Document 1650
A Good Bamming
Author(s): 'The Driver'
Copyright holder(s): Name withheld
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A Good Bamming
Before the Beginning Of All Things, the entire Universe was no larger than a melon. How Mother Nature managed to cram all of Existence into the size of a large tit has had physicists brawling in their labs for years. However, they do agree that it was God's groping hand upon this breast-sized orb that initiated the colossal explosion known as the Big Bang.
Poor God! You can just imagine Him with his face covered in soot, cursing his bad luck and resolving never to fondle anything boob-like or benippled again.
Amazingly, Glasgow's junkies have gone one better than Mother Nature. They can compress an All Day ticket down into an infinitely small ball of barely visible pocket fluff.
"I've got an All Day ticket, driver," slurred the dribbling wobble-zombie as he boarded my bus at Calderwood Square in East Kilbride. I was running late and he made damn sure I was even later by searching every pocket in agonizing slow motion.
"Here it is," he said at last, and produced a crumpled and creased mote of muck-soiled paper that was so impossibly tiny that it defied physics and blew Mother Nature's nipples clean off.
"Thank you," I grumbled. Even though the ticket was hopelessly unreadable I gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided to let him board.
"Wait a minute, driver, I've got the other half here somewhere..." and another pocket search began. The other half? Maybe bus ticket ripping is a junkie custom when shooting up, just like plate smashing at Greek weddings.
The hold up attracted the attention of ten or so Young Team that had boarded at East Kilbride bus station. "Look at him! Look at him! Let's bam him up!" they called to each other as the skinny junkie fumbled.
"Just take a seat, mate," I said to the wraith, keen as I was to get moving again. But his chronic display of gratitude claimed only my pity:
"Nice one, mucker. Cheers, mate. Thanks pal. You're a gentleman. You're a gentleman. God bless you. God bless you, son." He measured out his words so slowly and moved his mouth so slightly that there must surely have been a nettle leaf under his tongue. Given a hand-puppet he would have been a master ventriloquist.
He staggered up the bus like a man pulling himself through waist deep treacle and flopped down beside a terrified old woman. Immediately after pulling away from the bus stop, the Young Team began shouting and taunting the junkie from their back seat eyrie.
"Hey, junkie! Hey, smack heid!"
"Fuck off, ya wee bastards!" returned the junkie, shouting through his nose. The little old woman's face was a picture. However, his retaliation only encouraged the Young Team to up-the-ante by breaking into song:
"Let's all laugh at smack head, lets all laugh at smack head, na na na na, na na na na!"
The junkie stood up and faced the hectoring mob, "Hey! I'm noe a fuckin' smack heid! I'm a fuckin' wino!"
"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" came the Young Team.
Well, what was he expecting from them? After all, by saying: "Hey! I'm not a maggot, I'm a grub!" won't make any difference when you're being slobbered up by the tongue of a hungry Aardvark.
As I approached the Kingsgate retail park, the junkie snapped under the weight of the Young Team's incessant jibes. He hobbled up to the back of the bus shouting, "Come on then! I'll take the fuckin' lot of you on! Right fuckin' now!"
I immediately pulled the bus in to the side of the road and opened the doors. Fights usually spill off the bus and on to the pavement which allows the driver to shut the doors and get away. With the Young Team's numerical advantage, I figured this fight would be over pretty quickly.
It wasn't. In fact, it didn't really get started. The Young Team were in such hysterics that every time the scrawny junkie came within punching range, they simply pushed or kicked him away. The rawboned doper would then fall down, crawl away, pull himself up and try again - but every time he would end up on the floor.
The only people that fled the bus were a few panic-stricken passengers and the terrified old lady. One brutish skin-head looked at me accusingly as he left the bus and said, "That's a fuckin' shocker that you're allowing that to happen on your bus, driver! I'm waiting for the next one."
Once again, responsibility for society's ills is shat on my doorstep. It would have all been over by the time the police turned up anyway, and there was no way I was going to risk trying to sort it out myself - I drive a bus, I don't referee scum fights.
I just sat and watched the poor junkie tumble to the floor like a puppet who's string had been cut, get up again, attack the Young Team, and tumble to the floor once more. He really wasn't making progress at all. At least a housefly banging it's head against a glass window can be put out of it's misery with a flick of the Times.
At long last the junkie relented and came back down the bus to take his seat, spitting curses at the howling Young Team. Verbal exchanges continued all the way to the Cathkin roundabout where the junkie came down the bus to get off.
"You've got a bus full of bastards, driver!" said the druggy.
"Aye?" I replied.
Aye! I thought, And you're one of them!
I pulled in and opened the door. He stepped off the bus and took a few seconds to get his bearings.
"Let's get aff here and follow him! Aye! C'mon we'll bam him up some more! Lets bam him up to fuck!" said the Young Team and came marching down the bus. The junkie saw them and began hobbling away at speed.
The dopster had a curious, low, short-step hobble as though he were bound by a set of heavy leg irons. Such old-school punishment may befit a man capable of the treachery and misdeed required to fund a smack habit. Indeed, Medieval justice may be a more effective long-term treatment for drug addiction than giving him a flat in Cathkin and a daily shot of methadone.
I didn't hang around to watch the rest of this Benny Hill chase due to timetable constraints. Looking on the bright side, at least I got the junkie and the Young Team off the bus at the same stop. But I couldn't ignore the stench of piss that lingered.
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APA Style:
A Good Bamming. 2024. In The Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. Retrieved 11 December 2024, from http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/document/?documentid=1650.
MLA Style:
"A Good Bamming." The Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech. Glasgow: University of Glasgow, 2024. Web. 11 December 2024. http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/document/?documentid=1650.
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The Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech, s.v., "A Good Bamming," accessed 11 December 2024, http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/document/?documentid=1650.
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The Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech. 2024. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk.