On The Road Observations.
23 November 2024
I couldn’t sleep for heartbreak over the things I sometimes see. I saw a man in the street whose feet were too small for his shoes were flapping about at the heel. One of his socks was stuck over his jeans. He was taking huge long strides and reeked of sadness.
Every time I travel or walk through town these days and my hips sway a little and my arse wiggles, I seem to stop and remind myself that I am old, a bit too fat, almost bald with roots so bad I look like a badger with a parting that even Jesus couldn’t match. Not only that, I could be walking around as a cancer carrier. It makes me look up a bit now. I used to keep my eyes on the ground and mind my own fucking business.
Now, I look around.
I glance at the feet and faces of the people around me. I see despair oozing from anyone on the same side of age as me in the street. I wonder what they’re carrying with them too.
I see strangers in headscarfs with umbrellas and Reebok trainers, pink and white, walking a few feet behind their partners or husbands who rock yellow gold rings with stones like boulders.
Stinking aftershave fumes that takes the hairs out my nose, fake Puma (Purna) tracksuit from Cheetham Hill and attitude to challenge Simon Cowell after forgetting to wear a fart-shield nappy in his skyscraper waist pants.
The girl smiles at me, delighted that I see him for the arsehole he appears to be. I curled my lip in disgust as he pushed past me when I crossed the road between two parked cars to avoid being crushed by a bus. She smiles and the sky cracked open wide. I smiled back and she must have felt as though the pavement had cracked over a sewer grid.
There’s an bunch of older, silver haired men. Raincoats and Nike trainers, Tesco carrier bags loaded with cider at 9:24 am. Crossing to the opposite side of the road heading towards the park. The dude with the dog-end hanging out of his hand rushing ahead whilst the other one is propelled forward by the rolled up newspaper wedged in one of his back pockets. He reminds me of a beaver with a paddle tail.
They look they’re on a mission to escape the community housing projects behind the big iron gate. All that was missing from this scene was a bookies and a Jack fucking Russell.
I’m not taking the piss.
These are my kind of people.
It’s those posh-folk who saunter downhill in headphones and red flared trousers, wearing woven fox-haired-tweed-bobby hats, tiny 90’s (wired with small orange sponge patches) headphones on and a huge Luis Vuitton luggage holder, alongside a grubby Oxfam Tote bag; probably loaded with literary contraband and a Eminem Album CD for their Sony Walkman. Those fuckers terrify me. Absolutely Alien to me on all accounts.