Taxicab Depressions

I had a passenger the other nite I wanted to document while she is still fresh in my mind. As I told you in my previous post The Perils Of Taxi Pussy, it just seems to be my karma to get unhinged psychobitches that are out of their minds on drugs and alcohol, and they often indicate that they are amenable to a little extracurricular hanky-panky, if I am also so inclined. I can’t explain why that is; I know another driver that seems to get an extraordinary number of distraught, crying girls, I mean like two or three a week sometimes. By way of comparison, I get one every three or six months. But it is a safe bet that if a girl breaks up with her boyfriend tonight, Jim will almost certainly be driving her home. That’s just his karma. But as for me, I seem destined to get the insane, the intoxicated, and the horny, and I had a passenger the other night that is a textbook case study in why banging your patrons is a really bad idea.

I was sitting outside a bar downtown talking on the phone with my hunnee, when a bartender came out and said he had a fare for me. A few minutes later, he escorts out a girl about 23 years old, wearing a loose spaghetti-strap sundress and sandals. She is obviously wasted, her long brunette hair is tossled and messy… she might have looked pretty good 5 or 6 hours ago. But now she looks surly and “unpleasant”… like any ride with her in the car will seem much longer than it really was. The bartender points at me, and another guy is gently holding her elbow, trying to steer her to my car. But she gets an angry expression on her face and pulls away, intent on heading up the street in the direction of another bar, and she staggers off on her own. The guy shrugs, and heads in the opposite direction, while the girl lurches down the street. But before she has gone ten yards, she careens into a wall, bounces off, stumbles back into the wall, and falls flat on her ass on the sidewalk.

I am describing this scene to my wife who is giggling at my play-by-play on the phone of the wasted girl staggering into brick walls when I said, “Ho Down! Ho Down! We have a ho down in the 200 block of Main Street, and I’m not talking about a square dance.” My wife is laughing and asking if she needs paramedics, but the girl got up, slung her giant leather purse back over her shoulder, and headed off west, ostensibly in search of more booze. I saw her again about an hour later, apparently getting shown the door at another bar downtown about a block away… She’s swilling a giant 24 ounce plastic cup half full of beer and talking intensely to a staffer who seems to be blocking her re-entry at the door, and she’s looking surlier and more wasted than before.

Then another hour and a half later, I am driving by yet another bar when a cop flags me down and asks me if I can take a passenger several towns away in the next county and in the next telephone area code. Sounds like a great ride, so I pull over, and a couple of cops walk over the wasted girl I first saw bouncing off brick walls more than two hours ago. The cop shows me her ID for the address, which is a somewhat pricey gated community in Fox Glen, and he says she has two credit cards, and payment won’t be a problem.

“Amber” assures me that she does indeed have the money for this drive, and thanks the officers sweetly and profusely for helping her get a taxi, and then she sweetly and profusely thanked me for picking her up and driving her home safely. She looks a mess, but she is behaving OK, so I head out for Fox Glen and what should be a really good fare.

Maybe I misjudged Amber… She seems alright, polite and amiable, but she’s just got way too many beers in her 110 pound frame. Her speech is slurred and her head is lolled back on the seat while she thanked me again and again for taking her home. I asked her what brought her so far away from home, and she said, “Well, I came here to see a nice guy I met on Facebook, but he turned out to be an asshole… I just wanted to have some drinks with someone nice. But this guy is an asshole, then other guys at the bar were assholes, then all the bitches in the bar were assholes, then the bartenders were assholes, then the cops were assholes… There’s nobody nice downtown… they are all assholes…”

I said, “Well, the cops were nice enough to send you home with me… You could be in one of their cars right now…”

“Assholes…” she mutters. “Why can’t they just be nice?” She gets quiet for a few moments and then she says, “You seem nice…”

I said, “Well, I always try to be nice… I make better tips that way.”

Another long pause… “Do you think I’m nice?”

I replied, “Well, we have only been together for a few minutes, but you seem nice enough…”

“I like people to be nice…” she says, her voice trailing off… she seemed to be using the adjective “nice” a little too frequently, and it was starting to seem a little weird. But maybe she was just wasted and kinda stuck on this verbal loop… drunks do that sometimes, saying the same thing over and over. She muttered about assholes and nice people for a little bit, and then she said, “All I wanted to do was meet a nice guy, have a nice time, and get some nice dick. All I really wanted was some nice dick.”

OK, that was an attention-getter. I looked back at her and I was a little puzzled by what I saw. She was slumped in the seat, head still lolled back, feet wide apart, and her knees clenched tightly together. Her right hand was balled into a fist, and her left hand was on top of it, pushing and grinding her fist into the top of her pubic mound. I kept looking back over my shoulder while trying to guide my car safely down the road, and she was just grinding the bottom of her fist into her pubic bone and making groaning sounds.

I really wasn’t sure what I was witnessing… was she masturbating? If so, it certainly was an unconventional technique, knees and thighs locked tightly together and avoiding the “business end” more toward the front, just grinding her fist on the top. She never looked at me or even opened her eyes, she just kept kneading her lap and making little groaning and whimpering sounds, and I honestly couldn’t determine if they were sounds of a sexual nature, or just the involuntary whines, grunts, and groans caused by way too much booze.

Now, I can completely understand how a less experienced, less wise, and less married taxi driver might have contemplated finding a dark alley or a deserted parking lot and hopping in the back seat with her to see if he could be “nice” for her… she was a lean, athletic, nubile 23 year old girl, half my age, and out of her mind drunk. But that would have been a very poor decision, as I would later find out.

After a couple minutes of this, she nods out, and she is quiet for the last twenty minutes of the drive. We arrive at the entrance to her gated community and I tell Amber that we are home and I need her gate code to get in her subdivision. She doesn’t respond, so I yelled at her a little to rouse her, trying to avoid reaching back and shaking her… I really do not feel comfortable with the idea of touching her in any way. She comes to and says, “Where are we? Please take me home… 4321 Fox Glen Boulevard…”

I told her we were at her home, we just need the gate code to get in. She’s really hammered and she keeps repeating, “4321 Fox Glen Boulevard…. 4321 Fox Glen Boulevard…” I am having difficulty making her understand that we need the gate code, and all she can do is repeat her address over and over.

Finally I say, “OK, You can get out here if you like and you can walk home, but I always like to see a girl get safely inside her house when I drop her off. Is that what you want me to do? Do you want to get out here?” She looks around out the windows for a few moments in drunken confusion, and then she rambles off a series of numbers that are too long to be her four digit gate code. But after several tries, the gate slowly swings open and I pull up in front of the townhouses where she lives.

“Here we go, Amber… 4321 Fox Glen Boulevard…. Home safe and sound. Your fare is $85.”

“Thank God” she mutters and starts fumbling around with her purse. She finds her keys and starts looking for the door handle, but the door is locked and she can’t find the lock button.

I said, “Aren’t you going to pay me, Amber? I brought you home, and you promised both me and the police officers that payment wasn’t a problem…”

She says, “Thank you for bringing me home… You call whoever you need to call… But I’m going inside…” She finds the lock knob itself and pulls it up, but before she can get back to the door handle, I hit the power locks again.

(Thunk)

I said, “Amber, the only person I am going to call is the County Sheriff… You have to pay your fare before I let you out.”

She says, “No, I’m not paying you… You take care of it… I gotta go…”

(Thunk)

She yells, “What are you doing? Let me out!” She pulls the knob again and reaches for the door handle.

(Thunk)

“Amber, I need sixty seconds with your credit card, and then you can go inside…”

“Open this door!” she yells.

(Thunk)

This is getting tiresome quick… I said, “OK, Amber, if that’s the way you want to do this, that’s fine, let’s just go talk to a Deputy about this…” And with that, I put the car in drive, pulled into a driveway, and turned the car around toward the gate again.

Amber screeches, “What are you doing? Let me out of this car!” She is now half-standing with one foot on the floor and one knee on the seat, trying to get the back door open, and I stopped rather abruptly, bouncing her off the back side of the front seat and back into a seated position. “Where are you taking me?”, she screams.

(Thunk)

“I’m taking you to the nearest police station unless you pay me my money.” This was actually an empty threat; I am not familiar with this area and don’t have a clue where the nearest cop shop is, but I hoped that turning the car around would snap her back to her senses and make her realize that the smart thing to do here is to give me her Visa card. As it turns out, I was wrong.

Amber gets an insane look in her eyes and clumsily swings her large purse at my head, then starts beating on the window with her fist and shrieking, “HELP! HELP! KIDNAPPING! I’M BEING KIDNAPPED! HELP! RAPE! RAPE! HELP!”

I blocked her purse and several items flew out of it. She is shrieking and screaming at the top of her lungs and throwing her hairbrush and her makeup compact and her lip gloss at me, and frantically trying to get out of the car.

(Thunk)

I’m not certain that I possess the writing skills to adequately describe how insane Amber was behaving. The nice little twenty-three year old girl that just twenty minutes ago was grinding her nice little fist into her nice little cooch and making nice little cooing and mewling noises to the nice taxi driver about just wanting to get a little nice dick has now suddenly transformed into a crazed alcoholic wildcat, flinging things at me, beating the window, swinging her purse, and shrieking at the top of her lungs. Normally, this would be a scene I would want to resolve quickly and quietly, but at this point, I’m really OK with someone calling the cops… maybe we can settle for a Wackenhut security guard on a golf cart… whatever works.

But Amber manages to get the door open and half-runs, half-staggers away toward her building, screaming all the way. She stumbles over a squat little bush and faceplants into the grass, but gets up and runs to the door. I calmly followed her up her driveway, looking around to see if any lights are coming on in the neighboring units over this incredibly unseemly tableau happening at 2 o’clock in the morning in one of the nicer gated communities. Amber gets to the door and starts pounding on it with her fist and jamming the doorbell….

DingDingDingDingDingDing!

She seems unwilling to turn her back on me though, and she is continually screaming, “HELP! HELP! THIS PSYCHO IS TRYING TO RAPE ME! HELP! KIDNAPPING! THIS PSYCHO FREAK IS KIDNAPPING ME! HELP! HELP! HELP!”

BangBangBangBangBangDingDingDingDingDing!

Amber pauses for a moment, looks at the door, then looks around the porch area, and then she is struck with the realization that this is not her door. I can’t really fault her there; she may be really fucked up, but these units all look alike. Amber suddenly looks like a cornered animal… she is wide-eyed and snarling at me, her hair hanging in loose locks and messy strands in her face with leaves and other vegetative matter clinging to it… a nasty, feral child, raised by badgers with whiskey and meth. She swings her giant purse at my head again, then darts past me and stumbles over the same little bush again. She gets up, staggers to the next door with leaves and grass sticking to her knees and her sundress, and starts pounding on that door.

I deftly and adroitly stepped over the little bush and casually followed Amber across the lawn and over to the next door. She’s still screaming and pounding on the door and feverishly ringing the doorbell, and I was thinking to myself, Is everyone in this neighborhood deaf? How can people not hear this spectacle out here? I’m keeping a four or five yard space between myself and Amber, but she keeps lunging at me and swinging her giant purse at me…

“HELP! HELP! THIS PSYCHO IS TRYING TO RAPE ME! HELP! KIDNAPPING! THIS PSYCHO FREAK IS KIDNAPPING ME! HELP! HELP!”

BangBangBangBangBangDingDingDingDingDing!

A few moments later, a light inside comes on and the door opens. It is Amber’s Mom, a petite but stoutly built woman that looks like she is from the back cover of a cookbook. She is wearing a bathrobe and looks bewildered and confused, and her short blonde hair is sticking up at odd angles all over her head. She looks at me standing a few yards away with my hands in my pockets, and then she sees the taxi behind me, still running with the doors open and the lights all on.

Amber’s shrieking continues unabated… “OH MY GOD THIS PSYCHO FREAK IS A KIDNAPPER THAT TRIED TO RAPE ME! HE TRIED TO KIDNAP ME! CALL THE COPS! HE’S A FUCKING PYSCHO! HE’S OUT OF HIS MIND! HE LOCKED ME IN A TAXI AND KIDNAPPED ME! HE’S A PSYCHO FUCKING FREAK!”

Amber’s Mom looks at me, and at the purported kidnapping vehicle with a prominent phone number on the side in five-inch orange lettering, and says, “Does she owe you money?”

I calmly and politely said, “Yes, Ma’am, 85 dollars…”

She tells me to wait just a moment, and she takes Amber inside, and I got the distinct feeling that this sorta shit has happened before. Amber is still screaming at the top of her lungs on the other side of the door…

“DON’T YOU GIVE HIM ANY FUCKING MONEY! HE’S A PSYCHO RAPIST! HE TRIED TO KIDNAP ME! I FUCKING HATE YOU! YOU NEVER TAKE MY SIDE! YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ANYTHING I SAY AND IT’S OK WITH YOU IF SOME PSYCHO FREAK RAPES AND MURDERS ME IN A FUCKING TAXI! (CRASH) I FUCKING HATE YOUR GUTS! (THUD) WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN TO ME? WHY AM I NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO LISTEN TO? (SMASH) THAT PSYCHO TAXI DRIVER KIDNAPPED ME! WHY DON’T YOU CARE IF SOME PSYCHO RAPES ME? I HATE YOU! I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

I listened to this screaming and the sounds of things being thrown and broken for at least two or three minutes. It would not have surprised me to have heard a gunshot, or even a McCulloch chainsaw firing up, for that matter. I was thinking that maybe I should go get my phone out of my car in case I needed to call 911 for Amber’s Mom… the neighbors sure as shit do not seem to be noticing this spectacle.

Mom comes back out and hands me a hundred dollar bill, and thanks me for bringing Amber home safely. I ask her if she needs some help or if I can call anyone for her, but she says everything is OK and asks me to leave. So I turn back to my car, and the floor is strewn with Amber’s possessions… makeup, a hairbrush, tampons, keys, a little 5×7 notepad, Chap-Stick, birth control pills, gum, assorted trash, all sorts of shit… so I scoop it all up and start carrying it up to the door with the intent of just leaving all this shit on the doorstep and getting out of here. Just then, the door flies open and Amber is storming out, still screaming and hurling “FUCK YOU’S” at her mother. Amber’s Mom follows her out and says to me, “What are you still doing here?” I replied that I just wanted to give her daughter back all the shit that she threw at me, and I piled it all in Mom’s arms, and I got the hell outta Dodge by the shortest route possible.

Now then, let’s debrief and examine the After Action Report. I occasionally get guys in my car that I tell how often these wasted hosebags proposition me, and they usually start talking and laughing about how they should start driving taxis and start pulling all this surplus pink that is obviously wasted on this guy, and they always seem to think that I am just plain crazy to not avail myself of these opportunities. But therein lies my point:

I’m not crazy, THEY ARE.

Nevermind that I love my wife and have little to no interest in destroying my family over a random piece of ass… can you imagine being nuts-deep in that wasted little trollop, only to have her suddenly decide mid-stroke that she was being raped and start screeching at the top of her lungs? Then maybe she starts scratching your face and hitting you in the head with her six pound purse and poking you in the eye with her hairbrush… and when the cops roll up, you are standing there with half a hardon, a swollen and scratched face, and a girl shrieking about psycho kidnapping taxi rapists, sitting right there in the back seat of your car, with an ample supply of your DNA all over her…

After careful and deliberate consideration, that’s some pussy you can keep. I think the nice guy from FaceBook was lucky that his nice date with nice Amber didn’t work out nicely.

Here endeth the lesson…