Part One: Bus
Waiting in the queue at the bus station. Headphones in. Flicking
through some songs.
Everyday People.
That’ll do nicely.
Sly and the Family Stone.
A classic. You’re shaking your head. It is. No. I know it is.
The queue’s full of people heading up to the city for a night out. The smell of perfume and aftershave fills the air. Groups of lads and lassies. Couples too.
The bus pulls in, one of those big double-deckers. I take a seat in the middle, nearer the back but not too far. Watch through the window as we go from the town centre, through the streets, into the county.
The fields and streams running by.
I close my eyes.
Listen to the music.
Nathaniel Rateliff.
Guitar cutting through.
I’m going to meet Frankie.
I remember the day we met. Sitting at a desk. Cracking jokes
about Nutfield City Limits. You know, you meet some people
and it’s like you know them forever.
He is like a brother to me.
We were sitting there, in some forsaken pub in Glasgow. I was
falling through the floor. He saw me, where I was, and he told
me.
“This’ll pass, mate. You’ll be alright. You’re a good man.”
There has been time and distance between us.
But I don’t think it matters.
When I open my eyes, we are in the city. The motorway carving
its way through the southside.
Pollok.
Ibrox.
The Kingston Bridge, and we are off the motorway and onto the
city streets.
(c) Paul Andrew Sneddon
Paul Andrew Sneddon 