London — 1 year ago
Novemember 12th 2005 London
John Tweed slammed the bedroom door behind him, the words “and fuck you too” cut short by the wind caused by the slamming of the door. My wife is a pain in the arse, he thought, nag nag nagging about this or that, always complaining and bitching about one thing or another. He was growing tired of Jane and her angry demeanour. He didn’t want this in his life, it wasn’t how he’d foreseen it in his youth. Whatever happened to that vision of loveliness he wondered ruefully staring skyward, looking up at some cigarette smoke stained ceiling from their well worn creaky 199 quid bed.
It is yet another cold day in London town. A sharp autumnal wind is hurling through the Essex Road, buffeting all it meets, picking up leaves and rubbish carelessly rejected by tree and man alike.Swirling them around in intermittent fits and starts of pointlessness. The street full of people en route to their various points of must, the purposeful and the static, sharing little but the crisp chilled air they breath. A 73 bus pulls up at the bus stop that stands outside John Tweed’s flat above an Islington betting shop. Its brakes piercing the cold air with an ever decreasing regressive squeal, like some throttled quietened old sow, happy to draw what she thinks is her final respiration.
John Tweed lay in bed, listening to the hum of the old routemaster’s diesel engine, its sound like some tired old horse waiting for the whip from its rider, the whip in this case, dispensed by way of a ‘tap tap’ from the top deck or a ‘ding ding’ from the bottom.A coin from the top, a sharp pull of a cord operated bell mech from the bottom, both of which are delivered like a fly in the ear to the waiting driver’s bell-conditioned cerebal cortex. Thoughts of random memories flash through John Tweeds mind, distracting him from the vexatious protestations of his hate filled wife. He sits up straight, and watches the bus pull away. Recollections of various journeys to places exciting and stale. Distant recalls from ‘Red Bus Rover’ days. Chessington Zoo and the shit throwing Chimps, Heathrow and the smell of aviation fuel, Trafalgar Square climbing the Lions, London Bridge and the Thames, journeys that stretched from East to West from North to South, opening up London to young inquistive minds free to hop from bus to bus armed with the pass that was RBR, their ticket to ride, their freedom to jump around like juvenille frogs on some giant concrete splattered lily pond. How different it all seemed back then, archaic, chaotic, yet full of certainty and purpose. No Internet, no playstation, no DVD’s, VHS a mere beginner, just bikes, skates and football or cricket. Run outs or tag, bulldog and knock down ginger. No crack, no crystal meth, just a spliff or a bit of whizz here and there.
Those years of 1984 seemed a far cry from those of today. The psychoactive of choice, now being good old fashioned ‘kill ya quicker’ alcohol. Vodka, Chablis or Stella it didn’t really matter to John Tweed, all produced the same effect, all helped distort a reality that had turned up like some unwanted uncle who’d overstayed his welcome by a factor of years.
