LONE STRANGER
3) BUS CHICKEN.
One cold winter’s
night Arthur found himself, mind in a fugue, way down the bottom of Sydney’s Parramatta
Road in some outlandish suburb beyond the boundaries of his inner-city
sanctuary, wondering as ever where his life was going. It was pouring rain and
he huddled in a bus shelter. His only means of assuaging his disconsolate heart
was to buy some sloppy Kentucky Fried chicken, mashed potato, gravy and
coleslaw and wolf it down in the shelter of a bus stop while the cold rain
pelted down inches from his face. He was longing to get back to the relative
safety of his Pyrmont squat and he had just enough money for his bus fare.
Out of the spooky
mists the bus finally appeared and Arthur clambered aboard, his mouth full of
mangy chicken, clutching the soggy cardboard box to his chest as if afraid
someone might rip it from him. The fat, old Ocker bus driver gave him a
disgruntled look when he spotted the dripping carton and his displeasure
increased when Arthur flashed his dole-card and asked for a concession. He
brusquely threw the meager coins Arthur gave him in his tray as if they carried
leprosy and glared, his eyeballs bulging out of his piggy face. Arthur shrugged
and swept up his ticket then struggled with his messy box of chicken to a seat
halfway down the bus.
The bus roared off
and Arthur tucked into the unsavory mess, getting mash potato and gravy smeared
round his mouth. He could see the gronky old bus driver watching him with malevolent
eyes in the rear-view mirror as they sped through the night but he ignored the
surveillance, nonchalantly stuffing his face without a care in the world. He
was out of the cold, he was eating and he was going home. For a few glorious
moments he could forget his troubles, the bus being like a protective womb
carrying him through the desolation of Parramatta Road’s suburban wasteland.
They had only gone
a few blocks when the burly driver turned to glare at Arthur and gruffly
announce his trip was over, his fare only taking him the few stops. From his
warm seat Arthur protested loudly that his ticket should get him all the way to
the city but the old bastard would have none of it, pulling the bus over and
insisting Arthur get off. Arthur whined on about how unjust the driver was and
how it was his right to be taken to his destination. "No, you've come to
the end of your section, get off ya bludger!"
The doors hissed
open and the mug growled for him to disembark, still Arthur refused, clinging
steadfastly to his seat and his chicken. Colonel Blimp turned red with
indignation and barked that if Arthur didn’t comply he would be driven without
ceremony to the nearest police station. Arthur sneered and called his bluff,
daring him to do it, adding that he was nothing but a fascist pig with his
seven cents worth of power. The driver swelled up like a malignant tumor and jerked
about in a fury, shutting the doors, crashing the gears and putting his foot to
the pedal.
Off the bus
rocketed, into the wet gloom, the driver’s face closed down in a determined
grimace, his foot to the floor. Arthur ruminated upon the alien Pig shop he was
being shanghaied to here in the middle of nowhere, the monstrous bus driver
hunched over the wheel, Jabba the Hutt staring ruthlessly into the storm,
implacable.
Arthur’s resolve melted, the
last thing he wanted was a stoush with the Pigs in Nowheresville. Grasping his
box of slushy shit food as if it was his last consolation he sighed in
resignation and sidled up to the front door, slowly, approaching the ogre’s
back with trepidation, cringing at every step, whining like a beaten puppy. He
then began the big wheedling act, pleading obsequiously with the driver,
“Please sir, don’t do it, don’t be so cruel, life is hard for me, the police
will only give me more trouble, a wrong bus ticket is so trivial.” King Pong
sneered and increased speed.
Humiliated, Arthur surrendered to his fate and with sincere contrition wailed, “You win,
you’re the boss, I’ll get down. Down, down, down wherever you say sir.” The
driver grunted in satisfaction and screeching gears pulled the bus over to the
curb, his face creased with smug pleasure.
The doors hissed
open and Arthur stepped tentatively into the dolorous night, turning in the
doorway to take one last look at the driver’s self-righteous, bigoted mug.
Snarling “Fuck you, arsehole! Cop this!” Arthur hurled his carton of slushy
Kentucky Fried Chicken straight into the driver’s fat face, mashed potato,
gravy and chewed up chicken splattering all over him as he shrieked in dismay as if he’d been hit with molten lead.
Before the blob
could do anything, Arthur ran off into the storm, laughing demonically at the
aggrieved expression on the fool’s messed up face, a grimace full of guts and gravy as he stewed in his seat in a
puddle of chicken slops.
For all the horror of the ride, the cold night and the
long walk home, Arthur felt exhilarated, as if he’d won a small battle in the
war against the quasi-fascist mentality that ever attempted to take over the
world. He thrust his fist into the wind with a shout of triumph and danced a
jig like the town idiot, thinking he was one of the disempowered who’d gotten one
lousy little punch in.
