Fifteen years, been driving this cab.[1]
1 When you get a call, you get a call. You work like me, you get a call, you take it. I picked up one woman the other day and said to her, “You look out your window there, you’ll see not one more than a few them cars like mine doing business so early, you see.” I work the night. First started working twelve-hour night shifts six days a week. Came home kicking the dog. Yelling at the kids. I’m laughing now but ain’t was a damn thing funny about it. One night—well, one morning—came home, found the wife at the door. Tapping her feet. Shaking her head. Oh-oh, I say, grinding my teeth so hard pipes all over town start leaking. Says you better change your shift or change your job. So I sit at the kitchen table with my coffee. Thought about it. How I work heavy. Damn women, always right. I laugh, it’s true. Took it down to five days, ten hours. Then about, hm, six years ago got me a heart attack. If you’re a driver—a commercial one—you can’t drive for six months after a heart attack.
Those sick months at home nearly killed me. But let me back it up a mo’. Remember we got that haunted house? Used to be a brothel and a bed-and-breakfast back in the day. One where the woman who worked there got killed. Nobody never figured out how come. Now it’s a rooming house. When calls come in, they just tell you, Go to the haunted house. Been driving that route fifteen years and I still don’t know the actual address. Four something-something Frederick Street. People say they hear things: walking through the hallways when there’s no one in them; pots and pans and things clamouring in the cupboards. She’s pretty friendly otherwise. Doesn’t bother nobody. Unless you count the people who don’t like the sounds she make from whenever she is, busy being herself, you know? Who else is going to remind people she used to take care of things around here? I wager she still is taking care of things around here. Number of folks she scared away and all. Because can’t nobody trust someone scared off by a friendly. Like that guy I dropped off two nights ago. I was heading back to pick somebody up within the hour. Didn’t know it was the same one before I got back there, and he showed up all blanched from the head down, I guess. Heard the cops picked him later that day from a group just standing at the bus stop. Wanted for something severe. Damn women. Always right. Anyway, now I work three days, twelve-hour shifts. No moral ideal but let’s just call it happiness.