The Convict.

Must be a week for annoying people in public transport. After the mind-numbing banality of the other day's school kids, I was greeted by a man at the tram stop this morning, who had the look. And not the look of love, no, the look of escaped mental patient.

He was wearing a very baggy L.A. Raiders top, and underneath that, what appeared to be a pair of prison overalls that were about 14 sizes too big. Bright orange with numbers stencilled on it, and his head looked like it had been struck at odd angles with a tyre iron. Of course, he chose to speak to me. What follows is the conversation to the best of my recollection.

Convict: 'Hey man, you gotta be as cold as me with a haircut like that!'

Me: 'Yeah, a shaved head is miserable in winter.'

Convict: 'Yeah! But man, that's a wicked hairstyle.'

Me: 'Thanks.'

Convict: 'Yeah, I used to have long hair myself, but I had to shave it off 'cos I've got a hole in the back of my head.'

At this point, the alarm bells started warming up. When a stranger dressed as a convict tells you they've got a hole in the back of their head, you start to think of ways to escape the vicinity, or at least punch 000 into your mobile. I don't have a mobile phone because I'm a stubborn asshole, so I thought instead about the legalities of pushing an escaped mental patient under a tram, or at the very least throwing my MacBook Pro at his head and screaming 'HOLY SHIT THIS GUY HAS A BOMB'.

Then, according to random destitute crazy guy Rule #1, which states that, by law, any and all persons affecting any sort of mental illness or psychosis must ask any member of the public they strike up a conversation with for a cigarette at some point in the conversation, he did the very thing.

I said I had none, and he was okay with that, but when he turned to walk away, I noticed that he had a fucking hole in the back of his head. Not a big one, and it wasn't bleeding, but damn if that wasn't a fresh wound of some sort. Looked like the circumference of a railway spike or something. That was my cue to get the fuck out of dodge, so I boarded the tram and hid under a seat. I presume he was arrested sometime today for killing a dog, or maybe shitting in a fountain, because he certainly looked like the kind of guy that'd shit in a fountain.