The Adventures of Sid James

There are some strange little things that I’ve noticed in my last two weeks on the buses.

I used to catch a bus into town, I now catch a bus across the ‘burbs to a University. I’ve never worked it the ‘burbs before and not caught a bus across the ‘burbs since the school days ended.

So I’m now out in the crowds, on the buses: watching, noticing, recording. The kids are more free with their behaviour then the suited and booted, cleaned and groomed, city bound folk

My nose has noticed a change in the bus - is it the bathing practices of the student, the clothes changing practices of the student, the hair care practices of the student ??

I wonder when the change happens, what sparks the epiphany moment? Is there a point when the student wakes one morn and throws down the shackles of dirt and grime and instead of stepping into yesterdays clothes, they step into a shower?

I don’t know, but I think we can debate that at another time, lets instead watch the creature of the student in its public transport bus bound glory.

Three times in the last week I’ve had girls with long hair sit in the seat in front of me. Boys have long hair too, but I scare them with my sleepy growls and immaculate grooming, so they huddle next to the factory workers, with whom we share the bus. The girls are braver, they take the seats in front of Ned. Now, the seats on the bus are pretty close together so when someone sits in front of you with long hair, the hair that tumbles down the back of the seat is usually only 30cm from your face. I’m not keen on such an intimate relationship with a stranger but this is the bus and I do the dance of the Sydney public transport juggernaut and shit happens.

I am not precious and can be comfortable with hair that close if the hair is clean, but these three ladies had long, messy, wild hair that hasn’t been close to a bottle of shampoo or a feisty brush, for well over a week. Did I tell you when I was talking to my grandmother about my niece recently, I described her as a feisty three year old, my grandmother didn’t know what feisty meant and I had to explain it to her, English is all she known in her 84 years.

I sat on the bus one evening, wired for sound (Cliff Cliff be still my mother’s beating heart), I am mesmerized by a girl in her early twenties in the seat in front of me. She kept on playing with her long knotty smelly hair: she was caressing it, and fondling it and moving it around like it was clean and shiny and full of sexy fresh smelling goodness (instead I get the aroma of slept in sweaty socks in the shape of Dali's most creative birds nest).

She was silently pushing it all to one side with grand sweeping gestures with a badly manicured hand, then patting it down again with a delightful grin. Then after preening in the buses window reflection, she swept it all to the back for a just stepped out of the salon flick of the foul mess. Then up came both hands and trowel trowel trowel through the hair scrapped the claws till she was pleased with what she caught, she then mounted it on top with patty cake slaps for grand dame / go-go dancer appeal. More twists and turn preening in the window and down it tumbled again with the echoed stench of those foul socks. She repeated this dance of the dying follicles a number of times before her stop arrived and she climbed off the bus.

I sat slightly dazed for the rest of my trip, Jeff Tweedy serenading me as he has done 24*7 since Jay died. Wicked wench, how could I be enticed by such a slovenly attitude to cleanliness, by such a foul stench....though there is something a little disturbing and perversely attractive in the sexual play of a slob.

Who was her target?

Was it the left over imprint of a recent playful encountered or was it some sort of fascinating solo foreplay?

I have never seen her again.


Disclaimer: Ned has long, shiny, clean, brushed, straight black & red hair.