‘On the move?! Fat chance!’ snapped James, jabbing at his touch-screen, willing the digital elves, or whoever else they were, to get off their big, fat virtual bums and find him Tram Tracker.

‘Finding apps should be bomb-proof!’

He lifted his gaze to the south. Kebab signs; the Australian Souvenir Shop; one or two vans emblazoned with cedar trees…all good: all 100% dinki-di halal in his eyes but, more pointedly, still no sign of a tram. He shoved the phone into his pants, rueing that moment he’d acceded to his wife’s request to borrow his car.

‘I Zumba at 11:00’, she’d said, ‘…and oh, the shopping. Mine’s past 50,000k’s and needs a full servicing. We wouldn’t want to void our warranty now would we?’  

But what choice did he have? Experience had taught him that a negative response on his part would end in microwave gloop and even further limits to his conjugal rights…and forget a full servicing!

So the tram to work it had to be…bugger.

He remembered the time he got stuck next to a big skinhead; his tattooed legs splayed across a seat in abject contempt of both The Transport Act and any thought of an employable future.

 ‘See this tatt?’ the skinhead had asked, stroking a name crossed out on his inner thigh, ‘It’s the dobber that got me banged up in Barwon jug. Goin’ ta’ visit him… right now’, He then brought his lips up close to James’s ear and whispered, ‘It’s only five stops. Wanna’ join me mate?’

 James answered with a quick exit at the next stop.

Nonetheless, despite this and all the morning’s misery (the quick coffee – the spilt coffee – the coffee-stained shirt), James wasn’t wholly averse to trams, particularly Sydney Road’s Number 19. It never failed to entertain. There were the shop fronts to gawk at and all the Muslim women in their colourful hijabs. And then there were the more ubiquitous tram-y attractions; the toasty smell of brakes on steel; that ding-y little bell, rung by angry drivers at the hoons that hurtled past. Even ticket validating machines had their appeal. James took particular delight in the way they’d regurgitate – over and over and over again – the wrongly inserted Metcards of the exasperated tourists and oldies. And as for Myki – well…

A metallic squeal prised him from his thoughts…the 19. He ascended the steps and wedged himself next to a giggly schoolgirl – the only thing conceivably worse than an ex-con with a bent for violent homo-erotica. He expelled heavily, pulled his phone from his pocket, and proceeded to hunt one last time for Tram Tracker.    

‘Excuse me sir’ asked the girl, ‘What’re you doing?’

‘Can’t find Tram Tracker’ he grunted.

‘Here. Give it to me’ she said, pulling it from his hand.

Her digits danced across the screen.

‘There you go’ she declared, passing it back with an elfin smile.

He found himself smiling back.