I UNDERSTAND

'Can you drop me off here?' I said to the driver of the number five bus.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I can't.'
I was standing at the front of the bus was waiting at the traffic lights, junction of City Road and Stokes Croft.
'You let the other man off back there after the stop,' I said.
'That's because I forgot to let him off,' he said. 'You saw when I got there the woman waved me through.'
'I did,' I said.
'Thing is,' he said, 'we're closer into town and I could get seen and then I'd be in trouble.'
'Seen by an Inspector?'
'No,' he said, 'another driver.'
'Really? I know an inspector would turn you in but another driver?'
'Yes,' he said. 'We've got these books and if we see anything wrong we're supposed to write it down and if we report it they give us a reward or something like that.'
'A bit of divide and rule?'
'Exactly,' he said. 'And some of the white drivers use it to get back at the ones they don't like.'
'Outrageous,' I said, genuinely appalled.
By this time we were on Stokes Croft and the driver was slowing the bus into my stop, the last one before St. James Barton.
'Thank you,' I said.
'Okay. And I'm sorry.'
'That's alright,' I said. 'I understand.'