The Butcher, my Dad and me
Today, I arrived late for work, because of a suicide attempt on the tube (everyone´s fine), which brought to mind a few recollections of my childhood.
My father is a tube driver. He has been driving on the same line for almost forty years and he likes his job. My father is a steady man.
First time he let me „drive“ the train, I was 7 years old. „There are three gears,“ he said, pushing me towards the gear lever, while the machine was hurtling through the tunnel, „slow, fast and wheee! Press wheee.“ I did so. It was heavy to push. Wheee! It was fantastic. Then I was ordered to operate the button for the doors. The Responsibility was terrifying. I initially froze and refused to touch the button. My father left the train standing in the station for TWO MINUTES AND A BIT before I finally lost the Battle of Wills and closed the doors.
When I started to go out in the evenings, I got the occasional crackle of the amp on the train and driver´s voice announcing to the passengers: „Small! Where you off to? Get in here!“, after which he would wait with all doors open, until I galloped to the cabin across the empty platform, red faced. When I got pissed, I always took the tram.
Dad was comparatively lucky in that he only had one suicide: a man, who hid himself in one of the countless nooks in the tunnels and when the train was close, stepped out. My father did not even see him, just heard the thump. In the station, he went to check and discovered bits of the poor chap on the metal.
In such cases, rather oddly, it is the duty of the police to go into the tunnel and find all the parts of the body, which activity, as you will not be surprised to hear, they loath. In this case, they could not find a hand or a part of an arm, and the whole search took a couple of hours. The emerged very grumpy and to cool down, gave Dad a fierce talking to. (How do you look so calm?! Do you realise that you just killed a man?) Poor Dad. When the psychologist arrived and gave the policemen his own cross talking to, he was in bits.
When a tube driver gets a suicide, he then has minimum of three days off. My father refused this, went to work next day and drove by usual speed. He told me that his instincts are screaming up against it, but it´s the most sensible approach he could work out. Though it was a considerably long time before he did the wheee! again.
Dad´s mate Dave got it worse. He got seven suicides so far and fellow drivers, with their customary cheerfulness, gave him a nickname „The Butcher“. After this suicide, there had been an attempt to nickname my Dad „The Reader“, because he tends to carry books around with him, but luckily, it had not caught on.