Empathy is not a Colour. Chapter 1
“Its cream and scum that rise.”
A Russian Proverb
It started up the Brow.
Blunt had had a fairly easy first spell. Short and fairly easy. Not to many pratts to have to deal with. He had worked out that one percent of London bus passengers were arseholes and ten percent the sort that made the day worthwhile with a please, a thank you and a smile. The rest were decent, quiet people trying to get to work, or shops, hospitals, cinemas and clubs, relatives, school, and all with the least hassle. The eighty-nine percent who helped humanity rub along.
Eight hundred people a day would go through his bus and eight would be foul. As if driving London traffic wasn't hard enough, he was sworn at, threatened with violence, spat at, by men, women, children, black, white, whatever. And to top it all, if robbed of the days fares the driver would have the amount he had taken in fares, taken from his wages by the company. Beaten up and robbed then shat on by the company.
Somewhere in London a bus driver will be assaulted today. He's seen as fair game. Just a bus. Not human but mere driver/bus and who can't respond to insult and disrespect because if reported, he would lose his job, income or worse. Prendergast, a driver out of Blunt's garage with a family to support and five years driving, had been confronted with racist abuse, vile and rabid, and he snapped, lost it, met the red mist. He was sent down for 18 months for GBH on one percent scum.
But that morning Blunt had a laugh at a passengers expense for a change. A young man, vain in his youth, had asked for a fare with a sneer and an Italian accent. Blunt liked Italy, enjoyed the hospitality but responded with a curt witticism, equating the youth with 'Il Cavalero', Italy's neo-fascist Prime Minister Berlusconi, the political buffoon of Europe. The Italian was visibly upset. A few stops later 'Il Cavalero' got off, strolled with a macho shoulder roll to the front of the bus and started giving Blunt the finger. As he was walking ahead, fingering while looking behind over his shoulder, Blunt and the bus watched, waited, gave him no sign, no warning. The Italian hit a lamp-post mid-stride. He didn't bounce but a ripple cascaded from head to toe. The whole bus heard the crack and rocked, mocking his embarrassment. It made for a laugh in the canteen during the break.
He was still enjoying the warmth of natural justice at the start of the second spell.
It was the first stop after taking over. He went through the usual routine, indicate, mirrors, ease up to the stop, handbrake, open back door, open front door, CCTV. Half a dozen passengers milled around - queues had vapourised eons ago - and started to board. A busy afternoon, Pensioners, women shopping and hauling kids, school students and the last, two young women. 16, 5 foot 7, or there abouts and still at school. The leading one, Fame Academy pretty and light skinned, flashed her pass and handed £1.00 to her friend for fare. She had a fierce glint in her eyes, her features sharp and glistening purple-black, handsome, proportioned, athletic and coiled. He thought he recognised her, but before it gelled he was hit with a blast of pre-meditated insult.
“Forty!” came out her mouth with all the bile, all the venom and spite usually reserved for the headlines attacking paedophiles in the News of the World. The Antipodean's vicious, racist press.
Putting on an ugly face she threw the £1 in the tray. Blunt had four hours ahead of him and didn't particularly want a ruck and stress this early on, so kept his response low key. Proportionality would be escalation.
“I would prefer you didn't throw your money in the tray”, he said with well concealed restraint.
Low key had no hope. Escalation was her aim. “I DIDN'T THROW IT".
Blunt still proceeded to get her ticket and change.
“Yes you did and why are you shouting?” He asked, starting to firm his voice. Gave her change and pointed to the ticket. As she went past the cab she spat out, “FUCK YOU.”
That was it for Blunt. He switched off the engine.
“This bus goes nowhere with you on it". The words following her up the stairs.
Blunt sat and waited. Not a murmur from the other passengers. An elderly black couple, pensioners in their grey haired dignity sitting very quite to his left, had taken in the scene. The young women could have been their grand-daughters. He thought they must be enjoying the boot on the other foot, having had this sort of abuse regularly for their last fifty years at least.
She came down a few minutes later demanding the 40p back. It was to late. The ticket machine only allows 60secs to annul a ticket. The 40p would have to come out of Blunt's pocket. No chance. He was not going to be insulted and abused then pay for the privilege. Her friend joined her, tense and aggressive, almost in tears and added to the noise.
A woman, black and in a blue dress, motherly, tried to intervene, sounding sympathetic to Blunt's plight.
“Stop doing this. Do you know what his licence is. It's his employment. His income.” The woman in blue pleaded. It had no impact what so ever on the young women.
What it did do was to bring a twenty-something black man wearing a black string vest into the melee. He came from upstairs and started to shout at the woman in blue.
“He's doing this to get out of a bad second spell. I know why he is doing this.” The black string vest shouted above the confusion. “You weren't even down here so can't know what happened”, Blunt tried to reason. Thinking the young women must have wound him up while upstairs.
The black string vest said, “I'm going to mash your face in. I'll be at your garage waiting for you to come off early and mash your face in. I know were your garage is. I know what you drivers are like.”
Blunt pressed Code Red, gave his location and asked for Police assistance. He then sat back, a bit stunned and waited while the passengers squabbled, the woman in blue still argueing his corner.
No police after five minutes so he pressed Code Red again. The din was getting louder if anything. This time when they responded he was more forceful in his demand for assistance.
“Can you hear what's going on down here. Get me some assistance before it really goes off!". He kept the mike open for thirty seconds so control could hear the cacophony.
“OK. They're on their way.” The TfL controller said finally recognising the seriousness of the situation.
The man in the black string vest got off the bus and came round to Blunt's window threatening again.
“I'm going to mash you up”, He said.
It was at this point that Blunt could finally see his eyes. They weren't wild from drugs or adrenalin, but clear and sharp, calculating. He was acting. Working? The Police arrived and he hurried away. The significance of the eyes wouldn't register for a few months. But it would.
All the while the pensioner couple remained seated absorbed in the mayhem, keeping council with their quite dignity.
Blunt didn't come off early but finished the spell. As he was driving through the gates back into the garage, Valerie Hancock was standing there with the youngest of her two daughters, Judith. 14 and painfully shy. Valerie was on permanent late shift. She worked rest days as often as she could and was always to be found hanging around allocations. The extra money always handy with two girls to raise on her own. He'd only ever seen the Hancock's in three's before.
Rachel, her oldest daughter was not with her. A thought occurred but got stuck. A flash of recognition had lit up a synapse in his brain, but instantly hit a plaque and was dissipated before it could materialise, exist, become concrete. But it would.
“Hello". Blunt called.
“How's your day been”, Valerie responded.
“Bloody awful”, he replied.
She tried to stiffle a giggle but failed.
Blunt put in an incident report the following day and made copies. One for the union branch's equal opportunities officer for her information. He gave another to the chair for it to be added to the union files.
He didn't know it then, but he was in a relapse. The first since the official diagnosis of multiple sclerosis six months before.
Poor Blunt. The next eight weeks would be the weirdest he ever experienced. No marijuana, could equal this. Highs and lows succeeding each other a minute, or an hour, an eon. He soared, euphoric amongst the stars, to the cutting edge of light and parted the curtain of time. Or he wallowed in a black hole of depression and the bone stretching pain at gravity's singularity.
But worst of all his personality regressed. He became needy. Fearful. Child like in his denials and his wants. Easy prey to be played with, be exploited, harmed and have his reputation trashed.
The storms would gradually ease. Not occur so often or be so intense. It allowed for short periods of rationality that got longer as time progressed. It was in these respites that the signals he noticed but ignored and the duplicitious signals he acted on, started to coalesce. The thoughts that had been blocked found ways through, connections were re-routed and bye-passed the plaques. They became concrete. Existed. But not a material force.
He began to make links from his time with the company and the incident. Fragments at first, building molecule by molecule to the certainty that they had organised the incident. The events of the day had been orchestrated. The onset of severe stress would release rogue prions to flood his central nervous system, attack the myelin. Make the attack acute. Viscious. It produced psychological storms and physical damage as his nerve cells scarred, disrupting the
transmission of electrical and chemical messages across the synapse.
They wanted rid of him and as damaged goods.
Blunt kept working for another six weeks, not realising that his auto-immune disease was active, when a hologram appeared in his eye. He knew then that he was in a relapse. The optical neuritis had told him. It occurred three days in a row. He went sick. It was the physical signs, which always came after the psychological disturbance, that had initially indicated he may have multiple sclerosis. Made him seek medical advice. The rogue prion attack showed itself with a vengence. The numbness down his left side deeped. A bit like a local anaesthetic before it finally wears off. This long ache had spread to his right arm. A patch on his back that flared was now larger and hotter. His balance was awry and he stumbled a lot. Only after this relapse would he recognise past episodes of psychological storms and the destruction they caused. The friends lost, the lovers spurned and the damage done. But then nobody knew he had multiple sclerosis till recently. What happened up the Brow and its aftermath was like nothing that had occured before.
They terminated his employement for health reasons sixteen weeks after the incident. There had been some re-myelation by then and he was heading toward remission, but Blunt was angry. Angry with eyes of blue hot steel and an ugly face. He knew he couldn't act rashly, so kept his council, didn't ruck when told they were terminating his employment, despite the provocation and the role of the man who dismissed him.
A Russian Proverb
It started up the Brow.
Blunt had had a fairly easy first spell. Short and fairly easy. Not to many pratts to have to deal with. He had worked out that one percent of London bus passengers were arseholes and ten percent the sort that made the day worthwhile with a please, a thank you and a smile. The rest were decent, quiet people trying to get to work, or shops, hospitals, cinemas and clubs, relatives, school, and all with the least hassle. The eighty-nine percent who helped humanity rub along.
Eight hundred people a day would go through his bus and eight would be foul. As if driving London traffic wasn't hard enough, he was sworn at, threatened with violence, spat at, by men, women, children, black, white, whatever. And to top it all, if robbed of the days fares the driver would have the amount he had taken in fares, taken from his wages by the company. Beaten up and robbed then shat on by the company.
Somewhere in London a bus driver will be assaulted today. He's seen as fair game. Just a bus. Not human but mere driver/bus and who can't respond to insult and disrespect because if reported, he would lose his job, income or worse. Prendergast, a driver out of Blunt's garage with a family to support and five years driving, had been confronted with racist abuse, vile and rabid, and he snapped, lost it, met the red mist. He was sent down for 18 months for GBH on one percent scum.
But that morning Blunt had a laugh at a passengers expense for a change. A young man, vain in his youth, had asked for a fare with a sneer and an Italian accent. Blunt liked Italy, enjoyed the hospitality but responded with a curt witticism, equating the youth with 'Il Cavalero', Italy's neo-fascist Prime Minister Berlusconi, the political buffoon of Europe. The Italian was visibly upset. A few stops later 'Il Cavalero' got off, strolled with a macho shoulder roll to the front of the bus and started giving Blunt the finger. As he was walking ahead, fingering while looking behind over his shoulder, Blunt and the bus watched, waited, gave him no sign, no warning. The Italian hit a lamp-post mid-stride. He didn't bounce but a ripple cascaded from head to toe. The whole bus heard the crack and rocked, mocking his embarrassment. It made for a laugh in the canteen during the break.
He was still enjoying the warmth of natural justice at the start of the second spell.
It was the first stop after taking over. He went through the usual routine, indicate, mirrors, ease up to the stop, handbrake, open back door, open front door, CCTV. Half a dozen passengers milled around - queues had vapourised eons ago - and started to board. A busy afternoon, Pensioners, women shopping and hauling kids, school students and the last, two young women. 16, 5 foot 7, or there abouts and still at school. The leading one, Fame Academy pretty and light skinned, flashed her pass and handed £1.00 to her friend for fare. She had a fierce glint in her eyes, her features sharp and glistening purple-black, handsome, proportioned, athletic and coiled. He thought he recognised her, but before it gelled he was hit with a blast of pre-meditated insult.
“Forty!” came out her mouth with all the bile, all the venom and spite usually reserved for the headlines attacking paedophiles in the News of the World. The Antipodean's vicious, racist press.
Putting on an ugly face she threw the £1 in the tray. Blunt had four hours ahead of him and didn't particularly want a ruck and stress this early on, so kept his response low key. Proportionality would be escalation.
“I would prefer you didn't throw your money in the tray”, he said with well concealed restraint.
Low key had no hope. Escalation was her aim. “I DIDN'T THROW IT".
Blunt still proceeded to get her ticket and change.
“Yes you did and why are you shouting?” He asked, starting to firm his voice. Gave her change and pointed to the ticket. As she went past the cab she spat out, “FUCK YOU.”
That was it for Blunt. He switched off the engine.
“This bus goes nowhere with you on it". The words following her up the stairs.
Blunt sat and waited. Not a murmur from the other passengers. An elderly black couple, pensioners in their grey haired dignity sitting very quite to his left, had taken in the scene. The young women could have been their grand-daughters. He thought they must be enjoying the boot on the other foot, having had this sort of abuse regularly for their last fifty years at least.
She came down a few minutes later demanding the 40p back. It was to late. The ticket machine only allows 60secs to annul a ticket. The 40p would have to come out of Blunt's pocket. No chance. He was not going to be insulted and abused then pay for the privilege. Her friend joined her, tense and aggressive, almost in tears and added to the noise.
A woman, black and in a blue dress, motherly, tried to intervene, sounding sympathetic to Blunt's plight.
“Stop doing this. Do you know what his licence is. It's his employment. His income.” The woman in blue pleaded. It had no impact what so ever on the young women.
What it did do was to bring a twenty-something black man wearing a black string vest into the melee. He came from upstairs and started to shout at the woman in blue.
“He's doing this to get out of a bad second spell. I know why he is doing this.” The black string vest shouted above the confusion. “You weren't even down here so can't know what happened”, Blunt tried to reason. Thinking the young women must have wound him up while upstairs.
The black string vest said, “I'm going to mash your face in. I'll be at your garage waiting for you to come off early and mash your face in. I know were your garage is. I know what you drivers are like.”
Blunt pressed Code Red, gave his location and asked for Police assistance. He then sat back, a bit stunned and waited while the passengers squabbled, the woman in blue still argueing his corner.
No police after five minutes so he pressed Code Red again. The din was getting louder if anything. This time when they responded he was more forceful in his demand for assistance.
“Can you hear what's going on down here. Get me some assistance before it really goes off!". He kept the mike open for thirty seconds so control could hear the cacophony.
“OK. They're on their way.” The TfL controller said finally recognising the seriousness of the situation.
The man in the black string vest got off the bus and came round to Blunt's window threatening again.
“I'm going to mash you up”, He said.
It was at this point that Blunt could finally see his eyes. They weren't wild from drugs or adrenalin, but clear and sharp, calculating. He was acting. Working? The Police arrived and he hurried away. The significance of the eyes wouldn't register for a few months. But it would.
All the while the pensioner couple remained seated absorbed in the mayhem, keeping council with their quite dignity.
Blunt didn't come off early but finished the spell. As he was driving through the gates back into the garage, Valerie Hancock was standing there with the youngest of her two daughters, Judith. 14 and painfully shy. Valerie was on permanent late shift. She worked rest days as often as she could and was always to be found hanging around allocations. The extra money always handy with two girls to raise on her own. He'd only ever seen the Hancock's in three's before.
Rachel, her oldest daughter was not with her. A thought occurred but got stuck. A flash of recognition had lit up a synapse in his brain, but instantly hit a plaque and was dissipated before it could materialise, exist, become concrete. But it would.
“Hello". Blunt called.
“How's your day been”, Valerie responded.
“Bloody awful”, he replied.
She tried to stiffle a giggle but failed.
Blunt put in an incident report the following day and made copies. One for the union branch's equal opportunities officer for her information. He gave another to the chair for it to be added to the union files.
He didn't know it then, but he was in a relapse. The first since the official diagnosis of multiple sclerosis six months before.
Poor Blunt. The next eight weeks would be the weirdest he ever experienced. No marijuana, could equal this. Highs and lows succeeding each other a minute, or an hour, an eon. He soared, euphoric amongst the stars, to the cutting edge of light and parted the curtain of time. Or he wallowed in a black hole of depression and the bone stretching pain at gravity's singularity.
But worst of all his personality regressed. He became needy. Fearful. Child like in his denials and his wants. Easy prey to be played with, be exploited, harmed and have his reputation trashed.
The storms would gradually ease. Not occur so often or be so intense. It allowed for short periods of rationality that got longer as time progressed. It was in these respites that the signals he noticed but ignored and the duplicitious signals he acted on, started to coalesce. The thoughts that had been blocked found ways through, connections were re-routed and bye-passed the plaques. They became concrete. Existed. But not a material force.
He began to make links from his time with the company and the incident. Fragments at first, building molecule by molecule to the certainty that they had organised the incident. The events of the day had been orchestrated. The onset of severe stress would release rogue prions to flood his central nervous system, attack the myelin. Make the attack acute. Viscious. It produced psychological storms and physical damage as his nerve cells scarred, disrupting the
transmission of electrical and chemical messages across the synapse.
They wanted rid of him and as damaged goods.
Blunt kept working for another six weeks, not realising that his auto-immune disease was active, when a hologram appeared in his eye. He knew then that he was in a relapse. The optical neuritis had told him. It occurred three days in a row. He went sick. It was the physical signs, which always came after the psychological disturbance, that had initially indicated he may have multiple sclerosis. Made him seek medical advice. The rogue prion attack showed itself with a vengence. The numbness down his left side deeped. A bit like a local anaesthetic before it finally wears off. This long ache had spread to his right arm. A patch on his back that flared was now larger and hotter. His balance was awry and he stumbled a lot. Only after this relapse would he recognise past episodes of psychological storms and the destruction they caused. The friends lost, the lovers spurned and the damage done. But then nobody knew he had multiple sclerosis till recently. What happened up the Brow and its aftermath was like nothing that had occured before.
They terminated his employement for health reasons sixteen weeks after the incident. There had been some re-myelation by then and he was heading toward remission, but Blunt was angry. Angry with eyes of blue hot steel and an ugly face. He knew he couldn't act rashly, so kept his council, didn't ruck when told they were terminating his employment, despite the provocation and the role of the man who dismissed him.
posted by les at 10:18
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