The young woman leans forward...

| Permalink

Email |

Print |

Rate It! | 7 comments

Recently in "NIGHT CABBIE"

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

BY NIGHT CABBIE | nightcabbie at wweek dot com

[April 9th, 2008]

The young woman leans forward between the two front seats and turns her head toward me to speak. Each breath against my neck sends chills down my spine.

She's telling me about how she hates her friends for making her take a cab. The way she sees it, she's such a good driver that all being drunk does is bring her down to everyone else's level.

I tell her my standard jokes on drunkenness, and she laughs and compliments me on my music, and with each exhalation my goosebumps rise.

I pull into her parking lot, and when I tell her not to apologize for giving me a credit card, she tells me that I'm sweet. When I turn to give her the card back, we make eye contact and I realize that I could kiss her, that she wants me to kiss her, and that we're just a slight move away from it happening.

"I wish I could just ride shotgun and drive around with you all night," she says. "Where are you going next?"

"I've gotta get this thing gassed up and back to the garage." I silently curse myself for taking an early shift.

"That doesn't sound like any fun. Can't you be done right now?"

"It doesn't take all that long to get there and back, maybe half an hour."

"No," she declares, "I've got school in the morning." We spend another five minutes talking, but the moment has passed.

The cab is in on time.