keytown xmas

Keytown Xmas.

The bus is crawling past the motorway in the darkness when the drunk girl and her boyfriend get on. They’re not overly pissed, they’ve just got that excited unhindered buzz about them, the one that comes from downing three cans of lager on an empty stomach on a winter’s afternoon when there’s nothing else to do.

No sooner have they sat down than she whips out her mobile and starts talking.

“Shell, that you? Listen, remember Darren? Tell yer what, oi ay seed im for a year an a ’alf. But oi bumped into Kaz this evenin’ and she told me ee’s seein’ Kayley now an she’s a prostitute. What the fook’s going on?”

She listens intently while her boyfriend rubs the tattoos on his neck, stretches his legs out in front of him, and tries to find somewhere he can put the crutches so they don’t dig into him or get in his way. Finally she pockets the phone and turns to him.

“Fookin ’ell. Her’s been a prossie from day one. And ee fookin knows.”
She pauses. And thinks.
“A fookin prostitute. Fook me. Oo’d want to pay for THAT?”

She throws back her head and laughs out loud.
And she is still laughing as she gets off the bus and walks down the street, while her boyfriend stumbles after her on his crutches, and the bus rumbles on to Keytown through the rain.