By Laura Hutchinson
SO I’m on the bus, right? Normally, I walk home from work, but it’s a four-and-a-half kilometre stroll and some days I’m just not up for it. Particularly this day because, after work, I went around town hunting for suitable presents for upcoming birthdays and now my arms are laden down with giftable goodies. Oh, and the handle had snapped on one of the shopping bags so yeah, I was pretty sure I wasn’t walking all the way.
Despite hating Dublin bus (which I may or may not have mentioned in a previous column), even I can recognise that, at times, they’re a necessary evil. Like flossing. It’s boring and time-consuming but you do it to avoid the dentist drilling half your jaw away and replacing it with some form of cement. Because you’re all grown up and mature like that. That’s why I’m on the bus.
But it’s taking twice as long as usual because it’s rush hour. (I’m not sure why they call it ‘rush hour’ in Dublin – ‘rush every-waking-minute’ would be more accurate.) We’re going nowhere fast, and passengers are dropping like flies as they realise they’d be quicker walking. Me? I’ve got a bag with a broken handle and all the time in the world, so I’m staying put.
We’re finally through the worst of it and starting to pick up speed. Along our left is a bike lane, with cyclists zipping past. One particular cyclist looks like he might be about to overtake another, thus risking life and limb in front of the bus, so the bus driver deems it appropriate to beep the horn at him. And not just a quick little ‘oh, I beg of you, sir, do be careful’ beep, but a proper ‘bus equals bigger than bike, you go squishy squashy if you get in my way’ beep. And, with the traffic clearing, we rumbled on past.
Up we pull to the next bus stop and, just as the doors are swinging open, who should pull up alongside us only the cyclist. The angry cyclist. “What’s your problem?” he yells at the driver. What ensues is a formidable roaring match between two grown men. If I squint my eyes slightly, I can see them beating their chests with their clubs. As the two of them clash horns, us onlookers are left with a choice – we can stay and stare, slack-jawed, while willing the two men to tear strips out of each other, or we can take the moral high ground and walk away with dignity, thereby cementing our stance against violence and aggression. The only thing I was cementing was my arse to the seat and, thus, my place in hell.
Myself and my fellow future demons were just shy of breaking out the popcorn when, all of a sudden, it seemed it was over as quickly as it had begun. “Get over it”, the bus driver yelled, and swung the doors closed in his opponent’s face. Disappointed, we all slumped in our seats, ready to face back into the joyless journey. But ho! Satan clearly wanted to repay us for the extra souls we’d given him. “No I won’t get over it”, came the barely audible reply. We all had to restrain ourselves from clapping and cheering – though one passenger did run to the front for a better view – when the infuriated cyclist ran in front of the driver, threw his bike under the bus and stood there defiantly. All of a sudden, none of us cared that we were going nowhere; we were all completely wrapped up in the stand-off.
Oh how I’d love to tell you that the bike was crushed under the deadly weight of the double decker. Or how I was still on the bus as this column went to print, neither man willing to back down, while we all ate bits of bus seats to keep us alive. Alas, the long arm of the law intervened, as a passing garda forced the cyclist to remove his bike from the road, and we were on our way again.
But my day was all the brighter for it. I had encountered an urban “man versus beast” situation, and it had been quite the experience. So thrilled was I, that I gave the bus driver an extra sincere “thank you” when I finally disembarked. In years to come, my grandkids will hear the story of ‘the little cyclist that could’ – the poor spandex-clad man who stood in the face and danger, stared down the barrel of a Dublin bus, and stuck it to the man. Until that other man came and dragged him away.