Thursday, 24/09 At the Bus Stop
The two of us approached the line of yellow mini-vans. They were meant to be delivering students to university but by the look of this morning’s huge crowd of students we weren’t going anywhere. There was a lot of us and not a bus in sight.
My friend and I tired to guess the best place to stand. With no lines, queues or system of any description to go by it went like this… a guy with a walkie-talkie and a cowboy hat stands in front of us directing the odd van that comes along every five minutes or so to an arbitrary position amongst the sea of jostling bodies. Cowboy hat shouts, points, gestures for us to stand back, mumbles into radio. Six or seven blessed souls claim their seats. Repeat after five minutes, maybe ten.
There was a period of particularly intense chaos, when the crowd of students seemed to swell, bordered by a layer of restless guys, ready to get angry at whoever tried to push in front. A couple of vans stopped too soon and broke the fragile flow. A traffic jam built up behind, horns crescendo-ed and those of us waiting further down the hill, supposedly at the front of the queue, look up at the mess with bored distraction.
There must have been a straw to break the camel’s back, a van driver doing something too stupid for those in charge to excuse. All of a sudden one of cowboy hat’s cronies was reeling back beside an open van window. He rebounded and thumped the driver square in the side of the head. Such was the force of this the recipient actually disappeared under his dash board momentarily. Having reappeared he didn’t return the blow, handing the guy on the street victory and authority. Smack! Another punch, although this one preempted and robbed of it’s full impact. The driver just stared ahead, sitting it out, accepting his guilt. Next, the angry man was trying to pull him out through the same window. All the while we still watched, still waited for our bus.
Eventually the driver stood on the street and bystanders held the assailant back from turning the cowering figure into pulp. The exact trigger for this frenzy was never revealed. A policeman arrived from the station up the road on a skittish motorbike and the scene took itself to one side. The back log of cars eased passed, towards us. About ten minutes later I had my seat, while my friend missed out and stayed there, waiting.
