Night Bus

I can’t remember ever feeling so scared.

I was on the upper level of a night bus — on the way home from my friend Amy’s flat in Camden. It had been a quiet journey. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a lot of sleepy people trying to get home from the bar or work or their friend’s flat on a Saturday night.

Suddenly, we hear screaming. Multiple voices shouting. FUCK YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKING CUNT! Don’t you fuck with me! Don’t you fucking fuck with me! A young teenage girl dressed in tawdry pink scrambles up the stairs chased by a boy in a blue hoodie and baseball cap. They shriek at each other, and the boy wrestles her to the ground. Large fake pearl bracelets fly everywhere and it looks like she is bleeding. He is whipping her with a gigantic belt. Or she is whipping him. I can’t tell. They are a tangled blur. Her arms are flailing in his face. Screaming. Whipping. Punching.

Graphic by Rebeca Mendez

More teenagers run up the stairs, all screaming and cursing. FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! The guy across the aisle from me stands up and roars at the boy in the baseball cap. Get your fucking hands off her! The boy turns around angrily and punches the man in the face. CAN’T YOU FUCKING SEE I’M FUCKING TRYING TO KEEP THEM APART! The man refuses to back down. His wife starts screaming. Peter, you have a child! Remember that you have a child! Peter refuses to back down, yells at the boy some more. The boy slams him in the face again with something I can’t see. A gun? A knife? A mobile phone?

One of the teens yells. THE FEDS ARE COMING! Let’s get out of here the police are coming! All of them except for the boy in the baseball cap, the girl in pink, and another girl hurry down the stairs. The two girls start hissing and clawing at each other. The boy pushes them away from each other. The second girl spits at the girl in pink. She spits back and hits a trembling woman. Screaming. Punching. Cursing. Hissing. Spitting. Blood dripping on the floor. Bystanders silent. Some crying.

And then, as suddenly as they arrived, they are gone. We sit immobile, incapable of uttering a word. The wake of a hurricane. The police arrive and take statements. Aside from the man, nobody is hurt. One woman can’t stop crying. We find out that we are in Notting Hill, one of the poshest residential areas in London. Nobody can make sense of what just happened. Gang warfare? Cat fight? Who knows.

We are lucky to be unhurt.