August 27th, 2008
“Son of a bitch, you’re running up the meter!”27 comments
August 20th, 2008
"Hey bro, remember me? You wrote that story about me in the paper."3 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
[July 6th, 2005] A thunderstorm! The light is getting that macabre quality, the leaves on the trees are flipping over, I smell ozone. In Sellwood, I slow the cab to a crawl, looking at a huge double rainbow. I reach New Seasons, where I'm given a bag of groceries to deliver. Afterwards, I sit in the cab and watch the lightning. Later I head back up 99E, trying to not drive off the road while looking at the blazing pink sky over the river.
Now it's dark out, and in Northeast I pick up a pretty girl who wants to go through the Taco Bell drive-thru and then back home. I ask if she's been watching the weather, and she says yes. We start driving up Sandy Boulevard, but something isn't quite right. "Oh wow, look, all the street lights are out," she says. "A pole somewhere must have taken a hit." I tell her I once drove past a pole just as the transformer was struck, sending fiery orange rain down my windows.
Now for more prosaic contemplation, that of the Taco Bell menu. I take people to drive-thrus all the time. My fare asks if I want anything, a gesture I always appreciate even though I almost never do want anything. I had never eaten Taco Bell before I started driving a cab. She orders while I think about how even if it's only three blocks away, people still must call us, because you can't walk up to the window. I wonder how much gas is burned just in Taco Bell drive-thrus, all over the United States. Then there's the gas produced from Taco Bell drive-thrus....
Story continues below
advertisement
RECENT COMMENTS ON “A THUNDERSTORM”
