I was on the number 75 tram last night heading into the city, earbuds plugged in looking out the window and blissfully minding my own business when the tram stops, a woman enters and sits across from me. She's a larger woman of about 45 dressed in a short skirt quite inappropriate to the chill of the night, let alone other things. Her hair is slightly wild, as is her manner. She's not a pretty sight and after a glance I turn back to the window and my music.
After a few moments I had the odd sense that I was being observed. I peered from the corner of my eye and saw the woman staring fixedly at me. I turned my head casually, sweeping past her towards the tram door and then back again. She's still staring at me with particularly beady eyes. Our eyes lock and I'm thinking of something to say when she starts in.
I miss the first few words yanking the earbuds from my ears. Then as she continues on I struggle to make much sense of anything she is saying. It's as if I'm come in late on a particularly complex and melodramatic play. There's no-one there to ask what have I missed so I gamely focus on her, struggling to catch the thread of what appears a vitriolic harangue.
Then some words register. "I knew I'd bump into you again," she had said. There is a bitter satisfaction in her voice, as if pleased to have her foresight rewarded. Oh Lucifer, we meet again, that sort of thing - and I'm Lucifer.
It appears I'm definitely Lucifer in her world, if not someone worse. She continues on, her eyes blazing and the words tumbling from her higgedly-piggedly as reading from a long memorised but strangely incoherent script. I gather as she goes on that I - or my alter-ego - have done all sorts of wrong. Sex is brought up as if I have been spreading my devilish seed and causing all sorts of wanton ruin to the virtuous. Then she refers to astrology and something about Aries, as if it had been all in the stars regardless, though I have even committed some crimes against astrology also.
I wonder how I must have appeared as she continued her rant. Did my mouth hang slackly open? Did I blink rapidly in confusion? I know at some point I vainly tried to tell her she had the wrong guy, but quickly realising it was pointless shut up (never argue with drunks, women or crazy people). Then she stops, as if there is nothing more to be said. Hard to flap I put the earbuds back in and return to staring obliviously out the window.
A couple of minutes later she starts in again. Ever polite I remove the earbuds once more. This time she is more affable, explaining how "me and Trev and you and your pappy" should go to Europe together soon. She tells me - I think, it wasn't clear - of a beautiful dress she wants to show me. She goes off on another tangent then something about being fucked up by my mother. By this time I'm glancing about me looking for the hidden camera. This is a joke right? I've been punk'd right?
Then she abruptly stands and walks away, muttering under her breath. I sit their bemused. Across the way a guy is smiling at me having witnessed the performance. He makes a universal gesture poking his finger between thumb and forefinger and it takes me a moment to realise he's asking if she was a prostitute. It's possible of course, she had the wardrobe, but I reply with a gesture of my own: the circling finger around the ear. He nods his head, ah, perfectly clear now.
Don't know if it was a full moon last night, but there are a lot of nutters around these days.
