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| "At least you will fucking get to see your Ariel again!" |
“Hey
Dawg, I bet you have some good stories.”
Oh, shit... The three of them; the usual giddy
UCSB geeks trying too hard to be hip, going into town from I.V., and they want a
story. Any other time I might have obliged them but not that night.
“Nothing
you’d want to hear.”
“Try
us, Dawg.” demanded the white, blond haired, Orange County, master-race looking
pretender.
How
I hated it when these white college boys try to talk ghetto, “Naw…”
“C’mon,
any sex going down in the back seat… any B-J’s… y’know… Dawg… hookers,
biotches?” the boy was drooling for a sordid tale.
“You
really want to hear my favorite… My best? Naw, you don’t have the stomach for
it.” I liked DMZ, NWA, and all that Hip-Hop shit but I cranked up some Robert
Johnson to tune them out…
Every time I’m
walkin’
down the
streets
Some pretty
mama starts breakin’
down with me
Stop breakin’
down
Yes, stop
breakin’ down
The stuff I
got’ll bust your brains out, baby
Hoo-hoo, it’ll
make you lose your mind…
My
favorite… my Best Cabbie Story was from the previous night, if I would have,
could have, told it like this:
Crushed,
I returned to my room and tried to sleep before going to work. That night I got
in my cab and drove around avoiding calls and flags. I’d picked up only a few
fares since the shift started and it was already about three A.M. A call came
over the radio: “89, Max.”
I
picked up the mic and answered the call, “Eight-Nine.”
Dispatch
gave me an address on the Mesa. “Work out something, Eight-Nine; I didn’t give her a
quote.”
You
never know when you get a call like that: a quote? It could be a long ride.
That is what I needed too… as long as the fare doesn’t want to jabber all the
way.
A
young woman approached my cab dressed Goth; all black gear, Doc Martins,
ripped-fishnet stockings, straight black hair with bangs framing a whiter than
white face that accented the makeup running from her deep brown eyes across
pasty cheeks to her cupid bow lips coated with glossy black lipstick.
Hmmm,
crying… sketchy… volatile, things could change in an instant. I thought: A
break-up? A drunk boyfriend? Sometimes rides like this end a block away when
the little honey changes her mind and goes back to the turd she'd just escaped.
“How…
how much… would it cost to… cost to take me to Newport Beach…?” Between sobs
her words had to work their way out her throat through her grief. Something bad
had happened.
“The
meter would be about One-Eighty….” Back then one-eighty would have paid my
lease on the cab, my room for one night, and part of my bar tab.
“One-eighty?”
She cried… it was a heart rending cry. Not the kind of cry that is the result
of a fight with a boyfriend or even the death of a pet dog. I recognized that
this was the cry of a deep-felt grief that had no bottom.
“Hey,
don’t worry ... the meter ain’t set in stone. How much are you able to …?”
“I
only have ninety dollars” she turned away… resigned and not even begging for a
break.
“Hey,
come on and jump in… it’s okay, I’ll get you there.”
Hell, I’d thrown in the
towel for the night anyway… hadn’t made any money and had already counted that
night a loss. Ninety bucks would cover about my lease but not the gas… what the
hell. Besides, I needed that long, dead-head, solo ride back… it was a godsend.
She
got in the back seat and curled up. Every few minutes a heart wrenching, body
convulsing, sob would cut through the dark as the flashing of passing lights
splashed over her tiny body. She was an adorable young girl about twenty or so
but my mind wasn’t there at all. I wondered, curious, what had torn her up? It
must be something horrible. She hadn’t said a word since the ride started….
nothing but muted sobs. Dare I ask?
Those sobs evoked a lump in my throat as I
drove past all the Carpentaria exits. It was dark enough, along that stretch of
101, between Carp and Ventura, for almost thirty miles. It felt okay to cry with
her: She wouldn’t see me. The tears flowed. I’d been holding it in. Two years
of trying in vain. I just fuckin’ let it go and quietly, intimately, wept with
her… I was holding her in my mind’s arms and inside-crying with her.
We
must have been past Ventura, near Camarillo, before my tears caught her
attention… well, caught it enough for her to ask, “Are you crying?”
I
didn’t want to say anything but I might as well admit it. It felt strange to
let her know I was crying… I choked it back … that lump, “You caught me…”
“Why?”
“Oh…
shit… I just gave up on a long custody battle for my daughter yesterday… and,
hell, I’m sorry, I just figured you wouldn’t notice if I cried with you.”
“What’s
her name… your daughter?”
“Ariel…”
“Will
you see Ariel again?” she asked in a flat and very restrained monotone.
“Maybe…
to tell the truth, I can’t think that far ahead right now.”
The
anger was as thick as it was animated… she bitterly let it out this time… “At
least you will fucking get to see Ariel again!”
There
was a finality in her tone that let me know someone very close to her… as close, or closer, than my Ariel, was lost to her forever. I knew better to ask and she
never said…
We
drove the rest of the way to Newport Beach without saying another word to each
other but her sobs had stopped. We arrived in Newport with the rising sun at a
parking lot where she had left her car the night before. I mumbled something
about being sorry. I didn’t feel right about charging her money for this ride
and tried to hand back the ninety bucks when she got out of the cab. She let it
slip to the ground; let it slip contemptuously from her delicate Modigliani
fingers to the ground. I watched her drive off into the sunrise and only then
did I scoop the ninety bucks off the pavement. I fully understood her contempt.
I
could have told this story to another cab driver like my good friend, Jimbo,
but never to drunken voyeurs as entertainment. However, that was the story I
would have told had they the stomach for it:
I can’t walk the streets, now,
to consulate my mind…
Some no-good woman, now,
she start breakin’ down…
Stop breakin’ down!
“No,
really, you wouldn’t want to hear it.”
“Try
me. I’ll tip you good…”
“…I
don’t have time…” the meter read thirty-two-fifty… “Call it an even thirty… see
ya.”
There
was no tip.
Always a surprise or a twist to wonder about.
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