The Junky on the Bus.

                       The junky on the bus was sitting in the luggage rack near the driver's cab. His eyes met mine like they do on the street and with the usual accompanying hostility.He said something , I unplugged a headphone from my ear and caught the last of his words 'up and down, it's got to be done.'
and who knows what he was talking about. I guessed his first words to me had been something like
'What's your problem' and when it was clear that I had not understood immediatley what he had said , and because he had noticed my looking at the bottle he had placed next to himself on the luggage rack
he had decided to explain his situation to me, up and down may have been reffering to his high which was evidently not entirely alcohol induced  and perhaps the' has to be done 'referred to some ghastly alternative he had in mind to getting high or he was trying to say HAD to get high ,he had no alternative he was an addict.
                         He kept nodding out and when he lost consciousness he dropped  something on the floor and then climbed down from the luggage rack to pick up the peice of paper only to nod out and
drop the paper again. He was really on the nod too, he would lean forward slowly bowing his head
until to avoid falling on the floor he had to take a more horizontal position almost lying in the luggage rack which caused a little muttering among the pensioners who largely made up the other passengers
though it was early evening so there were some workers and it being a Friday they were ready to be disgusted as they had been working all week long and the Junky obviously had'nt and did'nt their taxes 
pay his dole money which he spent on drugs and pretty soon they had him down as a mugger and criminal and someone to be despised while all they wanted to do was get home and have tea and wash-up and get changed into the clothes they had earned by working hard never skiving never on the fiddle never claiming and co-habiting and go out of a weekend drinking on respectable street or get some beers in maybe I can give up beer anytime and watch the new comedy supposed to be funny someone at work said oh who just someone at work    male or female doesit matter just askiin sounding distant in the kitchen I 'm going to the offie want anything no oh go on oh alright a bottle of wine then.
                           The junky was obviosly getting on the drivers nerves as well because when he came to the change over stop,as he was leaving his cab he said to the junky 'could you take a seat' not even please because after all being such an obvious junky and probably a piss head to boot did that not make the junky a second class citizen now its illegal and we've been re-educated about racism and there was some chivalary going on here as wall for the driver taking over from him who was standingby the bus window next to the cab was a woman and so though it was alright for a man to put up with a junky sitting in the luggage rack it was not right for a woman to have to put up with such a state of affairs.
The junky,out of it as he was' could not ignore such gallantry or indeed such an order either, so he sat down in the seat behind thestairs and he sat on the edge of the seat with his feet in the aisle and, continuing to nod out actually managed to land his forhead on the seat opposite, both blocking the aisle and causing the elderly woman who was sitting in the seat across the aisle to say 'don't come near me'
though I got the immpression that most of the other passengers on the bus did not consider this much of an achievement no they didn't really want him on the bus the evidence was piling up in their minds.
The junky apologised and then proceeded to repeat the procedure whereby his head hit the seat except the second time it looked even more grotesque and it also looked a bit deliberate as if the junky was saying 'there, see, I can't help it. It looked funny as well but the humour of the situation was apparently lost on the other passengers who were starting to get annoyed and mutter more especially the self-righteous pensioners who had not worked all their lives to witness such a spectacle. What they had read about in the newspapers was now happening before their very eyes.They had never got out of it in their lives no Mogadon or Mandrax on their GP's file ,no barbiturate or codeine ,no morhine or diamorphine only what the doctor prescibes so they're 'alright' , in the clear . No they had always walked head held high down respectable street, remember the time you got so drunk not now love ,a chance to hide the sins of a generation in a hapless junky on the 492 here. Butter wouldn't melt in the mouths of the other passengers so cool are they so blameless and so without sin. 
                        Ayoung man got on the bus paid his fare 'can you change a note? ' . He made his way
disapprovingly past the junky and the young man was neatly dressed, wore a bright blue and white 
patterened shirt and a bit of gold jewellery an earing and a gold chain for all to see. The young man 
had his hair held down by gel. The weekend was starting here for the smartly dressed young man who 
was going out to enjoy himself as he deserved after the working week taxes from which pay for the likes of the junky he has just had to walk past and who is spoiling his mood so much so that he is compelled to say something . 'Sit round ' orders the smart young man to which the junky replied 'What are you on about'to which the smart young man replied to the relief of the other passengers who by now were so worried that they were considering feigning distress,'Your all over the place,boy' . The smoothie thus asserted himself and was taking command of the situation to the admiring  looks from the faces of the pensioners though of course the the younger passengers were going to say something but they let the youngster deal with it. Somehow,and the smartly dressed fellow must have been exactly the same age as the junky, being smartly dressed and not yet inebriated made the smoothie the man and the Junky a mere boy , and in making this brave division the smrtly dressed young man won the hearts of the passengers  with his putdown and perhps even the female driver admired him now as she had happily cashed his note . She wouldn't have cashed the junky's note she would have seen him catch another bus that's the difference. 
                    Then a care in the community case and his Job's comforter , I mean carer got on the bus and boy did the carer know all about the drug problem no less would you expect from a real live carer on the bus were safe now just like you feel when you see a policeman. The carer was just about to tell the whole bus full of passengers what was wrong with the world today via a one sided conversation with here imbecile charge when the lady who was sitting opposite the junky decided to make up for her remark and to something kind. She pointed out to the bus driverr that the junky had mislaid a fiver on the luggage rack where he had been sitting and had left a bag of stuff there too to which the bus driver replied she should put the fiver in the bag and she would make sure the junky got his bag when he got off the bus as she could see he was ill and not just out of it. The woman got off the bus and the journey contiued. The bag sat in the luggage rack and the junky managed to stand facing the seat the first driver had so kindly allocated him and as if this was a demonstration of moves in his repetoire the junky now proceeded to demonstrate on the nod, standing up.Eventually ,from his standing position ,the junky's head would have come to rest on the chair now facing him but the bus had now reached Bexleyheath Broadway and an official from the bus company got on as if by magic or as if by mobile phone call from the previous driver who was so worried about the female drivers safety that he had to phone ahead to where he knew an inspector would be waiting and cleverly and simultaneously the first driver would be both covering himself and avoiding and absolving himself of the responsibility of contacting the police as there was a dangerous drug-fiend on the loose , menacing not only the female driver but also the general public. Though we will never know exactly what happened the inspector seemed suspiciously forwarned that he would be confonted  by an addict when he got on the bus as he went straight up to the addict asked him if he was alright as if he cared and as time passed and he dealt with what probably 
counts as an incident in the notebooks and reports o a bus inspector it became apparent that he had no other business on the bus.The junky was wondering how he had ended up on the nod standing up looking at  the very chair that he had intended to sit on ,but the bus inspector did not share his wonder.  He asked the junky if he was alright but everyone on the bus except perhaps the carer knew what he was really saying was if you dont get off the bus I'm going to call the police and to help the junky fall in with the plan he handed him his bag possibly because I told the inspector that the junky had left his bag on the luggage rack 'yes he's got a bag 'said the driver adding that there was some money in the bag upon hearing this the inspector saw fit to delve into the bag and produce the fiver and hand it to the junky as a friendly gesture because you never know which way these things will go and the junky sensing co-operation decided to put the fiver with his twenty pound note which unfortunately caused him to drop the fiver and hold the twenty pound note in his hand with an 'I know somethings wrong here don't tell me' look on his face and everyone played along until I said give him his money which the
inspector did after a pause that said he would give him the money but not on my say so hence the pause to make it look like he could have been coming to the same conclusion but you know he was contemplating calling the law though of course he did not want the junky to turn violent or label him a grass though the junky did not pose much of a threat as he was on the nod like a good'un that is drifting in and out of consciosness. So the inspector stuff the fiver in the junkies pocket saying 'Here's your money, there's a fiver there and the passengers started to wear the expression of a cat thats had a dead mouse that it has been playing with taken off it by its owner.Because the junky finally took the hint ,swalled his pride andannounced that he was getting off here anyway, The junky would have to take his chances in Bexleyheath, he had the large police station ,a  stones throw away, against him , a spectacular choices of busses for.Should he wander into the shopping centre he would find over-zealous security staff also against him.
                                    In the atmosphere of new found safety of course the remaining passengers haad to have their say.and  after a couple of their comments I said that they were no better than him and that it was probably comments like theirs that drove him onto the stuff in the first place and that at least did for the pensioners, but little miss carer had not only been quietly preparing her statement as regarding preceding events on the bus but also saw this as the time and the place to tell all in earshot the story of her life and the struggle hat went with it like she was Lorretta Lyn the coal miners daughter. As she was telling it like it wasn't I stareted to heckle her but she just ignored me as her care in the community 
charge gave little mentally ill noises of approval some of which approached real words such was the healing power of her recitation. I gave in and put my headphones back on to hear my newly aquired 
second hand Jean Michel Jarre cassette fall into the walkman mechanism which randomley sampled alternate sides of  the cassette instead of acting like the auto-reverse it was supposed to be.Fine as this was I actually tired of Jean Michel Jarre's attempt to reinterpret Lou Reed's 'The Bell's ' as if played by Vangelis and I again unplugged the headphones from my ears and was not surprised but I was dissapointed to hear the carer still going on ' ...it's the way they're brought up...' and I thought yes that's right that would account for the drug problem of epidemic proportions that has the world in it's grip.
Well I made a comment of my own and the clean-cut kid who was seated directly behind me was ready to physically attack me  which accounted for his hand being in my field of vision to the left but he retreated showing remarkable self control. The carer was in the know due to her care in the community 
charge becoming miraculously coherent enough to pass on a little information that could only be learned from a care in the community related source as I to seem to fall under that classification though I might add that I have unlike some who are happy to accept care in the community benefit ,actually spent considerable time as an in-patient and do actually  attend therapy besides working voluntarily for mental health charities note the plural.  So she makes a pointed remark about hand -outs like her wage packet wasnt anything different but perhaps she thinks her mercenary  leanings set her apart, and I fall for it ,I take the bait , I say she is a 'so-called carer  who thinks she's working but all she's doing is swanning around with her care in the community meal ticket'. But she refuses to listen and just bangs on about
her wretched children and how she has bought one of them a pony for three thousand pounds and never moved from where she lives ' and what did she care because as she got up and walked to the drivers cab to leave the bus as the bus was only a one door bus, she was going to play her winning card that she had held in abeyance since first seeing it and this card came in the form of exhibit A and had a little pantomime to go with it.Ignoring me she went straight up to the driver and pointed out what she had noticed all along. On the luggage rack the junky had left a 'syringe'. Ithought I should point it out to you though of course I'm not going to touch it '.Of course the only syringe the carer would know about is the one that contains the crap that the health service injects into the arse of her charge but she doesn't say that she wishes to appear streetwise in front of the other passengers who have become her audience. 
  I point out as the bus driver is picking up the 'syringe' with a tissue, that the offending item is actually a wrapper that once contained a syringe, and not an actual syringe, to reassure the passengers but the object has been removed and they're not listening they are ordeal survivers rescued by a passing carer 
who was hampered by some bloke who didn't know what he was going on about. Triumphantly the carer left the bus, having showed me whats what and now the whole of S.E. London shall  know that a junky left a syringe on the 492 and though its a lie thats alright because didn't the nuns in the Sound of Music break a commandment to stall the Nazis.