ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Once a Gurkha unsheathes his kukri, he must draw blood with it – even if it’s his own.
The same can be said for a bus driver.
Once somebody pushed the stop button and the bus pulls over, somebody must get off.
This morning on the D64 Express from Betoota Ponds to the Royal Zoological Park on Dalhasse Boulevard, that exact situation happened.
Outside Mojo Advertising’s French Quarter bureau office on Gurner Road, Diamantina MetroLink driver, Walter Collen, steered the bus into the transit lane and came to a stop.
The doors swung open and Collen looked up into the rear vision mirror.
Nobody moved and not a word was spoken – just silence.
The 39-year-old’s eyes darted up and down the aisle as every passenger on the big blue Mercedes pretended they weren’t the one responsible.
Without saying a word, Walter closed the doors and muttered to himself. Flicking the indicator and punting the bus back out into the morning peak hour traffic.
He spoke to The Advocate a short time ago at the Teeta Bus Depot as he waited for his next shift by to begin.
“I fucking hate it when people do that shit,” he said, sipping a long black while he enjoyed a Dunhill.
“Sometimes it can be a real pain in the arse getting the bus over two lanes of traffic and then into a stop, only for some fucking coward to push the button a stop too soon,”
“I get these dreams from time to time where I just turn the bus off and wait until somebody fesses up. Like full-on get the newspaper out and have my feet up on the dash. Fuck these people, mate. I’m my own man.”
As for now, all the necktied Capricorn can do is dream of the day when he can do that.
Because all he can do now is smile and say thank you for choosing Diamantina MetroLink.
More to come.
