As I stand at the bus-stop in Maryhill Road, an overweight man puffs his way by, completely drunk. Bent over, he walks along the level pavement as if he’s walking down a very steep hill. The woman standing next to me turns round and says ‘Is that no’ terrible? At this time in the morning. Ah’m tellin’ ye, Glasgow’s getting worse, so it is’
The fact that she herself is totally pissed seems completely lost on her. Her breath stinks, a cocktail of stale and fresh booze. She sways on her feet. As she talks, her head swivels unsteadily up and down and from side to side. I begin to worry that it will fall off completely. And if it does fall off, what should I do? Should I try to catch it? Or should I just let it bounce on the pavement, act as if nothing has happened? Is that rude? Would there be an awkward silence? Should I pick it up and hand it back to her, saying here, I think you dropped your...Before I have time to decide however, my bus appears at the top of the road.
I sit near the back. Not at the very back because I don’t want to get trapped behind the druggies and drunks who are sure to get on this bus as always. I take my book out. A proud act of defiance against my surroundings. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. A wonderful book about a man who suffers locked-in syndrome. That’s to say he’s completely physically paralysed yet at the same time is totally lucid inside that body. Anyway, it is only a hundred pages long but I still can’t finish it due to my inability to block out my surroundings. I try once again. No good, my attention is drawn to the sound of two Polish chattering away on the seat in front of me. Not speaking Polish myself, it sounds like gibberish. The sort of language people talk when they‘re very drunk. Slurred incoherent gibberish. Still with the huge number of Poles now in the city, this gibberish is now the constant background music to the Glaswegian nonsense you would normally hear otherwise. And I know, it’s only a matter of time, evolution, before the Polish gibberish and Glaswegian nonsense will merge into a curious babble no-one but the severely inebriated will be able to understand.
A man in a donkey jacket gets on and sits in the seat opposite me. I can’t help noticing he opens up the free paper and immediately reads the football pages. I find this annoying. This town’s obsession with Rangers and Celtic. How I would love to take his paper and throw it out the window. ‘Get a life!’ I would shout. ‘Get a bleedin’ life!’ Why don’t you try to read a book like me? That’s culture mate. Not Rangers and Celtic. I mean do you really care? Do you really care about footballers who earn more in a week than some of us will earn in three years?’ I don’t say that of course because if I said that I may end up suffering from locked in syndrome myself. And what would be the point in that? No. That’s right. No point. I look out the window and see the bus has already reached the city centre.
A mobile phone rings. A well dressed man in front of me takes the mobile phone out of his inside jacket pocket. It’s ringtone is clearer now. A sectarian song from one side of the Old Firm. I don’t know which. It’s just another form of gibberish. A couple of faces turn round and glare at the man. Others like me don’t bother. Don’t want the bother. It’s just some more background music on the way to work.
At the next stop a couple of guys in tracksuits get on the bus continuing a conversation from outside. ‘...ye’re kidding me, Malky’s in the digger just for stabbing some guy in the face with a screwdriver? That’s no real man’. The conversation is as much for everyone else to hear than themselves. To let other people know they think stabbing a guy in the face with a screwdriver is no big deal. Aye, very good. Very good. Twats.
We reach the East End. I don’t know why there’s such a hooha about these TV programmes where people are trapped in the seventies and eighties. If I want to travel back to the seventies, I just visit the East End of Glasgow. Gap sites long since developed into modern chic flats in other parts of the city remain gap sites in the East End. Shops which closed down in the seventies remain closed but still displaying the same shop signs they did from that time. East end fashion as it is, remains, parkas, long hair, even flares. The East End. Life on Mars.
We pass Parkhead Stadium. Home of Glasgow Celtic. A impressive and imposing Green cathedral resplendent against a brave blue sky. The car park is filled with Porsches, BMWs, and the like. So much wealth in an area of so much poverty. Just like it’s counterpart in Ibrox. Yet, just like it’s counterpart in Ibrox this place is worshipped. Can’t the people see the irony? How wrong it all is? Is it just me? I find it all so annoying and try to get back to my book once more. But not for long. I look out the window.
Near the addiction centre, one man in particular catches my eye. A white skeletal face so ravaged by heroin that it is barely more than a skull. He genuinely looks as if he has died and has just risen from the grave. It is frightening and shocking, painful to see and desperately sad.
I put the book back in my bag. It’s no use. I’m so full of rage myself. I want to shout and scream at the top of my voice at the injustices and inequalities of the life I see around me. But I stay silent. Like I’m suffering my own form of locked-in syndrome. I can only stay silent. And watch. And listen. And then maybe, someday leave. Move to a nice small town in England or abroad. That’s the dream. The hope. The dream which flutters in my mind against the diving bell of my everyday existence. Never mind, here’s my stop. I get off the bus and go to work.
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