Standing at the corner of Crown and Devonshire Streets stood Terry. He looked harmless enough from a distance. Terry was in his mid-forties and dressed in classic dad attire. Faded blue jeans a size too big, a loosely-fitting white Billabong t-shirt all stretched at the neck, and a pair of scuffed-up New Balance joggers with stained brown laces that he had probably picked up from a Paul’s Warehouse two-for-one sale. He had wavy, brown shoulder-length hair and a standard Aussie potbelly, caused only by a stomach full of lager a week for twenty years.
Terry was the breath of fresh air I needed after Steve had nearly driven me to insanity.
“G’day mate, how are ya?” he asked, sitting down beside me. He had a deep, gravelly voice, all whisky and self-rolled cigarettes. He was a shy man. “I’m new to this Uber thing. My daughter got me onto it. I’m just heading home to Lewisham. Old Canterbury Road is probably the quickest way at this time,” he said softly. He flashed me his teeth for just a second before closing his mouth and continuing to grin with his lips.
He was embarrassed about his teeth. They were all chipped and jutted out in a thousand different directions. Each tooth was a different colour, ranging from light yellow to light brown. I wondered if he could have them fixed whether his entire demeanour would be different.
“What were you up to today, Terry?” I asked.
“Just visiting a mate at a pub. Mate, no joke they had about forty different beers on tap in that place. I was like a kid in a candy story. I tried a fair few of them. Some were great, others not so good. I grew up drinking Reschs, nothing else,” Terry replied, without giving off the slightest hint he had downed more than a couple of schooners. I was in no doubt he was a seasoned pub-man who could finish a keg and still have the hand-eye coordination to pick the first four at Wentworth Park.
On first impression Terry seemed like a laid-back type of guy. He would soon change my mind.
Terry was a phantom braker. The type of passenger who jams their foot into your passenger-side floor when they think you should be applying the brake. It’s rather an annoying habit and Terry had it bad. We wouldn’t even be within twenty metres of the car in front and he would kick out with his right foot like he was lining up for a free kick from fifty metres for the Sydney Swans. He even made a bracing sound I hadn’t heard since my sack-whacking days at high school.
“Are you all good, mate?” I asked Terry after a full-blooded thud into my floor which was accompanied by a yelp. It was the sound a dog makes when you accidentally step on its foot.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m all good!” he replied, but he wasn’t. He had turned as white as a ghost and I could see torrents of sweat cascading down the side of his face. He was now also gripping onto my car door so tightly his knuckles had turned white.
“Do you need me to pull over or something, Terry?” I asked. “I can pull over if you need me to!”
“No, no, no, I’ll be fine in a sec,” he replied, his breaths quickening as we reached the overhead train bridge at Central Station. Terry then lowered his window and leant his entire body from the waist up out of my car. He was desperately trying to look at something, but what?
“Okay, go, go, GO!” he yelled, sitting back down in his seat and closing his eyes. He took a deep breath and waited until we had travelled beneath the train bridge before finally exhaling.
I was now looking at Terry from the corner of my eye with a concerned expression. What was going on? He seemed so normal when he first sat down beside me. His erratic behaviour now had me on the edge of my seat.
We continued up Parramatta Road and Terry suddenly transformed back into the chilled-out, relaxed man I had picked up in Surry Hills. His entire body eased and the phantom braking stopped for the time being. He completely ignored the thirty seconds of panic and terror that had gripped him only moments before and resumed his casual chitchat.
“How about that Steve Smith? I reckon he will be as good as Steve Waugh was when he had that side with McGrath, Gillespie and Warne as bowlers and Hayden and Gilchrist opening,” he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Yeah, he’s doing really well, isn’t he,” I replied, still wary of the unpredictable man sitting beside me.
The moment I turned left into Old Canterbury Road the phantom braking resumed. This time more violently. I could feel the vibrations every time his foot thudded into the floor of my car. Terry was now stiff as a board with his head turned to the left like he was bracing for a collision. Once again, as we came to an underpass near the train station, Terry lowered his window and leant his body outside the car. Like clockwork he yelled, “Go, go, GO!” as we reached the bridge. He then thrust his body back inside my car, closed his eyes and held his breath.
“SCREEEEECH!” I planted my foot firmly on my brake pedal and came to a stop directly beneath the bridge. The cars in front of me had suddenly halted. I cast a quick glance at Terry, who still had his eyes bolted shut. He slowly opened his right eye before gasping for air and screaming, “Oh fuccccccccck!” In a flash he had opened his door and bolted from my car. He didn’t stop running until he had reached the other side of the underpass where he stood, bent over with hands on knees, trying to catch his breath. In his mad panic Terry hadn’t even closed his door. I unbuckled my seat belt and leant across the passenger seat and closed the door. I was in a state of shock myself. What was up with Terry?
The traffic cleared quickly and I continued driving up Canterbury Road. I pulled over to where Terry was standing and lowered my window.
“Hey, Terry, what’s going on, mate? Are you okay?” I asked, as Terry continued gasping for air.
He raised his right hand to wave at me before saying through heavy panting, “Yeah . . . I’m . . . fine . . . I think I’ll walk from here. I can’t stay under bridges when trains are coming. I’m sorry mate, I just can’t! It’s all paid for, right?”
It all made sense now. He had the exact same reaction going under the train bridge at Central Station. “Sure, mate, it’s all paid for. Get home safe, alright?” I said, ending the trip and driving up the street.
I immediately went offline when I reached the next set of lights. I felt really bad for Terry. I also wondered why he chose to live in a Sydney suburb that had more train bridges than anywhere else in town. What a night of absolute chaos.
I would still prefer to drive home a hundred consecutive Terrys than a single Steve.