Hi ya #FridayFlash crew!
I’ve been, shall we say, indisposed in the last month. Major changes due to what some would say are dangerous life choices have occupied my time since we last talked. Should I get the chance (and dare say, motivation), I’ll tell you about them. Interestingly enough, they have been related to writing and higher education.
Nevertheless, I’m back to the weekly thousand word grind again and it feels pretty good. I thought I’d give present tense a stab this time as well as a different kind of style for this week. That and I’ve been bugging lots of taxi drivers lately and I thought I’d incorporate that into a story.
So here you go, my #FridayFlash this week, “Rearview”.
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REARVIEW
Jerry is a taxi driver. He doesn’t like his job but it is, as any animalistic appliance from the Flintstones would tell you, a living. He had to admit that there was a certain gritty appeal to his work, but found more grit in his daily grind than he did appeal. He would have the occasional good fare and would have to occasionally clean the unmentionable leavings of his customers out of the backseat. On the whole, the job is a hassle.
Jerry works mostly at night, picking up people from the airport early in the evening and the drunken slobs later on. The perks of the job are almost nonexistent unless you are the type of person that enjoys seeing people do foolish things while they were pissed out of their heads. Two divorces, continuing financial hardships and general misanthropy has led Jerry to be exactly this kind of person.
If you piled into his cab late one night and asked him what the worst thing he had ever seen while the meter was running, he might tell you something like this:
“Well, one night I picked up this couple from a bar,” Jerry says, with the bar you were in shrinking in the back window. “You could tell that they had met that night. Couples aren’t usually as—enthusiastic—as those two were. I mean they were hot and bothered and ready to go. Anyway, they started really getting into each other, feeling each other up and all that, which, you know, I don’t mind. I keep an eye on people like that and I stop it before they get a chance to make a mess in my cab, if you know what I mean.”
Jerry pauses long enough to take a sip from his coffee at a red light. “And don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not some kind of pervert or anything, I don’t get off watching what people do in my back seat. It’s just that they usually don’t stick around to clean up when they’re done, you know? Anyway…
“So these two kids (young kids, maybe their late twenties) are going at it, really tearing into each other and they stop only long enough for the guy to tell me his address and they get back to it. So they’re in the back moaning and everything and she’s all like, “Oh Brad! Oh Brad!” and I’m about to stop them when the guy’s phone starts ringing.
“Then he gets this super guilty look on his face like it’s his wife on the phone or something and he tells the chick he’s with (who was smokin hot, by the way) that he has to take this call. He answers it and right off the bat I know it’s another woman. I don’t know who was on the phone, but I doubt it was his wife.”
At this point, you ask him how he knows.
“Well, first off, he wasn’t wearing a ring. I know that don’t mean much, he could have taken it off, but still, he wasn’t wearing one. Besides, some women don’t mind sleeping with a married man even if they know that the guy’s married. But more than anything, it was the way he acted, you know? He didn’t seem like a cheater and if he was, he was either new at it or really bad at it. And, more than anything I guess, he looked like he was a fairly descent kind of guy. He was probably just really into the girl that called him, you know?” Jerry says, taking another sip from his coffee.
“Anyway…the chick he was with meanwhile is singing along to the music from the radio, looking out the window. I mean she was gone…way gone. Drunk and sloppy and fading fast, you know what I mean? Well, eventually, she puts her head against the window and I don’t hear another peep out of her. So the guy is still talking to some chick on his cell and he tells me to take him to some club on the other side of town. I tell him that I’m not gonna be left with babysitting this girl who’s dead to the world in the back seat. Then he finds her purse, finds her address and we head out to drop her off. He walks her into her apartment and—here’s the really terrible part—he comes back out.”
Jerry takes another sip from his coffee. “Look, I don’t know about you, but a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (sorry about all the bad puns…you know, bird? Bush? Never mind.). He should have just paid me the fare and gone with the chick he picked up. But no, the dumbass comes back out. I’m not saying that he should have done anything with her when she was all passed out, but he should have stayed until morning. He might have gotten a little somethin-somethin for his trouble.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jerry says, looking at you in his rearview mirror. “You’re wondering how that’s the worst thing I’ve ever saw, right?” You shrug and take the bait. “Thing is, that’s the end of the story. After he dropped the girl off, he went to the other bar to meet Courtney or whatever he said her name was. I mean, I’ve seen people have sex in my backseat, shoot up, smoke up, throw up and worse. That Brad guy had a shot at something that night and threw it away for some other woman. I think that’s probably the worst.”
Silence overtakes the cab as you let Jerry’s story set in. “Maybe I’m just jaded. I’ve been married twice and I just don’t have time for messing around with what could-be anymore. I just hope that Courtney girl was worth it. It wouldn’t be for me.”
“Anyway, we’re here. That’ll be nine eighty-five.”
Here’s a few things that I’ve been up to…
No #FridayFlash this week, just a reasonably good reason why and maybe—just maybe—something to think about.
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