Not In Service

The Hateful Eight drags on and by the time it’s finished I’ve missed the last train.

The laughter, the drinks and the evening melt away and it’s just me again. On my own. I’m stood at New Cross and watching as bus after bus goes by with Not In Service piercing the dark, the numbers on their fronts not mattering at this time of night. A whole fleet of them parked up in the depot round the corner, not a single one willing to take me home. The cold bites and makes my work trousers feel paper thin, wind whipping by.

I get on the wrong bus. Due to the last of the alcohol or something else, I’m not sure. So desperate to get out of the cold, away from the bus stop and toward something different.

Everything’s slightly unalike, like a parallel dimension. The bus has got grey poles instead of yellow, or yellow instead of grey. Just as it’s about to continue on the right road, it lurches round a corner at an obtuse angle like buses do, dragging itself through streets and up the hill faster than you can get up or say something or ring the bell or anything at all.

I’m off and I’m shouting swearwords and immediately feeling the guilt pang in case I’ve woken anyone up. Hood flung up and walking through the streets so fast I might trip over my own feet. But it’s no good. All alone with a drink inside you and your thoughts turn to her. Eyes screwed shut, hands plunged deep into pockets to lock out the cold. Get out of my head. Walking through the streets that she showed you in the first place.

It’s 1AM in Nunhead. Try to take a deep breath but can’t. Swelling in your throat and you can’t breathe in deeper than a couple of inches. Because it’s all on top of you, the weight of it all, and it’s dragging you down.

She came to represent these streets. Beautiful and mysterious and dangerous and fantastic. An adventure. Able to take the piss out of you and make you feel stupid and still leave you with a smile on your face. To let you in on a secret and show you things you never thought possible. Offering an opportunity to let yourself become something new. A secret, clandestine ideal just a bus ride from the cold, steely centre. South London.

Stand there with eyes swivelling, looking around in a wild desperation as traffic lights change for no one and foxes crash through the bins. And as shit as it sounds you just want her to be happy and you’ve no way of helping that because she wants nothing to do with you. You let yourself down and you hate yourself because of it. You want to cut that cowardly bit out of yourself and throw it away, kick the fuck out of it, until it’s spewing blood and spitting out lumps of teeth like in the Tarantino film you’ve just seen. Compromise: punch a lamppost like a div and cut your knuckles.

Jog on. By the end you’re rushing, pushing to the front door and scrambling with your key in the lock, wanting to get into bed and close your eyes put an end to the day. Set your alarm for a few hours’ time and hope tomorrow will be better, hope that your brain will decide to interpret what you put in front of it in a more positive light.

“Alright mate? You look a bit long in the boat”

“Just tired mate. ‘Night”

@JJReid13