Off the Busses
by Dermot
Glennon
A: Stockton Heath
please.
B: What about Stockton
Heath?
A (surprised):
I’d like you to take me there.
B: I’m sorry,
you’re too heavy.
A (offended):
What? I’m only twelve stone.
B: Ah yes, but if
you look carefully, this isn’t a real bus.
You see if you look down there, there’s a
hole in the floor and I’m walking along on
foot.
A: Oh yes, so you
are.
B: And, furthermore,
this whole bus is made entirely out of cardboard
and the wheels are just painted on. They don’t
go round and round.
A: I see. So why
would anyone want to do that, I wonder?
B (briskly):
Ah now. Now there is a question. You see:
I’m, very much, of the avant-garde
school of bus driving.
A: The avant-garde
school of bus driving? There’s no such thing.
B: Granted we’re
a small, underground movement at the present time
but we are growing in number. Take the
work of Schönheimer in the sixties, for instance.
He served his time with the traditionalist in the
establishment and showed that he was capable of
making great advances in conventional bus driving.
Then, one day, he walked up to a queue of people
at a bus stop and started taking fares.
A: Oh really? Why?
B: He felt that bus
driving was stagnating- becoming stale. He wanted
people to think about bus driving. He
wanted to challenge people’s ideas about
what is and what isn’t bus
driving.
A: And presumably
they all agreed that what what he was doing wasn’t
bus driving. Would I be right in saying that?
B: What makes you
say that?
A (hesitantly):
Because he wasn’t driving a bus.
B: That’s a
valid point, of course. Certainly that was one
school of thought.
A (confused):
There was another?
B: Indeed there most
certainly was. The second school of thought was
that part of the function of bus driving is to
make people think. Schönheimer certainly made
people think that day.
A: I doubt that they
thought hard or for very long.
B (enthusiastically):
Aha! Yes. Indeed yes. That
is exactly what happened. No-one thought very
hard about it or for very long. That was his
genius you see.
A: No, I don’t
see.
B: Well, it proved
his point: conventional bus driving had stagnated.
No-one was thinking about it anymore. Very sad.
He committed suicide in the end. He was very
misunderstood.
A (tersely):
He was a bleeding nutcase you mean.
B: Yes, that’s
the tragedy of his death. No-one really understood
that he was a bleeding nutcase. That idea was
only floated after his death.
A: Have you always
been an avant-garde bus driver?
B: No, no, only took
it up after I was sacked. Used to push trolleys
at Sainsbury’s.
A: Really? Why did
they sack you?
B: They saw me
leaning against the wall of the shop all day and
accused me of malingering. It was most unfair.
A: I’m terribly
sorry but if you were employed to push trolleys
at Sainsbury’s and you spent your time
leaning against the wall, you only have yourself
to blame.
B (testily):
Yes, well as I explained to them at the time, I
was experimenting with pushing Sainsbury’s
at the trolleys. I was, very much, of the avant-garde
school of customer services vehicle collection.
Even after I explained it to them they didn’t
understand. Philistines! I think that was what
led me to commit suicide.
A: You commited
suicide?
B: Yes.
A: You’re not
dead.
B: That’s a
valid criticism, certainly.
A (in
disbelief): A valid criticism? It’s
a matter of absolute fact, mate.
B: Indeed. But you
have to realise that I’m, very much…
A (cutting in):
…Of the avant-garde school of
suicide?
B: Precisely.
A: So is there a lot
of money to be made as an avant-garde bus
driver?
B (confidently):Ah,
now. I’m glad you mentioned that. There is,
indeed, an awful lot of…Hmmm. Well…Now
you mention it…Come to think of it: no. No
there is no money whatsoever to be made in avant-garde
bus driving.
A: So how do you
make a living then?
B (sadly):
I’ve wasted my life, haven’t I?
A: Well…I don’t
know you very well. I mean to say: we’ve
only just met. However, I would have to say that…probably
yes. Yes, you have, indeed, probably
wasted your life.
B (dejected):
Oh. (brightening up): Oh
well. Chin up. Never too late to turn things
around.
A: That’s the
spirit!
B: Stockton Heath,
you say? Eighty-five pence, please.
A: Certainly. Here
you are.
B: Marvellous. Thank
you. Hey! Where are you going?
A: Stockton Heath.
B: But…? But
why are you getting off the bus?
A: Chase me.
B: Chase you? All
the way to Stockton Heath?
A: Yes.
B: In a big, red,
cardboard bus?
A: Yes.
B: Are you mad?
A: No, I’m
just, very much, influenced by the surrealist
movement of public transport customers.
|
