Bloodbus

What he's actually saying is 'Here!' but verbal laziness and alcohol consumption have squashed this apparently simple word into a retchy exclamation similar to bad deep-throat.

I picked up a Yeargh! at Shawfield on my way down to that scrotal lesion called Fernhill. The guy was drunk, but not 'happy' drunk. Some drunks are laughing, gregarious urban clowns who have a smile and a song for everyone. But this guy was 'bastard' drunk, a doleful street zombie who was spoiling for a fight.

Although quite young, he dragged his untied clumpers up my bus in a slow Frankenstein shuffle that made rigour mortise look positively frisky. I watched him on the CCTV as he flopped down near the back of the vehicle and looked around for a suitable target. However, the bus was empty save for a few whispering muppets. So with no worthy opponents, he contented himself with hammering the glass bottle in his blue polythene bag against a nearby handrail. [clankety clank]

At Main Street, Rutherglen, the drunk's luck changed. A handful of normal passengers got on and sat down at the front of the bus. Like a leopard stalking a herd of antelope, the drunk spotted what he believed to be the most vulnerable of the pack - a short, freckly carrot head. Easy pickings for a drunken bully.

"Yeargh!" he shouted down the bus, but none of the normal passengers looked round.

"Yeargh! Mate! Yeargh! Pal!" Again, no one looked round, but every other conversation on the bus came to an abrupt halt.

"Yeargh! I'm talking tae you, pal!"

This time an old man sitting behind the carrot head turned round, "What is it?" he asked.

"Noe you! The cunt in front o' ye! The cunt wi' the big ginger heid!" shouted the drunk. "Look at his big ginger heid! That's a fuckin' stoater!"

Bizarrely, the old man then tapped the ginger guy on the shoulder and said, "Hey, Kevin, he's talking tae you!"

Personally, I think Kevin was in no doubt as to whom the drunk was addressing.

"Yeargh! Pal!" continued the drunk as he clanked his bottle even harder.

"He wants you, Kevin!" said the old man again.

"Tell him tae shut up!" replied ginger Kevin.

"You tell him tae shut up! You're the one he's talking to!"

"Yeargh! You with the heid! [clank] I like your camouflage jaikit. Where did you get it? [clank] That would dae me lovely fur when I'm oot huntin' the rabbit. Know what I mean? When I'm oot shootin' in the woods."

Ginger Kevin did not respond.

[clank] "Yeargh, mate! Did you get that jaikit in Aldi?" [clank]

"You're pushing yer luck, pal!" said ginger Kevin.

"Oooooh!" said the drunk mockingly. "Whit ye gonnae dae? Eh? Whit ye gonnae dae?"

At this point I was strapping in for a fight. I slowed to almost walking pace so that when fur started flying I could quickly stop, open the doors and allow the pugilists to spill outside. Waiting for a fight to break out on your bus is a bit like waiting to throw up when you've had too much to drink. You dread it coming, you break out in a cold sweat at the moment of truth, but you know you'll feel much better once you've got it all out on the pavement.

Only a miracle could stop this fight now....

...Well, praise God and quell that retch! For the hand of Divine providence was afoot. At the very next bus stop there was a tall, leggy blond woman hailing my bus. I opened the doors and everyone fell quiet in awe. Blow me, she could have stopped a man's heart with a word. You just don't get chicks like that on buses! In fact, if she wanted me to lunch on her groin there and then, I would have done so with a glad heart, knowing that as her pubes bashed against my nostrils, it would feel like the gentle caress from a silken handkerchief rather then the usual chafing from a velcro shoe strap. I bet even the muppets had bawdy wet dreams for weeks over this deliciously toothsome young bunny.

What a stunner!

Her mere presence completely defused the heat that was building up between the drunk bully and ginger Kev. This woman had something of an aura to her that inspired reverence in whomever beheld her. This had to be divine intervention. The woman was surely an angel, a blessed agent of peace, an emissary of the Lord himself sent down to prevent blood spillage amongst the heathen. Praise be! We are saved!

But the drunk bastard just wanted to dick her.

By this time he had actually crunched the glass bottle in his bag and razor sharp shards were sticking through the polythene. He walked down the bus, carrying his jangling bundle, and sat right next to her. She did not even flinch at the stumbling quasimodo and instead favoured him with a sympathetic smile.

To my amazement, the drunken buffoon put his left arm around her and spoke right into her face, but she just sat there, seemingly unfazed. That leching hand remained on her all the way through Fernhill until we got to the Cathkin roundabout. Nearing the drunk's stop, he made a last ditch attempt to claim her.

He stuck his face right into hers but accidentally clunked her forehead with his. Sensing his attempt to acquire a kiss had just failed, he affixed the full palm of his right hand to the poor Angel's face and held it there like a mollusc clinging to a rock during a rip tide. He gave out a huge belly laugh and then leapt to his feet.

Sucker: His bag of sharps was almost as lethal as his picket fence smile. But kiss or no kiss, Mr Mollusc was determined to suck the Angel's face right off

"Yeargh! Driver! Dat's ma stoap, big man!" he shouted, and left the bus, still carrying his dripping bag of broken glass.

Only an Angel could sacrifice her dignity like that in the name of peace. Only an Angel could wilfully throw herself on the grenade to spare the blood of others. Only an Angel could manage to smile warmly as she is groped by the very pagans she has been sent down to save.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.