It had been many years since I was last on a commuter train. This is not, I confess, a particular source of sadness. From an early age, it was noted that my concept of personal space was not dissimilar to the Roman Empire’s view of physical space – what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine too. Those long legs beg to be stretched. But if you can take the boy out of the City, you cannot entirely take the City out of the boy and so, an afternoon in my old haunts led to the 4:58 back out to the ‘burbs.
It was, as I feared, rammed. Disappointing. Thursdays are the City’s party nights. My companions really should have had bars to go to. I took an aisle seat, memories of previous discomfort kicking in. Across from me was a black guy in a grey tracksuit. Stained. The multiple colours suggested he might have been a painter but who knows?
We chugged out of the station and a bottle appeared from his pocket. Red wine. Drinking on trains. Hmm. On the one hand, any documentary about a luxury rail journey suggests that the staff see their core function to be hosing their clients in champagne. Metropolitan line tubes, I believe, used to have a bar. But, on the other, from terminus to terminus was 35 minutes. Did he really need it that badly?
The bottle was opened. Some time passed. Letting it breathe, no doubt. (It was M&S Malbec. It probably needed all the help it could get). Then a swig. A long one. Then another. The woman next to him got off, so he spread out. His phone was produced. Some scrolling, then some music. Strangely reminiscent of the hip-hop half time show at the Superbowl a few years back.
“Shut that fucking music off” came the cry from over my shoulder. Merely the first mention of “fuck” which would, by the end of the event, have been taken through all the basic parts of speech, and many of the more advanced ones too.
“Shut the fuck up, you cracker white boy.” My music-loving companion seemed disgruntled by the intervention. Attack is often the best form of defence, so he raised the ante. His interlocutor had “soft eyes and soft balls” [No doctor, let alone a genitourinary one – is this a bad thing? Would it need to be looked at?]
Threats were issued. Manhoods were challenged. They stood up. They sat down, a moral victory claimed the black guy.
“I’d like the police, please.” The white guy had produced his own phone and called 999. He had, he told the operator, been racially abused. Something had to be done. The other guy had to be arrested either on the train, or as soon as he got off. What the operator made of this, I cannot tell but the “victim” seemed pacified.
The “offender”, however, was not. He had, he argued merely given a factual description of the other guy. He was white, so he referred to him as a white guy. [The usage of the term “cracker” appeared to have slipped his mind. Perhaps it was the wine.] What’s wrong with that? There was a long diatribe about English law albeit perhaps not one meeting the highest standards of the bar. A woman stood up and attempted to calm the black guy down. Blessed is the peacemaker.
But, as Donald Trump is discovering, if you would make peace, both parties must want peace. And on that train, neither did. The white guy was a failure because he was on a train. [The eagle-eyed may have noted the black guy was too]. The white guy didn’t drive. A key chain was produced. “See that, that’s the key for a Jaguar.” Had she only known, the elocution teacher at my ex-wife’s finishing school would probably have stopped drilling her pupils to say “My father’s car’s a Jaguar” on the spot.
They carried on. The station arrived. The black guy stood up. To the disappointment of the white guy, the platform wasn’t lined with Plod. More shouting. Then an exit.
Just because a spot has burst does not always mean that it will no longer be scratched. “You’ve just got to do something. You can’t let them get away with that sort of thing” the white guy said to no-one in particular and everyone in general. “You’ve got to take a stand.”
“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You did the right thing. You’ve got to take a stand. I’ll back you up. You know, if anything comes of it. There are plenty of witnesses. What an idiot.” A woman agreed. Not, it transpired a friend or partner, just a fellow member of the Silent (or headphone-owning) Majority.
This seemed to occasion a thought in the white guy. The phone came out again. 999 was dialled again. Reference was made to the previous call. Questions were asked. Why had the black guy not been arrested? Why were there no police at the station? When would they catch him? Not having a huge amount to go on and probably having more serious crimes to deal with, it appeared that trawling through CCTV footage to find a guy who had had a tiff with another guy was not that near the top of the Met’s “to-do” list.
This was unsatisfactory. The 999 operator was “wasting” the white guy’s time. It was people like him (her?) who were letting the country go to the dogs. It was people like him (her?) who were forcing people to take matters into their own hands. And we pay tax for this? The call was hung up.
Like a mighty oak from a small acorn, this small episode grew into a searing and impassioned critique of modern Britain, once more addressed to no-one in particular and everyone in general. Once more the lady chipped in when it seemed appropriate. Sometimes, it seems, you need to take matters into your own hands.
I got off the train. So did the white guy. Not, I admit, a source of complete comfort.
He walked home a hero, the adrenaline no doubt coursing through his body. He had stood up to be counted. In his small way, he had tried to take his country back. His friends at the pub would no doubt hail him when he told them (the first time, anyway). They might even buy him a pint.
But what had he achieved? If he wanted the carriage to be quieter, that hadn’t really worked, had it? The tinny hip-hop from the phone transformed into a stand-up (and sit-down) fight. If he was protecting those threatened by the words of what I think may have been Snoop Dogg, he had done so by making them feel threatened by the prospect of a fight. Like many people, he had solved one problem by creating a different, bigger problem.
I walked home a witness. A witness to a cock fight. Two egos squaring off – one seeking to defend its assumed rights, the other to position itself as a defender of all that is good and noble and true. No great crime, no act of great moral valour, just a dick-measuring contest between two dicks.
So why didn’t I do anything? Well, as Donald the Peacemaker put it, if you’ve got two dogs fighting, you’ve got to let them fight for a bit before you separate them. A man gets involved in one of these things, he’s a threat to one, the other or both. A woman, feminism notwithstanding, is not. Most of all though, I was enjoying the show…
Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.
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On a 35 minute journey frankly both were childish but acting with the sense of entitlement that is now commonplace.
I’m surprised that “cracker white boy” said anything in the first place. Most people pride themselves on “minding their own business”, saying nothing in any public fracas, in my limited experience. I very seldom travel by train and only use my beloved bus pass occasionally, trying to wean myself off driving (I won’t be driving by the time I reach my next ‘big number’ birthday – the roads are full of mad people breaking the rules all the time and it’s getting to me) and the most annoying thing I see on the buses is the way the majority of people spend the entire journey scrolling through their phones. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I yelled “Stop that! Look out of the window, see the sunshine/the trees/the busy motorway!” But I don’t risk it. Glasgow can be a very dangerous place.
I enjoyed the article and it cleverly painted a picture of life in the UK today – not least the way alcohol is so important to so many people that – as in this case – there are those who cannot even make a 35 minute journey without it. I am an avid reader of thrillers, and it is noteworthy how many characters kick off their shoes on arrival home from work and make for the fridge to open a bottle of wine. Centre-stage in the lives of so many, sadly. The good news is that all the studies show (and my 20 year old great-nephew confirms) the young are turning away from drink in large numbers.
The outcome of the 999 call in the article is comical – they must get some hilarious calls and this one would rank high, I imagine, in their tea-break chats.
A sense of proportion is necessary, was it a 70cl M&S Merlot or one of those little single glass sized bottles? If the former it does tend to shriek wino alert (but surely not of the typical M&S Merlot drinking fraternity – don’t be such a snob Stewart, up North anything from M&S is considered aspirational), if the latter then this suggests, to me, someone who just likes a drink and it’s nobody else’s business.
I wholeheartedly agree it’s annoying (but still nobody else’s business) to see people of all ages glued to their mobiles and oblivious to anything else.
Nathaniel,
When I used to say to young people that alcohol was OK in moderation, I was amazed at the number of times they would reply “but it never is”. It seems that life experience is coming home to roost in the souls of many young people raised in families where alcohol was a must-have for any celebration. I never drank because I couldn’t get near it for the smell of it, but I think I stood (or at parties, sat!) alone in my own family.
As far as I know from members of my extended family, that is still the case. That is why I remain appalled at the train passenger who could not wait for half-an-hour before having his wine. Doesn’t matter the size of the bottle – it is the principle of the matter to which I refer. Unlike Groucho Marx, I don’t have flexible principles, so I’m sticking to my opinion on this!
And of course, if people want to spend their journeys scrolling through their phones, that’s their business. I only said I wondered what would happen if I yelled “Stop it…” – I didn’t actually do it!