…yeh, well…I’m sitting on this bench with my boy. He’s some sort of a geezer; bit of a roadman. We’re just shooting the shit, chatting about old hist’ry ‘cos I haven’t seen him for a while. He’s telling me about this business idea he’s got…it’s a long shot but if it comes off he’s gonna make a shit ton. Said he’ll sort me out but I doubt it.
I tell him that I’m focussed on my side hustle but that making beats and drawing makes no one rich. I hear myself saying (quite unconvincingly) that I’m doing it for the ‘art’. In the back of my mind though I’m secretly resigned to questioning the point of it all. He’s all full of zest and a hunger for life while I’m just this apathetic melancholy motherfucker. I don’t speak that much but thankfully he’s got a lot to say, so he’s single handedly carrying the chat for us both.
Anyway, the bus pulls up, the number forty three. A couple of kids saunter up to the door, trousers too short, dragging one leg behind them like they shit themselves. They’re full of it…a right couple of budding Bezos’s, self-assured, fully informed…talking about influencers, NFTs…how ‘real’ jobs are for losers. They got the world sussed…really fucking bossing it. That’s why they’re on the bus.
The doors open like the breaking of a seal…the hydraulic door of some intergalactic starship from Arriva with smoke and all that. That’s how alien public transport is to me. I’m staring, and sure enough, from the haze comes a troop of what could be the spawn of some other species. They’re dragging one leg behind them as well…not to be cool, but because they’re either fully laden with bags crammed full with the evening’s scran, inadvertently got their foot caught in the handle of some other passenger’s trailing bag, or maybe they had a motorcycle accident once and one leg is shorter than the other. I don’t know. Maybe it’s all of those.
They all manage to get off the bus by hook or by crook, but the doors stay open ‘cos this old dude’s making his way, excruciatingly slowly, down the aisle. He’s last. He’s gripping (for dear life) on to the handrail at the door, one foot on the exit platform and the other hovering mid air, blindly searching for terra firma. I’m watching…he’s unsteady. He’s making a real meal of it so I spring to my feet and go over to assist like I’m in the fucking Samaritans. I mutter something like
“Here, let me help you” which he acknowledges with an unimpressed grunt. I think it was a ‘thank you’ but it could equally just as easily have been ‘fuck you’.
Once he’s on solid ground I realise how short he is; not because he’s actually short but because he’s so stooped. He’s got on this trench coat and his hair’s a mess, like he’s some geriatric Robert Smith from The Cure. But anyway, I’ve successfully manhandled the guy onto the pavement and it’s at that point that I realise that he’s all hunched over not because he’s old, but because he has these solid-arse chains all hanging round his neck. Real heavy. There are some with medallions, a couple with Cuban links and some are just thick chains. It’s like he’s into nineties hip hop or something.
I ask if he’s alright…he tells me yeh. So I’m about to let him on his way but I’m intrigued, so I decide I’m going to get to the bottom of what appears to be a very fucking unusual fashion accessory choice for someone in his demographic. I’m like:
“Hey, that stuff round your neck…that looks heavy. You might find it easier to get around without all that clobber?”
“Very possibly young man.” He replies wearily. I figure I could leave it there but I still haven’t got any answers so I press on…
“What are they for anyway? I mean, they look cool and all, but, why wear something that’s clearly a hindrance to you?”
He sighs, looks me straight in the eye and says…
“Well, since you ask, I’ll tell you…you see, I never used to have this many. I just accumulated them over many years. At different times in life I hankered after each, and when I got them I’d polish them and wear them and people would admire them and say complimentary things about them. I guess they sort of defined me. As time passed I found it more and more difficult to let them go, despite the fact that over time they became something that people started mocking me for. So I guess, whilst I was young they gave me a certain feeling of pride, as I’ve gotten older they just seem to be less and less relevant. Now they just weigh me down.”
“But what are they? Aren’t they just old jewellery?” I ask.
“They aren’t just old jewellery.” He replies.
“They are my dreams.”
