Punchline

PUNCHLINE

Attaining a state of total absorption into my book is a goal I strive
towards every time I take a seat on the bus. It is a state I rarely
attain. Be it the incessant natter, yatter and chatter of my
travel-mates, the discordant stage whispers of ten different personal
stereos all pishing and tish-tishing or a chorus of piping mobile
phones begging for worms of conversation to be dangled into their tiny
pinhole mouths, something will always distract me.

"I used to drive one of these."
A middle-aged man said, apparently to me.
He had the look of someone who had very little money to spend on his
attire but nonetheless made an effort to appear smart and presentable.
His well-worn shoes were polished and around his thick neck was a gaudy
tie whose width suggested age.
"So why don't you now?" I asked, closing my book and returning it to
the safety of my bag.
I'd always viewed bus drivers as a breed apart from the rest of us. A
bitter mix of barely suppressed frustration with the world around them
and a fierce stubbornness usually only found in seaside donkeys and
security guards.
This particular gentleman, however, seemed quite affable.
"I punched a passenger." he answered with worrying nonchalance.
"Oh. Why?"
He turned slightly in his seat to face me, assuming the pose of the
storyteller.
"Well, it was a hot day, bloody hot. The cab of a bus isn't exactly the
most comfortable place, so I wasn't in a great mood. Anyway, this bloke
got on at Rolfe Street, you know, by the temple."
I nodded. I passed the Sikh temple every day and always craned my neck
to get a better view of its beautiful dome, sitting atop the grey
building like a vast, gilded onion.
"Well," he continued, "this bloke got on, scruffy looking sod, probably
just come out of the Job Centre. Anyway, he looked at me with real, oh
what's the word?"
"Malice?" I offered.
"Yeah, malice, real angry looking, and he looked right at me like this
and said 'I ain't got any money.' ."
He reproduced the man's angry expression.
"So I said, 'Well you won't get very far on this bus, mate.', jokingly,
you know, not really sarcastic or anything. Anyway, he ignored me and
walked to a seat."
"So what did you do?"
"Well, I got out of my cab and I walked over to him. He had his feet up
on the chair and that really bothers me. So I said, 'Look mate, you
have to pay or you'll have to get off.' A bit firmer now, so he knew I
weren't messing about, and he says 'And who's gonna throw me off?', so
I says, 'Me, that's who.' and he says, 'Just fucking try it pal.' I
mean there's no need for that is there, I'm just doing my job,
right."
"Definitely." I agreed.
"So I reached for him and he kicked out and caught me on the knee. Now
I have real trouble with my knees, always have done, and it really
hurt. So I punched him. In the face."
"What did he do?"
"He started crying."
"You're joking!" I said incredulously.
"Honestly, he just sat there and started blubbing like a baby. That
threw me, I didn't know what to do, so I just stood there and watched
him for a bit. Anyway, after a couple of minutes he stood up and pushed
past me and said 'I'm gonna report you, you bastard.' I thought he was
just mouthing off."
"Well what happened?"
"Three weeks later, the depot manager called me into his office. 'We've
had a report from a passenger.' he said, 'Oh yeah' I said, knowing
exactly who he meant. So he says 'A gentleman has reported that you
assaulted him, obviously there will be a full investigation. You're
suspended until the situation's resolved.' So that was that. It was
investigated, ended up in court, I was found guilty of assault and they
sacked me."
"That is really unfair." I said, and meant it.
"Tell me about it."
The man looked glum, recounting the tale must have brought back his ill
feelings about the situation.
"So where are you going now?" I asked him.
"Job interview."
"Oh that's good. What for?"
"Security guard." he replied.
*
"So you got the job then?"
It was my turn to address somebody without prior invitation.
The man turned to see who had spoken and a transitory spark of
recognition crossed his brown eyes.
"Oh, hello, yes I did." he replied, now remembering me from our chat on
this very bus a week before.
The man displayed his uniform with a downward sweep of his hands. A
dark blue jacket encased his barrel torso and identically coloured
trousers, with knife-sharp creases, clad his legs like pipe insulation.
Adorning his feet were a pair of black steel toe-capped shoes, polished
to a high sheen.
"When did you start?" I asked.
"Last Monday, but I was on nights. That's probably why you haven't seen
me on here."
"Are you enjoying it?"
I wondered exactly what a person would enjoy about security work. My
preconceptions of the job comprised of long, tedious nights sequestered
in a hut with only a Thermos flask for a companion.
"Oh yes!" he exclaimed brightly. His enthusiasm obviously surpassed my
own.
"It's very rewarding to know that I'm responsible for its
safety."
He puffed out his chest, the proud protector.
"Responsible for what?"
"The building site I'm guarding." He finished the statement with a
sigh; a sigh indicating that I should have known this already. Like I'd
missed the relevant bulletin on the evening news.
"What are they building?" I queried.
"Houses, of course." The man assumed on air of exasperation, my hideous
lack of knowledge as to the finer points of his employment was
apparently becoming increasingly tiresome.
"Oh. Houses."
I was hoping to extricate myself from this conversation with a minimum
of fuss. The man's new role in life had apparently filled him with a
whole new set of personality traits, all of them frankly unpleasant.
The last time we'd spoke I'd been talking to a polite, unassuming
fellow who regretted his past misdemeanours. Now I was faced with a
tightly wound ball of uniformed arrogance.
"I caught someone on Wednesday night." he stated, the words laced with
a large shot of self-satisfaction. I imagined him posing for a
photograph, the Great White Hunter standing over a prone youth, one
shiny shoe firmly planted on its chest.
"Really?"
An early exit was, apparently, out of the question.
"Yeah, this toe-rag had climbed over the fence at the back of the site
compound. Fred, the bloke I work with, says that they're usually after
the tools. Anyway, my hut's round at the front of the compound but I
heard him, see. Sharp ears I've got." He tapped his right ear with a
nicotine stained index finger.
"So I go round, y'know, to investigate. Bernie, my boss, says that we
shouldn't tackle anyone, just phone the police, 'cause they might
attack you or something, y'know. But I wasn't going to let some
thieving little sod get away, not in my first week on the job
anyway."
"So what did you do?" I was trying to move the tale along to its, no
doubt, thrilling climax.
"Well, I shouted 'OI! Who's there?' and I heard him go 'Oh shit.' so I
ran round to the back of the compound, I'm still light on my feet
y'know, and when I got there this idiot was hanging over the top of the
fence trying to keep all these tools he had stuffed in his coat from
falling out. So I just stood there, y'know, with my arms folded,
looking up at him, and waited. Anyway, he managed to get down and it
looked like he was going to run for it, but like I said, I wasn't going
to let him get away, so I says 'You're going nowhere sonny.' and he
says 'Fuck off Granddad.' and he pulls a hammer out of his coat and
waves it about like he's some bloody musketeer or something, so I says
'Don't bother, we don't want anyone getting hurt.' and he runs at me
with this hammer. Anyway, he swings it back like he's gonna knock me on
the head with and he drops it behind him, so I lunged at him, y'know,
rugby tackled the sod and he fell backwards and clonked his head on the
hammer. Knocked out he was. Cold."
"Bloody hell!" I exclaimed, my interest climbing, "What did you
do?"
"Well I made sure he wasn't moving for a while."
"How?"
"I dragged him round to my hut and I put gaffer tape round his ankles.
Then I phoned the police."
"Are you allowed to do that?"
"What? Phone the police?"
"No, tie someone up."
"Well the police said I shouldn't really have done that but they knew
the kid, habitual criminal they said, and they weren't going to make a
fuss about me taping his ankles together. They said that all in all I'd
acted very bravely and, what was it, oh yeah, my conduct had been
commendable."
"Blimey. Was your boss pleased?"
"Not really."
"Why?"
"The kid was his nephew."

?Graham Woods