You haven’t seen london until you’ve taken the night bus.

Adventures on the last train

It was Easter Sunday and I went over to a friend’s in the west for dinner (I stayed at Poplar, Zone 2 in east London). We played some board game afterwards and I planned to leave early enough so I don’t miss the last train. Despite leaving enough time to catch the penultimate train coming from heathrow, it didn’t arrive and I ended up waiting for close to 20 minutes for the last train.

There was a lot of drama on the platform. Towards the left of me, two guys decided to make use of the waiting time and randomly walked up to two ladies and started chatting them up, bantering about the Macdonald’s happy meal and toy (some stamp of sorts) that the two ladies each had.

On the right there was a loud group of four, within which there was a couple showing their affections publicly. By the looks of it, I guessed they only just gotten into the relationship. The guy held a transparent box of an almost finished large chocolate easter egg. They were quite inebriated and the guy kept dropping the box such that when they later boarded the tube the remaining chocolate in the box was already in small crumbs.

Whilst on the platform my attention vacillated between the two groups, watching and analysing them. Perhaps there was something I could learn from them. When the train finally came, it was quite crowded (as expected) and I boarded via the door that was closer to the affectionate couple.

On the tube, the couple continued to flirt. The guy paid little attention to the box of chocolate and small crumbs of chocolate started decorating the floor of the train. I expected him to pick up the chocolate pieces but he only pulverised them as he bobbed around in front of the girl. How inconsiderate. My misanthropistic alter ego briefly took over and judged him so badly. The girl, who was in a state of amor, found that behaviour adorable. Some crazy poison love is.

After 20 minutes of inevitable eavesdropping, I learned that the girl thought the chocolate egg was posh because it was from M&S. That she was not a lesbian yet because she never made out with a girl, and that she was only 23.

When I got to Green Park for my change to the jubilee line, I realised that the jubilee line was no longer in service. But because of my prior expierences, I very calmly went to find the bus stop that has the night bus to take me home. This is the second time I found myself stuck in the west and have to resort to taking the bus home.

The curious case of a drunk

It was quite early into the night and the bus stop was crowded. It didn’t help that it was also raining. When the bus finally came, the majority of the crowd started flocking towards it. FML.

When I finally found a seat at the back of the bus in preparation for the long journey ahead, I was expecting a peaceful journey unlike the one I had on the tube. However, minutes after I sat down, a guy whom I spotted earlier at the bus stop presumably drunk, decided to sit beside me. Oh boy, it’s going to be a long night.

He tried to talk to the guy on his other side, but that guy just gave him a cold look and ignored him. Then he turned towards me and started talking about how the previous day (since it was after midnight) was the centenary of Ireland’s freedom and he was celebrating. I felt rude ignoring him so I gave him the perfunctory acknowledgement now and then. That was clearly a wrong signal - he started introducing himself and asked for my name. Just seconds ago I was already planning my escape by finding some other empty seats that ware already filling up fast.

The theme quickly changed when he then showed me a bracelet he has on his hand and told me about its history: his mother gave it to him before she died of cancer. According to him, his mother was battling cancer for over a year and a half and passed away half a year ago. He came to England to work, and one day he got the call from his family and immediately booked a flight home. His mother waited out long enough to see him one last time and say her goodbyes before his whole family watched her pass away.

That bracelet was clearly symbolic to him and he was telling me it was from a holy place in France in the form of questions (you know the ___? in France? the holy place? …). As much as I adore the accents from this side of the world, I could not make out what he was saying. As an aside, he later asked “How many socks do you have at home?”, when I asked to confirm what I heard, he said “yea, how many socks?” I only just met him and asking about my wardrobe seems rather personal, even though no one ever keeps track of their sock count, right?! It was only after a minute and with the help of the enclosing questions that I realised he meant “how many stops before I reach home.”

There was a brief interlude where he started talking about his favourite football team Liverpool and queried about my favourite team. I had none, and he started talking about some random asian sports, in an attempt to find something in common(?).

I was an unwilling participant of this conversation and kept thinking in my mind where was he going to get off. I contemplated just getting off the bus and wait for the next one because of the sheer annoyance I was already feeling but the rain and cold were more than sufficient to glue me to my seat. He then finally asked where I was going and said he was trying to get to canary wharf. FML.

Bear in mind that he was clearly drunk (or mentally retarded), because as soon as he finished talking about those points above, it was like unfolding a scene in momento and he completely forgotten about everything he has said. Everything. Like a broken tape recorder, he started started from the top, telling me about how it’s 100 years since Ireland got its freedom, introduced himself, asked for my name, the sad story of his mother’s passing, the bracelet, football, where I was getting off, where he lived. That went on for the next excruciating 30 minutes.

It wasn’t just mundane repetition. Sometimes, he would inject randomness with interjections like “what’s your phone number, maybe you can come over to mine and we can relax.” Just when I was starting to acclimatise to the wild night I was having, I was completely unprepared for that. Is this how he picks up his dates? Maybe I should try that some day. I politely rejected his offer. In other occasions, he tried to put his hands around me, probably a gesture of treating me like a bro.

To be honost, I felt pity for that guy because of the conflicting state of mind he must be in. He was clearly celebrating that day, but he still hadn’t accepted the loss of his mother; there were uncontrollable tears when he recounted his last visit home. He knew he was being rather annoying, and kept apologising to me for bothering me, but yet he couldn’t control himself and continued the conversation cycle again. At times I was worried about whether he was going to make it home safely, given that 30 minutes of sobering up clearly didn’t put him in a state of mind to remember what he did. When he took out his phone, I realised it didn’t have any power anymore, which meant he probably couldn’t call his mates if he needed to. His questions for me regarding where I live seems to be his cry for “please bring me home”. But I was not responding to his cry.

He was weighing the options between alighting at my stop, which is closer to where he lived or at limehouse, where he worked and decided on the latter, which was probably a relief. He asked me a favour to let him know when we arrived at his stop before continuing his conversation routine. And I did. I guess he was grateful for the listening ear because before he stood up to leave, he hugged me and gave me a peck on the neck.

I got home soon after, half drenched. Took a nice hot shower and retired on my bed. I hope the Irish guy found his way home.