A story for you...
She rests her head against the sticky plastic of the cab seat. She looks tired and sweaty. Her legs try to find a more comfortable position. She is tall, so her knees rub against the metal in the seats. The cabbie is listening to a loud salsa beat. He’s aggressive.
She hasn’t driven in a long time so she feels more cautious now. She wants to yell out. Do something more than grip the plastic seam of her seat with her fingernails. He swerves the big black car in and out of traffic. Around orange cones and vans with rusted paint. She’s thinking she should put her seatbelt on. She would feel more safe. She should just do it. He probably wouldn’t even notice. He wouldn’t feel offended, he’s so caught up playing Andretti or Gene Hackman in that movie, with the fast cars in San Francisco, that he wouldn’t even notice her reaching around and grabbing the belt. But she won’t do it. Something is keeping her from doing it.
Maybe she likes the fear. She plays it safe so many other places. But no, those fingernails are still deep in the seat. She can feel the texture of other passengers, eating chips and swigging back coke. Just put the seat belt on. Why won’t you do it, she thinks. How stupid to have this premonition and ignore it. How stupid you will feel as your head slams into the wind shield at 80 miles and hour. He is going eighty over this damn bridge isn’t he.
Now he’s smiling at you from the rearview mirror. Why is it that the only male attention she gets is from cab drivers. No, she’s thinking, it’s not cab drivers. They couldn’t care less. It’s the regular car drivers. Those men who drive their own cars for their living. He should stop looking at her and pay attention. She shouldn’t care what this creep thinks and just put the seatbelt on. If anything, perhaps it would teach him a lesson. Making innocent passengers feel like this. But no, she’s not doing it. She’s letting the fast curve of the road push her further into the left of the seat.
She is thinking of what would happen if she was in an accident out here on this road. Who would know she was dead or in the hospital? Would the police call her parents? Would the police even know how to contact her parents, they move more than the average parents. No one even would know that she was out here on this road, in the city sure, but not in this anonymous car, at this time of night. She doesn’t even really know where she is.
The driver keeps looking back at her but she’s learned her lesson about making small talk. When she first moved here she would talk to anyone. Felt like maybe the funny stuff that happened to her would make for good stories to tell her friends. But she learned better. Learned better after that guy last month had pretended to roll up her window and accidentally on purpose brushed his hand against her breast. She had actually learned two lessons that night. One, don’t ever sit in the front seat with a cab driver and two don’t ever think that when a driver asks you if you have a boyfriend that he’s just trying to learn more about the target demographic of his car service.
They left the expressway and curl off the exit ramp. No reason to now put the seatbelt on she thinks. They are almost to her apartment. Only about 10 minutes away. Even though her 12 year old self taunts her in her ear, 80 percent of car accidents happen within 5 minutes of your home. She looks at the driver. He looks tired she thinks. She wonders if he ever falls asleep at the wheel. God, I’m way too trusting, she thinks. This guy could have just smoked crack, could have a dead hooker in the trunk, and be on a double shift and here I am, sitting in the back without a seatbelt. Next time she will just put it on immediately. The driver will think she’s just a super safe person. Would put a seatbelt on even if it were her dad driving. She’s cooling off now.
The windows were rolled down a little further and the cool air feels good on her face. She shuts her eyes. She’s tired but doesn’t feel like going home. She almost wishes the drive were going to last a little longer. She doesn’t feel so scared anymore. He’s driving a little slower now, the stop lights slow him down as do the narrower streets, the double parked cars. She misses driving. She misses being a passenger in friend’s cars. Playing music loud from the tape player. Singing along.
She actually had a cab driver once who sang along to every song. He called her baby and sang along to the Commodores, Hall and Oates, Madonna. She smiled. She wanted so badly to sing along with him. He probably would have enjoyed it as much as she did. But instead she sang along in her head. Filling in the words that he didn’t know. He had got her to the club so fast, had even gone down a closed road and had a cop stop him, lied to the cop that she lived up the street and was confused that the large orange road block sign actually pertained to everyone. She liked him and had given him a large tip that 3 hours later would have saved her an ATM fee for a late night dinner. She had been upset about that tip until she remembered his rendition of Private Eyes.
She feels the cab slow down. She opens her eyes. Sees the restaurant she lives above, the familiar yellow awning. She tells the driver to pull over to the right, after the light. Yes, right here, perfect she says.
She’s also learned never to ask a driver how much it’s going to cost. Has learned to just hand him the money and see if he stops her for more. Usually they let her go. She pays a fair price. She’s taken this route a lot. Knows the going rate.
She opens the door. Peels her skin from the plastic. Says have a nice night, drive safe and slams the door. She steps over the curb and around the trash cans. Reaches around her bag for her keys. Opens the door and locks it behind her.
