Wee Tam the Lady-Man

I’d just got on the bus – a number 4 to The Jewel – and there he was sitting there. My wee mate, Tam, dressed from head to foot as a woman; make-up, wig the lot. I was stunned and just stood there in the aisle holding everyone up. I couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d seen Hitler sitting there perhaps on his way to ASDA to peruse the vegetarian options.

‘Scuse me’ and ‘tut tut!’ I was getting from the auld yins behind me: the cast of ‘Cocoon’ that generally swarmed onto the buses at this time of day, probably on their way to ‘pissy-pants’ day at The Odeon. They'd get in cheap and have a free cuppa and a biscuit while everyone blethered instead of watching the film. Buggered if that’s what I’ll be doing when I’m that age, I’d rather fling myself off The Bridges and be done with it. Already because I’m past fifty I get those ads for funeral plans and Viagra. Seems like once you get old, capitalism just can’t wait to remind you about the availability of bendy slippers and incontinence nappies.

But, Wee Tam though, eh? I was sitting down by this time just a couple of seats back from him/her and I have to admit he/she looked quite glamorous, better than he ever did as his more usual male version. Wee Tam was not known for his sartorial elegance or anything like it. Trackie bottoms and the same jumper he’d been wearing for years and had never washed. Auld denim jacket and a Hibs bobble hat when it was cold. Now, as Tam-ess, he looked all primped and trim like he’d spent ages in front of a mirror before his public appearance. Nice checked woollen coat and the hint of stocking at the knee; heels not too high but enough to accentuate an unexpectedly shapely calf.

I sat there wondering how this had come about. How long had my wee mate Tam, who I’d known since we were at school and had been drunk with a hundred times, how long had he been doing this - this cross-dressing? Because that was what they cried it these days - Eddie Izzard and the Ladyboy’s of Bangkok and all that - cross-dressing! All very acceptable in these PC times, it seemed. But, in Lochend? At his age?

I knew he knew I’d seen him as he’d fixed his gaze to look out the window as if maybe that would prevent me approaching him. But, of course, the second the seat next to him became available I had my arse on it. I could feel him tense as he sensed my presence. I noticed how shiny and sheer his stockinged legs were up close and felt an alarming stirring in my loins. If I copped off with this version of Wee Tam, would that be allowed? Could I claim I didn’t know it was him? I booted these thoughts violently out of my mind and gently nudged the wee fella.

‘Heh, Tam”

He shrugged his shoulders huffily and half turned around as if the effort was just about to make him boak.

“Aye whit?”

Even though I knew fine it was him the confirmation still shocked me. Must have been some part of my mind that still hoped I’d been hallucinating or maybe dementia had kicked in early.

“What’s the score ma pal?”

“Whit dae ye mean?”

This retort had me coughing and choking in disbelief and I had to take a swig from my wee bottle of American Cream Soda to ease my throat. The audacity of his statement! I felt like saying ‘I mean why is it raining’ or ‘why is the sky blue?’

“Whit dae a mean? Kin ye no’ take a wild guess?”

“Aw aye, the claes and that”. He fixed his gaze on the world outside. They passed what used to be Meadowbank Stadium but was now a pile of rubble. Memories of Lachie Stewart in 1970 at the Commonwealth Games winning his big race. Down past Jock’s Lodge where the two friends had shared many a laugh and staggered home together to their respective drums or stopped at one or the others with a massive carry-out enough to drown a horse.

“Ye look nice by the way”

Head jerks round rapid-style as if to fight.

“You taking the piss?” The eye-shadow, the pancake, all expertly applied. The wig framed his face making him appear demure but sexy with it. Come to think of it, Wee Tam hadn’t had any sort of relations with a woman for many a year, unless, that is, you counted Mad Lizzie from the high flats but you couldn’t call that a relationship. If it was, then Mad Lizzie was in a relationship with half the men on the scheme (and some of the dugs as well if gossip was to be believed). 

His last girlfriend had been wee Annie who’d died in that bizarre lawn-mower incident. Bloody thing had blown up with her sitting on it. First female parkie in Scotland. Rumours that it may have been a male rival usurped for the position that tampered with the petrol tank. Her demise had broken Tam’s heart as they were meant to be married the following year. Was this current behaviour some sort of strange reaction?

An uncomfortable silence between them as the bus trundles through Northfield past the house that Ken Buchanan had grown up in. The great boxer had once said that it was the bullying he suffered here that led him to take up the fistic art. Tam uncrosses and re-crosses his legs. The sexy rustle is unmistakable and I imagined creamy, welcoming thighs.

“Ahem. So you jist oot for a wee jaunt?”

He grunts in affirmation.

“As weel to have these things oot in the open, dae ye no’ think?”

A further grunt.

It dawned on me then that my wee mate, Wee Tam was treating me like I was a bloke on a bus trying to chat him up. He was giving me the cold shoulder. The hip-swerve. The brush-off. The deaf-ear. Some of the auld yins had been whispering about this possibility since I’d pounced on the empty seat leaving one of their number to stand in the area designated for prams. They thought I was a stalker. A nuisance. A sex-pest. A predator.

It wouldn’t be long before one of the auld poke-noses told the driver and I’d be ejected from the bus and on some sort of register before I knew it.

They didn’t know that this was Wee Tam Findlay dressed in drag and I couldn’t tell them. Dressed as a middle-aged Judy he may be but he was still my mate and I wouldn’t embarrass him in that way.

Tam, in his new sultry, almost pouty demeanour turned to face me full on and whispered provocatively if a trifle hoarsely.

“Is this no’ your stop?”

And he was right, it was. The bus moved slowly on after I’d got off and I swear I saw one of the old coffin-dodgers replace me in the seat next to Tam who gave the auld yin a beaming smile and his full attention.