...indeed it does....... especially sometimes.......like some 2 days ago..... I was sitting at my favourite seat on the bus, at the far end, by the window, lost in my own troubled thoughts ...... Reading Kerouac's "On the Road"..... For weeks now I've been reading it virtually "on the road" since I only have time to read it on buses. Riding from one miserable place to the other.
From home to Uni. And from Uni back home again.
Trapped in the constipated intestines of this omnivorous beast that devours us in the mornings, only to throw us up decomposed and numb in the evenings.... This City. Its Insanity. Ours. I was sitting there on the bus and it was a grey sad morning. One of those mornings when everything seems still. And numb. When the faces of people around you are like carved on stone......only harder than usual. Snuggling up the window and hearing sirens of ambulances and brakes of cars outside, I was safe, in my snug little world of personal despair and occasional paranoia. When at the next stop, a bum got on the bus. A young lad, around 25.....skinny , with hollow dark eyes. Strange. You could sense everyone getting uneasy. Old ladies in fake furs and big faux gold earrings. Cool chicks wearing too much lipstick. Middle aged men reading financial papers. School kids whose mum has told them never to talk to strangers. Old men that have fought in their own war, and have surrendered in the end...... You could feel them desperately trying to shut their ears, shut their eyes Hear them cough disapprovingly , hoping to make the sight disappear. You could sense a big pointing finger being directed from all of them to the main door of the bus where the Stranger stood. His words echoing in the void, the immense distance from one passenger to another.The distance from all of them to him. Echoing, and resounding, falling on the dusty floor with a muffled sound and lying there like the kind of thing you only look at with the corner of your eye , only to die out after a while. "Do you have some change to spare?" His feet shuffling and his hands clasped in a grip that made the knuckles of his fingers white. "Do you have some change to spare?" I was on page 158 and the woman next to me was scraping nail varnish off her middle finger. "Do you have some change to spare?" I knew this guy. He usually lurks around my school. Just sits there with his eyes fixed on his shoe laces.A stray dog often stays by his side. I usually can't afford to spare even some change. In my pockets you will only find cancelled bus tickets and candy foils. "Do you have some change to spare?" Last night I was paid though.....and today I planned to go and eat some place instead of wait until I get home in the evening. I had money and I knew it. And when walking I could hear the coins at the bottom of my bag ringing. "Do you have some change to spare?" He was next to me. And I f e l t his eyes on me. Closed my book and left it on my legs.Buried my hand in my bag striving to find the stray coins. Carefully placed them in his open hand. Didn't want to make them ring. I heard him say thank you. I looked at him and saw it in his eyes. He looked at my book. " You're reading that book?" he asked " Why, have you read it??" I asked, hardly believing it...... " I've lived it"........... " Read it" He turned his back and made a few paces towards the door. He stopped. " Read it. It will show you...you will understand." " Read it. And Junky" The bus doors were wide open with a sudden flap and a ghastly noise. And he jumped out. People started moving again. Two old men in the front row started moaning. One of them rude, self-righteous, miserable. The other more polite, compassionate. " Why should I spare my money and give it to him? Was it given to me effortlessly like that? Did I find it in the street?" " He will now tell us what to read and what not to! Pah! Some person to give literary advice!" " Lost soul. Why won't he go to work?" A young girl decided to add her wise bit right there....... "And if he doesn't want to work and make money like this, let him die, he's no good anyway....." And they went on and on and on............... Oh girl, oh my bright self appointed ruler........ Oh how these words fell into me like poison. I was trying to concentrate on my book......but it was no good...... " Is it such a problem to you that I gave him those money? And yes, I could spare them . I had worked for them and I could spare them." I said. And oh how they got enraged.....how I have insulted their stability. How i was too young to know and how dare I, and who do I think I am and what do I think I'm doing.And that I am probably just buying him his next fix........ They thought I didn't know? Who asked them to save anybody? As a song says: " Not everybody wants to be saved, not everybody -should- be " But even this is what they wanted to do, why didn't they even try to? Oh words are nice and flowing out of our mouths.Oh words......... And who appointed them to condemn anything or anyone?When we can't even crawl out of our own pits, each one of -us-? They were Angry. I tried to defend my reasons. They went on. I ended up tipping my hat over my eyes and silently crying. It was too much for me to handle. The sky had started crying anyway over us and I felt I should accompany the slight tapping of rain on the window on which I was leaning.What could I possibly say to the old men, one of whom had already started moaning to a woman that was asking to buy a ticket on the bus cos she hadn't time to get one before. What could I possibly say? " It was old age having a go at youth , that's what it was" , as it says in Clockwork Orange. I spent days thinking about this....... Trying to figure out why I did it....... I never thought I would do anything great to him by giving him those few money. Never intended to save him. Never fooled myself with this thought. Certainly never meaning to buy him his next fix of his drug. But I thought, he -had- to eat sometime........the same way that he would have to take his junk into his system. And those few coins would maybe be the ones that would get him something to eat so as to live on so to take his junk . Raw. But I couldn't possibly do anything else..... But, if nothing else, I tried to stretch my hand and be with him.Cos for some reason I felt him. And I wanted to take myself out of this hateful lot of my fellow passengers. Hustled and jostled in our neat public transport that picks us and leaves us. Packed in our sardine cans, we gaze at the world with the eyes of the onlooker and we dare not Experience and Feel. And we are afraid of Pain.And we titter and giggle and yawn and sneeze, itch and crave but never make a difference. We buy our faces with our tickets and wear them in public. Easy. Convenient. Next time I see him I'll talk to him. And that's the best I can do. Now, that would b e a difference. I'm sorry for taking up your time, this post has nothing to do with Belle and Sebastian, and no, I wasn't even listening to them while typing it. Was listening to The Temporary Thing. Excuse my pestering rants. Try to make a difference. But as Will said: " its too dark for anything " xxx ".........she was 18 and most lovely and lost........." ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "the one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death." " nothing that frightens 'em more than what they really want" "On The Road" http://www.listeningroom.lycos.com/fan/bands/temporarything/Band.html The Temporary Thing (Try "Violet" , a song for Isobel ) .....see? i finally managed to cram some B&S content in. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+