Did I ever mention that I drove a cab?
No? Well, I did. For about a year. I musta’ heard my car door slam a million times. It riled me, the explosion, even if I braced for it every time. People who slam doors are turds. Hard to debate it if you’ve heard it a million times. The car door slamming, that is. A million’s a lot.
The year driving a cab was the loneliest, maybe longest, of my life, but I made do because I was evolving. It was a burning season for me. Before, I just smoldered. That year, I torched everything I touched. I was a human accelerant. A match to dry leaves. All day long and into the night, I drove drunks and fat bastard businessmen around town, scurrying bloated aardvarks they were. I scraped gobs of half-dry college-kid puke off the seats and fumigated my fair share of cheap hooker perfume from my nostrils. A hooker’s sickly-sweet scent will never come out, never, no matter how hard you try. Take it to the bank, kid, it’s like the smell of fresh blood. They shouldn’t have smelt that way. But they did. It was their choice, not mine. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered, though, in the end.
Slam.
Slam.
Slam. Every last one of ‘em. Time after time, even if I asked nicely.
Try anything you want, even scalding lava couldn’t erase those whores.
So, I used my hands and a bunch of elbow grease, being the industrious type.
Sure, go ahead, you can write that down. Let me know if you’re not getting all this.
Speaking of gettin', can I get you some water or a cold pop? Earl over there will fetch it. He don’t say much but he fetches good. This old place holds the heat, yes indeed. You’d think the stone and the metal would keep it cool. It don’t. You’re sweatin’ some. I used to sweat a lot, especially after. Not anymore. I've released it all; that's what I tell the Chaplain. He likes to hear what he wants to hear, that guy. He's on a quota system for souls. That's my thinkin'.
Where was I? Burning season. Right, that’s where I was. A four-alarm fire. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and all that manure—Chicago smoldering, an ash heap. Like that, my year was a conflagration. Conflagration, I like that word. Work it in, won’t you?
Anyway, I drove a cab. My first fare was a young'un back from 'Nam. Nice enough, didn’t slam the door. Kept callin' me, sir. He was still wearing his Army greens. Told him to strip that shit off, the medals, too. The protestors would eat him alive. Those hippies were savages if you never met one. Later, odds are some of them cannibals were the fat bastards in my cab; their wives, too—all stiff, transparent, their angst and melancholy fresh, under wraps, wearing Tupperware as skin. They never exhaled, it seemed to me. Anyways, that kid said he got spit on getting off the plane. That’s where I picked him up. At the airport. Don’t remember where I dropped him off—some street corner uptown, a green lamb disappearing into swarming razor blades is all I recall. I charged him nothin’. Him bein’ a war hero. I know a Purple Heart when I see it. Two tours in the country, he told me he was. And he still smelled clean. His eyes were soiled, though. Filthy, dirty. A blind man could see that.
I’ve always wondered what happened to him, that kid. I never wonder about the fat bastard businessmen. Why would I, the fat bastards, their grey suits bulging, fat necks devouring their striped silk ties. But the clean people I remember. I haven’t seen many clean people in my day, so they stick out. That kid was clean. Kept callin' me, sir. Imagine that.
I don't suspect many people see me as clean, especially now. My eyes are a dead giveaway from a mile off. As soiled as soiled can be, you bet, bein’ what they seen. There’s not enough lava in the world to get me erased from me. So, the State's goin' to do it another way. Old Testament style, imagine that.
Sure you don’t want that cold pop?
You’re sweatin’ some.