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		Taking the B-Train Author: SHAUN MICALLEF Date: 19/10/2002 Words: 973 Publication: The Age Section: Saturday Extra Page: 2 It has oft been said that I could charm the beard off a fire engine. This may be true but I recently met an entity that, no doubt to the eye-fizzing surprise of my champions, proved decidedly immune to my reputed allure. I write of no lesser entity - and it is hard to think of one - than the minor officialdom of the B-Train system. I rarely travel by rail these days unless being run out of town on one. The last time I endured said outrage was nigh on three score and five years ago after an understandable misunderstanding with the she-male bellhop of an unnamed Mount Gambier bed 'n' breakfaster. I'll spare you the details. As bad luck would have it this day, the crankshaft of my 1930 Duesenberg J-Class Town Car was being drained from a hoist by an overalled bandito whose chicanery I have long suspected but never been able to convince a judge of, and so I found myself standing at Wiltona Station under a framed B-Train sign (boasting a 10 per cent inefficiency rating), and waiting for the 11.14. My reading at the Fabian Society in the city was scheduled for noon and I had allowed myself plenty of time. Or so I thought. I searched hither and yon and in vain, it seemed, for a liveried conductor. A small ragamuffin in a T-singlet called me ``pops" and directed me to a sputum-covered machine that proceeded to gobble my coinage like a Tatts pokie and give me nought in return but the feeling I had been swindled. I rapped upon the device with my cane. Nothing. I flipped a sovereign to the under-dressed youth responsible for my predicament and bid him fetch the station master forthwith. The lad expectorated on my spats and ran off in the opposite direction, curling out a peal of laughter. I made a mental note that should I ever chance upon him again I would thrash him with a canoe paddle. Indignant beyond words, I sought out the station master myself. A young continental man in shirtsleeves eventually tore himself from counting a lost umbrella and shambled over to the fly-specked glass I was tapping on with the frenzy of a coked-up telegraph operator. I made a mental note to have my gloves destroyed. He listened to me in broken English as I recounted my nightmare adventure with the chest freezer outside. He took in my finery - Jaegar woollen suit, pink and green poineau gold hinged cuff bracelet, jewelled velvet shoes, Donnegal tweed cap, Greek chlamys, and Juschi oversized silk scarf - and could have seen me as nothing other than the honourable gentleman I was, yet still he was not moved to reimburse my $1.70. He slipped a form document through the slit in the glass and smiled at me with the warmth of an anodised cup. The insolence. Had my walking cane not been carved from a narwhale's tooth in the 17th century by Scrimshaw Artisans P.W. Macready and Sons, I would have shattered his window with it and throttled the braggart where he leaned. Instead, I turned on my heel, poured some more of my inheritance into the freezer, snatched the sliver of cardboard it ejaculated, and marched aboard the 10.14, which fortunately (and I suspect, typically) had arrived 10 minutes late. A pre-recorded woman voiced her sincere apologies over the tannoy. Were that she was there and un-pre-recorded to hear me harrumph. I was about to make a mental note to write to the Commissioner of Railways (a personal friend), demanding the station master be relieved of his duties and perhaps lashed to a pillory, when my eyes fell upon the horrifying interior of the carriage. Now I appreciate that it had been some time since I last travelled by locomotive, and that the days of moulded wooden panels, intricately etched windows, and pull-down hand basins may be gone, but I did not expect to be greeted by the word F--- spray-painted in five-foot letters all over the beige plastic wall in front of me. I clasped my flushing jowls, shuddered involuntarily, and made my way to my seat, stained though it was with what I shall charitably assume to be creosote. The journey went without incident save for the 45 minutes in which a band of urchins thought it amusing to pelt me with morsels of fast food. Eventually, I looked up from my book (The Thoughts of Nanushka Vol. CIV), and told them in no uncertain terms that, if they did not desist, I would pull the emergency cable and command the engine driver to fetch a constable. They said they'd like to see me try. I rose to their challenge and hurled one of my already soiled gloves into the face of the ring-leader, a small child of approximately 12. Sadly, the emergency cable too has gone the way of the ostler and I arrived in the city beaten to within an inch of my life, and with my wig missing. I hoped I was not too late for my appointment. My watch had been stolen in the ruckus and the train had stopped for chanting practice at South Kensington so it was difficult to tell. Just to be on the safe side, I ran as fast as my withered leg would allow all the way from Flinders Street Station to the rear of the Melbourne Club in Collins Street, and arrived just as what I took to be the noon gun went off at Georges (although I later discovered it was an armed robbery). As it turned out the Fabian society was meeting next week. I made a mental note to get a diary.