 The Bad Day -Alex Farr Some days are just plain bad. Sometimes it's a matter of there not being any money out on the streets to be made, but then are other days... days that are just plain bad no matter how much money you bring in. Days when every fare you find is grating, annoying, or just a plain old asshole. Days when you see the pleasant, long fares climb into other drivers' cars at the cabstand, only to get the cranky old fucker who lectures you about how they have no money, and how you don't know anything, cause you're not old, and why are you going this way anyway, it never costs this much, blah blah blah... I was having one of those days. Everywhere I went, there was no business... and when I ran for something, it was a 3 block ride, paying exact change, and lecturing me with useless semblances of advice. I managed to catch an airport ride 10 hours into the day, only to notice all four lanes of the freeway headed back to downtown blocked by what must have been a horrific accident. There was no going back downtown through that, so it was the East side for me for the rest of the night. It wasn't a pleasing prospect. Some of the worst neighborhoods in town are out in the East. And it's often dead, unless the welfare checks have just come in... or the crack trade is booming. I got lucky though, and caught a dispatch ride from one of the hotels out by the airport. Turns out there was a Dave Mathews concert that night at the coliseum. Maybe things were turning around after all... Wrong. I was soon back at the Coliseum BART cabstand, and in no time up walked a couple. She looked on the young side, and his teeth were all chromed. What the hell though, it was business... and with the concert, the night business was likely to turn around one way or another. "90th and Hillside." dude wanted. "No problem..." and off we went, flying along at 45ish in the 35 zone. "Hey, how much you think it'll be?" asked the girl, as I ran a late yellow. "I don't know... probably $8, $8 and change..." "Well, it better not be more than $8! It's only an $8 ride. Why you going this way, anyhow? Where are we?! Why aren't we on E. 14th?! You takin' us the long way?" I was speechless a moment. I'd just run an almost-red light, and she was accusing me of going the long way? And she didn't even know where she was? 'You silly little bitch...' hissed the voice of my inner child. "What?, you wanted me to take E. 14th so we could get caught in the traffic?" I asked after a moment. "No, it's alright. We just don't know this end of town real well, dog. Jus' take us to 90th and Hillside." answered dude. I was about to just let it drop, when his little girlfriend came back in with "But it better not be more than $8." That was it. I'd worked out a magnificent route, we'd've been there in another 3-5 minutes on hardly patrolled streets where I can drive at time and a half the speed limit. It probably wouldn't've been more than $8... but that little bitch was pissing me off, and my inner child was screaming at me to get the fucking money before we got there. So I pulled over around 85th and G, "Ok, tell you what... why don't you give me the $8 up-front." I said as calmly as I could manage. "What?" answered dude. "The $8, give me the $8 now, and then we drive." "Yo, nigga, what you talkin' 'bout? I ain' gonna give you not'in now, I' pay when we get to 90th and Hillside." answered dude, obviously bent out of shape that the distrust can go both ways. "No, I don't think so. I tell you what, you give me the $8, or you can get out right now." I answered. "What? Nigga you crazy, how I know you not gonna jus' take my $8?" I thought that one over in a quarter second, and decided it didn't even justify an answer. "Look, if you don't want to give me the $8, then just get out of the cab. I'm not taking you anywhere until I get some money." "Yo, nigga why I gotta pay now?" "Because," I explained "your girlfriend's giving me the 'you're going the long way' bit... and everytime I hear that, some fool tries to short me. So, I want the money up-front." He fumed. He twitched in his seat. In another few moments though, while his girlfriend tried to articulate some sort of epithet regarding my ancestry or something, he finally fished into his pocket for some money. After some fumbling, he came up with a pair of fives. "Ok, now we can go..." I told them, clicking the timer of the meter back on and pulling away from the curb again. "Yo' nigga, where's my two dollah?!" he suddenly spouted. "Two dollars?, I'll give you the change when we get there." "No nigga, you give me mah two dollah. You say eight, I gives you ten. I got two dollah comin' to me nigga. Now you gi' me my two dollah!" "I told you, I'll give you the change when we get there." I answered. He was pissed. I suppose it was some sort of control issue. He hated being shown that I was in control while we drove, I guess. I usually hate pseudo-psych babble, but I suddenly felt like the captain of a ship, trying to maintain control in the face of some irate jack-off insisting that all functions stop while he complained to the manager about a system of payment that he didn't like the sounds of. I could tell already that he was pissed off because his plan to get back at me for being such an asshole, by stiffing me of the coins that the fare was liable to run over $8, was about to crumble... and he had to make sure I realized he was in fact the one in control of the situation. All this analysis went on in my head while he spouted "Nigga give me my two dollah..." over and over again in an unimpressive series of variations. So I pulled over again. "I will give you your change when we get there. If you're just gonna keep yelling though, then you can just get out." "Nigga, how you gonna tell me to get out, when you got my ten dollah?! I give you eigh' dollah, nigga, now you gotta take me to 90th and Hillside! And you gotta give me my two dollah nigga. You hear me nigga, I want my two dollah!" It was the ghetto version of "Better Off Dead", on a dark backstreet in East Oakland. "No, I don't have to do shit. In fact, here..." I told him, handing him back his fives over the 3/4 up shield (whose motor wasn't strong enough to actually raise it any further), "... have your money back, and get out." "What nigga? Nigga I give you my eigh' dollah, now you got to take me... nigga... nigga nigga... nigga nigga nigga... nigga... nigga..." he raved on. "You gotta take me, nigga, how you gonna leave me out here in this neighborhood nigga. I give you my eigh' dollah nigga now nigga you gotta take me to 90th and Hillside nigga, o' you better take me back to the BART nigga, how's a nigga gonna leave a nigga out here nigga? Nigga, I don' even know where we at nigga." I just shrugged. "You wanna give me back the ten, I'll take you and give you the change when we get there, otherwise get the hell out of my cab." "Nigga nigga... 90th and Hillside nigga... nigga... fine, back to BART nigga... nigga..." "Just get the hell out of my cab already." I finally decided. I was sick of his nigga spouting face. "No, nigga, I ain't gettin' outta shit nigga. You gonna take me nigga..." So it was either get out and throw him out bodily... tempting... or- "Fine..." I answered, pulling away from the curb, and heading neither toward 90th, Hillside, nor the BART. I found myself winding through even darker, even more back alleys. I'm not sure if I wasn't thinking, in the back of my brain, maybe unconsciously, that the world would be a better place without these fools... that they just needed killing. It occurred to me to at least turn of my meter though... and when I did, presto! A fare out at one of those airport hotels, probably going back to the concert I'd nearly forgotten about at the coliseum. I smiled. Now I had somewhere to go. I was gonna take them out to a nice hotel by the airport... and then forcibly eject their asses. If there was any trouble?... well the police will actually respond to a call at a Courtyard Marriott. And hotel guys would make swell witnesses. Now I was having fun. "See, nigga gonna take us..." dude muttered to his girl. "Me?, no... I'm going out to the airport. You sure you don't want to get out?" I informed them. "You what nigga?!" "I'm going to the airport. You can get out now, or you can come along. I'm picking up a fare out there." "Nigga, you ain't takin' us to no airport nigga. You takin' us to BART nigga. Nigga, you better take us back to BART nigga. You don't know who you dealing with here..." "Nope... ain't going to BART." I answered, pulling over now around E. 14th and 83rd. "I suggest you get out now." "Nigga, you gotta take us back to BART nigga. Nigga gon' take us to BART, nigga gotta. Nigga." I just shook my head. "No. I'm not going back to BART. So get the hell out, or come with me to the airport." The girl finally got the hint. She got the hell out, but dude wasn't budging "No fuckin way a nigga gonna leave me out here, nigga. Nigga, you bettuh take me back to BART nigga..." "Not gonna happen. Get the hell out already." And finally he lost it. He pulled himself up to the shield, turned his head sideways so he could get as much of it above the shield as possible, and started yelling his opinions, and the half-ass logic to support them at me. It sounded, not surprisingly, something like "Nigga... nigga nigga... nigga nigga... nigga bettah... nigga nigga nigga... nigga..." I just shrugged, and started to pull away and leave his girl alone on the corner, driving away with the door open. "Nigga you hit her Ah'm gonna slap your ass! Nigga don't know how close he is to bein' slapped... oh, I'm gonna slap this nigga!..." he started spouting. I stopped, "You sure you don't wanna get out?..." I asked again. By then he was on to trying to threaten me. It'd finally dawned on him that his brand of logic, the ghetto sort that takes volume for cogency, wasn't doing anything for me. He kept muttering about how he was gonna slap me, and he took to the sort of schoolboy mock-jump. I turned to face him as best I could, slipping my pepper spray into my hand, reacting to his feints, to his delight, while waiting for an arm to come awkwardly at me over the shield. I really wanted to see that arm come at me. If I could just get hold of it, the shield would give me the perfect leverage to split it at the elbow. I so wanted to give his elbow 360 degrees of articulative capacity. "See, nigga afraid!" he squealed in delight to his girl. "He just a scared nigga!" He didn't seem to have the nerve to reach over the shield. The pepper spray was very inviting. I was really liking the idea of playing cops and thugs with him... but I kept thinking of a guy I'd heard had gone to County Jail for defending himself, with a tire iron, when someone had tried to grab him one night. Pepper spraying him when he hadn't actually reached through the shield... I could lie, but he had his girl there... So I finally decided to just call 911. "Fine," I told him, "I'll just call the cops then..." That seemed to really get his girl scared, for some reason. She urged him the hell out of the cab... though he took a shot at getting back at me by slamming the door, as if I cared. He tried once more, running up to try the front door, which was locked, and then leaning his face in the window to spit on me. Nothing came out though... I guess he was too nervous, and his mouth was dry. I just laughed, and drove away... and hung up on the recording I'd gotten when I'd dialled 911.By the time I got to the hotel out by the airport, whoever had called for a cab was long gone. It was just one of those days... the New Waybills there's No Place Like Home... You gotta be shitting me Alex |