Violence and hope: controversy on the 63

NB Martin Amis author, Christopher Hitchens, journalist

Two people sit on the bus, discussing Shakespeare.
Another: “Your Uncle Vanya was superb”
Our driver, a classics scholar with film star looks
speaks Greek to his friend. He's never forgiven him
for those comments, in the London Review of Books.

The sky's a gigantic, suppurating bruise.
There's Peckham Rye common, where Blake saw his angels
puddles, with tower blocks in them, slide by us.
Queen's Road, where the palm trees of Peckham parade

listlessly. But who is this getting on the bus?

It's only Hitchens and Amis – Starsky and Hutch!

Hitch's last book is on everybody's mind.

The atheist tract set Lewisham alight –
God is Not Great: The Case Against Religion

Everyone has an opinion all right!

A stranger joins them. Looks like a varsity man.

His Oxford scarf is an exclamation mark.

He and Hitch are friends, they met at Balliol.

Precocious union debates were their platforms –

rowing on the Cherwell at dawn, the May ball

We have entered that liminal zone, the Old Kent Road

the least favoured spot on the Monopoly board.

Every pub claims to be Henry Cooper's gym.

You can still smell the Brylcreem and aftershave

“Splash it on all over”, they used to call him.

Here, thin yellow men regret the smoking ban.

Punch drunk, their fingers twitch for untipped Rothmans

collecting beer glasses in their frosted-glass lairs.

They are Charlie Chaplins, without his millions.

Violence and hope flavour the atmosphere.

We slither past Tesco's; to its rear the Shard

a slim, grey needle, pierces the sombre sky
“A point well made,” says Hitchens, of his new mate.
“Martin?” The upper-deck debate's in full swing.

What would Amis pere have thought? Martin hesitates.

“I'm sorry I don't agree,” he announces.

He will overcome this upstart; fuck him up

Like an unleashed Staff, he goes on the attack

“I see that you haven't read Christopher's book.

If you had done so, you would understand that ...”

As we pass through the Elephant, the boys

go at it, hammer and tongs, giving it some.

At Blackfriars, the brown river staggers by.

Does God exist? At least they have entertained.

The 63 bus is themed by their colloquy.