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Get married, and have a good life

Kirk Alex

(from the Working the Hard Side of the Street anthology by the author)

    It was a Benedict Canyon address in Beverly Hills that I drove up to one night. As I pulled up to the mansion a hooker in her early 20s hurried toward my cab before I’d even had a chance to come to a full stop. She was being escorted, roughly at that, by a disgruntled, angry-faced balding dude in bathrobe and house slippers who appeared seriously determined to get her off the premises and away from him as rapidly as possible.
    She was clutching her purse. Bloodshot eyes, runny nose, smeared makeup. To say that she was distraught would be putting it mildly. The man looked like he was relieved to be rid of her and was back inside the house before the hooker had even climbed in my cab.
    Sitting in my backseat now she started wailing full force, crying and carrying on as though in great pain.
    “THEY HURT ME! THEY HURT ME!” she screamed hysterically.
    I cut the steering wheel, gave it gas. “I’m getting you to a hospital,” I told her. She started shaking her head violently.
    “NNNOOOO! DON’T DO THAT! PLEASE DON’T DO THAT! PLEASE?!”
    The screaming had shaken me up quite a bit and I found myself readily nodding my head, going along with her.
    “All right,” I said. “I won’t. I promise; I promise. I won’t take you to any hospital. Are you going to be okay?”
    She was going through her purse now, desperately searching for something.
    “YEESSS, YYESSS I’MFINE!” she snapped.
    “You sure?”
    “PLEASE TAKE ME AWAY FROM HERE! THEY HURT ME! THEY HURT MEEE!”
    It was all I could do to stay calm. I swallowed hard, had no idea what was going on. Is the woman hurt? If so—why won’t she let me take her to a hospital?
    “Where do you want to go?” I asked.
    “PLEASE TAKEME HOME! TAKE ME HOME—PLEASE!”
    “Jesus Christ,” I sighed under my breath. “Why me? Why is this happening to me? God. ... ... ...”
    “HELP ME!”
    “Listen to me. I am trying to help you. Where do you want to go?”
    “TAKE ME HOME! TAKE ME HOME!”
    The screaming had me rattled. I couldn’t take it. I stopped the cab.
    “That’s it,” I said. I had control, but I was firm. “You either stop all this screaming, or you get the hell out of my cab right now. You got that?”
    She relented to some degree. “Please don’t shout,” she said. “I just want to get home. Please be nice to me. Just be nice to me. ... ... ...”
    She found a cigarette in her purse, fumbled with it, continued to search for a light. A feeling of desperation came over me. I wiped sweat from my brow. I felt sorry for her. And I felt trapped. The whole goddamn thing was just too sad and had happened so fast. It happened too often. Fares like this chipped at your sanity.
    I continued in a calm tone: “I’ll be nice—I promise. Just stay calm—and I will take you anywhere you want to go. Anywhere.”
    She was screaming again. “PLEASE TAKE ME HOME!”
    I got out of my cab, turned my head upwards. There was nothing but dark sky up there. Bleakness. What was I doing? Looking for answers?
    I would have to solve this one on my own. Stay calm, I kept saying to myself. Stay calm. It wasn’t easy. I had to maintain just long enough to get her out of my cab and out of my life.
    I climbed back in.
    “You didn’t tell me where you wanted to go.”
    “TAKE ME AWAY FROM HERE!”
    “I told you about the goddamn screaming. Gimme a break—please?”
    Much calmer now, she said: “The Marina—”
    “That’s better,” I sighed. We rolled.
    “Know how to get there?”
    I nodded my head.
    “Do you know the way?” she asked again.
    “Yes. I know the way.”
    “You really are a grouch—”
    “What? Are you serious?”
    “Yes, I’m serious. You’re so young and such a grouch.”
    “I promise: I’ll be nice and get you there.”
    “What’s your name?”
    I did my best to tune her out. “Mickey Mouse,” I said.
    “Mickey Mouse,” I heard her echo from the backseat flatly. “You think that’s cute. Okay; okay. Cute. You won’t tell me your name.” There was a pause. “Do you have a light, please?”
    I did, but I did not want her smoking. “Sorry, no light,” I said.
    “You promised you were going to be nice.”
    “Sorry. I’m not going to let you smoke. You’re in bad shape. You’re freaking out or something. I’m not going to trust you with a lit cigarette.”
    “I’m not freaking out. I was a half hour ago—inside that house. I’m okay now. ... ... ...”
    I glanced back.
    “Really,” she said.
    I got her the lighter.
    “Thank you.” She fired up. “I only had a quarter of a gram of coke and half a quaalude. ... ... ... That’s why I’m so paranoid.”
    I was in my own world, my pain. “Right,” I said.
    “They took my money,” she said. More tears followed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. My money’s missing.”
    She noticed me glance at the rearview mirror.
    “Don’t worry,” she said. “I got your fare.” She showed me a hundred dollar bill and a couple of twenties. “I had a roll. My roll’s missing.” She was on the verge of hysteria again. I thought if I showed some interest in her problems it would keep her from going ballistic again.
    “What do you think happened to it? You think that guy took it?”
    “No. I don’t know.” Then: “I don’t fuck these guys. I’m just a dinner companion. I know you don’t believe me. He wanted to fuck. I just didn’t feel like it. He wouldn’t let up. Kept after me, kept after me ... ... ... even after I told him I was on my period. Finally, I got to call a cab when he wasn’t looking. He got mad and called me a bitch. I’m scared. It was a referral, you see. ... ... ... I had bad vibes from the very first. ... ... ... I’m always right about these things. I had bad vibes. It was a referral. I don’t take referrals.”
    “What happened?”
    She started to tell me, then changed her mind. She said:
    “I’m scared. ... ... ... I’m scared. ... ... ... I’m in trouble. ... ... ... I’m in deep trouble. ... ... ...”
    “Why? What’s going to happen? Is someone going to hurt you? What is it?”
    She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter ... ... ...” Then she added: “You should count your blessings. ... ... ... I know that you hate your job. You hate being a cab driver.”
    “I don’t hate my job.” Maybe I did. I didn’t feel it was anybody’s business.
    “Oh, yes you do.”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “I can tell. You hate your job.”
    I found myself sighing again. “Okay. I hate my job.”
    “There’s no need to be sarcastic. I’ll be out of your life pretty soon—and you’ll never see me again. I’m sorry if I got you upset. It’s just that I lost my money ... ... ... and I’m so scared. ... ... ...”
    A moment went by. “I’m sorry I shouted at you. You shook me up.”
    “You don’t have to apologize. I’ll even give you a good tip.”
    “Look, you don’t have to—”

    We were in the Marina, pulling into the Marriott parking lot.
    “There,” she said. “Stop at the door.”
    “Nineteen-eighty,” I said. She gave me a twenty and a five. “You really don’t have to give me this much.”
    She insisted. “Take it, take it.”
    I kept the money. There was something I wanted to say to her in spite of what had happened, in spite of who she was and who I was, in spite of it all, but the words were not coming, and I hoped the expression on my face, perhaps a trace of a smile of sorts, did it. I wanted to say: Life is tough, no matter how you cut it.
    I didn’t care for hookers, but she was a human being. I wished I could have done something to help her out of her jam, wished I could have delivered myself from this rut I was in. Did any of it make any sense? Why couldn’t I formulate the words? Why stuck? Why now?
    “Thanks,” I said.
    She got out of the cab. “Get married, and have a good life,” she said as she walked away.
    A line I never would have expected after all that had transpired, and not from her, not from a prostitute. Get married, and have a good life.
    I suspected she was being facetious and didn’t know what to think.
    “You’re trying to be funny, right?” I said to her.
    She shook her head. Said sincerely: “No, no—I’m serious.” She staggered a bit, continued on toward the entrance.
    “Look, take care of yourself,” I called out to her, and was not so sure that she had even heard me. Then thought: How can you give advice when you can’t even help yourself?
    I sat there, stared blankly, as she disappeared inside the lobby. I sat there like that, wishing I could have eased our pain, spared us from our burdens. I sat there this way for a while, thinking about it, and then I did the only thing I could do: sighed, and drove off.

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