Tuesday, May 10, 2005
I live in Streatham, just down the road from Brixton. Sometimes you see that your everyday would spook a bumpkin.
I get out of Brixton tube station at about ten o’clock, and am greeted with the usual skunk:weed chorus. Down a side street, opposite the bus stop a shouting man is sitting on a square of wood, bouncing up and down in an unsuccessful attempt to snap it. A crowd of us are on the pavement, jostling for position (stay on the sides and outflank the mass) as an old black man, bearded and bald, wanders amongst us, his hand out, repeating, “Do you have five pence? Do you have five pence?”
On the bus and I walk straight into the stale, sweet urine smell of misfortune. A quick glance around reveals the source has gone; I’m safe to sit where I please. Two stops then a woman drags herself on. She is white, puffy, thirty or a cruel twenty; her curly hair is gathered back into a high ponytail. She is wearing cycling shorts, a sports bra and an open track suit top. Behind her a skinny man with an inexpertly shaved head and marks (of dirt? blood?) on his face. Good. Neither of them choose the spare seat at my side. The woman seems harmless: a few loud and incomprehensible questions called out to no one in particular, but friendly enough. They stay on for a few more stops then totter down the aisle. The man turns as he passes me, his voice and my lip-reading and intuition come up with, “you’ve dropped your drink.” Before I can politely disown the half-drunk bottle of Oasis at my feet they are gone. I watch them out my left-side window. Calling to each other over the heads of a group of teenagers they are several metres apart and together in their addiction.
My stop next. My bag brushes against a young Levantine man as I wait for the bus to stop. I decide not to apologise – it is a small infraction, easier to leave than make myself penitent. I alight at Chicken Cottage. I glance back into the fluorescent glow of the bus. On the back seat is a middle-aged black man, the size of a child. His eyes are wide open, his mouth furiously and silently chatting. His hands are in his lap and he is rocking back and forth. Ten seconds into my street and there’s a woman in a short skirt, leaning from the pavement to a wall. A man walks angrily from her, negotiations terminated.
How many hoary signs of debased city life do you need? This was an unremarkable trip home - nothing alarming, nothing unusual; but like the language of sailors it would have to be toned down in fiction lest it seemed unrepresentative - too panicked, too clichéd, too much.
It’s late, and I’m tired: my eloquence is streaking from me like a greased pig. It was funny is all.
|
I get out of Brixton tube station at about ten o’clock, and am greeted with the usual skunk:weed chorus. Down a side street, opposite the bus stop a shouting man is sitting on a square of wood, bouncing up and down in an unsuccessful attempt to snap it. A crowd of us are on the pavement, jostling for position (stay on the sides and outflank the mass) as an old black man, bearded and bald, wanders amongst us, his hand out, repeating, “Do you have five pence? Do you have five pence?”
On the bus and I walk straight into the stale, sweet urine smell of misfortune. A quick glance around reveals the source has gone; I’m safe to sit where I please. Two stops then a woman drags herself on. She is white, puffy, thirty or a cruel twenty; her curly hair is gathered back into a high ponytail. She is wearing cycling shorts, a sports bra and an open track suit top. Behind her a skinny man with an inexpertly shaved head and marks (of dirt? blood?) on his face. Good. Neither of them choose the spare seat at my side. The woman seems harmless: a few loud and incomprehensible questions called out to no one in particular, but friendly enough. They stay on for a few more stops then totter down the aisle. The man turns as he passes me, his voice and my lip-reading and intuition come up with, “you’ve dropped your drink.” Before I can politely disown the half-drunk bottle of Oasis at my feet they are gone. I watch them out my left-side window. Calling to each other over the heads of a group of teenagers they are several metres apart and together in their addiction.
My stop next. My bag brushes against a young Levantine man as I wait for the bus to stop. I decide not to apologise – it is a small infraction, easier to leave than make myself penitent. I alight at Chicken Cottage. I glance back into the fluorescent glow of the bus. On the back seat is a middle-aged black man, the size of a child. His eyes are wide open, his mouth furiously and silently chatting. His hands are in his lap and he is rocking back and forth. Ten seconds into my street and there’s a woman in a short skirt, leaning from the pavement to a wall. A man walks angrily from her, negotiations terminated.
How many hoary signs of debased city life do you need? This was an unremarkable trip home - nothing alarming, nothing unusual; but like the language of sailors it would have to be toned down in fiction lest it seemed unrepresentative - too panicked, too clichéd, too much.
It’s late, and I’m tired: my eloquence is streaking from me like a greased pig. It was funny is all.
|
