They got the afternoon bus on purpose.
The afternoon bus wasn't going to be crammed with folks heading to work.
NOTHING WORSE than a thick bus: the stench, the fog, the flies - a crammed bus is an ugly ungodly business to be a part of.
No sir. Greg wasn't having any of that nonsense.
He needed a clean open space and a time to think and a chance to drink - booze and the mental process were the same and one to him and Greg could just not afford the risk of being thrown off the bus for public intoxication if someone caught him in the act. No. He needed to drink in peace. It was the only way he could think. And there would be no way he would be able to think not while inside a prison cell.
So there was the bus, perfectly clean except for Pete and Greg and one other weird looking old guy sitting at the back with this dazed and delirious looking cocker spaniel - that dog looked more drunk than Pete and Pete up until that point had been drinking rather a lot!
Halfway on the journey Pete fell asleep. The stupor had kicked him down before it had been given the chance to kick in. Pete was typically a light sleeper but he was full asleep then - snoring like a sea lion sleeping atop the body of a defeated polar bear. Earths largest land predator brought down by a lump of blubber and skin - and therein lies the truth of it... The dream of the dreamer is just the dream - and when Pete suddenly arose from the thickness of his booze tinted slumber he still thought he was dreaming.
And that was a problem.
'Where am I?' he said slowly. 'What am I doing... I... I...'
'We are on a quest Pete, remember?' said Greg. 'We are going to travel far and wide and we are going to solve this bloody murder!'
'Why is there a giant spider on the bus?' said Pete. 'O God! Help me... I can't... I can't breathe - my heart! My heart is going to burst out of my chest! Damn it I am dying! Greg I think I am finally going to die!'
Pete was sweating, and he started thrashing his arms about like a drowning man. He really did look like someone who was about to die.
'I am not ready... I am not ready for the tremens - not yet! Please help me!' said Pete. Pete started to gag. He grabbed his chest where his heart was and started screaming. 'I am not ready Greg! Help me! Please!'
Greg told his friend to remain clam. Greg had a solution brewing.
There was only one way to keep the tremens away - and that was more booze.
Luckily they had a backpack full of the stuff - spiced wine: G-Juice, yeah, the bad stuff.
Greg clicked open a bottle and told his friend to drink, but Pete was all shaky and sweaty and looked pale - he was already halfway from the doors of hell - poor sod.
So Greg stepped in and did what he had to do, 'Hold on Pete,' he said. 'You are going to have to hit this Bukowski style.' Grabbing his friend by the neck he pulled his head back and cocked the bottle horizontally so that the juice would run right down the man's throat sliding directly into his guts.
Pete blinked. After a second Bukowski session he finally started relaxing. Some colour was restored to his flesh. Pete was looking like Pete again.
'You alright?' said Greg.
'Fine thanks,' said Pete who then sighed. 'Just fine, thanks mate.'
'Any more giant spiders?'
'No more giant spiders,' said Pete. 'I am sorry about that!'
'Such things happen to the best of us,' said Greg.
Pete opened a second bottle and did what he had to do. Anything to keep the spiders at bay. Greg nodded approvingly. He was proud of his friend filling his soul with that second bottle. Greg couldn't help but respect a man who was fully drunk, especially at daytime.
And that was when Greg and Pete were thrown off of the bus.
'I ain't walking,' said Pete. 'We are going to have to wait for another one.'
'Fine,' said Greg. 'There is a sign over there. Let's go up and wait by it.'
'Fine.'
But in reality there was little that was actually fine about their situation.
They were drunk and stranded in the countryside, fields east west and north of them - and a vast stretch of oak and beech wood territory to the south. The only thing they could see that made sense was the road and that went on and on and on. There was no way they were going to be walking on that thing. It just went on forever, and forever is a lot of walking in a single lifetime. They were going to have to wait in that shelter even if it meant holding on all day even if it meant the next bus was crammed, they were going to get on the thing and sail right out of the no-man's land they were stuck in.
Just at that moment a strange old man struck up from behind a hedge. Any other day Pete and Greg would have made a quick dash for it in the opposite direction, but even from a distance the old man had an innocent look about him. He looked pathetic, nervous, defeated everything and anything except dangerous. He had a bent back and he needed to keep a hold over the hedge or tree or whatever was at hand to keep himself upright and he kind of sort of crawled towards the lads. It looked like the man was about to die, but he wasn't drunk. This was just the natural order of things to the old man.
Once he was up close the old man started to speak. He had a gentle voice that was pleasant to listen to. He sounded like the kind of man who would have been good reading the bible to people, his voice had a soft kind of educated rhythm to it. His voice took off the edge of the idea that he might have been someone insane or a weirdo up to mischief.
The first couple of words that bounced off of his tongue were these:
'Are you alright if I talk to you lads for a minute? It is a lonely old life being an old man living in a hedge. I live in a hedge or sometimes under a tree depending on the weather. It can be pleasant sleeping under a tree - O yes that is the life for me! You two are not Irish are you?'
'No. We are from the west side of the wall - Crow Country,' said Pete.
'O! That is okay then! I have always had trouble with the Irish ever since they settled in the north. They joke about me. They like to call me an old toothless feck!'
'That is too bad,' said Greg.
'O it's alright. I am old. I have been called worse. I was in the war don't you know?' said the old man.
He was starting to sound like Greg's gramps! 'O yeah which one was that?' said Greg. 'The Falklands I presume?'
'Nay lad. WW2! I turn ninety this year!'
'Ninety hey? Wow! I would never have thought it! Why you don't look a day older than eightynine.'
The old man thanked Greg for the compliment.
'Thank you,' said the old man. 'Tis a rare thing to meet a polite couple of fellas on the road, people like you who have still got time for old folks like me. I fought for this country back in the day. I was part of the resistance! The British didn't send any soldiers to help. Forgot about us. Bunch of traitors! Well it didn't matter in the end because we didn't need them. We got those nasty fascists out and I am proud to have been a part of that great fight!'
'That is good to hear!' said Pete raising his wine bottle as a kind of faux salute to the old man's heroism.
'They don't care much for the war veterans nowadays,' the old man went on. 'It is not just here it is everywhere. Folks forget the bravery given up by those rotting in the skin of the earth today. Nobody knows that I was in the war fighting for freedom. No sir. Most people they just jeer me off of the streets! Most of the people living in these parts are of Irish stock and they enjoy being mean to me because like you lads I am from the West. But you get used to it. The war gave me a thick skin! That is the one thing I am grateful to the army for giving me nerves of steal, the kind of steal that lets a man sleep under a windy tree in the sleet snow and the rain! No. I don't mind the Irish, not really.' And then the old man crept closer and in a whispery voice that he really didn't want anybody else hearing - perhaps forgetting that he was alone and out in open empty country - and then he said this: 'it is them Italians I am wary of. Italian Americans from New York - Mafia backed if you get my meaning? They came here to do business and since then they have kind of sort of taken over the place. I don't like it. NO sirs I don't! They are a threat I tell you! Something needs to be done. The police need to get involved and split them up. Darn Italians! I can see what they are up to, you know? I am not stupid. They come over and they are all friendly to begin with, I remember, all fancy words like: "We will help you sort this place out! We will invest! We will make the country rich! Leave it all to us! We know what we are doing..." Then before you know it they are taking our jobs and stealing our women. Not that the women ever cared much about me.'
'Snap!' said Greg.
'Snap me two!' spoke up Pete. 'Most women are trying to put me in prison...'
'I hear you,' the old man replied. 'It's mad! I read somewhere that the population is something like two thousand strong, and that some one thousand seven hundred of those souls are of the female variety so you would think with such crazy unbalanced dynamics going on among the populace it would be easy for a man to find himself a wife. Not so. The last lady I asked on a date kicked me fully and freely in the crotch. I couldn't walk for four days. I never tried to ask a lady out again. I sort of gave up after that.'
'It happens to the best of us,' said Greg. 'At school we were doing country dancing. Teacher says, "Get yourself a partner!" So I left to find myself a partner, asked a girl to dance with me. She almost scratched my face off! I still got the scars see?'
'I hear you lad,' said the old man. 'It is enough to turn anyone to the bottle. But I never did that, no not never. I always believed in the power of prayer and the good lord has steered me well away from the evils of the booze and I am grateful to him for that. There is no good in drinking! Water is fine but not the spirits! No sir! Keep those spirits far away from me thank you very much and I shall live happily!'
'We like to drink a lot Pete and I,' Greg replied. 'Our bags are full of the good stuff...'
'You should stop that drinking right now sons,' said the old man considerately. He had such an honest and sincere look about his wrinkly ancient face that Greg and Pete couldn't help but like the fellow. 'Seriously. Stop your drunken ways,' the old man continued. 'Life is tough BUT it is what it is. Right? Perk your ears and listen! After the war I suffered a lot. I had bad memories, I kept thinking about my mates who didn't make it home. Then one evening I was soaking in the familiar view of the Deadrock Point. It looked the same as always, wild and rough. It got me thinking about the books I read at school. Our ancestors landed on the those rocks back in days now long forgotten. Like everyone today they were on the run from something or other. They could have sailed on and forged a new world elsewhere, but then they found this island and decided to stay. The waves brought them right into the bay. They brought with them blood and bone, sinew and steal, but more than that they brought dreams. And they planted those dreams like a forester plants seeds. Their dreams would be trees - and these trees would sing the dreams when the wind was in their leaves. And on that evening I heard the song of dreams in the trees and out there the seas became calm, like a mirror, the sky was sleeping on its face full and fair - there was a sweet smell in the air, I do declare, the smell was sweet. Finally the moon met the sky, and the waters wrinkled slightly, and as the moon enjoyed its face in the mirror I watched the foam seal the shores and that was when I was sure I had found my little slice of Eden. I never let the image go. I let everything else go, my business, my home, but never the vision of the mirror in the sea. And even in the darkest days I can still hear the song of dreams, and my heart believes that with these dreams the world and man will one day be one.'
A bus popped into sight.
It was time to get on and get out.
KEEP PLAYING.
To Read GOX part 3 click here.
For more adventures set in the town of Fenwick check out:
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