They're real. ... They're among us! They have real names and beerbreaths and ... grey anoraks. And they ride Lothian Buses (your locally owned buses). The average Irvine Welsh novel character. They're not fictive. Not that I ever assumed so, but yesterday on my way home from Ocean Terminal, reality kicked in like with an empty bottle of lager. I took the bus number 1, the one that goes down Easter Road, passing the Hibs' stadium. It had been a football sunday. And there he was. He was sitting with his two sons in a four people compartment with a table; I took the remaining seat and had a close look at the average working class wasted life loser as they describe them in the books I read. He was sitting opposite me, the two kiddos - they were about five and seven - occupying the seats next to the window, through which they were staring silently out into the night during the whole duration of the ride. They had Hibs scarfs and the one next to his father had a wee golden earring and freckles. The father looked grey and worn, the way you look after too much drink and too much shit in just too short a life, with leathery skin and thin hair. Every now and again he would say something to the kids, mainly asking them wether they wanted him to bring them back to their mother, adressing them as "son" after every sentence, as if to prevent them from forgetting they were his sons. The kids would say nothing, hardly reacting at all to what their father said or did, and just kept on staring out of the window with their sad little faces. And the father would stop saying things and just take another sip of the can of Tennents that he was holding on to.
His whole existence seemed so clear to me: shagged a random girl when he was younger, she got pregnant, so they married, both hardly old enough to do so. They had another kid, after which she couldn't take his drinking habits any more and ran away with another guy who took her to Paris (or any other fancy stereotypical place) and they got divorced, after which he hasn't anybody left, his only remaining pleasure being taking his boys to see the Hibs every now and again to stop them from calling the other guy "Dad".
But maybe I just didn't finish "Glue" long enough ago.
4 comments:
Entschuldige, Süße, daß ich so lange keinen Kommentar geschrieben habe.
Deine Geschichte finde ich sehr schön. Und auch traurig.
Schon mal daran gedacht, statt Lehrer Romancieuse zu werden?
geht nich, romancieusen duerfen von Gesetz her nicht fluchen, hab ich mir sagen lassen und das waer doch ne verdammte Fickscheisse.
eine verhurte wäre das!
ein verspaeteter kommentar: frau fleck, auch ich finde deine geschichte sehr schoen. und auch traurig. fluchen wiederum finde ich sehr sinnvoll und so stimme ich dir zu. romancieuse hoert sich auch nach schwuler arschrotze an. ih, ich habe mich gerade vor mir selbst geekelt. schuess.
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