On the tube home from the Bloomsbury tonight, I was reading the paper when the doors opened and an angry older man came bursting through them off the outdoor platform. "It's fucking freezing," he snarled angrily in my general direction. I nodded, even though I didn't think it was particularly cold and then looked back at my paper. He rubbed his hands, "Absolutely freezing". I could sense he was going to be a man who wanted a conversation and it seemed likely from his stumbling bearing that he was drunk. But I wasn't sure. He might just be frail or slightly physically incapacitated. I didn't like the anger. It wasn't a good sign. I worried that trouble might be brewing.
I studied my paper quite intently, so intently that I was unable to actually read any of it. Weird how concentrating too much can lead to such a break-down of the senses. He was indeed keen to chat and chipped in a few other slurred comments, which I acknowledged as lightly as possible. I didn't want to look like I was ignoring him, but I didn't want to look like I was engaging with him. People on high wires might smugly feel that they are the kings of balance, but they've got nothing on someone trying to avoid inciting or encouraging a drunk/weirdo. Fuck that bloke tight-rope walking between the World Trade Towers, where was my fucking documentary.
But the man was not going to give up and he looked pretty weak and feeble and maybe a bit lonely too, so after his third attempt to strike up a conversation I put the paper down and chatted to him. It was hard to hear everything he was saying because of the slurring (which I was now pretty sure was down to alcohol, though I suspected he might have been drinking alone). He asked me where I lived and I told him Shepherd's Bush. I was quite relieved to hear that he would be getting off at Ladbroke Grove, a couple of stops before me. This meant the conversation had a definite end and that he wouldn't be able to try and follow me home. I commented upon the fact that Ladbroke Grove was a pretty nice area, but he said that it was OK now, but hadn't always been the case. When he'd first lived there, he claimed, he would be beaten up on the streets every night. I didn't comment that this seemed unlikely or suggest that his need to shout at strangers might have been responsible. I sensed there was a bigger story beneath it all. I was feeling a little sorry for this slight drunk man.
On two occasions in the space of three minutes he complimented my hair and so we had a discussion about genetics and how I don't need to buy any hats. I wondered if he was trying to pick me up. Or if this was some vague echo of a time when he might have done so and he was now just using the old lines through force of habit or drunkenness frazzling the circuits of his brain. If he was gay and had been plainly so forty or fifty years ago then the beatings might make more sense. I had warmed to him by now and felt a bit sorry for him. He was cold and alone and old and getting drunk to forget. We spoke a little bit about where I'd been born and then I asked him what his job had been and he revealed that he'd worked out in Hollywood as a producer. The revelation came as if this was not a big deal but I knew he was trying to impress me and wanted me to ask more. I asked him what films he'd worked on and he said that I probably wouldn't have heard of any of them. Then he mentioned one saying it would be the only one I might be aware of. I pretended I was. As the train pulled into Ladbroke Grove he started to tell me where it had all gone wrong and why he had returned. Unfortunately the booze meant the story was gabbled and I couldn't make sense of it. Somebody's wife had died and he'd lost heart and couldn't get over it. As he got up to walk up Ladbroke Grove, the scene of his youthful daily beatings he told me that he'd still never got over it.
He stumbled sadly back out into the cold, one of the 20 million stories in this big city that I'd only got a tiny snatch of. I felt sorry for him and he felt sorry for himself, but there was nothing to be done. I'd had a snapshot of his life and of his rise and fall all in a 10 minute train ride. Life is so much more tragic than drama.
Appreciate your own good fortune, but don't take if for granted or assume it will last.
