Friday night at the bus station

These days pubs are allowed to stay open as long as they want. Back in the days of yore however licensing laws dictated that last orders were at 11pm. If you wanted to carry on drinking after this time then you had to go to a nightclub of some description. As we all know, nightclubs are sweaty, deafening, horrific hell holes filled with intoxicated cretins who are so off their heads that they are reduced to a primeval state and are only able to act on three instinctual impulses: shag, fight or vomit.

You also have to pay to get in to a nightclub, and then you have to pay for the watered down booze, and finally you have to pay for a taxi home. Such a night could easily bankrupt a 18 year old youth with limited financial means. At that age my only source of beer money was a re-prioritised clothing and dinner allowance, therefore the majority of my evenings on the town ended at 10:55 with a last minute dash for the 11 o’clock bus.

The bus station was invariably filled with fellow revelers, all gently swaying and stumbling as if on a ship in high seas. At first glance all seemed chaos, but to a seasoned observer there was a clumsy order to the milling drunken throng. Almondbury, Fartown, Colne Valley, Milnsbridge; each locality had its own set of bus routes and its own bay in the station from which they departed. During the day these bays were characterized by polite queues and a atmosphere of resigned boredom. At 11pm however the bays were fluid, ebbing and flowing into each other as the alcohol washed away inhibitions and sense of decorum.

Of course this wasn’t always positive in nature. Sure, you had your happy drunks arm in arm, singing exuberantly, and expressing their love for all around them. But there was also the nasty drunks, the “are you looking at my girlfriend” drunks. Arguments, screaming matches, and even fight’s weren’t unheard of; although they were usually relatively short lived. Smashing someone’s face in for “what they said about our Sharon” is one thing, but missing your bus and having to walk home is another.

Because when the clocks struck eleven the buses opened their doors and, like some giant reproducing bacteria, the drunken mass divided into small globules and funneled through the doors onto their waiting transport. Then, with a cacophony of reversing beeps, the buses would back out of the station as one, carrying their hooting, hollering and carousing cargo off into the night.

The station was left in eery silence. The harsh glare of the flurecent lighting only accentuating the stark litter strewn emptiness. This stillness was occasionally broken by the arrival of a sweating and panting latecomer who, having misjudged their ability to make a last minute dash for the final bus of the evening, was now faced with a long sobering walk home. After a while even the latecomers stopped coming and the station slept.

But the buses had a way to go yet.

More later.

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2. The night before
3. Things that keep me up at night #14
4. Bus Trilogy: The final instalment
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