a little stung from the last hit but in profit none the less. Quit while your ahead is the best advice I can give any of you thinking of taking up a career in the betting industry.
I sat into in and pulled the sports section from my briefcase and caught up on the weekend’s football results. I read the paper on my lunch break but never the sports section, I keep it sort of as a treat for myself when I’ve finished the hard days work. I was disappointed to see that Forest, that’s the team I support, only got a four line mention in the weekend roundup but as they had won I was quite content to read these four lines a couple of times over in the hope that yet again this would be ‘our year’. Forest had gotten relegated from the Premier division about seven years back and ever since had been trying to get back up. They were usually there or there about until just after Christmas and then fell by the wayside but this season they were still there and it was nearing the end of March. Promotion looked a real prospect. When I finished rereading the Forest report I moved on to the big boys ManU, Arsenal and Leeds and spent a while dreaming of the season when Forest would be back up there challenging for the league alongside with them.
When this distraction ended I folded the paper carefully away and placed in back into my briefcase, between the lunch box and my sales report folder when it always seems to fit just right. I then, as I always did, spent a few minutes looking out the window at the people and cars moving away the city towards the suburbs. This is also something that helps relax me. Dr. Wilson suggested that I try it as it helps keep my mind busy and take stock me from thinking about things that my be nagging at the back of your mind. Dr.Wilson believes that migraines are caused solely by stress. Every doctor I’ve been to believes that something different causes them, with some it’s food, some it’s animals others believe that it’s all due to exercise or in my case lack of it but... oh sure you don’t want to hear this. It’s not really that important but I was just telling you in case you find that sort of thing interesting.
When I was finished I did what I always do next, I looked around the bus at all the people and wondered to myself how they were getting on in life, you know just something to pass the time.
My job pays well enough but with a wife and three kids to support and holidays to plan for in the summer it’s too expensive for me to live too near the city. Twelve miles out is as close as it gets for myself and Pat. The journey can sometimes take awhile and I can only read the paper for a few minutes at a time without feeling sick so I always take a little time in between paper reads to see if there is anyone interesting on the bus. Today it seemed initially that my luck was out and if it had stayed that way I guess I wouldn’t be talking to you today but it didn’t and I am talking, as strange as this seems I am talking.
The bus was kind of empty, not too many passengers at all on the upper level anyway and I didn’t at first recognise any of them. But one young boy grabbed my attention almost straight away. You see while I didn’t exactly know where from I could have sworn that I knew the guy. He was about eight or so year old and sat on his own. He was sitting across from me and was staring straight ahead. I felt that he was a bit young to riding the bus on his own but then I figured that it was a long while since I’d been eight years old and kids grow up a hell of a lot quicker nowadays. I found myself staring at the boy for maybe minutes at a time racking my brain for how the hell I knew him. For a long while I was sure that it was from television, and almost convinced myself that he was one of the young boys on the Fair City soap show that Pat was so fond of, but I couldn’t be sure as I never really watch the show and any part of it I did see was always over the top of my dinner or book and what I did see I never really paid it that much attention. But after a few more minutes of careful study I was sure that it wasn’t from Fair City that this kid came from. Something was bugging me about him all the same, what had started as a simple way to kill a few minutes between pages of the paper was now beginning to get on my nerves. Like when someone asks you Who sings this song or What was the name of the film with your man in it ? Things that you know you should know, hell things that you do know but you just don’t know if you get my meaning. The face of this boy was beginning to get my temperature up a bit and I knew that I would not get an inch of rest until I matched the name with the face.
I guessed that I must have been looking at the boy for a little too long and glanced away quickly. Now I’m a happily married man but nowadays people just can’t be too careful. Next thing you know I could have ten people on the bus all accusing me of abusing the boy by ‘undressing him with my eyes’, believe me I’ve heard of things like that happening. I looked around the rest of the bus as casual as I could just to see if anyone had noticed me but everybody seemed caught up in their own little world. But there wasn’t that something, sitting behind me and to my right was a woman whose face I did know. She was...her name was......do you think I could think of her name ? Not a hope. Her face was even more familiar than the boys and I had definitely seen her on TV, perhaps she did the weather on the RTE news ? Or maybe she did that consumer watchdog show ? No the face didn’t fit but I knew it would. Give me a few minutes and I’d have her name. You see I have a great memory for faces but not names, I’m none too good on names. I moved away from the woman confident that she wouldn’t prove to be stumbling block and went back to the boy. All this mental activity was beginning to excite my migraine and I could feel it really begin to simmer. I also knew that it would carry on simmering (and maybe even boil over) until I got the young kids name. For the time being I messaged the back of my neck in the hope that it would provide some relief. It never did but I never stopped hoping. Still something was bugging me about the kid, and I don’t mean what his name was, there was something else wrong with him.
It took me perhaps ten more painful minutes to figure out what was wrong with him. All this time my headache continued to grow until it had almost reached the unbearable level. It was now at the stage where all migraines sufferers dread, the stage where they know that it is not going to go away and that the sickness may well be soon arriving to keep it company. But I still managed to figure out what was bugging me about the kid.
For a start he was dressed in a school uniform but he had no school bag. I looked on the seat beside him and on the floor by his feet but no bag, which was odd. Like what type of school kid was he if he had no bag ? The second was the uniform. It looked well out of date. The uniform itself looked like it was ten years or more old. At first I just assumed that he was from a poor family and that it was handed down from one brother to the next but the odd thing was that the uniform didn’t look worn at all. Truth be told it looked new and I mean so new that I could make out the pleats in the trousers and the fine cut of the shirt. So if the uniform had been passed down from one brother to another they must have really taken exceptionally good care of it down through the years. But that was impossible, even normal wear and tear would mean that if it was as dated as it seemed it would have long since torn. No there was something else wrong I just could not figure what.
There was also the name of the blonde haired American that sat behind me. All of a sudden I got the idea that she was American, just all a sudden it was in my head. She was American and her first name was Ann or Anne or something like that. My head throbbed. I had reached the throbbing stage, it’s when you feel as if your brain has become a heart and it beating so hard that it actually wants to hatch out from your skull. Still I was sure that the girl was American and was called Ann or Anne. Then I saw the old man.
I actually felt sick when I first saw him but I guessed that the headache was getting a lot worse a lot quicker than I even I had expected it to. The vomit rose into my mouth and I had to quickly close my mouth to stop a mass escape. It left a strong sour taste in my mouth as it went back down. The old man I knew. I knew that face and I’d seen him on the TV about three months or more ago. His picture had been on an RTE version of a Crime Watch type programme (only with a much smaller budget). Had he been mugged or attacked or....something like that ? Anyway the Garda had wanted to question anybody who knew anything. Maybe I’d give them a ring when I got home.
My vision began to blur and all of a sudden I knew that unless I got of the bus fairly soon I’d end up passing out. When the headaches got exceptionally bad (which they hadn’t since eight years ago when I’d lost my job and the bank treathened to repossess the house) I was prone to complete black outs. I guessed that it was quite possible that it was going to happen again unless I got some fresh air.
I stood up and then I very, very nearly passed out. I wasn’t thinking straight, all I was thinking about was getting off the bus. I had to clutch the hand rail very tightly to stop myself from falling down. Then the boy looked across at me.
In that split second time seemed to stand still. I could suddenly make out every detail on the boy’s face, every aspect of him burned into my memory and I think that that moment was the first time when I knew who he was. But the moment passed and I guessed that I forget his name or perhaps made myself forget who he was to protect my own sanity. But I did know who he was and he knew that I knew. He looked up at me with these big sad eyes and although he never spoke I could tell that he was pleading with me. He was asking, almost begging me to help him. But I couldn’t. My head was screaming at me and I honestly thought that a brain tumour that had been living in my head dormant for the last few years had suddenly decided in poor taste and poor timing (as these things often are) that now was the time it was going to explode inside my skull. I turned away from the boy and staggered my way back down the bus towards the stairs. The American woman, Anne or Ann was looking directly at with an expression that mirrored the boys exactly. And I guess that then I knew who she was,. She was American all right but she had spent the last few years living (?) in Ireland, Wicklow to be more exact, near Johnny Foxes Pub to be very exact and I think at that moment I knew madness. The older man whom I recognised from Crime Watch (‘Can you help us with this missing persons case that has so far eluded the police ?’) was also looking at me. The whole bus was looking at me and I could feel my legs going. All I wanted to do was sit down and I very nearly did.
I have had very few defining moments in my life. I’ve gone from school to college and from college to a job, from single to married and from nothing to children with really the minimum of fuss and while the day I asked Pat to become my wife, the wedding day itself and the day my father died have all been very special to me none measured to that day and that particular moment. My legs wanted me to sit but I knew that if I sat down there I would never get up. That I’d be left sitting on the bus for a very long time, as my clothes got old and dated and my eyes got sadder. I wanted to sit but my heart wouldn’t allow it.
My legs buckled and for one moment I was sure that I was going to fall but I pulled hard on the hand rail and held myself up. And then I made my way down the stairs as fast as my legs would carry me.
I don’t really remember getting off the bus. All I remember was standing there getting sick on the side of the but road happy to be off the bus. I was laughing as the vomit speud from my mouth. I was laughing because my head was clearing and I was off the bus and then I was laughing just because I was happy.
I have never told anyone about that bus ride before now. I spent a long time debating with myself about whether I should contact any of families of those on the bus. I did some research you see and from looking at pictures I could name eight of them. With a bit more research I figure I could get the names of at least one or two more. But who’d believe me ? What would be the point ? People would only think that I’d gone off the deep end so up until now I’ve kept quiet. And that’s it. That’s all there is to tell. I’ve never seen that bus or any of the people on it again. The headaches have almost totally gone and most times I feel good with myself and get a full nights sleep. I say most nights because some times I wake up in the dead of night. Bathed in sweat with horrible thoughts running around my mind. And on these nights it takes me a long while to get back to sleep. So I lie awake on my bed, with Pat asleep in innocence beside me and I think. I think about young Philip Keanes and Anne Murphy and Sean O’Reilly and I wonder about when the bus is now, and who’ll be next to get on it. I think of the mothers of the disappeared and wondered if they lie awake too......”


TALES FROM A BUS
TALE IV
THE HEALER


When he finished his story there was silence on the bus. Even the bus itself seemed quieter as the engine noise dropped well into the background. He sat back in the seat and looked around at us all with a odd look on his face. He seemed pleased with the reactions his story had produced yet at the same time he looked saddened and perhaps even a bit frightened. I think that we all knew at that point that the stories were changing, getting stronger as we moved along. Myself, I felt I was just being drawn by some strong, invisible force. Drawn onto the bus, drawn into telling my story and drawn towards somewhere that I was not so sure I wanted to go to. I guess that we all had that same odd look on our face.
The old man lit up another cigarette. If there’s one thing that pissed me off it’s a chain smoker and the he was one of those. The lady spoke up “Mind if I take one of those on you?” she asked. He didn’t answer her but just tipped the pack towards her. She took one and when he didn’t offer her a light took a packet of matches from her bag and lit up. I noticed that her hand was shaking. She had changed a lot since I had first noticed her on the bus. Most of the confidence seemed to have vanished from her, and she looked younger now than before, its funny how confidence can change the very way you look.
I felt like a smoke now big time. I’d be kinda fighting with the idea of giving them up for a long time and had recently stopped buying pack of twenties, I still however bought packs of ten on the odd occasion. Buying smaller packets made me feel as if I was at least moving in the right direction, but the thing was overall I still smoked the same amount each day. Regardless of whether it was one pack of twenty or two packs of ten I’d still have nine cigarettes left (seven if it had been a bad day) at bed time each night. Story of my life really, spend too much time thinking about something and then when I do get around to it only do it part time with little or no effort. Still I found a battered packet of ten with a fair few left in it in my packet and drew one out. I looked across at the driver in his rear view mirror to see if he minded me lighting up. I saw that he had one in his mouth and was busy puffing away on it while looking at the dark road ahead. Apparently the NO SMOKING sign lit up above his head held as little sway with him as it did for any of the few passengers on the bus.
I don’t really know why but I was really looking forward to telling my story. It had happened so long ago but I had never told anybody about it. I was waiting my time to really get the others attention so I bided my time and let the silence and the cigarette smoke take centre stage for a few moments. When the silence almost reached unbearable level I spoke. I blew out the last of my smoke and I must say the effect was quite dramatic. Without doubt I had their undivided attention.

“The exact year this all happened I’m not so sure about. I suppose I could figure it out without too much trouble, like it was my first summer after college which was four years after I finished secondary which was five years after primary etc. etc. etc. but I don’t really want to find out how long ago it was, I know I’ll only get depressed.
I had recently finished college and it was during the summer that followed that I got my first year job. The job itself was in a bank and before you ask if it was a boring job or not the answer is ‘yes’, it was an exceptionally boring job. In fact the only thing that distinguished it from hundreds of others of its kind is the fact that it was so boring. I suppose I should think myself lucky in a way really, I knew plenty of others who had jobs that were too dull to be boring if you get my meaning.
The bank I worked for was located in the city centre and every morning I’d get up at the same time, dress in a carbon copy of the suit that I wore the day previous and eat the same breakfast. Each day in work was pretty much the same as the last and the problems I had on my desk each morning were pretty much the same as the ones I’d cleared the evening before. My life at the time as you may have guessed was a bit monotonous.
Since the leaving cert things had always promised a lot but delivered little. Collage, girl friends and a career had all been one anti-climax after another and to be frank if I’d taken the time to really think about it I might well have killed myself. Strange really that, it’s only talking to you all now that I realise just how much of a rut my life was in.
I got one of these X buses in and out of the city everyday, you know; point to point non-stop. I didn’t have a car at the time but for some reason I would like to think that even if I had one I would never have driven in through all the rush hour traffic in the morning only to do it all in the evening. Dublin had then, as it has now, an awful problem with traffic. The morning and evening time was pure hell, godshites, morans and blind bastards seemed plentiful on the roads each and every day. So the result of all this was that I got bus in every morning and the bus home every evening. Those X buses were grand really, I’d hop on at the terminal and slip on the headphones and then all the traffic in the world never bothered me. The sound from the walkman (a Sony of course) would just take me away and most times I’d dose off after a few minutes and wake up at my destination. From there it was a five minute walk to the office where my dull day began. I never took a book onto the bus, reading in a moving car, bus, train or plane gives me a fucker of a headache.
This routine went on Monday to Friday for well over a year and I got used to, almost immune to the monotony of it all. I sat on the same seat each day and the days I didn’t fall asleep I wasted the time looking around at all the regular faces on the bus and made a guess at what kind of life they had; what job they had and where they happy in it ? What kind of social or even sex life they had and were they happy in that, did they get on well with their friends and family, did they cheat on their wife, you know anything to pass the time, but as I’ve said most time the music from the Walkman put me asleep, it suited me fine. Anyway on with the tale.
The particular day my story takes place was a Tuesday evening. I remember this well because for me Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning are the very pits of the week. It’s too late in the week to live off the memories of the previous weekend and it’s too early in the week to plan for the forthcoming weekend. It is my considered opinion that of all things dull and boring there is nothing worse than a Tuesday evening.
The weather on that day was in traditional Irish style overcast and for the whole day it had threatened to rain, the rain had, so far, not yet arrived. I’d had an entirely shitty day in work and was really in a foul mood when I got on the bus. I even had to run for the bus and the run reminded me of how totally out of shape I was. Getting back into shape was yet another thing in my life that I had spent a long time planning to do but as yet had not yet gotten around to doing it. I paid my money to the driver and noticed with annoyance that he was not the usual guy, when I’m in a bad mood even the slightest thing pisses me off even more and the fact the Dublin Bus couldn’t even provide the proper driver put me in even worse form. When I got upstairs I noticed that the bus was nearing being full but it lightened my mood a bit to see that my regular seat was still free near the front right side of the bus. I took a little longer then I expected to get my breath back, and the bus was moving before I reached into my brief case and took out my Walkman. As I put the headphones into my ears I was knocked against as someone sat down on the outside of my seat. I didn’t look to the person who sat beside me but I did then notice that sitting in the seat of me was a young boy, maybe nine or ten but he was a small nine or ten if you know what I mean. His skin I remember noticing was very, very pale and he lacked that certain life-fullness that all kids kinda have. It’s difficult to explain but you’d know what I mean if you saw the boy. A middle aged and overweight woman sat on the front seat across from the kid, a very average man sat beside her. I could tell straight away that they were the boys parents, the woman looked like she was carrying the worries of the world on her shoulders, the man looked as her he wanted to be someplace else. As the bus revved up and pulled away the rain finally began to fall, but even then it didn’t give itself full over to it and only a pitiful drizzle fell.
By five minutes into the bus journey I knew that my Walkman would not last the distance, the tape was already beginning to sound warped and the auto-reverse button was clicking itself on and off the way it does when the batteries are just about dead. The thing was I remember putting a spare set into my brief case that morning, or at least I was almost sure at the time that I did. I suppose I swore to myself at first when I had to go to the bother of replacing the set in the Walkman but I did smile smugly when I remembered the set I had spare in my briefcase. I’m not the real modest type and often people think of me as being arrogant and I admit it, at times I may well be arrogant. So every once in a while God does little tricks like this just to remind me that I’m human and when I confidently reached into my briefcase to where I was sure I had placed the batteries and found them no longer there I did curse aloud. Loud enough so that the man sitting next to turned first to me no doubt to say something but perhaps seeing the look on my face thought better of it and turned back to his own world. It was then, in the height of my humour, that I first heard the boy cough.
When I was twelve years old my Granddad died. I have never been exceptionally or even very close to anybody else in my family but I loved my Granddad with an intensity that really surprised me. He had smoked all his life, first cigarettes for the first thirty years of his life and then when the quacks told him he had to give up the smokes he took up the pipe and smoked that for the other forty-three years or so that remained. Lung cancer got him in the end but as he pointed out to me whenever he got the chance, (like for example when my mother wasn’t around,) it took him over seventy years to develop lung cancer and he smoked from about the age of ten on whereas some others died of it before they had even reached middle age. Anyway for me the worst thing about my Granddad’s death was seeing him in hospital just before he died. I remember this one time going to see him and coming home in tears, I was too young to be told everything but I knew that he was well on the way up the Crow Road.
I was walking down the corridor to his room when I heard a terrible sound, it was the sound of death if I ever heard it. It was my Granddad coughing and I could tell there and then that he would never leave the hospital vertical so to speak. The sound of that deep, wet and sorrowful sound stayed with me from that day on and I never again wanted to hear anything like it. With the batteries running low on my Walkman and the sound from the earphones alternating between Blur and some other Indie band whose name escapes me at the time I heard the sound again, and I could feel death close by.
It was a natural reaction to look up and see where the cough was coming from but I felt a bit disorientated for the noise seemed to be coming from somewhere in front on me but the only person in front was the small boy and he was far too young and small to produce such a sound and besides he seemed to be shaking with laughter. My hand, without me telling it to, ran down to my belt and switched the Walkman off and it was only then I realised that this young boy was indeed the source of that horrible sound and he was not shaking with laughter but rather he whole, thin and slight body was being racked by the sickness that was within his lungs. I’m no doctor, but I knew then, as I knew with my Granddad, that the boy was sick. Sick well beyond the limits of medical science.
I’m not sure how long I stared at the boy for but when my concentration broke I looked around the bus and saw that I was not the only one to notice the boy. Every other passenger on the bus seemed to know that this poor kid was sick but they were all looking away. Not one of the other passengers looked ahead, some stared out windows, others at the roof, others at the floor and even others looked at others looking at the floor. One man was giving his wallet a detailed examination, while another was reading the makers guarantee on his briefcase. Nobody wanted to look at or even be on the same bus as this boy. The only person who’s eyes met the boys were those of his mother, and hers were filled with tears. The boy when he finished coughing wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket the way kids do and smiled across at his mother as if to say ‘look mom, it’s no big deal, I’m grand now’. But the mother only nodded her head slightly and when the boy looked back out the window she buried her face in her husbands shoulder.
The bus journey seemed unnaturally long and quiet and the only breaking in the silence was when the boy coughed. Again it seemed that his lungs were on the point of collapsing. I didn’t take my eyes from the kid but I didn’t remove my headphones either. Somehow I felt that if I had the headphones in I could pretend to all the others on the bus that I didn’t hear the kid and so didn’t have to do anything for him. But the thing was I desperately wanted to help somehow, even if it was just to go up and sit beside him and talk to him. Not as a healthy adult to a sick child but just as one human being to another, but I couldn’t. For a while afterwards I tried to fool myself into thinking that I would have eventually picked up the courage to talk to the boy but I know that I was only fooling myself, I could never have spoken to that boy if the bus journey was to Florida and back. I think I felt bad for him, how this kid had done nothing wrong and yet you could almost see the life draining away from him with each breath that left his lungs. It made me fell very sad and guilty about all the stuff I’d put into my body over the years, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes and how I was still being allowed to live. I sat there on the bus, feeling depressed and doing nothing. The bus journey went on and I felt worse. At the airport the bus first slowed and then stopped. I could see the long before we stopped the reason why.
The road ahead was blocked with what looked like a serious accident. At least three cars were involved and the blue flashing lights from the police, fire brigade and ambulance vehicle filled the night sky. The crash was on the far side of the bus but I got a good view as I was near the front, I don’t really consider this luckily but I was none the less a bit pleased with my good seat. After all I had the best view, if there was any blood on the road well shit then I’d see it! As it happens there was blood and quite a bit of it too. The bus moved in spurts as the police controlled the two-lane both direction traffic into a single lane. I could clearly see the firemen working with cutting equipment on one the cars, its body twisted well out of shape to an almost unrecognisable lump of metal. A woman stood by one of the car with a blanket thrown over her shoulders, blood was visible from a cut on her head. One of the ambulance crew was doing his best to treat the cut but she would not be moved from her spot beside the car. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Homles to figure that she was concerned about the occupant sitting trapped in the drives side of the car. The bus stayed at the scene for maybe a minute or two before the Garda stopped the traffic going the other way and waved us on.
Just as the bus moved off a man approached the crash site. The first thing that I noticed was how well dressed he was and that he moved through the carnage without the flustered to-ing and fro-ing of the other people. He walked passed the police as if they weren’t there and went straight to the car that the woman was crying beside. The fireman with the cutting equipment put down the saw and went to talk to his superior about some problem that he was must have been having. The man in the suit took his place by the car and they passed each other without so much as a nod. This all seemed a bit strange to me but what I say next left me speechless.
The man in the immaculate suit looked into the car and it seemed began to talk to the trapped person in the car. Time seemed to stand still at this point and then the man reached into the car and put his hand on the forehead of the trapped driver. It stayed there for a moment and then it began to glow, not the hand now nor the head, just the space where contact was shared between the two. A very soft blue glow seemed to radiate from the area. My mouth hit the flow and I came closer than I ever have come to losing control of my bladder. I felt physically weak and think that I almost passed out because when I looked back the man was gone and the fireman with the cutting saw was walking back to the car. When he reached the car he looked in for a moment and then put down the saw. The woman beside the car started screaming crying and had to be pulled away form the car. When the police moved in around the car I knew that the driver was dead.
I looked around the bus wanting to stand up and shout out if anybody else had seen what had happened, but my voice had deserted me and my legs would not have supported any weight. It took everything I had to keep my lunch down. And even if I had asked I know from the faces of all the others on the bus that they had not seen what I had. The bus began to move again and it was a buzz with the sound of conversation and people who had sat beside each other for months on end and had never once said a word before began talking as if they were the best of friends. There’s nothing quite like a bit of death, a bit of suffering or even just a bit of gossip to get the worst of enemies talking again now is there ? Me, well needless to say I said nothing. I was still trying to come to grips with what I had seen and my stomach was still trying to come to grips with my lunch. I took the air in through my nose and out through my mouth in big slow lung full. I thought that I was just about to regain control when two things happened. The first thing was that the boy coughed that sickening, wet and raspy cough and the second thing was that the bus stopped and the doors opened either to let someone off or to let somebody on.
When I heard the footsteps on the stairs I knew who it was. Now I know that there was no way that I could have heard the footsteps of someone coming up the stairs on a moving bus full of people but I’m telling you now that I did. I wish, Jesus I’ve wished so many times that I didn’t, that the normal laws of physics had applied on that bus ride but they didn’t and the sound of those footfalls coming up the stairs was the worst and most frightening sound I’ve ever heard. I broke out into a sweat and started to look around the bus in a panic, nobody else seemed to care but me. The boy was still coughing but that now seemed of secondary importance to me now all I was concerned about was getting off the bus anyway I could. The man sitting beside me looked visibly concerned at my behaviour and I’m sure that I looked weird, pale faced and more that likely mumbling to myself about getting off the bus but I froze when I saw the figure at the top of the stairs.
For the first time I got a clear look at his face. I think that many would have considered the man good looking but to me there was something that I wasn’t sure about, something that I would always consider, well I don’t know how to explain it. Like the man, as I’ve said was immaculately dressed, clean shaven, his hair was perfectly in place and even his hands were manicured to the point of perfection. Every aspect of his face was perfect but for some reason when you put it all together it didn’t look right. All he did for me was make my stomach do another loop-the-loop. He looked around the bus at all the passengers, passing over me as if I wasn’t there and then walked purposely towards the front of the bus, towards where I was sitting. He reached my seat, paused and then very slowly turned his head. I know that it sounds almost foolish for you to hear this now but the look that he gave me, with those ice blue cold eyes, and the perfect hair that sat like a work of art on his head and the way that the corner of those thin lips of his almost curled up into the trace of a smile stopped my heart and took my very soul away to a place where I never ever want to go again. His eyes held mine for what seemed like an age and then he moved on to sit beside the boy with the bad cough.
The boy, who now looked younger and more vulnerable than he had at the beginning of this almost endless journey seemed to see the stranger in a totally different light than I did. The stranger and the sick boy exchanged smiles and while I saw the whole spectacle of one of complete horror those two seemed to be enjoying each others company. I very nearly screamed there and then and I think if I’d been able to I would have screamed, a scream that maybe would never have ended but I didn’t scream or maybe I couldn’t scream. Either way I remained silent and those two in the seat in front of mine, the odd couple continued to smile at each other and their own private little joke. I looked across at the boy’s mother but she seemed to be almost in a trance staring out the window of the bus, so did her husband. The two of them oblivious to the man that was sitting next to there son. The man, who as I was looking around for help, was reaching ever so slowly for the boy with the same hand that touched the car crash victim what seemed like hours ago.
From there on in everything seemed to go in slow motion. I saw the man’s hand reach very slowly reach towards the boy’s chest. I tried desperately hard to cry out but all I manage was a strangled cry. The man on the seat beside me turned in my direction, I heard him mumble “Are you are right buddy?” His voice seemed distant and somehow muffled so I stood up. People on the bus turned my direction and were giving me strange glances but still I couldn’t get through to them what was happening and still the stranger’s hand reached towards the boy’s chest. Now it was only inches away and I could make out the faint blue glow starting to grow from the stranger’s palm. The man beside me stood up too and put a restraining hand my shoulder.
“Pal are you sure your OK?”
I laughed out loud and then began to cry. I felt stranger than I’d ever felt in my left and stranger than I’ve ever felt since. My emotions ran riot, I was laughing one moment and then crying the next. I raised my hand and somehow managed to point to a finger in the direction of the stranger. But instead of drawing attention to him my arm was grabbed from behind and pinned by my side.
“Somebody give a hand here!” I heard the man beside me shout and “Somebody phone an ambulance, I think he’s having a fit.” called another.
The glow from the strangers hand was painfully visible and just before I got pulled down to the floor I saw the hand make contact. There was a brief flash of light and then I clearly heard the boy sigh. It was a sound that reminded me of the way a woman will sigh smugly to herself just after having some great sex. It was that type of sigh. Then the boys head lolled to the side and for perhaps the first time I could clearly make out his face. And then, then I saw him smile and that smile was the most beautiful and the most terrifying thing that I have every seen. It was the smile of a sincere old man on the face of a young boy full of innocence. The stranger continued to hold his hand against the boy’s chest and I could make out a black shadow type form moving across from the chest and down the hand and then the arm of the stranger. This continued for God knows how long but when the blackness stopped coming then a red mist replaced it.
By now I could feel the pressure of my fellow passengers trying to hold me down and I knew that I was shaking uncontrollably, moaning, crying and laughing all at the one time but I had to stay on my feet to the end. The boy was looking pail now and the redness was moving at a much slower pace. Suddenly it stopped and the stranger withdrew his had. The boys head fell back against the railing and he stared at me with lifeless eyes. Then the screams did come.
I must have caused some amount of noise because the other people on the bus probably figuring that I had gone mad gripped me tighter and began to draw me to the floor. I heard them ask and then tell me to calm down but I wasn’t listening. Just before their combined strength managed to draw me down I saw that the stranger had risen from the seat and was turning to walk towards me. I screamed some more, and then some more again. Then I blacked out.

“Is he gonna be OK?”
I awoke to the sound of people all around me and opened my eyes slowly.
“Hold on he’s awake !”
“Give him room there, back off a little. Come on people let him breath.”
“Pal, are you OK ?” I recognised my companion from the seat next to me.
I tried to speak but before I could the head of the stranger appeared from the back of the group.
“Oh yes.” he said, “He’s gonna be just fine for a long while yet.”
And then he was gone. Before I had time to ask if anybody else had seen him the bus was once again disturbed by the sound of someone screaming. This time it was the screams of a woman. I was discarded quite quickly as my would be rescuers turned their attention to something of a little more interest. I knew without looking that the screams were those of the woman, who had just discovered that her son was dead.
And that’s my tale. The boy was dead and I haven’t seen the man since but I’ll tell you, every time that I see a man, of above average height but below average weight, who is wearing an immaculately turned out suit and had hair to match; I always avoid eye contact because I know that the next time I see those steel blue eyes looking back at my brown ones that my time on this earth will be at an end.


TALES FROM A BUS
V
THE PURPLE BUS

I was tired when I got on the bus. And less than two minutes after that I was bored. But they kept me well awake and credit to them all had surprised me with their stories and I’m not easily surprised.
The five of us on the bus represented a great cross section of society; the old man who’d seen it all, the good looking bitch (and boy did she know it) with the attitude, the boring bald guy in the very centre of his mid-life crisis and not even knowing it and the thirty-something guy who’d be a yuppie only he was ten years too late. And then there was me.
Me, the drug taking, long haired, welfare living, drop out student. I (and people like me), where the reason that ‘their’ taxes were so high. I was the second half of the hated unmarried mothers/waster students combination that they had all spent long hours in the canteen complaining about. They despised me for that and they let me know. Never verbally, but with every half glance that they could get off they let me know.
I didn’t have much money on me at the time to pay them back all the funds in the for of taxes that I’d taken from their pockets over the years to repay them but what I did have was my story. My own little adventure. My purple bus.
Knowing that they all didn’t want to hear me talk made me all the more determined to tell it. So with a loud cough, an even loud clearing of my troath and an even louder spit (I was glad to see the woman look at me with disgust and a bit disappointed to see the old guy only smile) I began the story.

“So you think that you’ve all seen something ? That you’ve all had a frightening or moving experience or that God or Old Nick himself had somehow touched you as you rode from point fucking A to point fucking B ? Well Jesus, you people know nothing. You all sit there so smug and secure in your boring little lives and think that you’ve done it all and that you’ve seen it all. Shit. Wrong is not the word. I’ve done and seen things that you people wouldn’t believe, I’ve lived my life; you’ve just all been non-dead during yours.
But enough of this talk, I give out advice only to those willing to take it and even then I charge by the hour. My bus ride ? Let me tell you about my bus ride...
I’m what some people would call a ‘special’ child and what those who know would be call a brat. I knew the alphabeth at nineteen months and could write my own name before my second birthday. In primary school I skipped first and third class. Did my inter-cert (all honours) at fourteen and finished my leaving (all honours again) at the tender age of fifteen years and seven months. But I guess some would say that I had problems with structures, problems with discipline and most certainly problems with figures of authority. Now I could blame my short attention span or my father (many have), or my mother or the fact that I grew up in a house with four very attractive sisters or my drunk uncle or my lesbian auntie who used to dress me in ribbions etc etc etc. But really who cares who’s to blame ? Like it’s directly to do with me and I don’t give a shit. I just don’t respond well to those who feel they know it all. I was always looking for something that ‘they’ didn’t agree with and that I found interesting. In college I finally found what I was looking for, it was drugs in general but acid in particular.
I don’t know what kinda idea you people all have about college life but I can assure you it’s all very different than it seems in all those fancy brochures. It’s very far from all night parties and stimulating conversation both in the classroom and out of it. The fact is that for the vast majority of college life your bored, broke, sober and hungry and that’s on the good days. The first two weeks or so are great during that time, I’ll admit that there are parties and sessions and maybe the odd conversation or two worth participating in but after that it all goes down hill at an alarming rate. Next thing you’ll come to some time midway into week three, with the hangover that you’ve been putting off for the last fourteen days and realise that somehow you’ve no money left and you’ve forgotten to budget for food. Then you fall into the cycle of scrounging loans until your allowance comes through and then using that to pay off the loans only to be forced into scrounging around for them again. It’s just a spiralling debt that gets gradually bigger as the weeks go by. Before you know it the rent is due an the mid-term exams are just over the horizon. You may think that there’s more but I guarantee you there’s not.
Around the start of November I began to skip classes. I was too tired or bored or in most cases just too lazy to drag my ass out of bed . It’s a strange fucking thing that once you do something once it’s becomes a habit very easily. Within a week of missing my first class I was missing more than I was making. And what’s more is that I just didn’t a fuck, I didn’t have the energy.
Mechanical Metaphysics 1 was where I had my first real contact with drugs and if your looking for someone to blame (above and beyond all those mentioned before) well look no further than Rob Batt, or as he was better known in the trade; Batman. He was sitting beside me, (for some reason as he often did) and he offered me what looked like a small piece of paper with a small dot in the middle. I knew straight away what it was, I’m far from naive and perhaps because the boredom of college was beginning to set in I only hesitated for the briefest of moments before popping it in my mouth. The class dragged on and I waited for the drug to hit in. For a long while I was sure that all that prick Batman had done was give me a piece of a postage stamp but just before the end of the class I started feeling a little strange.
It began (as most fucking things do) with a funny tingling all over my face. It spread down my neck and chest and soon my whole body felt alive. I tried damm hard but my face couldn’t hide the smile. I looked across at Batman but he was deep in thought, arms folded on the desk with his head resting to the side on his arms as he watched, fascinated, a small piece of rubber on the desk. I called his name (perhaps a bit loud as a few people turned round to give me a disapproving look) but he didn’t seem to notice. In fact bar the odd smile on his face his movements were pretty much restricted to somewhere none and sweet fuck all. When the bell for the end of class rang he screamed and I laughed aloud. We left the class room together me with tears of joy rolling down my face.
Along with my new found ‘best friend’ Batman we had a vote and unanimously decided that it was best if we didn’t go to any more classes that day. Instead we went to his flat (in a surprisingly clean state) and spent the afternoon laughing, crying and listening to the Soft Parade by the Doors. What I saw that day changed my world.
I never knew that drugs could be so powerful, so mind blowing.....so...so fuckin’ there. When the trip ended well over the standard eight hours later and after overcoming the depressing ‘coming down’ period I made up my mind there and fucking then that I wanted to do acid again.
And now we have the tragic part of my tale. How the guy who had it all; lost it all. The attendance fell apart and my grades with it. I lost my looks (underneath all this I’m not that bad looking) and my life fell down to nothing more than wondering where the next fix would come from. It was the natural progression I like to tell myself. Anyone faced with the same circumstances would have gone the same way. But it wasn’t anybody else, it was me. And I lacked either the concerned friends or the self respect to do anything about it. I began seeing less and less of college and more and more of the various (cheap) coffee houses around the city.
One particular morning I had spent and drank the last of my meagre funds of a big mug of bad coffee and was out on the streets again. You may think that Dublin is a big city and I suppose it is but really there’s fuck all to be see that can’t be seen within a few days. Turn those days into weeks and combine them with fuck all money and you’ve got serious boredom on your hands. Walking the streets, regardless of the weather is not fun. Walking the streets with just your bus fare home is pure shite. Certainly nothing more and most likely something less.
As I’ve already said I had left whatever establishment was the flavour of the day and was walking in some side street just off O’Connell Street when a big bright sign caught my attention. The background was dirty (and I mean a dirty ) white with bold, gaudy purple writing. It read;

Free Tour of the City on Bus !
Next tour departing this point: 1145hrs.

The ‘1145hrs’ was smudged and barely legible and the rest of the sign was almost rotting away but it was still there. I had a look at my watch (which was the last possession of any value that I had not sold for drugs) and it was coming up on a quarter shy of twelve. Looking around I saw that nobody else seemed to be queuing but then again it was a dull day and who wanted to go on a tour ? But I figured, it was free so why not. I dropped my bag and waited.
And waited. And waited. I had, in fact, almost given up waiting when I heard the engine of something that sounded that it either in a lot of pain or dead as this big, purple, old fashioned bus pulled around the corner and swung out onto my street.
It looked like it was from the sixties. I mean originally from the sixties but had died back then and was buried only to have been dug up quite recently. The paint job must have dated back at the very least twenty years and the once (perhaps not ?) bright purple colour scheme had faded to a dirty and dull eyesore. In some places the paint had peeled away making the bus look like it had a horrible skin disease. It had two big round headlights, one either side of a massive grill which was missing a few of it’s bars. The bars, while no doubt once silver chrome had rusted over the years and looked rotten and cracked. One of the headlights was smashed and it looked almost like some old maniacal monster missing a few teeth that was winking at you. Fumes seemed to spill out from all sides of it as it made it’s way noisily up to where I stood. It was a beast. I’m telling you now that I had to fight an urge not to run away from the ‘thing’ there and then as it approached me. It was building up speed all the time as it came towards me and for a horrible moment I was sure that it was going to mount the path and mow me down, the thought of being dragged screaming beneath that thing almost made me loose control of my bladder. But then it braked. The noise from the brakes was the sound of seven banshees in a bag, a wailing whining noise the likes of which I’ve never heard before and never care to again. When I heard that horrible, inhuman sound I was hit by a bout of the shivers, y’know, right down the back kind. If ever there was a moment that was a prime example of ‘someone walking on your grave’ that was it. The bus pulled up beside me and stopped. With another protesting wail the doors opened.
I looked in hoping to see something that would somehow reassure me but nothing came to view. The inside of the bus, while certainly a lot cleaner than the outside seemed very dark and the sun light seemed to be fighting a loosing battle with the dirt on the outside of the windows to see if the interior was to be bright or dim. The driver of this unsettling vehicle was a man that looked like he came not from the sixties but rather from some home for the lost souls. His jacket was a dark navy almost black colour and the supposedly blue shirt that went underneath hadn’t seen water since it grew in the fields as cotton. A dusty cap sat on his head and it hung dangerously over to one side. On the cap was a small metal badge that sparkled brightly in stark contrast to both him and t he bus he drove. The badge was imprinted with the words ‘Purple Bus Tours’.
“This the tour bus ?”, I asked.
He didn’t answer only slowly turned his head (without moving his body) to look me up and down. Eventually a hand raised and he beckoned me on.
“This is for free, right ?” I asked.
Again he said nothing only nodding his head after giving the matter serious consideration. I walked onto the bus and mounted the stairs.
The top floor was fairly full of people with only one or two seats being completely free of people. I found a window seat and plonked down in it. Thinking better of looking around the bus at my fellow companions I contented myself with looking out the window. The bus shuddered a few times and then began to gradually move forward. It was then that the old feeling of loosing touch with reality began to wash over me. At first I wasn’t so sure but after getting used to the feeling I convinced myself that what I was actually experiencing was a flash back (a free one..marvellous).
Acid has the strange but excellent habit of hiding itself in your fat cells for years and sometimes even decades. When ever your body gets round to burning off those fat cells it can release the acid a give you another unexpected mini-trip. While these ‘flahback’ must have really scared the shit out of some of those drug taking hippies I knew all about them and had already experienced one so figured it was no big deal. The more I thought about this the more it made sense; the blurred sign, the look of the driver, the noise of the breaks, especially the face that I thought I saw in the front of the bus. Yeah I figured, flashback. I sat back in my seat and smiled as waves of reality washed away from the shore.
One of the waves must have been a one in foutreen freak tidal ones as I sat bolt upright in my seat with the feeling that something was wrong. I was still on the bus and we were still moving but something was just out of place. For a start there no one was talking, of all the people on the bus none of them made a sound. I looked to my left where some woman had sat down unnoticed to me. She looked odd. Tall thin woman but he head seemed all wrong for her body. Her legs, hips, shoulders and arms were all micro-thin but her head, well her head was....it was fat. She had a big fat head on her body. The thought of this ‘fat head’ I would normally have found highly amusing but I didn’t now. In fact I found it decidedly unfunny and quite unsettling. I looked towards the front of the bus and I saw a man in his mid-forties with a similar looking ailment, except this time he had a tiny head on broad shoulders. I began to feel very unsure of everything. The air on the bus seemed to have suddenly run short and I was having trouble breathing. Perspiration formed on my forehead and within seconds all down my fucking back was wet with the sweat. I was just thinking about standing up and getting the hell of the bus when I heard a strange humming sound.
At first I wasn’t sure exactly where the humming was coming from but when I calmed down (as much as a stressed out junkie having a flash-back can clam down) I realised that it was coming from the woman sharing my seat. I wanted to turn and look at her but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I looked out the window and waited for the ‘rush’ to pass.
There are many ways you can always tell an experienced drug taker from a first time virgin but the best way is to give them both some acid and see how each copes. Acid does very strange things to your mind, you see and hear things that aren’t there and the most simple thing can be both terrible and fascinating. It is not a logical drug but to remain in control and avoid crossing over into the land of the ‘bad trip’ you have to use logic. As in; ‘that can’t be lion because were not in the zoo and they don’t run wild here’ or ‘that can’t be the devil coz He’s down in hell concerning Himself with more important things than me’. This is what keeps you sane while on such a mind bending drug. I’ll admit that even I, an experienced drug taker, was at that point very close to flipping out but I fell back on logic. ‘There is no reason for that woman to hum on the bus and therefore she is not humming.’ I’d like to say that I would have convinced my mind of this if I hadn’t looked out the window, but I did and I think at that point I realised that maybe it was more than your average flashback.
The bus seemed to be moving at an incredible speed. Streets and building flashed by just as coloured blurs and nothing more and it was impossible to make out any detail. The noise of the engine roared in my ears and it felt as if they were about to bleed with the pressure but above the noise I could still hear the woman humming. But now it seemed as if others had joined in with her. I tried to carry on looking out the window but the outside world, now nothing more than a blur with a vaguely purple tinge was making my stomach turn so I looked back at the woman sitting beside me.
There was no doubt in my mind now that she was humming, as was the man in front (small head to his big shoulders) and all the other passengers on the bus. I looked from one person to the next and saw that they all were looking straight ahead and had that same vacant look I had first noticed on the face of the woman sitting beside me. Then I noticed that they all looked slightly odd. I saw what I thought at first to be a young boy and then discovered that he had the face of a full grown man (beard and all), there was an nigger down near the back who appeared to have white hands and a white neck, fuck sake there was even a man with tits ! I knew that I had to get off the bus there and then.
“Excuse me” I half shouted to the woman beside me but she didn’t make an move to convince me that she was going to move. I didn’t wait to ask her a second time and stood up to push past her. I couldn’t move her so had to climb over her instead, it made my stomach turn to even think about touching her but it was either that and stay on the bus. Staying on the bus was an option that I was not fucking willing to consider so I started my climb. While I was half way through the process with the engine bursting my ears and the whole bus humming along she started to rock forward (they all did) and as she rocked forward and back on her seat pinning me to the back of the seat in front I noticed that there was a wide scar that ran right round her neck. The flesh around the scar was not fully healed, in fact it looked like it was only a few days or maybe a week or two old. It was still raw red and the smell that came from her as she rocked forward again tipped me fully over the edge. I screamed and scrambled to break myself free of this the sickest lover’s embrace I had ever been in. I was in full scale panic and my back leg got caught in some part of the seat and I fell flat on my face.
I was only my feet quicker that I would have thought possible and moving quickly towards the stairway when the humming and the rocking suddenly stopped. The whole sick crew on the bus placed both hands on the hand rails in front of them and then they all turned their attention to me for the briefest of seconds and then the bus suddenly stopped.
Stopped is maybe too weak a word for what I am trying to say. It stopped dead in it’s tracks. I was thrown towards the front of the bus at an incredible speed and hit my head hard off the barrier at the very front. I ended up in a semi sitting position at the front of the bus, the perfect place for a view of what happened next.
The shock force of the sudden stop threw all the passengers in the bus first forward and then as the bus stopped they all went back. At the pinnacle of their trajectory back there were several sickening crackling sounds and then I swear to fucking God all their heads snapped off and fell into the lap of the person behind them. It was at this stage that I lost my lunch, I somehow new what was going to happen next but when I actually saw it I am not ashamed to say that I lost full control of both my bowels and my bladder. Each of the ‘people’ on the bus slowly and blindly reached down into their laps and took a hold of the head that sat there on then placed it on their own shoulders. When the heads were reattached they was the same sickening cracking sound but this time it was backwards. One ‘man’, I’m not sure if it was a he or a she but it had a male head, had placed the head on backwards and was busying itself turning the head around. Another, this one had a female body, was on it’s hands and knees on the bus searching for it’s new head that had rolled off it’s lap and onto the floor with a heavy ‘thud’. And yet another thing, was walking towards the front of the bus, towards where I was with no head at all.
Situations like this, while not that this was an everyday situation you’ll know what I mean when I say that it was a life threatening situations. The mind reacts either superfast or not at all. Mine was moving superfast and it took me only seconds to realise that the thing coming towards me was coming from the vacant seat directly behind where I’d been sitting. It had not gotten a head coz’ I had kept my own and I guessed that it was pretty pissed at this. Whatever about how quick the mind reacts it’s useless if the body cannot obey and it seemed like an age before I was able to convince my legs and arms to move.
I’ll always remember playing Blinds Mans Bluff as a kid and I’ll always remember that it scared the shit out of me. The whole idea of the game is a sick one, one man blinded and he tries to grab all the others. Well that was what I had to do. There in front of me and the way out (I wasn’t even thinking about downstairs), stood a big headless fucker, arms outstretched and moving quickly from left to right and back again across the small aisle way. The rest of the passengers, now with their new heads intact made no move towards me but as soon as I moved they all let out a warning moan and the headless thing reacted. Don’t ask me how he could fucking hear but if I moved left they’d all moan the thing would move to his right to block my escape. All the time I was screaming but I didn’t really expect to attract any wanted attention.
Soon the headless thing and I were maybe five feet apart. I stopped and thanks to a moan from his sideline helpers it stopped too. And there we stood, facing each other as best as the circumstances allowed. I never felt more like Odysseus in my life.
There was nothing to do except make a break for it.
I darted first to my left and it reacted, then in a spinning move called the ‘butterfly’ in American Football I spun round to the right using my back against it’s chest as leverage and while it turned almost as quickly and managed to grab a good piece of my shirt, thanks to shoddy clothes wear and weak buttons I was free and down the stairs.
The bottom level was deserted and the bus was no longer moving. It was the same as when I’d gotten on it at first, dirty and poorly lit but to my joy I saw that the fucking doors were open. Without looking left nor right I ran to the doors and jumped out landing heavily on the sidewalk and breaking an ankle in the process.
As I lay there on the path in my own shirt, with my leg screaming in pain, my heart thumping out eighty beats per every half minute and my shirt torn I heard an inhuman voice sing in a deadpan voice the words to an old Sheryl Crow song.
“A change....will do you good. I mean a change.....will do you good..”
I looked up and saw the doors of the bus slowly close on the bus driver and it pulled slowly away. I sat where I was and cried for a long, long time.

Life over the next few months got quite hazy for me, I wandered the streets (on crutches) avoiding buses whenever they approached me and I guess if I’d gone to a head doctor he would have told me that I was suffering from a complete mental breakdown. But sure as Bob Dylan so rightly said, you don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows. I’m not really sure how long I stayed in this state but when my mind returned to me I began to think it over and wondered if maybe I’d made the wrong decision. Like, what would have happened to me if I’d stayed on the bus ? Would I have lost my head, (if it’s not loosing your head it’s gaining another). My life was shit, and really I had between fuck all and nothing left to live my current life for. So about two weeks ago I came to a life changing decision; I wanted to find the purple bus.
And I guess you could say that’s why I’m here, my current head is of fuck all use to me now so I’m looking for a change.”

When I tell you silence was what greeted the end of my story I’m under stating things. There wasn’t a sound at all on the bus. Even when I began humming there was no reaction from any of them and it was only when I started rocking backward and forward that the woman started screaming. And once she’d started she didn’t stop for a long, long time.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 27.10.2010

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