Chancing my arm I decided not to buy a ticket for the first leg of my journey. I had it on good authority that Victoria station had unmanned gates and that if I was caught without my fare the worst that could happen would be a ten pound fine. It seemed worth the risk. Spurred on by the buzz of a couple of cans of Stella Artois and some crucial scenes from a James Dean movie, I was now the rebel - the rebel without a clue. London has some pretty suspect laws relating to alcohol consumption. Very rarely are hotels granted licenses to serve liquor past 11.00 p.m., yet you can drink openly in the streets and on public transport at any time of the night or day - the archaic and the absurd. So there I was, can of beer in hand, collars pulled up, eyeing anyone in a suit with more than a touch of suspicion. It has to be said I make a lousy law-breaker.
For all my paranoia I really had little need to worry. At Victoria I casually sauntered through the open gates and off into the milling, post-work crowd turning the collars down on my shirt as I went and secretly congratulating myself under my breath. Yes, the perfect crime.
Suits were everywhere, darting this way and that, each on their own little mission, each with there own personal agenda. Their common thread was the total disregard for everyone else around them. I'd never really thought about the term 'rat race' before, probably never had the need, but it seemed to sum up their plight perfectly.
6.30 p.m. at one of London's busiest stations and the rats were out in force. I was soon to become a rat, I thought. When I found that job tomorrow that is. I wondered how long it would take me to wear an expression like theirs. An expression of dread, of exhaustion, of too little time and too many pressures. The whole scene was all relatively new to me. I still stared at the airplane hangar type ceilings, watched the pigeons, read the billboards and checked out the natives. I was still learning the names of British institutions like W.H. Smiths, Boots the Chemist, Marks and Spencers and Tescos. I was still flummoxed by the fact you had to pay twenty pence for a piss and still enthused by the fact that beer came in 500 mill cans. Everything seemed so new but in a strangely familiar fashion.
I finished my can of beer, cracked another and followed a sign toward the Underground.
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