In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting, and sometimes an object. -Wikipedia
Just when ya start getting a little jaded and think you have pretty much seen it all when it comes to driving a taxi, this job swats you in the back of the head and says, “Hey! Bet you didn’t see that coming…”
So it is a half hour before bar close, and I pick up two gay guys downtown that look very “serious”… not threatening or angry looking, but “intense” and not smiling. They get in the back, and they want to go to a popular gay bar that is about a five minute drive away. They are whispering tersely to each other for a few moments, and then I hear the taller one say, “I can’t do the Christmas thing with your family, Willy, I’m sorry…”
The shorter guy has tears welling up in his eyes, and they start whispering again. I recognize this… I’ve been here. They are breaking up…
In my car…
25 minutes before bar close…
Fuck…!
I’m just two minutes away from their destination, and I don’t have any ill will for these guys, but I just can’t have this in my car right now. I pull into the parking lot of the bar, the taller guy throws me a twenty for a ten dollar fare, and tells the shorter guy, “I’m sorry. It’s over. I can’t do it. Go home, Willy.”
The taller guy is tearing up, and the shorter guy is openly sobbing now. They are just sitting back there whispering to each other and crying. I gotta get outta here…
I’ve had a few of the aggressive breakups, where the doors are slammed and the “fuck you’s” are exchanged and you spend the next few years talking shit about each other… but the sad breakups are the worst, and I’ve had a few of those, too. So here I am, torn by my empathy of how sad this was for both of these guys, offset by the fact that all the bars are closing in nineteen minutes, and I gotta go.
So I said, “Guys, I know you are having a moment here, but I really have to go.” The taller guy apologized and got out, with the shorter guy following him and crying and telling me to wait just two minutes…
Fuck that… long ride or short, I don’t want a drunk and distraught bawling gay man as my last fare of the nite. I took off, and let them have the privacy they so obviously needed…
Awwwwwwwk-ward….