Let me tell you the worst
thing you can possibly say to me about my tattoos.
I have this one tattoo.
Black across my lillywhite gypsy skin. Down my forearm, that reads
“this is not for you”. If you're interested, it's the opening
lines of the first book I was given by the first boy who can say he
had my heart. The first book that blew apart all the previous rules
of writing. My own and otherwise. To say this sacred tome has haunted
my life since is an understatement. It's the one book I keep passing
on, giving away, falling over, being spooked back too. I currently
have two copies, one that I consciously remember buying, the other
that came to me I don't know how; and the oddest thing is that when I
got this tattoo I became even more of a collector of it's stories.
This book, THE book, it has a life of it's own. Someone was in a
cottage in the middle of nowhere, and it fell through the remote
front door, cover ripped off. Someone else regained their fear of the
dark after reading it. Another guy....well it goes on. You get the
idea.
These days I to hold onto
my faith in the general public. I try to brush off their strange
remarks as nervous attempts at banter, but when you point at my
tattoo and say “aren't you going to be alone forever?”, this is a
button pressed. Especially when it's three minutes after the train
home was supposed to arrive to the calm of my sky-palace sanctuary
and my little black cat. So, I hit back, facetious, maybe I want
to be alone forever. I don't, but I'm an angry child thrust in
the face of a stupid question, my sass and sarcasm the last shields I
throw up when I'm knocked off key.
It's just, I'm
frustrated. I've been sick forever, in so many senses of the word.
Sore-throat sick, soul-sick, body wants a baby sick, Saturn's return
sick,; that I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep. Possibly in
someone's arms, although that last part is optional. I probably need
some Erythromycin and an Uncrossing Spell, but who doesn't these
days? I'm on the platform at Shepherds Bush and the crowd is growing
thicker and thicker and the train is getting later and later, so when
the train arrives my conscious mind is off in the liminal space I
reserve for storytelling and vivid-dream premonitions.
And the train is rammed.
Instantly, I'm squashed up against four bald men, all fairy-tale
giant ginormuos. Every single one of these men has seen me thirty
seconds earlier get accidentally punched in the tit by a yammering
lawyer, so they shuffle their feet and lean back politely. I'm
grateful for the extra space, because I can feel four types of
material unwillingly pressed against lower parts of my body; it's
just that busy. The dawning summer brings thundering with it a muggy
sense of urgency, one that's transformed in the Overground carriage
to thick air. Nose-neck thick, hot-body sex thick, Mardi Gras thick,
meat-sweat, cat-breath thick. Echoing through the whole train. This
many people this close, the air conditioning might as well save it's
sweet time and join the hot-air party. There's one, only one
advantage to a train packed this close. No-one's gonna steal your
stuff at least. No-one can even move. Let alone make a bid for your
phone. Basic rush-hour logic, and I guess at least the men are being
kind. I guess.
By the time this train
gets moving, everyone's off in their own special place. This is how
they deal with the chaos of the packed train. Music, books, diving
into WhatsApp, each small little versions of their own private
nirvana. No-one is really all the way there, but we all have the rush
hour to deal with. When most of the passengers drop off at the next
stop, our aching communal heart takes one harsh beat, pressing itself
against our paper-thin chests in one clear air gasp. Clean god-damn
air. It'll be the last for a while, but we don't know that yet.
I have this moment where
I'm staring at the fresh air come crashing through the doors with
this knowledge I need to get off. In life, but mostly of this train.
Whilst I'm negotiating the impulse the door swooshes close and I have
one clear thought break my rush-hour mantra. Oh. Oh well.
Then the train pulls off.
Speeds up. A little faster than usual, but we are late. I'm off
somewhere else in my head, swaying in the soporific lullaby arms that
it hits my body first. Like I've been punched in the stomach, a
cramp, it staples my stomach together with a sobering jolt. How many
stations have we passed? Sometimes I phase out for what seems hours
and it's just seconds, and I'm god-damn sure it's just that, right?
But there's still that feeling in my stomach, like a cigarette burn
through my oesophagus, an unknown stab. Maybe it's just stress. Maybe
it's just cramp. Maybe I kicked the wall in the night and pulled a
muscle I didn't even know I had...or maybe it's something esoteric I
haven't worked out, or codeine withdrawal. It could be that. My
options, I'm cycling through like a bullet train when someone further
down the car realises before me.
“Is he gonna stop?”
I crane my head around to
see the screen. Blank. I sigh. Stare out the window, warp-speed blurs
of nature's beauty all star bursts of lines, and a station goes past.
Goes past.
Goes....wait.
We're on the Overground,
aren't we?
For those of you that
aren't keeping up, the Overground stops at every station.
I catch the gaze of this
Chinese dude. I say dude because I didn't catch the gender. On the
verge of asking for help, headphones twisted in hands like claws.
Burning confusion, but unsure. As though they're not too sure their
question is valid, cautionary innocent weakness. So I start the
conversation.
“Is he gonna stop?”
By now I'm not the only
person wondering. My new-found confidant catches the name of the next
station to shudder by in a blur so unrecognisable that the concept of
passing another station vanishes like smoke in my consciousness, and
the swallow is so audible that I'm sure they can hear it at the other
end of the world.
“Hampstead Heath?”
The panic spreads like an
STD. This guy ain't stopping. No way. There's a small group of
mild-mannered men in suits debating the emergency stop alarm, arguing
the semantics of a train driver hell-bent for leather on driving us
into the fiery abyss at the end of the line. As the panic waves lash
harsh on the few people who haven't quite caught on yet the more
vigilant of the suits makes a good point; the emergency stop requires
the dybbuk-possesed monster now driving our train to certain defeat
to act on the signal, to pull the break. This guy already turned off
all the screens and some of the lights, he probably wouldn't, he
proposes, act in our favour.
To say were fucked would
be an understatement. The panic of being entirely at the mercy of our
ghost-possessed driver saturates limbs, shaking hands, furrowed
foreheads. Little scratches too hard down forearms and angry
red-faced fat little ancient ladies yammering into ancient mobile
phone relics. The unspoken fear the train might have been hijacked
binds us strange situation fellows. My Chinese friend has gone from
banging on the doors to staring at me with a wide, vacant look in
their face, expression begging “help!”. Another woman with waist
length white hair and a Stevie Nicks coat asks me if I know what's
happening, giggling quickly to herself. These faces, staring at me.
Well, I have to say SOMETHING, right? All the while our metal cage
speeds and speeds and speeds and sparks through more stations, past
blurs and blurs and blurs of pink and brown and yellow and green and
orange we once called people.
“I guess the track's
got to run out at some point?”
Maybe I should have
thought of something better to say, but it works. The train pulls
into Gospel Oak. Doors slide back knife-edge swipe. The crowd moves
as one angry herd, I'm swept up in the current of the welcome escape.
I've seen kids run slower from illegal raves. Safety and the chance
to grab the soon-to-be-departed next train back in the other
direction leave Gospel Oak a sea of thundering footsteps too large to
think through and this time, I trust my instinct and stop to read the
screen everyone else has ignored.
I've amassed a bunch of
followers who obviously think my Zen translates to navigating public
transport. What fools. The train on the other platform pulls off as
half the travellers realise they're off in the wrong direction.
Pandemonium rattles on the door, my little army of the Chinese dude
and Stevie, a nurse and a few faceless stragglers thanks me for
stopping them jumping on the wrong train.
“Are you going back in
the other direction?” says the nurse. “Can I just...follow you?”
Together, we navigate our
journey down the hidden stairs. Together, we stop for complaint forms
for Stevie and the Nurse and for a few seconds I think I've lost the
Chinese dude, but they turn back up as we're all, all ten of us,
climbing the platform to the train in the right direction. Together
we board the right train. The Nurse likes my hair. Stevie lives near
my house. We stand, bound together in a group of otherwise ignorant
6pm commuters, strange friends as we make our weary way home.
Just before I get off at
my stop the Nurse thumbs her form.
“You gonna complain?”
“Nah.” I say. “Makes
for a good story. I'm going to go home and write it down...”
