The obese old woman at Fred Meyer has a bad hip and a wheelchair, and needs to sit in the front seat. Which is fantastic, as it’s scorching hot and she doesn’t seem to have bathed in days. I grit my teeth, crank the A/C and count my blessings that it’s a relatively short trip. I’m even able to maintain a pleasant conversation, my consternation waning as we discuss the joys of avocados.
We arrive at her dilapidated apartment building in Milwaukie, and after I’ve unloaded her into her wheelchair she explains that I’ll have to go inside, fetch a cart for her groceries and take them up to her apartment for her. As I enter the dimly lit lobby, the sum of the cracked fluorescents, dingy walls and omnipresent odor of staleness registers as a miasma of despair and decay. I hustle to load the groceries and navigate the rickety cart and my chair-bound customer into the tiny elevator as mute observers in tank tops loiter in the lobby.
We get to her floor, and she begins to sob hysterically. “Can you push me to my door?” she gasps. “I’m just so tired.” She keeps repeating the phrase, as if ashamed of her fatigue. I tell her that it’s no problem, and it really isn’t. But she continues to cry and apologize as I wheel her down the long corridor. We get to a battered door, which I unlock for her, as her wrists are too weak to manage the feat. TO BE CONTINUED...
Now here's an "issue" - the dismal treatment of our senior citizens in this country - that we can probably do something constructive about, right?
(throw in dietary norms as well - why are so many obese?)
Wait, wait ... it's Bush's fault, isn't it? (Or Reagan, but never a mention of my ol' buddy LBJ) and we're back in the political morass again. Fu*k it!
Great article NC.
-Neck
What else did she ask you to do? Wax her floors?
She then undressed me and asked me to undress her. I obliged knowing that i was in for a good tip. I was thankful that Social Security was funding such a glorious operation. Thanks Uncle Sam!
Besides, it's too soon to sully it with humor. And since Night Cabbie is written anonymously, the entries would have to be printed without attribution. Perfect.
What the fuck is going on, NC3? Byron's short bit on the teen vampire culture has over 500 comments from people stocking up on silver bullets or stalking stars ... This will be post #4. I mean, don't you ever feel tempted to pimp your ride and ask one of your riders to either write your column, in a letter, or at least visit the NC column online once in a while. The paper's free, the site's free, for Christ's sake on a pogo stick. These are people whose drunken asses get chauffeured home in your cab. While gratitude is the most fleeting human emotion, they might check in and post occasionally.
When I ride in a cab, it's always a fucking sacrament. It doesn't happen often. And I've never encountered a cabbie who wasn't in some way a real decent human being, in some cases practically a saint. (You may know exceptions.)
Can't see any reason why you couldn't have a stack of WW's in the back of your cab, if only to soak up the puke. On dry, clean days you could offer them to exiting riders. Something to read until the police arrive.
If any of the brighter, sober ones asked you, you could say, "We're all the Night Cabbie. Even you."
Your two-cent tip. That's for making me wait until Wednesday. It better be a good 500 words.