The no 86 tram; it's the tourists and the passes-through who give the 86 a bad name. Yeah? There's nothing quite like it for, shall we say, a cross section? Shall we say a multitude? Shall we say flotsam and jetsam. The 86 tram is the reason why I walk, most mornings. You never know who you are going to meet and I don't mean that in a god way... er, good way. I don't like people that much, to want to be amongst them no matter what, so I walk, as I explained to a rather, incredulous, girl at work. She said, you're kidding, aren't you? I'm not sure if she believed me when I said I wasn't. He, he, he.
The nuffies on the tram, you gotta love them, gotta write about them, I couldn't make characters up like them. This mornings choice pick - she had eyes like a snake's, although sunken, because of her high cheek bones. She had a desperate need to connect.
"Hon, hon," she said pointing to the vacant seat next to her, with everyone woman who got on, (A demented lesbian? Aren't they all) who stood. All the "nice" girls declined.
"I'm getting off at the next stop," said the nice lady in the Chanel power suit. (Which I noted, was more like 6 stops later)
"Hon, hon," she said again, when the stylish lady lawyer, with short, cropped black as coal, hair came into her orbit.
"No, I'm fine, thanks." Wide eyes, look of disbelief, horror even. The lady lawyer clung to the pole by the door, as though she may be made to do something against her will, at any minute.
Nuffy Girl looked like one of those stereotypical alien beings; big eyes, small mouth - because she had no teeth - triangular face, with skin pulled so tightly across her it that her skin looked shiny and unnatural. She looked like she had been the victim of a scurrilous plastic surgeon. She had a large skin disfigurement running up the side of her neck, across the bottom of her chin. An over-sized beanie, which made her pixie features look even more pixieish, completed the picture.
It's funny, and I mean that in the ironic sense, that she was full of contentment, she only wanted the best for people, in her vicinity and all of the "normal" people visibly recoiled.
Her spindly fingers wrapped around her over-sized coffee cup like tentacles, when her concern was not taken with someone else's wellbeing, as she sipped contentedly, nodding her head, as if she was listening to some imaginary music. There was nothing in those eyes. She seemed to be smiling, she looked happy, but there was no connection to anything to make it so.
Insanity, sitting two seats away from me.
"It's rain'n." She gazed mindlessly out of the tram window again. She patted the vacant seat next to her, as another gal worked on by. She was failure contained; systemic failure, just looking. I wondered how many people in her life had failed her. I suspected I knew.
"It's really raining," she said, as her gaze returned to her seating companions.
They all looked else where, suddenly fascinated with some minute detail of the day, in the opposite direction.
I looked out the window at the clear, blue sky.
No comments:
Post a Comment