The bus is a long time coming, of course, and I don’t have a book or a paper to read, so I fiddle with my phone for a while. I look up, and notice that the other two denizens of the bus stop are doing exactly the same. There we are, three strangers sitting at the bus stop, each intently prodding at our mobile phones, trying to create for ourselves the impression that we’ve got things to do, people to see, places to go. We scroll through our memories to affirm that we do have friends out there, lives waiting for us somewhere. We need to occupy our hands, our minds, stay active, stay connected, ward off loneliness with our amulets of radiation. Anything, other than admitting that we’re alone. Anything, other than risking eye contact with these strangers. I hear a sound, like singing, chanting. Oh, no, some pissed-up twats. Hopefully it’s just students. Maybe a football crowd. No, I don’t think there’s been a match in town tonight. Besides, there’s only one voice. A short man in a German army surplus jacket and boots, wearing a little blue hat comes along the road. He’s moving erratically, rhythmically swaying as he walks, head bobbing, executing a little pirouette every now and again. He comes to some kind of a halt at the bus stop and begins to examine the timetable. He turns towards us, sitting the regulation distance apart like three unwise monkeys, and asks the time, in an accent I can’t quite place. Neither of the other two make any kind of response. “Half past ten.” I realise straight away that I’ve made a mistake. I’ve broken the barrier between us. He thanks me, over-profusely, and comes to sit next to me, a little too close. He takes off his hat to reveal a close-shaven head and stares me in the eye. Wild-eyed and excited, he tells me in stilted English of his spiritual quest, his powers of healing, his dreams of the future, of how the world would be a better place if people were more open-minded. His name is Philippe, he’s from Luxembourg, and he’s come to England to spread the message of Reiki healing, through the medium of living in a squat in Stoke Newington, taking lots of acid and ketamine. He can tell from my aura that I’m troubled, he says, and he can help me, if I’m prepared to open my mind. I nod, hoping the bus will come soon. He continues, becoming more and more animated as I try not to give him any signs of encouragement. I’d never realised the necessity of taking sides. If you aren’t one of us, then you must be one of them, and I know that I have to make sure I’m on the other side of whatever line is dividing him from sanity. Because of his accelerated delivery and his exaggerated gestures, I mark him down as a nutter, I separate myself from him. The fact that he tells me that he is “Fucking ‘ardcore wiz ze drugs since 16 years” doesn’t help his cause much, either. But maybe there is some truth in what he says. Maybe he can heal people. Maybe mystics and shamen can achieve incredible things with the power of the mind. Maybe I am only using 8% of the capacity of my brain. But that scares me. I realise that I am one of the timid. I realise that I don’t particularly want to expand my mind that far beyond getting a bit stoned once in a while. I tried expanding my mind a few times, and had fun, but I wouldn’t want my mind to stay expanded. You’ve got to have boundaries, lines that are sharp enough to allow you to make sense of the fuzzier parts of your life. Some kind of order, so that you know you’ve got something solid to hold on to among the chaos. Eventually the bus arrives. Thankfully Philippe is waiting for a different one. I get on, wishing I was already in bed, and headed for the back. A couple of stops later, shortly after Holborn, an old tramp gets on. From the moment he staggers aboard the bus, I can see what’s coming. In his right hand, held between the fingers of a fingerless glove, a can of Special Brew. With his left he grabs the seatbacks for support, getting a little too close to the heads of the respectable people. The rest of his appearance matches the stereotype perfectly. Getting on for sixty, although it’s difficult to say for certain. An inevitable light brown three-quarter length jacket scatters itself about his shoulders, a patchwork of rips and stains. He rolls into a seat and begins to look around, his head apparently uncertain of its relationship with his neck. For a while he’s quiet, but I know, everybody on the bus knows, that it won’t last long. After a couple of minutes, his eyes come to rest on a target, a youngish man, slightly chubby, with a woman, probably his uncertain girlfriend, in the seat next to him. He begins trying to talk to the man, his tone fairly friendly at first. The respectable citizen ignores him, but he probably realises it’s no use. The old man has something to say. The rest of the passengers begin to relax slightly, casting a surreptitious glance up from their newspapers towards the scene every so often, mostly coinciding with the occasions that he forms a recognisable word, which tends to be ‘cunt’. The young man continues doing his best to appear oblivious, but the drunk is not to be denied. I can feel a familiar state of mind growing among the other passengers, a mixture of unease and relief as they monitor the situation. As usual, a strange bond forms between us as our heads retract into our shoulders, tortoise-style. If the old drunk was Them, it meant that the rest of the passengers had to be Us. We try to keep a low profile, watching without obviously observing. It still isn’t too late for his attentions to be directed elsewhere. As his target becomes more intent on not noticing him, the old man becomes more and more animated, the volume of his voice increasing along with the frequency and intensity of obscenities, and the violence of his gestures. As I eavesdrop from what I hope is a safe distance, I begin to tune in to the thread of his ranting. Segments begin to make sense, and the monologue has taken on a certain confessional aspect in parts, interspersed with threats and curses, and occasional surprising moments of lucidity. “… and I’ve been a fuckin’ drunk for 30 fuckin’ years, and you FAARKING cunts still don’t fuckin’ naergraerghbastardcuntgraerghfugginbastard…” Then more incoherence, intermittently sprinkled with sounds recognisable as words. “… a big fifteen stone bloke like you, afraid of a dirty little old tramp like me, it’s a joke, that.” I wonder how far gone he is, how much of his life he spends like this, whether he has friends, whether he wakes up in the morning wondering if he had said anything out of order the night before. Whether he’s got kids who are embarrassed of him, and what his hobbies are, other than shouting at strangers on buses. His tone becomes more aggressive, no longer focused on one target, but at some of the other passengers. The odd ‘nigger’ emerges among all the ‘cunt’s, and the elderly African woman in front of me begins to show signs of fear. I think about saying something, asking him to calm down a bit. It seems like I’ve got some kind of duty as a healthy young man, but I begin to procrastinate. Might such a confrontation spark something more unpleasant than leaving him alone? I don’t need the hassle. I’m not in the mood to be an unsung hero. I sit and watch, considering possible courses of action, hoping somebody else will say something. Then I notice that we’re nearly at my stop. I stand up, press the bell, and head for the door.
All this philosophy, let’s get rid of it. It’s even worse than the novels. Thinkers, philosophers, all thinking exactly the same thing - only I am right, the others are all idiots. Ah, this one must be very profound: the Ethics of Aristotle. Now, anybody that read that must believe he’s a cut above anybody that hasn’t.
Fahrenheit 451