Taxi driver
Lynne (London, just after 11:30 pm)
<<I carry a small bag under my arm and walk down the steps onto the tarmac from the plane. Josh is one step ahead of me, bursting with excitement. He is home. Unsurprisingly it is raining and the rain seems to have a different tone to it than it had before. I shake out my hair, heedless of the weather, and slide on some dark glasses. That silence struck us in the air, and I am afraid. I was glad to be surrounded by mortals at that moment - silence is alien to them. Maybe that is my weakness. I let the rain plaster my hair into rats tails and look up, letting the droplets bounce off the glasses. The sky is overcast and gray. There is a buzz as the little phone in Josh's pocket rings. He fumbles for it in the wet, as other passengers stream past us, then his face brightens and he nudges me in the shoulder.>>
<<I force a smile out of a tired face and mouth the words with him simultaneously 'Its a girl!'>>
The plane had been delayed for landing, some kind of minor accident on the ground had held them above London for three hours. The flight had been much, much longer than many of the passengers could have hoped, and now, in the darkness and the wet, the tired relief of the people around had become almost palpable.
Josh was practically dancing with excitement, pushing forwards through the crowd and dragging Lynne along, almost heedless of other concerns. Orli does like this man, his simple joy and tiredness clouding all of his senses to anything. He had no idea of what happened. Perhaps it was better that way. Part of Orli wished you could speak to him, to any mortal, of what just happened. But she doubted that he would even be able to understand. And besides, he was happy. It seemed somehow so rare and precious for that to happen, especially now, and part of her needed that reassurance.
There, in her centre, she felt it. A cold inner glow. Her Heart.
Without it in Heaven, in the keeping of Domenic, there was nothing to guide her back, no means for return to Heaven. It was more than unheard of. It was almost beyond comprehension. More than this, she felt empty, drained. The Quiet had taken all essence she had stored.
She let herself be dragged to the taxi stand, uncertain what she would do next, and glad of the guidance Josh was providing. All about, people were moving tiredly, going about their business. But she noticed something slower about their motions, less spring in their steps. Something had happened to them too, but what, she was not sure.
The rain began to fall, uncaring. Her hair was wet, and the cold against her skin was somehow comforting, reassuring. The next taxi comes, then the next, then the next, then it was their turn. Josh gave directions to the man in the front, who snorted more than responded.
The taxi driver began to smoke in the confined space, and leered at Lynne ominously through the rear vision mirror. He cheated on his wife with whores, she saw without wanting to. He had a disease, contagious, and one that he would soon give to his daughter through a shared glass. She would die before him, she realized, but not before she in turn gave it to the other children and the mother.
Josh looks at Lynne to say something, but then shivered as though someone had just walked over his grave, and went quiet, looking out the window.
The leering man smiled at her, and spoke.
�So, you married?� he managed to direct the question more at Josh while still ogling Lynne. �You need to go to hotel? I know some good hotels.�
Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) Ch. 5
Josh was trying not to laugh, I think. "Hotels?" he asked, eyes brightening. "If I could afford to stay at the Ritz I wouldn't be picking up cabs on the streets now, would I?"
He glanced across at Lynne, trying to share his good mood; She blinked the fog from her thoughts and projected another small smile. Then, because she had to do it, she added a slight, more sober nod. This was something they should perhaps make time to check out, she thought. She knew Josh wanted time to celebrate and that he deserved a rest, and spending most of the night hanging around a brothel trying to get interviews wasn't quite the way to do that. Unfortunately this was the price. He just grinned at Lynne impishly, and didn't seem to mind.
This was the price She had offered him when they first took up together, 'This is what you always wanted -- the ability to go after anyone who crosses the line, no matter how rich or how powerful. The price is that we have to go after everyone, no matter how weak or sordid. No-one is above the law, but no-one is below it either.'
The driver also grinned, displaying a set of stained teeth, "Sure, sure. I know a few places with a bit more in the way of en-suite entertainment, if you get my drift..."
He was still trying to eye Lynne up whilst driving which must have been a trick that required some practice. She sat back and listened to Josh pump him for information and slowly allow himself to 'take the bait'. Orli was trying not to think about the Quiet as they turned into some place in Hackney and the cab idled slowly past a couple of peep-shows. She felt for those who had to live and work there; even those who visited from time to time, looking for a break from their tired lives. She doubted they would find it on these
desperate streets. Pubs were emptying, spilling out tuneless streams of drinkers into the rain. All of the faces they passed look dull and gray in the reflected neon. Lynne does not think that was all her imagination.
"Can you lend me some cash?", Josh nudged her. Lynne made a show of rolling her eyes disapprovingly and gave him the fifty she had changed at the airport. It isn't as if they had never done this before, she imagined he'd pay one of the girls for an hour and get her to talk to him. The taxi driver smirked at her disapproval, she thought. Leaning across, she whispered that she wanted to drive on alone, they could meet later and Josh would get more out of this on his own. He agreed -- they would meet up at 'El Vinos' in a couple of hours. On an afterthought, Lynne warned him to be careful about sharing utensils there.
As the taxi finally stopped, the driver cleared his throat and offered to carry Josh's bags. Lynne put on a seeming of defeated weariness, which was not too much of an effort, and said that she would take them with her. The two men disappeared inside the little hotel. A flickering sign outside the door read 'Corinthian Boarding House'.
Finally the driver returned. He drove slowly down the street whilst Orli gave some brief directions that would take them through the centre of town, undressing her all the time with his eyes. They passed a streetwalker in a plastic type of mini-skirt and a shirt that was plastered to her body by the rain. Lynne suspected the driver was imagining what she would look like in the same clothes. He started to ask her about her boyfriend, and whether she like threesomes. Orli wondered how many times he has done this in the past, enjoying the relative power over a captive audience in the back seat.
Then he stopped. "What're you doing?" he frowned, distracted from his train of thought.
"Just taking down your license number," She told him politely. "You do realize that soliciting is illegal?"
He pulled the cab over sharply and stopped it. The mood was turning nastier and Orli had no essence left to weave a song. He exclaimed angrily that a man had a right to earn a living and it wasn't hurting anyone. That it was none of her business and she was obviously a frigid bitch. He was not surprised that her boyfriend preferred to spend his time with professionals.
Orli asked quietly, "Is that what you tell your wife?"
There was a pause.
She guessed that he was concerned for his taxi license as well as angry. Still she thought that she pitied him, she did not think that cheating on your marriage vows or even being a sleazy lecher warranted the death sentence which hung over his head. As if the words come out of another woman's lips, she heard herself say gently, "Believe me, I am sorry for your death."
Lynne must be so very drained to be so brusque.
The driver jerked his side of the window open and jabbed a thumb towards the door, indicating that she should get out. "Was that supposed to be some kind of frigging threat?" he bellowed.
"I'm sorry," Lynne breathed. "It truly wasn't a threat, I see that you don't know yet."
Perhaps because she was too tired to be anything except calm, he got more annoyed and climbed out of the cab, pulling her door open. He reached inside to grab her notepad and she let him pull it out of her hands. She did not move. "Its a long walk to Vauxhall from here and I'd very much like to continue," She told him quietly. "If you drive on I'll double the fare. I only need 5 minutes of your time, and it might be the most important 5 minutes of your life."
He looked as if he might be about to physically attempt to pull her out of his cab, then paused, confused. Lynne guessed that he was not given to violence, at least not against women. "Who the fuck are you?" he accused. Lynne told him that she was just a writer. He looked at her with suspicious eyes and she retrieved a twenty pound note from her pocket. He slammed her door closed and got back into the cab, driving on in silence.
They approached Piccadilly, eventually. Even through the midnight drizzle it was a riot of colour and people. "How did you know about the whores?" the driver asked her, finally.
"You knew where to go, Harry." His name was written on the license, which she had already memorized. He seemed to have thrown off enough of the earlier edginess to resume leering at her in the mirror. Still, his hands on the wheel were white at the knuckle.
"And.. I did mean it when I said I was sorry for your death."
"Give it a fuckin' break!"
This time she continued smoothly as he ran into some traffic. "You've picked up a disease from one of the girls, Harry. I don't know how long ago it was, but it is killing you and its contagious - it will kill other people too."
"I don't want to hear this shit." He turned the radio on.
"If you go home now and pass it on, it will make you a murderer," she told him. "Its very sad for a father to attend his daughter's funeral.�
She looked down at her hands, which seemed like pale shadows against a dark background. The leather of the seat creaks, and there was silence. He flicked the radio off and growls, "Who the fuck are you?"
"It doesn't matter", she whispers. "Maybe I am someone who is giving you a last chance. Because of the innocents."
The taxi pulled over Charing Cross bridge and Lynne tapped on the glass and told him suddenly to stop. They were outside a large hospital.
"All you have to do is go in and ask for a blood test. Do you understand?" she nudged her door open and looked up at him. Lynne thought that he was afraid, because he knew it might be possible.
"Fuck you," he muttered.
"Will you do it?"
"Just piss off, forget the fare, you're nuts. Get out!"
She pressed her lips together, informing him quietly, "I'm a journalist. If you don't do it, I'll make sure your license is revoked -- the taxi licensing board don't like drivers with criminal records and as I said before, soliciting is a crime." She flashed her NUJ (national union of journalists) card at him.
He stared daggers, "That�s fucking blackmail!"
Lynne shrugged and left the 20 on the back seat. "Well, there's the hospital. That�s all you have to do. See whether what I said was true, and then its your choice. Your life."
Now he looked afraid. "You really meant that. About dying... "
"Will you go?" I asked again.
He nodded brusquely and the expression in his eye as he looked at her was unpleasant. "Yes," he muttered. Lynne thought that she was the object of his fear and loathing, as if she had laid the plague across his shoulders herself. The truth was that he had been judged already by a higher power than hers.
She climbed out and walked briskly back towards the bridge in the direction from which they had come. As she paused and turned back, she saw him shuffle across the road towards the accidents and emergencies clinic.
On the other side she found a phone box and called the local police, she had spoken to some of them before and the desk sergeant recognized her voice. She informed them that she had witnessed the driver soliciting and offered to come in and give a statement. She gave them his license number and the taxi number-plates, perhaps they would even pick him up tonight. Possibly he would lose his job over this, in addition to all the other things he would lose -- or maybe not, if he gave them more names. Orli could feel sympathy, but that didn't make it right.
She replaced the handset and ducked out of the phone-booth. It was a long walk through the rain to get back to the bar where she had agreed to meet Josh. Orli thought that she needed to get to one of the tethers, and try to speak to some of the other celestials if she could -- had we all been cast out of heaven?
An empty taxi passed her -- this time she decided not to hail it, and it disappeared into the night. For the first time in her existence, she did not precisely know where she was going.
Next Page
Story Index
General Index