"Hey bro, remember me? You wrote that story about me in the paper."
August 27th, 2008
“Son of a bitch, you’re running up the meter!”27 comments
August 13th, 2008
“It’s the Californians, man, the Californians are the worst.”15 comments
August 6th, 2008
The middle-aged man I picked up at Vendetta is in a hyperactively verbose lather ...0 comments
July 23rd, 2008
When I step into the obese old woman's apartment5 comments
July 16th, 2008
The obese old woman at Fred Meyer has a bad hip and a wheelchair...8 comments
July 9th, 2008
“...I need to take a shower first and wash all of this blood off.”6 comments
July 2nd, 2008
“So I’ve got these two women in the back of my cab who just refuse to get out...”8 comments
June 25th, 2008
“My friend’s getting divorced, and he’s really drunk,” says the bartender...8 comments
June 18th, 2008
There’s nothing like a good Friday night, and I’m referring to the money.3 comments
June 11th, 2008
The old man in the karaoke bar’s parking lot insists that he doesn’t need any help...0 comments
[August 20th, 2008]
“Hey bro, remember me? You wrote that story about me in the paper.”
I turn around, and the figure pulls back its hood. He’s a year older and sporting tangled cornrows, but of course I recognize the kid. He’d bummed a cigarette off me on a slow night, and we’d talked about how his grandmother had kicked him out of the house for smoking weed, and her fears that he’d become a coke addict like his mom. ( Night Cabbie, WW, May 23, 2007. )
“Yeah, of course! How you doing?”
“I’m good, man, I always wanted to see you again, that shit meant a lot.” He tells me his destination.
“So you thought it was fair? Like, accurate?”
“Yeah, dude, that was real. When I read it, I felt it, all that pain I was going through, it was done right.”
“Good. I mean that’s what I try to do—keep it true to the people I write about and what they’re going through.” His companion isn’t aware of the column, so we explain it to her—me the great artist discussing his work, the kid reflecting on his moment of Willy Week glory.
I’m so high off the positive attention that it’s not until we’ve almost reached our destination that it sinks in that it’s 3 in the morning on a weeknight, and I’ve just driven him from one crack corner to another.
I wish him luck and shake his hand as he gets out of the car. He doesn’t meet my eye.
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RECENT COMMENTS ON “"Hey bro, remember me? You wrote that story about me in the paper."”
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I think there's an Escher drawing in there somewhere.
Nice.
The penultimate paragraph was a complete surprise. Nice ending. There's some lost causes out there, but they may be the only ones worth fighting for.
