 Back in the Broken Down Ex-Police Saddle -Alex Farr I'd been away from driving for a while, which had made coming in a little daunting when I finally did. I'd decided to teach... but it had only lasted a month. I hadn't bothered to mention anything about it to anyone in the office at the cab yard before leaving... but that wasn't what made coming in daunting. I couldn't've cared less what they thought, or what they said. "Where have you been?" the girl in the 'cage' asked when I stepped up and said hello. "Me, I was teaching. But it sucked, so I'm back. Do you have a cab for me?, or should I go back to teaching?" I answered. You can't show any weakness with those fuckers, or they'll go for the jugular. They'll try to raise the lease fees, or con you into signing up for a weekly lease (so you have to pay for seven days with the cab each week...), or even try to make up some fee you have to pay. I wasn't gonna fall for any of that shit. I knew they wanted my money, so they'd have to take me on my terms. The daunting part was wondering what kind of piece of shit cab they were gonna find for me, and whether they'd be able to find a dispatch radio that worked, and wondering how much of my time they were gonna burn trying to figure it out themselves. So I came in patient. It took Pinki nearly 10 minutes to decide to give me back the same cab I'd been driving before I'd disappeared on them. It took another 15 minutes to find a dispatch radio, and then another 5 to find a wire connector thingie that it needed. Then another 10 minutes to check and fill the fluids. And then, at long last... 40 minutes late... I got to get back out and hit the streets. I only put $5 into the tank. There was no telling how long the cab would last and there was no point in losing gas money if it broke down on me. And then it was back to reading at cab stands around town. It was better than trying to teach middle school kids how to add and subtract integers though, and I wasn't losing my voice either. It was like getting a new lease, so to speak. After middle school on a substitute's pay, this shit really wasn't so bad. I worked my 12 hours, came in only 15 minutes late... but what the hell?, I'd started 40 minutes late, so why not? There was a different night driver for the cab that night. A Nigerian asshole, named OJ. We knew each other, and pretty much hated each other. "Great..." I was thinking, as I handed him over the keys. There wasn't much to do about it, so I just tried not to think about what new and interesting ways he might come up with to fuck the car up. I made it about twenty steps before he called out to me "Hey, is this how much gas you always leave in the cab?!" I'd left it bone dry. I always do, just in case this asshole wound up driving behind me. "Yeah. It is. Buh bye." "Yeah, well I'm gonna bring it in empty. You're not even gonna be able to make it to a gas station! You're gonna have to push it!" I just nodded. "That's fine, you do what you want. I've got a gas can, I ain't pushing shit!" I yelled back, and I walked away. I was a hack again.
|
