Tramp
By animan
- 1060 reads
Is it all to do with self-love?
Is it just about throwing oneself at the mercy of fate?
Is that the bigger self-love?
Is it about saying no ‘home’, no, go to hell?
I was on the Central Line – bloody ages – that is a long line when you’re coming from the outer edges, standing there looking at how your shoes and legs meet at the knees and then form into legs and up to shoes. I sat down out of boredom and, then, this guy hops in fast as a bat out of hell. He lay along the seats and went into sleep – seeming sleep, actual sleep? He looked so peaceful, the grime of tramp around his cheeks. At later stops, endless stops, others came in, with insistent faces, and looked at him, and turned as if they had always meant to turn and reversed away to other more cramped seats. I exited at Oxford Circus. I should have gone on to the Victoria Line, but I needed the air and came up from the earth like a whale out of air and breathed in the night, and looked for a pub and found one – classic posey retro. I used the loo, got a Sauvignon – quite a good one! - sat outside.
They seemed so lovely,
all expectant and purpose,
all youth and handbags, foreign accent
all mobiles and ear-rings,
all tighted thigh high
brush of gleaming bra, cleavage.
Okay, so, sitting there with these three who had just sat in front of me, well, at the table in front of me, I sensed the dirty old man in me and looked away at the throng coming out of some god-awful musical – they looked like people who should feel excited but just somehow didn’t. Then this young guy came out for a fag and, between each draw, bent his head to better appraise the precise contour of each young thigh of the girls sat there – aware, unaware? How did one know that these three young’uns were out on the razzle or about to be? One, the least atractive, seemed to be the ring-leader of this ring, and the others followed her somehow – wanted to be her. Various sleezy guys hovered onto them and exchanged numbers on their freely proffered mobiles, offering, presumably, the ‘delights’ of some after-hours venue. The guys just sleezed with grin, but the girls didn’t seem to mind or notice. One of them looked painfully naive – the one with the darker hair to the others’ blonde. I so wanted to say to her no, no, no, no. But what can you say? Moments later, they clattered inside. To get more drinks? Nope. They’d stashed their slinky handbags somewhere inside. They came out, sleek, uncluttered and crossed the precinct, slightly angled forward on their heels and skittled on their heels into the night.
Is it all to do with self-love?
Is it just about throwing oneself at the mercy of fate?
Is that the bigger self-love?
Is it about saying no ‘home’, no, go to hell?
No answers here, just silence and solitariness, as I finished my drink and headed another way into another night and circled my way to the Overground and away and silent thoughts, listening to the sleek steel ride along slick tracks.
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Comments
and turned as if they had
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I thought this was a very
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Accurate observations animan
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