Public transport incident

I had an appointment at the bank at 3 to talk about insurance. To be honest, I wasn't very keen on going but I want the bank to be good to me so at present I'm being especially good to the bank. So I left the house to hop on bus 4 down to the Alouette where our branch is. As I approached the stop I saw bus 4 pull in so I speeded up on the off chance that I would catch it. It stayed at the stop and the driver put the hazard warning lights on. He let me on board and continued a conversation with the bus controller.

"Ah no, the police are not here yet. Well no, but the way things are they'll be hitting each other soon."

Two men at the back of the bus were having a very heated conflict while the rest of us watched and wondered whether intervening would help or inflame the situation.

"Come away" urged some women to one of the chaps.

After several minutes the police arrived, charged onto the bus with pistols drawn, and yelled at the main combattant to stand up. He didn't. "I'm going to witness a shooting", I thought. The police got to the guy, who was drunk and also obviously had some psychological issues. They dragged him to his feet, cuffed him and frog-marched him off the bus.

Then followed interviews with various folk involved. "He'd been threatening to slit everyone's throats, and so on". (At present in France this kind of threat is particularly unwelcome.)

Eventually we all got off the bus and onto a following one, the bus driver had a much-needed cigarette before returning the the depot and I was 30 minutes late for my appointment at the bank.

Oh well.

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