“...I need to take a shower first and wash all of this blood off.”
August 27th, 2008
“Son of a bitch, you’re running up the meter!”5 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.”13 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 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
[July 9th, 2008]
“Yeah, I’m really hungry too, but I need to take a shower first and wash all of this blood off.”
Occasionally, in severe cases, a firefighter or two will have to ride along in an ambulance in order to provide extra hands. Once they’re done at the hospital, they can’t catch a ride home with the ambo (which may have to be redirected en route), so accounts exist that allow them to take cabs back to their stations of origin. Cabbies often love these trips, as they usually involve going from Emanuel (with its preeminent burn and trauma centers) to relatively far-flung locales.
These two guys came in from deep Gresham, with some guy who screwed up a trick on his motorcycle so badly that his helmet cracked from the impact. The prognosis in such cases isn’t even remotely good, but all I can think about is the 50 bucks I’ll make from the trip, which makes the outlook for my night quite rosy.
It’s a beautiful summer evening, and the weekend traffic on the Banfield is light. Yet as I listen to the two firefighters routinely discuss dinner plans, viscera, and the qualities of particular ambulance drivers, I find my mood growing more somber. It stinks that somebody’s life has probably ended, and yet for my fares that means a shower before dinner and for me it makes for a nice start to the workday.
I pay extra-close attention to my driving for the rest of the trip.
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RECENT COMMENTS ON ““...I need to take a shower first and wash all of this blood off.””
Nicely done, NC. You keep surprising us. This one was a little bonsai.
I can't wait for the Night Shift to replace Night Cabbie. Maybe we'll actually hear from one of these firefighters, or the nurses, or the biker (this one might end abruptly).
Actually, that's not a bad idea, but even a blind pig gets an acorn now and then.
Until WW kicks off Night Shift, we have the Night Cabbie. This is the one I read first, always.
11p-7a, thank you. On this blazing hot Monday, I desperately needed a laugh. Your imagery is beautiful, and only my crystalline sense of ethics prevents me from stealing it shamelessly. But I admir...
