Last Train Home
A fat man sits opposite a girl chewing gum. Her leathery arms and legs are crossed and her mouth opens wider than that of a cow chewing cud and shuts faster than an agitated alligator. For forty minutes she has been staring with disgust at the overweight businessman opposite her, who, as she judges from the level of noise exuding his orifices, is having an angry doze. Her brow wrinkles and her chewing slows as his head rolls away from the window on which it had rested, leaving an ovular sweat mark on the glass. They continue onward at speed, past the pubs, factories, self storage companies, and high-rises that punctuate the London skyline.
The next station is Clapham Junction.
He had asked her to wake him at this station, so without hesitation her stilettoed foot swings itself into his pillowy shins. As this jolts him from his raucous nap, the thick gob of yellow saliva, which for the entire journey had been creeping steadily towards his thigh, is sucked in with his shocked, sharp intake of breath, thus causing him to choke momentarily. The girl flinches at each of his hawks of phlegm and lets out a small scream when he sneezes loudly and abruptly into his hand. We leave her running along the carriage, away from the large businessman who has tried to take her manicured fingers in his grotty paw to say thank you for waking him, and focus on a rather handsome pair sitting opposite one another on the Northern line.
He has floppy brown hair, is clutching a leather satchel which bursts with books, papers, pens, photographs, tissues, and fags. His pushes his glasses up his nose gently whilst observing the devotchka in front of him. I have short, black, curly hair, clipped back on one side to reveal three ear piercings, two eyebrow studs and a hole in my nose (usually occupied by a stud). While I pretend to listen to music, a scruffy looking man with a violin hobbles along the aisle asking for money. Of course, everyone refuses him a few pennies, for they know he will only spend it on alcohol and drugs because he is homeless and therefore he is scum to them, despite his musical talent and attempt at a more respectable way of begging (busking). As he reaches that gap in between the handsome pair where time has stood still, the man with the floppy hair decides to assert his masculinity in order to impress me, the devotchka, whom he has already suspected of not actually listening to any music. He stands up.
“Jog on mate, noone’s givin’you anyfin’, ALRIGHT?”
In contrast to what he expected to happen, I jump up, slap the floppy haired man who I had until mere seconds ago wanted to take me to dinner, take his wallet from the pocket where it is poking out, take out a tenner, then take ten from my pocket, hand it to the man with the violin and exit at the next station - Angel.
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