by Gladys
Moving Target,Volume 3, Issue #2, Spring 1992
It's a mad mad day before Christmas, one of those rare busy periodsthat should have lasted for two or three months but, this year, comes inthe form of a busy two hours an a Friday afternoon in November.
What happened to the peak period? The October/November/December pre-Christmasrush when market-surveys burst blood-vessels in The City and the West-endhad hernias over late art-work. Was it all a dream? Has time lent me apair of rose-coloured specs, nostalgia numbing my brain?
"In my day...ten up in Soho for the City...earned more in day thanI do in two now...record earnings an the 15th October 1988" forlorncries from an aging, dying breed remembering Boom-town and the abundanceof drinking vouchers.
Any-road-up, the story, It's busy and I haven’t had time for food -half three and my body demands fuel - now! I make my pick-ups in Soho andWC1 and take five with six up on Little Russell going EC. Hastily chompingthru a sandwich I come across an ambulance team on the corner with Copticdesperately trying to get access into a residential block of flats.
They’re well pissed-off having evidently been here for some time, pushingbuzzers on the intercom, getting no help. I listen in to the chat.
Please, we're ambulance crew, the man in no. 24 has collapsed.
'No - I can't buzz him - he’s collapsed "I've already buzzed otherflats, you're the fifth person who won’t let us in"
"Please...it could literally be a case of life and death."
The dude seemed on the brink of tears, his two colleagues were tensedand pacing the tarmac. One of them went to the wagon, presumably to radioin their problem the dude, whislt the dude on the intercom persisted withthe paranoid resident.
"Please....."
I pulled up alongside the wagon and gestured woman to turn on the siren.
"Wake 'em up."I mouthed, "Let'em know who you are.
She put the siren on, the two guys at the door appeared to be annoyed,puzzled until, message received, the door catch buzzed and the door opened.
I felt pleased with myself, it's good to be a servicant - the only problemlies with what cause to serve. I POB'd controller and hit the road, burningrubber and waking up the mean City streets.
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