Tickets Please

 

Every deary, chilly morning, the passengers commute at Penrith station to catch the 6.46am train to the city. It’s a fast train, so the journey to the city usually takes about an hour and a half from Penrith. The majority of the passengers are white collar office workers who have jobs among the many global blue chip companies scattered around Sydney.

 

One such passenger is Mr Bush, who is wearing an immaculate camel suit, an electric blue shirt and a razor blue tie. He likes routine and efficiency and gets really ticked off when things don’t go according to plan. This morning he has a very important meeting with the Board of Directors at 8.30am sharp. He’s giving a presentation on the company’s new sales and marketing plan which will see more bikini-clad women featured in mobile phone commercials. By his calculations he should be able to make it to the meeting just in time. He checks his Pierre Cardin watch. 6.47. The train is running 1 minute late.

 

Suddenly, a loud, mechanical voice echoes through the speakers. The-six-forty-six-train-to-Berowra-is-delayed-by-approximately-FIVE-minutes. We-apologise-for-the-delay-and-any-inconvenience-caused.

 

This causes Mr Bush, as well as the other commuters, to become very irate. That’s just not good enough, he thinks.

 

At 6.51am the train arrives. It is fairly empty, but by Blacktown it will be full. Bush gets on with black briefcase it one hand, and a copy of the “Sydney Morning Herald” in another. It’s his habit to go to the upstairs carriage and find a quiet spot next to the window to read his newspaper.

 

Bush peruses the general news section first, when he registers he has picked the wrong carriage to sit in. He feels this because he can hear two very foul mouthed youths up the back, laughing and carrying on. He glowers at them, hoping they will become quiet, but one them, Randall, says “What are ya staring at?” Bush glowers even more and turns back around to sulk as he reads his newspaper in silence. Not event the appearance of the morning sun can enlighten him.

 

*************

 

Strathfield station is bustling with early-morning activity as the commuters briskly brush shoulders to get where they are going. All but one, James Sawyer, who is turning in circles, dazed and confused by the rush of people around him. He is poverty stricken and has wispy white hair with a dirty white blanket draped around his shoulders. Occasionally, he tries to stop someone to ask for directions, but nobody has time to help a homeless man. This distresses him even more, and he squints at the train timetable board, hoping to make sense of it all. But he can’t.

 

The 7.39 train pulls in at 7.45am, and a wave of workers push and shove their way on the train with a considerable lack of “excuse mes”. Sawyer desperately taps shoulders, hoping someone will answer him as to whether the train “goes to Redfern”, but he is ignored. One of the senior train guards, Bob Hobbs, who has a whistle around his neck and a bright orange vest, notices Sawyer’s disorientation and decides to help him board the train. He gently places his arms around Sawyer’s shoulders and leads him slowly into the carriage.

 

This delays the train by a further two minutes, and this causes the commuters to become even more irate, particularly as they feel obliged to give up a seat for Sawyer. “Oh thank you, thank you” the fragile Sawyer says, even though most of the workers are making mental judgments about his status. Look at him! they think. How dare the government throw our hard-earned tax dollars at these people!

 

Once Sawyer is safely seated, Bob Hobbs goes back to the platform, blows hard on his whistle, waves his white flag, and shouts “STAND CLEAR! DOORS CLOSING!”

 

*****************

 

Mr Kennedy and Mr Wellard, the ticket inspectors, make their way up and down the carriage to check passengers are holding valid train tickets. Mr Wellard is wearing a long navy overcoat two sizes too big, and Mr Kennedy is wearing a royal navy blue jumper with the train network logo two sizes too small.

 

“Tickets please” says Mr Kennedy cheerfully – he likes his job even though most of the passengers scowl like demons to be asked to show their tickets.

 

“Tickets please” says Mr Wellard less cheerfully – he has only been there two weeks. Mutely Mr Bush hands his ticket over to Mr Wellard, who checks the details. Wellard mutely hands it back, and makes his way down the carriage, until he reaches the foul mouthed youths who earlier gave Mr Bush abuse for staring at them.

 

“Show me your ticket please” says Mr Wellard, in his surprisingly deep and melodious voice.

 

“I don’t seem to be able to find it” says Randall, without bothering to search for his ticket.

 

“Show me your ticket, or I shall report you” says Wellard again, raising a very well-plucked, determined eyebrow.

 

“Make me, little boy” threatens Randall.

 

Suddenly, out of no-where, Mr Kennedy and Mr Hornblower, the senior train inspector, come charging to the rescue.

 

“Sir! You call him SIR!” yells Mr Kennedy.

 

“Any passenger, ANY PASSENGER- who is not travelling with a valid train ticket, shall suffer the full penalty of the law” warns Hornblower. “Tell them Mr Kennedy.”

 

“Death, Sir” announces Kennedy.

 

“Indeed DEATH! Best you all have a valid train ticket.”

 

They stand in hard silence while the shocked passengers absorb this message.

 

The silence is interrupted by the homeless old man who starts singing at the top of his lungs. He is on the lower carriage and has not had the validity of his ticket checked yet.

 

“Archie – Mr Kennedy – go see if you can’t quiet him” says Hornblower over his shoulder. Kennedy glowers at the youths and goes off with Wellard to make the man be quiet.

 

“When I come here, I want to see BOTH your tickets out, ready for inspection” orders Hornblower to the youths, and he gives them a lingering, serious look as he takes his leave to give assistance to Wellard and Kennedy.

 

***************

 

“Spanish ladies, hear me roar, I am too loud to ignore, you ain’t gonna force no ticket from me! I am strong! STRONG! I am invincible! INVINCIBLE! I am WOMAN!!” bellows Sawyer, when asked by Wellard to show his ticket.

 

Just at that moment, the train comes to a halt at Redfern station. Sawyer leaps out of his seat to get off the train, but Wellard stretches out his arm to block his escape. “I can’t let you get off! I can’t let you get to Redfern until you show me your ticket!” shrieks Wellard, trembling. In defiance, Sawyer whips out a sharp 2B pencil and points it straight at Wellard.

 

“This is my STOP!” cries Sawyer in protest. Wellard looks helplessly at Kennedy. Sawyer, seeing he has the upper hand, waves the pencil from side to side. “I’m getting off at this platform. Stand aside” he says. Wellard doesn’t budge. “Stand aside” Sawyer says again, lurching at Wellard with the dreaded pointy end of the pencil.

 

Luckily, Horatio Hornblower comes to the rescue. “What’s going on here?!” he demands.

 

“It appears this gentleman refuses to show his train ticket while threatening Mr Wellard with a pencil” informs Kennedy.

 

“Oh, give that thing to me!” says Hornblower angrily, snatching the pencil from Sawyer and snapping it in two. Sawyer, now defeated, collapses into a crying heap on the carriage floor.

 

The three officers have had enough and decide to throw Sawyer off the train. While they get into position to pick Sawyer off the floor, Randall and his mate sneak behind the ticket inspectors and bolt from the carriage door opening. The passengers observe this and say nothing.

 

“One, two, three” says Kennedy, and they all grab Sawyer’s arms and lift him up. With a violent push they shove Sawyer off the carriage. He lands heavily onto the concrete platform, onto his fragile knees and rough hands.

 

“Damn you!” Sawyer curses as the carriage door slams shut and the train screeches away the platform.

 

“Damn yooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuu!” he says again, shaking his gnarled fist, as the carriages fly past, leaving him in the distance to become a tiny white speck set against grey.

 

************

 

By now, Mr Bush is 10 minutes late for his meeting. Once off at Town Hall, he sprints down the stairs and pushes his way through the terminal. He turns the corner when BANG! he plows straight into a middle-aged lady, accidentally causing her to spill her burning cappuccino down her white blouse. But Bush doesn’t stop to see if she is alright, he just keeps on bolting, down the footpath, across the crossing, up the stairs of the Call-Me-Now.com.au company, until he reaches the conference room on level 21, where the board are obviously waiting for him.

 

Bush goes to the gym quite regularly, so he isn’t panting his guts out when he gets there, but his heart rate is up all the same from nervousness.

 

“You’re late” grunts George, the Vice-President of the company.

 

“No, I’m just not as obsessively punctual as you are” thinks Bush to himself, but he doesn’t say it.

 

Bush knows they want to get straight into it, but he has to first set up the overhead projector for his presentation. This takes a couple of minutes to fiddle with, all the while he can feel the eyes of the Board burning a hole straight through him.

 

“Gentlemen, sorry to have kept you waiting” Bush says finally. “I present the new marketing campaign of Call-Me-Now.com.au”. He clicks on a button…and nothing appears on the screen. Bush’s face goes pale, and he mutters “The damn thing should be working”. He checks the floppy disk containing the presentation through Windows Explorer…it is completely blank.

 

Bush wants to vanish into thin air then and there, but he is glued to the floor.

“Well, we were thinking of having women in bikinis in our ads” Bush begins nervously to the group of male senior executives well into their 60s. “I feel this would raise sales because…”