Scene- A bus stop. A sits slumped relaxedly into a chair, B leans nervously off the edge of his seat. A clad , B in business attire. B is late for work; clearly agitated.
B checks his watch. Sighs.
B- (muttered) Oh where are you, number 42?
Gets up and inspects a board of bus times. Sound of a bus approaching,
B- Ah, at last!
Then sound of it rushing through the station, as B chases it across house left to right, possibly with a shout of frustrating before B turns and throws down his briefcase in frustration, which spills open and fires contents across the stage and towards where A sits (typical briefcase fare, but must include sandwiches, apple and pen. B storms across stage to rescues possession, and kicks a bin on the edge of the bus stop on the way, which clangs loudly, stirring
B- Oh, for gods sake!
A- (Jokily) Easy mate, calm down! Some of us might need to dispose of litter
B- (Through gritted teeth over his shoulder) Some of us have got bloody jobs to get to
A- Well, battering briefcases and bins won’t get you there any quicker, kid. You want a smoke?
B- No (forceful, then checks himself), thank you, I don’t smoke
A- Give over, I can tell you do... Go on.
B-(pauses a second, thrown by that remark) Look, I really don’t smoke.
A- Well, you did then. (B makes to speak, cut him off) Look at your hand. (Holding a pen like a cigarette) All of “us” (Quotation marks) have something like it, whenever our last puff was. It’s a defence mechanism. Like a kid sucking his thumb. (pause) Go on, it’ll calm you down.
B- (Long pause, then defeated sigh) Alright. It’s been a terrible week, and this bloody bus really is the last straw. (Takes what must be a fairly badly rolled cigarette and not a shop-bought one, and lights it)
A- What’s gone on then?
B- (Taken aback) You really want to know?
A- Sure. (pats seat beside him) Nothing else to do. I’m waiting, same as you.
B- For the 42?
A- For someone. Go on.
B- (Pauses then sits down. Takes first puff of cigarette, inhales deeply and almost coughs, then looks quizzically at it) God, it has been a long time since my last one. (Slightly suspicious) These taste different to my memory.
A- Good though, right?
B- (Thoughtfully) Yes... calming. Strangely so. I feel... good. (Smokes again, and continues to sporadically do so throughout this section)
A- ‘allelujah. Try not to throw anything else at me. You mentioned work?
B- (Resignedly) Alright. It’s just been so tough lately. Such a slog. I work in stock, which is obviously not doing well at the moment.
A- (Mockingly) “Obviously”.
B- (Defensively) Well, what with the downturn and greater bloody regulation it’s becoming harder and harder to make your cut, especially with all these bloody amateur speculators climbing in and flooding the market with idiot buys. You can’t read it like you used to. (Reminiscing) It used to be a sea: just a great wash of colour and random activity to some, but to the trained eye you could see that this squall meant there was going to be a storm and to get out now, and that this cloud meant clear skies and press on, and so on, and so on. There was art to it. Now it’s a bloody tsunami, a lottery. Stock just fluctuates at random. Coupled with dealing with my boss. God, he’s a bastard. I only work for a little firm on Gracechurch Street.
A- (Interrupts) What’s it called?
B- (Taken aback) Erm, Fryar and Sons (A sniggers) What? Why?
A- Nothing, don’t worry. So what does your boss do?
B- Well, he’s one of the Sons. He’s so. So hardnosed. So belligerent, never rewards success and leaps upon the failure. It’s like he’s decided what an “boss” should be but he’s still working out how to do it, and overuses aggression as a result. His dad was stern, but he wasn’t as much of a vindictive, foul tempered bastard. Gauging his moods is even harder than reading the bloody market. It used to be alright before Joe left (A sniggers again, B is perturbed) What now?
A- Nothing, nothing. Who’s Joe?
B- (Thrown, but continues) Well. He was. I suppose a friend. Same age as me, young for the trade. Got the bus with me from here actually. No matter how early I was, he would always be here when I arrived, dependable as ever. Worked with me on the floor, and knew his stuff with stock, but knew how to deal with Satan’s Son too. (A raises an eyebrow, B is slightly shocked) God, did I just say that? That’s what Joe used to call him. He was so neat with him in person, calmed in down, talked him round, but then he’d be so foul about him behind his back. All these little nicknames and character assassinations. It was funny. It kept me sane, at any rate.
A- What happened to him?
B- I’m not sure. (Throws cigarette into bin next to him) It was very strange. Just left about six weeks ago. Said he’d had an epiphany, and he knew what he wanted to do now, and it wasn’t “fucking stock broking”. Very strange. Good lord. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t even know your name.
A- (Playfully) Why do you think you are telling me this?
B- I don’t know. It’s strange. It seems to have helped. Like it doesn’t really matter.
A- It’s being away from your office, and your boss, and that bloody life. It’s bad for you man, trust me. (Suddenly serious) Take the day off. Go on.
B- Oh no, I couldn’t.
A- Why?
B- I’m onto something with B.A.T. I need to move something across. (A looks sneeringly away and slumps back exasperatedly, B misreads this and defensively cries) It’s important! I made £200 yesterday!
A-(Patronising) Well done you. I spent £200 yesterday!
B- Really? What on?
A- (Beckons closer) ... I bought a sofa... (almost whispered) and then I set it on fire.
B- Good god! Were you disappointed?
A- (Excitedly) Nah man, the flames were 8 feet high, that polyester stuffing they put in there, says its flame retardant, goes up like “WOOSH!” (wild gesture)
B- (Confused) I meant with the sofa.
A- Dunno really. Never sat on the thing.
B- Well, why on earth did you do it?
A- Why not! I felt like it! I wanted to see what would happen! To live a little, you know!
B- But... Where did you get the money? (A looks away a little surreptitiously, something dawns on B) You’re a thief, aren’t you!
A- Oi Oi! Oi. (last one is quieter but he jabs his finger into B’s chest) Easy. If I didn’t like you, I’d take that as a personal insult. Just cos people aren’t private-school big-city big- shots don’t mean they are robbers. You’ve got no idea what I do.
B- You’re right. Sorry. That was presumptious. My class leaks out of me sometimes. I apologise. I just feel a little flippant. Giddy almost. I don’t know what’s come over me. Forgive me.
A- Alright. Alright, don’t dig yourself too deep. (more relaxed)
B- (pause, where he inspects A) So... You... like me?
A- I dunno. You lot. You... fascinate me. I can’t work you out.
B- What do you mean “you lot”?
A- You shirt and tie nine to fivers, trooping back and forth on the same old buses to the same old places. I don’t why you do it.
B- (embarrassed)They pay us!
A- So?
B- (Confused and a little frustrated, B pauses as though it’s obvious)I need money.
A- Why?
B- (Somewhat disarmed) I don’t know. To live?
A- You don’t need little circles of metal and pieces of paper to live kid, you’ve been proving that since you were born. (B makes to speak, B cuts him off) Think about it. It’s almost funny. You’re a kid, not a care in the world, not pursuing anything, no real aspirations, happy just exploring, looking at everything, feeling everything, eating everything, working out what the world is and where you stand in it. All the big questions: What is “pain”? What are “colours”? (pause, then points at crotch) “what does this thing do?” and (Points wildly) “why hasn’t she got one?”. Your just getting a grip on it, feeling like you’ve got being sussed out, master of your domain, and you really want to go on, and know more, and then suddenly people start telling you what to do. Pack up your sandwiches, give you an apple and shove you glumly onto the bus to school. And cos you don’t yet know any better and you still think that, somehow, maybe they do, you go where they tell you. You waste your best years sitting there being told dry, irrelevant bollocks you’ll never use, cooped up indoors when you could be out really learning. But then, and here’s the part I really don’t understand. You finally get out. You finish school, or college, or University if you sound right. You are finally out of being obligated to have people rule your lives. Then what do you do. Fucking throw yourselves back in again! Back on the nine to five, back where people tell you what you need to do and you listen and you do it. But this time it’s worse. Because there’s no parent you trust in half telling, half making you do it. You know by now that it’s bollocks, and you hated it, and the best times of your life so far were when you were avoiding it and doing what you really wanted to do. But still thousands, millions of you do it. Pack up your own fucking sandwiches, take your own fucking apple and shove yourself on your own fucking bus.
B- (Distractedly) If it ever turns up...
A- (Snaps, and jumps up) Don’t you get it? Nobody is making you do this! It’s all chasing money, or a big house, or a nice car. Running after something that they’ve told you that you want, but you don’t need, and even worse, you don’t know if you even really want it. You sit at your desks or on your buses, thinking you are getting somewhere, achieving something and you don’t feel anything. How can you know that this is what you really want when you’ve never tried anything else? There’s so much out there, so much to see, to feel, taste, fuck, whatever! When you were a kid you knew that exploring was important, and the thirst to know things was there, to expand, to understand, be the master of your domain. But when you grew up you forgot. It’s sickening. You enslave yourselves. It doesn’t make any sense to me.
B- Bloody hell. You know. You are obviously crazy. But. Some part of me almost agrees with you.
A- (Laughs) You know it makes sense. It feels like the bigger the world gets, the less you lot actually go and look at it. It’s so... Illogical.
B- I can’t believe this. I’m being called illogical by a boy who sets fire to sofas.
A- Set fire to a sofa.
B- You never said how you got the money for that.
A- Ha. Funny story that. I... sell things here and there.
B- (Suspiciously) What kind of things? What do you mean... You.. you’re a drug dealer? (A laughs)
A- (softly) I’m not a drug dealer.
B- My god, I don’t believe it. You are a drug dealer! (Suddenly dawns on him) You little sod: You tried to make me guilty for calling you a thief!
A- (Playfully) That’s cos I’m not one!
B- (Shouted a little too loudly) But you are a drug dealer!
A- (Alarmed, slight stage whisper whilst looking around) Easy mate, quieten down?
B- (Still shouting) Sorry! Quieter now) It’s just. I didn’t realise you were a... a druggie. You didn’t seem like one. (looks comically shocked) I’m not used to drugs. I’ve never done them. (A laughs pointedly, B is perturbed) Good god, what is it now?
A- (Still chuckling slightly) Nothing, nothing. What does a druggie seem like?
B- I don’t know... A criminal!
A- (Laughs) Okay. What do they seem like?
B- More foreboding, I suppose. I was mugged once, by great hulking chaps with bulging coats. They said they had guns, and I knew they didn’t, but it still was very frightening and I handed everything over to them; two bald knuckleheads bristling with tattoos and testosterone. That’s what proper criminals are, not well-spoken men who talk about philosophy and fire and hang around in suburban bus stops.
A- I should be insulted at that too. You assume too much about people. What do you think is wrong with drugs anyway?
B- They’re illegal!
A- So? So somebody says the people can’t have them. Big deal. They want them. That’s democracy, pure and simple.
B- But they’re dangerous!
A- They’re not hurting anyone except “debatably” (air quotation marks) themselves, and who is to say what they do with their bodies? Same goes for anyone else, even you.
B- (Less sure of himself now) Isn’t it full of toxins and poisons?
A- It’s organic. All natural. More natural than buses, or shirts and ties and nine to fives or your precious bloody coins and notes. If someone told you those were “illegal” (again, quotation marks) would you stop chasing ‘em? You say weed is dangerous, well I say those are: I haven’t kicked any bins or thrown any of my possessions about pursuing a little high but people do crazy things to chase a bit of cash. It relaxes people, calms them down, makes them see things a little differently. The philosophers were all over it, man. Anyway I don’t deal drugs. I deal in anything life-changing. Anything that makes people think.
B-(Takes the higher ground, stated scoffingly) Like burning sofas?
A- Like doing something interesting! Like living! You say you need money to live , but money isn’t living. It’s what you do with it, and even then you can get by without it. At best it’s a facilitator of real desire, and at worse it’s a distraction. Sometimes drugs can be the lifestyle-change people need. Makes them feel like rebels. Or philosophers. Or like fucking slobs. Whatever they want to feel like: as long it’s actually feeling, like being a person and not a fucking automaton that spends its day in a little house or at work or in transit between them.
B- (Exasperated) Fine. You are obviously an altruist.
A- (Pleased with himself) You know it.
B- What do you think you deal in then?
A- Good question. I deal in calm. Expanding your horizons. Working out where you want to be. Working out where you stand. Working out what you really want. Some people use drugs for that: practically, as inhalable positive qi. Settling your nerves before a big interview. (B scoffs) Focussing your mind before you sit down at that essay. (Looks at B slyly) Calming you down after your bus to work is late.
B- Well that’s a lot of nonsense(Stops, and looks at A in horror) You don’t mean (A winks at him) You... you little bastard! That cigarette! (Hands to lips) You drugged me! (Points accusingly, then puts his hand to his temple) Oh god! I feel sick! (Doubles over) *Adlib* Ah! My hands! (Drops to knees and stares at them) Oh god! What’s happening!
A- (Slightly embarrassed) Don’t be a dick.
B- (Unnecessarily loudly and aggressively spat at him, but should be comic) Don’t call me a dick, you fucking dick, you fucking drugged me! I feel awful!
A- Do you though? You felt fine a minute ago. Better than fine.
B- I... what?
A- (mimicking A’s voice, and moving arms in effusive gestures) “You know, I feel the strangest sensation... Like it doesn’t really matter”
B- (Straightens up) You’re right. It did feel good. I felt good. Better than a long time. My god. What? Why?
A- I think you’d best sit down. (Motions to seat beside him again, and after a pause B gets up and walks over) This isn’t the first time I’ve had this conversation. About three months ago I was sat in this very bus stop, waiting, at about five in the morning.
B- Why?
A- I like buses. They’re going places. Literally. Some great things have been achieved on buses. Anyway, it’s not important. Point is, as I’m sat there, this kiddie dressed up same as you, shirt and tie, comes up, stomps in with a face of thunder and sits down. I decided on a whim to try and placate him, see what his problem is (by way of explanation) like I said, you shirt and ties fascinate me. Anyway, at first he’s resistant, but I’m bored and he’s angry and fancies a vent, and of course the bloody bus is late, so we get talking, or rather he does. Turns out his name’s Joe (B gasps slightly, A holds up hand to slow him) I know, I know. Turns out he’s there because his boss, who sounds a right bastard, has called an emergency meeting about some stock that’s gone tits up or something.
B- I remember that! God, that was when he was at his absolute worst. I came in an hour late because I missed the message and he went crazy at me.
A- You must have just missed me. Anyway, we’re chatting for a while, and it emerges this is the latest in a long string of events that’s making your old mate feel more and more despondent, full of ennui about stock, about life. And when we get to talking about me, I tell him my life philosophy, what I try and do, and he seems intrigued. When his bus finally turns up he tells me he thinks I’ve helped and that he’d love to speak to me again. He took my number and we arranged to meet here, every morning, in the early hours, long before anyone else was up, and just talk.
B- So that’s why he was always here. What did you talk about?
A- Anything. It was fantastic. He had a brilliant mind, but so restricted, so limited by what he’d been told and what he thought he knew. But slowly, I think he dragged some of himself out from under the tie, the real him, and eventually he was thinking. It was magnificent. Then, quite suddenly he resolved that he was going to quit work and travel and work out what he really wanted. Naturally I was delighted. It affirmed me to know that I had given someone something so significant: a raison d’etre, a calling, an understanding of their humanity. I think I gave him a lot.
B- (Slightly cynical) Did this giving extend to drugs from you as well?
A- (frustrated, and finally reveals the truth) Haven’t you been listening to me? I’m not a drug dealer. I never said that. You assumed it. Like I said, you assume too much about people. He didn’t pay me for anything. After what we shared, any money would’ve seemed unclean. Immoral. What I want is people to find themselves, and what they really want. I don’t care what that is, or where they get it from.
B- Wow. Okay. Sorry, it’s just (Goes and sits down beside A, pause) he got very odd towards the end. So philosophical. More content. Almost... spiritual.
A- You don’t need drugs to be content. Good conversation can work just as well. You’ve proved that this morning.
B- (Musing and misses this suggestion- speak quickly) So that’s why Joe left. I did wonder. But where do I fit into this?
A- He mentioned you, when we talked. Quite a bit.
B- He did? Saying what?
A- Not by name of course, but I’ve worked it out now.
B (Suspicious) What did he say?
A- Relax, it’s nothing bad. Just that. He said the only thing keeping him sane at work was his mate in the office. Said he didn’t know how he did it, the politeness, the stoicism, the control. Said a lot of nice things about you. (Thoughtfully) Said he felt sorry for you.
B- (Quizzical) Sorry for me?
A- He thought you were a good person. Better than stock. That it screamed from you, that it was eating you away, eroding your insides, ruining you. Wished he could get you out.
B- (Disarmed) Well. I. Wow. He never said any of this to me. (A looks at him and B realises that this is a stupid remark, and mumbles) Well obviously. Was that it?
A- Absolutely it. Until two days ago. I got a call from him saying he was going away, but he wanted to see me one last time. Was oddly specific that I met him at 10 to 8 this time, later than usual, but in the usual place in this bus stop (Shakes his head and laugh) Sly bugger.
B- What? Why?
A- (Points to the ground) He set this up. He knows me. He knew how I’d behave. Knew I’d see you, and talk to you. Give you the same lines that I gave him and see what happens. (Chuckling) Knew your bloody bus would be late. This was him trying to get you out. Sly. (Shakes his head as if impressed and gets up to leave, leaving B sat in stunned thought)
B- Okay... (As A is almost off screen) Wait, where are you going?
A- Well, He wanted to see me at ten to eight, it’s nearly ten past. He’s never late. He’s obviously not coming. I doubt he’s even in the country, the way he was going on. This is obviously what he meant. I’ve done what he wanted, and I’m not sitting in this bus stop all day.
B- But... what about me?
A- What about you? I’ve talked to you. Do what you want. (Moment of realisation, reaches into inside pocket and grabs scrap of paper) Look, here’s my number. Ring me if you want anything. But don’t feel you have to. Just try and work out what you do want.
B- (Stays looking at piece of paper until A is almost off shot, looks up and shouts) Wait! (A turns and looks expectantly at him, long pause while he thinks of what to say) ... Thank you. I suppose. For talking.
A- (Smiling) Don’t mention it. Thank you for listening. (Looking to the far side of the stage) Oh look, here’s your bloody bus. If you want to get to work, you’d best get on to it. (From this point, bus sounds should play over P.A, growing louder. B turns to look, A turns and walks almost off shot)
B- Oh god. (B turns and panickedly shouts at A as he leaves the stage) What should I do?
A- (Shouted from offstage over now loud bus sounds) Do what you want!
Sound of bus arriving, bus driver shouts on tape or from desk after a pause “You getting on mate?”, B weakly shakes his head. Sound of bus driving away, watched by B’s eyes, and once out of shot he lowers his head into hands, lost in thought. Lights fade on this scene.
