“78th and Lexington, please”
Pete watched in the rearview mirror as the woman pulled the cab door closed behind her and inched towards the middle of the seat. She immediately reached over and opened the left window, then the right. He wished she had waited a second to realize the air conditioning was on. He hit “Off” and followed her in putting down his window. It was unusually hot for October.
“Sure thing. Traffic is really bad up Third, so we can take the Drive.”
“No, I’d rather stay on Third, thank you.”
Pete wasn’t someone who would zig-zag around the city for a few extra clicks of the meter. It was advantageous to him to get his passengers to their destinations as soon as possible so he could collect as much base fare as he could throughout the day. However, she looked like she would be a generous tipper, so he didn’t want to push it.
“No problem. They’re rerouting turns onto the bridge at 59th, so I just wanted you to know. The traffic cops, they kill me.”
As he spoke to her in the rearview, he realized he was talking to her profile. She gazed out the right window without responding. She was stunning. Well, from what he could notice from the waist up, anyway. Her blond hair was long, maybe too long for someone her age, people might say. Its waves fell lightly past her shoulders, grazing the tops of her breasts. Short pieces framed her face, and fell softly over her eyes. Even in the 75-degree weather, there wasn’t a whisper of sweat around her brow. Her face had the taut, waxy sheen of having a few procedures done, something Pete has become better and better at identifying due to his Upper East Side pick-ups. She wore a sleeveless white dress, and her upper arms, even at rest, looked strong and contoured. He put on his blinker and attempted an aggressive, yet successful merge back into traffic.
Within a half block, he turned the radio back up. Q104.3 was playing the Guns N’ Roses version of Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. It immediately brought him back to 1973, before his hair turned gray, before he put on a few too many, and before he was on this endless road trip. He mused over whether or not he preferred the original Dylan version better. Music was the only thing that got him through most days. It brought him out of the fumes (gas, exhaust, garbage), the occasional boorish passenger (insulting, rude, cheap), the incessant noise (honking, screaming, sirens) and the tightness of the streets. He wondered if the clutter that he kept confined to the front of the taxi was influenced by his surroundings. Old coffee cups, weeks-old copies of The Post, and water bottles with varying levels of remaining liquid cascaded over onto the passenger-side floor. It hadn’t always been like this.
He never had any sort of epiphany that he wanted to drive a cab. In fact, there wasn’t that much thought put into it at all. He had went in on a medallion with a couple of his friends to bring in some extra cash during the summer of ’74 and estimates that he has since driven around 800,000 miles. His friends might say that he had wanted to be a doctor, but he would never admit that today. That first summer beat the craft into him as deeply as the sun tanned his skin. He relished in never knowing who he was going to pick up, getting silly offers from drunken packs of girls, and the freedom of flying down the FDR at 4 a.m. He doesn’t know what happened to those other guys, but he imagines they’re sitting high in an office somewhere, overlooking the parade of their past.
He began to sink into the familiar break-and-inch routine, setting the clutter in motion, when he thought he heard something. He took a chance, turned down the radio, and glanced from the rearview mirror then back to the road. “Sorry, what?”
“I said, where do you live?”
He looked in the rearview again quickly, and saw she still had her gaze fixed out the right window. Her chin rested in the palm of her right hand; her elbow perched on the door’s handle. Her red nails framed her bottom lip, and her index finger had pensively found its way to her mouth. He looked back to the road and considered how to answer. She obviously wasn’t threatening, but he hated answering questions that he didn’t know why were asked. He was used to questions from passengers, but they were mostly about the job, stemming from a normal curiosity. How many hours do you work? Do you get tired? What’s a good week like? He didn’t mind answering these. And when he did, his answers always seemed to end with “…but not like in the 70’s, man.” He liked slipping in hints to let his passengers know that he was a lifer. It let them trust him a little more when he suggested uncommon routes. It also helped with the tips, he liked to think.
“I live in Queens,” he answered. “A little bit off Main Street, in Flushing. Passed Sanford Avenue.”
“What is it like?”
“Um. Yeah. Well, it’s a house. It isn’t my house, but it’s a house all the same. I have the bottom part, and it has its own front door. And there’s a bedroom, and a kitchen. Well, and a bathroom. I guess all things a house would have. I live there alone, so it’s quiet. But after the city… Shit, I like being home.”
“Do you get lonely there?”
“No, and let me tell you,” he said, “I prefer it that way. There’s me and there’s Kid – he’s my Black Lab, nine now – and between the two of us, we do all right keeping each other company.”
He didn’t mention that it wasn’t always like that, and yes, sometimes he did get lonely. Shirley had passed away last October, almost a year to the date, now that he thought of it. It wasn’t something he liked to think about, or talk about for that matter. Especially to strangers. For the most part, he really didn’t mind being alone. His neighbors, all young families, would sometimes invite him to dinner at their apartments or pass along extra Mets tickets they couldn’t use. He promised himself that he would only accept every-other offer.
He watched the pine-tree shaped air freshener bobble on its string, dancing in tune to the rhythm of the potholes. “Do you live alone?” As soon as he asked, he realized he might’ve broken some unwritten taxi-driver rule against being a creep. But, it had just come out naturally after her inquiry.
“I don’t. I have a husband, and I have three children. We don’t have a dog.”
He glanced in the rearview to see if she was looking at him yet. She still wasn’t. She instead looked down, and he could see her holding her right index finger with her left hand, slowly using her left thumb to work over the wrinkles in her knuckle. He didn’t know how to respond, or even if he was supposed to. He compromised.
“Can you believe this traffic? We’ve only gone, what, four blocks? This city. I swear, if I was Bloomberg I would get the best engineers out there, bring them on board. Those really smart guys, from like MIT, you know? And have them come in, figure this out. It’s only getting worse.”
“It is,” she responded.
He was forced to stop short. The U-Haul in front of him shook back and forth with its own abrupt stop.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s ok.”
He had a feeling they weren’t talking about the same thing anymore. He couldn’t describe what, exactly, made him think that something was wrong, but he knew there was. He had his fair share of passengers over the years who liked to tell him their stories. He had more than one crying woman, or man, crawl into his backseat. Sometimes they wanted to talk about it, most of the time they didn’t. But if they did, he was always there to listen. And he had heard it all. The girl who got dumped by her boyfriend: this was common. The man who lost his job: more and more frequent. The wife who had been cheated on: steady year-to-year. For a few moments during each cab ride, during each confession, he was let into the heartbreak, the deaths, and the anger. Although he always felt for these individuals, these strangers, the feeling he had now was new to him. A small bud of anxiety had planted itself in his core. It made his mouth go dry and made his stomach turn. He reached for his paper cup of coffee, gulping the remainder of the tart, cold beverage as if it were his last.
“Listen, I don’t like to pry,” he started. “I know you don’t know me, and I certainly don’t know you. But, I’m going to throw it out there. Is something bothering you? If you want to tell me what it is, all I’m saying is that I can listen. We surely have the time.” They had only moved another few blocks, and there was no sign of the traffic abating. He glanced back through the partition and wished it wasn’t there. He wished he could be physically closer to her, to feel her against him and give her the comfort he was sure she needed. The thick Plexi barrier felt miles wide – a deep gorge burrowed to inhibit contact and consolation. He had fought against the partition mandate of ’78 to the chagrin of his fellow cabbies, all concerned with their safety. It made the taxi feel tighter, and reinforced his role. Before, he liked to imagine he was driving people he knew – friends. The barrier changed that.
She hadn’t reacted to his inquisition. He waited, expectedly in the rearview, encouraging her with kind eyes. He knew she saw him looking, felt his gaze, but she refused to meet it. Instead, he saw her rummage through her handbag. She pulled out a tissue and dabbed it to each of her eyes.
It had been four months after Shirley fainted in May. He had sat in the hospital with her since, whenever he wasn’t working, and chided himself day in and day out for not noticing her weight loss, her pallor, or her listlessness. The doctor, after the initial tests, had said Stage IV Acute Lymphatic Leukemia, but he hadn’t known what that meant. As he held her hand after those four months, and had so much to say, and nothing to say at the same time, he definitely knew what that meant. She hadn’t opened her eyes in a few hours, and her breathing was ragged. He knew, though, that she was still conscious. She looked peaceful, and he was reminded of the summer they had spent in Jersey all those years ago. They had laughed on the boardwalk, and watched the sun set over high tide, sticky with ice cream and the salt air. She had looked peaceful then as well.
He held her hand in one of his and covered it with his other. “Don’t be scared,” he had said. These became his last words to her.
“It’s not that something is wrong. It’s just that nothing is right.” She still looked down at her hands, and fidgeted with the tissue, nervously. “Mark is great. He has his dream job, and he deserves it. The kids – they’re young – are healthy. And very smart. Jaclyn is first in her class and plays the piano very well. David can’t stop playing soccer, but finishes all his homework in time, so that’s ok. And Chloë, well she’s only 5, but reads real books. I mean, novels. And the apartment. Well, it’s all too big and too small at the same time. Does that make sense?”
He drove, and considered what she said. He felt no closer to her, or to the reason for her grief, than he had before.
“It sounds like you’re doing just fine, ma’am,” he said, looking straight ahead. Divorces, he could be understanding. Betrayals – made sense. Deaths? Sympathy, of course.
“No, I know it sounds fine. I’m being silly, really. They’re all wonderful, my family. We’re supposed to go away next month. But I’m not sure we’ve planned it yet.”
The cab approached 58th street, and he could see the traffic lighten up a few blocks ahead.
“Maybe St. Barth’s, but maybe Aspen. It’s so nice there in the Fall. The whole family can go, and it doesn’t have to be for a long time. Four days, even. But who knows. One never knows, do they? One never knows what will happen, at any given time. Some people find that exciting. But that’s only if it turns out in your favor, right? If it turns out destructive, and you look back, you’re going to wish you hadn’t been so excited about the unknown in the first place, because now you realize you have essentially celebrated your pain.”
He didn’t want to get to 78th street anytime soon. He didn’t want to let her out of the cab. He felt like he had to protect her, and he wasn’t sure why. After all, she sat in the backseat, telling him about her nice apartment (he can’t afford), her children (he never could have), and her successful spouse (his was gone). The feeling of dread that he experienced earlier had grown from a bud to a vine, and traveled throughout his limbs. It manifested in a light tingling he could feel in his fingertips and toes, making his heart race a little faster than normal.
“That trip sounds really nice,” he said, trying to avoid her rambling. “Want to take an old cabbie with you?” His attempt at light humor, to pacify his and her nerves, didn’t go over too well, as she didn’t respond. “Well, in any case, I’m sure your kids will have fun, wherever you end up.”
“They will, I know.” She fidgeted in the backseat, “I can’t wait to be with them.” He smiled at this positivity. Maybe she was just having a bad morning. Maybe his nervous feelings were unfounded, a result of little sleep, or his financial stress.
He looked up Third and saw they were almost through the worst of the traffic. The sun was setting violently in the west, and the light funneled through the maze of tall buildings, casting orange shafts eastward, crawling deep into every crevice they touched. As he crossed 57th street, it hit him, directly and profoundly. It was blinding and it was beautiful.
“Wow.” He heard her mutter this softly, to herself. He felt almost proud, to be bringing her through this moment, this place, at this time. He was responsible for bringing the sun to her, for showing her the beauty that is so often lost in this city. He imagined the partition dissipating and envisioned her sitting by his side. Thoughts of driving, fast, up Third and not stopping entered his head. He would keep going, leaving the city behind, and they would drive together out of the crowds of liars and the masses of menace.
“This feels so real,” she said a little louder. “Do you ever feel like you’re taking in just too much? One more feeling and everything will come pouring out, like a burst dam?”
“I haven’t thought of it like that. But now that you ask, I don’t think I would ever give up too much of a good thing.”
The drive uptown after 59th was quick. The sun flashed through the windows faster, like a strobe. They pulled up to 78th and Lexington, and he still felt reluctant to let her go. She finally looked to the rearview mirror, and their eyes met. He saw, at that moment, the eyes of a woman who was lost, and he knew why she didn’t want him to see her before.
“Do you want to come upstairs? My family might be home,” she said. He looked at her in the mirror. He had never been invited to a passenger’s home before. Why would she want him over? It wasn’t as if she was single, in which case, he would obviously consider the proposition. As much as he felt strange letting her go, releasing her back to whatever it was that disturbed her, what was he going to do, sit around and watch TV with them? Become their best friend, their cabby friend? Invited to dinner parties and birthdays? He knew his place.
“I’m…. ok, but thank you for the offer. I have to finish out my shift.”
“That’s fine. I’m sure we’ll see each other again, anyway.” She paid the fare.
Would we? He asked himself. He didn’t see why, or how, in this anonymous city, with his anonymous life. He wasn’t sure how to respond. However, the first thing that came out of his mouth was: “Don’t be scared.”
Immediately after he’s spoken, he realized he wasn’t sure why he had said it. But with that, she slid out of the taxi.
__________
He drove back to Queens, trying to put the day behind him. He had errands to run (dropping off the cab, going to the grocery store, picking up meds). His last passenger, though, stuck in his mind like an itch. He wanted to let her know that everything would be ok. It all was in the end, even he knew that. He began to second guess his decision to go upstairs with her, but quickly blew that thought out of his head like a soap bubble.
When he finally walked through his front door, he draped his jacket over a chair and fell backwards on his couch, bouncing once, then settling into the musty cushions. Kid sauntered over and, with some effort, jumped up onto the couch and put his head in Pete’s lap. Pete stroked him behind the ears, and clicked on the television to try and catch up on the news. He yawned as he flicked through the channels, lingering on Sports Center longer than the others.
Pete picked up the remote, and turned off the television. He closed his eyes, tipped back his head, and took in the quiet of the room.
Aliza Zelin graduated Lehigh University in 2007 with a major in Journalism and a minor in Creative Writing, and recently completed a summer writing workshop at Columbia University. She worked for Valentino Fashion Group in the Marketing and Public Relations department for four years, writing her in her spare time throughout. She has been published in Amaranth, the Lehigh University literary journal, as well as on TheLuxurySpot.com, where she mused on all things pop culture. She resides in Los Angeles, California where she moved to from her native New York City. This is her first literary contest submission.
