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[knock][knock] "Driver!" came a short, scraggy muppet at my bandit screen.

"Yes?"

"There's a man lying on the floor, upstairs. I think he's unconscious. I just thought I'd let you know." Then she shuffled away back up the bus and sat down.

I had a pretty good idea who she was referring to. Mr Face Muncher, the Tennent's lager swilling junkie, and his miserable smack-hag, The Scream, had just engaged in the kind of blow out that made Hiroshima look like the mere flush of a toilet. The Scream had assured Face Muncher of a quick death as she ran screaming down Jamaica Street and I think she meant it. Now, with Face Muncher lying lifeless on the floor, I hoped that The Scream had fulfilled her promise. How? By dressing up her own can of Tennent's to look like her junkie foe and jinxing it with junkie voodoo. Right now, she would be squatting in some grotty alleyway, stabbing at it with vengeful zeal while spitting, "I AM a lady! I am NOT a tramp!"

Not too sure how to handle a snoozing junkie situation, I drove on for a bit hoping that some idea would present itself, but nothing came. Perhaps it would be best just to wait until I got to the Summerston terminus and the bus was empty before going upstairs to rouse the punk. But my hand was forced by that scraggy little muppet who came back down the bus and knocked on my bandit screen once again.

[knock][knock] "Driver, did you hear me?" she husked. "There's an unconscious man lying on the floor upstairs. You'll need to do something! There're people up there, for goodness sake!"

She had evidently become quite enraged by my inaction and stood there glowering at me. Although only four feet tall, she looked to me like the complaining type, the most dangerous species of muppet by far. Her complexion accorded with her demeanour perfectly; dry and withered yet spongy, as though a sudden shower of rain would have her swelling up to twice her normal size. An erect muppet would probably shoot twice the number of complaints too.

Also, I observed with creeping nausea the deep crevasses around her lips. Many long years of cigarette sucking had creased and folded the lower part of her face into an arid rectal pout. If she ever wished to supplement her meager pension with honest labour, then she could easily hire out her gob as the stunt double for a porn actors anus. It was quite ruined.

Although I rebuffed much of her goody-two-shoes bullying, other passengers were now complaining to me about this "stinking man lying in a heap on the top deck." With great reluctance, I yielded to their pleas and agreed to go upstairs and investigate. Risking a loaded hypo in the face was actually preferable to suffering the scorn of a whole army of muppets.

With trepidation, I climbed the stairs and was almost overcome by the heavy funk of stale beer and urine. The expression on the faces of the few passengers who had managed to stay up stairs and bear it was that of serious retch-fatigue. I strode quickly past them and came upon the figure of Face Muncher lying on his back. On one side, his bag of thievings, and on the other, a can of Tennent's, which had been knocked over and lay in a puddle of it's own rancid contents. A bit like Face Muncher himself. In fact, I couldn't help but notice that with his arms and legs spread out like da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, it was as though he had succumbed to sleep whilst making snow angels in his own piss.

"Wakey, wakey!" I shouted down at him. But no response.

"WAKEY, WAKEY!" [BOOT] But still his did not stir. He just lay there with his mouth agape, doing the best impression he could of a filthy French, squat-over-a-hole-in-the-ground type latrine. After a lot more shouting and even more booting, without any success whatsoever, I decided that this menace was going to require more man power to be undone.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to get him seen to," I said to the upstairs passengers. "I'll need to get the cops to him." With that, they all stood up and walked dejectedly and somewhat grumpily down the stairs and off the bus.

"What's going on up there, driver?" asked Mrs Ciggy-Sucker-Anus-Lips, with eyes that were ravenous for gossip. She was waiting for me as soon as I walked back down the stairs towards my cab. I took great delight in announcing that I was going to wait here for assistance in removing Sleeping Beauty from my floor. Her little face just dropped as all the passengers on the lower deck sighed, stood up and stormed off to get another bus. That's right, you should have kept your wee twisted, nicotine stained hole shut and let me deal with this at the terminus, then everyone would still be going. Silly muppet spoiled it for everyone. She probably got lynched at the bus stop for that.

But getting the cops wasn't so easy. My bus radio was broken for starters and I didn't have my mobile phone with me. When I flagged down another bus and asked the driver to call for assistance on my behalf, it quickly became apparent that he couldn't understand a single word of english. Damn it! If I couldn't get the cops to come to me, then I'd go to them. So I put up "Not In Service" and drove the vehicle off-route and round to Partick police station.

After explaining the situation to a nice blond she-cop behind the desk, two large oafs were summoned to do my bidding. As the three of us walked out to the bus, I noticed that the rest of Partick police station was hanging out of upstairs windows to see what was going to happen. I didn't realise a junkie ejection could pull such a crowd.

As soon as the cops boarded the bus, they let loose with "Oh, my God! I can smell him from here!" They walked up stairs and booted the Face Muncher's feet and shins around a bit. When this didn't work they pulled at his ear lobe. Just at the point where I was sure his ear was going to rip off completely in the cop's hand, he barked and opened his eyes.

"Aargh! Get tae fuck!" shouted the junkie.

"C'mon, wake up, pal!" shouted the cops.

"Talkin' aboot? I've got an all-day ticket...somewhere!"

"You're not welcome on the bus, you'll need to get up," said a cop.

"Wait a minute, where the fuck am I?"

"You're outside Partick police office."

"Partick? You're fuckin' kiddin' me!"

Both cops must have had enough at this point because they grabbed the Face Muncher and hauled him to his feet. All the time, he clutched his bags of thievings close to his chest. As he was huckled downstairs, I overheard him demand a free lift to Summerston, or at least a taxi fare for all the inconvenience he was put to. "Besides," he said, "ma missus is just oot the hospital and I need tae get hame and see tae her!"

I was rather hoping the police would wink at me as a secret signal that they were going to take him away into the police station and rough him up a bit just for being a wretched turd. Unfortunately, they didn't. Once off the bus, they just talked to the guy calmly at the side of the road as though they were long time acquaintances. Damn it! They were just going to let him go! Now that is perhaps the rawest nerve of all.

After the Face Muncher had calmed down a bit, he confessed the real reason why he was in such a hurry to get to Summerston: the rest of his booze was hidden in a hedge and he was fearful that all that "fuckin' Young Mob" would find it. The police advised him that he had already had too much to drink and were concerned for his well being. But the Face Muncher was was resolute, "Noe! This is nothin' for me. I'm usually far worse than this! See this one time, ah wus maire drunk than ah've ever been in my puff. Ah remember walkin' up the stairs tae ma flat wi' ma mate and ah fell o'er and heard this almighty crack. Ah didnae know whit it wuz but I saw all this blood. When ah felt ma face, ma nose wuz still there, but ma teeth wurnie! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ma mate telt me ah wuz pure squeelin'!"

Ouch!