Granite City, The Deen, Silver City, Aberdeen, call it what you will, it's a unique city on the rugged east coast of Bonnie Scotland. When the power of sail was the only force available & the boats got too big for a couple of oars to handle, it was a life saver. Very little in the way of natural coves or harbors around that part of the island to give shelter, shear cliffs & jagged rock formations abound, a hazard to this day. Deadly without an engine, radar or GPS aboard, caught out by a haar or stormy night with only a wooden boat & prayers saving you from the rocks, you had better be ready to meet your maker. Without a lighthouse or fog horn, a very bad day was about to be had & a lot of luck was needed if you were going to live to tell the tale over a pint & a dram.

 

Few places I've been to like it, for more reasons than I'll mention here but part of it, is how close you can get to a massive boat tied up next to the main street. Hop, skip & a jump would almost get you from floating in the harbour to 'Markies' on Union Street, the mile long heart of the city. True to form in a sailors town there are lots of wee bars you can duck n dive into on the 5 minute walk up the hill, folks drinking pints of beer with a full scottish breakfast at 8 in the morning is normal in this part of the planet. If your in one of the bars around the harbour & you've not got either or both in front of you, you'll be the odd one out. A wiff of fish, diesel, stale beer & fags greet you as you enter any one of them, feet sticking to the carpet is the wecome mat. People with wellies, tattoo'd fingers, 4 or less teeth, with neck lumps & wearing rubber aprons, the hardest part was guessing if it was a man or woman wearing them, both sexes seemed to have combed their hair with a balloon.

 

The city is wedged between two rivers, The Dee & The Don, at 90ish miles long each, they are short in comparison to others in Scotia but the landscapes they flow through are stunning. They differ greatly in one sense, at their mouths one trickles into the North Sea through a golden sandy beach & the other flows freely into an extension of the harbor proper & shipping channel under the Torry Bridge.

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The main north/south road winds it way through the city & at this section goes past the harbour, 'Market Street' named after the fish market on one side of it, once the biggest white fish port in Europe. A stones throw from where the oil rig supply boats berth & the Shetland ferry parks up between sailings, on this day, a sunny Friday morning early, the traffic was nose to tail past the boats. In the thick of it by choice, unlike all of the other drivers was a good mate of mine, on 2 wheels.

 

The Ozzies called him 'Shooters' known to many by another name, born & bred from a part of the city that has a great view of the rest of it. This day he was just another part of the slow moving traffic jam, a cog in a wheel of what our daily lives have become, taken for granted that we have to & must face the daily frustration of moving slower than anyone walking the same stretch of tarmacadam. There is another way but.............

 

Winding it's way south, normally he would have excercised his right as a biker & split the traffic & made slow but steady progress, leaving the rest behind & making many in their metal boxes with empty seats wonder why they were not on 2 wheels. The sun was shining, he was on the road early & choose to observe the boats & people in slow moving installments, in no hurry to get to work.

 

The rolling jam moved forward a few car lengths at a time & stopped for 10-20 seconds, repeat & repeat & repeat. He was happy enough to be part of it for now but the car behind him was not so content, with each stoppage the lassie driving it seemed to be getting more & more upset. Judging by the reflection in his mirrors, she went from putting make-up on the move & singing to waving arms & shouting to the traffic gods to get their finger out.

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If you ride a bike with or without an engine & manage to stay alive long enough, you develope a sixth sense. For me it started when I realised that every other thing on the road or pavement was out to kill me, or should be treated as so to saty alive. Cars, trucks, buses & pedestrians were all potential assassins ready to pounce & looking for a victim, no wonder the medical folks call us organ donors & temporary citizens.

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This morning 'Shooters' sixth sense was turned on & tuned into the feeling the car behind was going to hit him. Steaming up to his bike & jamming her brakes on at the last second, inches from his back wheel, getting closer & closer with every stop. In his mirrors was a very pissed off & agitated woman, her reflection getting bigger & bigger & more animated each time they moved & ground to a hault..........................Move......Stop.......Doouf.

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Accidents happen, we've all been part of one type or another, some industries try to trot out the idea that they can all be prevented, bullshit, though it would have been easy to avoid this one, paying attention cuts out 99% of the possibilties of one happening.

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He flipped his bikes side stand down & walked toward her car, after the bump he had enough space to pull up to the car in front & calmly walk toward hers. Before he had a chance to lift his visor or say anything, she had her window down was calling him out. 'F' ing & Blinding, he was to blame & she was going to make his life hell. His fault, when the cops turned up, her new car was going to cost him a fortune to fix, blaming him for making her crash, the universal term I think is going mental.

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Hanging out the drivers side window & still hurling abuse as he walked up, she slumped back into the seat still shouting, he without uttering a word leaned in, turned off & pulled out the ignition keys. In one big ark, to anyone watching the scene, a slow motion throw, the keys headed towards the harbour. Before they found water he was back on his bike & splitting the still slow moving cars. 

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By the time he got to his work, there was almost no one there, as the hours passed the rest of the work force came in complaining, the next few hours were filled with tales of a car broken down, why? Mayhem on Market Street...........

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He told me later it would have made the Guinness Book of Records, fastest time for 'Hurling abuse to zipping it.'

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This story is dedicated to a brother of mine, live long & prosper mate.

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