I got the tube home after another excellent night of surreal plays at Scene and Heard.
As I stepped into the carriage I was hit by the smell of stale alcohol sweat. I immediately saw whose pores this was emanating from: two men were passed out, opposite each other, sprawling over two or three seats each. They had done well to get this drunk, it was only 10.30, but presumably the week's work over they had piled into the pub at 5.30 and been boozing ever since.
Well, I feel that was certainly true of one of them. He was a man mountain, with a crew cut and enormous hands with chubby fingers. He was wearing a suit and tie, and had cuff-links depicting the flag of St George. Although he was fast asleep, I guessed he wasn't the kind of man I would like to bump into in a dark alley on a Friday night at 10pm. But by 10.30 he was a little sleeping pussy cat.
I had assumed that because they were both comatose and in such close proximity that the men must know each other, but the other fella looked more like a tourist. He was Asian, wearing jeans and trainers and one of those colourful jacket-style coats beloved of sports fans.
It was possible that they knew each other and had been out for a night on the town, but equally possible that they had both got pissed separately and happened to fall asleep in close proximity.
As we headed west on the Central Line, it crossed my mind that these sleeping beauties might miss their stop thanks to their extreme inebriation. But I looked at the gigantic drunk man and thought, "do I really want to be the one who wakes him up?"
If you had plied a grizzly bear with booze and he'd fallen asleep, would it be wise to go up to him and poke him with a stick, even if you suspected he might live in Holland Park, but was in danger of waking up in West Ruislip.
I decided that the risks outweighed the benefits of feeling like a Good Samaritan, valuing as I do, my teeth.
Perhaps his appearance and his love of England and alcohol had prejudiced against me, but I feared that rousing this sleeping giant might present a danger to myself and my fellow passengers.
And it amused me to think of him having to find his way home from the darkest reaches of west London.
The girl sitting next to me was not so cautious and possibly more kind-hearted. She discussed the situation with her boyfriend and said she couldn't bear to think of the man missing his stop. Her boyfriend seemed less committed to being helpful, possibly aware that it would be him, not her, who would have to deal with the consequences of her kindness. But undeterred she went and prodded the man's massive, muscly arm.
But he was too far gone to notice. She tried a few more times, but he didn't even stir.
The realists in the carriage let out a little sigh of relief. I had feared that the monster might react instinctively in his sleep and with a small bat of his limb the woman would be sent flying into the wall (I, myself, had once been drunk in Edinburgh and fallen into a similar sleep and Emma Kennedy, who was sleeping in a room about twenty feet away had been woken by my loud snoring. When she angrily came into my room and tried to wake me up, I responded, half-asleep, believing I was being attacked and attempted to strangle her. Imagine how the world of advertising gossip magazines would have been affected had I managed to see that through).
Several seconds later, the land-Kraken's brain finally responded to the interference and he fidgeted slightly and brushed something imaginary from his face, before turning over and carrying on with his dream (which I imagine involved eating a big pie and punching anyone who came near to the pie or looked at the pie in a funny way, especially if the person was not from England, or was from a different part of England to him - it's just a guess. A guess which shows my own prejudices more than anything.But a guess that I am convinced is entirely right).
The girl had returned to her seat, convinced now there was nothing she could do to help. The other passengers felt confident enough to laugh about and comment on the situation now. You can only laugh at a bloke like this if he is this fast asleep. We wanted to make the most of an opportunity that rarely presents itself.
The Asian man also then stirred and shifted. He ended up being in exactly the same position as the man opposite him. It was as if there was a mirror down the middle of the carriage, but a mirror that diminished the size of the subject, changed his race, and envisioned how he might look in casual clothes (or made him bigger, changed his race and made him smarter).
"Do you think they're together?" asked the man opposite me, prompted by this spooky coincidence of blind mirroring.
But there was no way to know whether they were, or where they would end up or how they'd get home.
"They probably live in West Ruislip," I commented as I got out at Shepherd's Bush.
But we all hoped that I was wrong.
