THE STRANGER ON THE BUS

                              by David W. Williams

 

                                    Episode 1

                         Welcome to the Jungle

 

It was the kind of morning that made you wish you'd slept in. The sky hung low over suburbia like a grimy nicotine stain, while the clouds did their best to cough out yesterday's smog.

   The streets began to buzz with the sound of 1 ½ million electric alarms as 1 ½ million hungover schoolkids kissed Mummy goodbye, and 1 ½  million Daddies steered their Datsuns out of the driveway and into the jam on the Harbour Bridge.

   It was another Sydney Monday.

   Yet this one was different. There was something I couldn't put my finger on: a voice in the bottom of my gut telling me things somehow weren't as they should be.

   The streets were quiet.

   Too quiet.

   I shoved an extra pack of Benson & Hedges into the inside pocket of my coat just in case. I could tell it was going to be- one of those weeks.

   My name's Nick Shaw. Yeah, as in the school. Victim of a privileged childhood. Born with a silver spoon in one hand and a set of brass knuckles on the other. If growing up in the suburbs was meant to be easy, nobody ever told me. Don't let those chequerboard rows of sunny red roofs fool you. It's a jungle out there.

 

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   It was twenty-five to eight when the 730 finally rolled up, five minutes late as usual. You could always tell when the driver had had a hard night by the way he swung that 30 year old crate of badly oiled gears and smoke round the hairpin at the bottom of Battle Boulevarde, and gunned his engine as he came to the Stop. He never scared anyone, of course. It's not too hard to jump out of the way of a vehicle whose top speed is 25 km/h.

   We all piled on while the driver abused hell out of some kid who'd forgotten to stick the postcode on his Pass; that guy really had had a bad night. I found my usual seat up the back, opened the busted window and lit my first smoke of the day. That was one habit I was going to have to kick. Someday. Not today.

   At this point in proceedings the jerk in front would start to cough as if he'd never smelt burning tar in his life- real subtle- but today he must have had something else on his mind. It was just as well. I was too hungover for a decent argument anyway.

   The bus ground its way down Military Road, past a thousand dirty rainbow shopfronts that clashed on my brain like badly tuned electric guitars. The Postcode Kid had been squealing away at some girl who was trying to park herself on the seat where he'd stuck his Prep cap. I couldn't take that soprano soliloquy any more.

   "Give the dame a seat, would ya kid?" I said.

   It was five past eight when the 730 finally scraped to a halt under the fractured grey roof of the North Sydney Station, ten minutes late as usual. I tapped Captain Tact on the shoulder.

   "Hey buddy, it's time to get off."

   He didn't reply.

   I tried it again and he landed face-forward on the next seat in front. It was no wonder he hadn't had too much to say. The Kid was dead. His eyeballs were as narrow as an unrolled cigarette, and if what my gut was telling me was right, he was loaded to the gills with something nasty.

   Here was one kid who wasn't going to make it to footy training tonight. Come to think of it, neither was I. I was going to need every cigarette in that extra pack now. Nick Shaw was on a case...