the sun was shining. it was an extraordinarily warm day for March. i stood, in a queue, ready to board the #38 that would take me from Glenrothes to Kirkcaldy.
in times of boredom, in public places, i turn to people-watching. it’s something inherent in all of us, stemming from our primal ‘fight or flight’ syndrome.
and so… i stood in the queue, bored. the driver stepped off the bus, lit a cigarette and inhaled deep. he slunked off in the direction of the drivers’ mess, closing the bus doors behind him.
directly in front of me was a young man, in his early twenties. his skin bore the scars of teenage acne, and a permanent smudge of a self-penned tattoo on his neck that read ‘RFC Forever’.
[i bet he regrets that now…]
i watched as he took a dirty, half-smoked roll-up from behind his ear and lit it; his nicotine-stained fingers fumbling and trembling in what seemed like desperation.
behind me, a child let out a squeal of excitement. i turned around and saw a little boy of around 3 years old strapped into a buckled push chair. he stretched out his little arms to me. his face was grubby but he was smiling. his wire-frame mother threw me a hostile glance as she spat harsh words directed at ‘The Sperm Donor’ [her words, not mine!]: something about his child being “a needy wee basturd!”. the same ‘needy wee basturd’ that giggled each time she spat on the ground, applauding her with his chubby little hands.
“again!” he chuckled.
The Wire-Frame Mom continued to amuse her child by gobbing globs of sputum onto the pavement by my feet while the ‘needy wee basturd’ continued to spur her on. i felt quite disturbed.
she opened a plastic bottle containing a blue sugary substance and thrust it into the giggling Needy Wee Basturd’s grubby, grabbing hands. he xeroxed her hostile glance to me, took a gulp of the blue toxic substance and fixed his eyes back on his Wire-Frame Mom, urging her to play the spitting ‘game’ again.
“again!!” he squealed.
this time, she ignored him, and so, his eyes turn to me.
ten minutes later and the kid was still giving me the death-stare.
[how curious]
i smiled at him. nothing. The Needy Wee Basturd just kept staring. unblinking.
[wow… an odd child…]
he kept staring.
[little freak… that’s been almost 15 minutes… and where the fuck is the bus driver…?]
feeling a little creeped out by this, i gave him my best voodoo stare. startled, he finally looked away, reaching for his mother’s wire-frame hand.
just then, a new smiley-faced driver arrived and boarded the bus. i turned to face the tattooed neck of The Needy Wee Basturd’s Sperm Donor and watched as he flicked his fag doup into an oily puddle.
finally, the bus doors opened and a bunch of cauliflower-heads shuffled on board, jostling with their elbows and flashing their concessionary passes.
a queue formed quickly.
i found myself watching a young man in a wheelchair. i felt for the man, and wondered of his circumstances. how did he end up like this? what quality of life did he have? well-dressed, he had style, nice wheels, and a very nice Leica camera around his neck. he fondled it affectionately in his lap.
admiring the camera, i watched him press the shutter. it was a beautiful machine. i have always wanted a Leica… but they are really expensive. what a beautiful sound it made.
but my gut instinct told me that something was not right with this picture. i watched as he continued to press the shutter. something else clicked, inside me. i followed the lens and saw, to my horror, that he was covertly capturing pictures of a young girl, in a short summer skirt. he kept clicking. his shutter finger not impeded by disability, or his use of the motorised control of his wheelchair as he crept closer to the girl’s legs. i was shocked. he was relentless. he kept clicking, discreetly, as he edged closer to the oblivious nymphet. i watched as the Crippled Creep motioned to her to board before him. how deviously polite. all the while he was slyly garnering up-skirt pictures of those long, strong and shapely legs.
[what a creep! am i the only one who sees this…?]
i knocked on the perspex panel of the bus shelter, motioning to him that i had seen what he was up to and intimated that i had filmed his actions. his face reddened and i stared him down, as he cowered into the prison of his wheelchair.
truth is, my phone’s battery had died, but he wasn’t to know that.
as i boarded the bus and paid my fare, i reported the incident to the driver then sat in the first available seat. the driver said he would call it in to the HQ.
i could hear him on his mobile phone, talking to the Bus Station Supervisor.
immediately, my mind went into overdrive:
‘who was this guy?’
‘are the walls of his bedsit covered with pictures of oblivious young girls that he covets and masturbates over?’
‘is he dangerous?’
‘what if he’s stalking her…?’
‘will the Bus Station Supervisor call the Police… what would the Police do?’
fight or flight. it is an innate judgement we make every day about situations, about people.
today was no different. at first, like the other passengers, i really felt for the man in the wheelchair. i was saddened to see someone so young held prisoner by his own body. i wondered how it came to be that he was disabled, or if he was born this way. crippled.
but that all changed, in the click of a shutter. i could see he was using his disadvantage to his advantage. less observant passengers gave way to him, allowing him access to board first. by doing this, they unwittingly cleared a path for him so that he could creep forward and closer to that young girl’s legs.
we all judge. we all make up our minds about a person within the first minute of each chance encounter. it’s what we do. we do this as a survival tactic to judge a situation to see if it is a potential threat to our existence – hence ‘fight or flight’.
feeling shocked and frustrated, the best i could think of doing was to share this story; to warn others of the importance of remaining vigilant. to many, myself included, the man in the wheelchair required assistance and was given that, with much pathos and respect.
just how blinkered were we?
(c) Kat McDonald 2014
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