Bike in the Water

 It's the wettest day of the year, and I'm heading into town to meet Graeme, whom I haven't seen since his wedding. The rain is torrential, but I'm okay because I'm in my Skarpa walking boots and Seasalt Cornwall anorak. I am all terrain prepped. 

I get the bus into town. The law is that the bus is always absurdly busy when it's raining. I have no idea why people look out of the window and think, "It's pissing down - I wonder what Translink has to offer". But they do. 

I get a seat, one of the ones that flip down and are reserved for the venerable and the vulnerable, qualities I feel I have in abundance, though I'm ever mindful that if someone genuinely geriatric or differently-abled got on, I could offer the seat to them with a gentlemanly sweep. Old people did not get on, but the bloke who did was in an unfortunate state. 

He had a bicycle with him, and was dressed, head to toe, in the sort of sports gear people wear in court when they're being charged with causing an affray. He had thin, brown hair, pasted to his grey scalp by the rain, and wore rimless glasses through which I could see hooded blue eyes. He placed the bike in front of me, the wet wheel turned so it rubbed up against my thigh. He was tall and stooped and his phone rang. As he dragged it from his pocket and answered it, I was suddenly aware of two things: he was either very pissed or, more likely, utterly fucked up on drugs, and he had some serious sinus issues. He repeated over and over, in a smeary blur of language, that he was on the glider to whomever was interested in speaking to him, in itself quite surprising, and after every sentence would come the drawing in of strings of clotty mucus. About a foot above my head. 

He slipped his phone back into his pocket. He was practically bent double over me now, the bike wheel still brushing my thigh. I could hear the mechanics of his breathing over the bump and grind of the bus' maneuvers, and tried to be stoic. A woman caught my eye and made a commiserating face. I gave a tight grin, as his Heath Robinson plumbing continued to pop and crackle above me. 

His phone rang again and rang and rang, as it took him a full minute to retrieve it from his pocket. It shrank from him, like an animal gone to ground. When he eventually got it to his lips, he blurted out "I'm on the fucking glider", and a flob the size of a fifty pence piece and with the fibrous consistency of a raw, pulped potato spattered between my feet. "Sor' ma'e", he said to me, before telling the person on the phone that he didn't currently have any crack. 

It was enough. I was nowhere near my stop, but fuck this. I wasn't getting T.B. from a junkie with a ten-speed. I edged past the bike and and waited for the bus to reach the next glider halt. I'd paid two quid for this. Two quid to be fenced in by a wet bike. It's illegal, by the way, if there had been a ticket inspector on the bus, he'd have been turfed off, but they're never there when you fucking need them, are they? And what was he doing with the bike anyway? He was clearly in no state to ride it and he didn't look like someone who was keen on getting a bit of exercise. Had he nicked it? I didn't know, and I was moving into the realm of speculation. All I knew was this: I had been accidentally gobbed at by a man who could barely stand, could barely talk, and whose eyelids were lower-slung than his tracksuit bottoms. 

"Sor' ma'e." he said again. The politeness was disarming. 

"That's okay." I said. 

But it wasn't okay. I just wanted to be left alone and he had insisted himself all over me. Anyone else would have told him off for bringing his stupid wet bike on the bus, or for the wet wheel rubbing against their thigh, or the sound of sinuses rumbling overhead like present thunder. No one else would have accepted his spittle. I overheard the businessman opposite me, asking someone on the phone: "Do you understand the point that I'm making?" and I thought I could never say anything that rude to anyone. No qualifiers, no "The point I'm trying to make is..." just a straight up "Are you clever enough to understand me". I was so jealous of this rude arsehole. 

The bus stopped and I got off. It was still raining but I didn't care because I had a waterproof coat with a hood. The pavements were flooded but I didn't care because I had sturdy, waterproof footwear. And, most of all, I was not trapped in my seat with a wet bike while a semi-conscious man drooled and snotted on top of me. I was free. I walked with purpose. The sun shone through the rain and I felt good. I was free. And I was alone. Blissfully, chest-expandingly, alone.