3) Journey To Work

The people at the bus stop this dark morning are misery-face, fatso, and me-first. The lady with the vile teeth hasn’t been on the bus this week, Danny hopes this is because she is dead, or better still, suffering in agony with rotting gums.

Misery-face is a suited man in his fifties, who Danny suspects is on the local sex offender list. His absurd combination-locked briefcase no doubt contains a limp sandwich, an empty biro and a magazine that caters for the seedier side of the seedy demographic. He appears catatonic; his face sags dully, he stands hunched and wears a posture that tells all around him that life is hell.

Fatso is a slob in an outfit of baseball cap, high-visibility vest over a paint-splattered fleece, combined with worn out tracksuit bottoms and work boots. Fatso incessantly snorts back a stream of snot back up his nostril, only for it to start running down again. He drags on a budget cigarette till his lungs cry for help and exhales a noxious cloud of rancid fumes. The worst thing about fatso, to Danny’s mind, is his inability to prepare his fare for the bus. Day after day after day of the working week, fatso skulks onto the bus like a sloth. He mumbles to the driver and then frisks himself, gathering large quantities of low denomination coins from each of his pockets. Fatso then places one coin at a time onto the tray, each iteration barely incrementing the fare. The collective telepathic fury of the other passengers on the bus generally sways the driver into jerking the bus away from the kerb, sending fatso bouncing down the aisle to a seat, scuffing a few noses and ears with his flabby hips along the way.

Danny acknowledges that he is hardly one to judge. He loathes his office costume off low-budget shirt, trousers and shoes that he sneaked in amongst his groceries at the supermarket.

Me-first is a chunky, middle-aged, woman with a head full of wiry curls that have been dried out through years of home based treatments. She wears an anorak that clearly came out of a mail order advert from a newspaper supplement and a maroon polyester skirt that sits above her lumpy knees. Me-first has clearly spent a number of decades determining the optimal point of kerbside skulking in order to be the first of the people to set foot on the bus. She paces around at the edge of the kerb, sending a signal out to the three men around her that no one is to board the bus before she does. Her agitation rises as the arriving bus draws closer, just in case anyone dare usurp her dominance.

Danny flashes his pass to the bus driver and nods hello. As he walks to find a seat he scans the bus to seek out any attractive females. On most mornings, the so-so woman in her thirties who is fairly plain but has nice hair and decent cleavage is awarded Most Likely To Be Given One.

He takes a seat at the back of the lower deck. His favourite music at this point in his life sweeps out of his headphones and rouses his senses. He taps his mind along to the snare drum. He pulls a book out; something bland to occupy him for the duration of the journey.

The bus driver is erratic. Not only does an amber light mean “Go, Go, Go”, nor a just-gone-red mean “Fuck it, carry on”, but just-after-just-gone-red means “If I die, we all die, let’s go”. Somehow the passengers respect this more than they respect a law-abiding driver who stops at amber. Every nanosecond counts to these people.

The same faces sit in the same seats next to the same people. Nobody speaks. As the bus fills to standing room only, Danny feels superior in his seat. He periodically glances up from his book to check for attractive females. The air becomes a stifling syrup of body odour. The growl of the diesel engine intrudes upon his music.

The swelling congestion on the roads brings the tail end of the journey to a feeble crawl. The half mile takes longer than the preceding six Danny has travelled. Every morning Danny considers getting off and walking the remainder. The thought of having to squeeze past the line of standing passengers in the gangway keeps him on his seat until the end. This does not deter Me-First. She squeezes past everybody and standing across the bus exit two stops before she gets off, in first place.

“I’m on the bus.” Danny becomes annoyed by a woman he hears using her phone.

“Yeah. I’m on the bus,” she yells.

“She’s on the fucking bus” Danny thinks. He imagines grabbing her phone and shouting at the caller and then stamping on the phone.

“I’ll be off in a bit. I’m on the bus.”

The bus reaches its terminus in the City Centre and its commuters are expelled. The passengers zip out of the bus, one by one, like ill-tempered wasps.

Danny walks at speed to get ahead of the pack, weaving in and out. The paths of slower walkers converge to curb his route; he slows and then detours around them. A recorded voice blares, “Attention, Vehicle reversing,” in an antiquated accent. He skips over dog turds, dodges pavement puke, and uses some fancy footwork to avoid stepping in a discarded kebab.

Danny reaches Direct Royal Norwich House, which does indeed house Direct Royal Norwich Insurance. The revolving doors take him into the foyer where an underpaid, underworked, Security Guard stares mindlessly at uneventful CCTV footage. The Going-Up button is fingered at the lifts and he taps his feet as he watches the journey of the three elevators progress. The digital displays above the lift entrances become the reels of a fruit machine. The centre lift is stuck on the tenth floor, the left one is working its way down, the right one is on its way up.

He becomes agitated by the people who join him to wait for lifts. If they pounce into a lift before him, they will fill it and leave him to wait longer and seethe further. The same people wait by the same lifts to go to the same floors. Danny’s eyes sneakily scan for females. Two bimbos in short-skirted pin-stripe suits who work on the top floor wait. They share the Most Likely To Be Given One trophy.

“Doors opening,” a recorded voice announces.

The lift on the left that he is stood by arrives. He steps in and presses the Seven button for his floor. Arms reach around him to press other floors. The lift becomes uncomfortably full.

“Doors closing,” the voice tells them.

The doors slide towards a close.

“Doors opening.”

The occupants of the lift huff in disproval. A cretin in the foyer has pressed the Going-Up button for the lifts without letting this one leave.

“Doors closing,” they are told once more before being yanked upwards to their workplaces. Nobody speaks.

Danny leaves at the seventh floor. He approaches his desk and places his coat on the back of his chair. He is officially twenty two minutes early. Nobody speaks to him. He speaks to nobody. Nobody speaks to nobody. The clitter-clatter of keyboards prevents total silence.

Emma Scott is at her desk typing busily. Danny looks across to her. She wins her own special Most Likely To Be Given One, Even If Everyone Else Wants To Be Given One award.

He logs onto his computer; user name “stoneda”, password “norw1ch”.

He had a message in his Inbox from Human Resources. It was entitled, “Your thoughts are important to us.”

Danny deleted it without reading it. He thought they could fuck off and leave him alone.