09 January 2010
Just a dude on a train - part 4
Part four of my encounter with a train-based loon. Parts one, two and three are all below, so you may need to read those first for this to make sense.
----------------------------------------
I thought it best to steer the conversation away from violence… “What’s an outside nick?” I asked sheepishly. “A private one. Don’t ever go to a private jail. Keep HMPing”. Wise words from someone who appeared to be well-versed in correctional institutions. I promised that if the situation ever arose, I would do my utmost to keep HMPing. He seemed satisfied by this and turned back round in his seat to stare out of the window.
Relieved by the brief respite in what was becoming quite an intense conversation, I put on my iPod and gazed out of the window too. It wasn’t long until my companion was off again though. He spun round in his seat and gestured for me to remove my headphones. As I complied, he beckoned me in closer and confided in a conspiratorial whisper… “Johnny South is looking for you.” Johnny South? I wracked my brains. Who the hell is Johnny South and why would he be looking for me? “He says you were dissing his bird two years ago. You’ve forgotten, but he hasn’t.” Maybe I had dissed his bird. I didn’t even know who his bird was – it’s entirely possible. But then I didn’t know who Johnny South was either, so how would I even know? “He’s coming after you. You know Johnny South? He knows you”. After a brief pause, he broke into a grime-toothed grin, shook his head and sat down again. It was quite clear he was toying with me. I hoped.
As he sat in his seat, my companion started rolling another cigarette. Surely he’d heeded my advice from earlier and was simply rolling one for later, when he’d got off the train at Euston and was no longer under threat of arrest. I was wrong. He got up to go to the toilet again, but someone else was in there. I was initially relieved that he’d been thwarted in his attempts to reoffend, but it was clear that I still wasn’t aware of who I was dealing with. Instead of ducking into the toilet to smoke, he simply lit the cigarette in the open carriage. It was at this point that I abandoned my ill-conceived project of reintegrating him into society. No train journey would be long enough for that, so I simply resigned myself to sitting back and watching the scene play out.
It wasn’t long before another train employee walked through the carriage and saw the man smoking. She was young and attractive, and politely informed him that he wasn’t allowed to smoke on the train and could he please put the cigarette out. There was a tense pause as we both waited to see how he would react. It was going to go one of two ways. Either he would comply with the request, or he was going to dismember the girl and shove her under the luggage rack. Fortunately he fought the urge to do the latter and stubbed the cigarette out… “Jane the train should hand the reins over to you. You’ve got a nicer voice”. The girl looked bemused as she wandered off, and I thought that was the end of it. We were only fifteen minutes outside Euston and surely that was the last display of mischief before he got off the train and had a whole new city in which to cause havoc. I was of course wrong.
Labels: Mark Allen spraff dude on a train travel
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Post a Comment