The Models and God

On the train today a dero sat opposite me. How could I tell that he was down on his luck and possibly homeless? The multiple layers of filthy flannelette and track-suit material for one. The leather tone skins caused partially by sun but also by an aversion for removing epidermal dirt for another. Conclusive? Possibly only circumstantial, but good enough for me.

He had an ancient Fox Terrier on a lead. Cute little dog, but I was far too wise to make eye contact or show affection to the pup.

The woman next to me had a book to hide in, and this worked fine until her phone rang. Once she had hung up he started, ‘And speaking of that…’

What was the keyword? Hello, perhaps? Shoelace? I did not know.

Then she was blessed with a lecture on how he was a film maker. International, no less. The Golden Years of Australian Rock and Roll. Quite probably the last time he had a square meal or was conscious. It would be a series of films, fascinating to the rest of the world: a runaway success abroad and scarcely capable of meeting cinema demand at home. It’s a kind of science fiction. Though did you know that publishers say there is no such thing as Science Fiction? It’s actually called Industrial.

‘I intend to put them right.’

The greatest band in the history of music, at least for this, the centre of all culture for the galaxy, was the Models. So now you know. He then went on to describe the emotions he felt at the concerts.

The target discovered that THIS was her stop. He looked around for someone else who also had been touched by this epiphany, but the two teenagers dressed in handkerchiefs nearby were doubtless of the opinion that the world had sprung, fully formed, out of the void and into existence about three seconds before their birth. I studiously continued my research for the novel.

Near me, a woman sat dressed in twelve layers of dowdy red with a physique that, if it was a game show, the question would be ‘cake?’ and the answer would invariably be, ‘yes, please.’ She gripped a red rolling suitcase, clearly returned from some conference or other.

Whenever anyone went past, or even periodically just to passengers near by, she would tremulously call, ‘God bless you.’ Every one ignored her.

When I left, she did not even raise her eyes to me. Presumably because I am old, bald and bad tempered looking.

I said to her, ‘God bless you too, Darlin’.’

I was unsure whether she appreciated my intention of a general wish of goodwill, rather than a specific evocation of her particular pernicious little cult.

A spark came to her eyes, but only fleetingly. Then it was replaced with her default deep despair. Because her god is a prick. And regardless of how many “god bless yous” she hands out, at the end of the day she will still be fat and lonely, and the only hope in her life is for the day she dies. And on that day, if she has been self-effacing enough and, particularly, she has accepted one particular bloke as the special saviour to remove the stains of the crimes that she and her entire species has been condemned of in absentia (talk about racism and tyranny), then she might just be allowed a little happiness.

This encounter depressed me far more than the first. The first guy at least was in a mental fugue state in which he is was the star in a never ending party of pubs and drinks and girls and dancing. She, on the other hand, had decided not to live her life at all, but to spend it in a self made purgatory.