My buddy Kipling just got back from two weeks in Scotland. How a pot-addled hillbilly gets to Scotland in the first place is a bit of a longish story. I'll try to make sense of it.
But let me fast forward to last week. It's late Thursday, turning into early Friday, and he's making his way from Manchester to Glasgow by train. Also making their way from Manchester to Glasgow by train are about ten thousand football fans, every one of them hopelessly shit-faced drunk.
Now that in itself shouldn't have that much of an impact on young Kipling. He was known to be a bit of a booze-hound himself in his younger years. In fact, in our youth we shared many a whiskey-fuelled adventure. I vaguely recall one episode in a place called the "Flying Scotsman" where things got somewhat out of hand. We were in the basement lounge, knocking back rye-and-cokes and sharpening up our asshole skills.
Ten thousand soccer hooligans on one train. I don't know. Must have been a long train. Or they really pack them in. Anyway, Kipling reports that on three different occassions on the trip to Glasgow the train made unscheduled stops and was boarded by riot police who cleared the cars of brawling football fans.
"I was so scared, I didn't know what to do. They were all totally fucking hammered, and just a tearing at each other. I ducked in among some oriental people. They had a little corner of the car to themselves and were all pretending to be asleep. So that's what I did. But I could see it all around me. They're wacking each other with anything they can pry off the side of the rail car. It's complete chaos!"
Things took a turn at the Flying Scotsman when Kipling decided he could do a better set at the drum kit than the fellow who was up there with the band. He gets up on the table, steps over to the next table, walks all across the room from table to table, and steps onto the stage. Yanks the sticks out of the drummers hands. That was good enough for the drummer. He skeedaddled outa there real quick. Unfortunately, so did the rest of the band. So after a pretty impressive two minute drum solo, Kipling, having showcased his best drum licks, was left sitting there looking like a bit of a dorkshit.
To say young Kipling came from a hard place might be a bit of an understatement. Mum went to the House of Correction for Juvenile Girls when she was 13 years old, for stealing a truck. Out on a day pass a year later, she meets a fortyish guy, scrap-dealer, who takes a shine to her. The girls could get out if they were getting married. Voila! True love at fourteen!
By now we're getting a somewhat hostile escort out of the basement lounge. Kipling is a few steps ahead of me. He gets to the top of the stairs, and before I know it he's tipped a big ornamental ashtray down the steps and it's summersaulting towards me. I stand aside and watch it arc past, leaving a trail of sand and ash and cigarette butts all the way. Ha ha, nice one!
In Kipling's household, the career plan for him and his six sisters was the same; get the fuck out of the house as soon as you can. So, not a one of them finished high school, and all of them were out reproducing before the age of twenty. For Kip, that resulted in two daughters, and anyone who knew Kipling and the gal he made those babies with would have assumed that their career path would look the same.
I get to the top of the stairs, and suddenly there's this big bouncer fellow got his arms around me and is telling me I'll be cleaning up the mess. Oh, not so fast, my good man! Quite a scrum ensued, the net result of which was the bouncer ending up in the parking lot getting a good thrashing, while dozens of patrons, divided roughly between friends of the band and the rest of the crowd, mixed it up here and there. As I was slipping away congratulating myself on an evening well spent, I could hear the sirens getting closer.
Those kids, against all odds, became the first and second university graduates in the Kipling clan. Ever. And now one of them works in Scotland. Which is why Kipling was over for a visit.
Makes it off the train at a Glasgow station that's still forty miles from the airport. The Glasgow hooligans meet the incoming hooligans. A massive riot by Flying Scotsman standards, but apparently quite routine in Glasgow, is in full-throttle swing.
"No shit, I was scared. These guys are wailing away on each other with anything they can find. There's blood and puke and broken glass all over the place. Everybody is fucking drunk. I was trapped. I notice a turban just at the fringe of the crowd. A turban? It's gotta be a fucking sober person! I head in the direction of the turban, and when I get there I see he's holding a little sign that says Taxi. Hallelulja! He's an outlaw cabbie at the Glasgow train station....and he'll take me to the airport for twenty pounds!
I've never been so happy to see a turban in all my life!"
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