He was just standing there, with a can of beer in his hand, unstable, lost track long ago. His clothes dirty, his shoes worn down and his voice filled with drunkenness. She tried so hard to talk him into reason.
She told him to get on bus 24.
Did he have his bus pass ?
He showed it to her.
She checked, and saw that this was just a card he had picked up from the street, it wasn’t valid anymore.
“You have to buy a bus ticket” she tried.
“I have no money” he said, and took a sip from his beer.
She told him to stay there and wait at the bus stop, while she was going to get him some money.
She came back a few minutes later, and gave him exact money for a bus ticket.
“Bus 24, remember it now” she said.
He nodded, and was staring into his own world, far away from ours.
The bus wasn’t there yet. They waited.
Finally the bus came around the corner. It was busy, a lot of traffic, and it would take a while before the bus would reach the bus stop.
She looked at him, worried, and anxious to get him on this bus.
The bus opened it’s doors, and people started entering.
“Here you go” she said.
But there was no answer.
She turned around and he was nowhere to be seen.
…and I told her, didn’t I, she should never have got involved wiv ‘im, nothin’ but trouble he is, drunken lout!
I think she was his mother, and it was really sad to see this happen.
Very sad, indeed. And nothing either one of them can do probably.
:`-(
Oh dear, that makes it worse. Almost as bad as the guy we once saw in Poland, who was on the verge of alcoholic unconsciousness, lying in a heap of snow at -12℃. Good thing someone called the police to take him, he wouldn’t have survived the night. He was hard to persuade though, especially since Polish police charge drunks for the use of the sobering-up cell.