Panic, Paranoia and Peter Levy's Top Lip (1/3) By Joe Hakim

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3).

The world is a welter of conflicting fanaticisms - Betrand Russell And so it begins... You can feel it, a charge building - energy rushing up through our veins, a huge shock to the brain, fuse has gone, no light anymore. The smell of candle wax in your nostrils. Squinting in the dark. The fuse has gone.

I'm on a bus heading out of town and it's late. Single-decker and I'm sat in the middle on the right hand side. There's an Asian guy sat just in front of me, and there's a middle-aged woman just to my left. There are three lads at the back of the bus, pissed up, swigging from cans, shouting; the Friday night detritus - "Swear down mate, coulda kicked that fuckin' kids teeth in, I tell yer, but Steve grabs us and 'e goes, 'No, that's the wrong one, 'e's over by the bandit', and I sez, 'For fuck's sake...'"

I'm sensing the charge. The build up of static. The bus pulls over. The doors open and two other lads get on board. There's a shout from the back of the bus, "Ay-yiiiii!" The lads that are getting on throw their arms up in the air, and one of them shouts back, "Now then, yer fuckers!"

It's clear that these two are pissed up as well. They walk up to their mates. They must be about seventeen or eighteen. Gold chains, shirt and trousers - catch a glimpse of some kinda sovereign ring. I continue to stare out of the window. The lads sit together and they talk even louder than they did before. There is an inevitable sense of where this is leading - the smell of zone before the thunderstorm - but there's nothing that can be done to halt it; it's just nature. Does the rain listen when you ask it to stop?

"Ey paki," one of them shouts. I'm staring at the back of the Asian guy's head. He doesn't move a muscle. "Shun't be allowed on the fuckin' buses man." "'As the fucker got a back-pack on. We should search the bastard." A couple of them laugh, but it's uneasy. It's not just their paranoia that they're playing with. Everyone's fuckin' paranoid - everyone in England, and especially everyone in Hull. "Ey paki, fuckin Al-Quaeda, yer all the fuckin' same..."

It's an ugly, ugly thing, and it's unfolding right in front of me. The women just to my left seems to collapse into her seat. The guy in front of me remains motionless. I continue to stare out of the window. A couple of the lads start talking about birds and cars, shit like that, but I can almost feel the glare of the others on the back of the guy's head in front of me.

Continued ...next page(2/3),

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