LION & HAWK

A businessman walks along the 5:45's platform puffing on an e-cigarette.     — “Mate!” calls the platform attendant, “put your cigarette out.”     — “It’s not a cigarette.” says the businessman plaintively.     — “Doesn’t matter,” responds the attendant.  “Cambridge City ordinance. 2014. Includes e-cigarettes in its banning orders.”     — “Oh, sorry.” the business man affirms.  He has the tone of dog-with-tail-between-its-legs.

While I mentally note the exchange, I continue writing my daily card to MaryJane, my shut-in neighbour.  Yesterday’s dog walk brought me onto what sounded like a North American Indian Council of War.  The Hare Krishna had captured Castle Hill.  There, towering over city centre, chants of Hare. Hare. Hare Krishna. Hare Rama. were literally enchanting.

Now, on the platform, with the businessman turned-tail, the attendant took note of me writing.  People often do.  And, they become self-conscious, concerned that I write about them.  This one, the attendant, is making out that he hasn’t noticed me as he does.  It’s normal behaviour: this pretense of I am not thinking of you; therefore, you do not exist. 

He takes a wide, arching path around me, craning his neck to determine what I’m doing.  I pretend not to notice.  But, as he swings around behind my left shoulder, I turn to stare into his eyes.  He is easy on the eyes, a handsome mid-twenty something.  The look forces a confession from him.     — “Oh, it’s a postcard.” he says without a measure of surprise.     — “Does that matter!” I demand.  “What,” I ask more playfully, “might it have been?”  He holds his distance, like a man who finds himself in the lion’s enclosure at the zoo.     — “I thought you were National Rail.  . . . I mean,” he catches himself, “I thought you were an under-cover security agent.” 

The strain he was under couldn’t have made him more vulnerable.  My inner lion pulsed.     — “And, you’ve come to blow my cover, have you?”  He has no answer.  He backs away, as you might from a lion, believing that slow, measured steps might mesmerize the beast into inaction.  And, I turn my attention back to the card, running off to post it before the train arrives.

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Pay a man attention, and he can be yours!

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On return to my stand on the platform, there is the attendant.  He’s watching everyone, having released his inner hawk.  Among his jobs is looking out for would-be jumpers.  Suicide by train is a bit too common.  He is also responsible for ‘releasing’ the train.  Most attendants will release a train and walk on to the next train’s platform.  Now seated inside, I sense that this one might be different.  At the sound of his whistle, a precursor to release, I down my pen, turn to look across the carriage, and stare out the window.  I’ll have a final glimpse of him, to see if his curiosity turns him one last time.

The train pulled slowly forward.  The fluid landscape of the station outside drew the figure of the platform attendant into view.  Arms crossed.  Less than a few inches from the glass.  Staring in at the caged lion, as if he were a falconer’s hawk looking on a kitten.

The National Rail’s inspector turns his attention to the young man in a corner of the carriage.  Conspicuous in his discomfort seated across from a beautiful young woman, the young man pulls at his t-shirt.  Crosses his arms in an attempt to hide a burgeoning tummy.     — “Gerbil,” I think.  “Gerbil. Hawk. Lion.”

  

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Incidentally, on the 16:14 train home out of London, Kings Cross, I sat opposite a National Rail inspector in the far back corner of the train's first carriage.  In a small black notebook, in which was printed a rail map, he noted conditions within and outside the carriage at various way-points along the line.  When he thought that no one was looking, he unfastened his belt and slid his trouser button from its hole.