The Man At The Bank

So this stayed with me. I nearly didn't enter because I'm a big, tough, hard fucker from Glesga, pal. Who you fucking talking to? I mean, anyone who knows me knows I'm not like that. Grumpy, angry, yes, but I'm the first to avoid confrontation that could get violent. Anyway.

I remembered this uncomfortable chapter among my confessional greats: "I kicked a girl and didn't like it", "I kissed a girl and ran away (or left college)", and "I told some poor kid he wasn't invited to my birthday party because I didn't like him."

What... wait, Paul, this is meant to be about childhood fears, not some fucking confessional.

I know, I know, but it's a two-for-one deal.

I was at the bank with my mum, possibly dad, and brother. It was one of those grimy old British banks where pens on chains slotted into holes in the counters. I used to like playing with them, seeing how far I could drag one away before the tiny metallic chain pressed and made an impression on my skin. Sometimes the pen was missing entirely.

The past comes wrapped in thick fog and sepia, best viewed through rose-tinted glasses, cos the real thing looks like everyone has emphysema or jaundice.

Everyone smoked in the past. Sitting at the top of a double-decker bus in the 80s and 90s meant reaching your destination smelling like a Benson & Hedges factory or the local independent business owner's weed.

Banks were grown-up things that took a fuckload of time, effort and stress.

While we were waiting, a man caught my eye. He had a grumpy face and an unpleasant demeanour; I was unnerved. I was also a wee dickhead, so I stared and, I think, badgered him.

This is a confessional as well as a childhood-fear piece because he had dwarfism or another disability. That might be why I stared. Whether it was his expression, my discomfort at seeing someone who looked different from what I was used to, or just the fact I was a wee dickhead, I can't say for sure. In my childhood imagination, he was the murderer in the film version of my life, about to come and axe me to death if he didn't get peace to conduct his banking.

I'm paraphrasing, but I was wee. I was young.

I'm sure he told me off for staring, or my mum did, or both. Eventually, I stopped.

A lifelong champion overthinker, I went home thinking about it, seeing his face in my bedroom window. Part of me was scared he might come and get me, and part of me thinks it was all guilt.

It took me days to get over it. My appetite returned, and I moved on. But even now, as a 46-year-old, it still haunts me on occasion.

The cruel innocence of children learning about the world and reacting to it, often with the subtle tact of a jumbo jet crashing into a library for the deaf.

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Thanks for reading!

This is for Annie Kapur's fantastic Childhood Fears Challenge.