Epson Moore is going home. It has been an unedifying day. Are days usually edifying? So hard to tell when we edit our memories on a moment by moment basis, but it’s easy to generalise, easy to fall into stream of consciousness mode when walking back from college.
Epson Moore spent more than expected on fax ribbon. Bae couldn’t be expected to pick up the tab, and it was worth the opportunity to hang out with Bae. Take that a step back. Moore stops at a pedestrian crossing. Watches the red man intently as a Ford Cortina purrs with its indicators flicking towards the crossing. Was it opportunism that suggested calling on Bae to help out?
Was that a date?
The lights change. Moore hop skips across the zebra stripes on the road. There are the sports fields and the arsenal before the bridge. Not even on the right side of the river yet. It wouldn’t be frivolous to pay for a bus home. Not desperate. Desperate was when they walked to college in suede winkle-pickers with nails poking up through the soles. The batteries had been running down on the Aiwa personal stereo. The final Joy Division album.
Was that a date?
Epson Moore sat down at the bus stop bench. No decision either way on that investment. Was losing the timetable a ploy? Unconscious or otherwise. How could anyone say one way or another? The unconscious is as the unconscious does. What does Bae look like? Summon up an image. Nothing. Hair. She has hair. A way of wearing it. She has a way of wearing things. A bus arrives. Doors open. A fug of cigarette fumes pours out; no passengers. The doors close again and the bus moves on.
“Is this some sort of spiritual journey, Mr Moore?” Vic Vic said that. What the hell did he mean with that patronising “mister” garbage? Vic Vic wasn’t really patronising. Why would anyone use the word “garbage” rather than “rubbish”? What is the correct way to pronounce “garage”?
Was that a date?
The sports fields were infested with crows. Nothing much was happening at the arsenal. Sometimes Moore had seen khaki lozenges moving around behind the barb-wire-topped fences. That stretch of the route was tiring. How tiring must it be to be a recruit? The monastic discipline was attractive, but probably not so much in real life. There was that dream about working in an automobile assembly factory, becoming a shop steward for the union, representing the workers. Was Bae attractive?
Epson Moore paused halfway across the bridge. The brown water curled a little. Gantries creaked a little in the wind. Bae had been more than kind, more than tolerant. Maybe that was more valuable than “attractive”. There was a newsagents on the next corner. If you don’t take the bus, you can at least shell out for a packet of crisps.
Maybe a scotch egg?