Aww, Look . . .

After aborting a world wide jaunt with my grandfather in 1965, I returned to London where I stayed for a few months. I had barely enough money to survive though I did find a flat in Ladbroke Grove. It was on the first floor (that would be the second floor to Americans). My window opened onto the roof of the covered entryway to the building. I used to sit out there, watch the traffic go by and smile at the surprised faces of top-deck bus passengers as they noticed me.

I was nineteen years old and, as I said, money was short. Every few days I'd take the number 23 bus to the American Express in Haymarket to see if there was any money from home. On the way back, I'd walk up Regent street to the Boots Chemist and go upstairs to where they sold books. I'd browse the science fiction section and usually manage to pocket one or two (you do what you have to do). Then I'd walk to Oxford Street and catch the 23 back to my flat. The conductors on the busses were usually around my age. When asked for the fare, I'd often say, "Four pence," the cheapest fare there was. I didn't always feel that I could get away with that but usually it worked. Possibly the tacit fellowship of poor youths was responsible. Anyway, that ploy was taught me by students around my own age whom I'd met in Trafalgar Square, the same ones who helped me find my flat.

Arriving home, I'd put up my books and take my beer bottle, it held two pints and had a wooden plug with coarse screw threads, down to the pub around the corner and have it filled for less than two shillings. Then on to the fish and chip shop for my daily meal which I would drown in malt vinegar and cary home. If the day was reasonably fair or at least not rainy, I'd sit out on my "balcony" with my meal, my beer and my book.

Riding on the bus, I always wanted to sit on the top level at the front where I could see out the front windows. Failing that, I'd sit in the rear-most seat on the left at the back. There was a heater there that protruded from the wall of the bus which I'm sure was welcome in the dead of winter when it can be very cold in London. For some reason, that seat was almost always empty.

One particularly dreary, drizzly day, on my way home, I was sitting in the rear seat when two women came up the stairs and sat two rows in front of me. The were in the middle of a conversation about several of their friends, calling them names that implied that they were of less than pristine virtue. Their language was not exactly appropriate for family audiences either. It occurred to me that they had just come from a pub where they had had more than their share of beer. Abruptly, the woman sitting on the aisle said, "I want a wee." She stood up, moved back to the row of seats in front of me, hiked up her skirt and pulled down her panties and squatted, one hand on the back of the seat in front of her and on hand on the seat behind her saying, "I've got to have my wee." And she did. While she was draining herself she asked rather loudly, "Why is everybody looking out the windows?" and a moment later added, "It's raining outside, it's raining inside." None of the other passengers even stirred.

When she was finished, she stood up, pulled up her underwear and went back to where she had been sitting as if nothing had happened. When I looked down, I saw a rather large puddle surging back and forth with the movement of the bus. I put my feet up on the edge of the heater to keep them dry. A few minutes later, she looked back over the seats at me and said, "Aww, look. He's got his little shoes up!" Not long after that, they disembarked. The odor was beginning to be noticable and it was not long before I was the last passenger on the top deck. Finally, I had to go downstairs and sit on one of the sideways seats.

The conductor, who was a big burly West Indian, went up the stairs, and very quickly came back down. "Somebody's wet my bus!" I was grateful I was only  two stops away from home.