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Really great guy at the bus stop

All Acting Regiment

22:52 / 23.07.05

So you're at the bus stop. And the bus won't come. You're in town, central, night time: surrounded by merrymakers who've passed their fourth wall, and things look a little rough. And the bus won't come.

Imagine little Legba, all small and pasty, clutching his John Cale CD to his chest against the spray and smoke of the streets. He practically has "Twat Moi" written on his dinky forehead.

This is where the great guy comes in. He was an average guy, an average hard, muscled, factory working guy in a Ben Sherman shirt. He had a thick moustache and sun-boiled skin, blueing tattoos under thick arm hair and gold sovereign rings. He came over to Legba and the others at the bus stop, and told us stories. About work. About his mate Billy. About his boots.

Then he sheperded us on to the bus when it came, and hopped on too, and constantly made sure we were OK on the journey, giving each a nod as we reached our respective stops. He kept saying "Are you happy?" to everyone.

He was pissed out of his fucking mind; but damn was he a great guy.

Anyone else ever met someone like that?

23:28 / 23.07.05

When visiting Prague I decided to sleep in the sqaure by the main clock tower one night after a great night out. I managed to find a bench and got comfy, there were a lot of people around doing the same, and it was a really nice relaxing feel about the place. Then a man sat down near me. It was getting light and I was feeling a bit more awake than I needed to be. The man noticed that I was awake and starting talking to me in czech. I don't speak a word of it, and I'm not sure if he ever realised or not, but he spoke away, seemingly telling a story, before smiling happily, shaking my hand and wandering off. There was something so plesant about the whole thing, so unthreatening, that I relaxed back down onto my bench and fell asleep for a few more hours.

Another similar thing happened in Nottingham. I slept in the trainstation there, making the most of the metal benches, and covering my eyes as best I could. The station master came over to the waiting room that I was in, and switched off the lights for me, before closing the door really quietly - like a caring parent.

Both these incidents occured after meeting two idiots, the first a brash American guy in a bar in Prague, who pushed in front of everyone and started talking threateningly to every one, shouting about how he was a marine (my friend came up with a great line, we were stood talking at the bar, he pushed in between us, I said excuse me I'm talking with my friend, he ranted about marines and stuff and my friend asked, are you a wrestler, confused look from him, no, my friend then said, then why are you talking like Hulk fucking Hogan) and the other in Nottingham was a Liverpudlian guy who was hogging the pool table and telling everyone how him and his two mates were in a band that Oasis had just said were the best thing around, and how he was going to play a gig soon, before turning really nasty and spoiling for a fight in a bar made up of predominatly students. So it was really nice to have these little moments of desfusement from otherwise feeling slightly uptight.

paranoidwriter waves hello

00:07 / 24.07.05

A few years ago (not long after 9/11) one of my Uncles died (a great, sad loss) and his funeral happened to fall on my birthday. In general, I try to avoid funerals as I don't want to run the risk of tainting my memory of those who have departed, and prefer to go and get wrecked somewhere private and say good-bye to them in my own fuzzy way. But on this occassion, I realised this was one funeral I had to attend.

So, the day before my birthday I took the train back to my parent's home city and from there caught a taxi from the station to their house. The driver was a Pakistani Muslim man and we got to talking about 9/11 and life in general (etc), and then he asked me why I was visiting my parents. I told him why and he commiserated, saying he'd recently lost three close relatives in one year and he understood how difficult grieving can be.

He then told me how pidgeons [as a kind of dove; both are in the Columbidae familly of birds] in his culture were seen as Angels and that to see them near (say) the cemetery on the day of a burial was considered a good omen. I've a love / hate relationship with the little feathered flea carriers and various pigeon episodes have occured in both my life and my work (e.g) over the years. But I especially enjoyed this notion, as indeed I did the whole conversation and car journey.

The following day was (of course) one of mixed and highly charged emotion. But my abiding memory of the actual funeral will always be: standing in the graveyard, the ground sogging wet and dappled with last few patches of the winter's snow, my family (many in tears) dressed in black and throwing dirt into the open grave; and then looking across the grave stones and seeing a large gang of pigeons / angels. I knew then that my Uncle was in safe hands.

I owe that taxi-driver and his faith a big debt for helping me through me such a trying time.

Cheers mate, wherever you are.