Thursday 29 October 2015

Auto Correct

For audio click here.
‘’S happin?’’ the man said, holding out his hand to be shaken.
I never really know how to reply to those alternative ways of saying hello, the alrights or the what’s ups or the what’s happenings. Do you reply in kind, just echo what they said? Or do you answer literally? What’s happening? Well, you are just about to sit down on a bus and I am desperately trying to ignore you.
I lightly shook his hand, smiled meekly and wished I’d never got eye-contact with him. I couldn’t help noticing his hand was blue, stained blue, like a child whose fountain pen had exploded in school. He swung into the seat behind me, but I wasn’t off the hook.
‘How’s it going man?’
‘Not bad, not bad.’ I said. His big, bushy beard was flecked with saliva.
‘Where you goin’ today man?’ he asked.
‘Down the Island get a bit of sea air.’ I said.
‘Me too and how’s the family?’ Did this guy think he knew me or was he just doing what he did?
‘Yeah good, how are you?’ I didn’t really want to have a conversation with this fella, but he looked like the kind of guy that if he spoke to you, you spoke back.
‘Man I was just with Sandra, fucking her,’ he said. A few fellow passengers turned round to look at us. It wasn’t the kind of conversation you usually got on the number 96 to Barry. I began to wonder if the moisture in his beard might be something other than saliva.
‘You wanna drink man?’ the geezer produced a bottle of vodka from his pocket and threaded it through the branches of his beard.
I put my hand up and shook my head.
‘I’m taking medication mate,’ I lied; thinking an excuse was better than a flat refusal.
‘Look at my hands man.’ He held up his fingers, the other hand was as stained as the one I'd shooked. ‘I robbed a security van earlier, with this.’ He opened up his coat to show me his weapon; a stubby looking sawn-off shotgun. ‘They gave me the money, but it’s covered my hands in ink.’ He looked at his own hands while I stared at the gun.  
‘I see,’ I said. I was desperately thinking how could I get out of this, I had 20 minutes before the bus got to Barry and I’d told him I was going to the seaside. I couldn’t exactly jump off in landlocked Wenvoe, could I?
I took my phone out and tried to send a message as surreptitiously as possible.
A minute or so later my phone bleeped. I left my phone where it was, but surely friend Paul had replied telling me the cavalry was on its way. 
The man with the shotgun took another slug of vodka and smiled at me.
‘and how’s the family man?’ he said. He’d asked me that just 3 minutes earlier, I really didn’t know what to say.
‘Um, all good, yeah.’
Still no sirens and blue lights.
What on earth was Paul up to?
‘Why are you going to Barry?’ I asked.
‘Just got out of prison man, desperate to see the sea.’
Having never been in prison, I didn’t know the etiquette; do you ask a guy what he’d been in for? I was hoping the impending police raid would spare me. Luckily he saved my blushes.
‘3 years for beating up a copper,’ he said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Still no sign of the police. I slipped my phone out and looked at the message from Paul.
                “What are you on?”
I looked at my own message.

                “Photo the Poland there’s a Manchester on my bust with a guy. Not 96 to Berry.”


For more Barry stories click here


3 comments:

  1. :-) haha. it took me a couple of minutes to figure out. not as dead easy as it may seem:-)
    phone the police there is a man chased on my bus with a gun. now 96 to barry:-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. you don't need the chased in there. I put each word in my iPhone and looked what alternatives it offered me.

      Delete
    2. haha:-) ..... I see so if you put in 'man' it can automatiacally change int Manchester:-) haha... the guessing skills (or interpretation of your intentions) of auto correct are amazing:-)

      Delete