ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
“What’s it to you, you putrid mutt?” she yelled.
The driver was taken aback but responded firmly.
“You need to pay like everyone else!”
It was a standard Tuesday morning on the D32 bendy bus coming in from Betoota Downs to the Old City District. Office people, tradespeople and other assorted serfs just trying to escape their collective realities on the way to work.
Most had their headphones in; most stared blankly around the bus or out the window.
There was a certain atmosphere of peace and polite decorum – which was broken shortly after Kimberly Jones stormed onto the omnibus just before Redwood Avenue.
“You’re holding everyone up, you fuck head,” she yelled back at the driver.
With a deep thump that reverberated around the bus, the driver flicked on the parking brake.
A collective sigh was let out.
“You either pay your fare, or you get off the bus,” he shot back.
That was when Mildred Hall pressed paused on Richard Fidler.
A man in the back decided to take matters into his own hands.
“Get off the fucking bus, mate. You’re going to make us all late,” he shouted.
Kimberly’s attention was momentarily drawn from the driver to the whispy-bearded man in the wearing a $340 off-the-rack suit.
“Buy a fucking car, you droopy-eyed fuck!” she screeched.
The droopy-eyed fuck sat back down.
Mildred locked eyes with a few other passengers, who were also reveling in the mid-morning drama.
As the argument – and time kept rolling on, the driver eventually caved in and pulled the door shut.
More to come.
