Crazy Cabbie

I crack open my eyes. They are dry like sandpaper. The room is dark and the blanket is warm. I know I have to get out of bed to catch a flight, but it seems easier to roll over, and say forget it.

Gotta stop sniffing glue I laugh to myself through a brain that is misfiring and quoting an old Lloyd Bridges line.

Get up, I tell myself. bathroom only 15 feet away. Must save Enterprise!

The voice in my head sounds strangely like Captain James T. Kirk. The voice is sweating, and oddly wearing a Star Fleet shirt and a phazer. The voice in my head is struggling with an alien force while bluntly speaking over dramatized words into the universe of my head.

Must save Spock!

My morning day dream is destroyed by mental photon torpedoes as a second blast of the alarm sounds. I throw the blanket off and push my legs over the side of the bed. I can literally feel the warmth escape and icy cold chill vapors slide over my skin like a serpent.

My feet hit the floor unsteadily. I wobble and gain my balance in the dark. “gotta get me some bigger feet,“ I think to myself as I take that first step. My bones crack as my skeletal system uncoils like a rusty erector set.

I wobble to the bathroom. I glance off the wall with my shoulder. I’m groggy and the bathroom light cuts into my pupil like lasik surgery. The tile floor is cold and I try and stand on the balls of my feet to minimize skin surface touching the icy floor.

“gotta get me some bigger balls of my feet” I think to myself. “Could use some calluses too.”

Everything is labor intensive, right now. The hot water is cold. The sound hitting the sink echoes a thousand times louder than it really is.

I twist off the tooth paste cap. Of course it slips out of my hands and bounces under the counter.

My back feels stiff. I decide I’ll check my calendar to see when I am free to bend over and get that cap another day.

I jump in the shower and hide in the corner, waiting for a temperature I can tolerate to arrive. I stick my hand in the spray, shivering, wondering if I paid the gas bill this month.

Finally heat. I step into the liquid warmth and close my eyes. It would be easy to fall asleep here, standing up, water boarding myself. I decide to keep bathing quickly, like a military exercise. Less about cleansing, and more about liquid rejuvenation.

I pop out of the shower and feel my senses coming to life. I throw on some clean clothes and run a brush across my hair.

I stare in the mirror. I look like a scruffy miscreant, but I don’t care. It’s a Southwest cattle call to San Jose and I need to get on that plane.

And so the trip begins. It begins with me, because I am the trip motivator. I am the timing coordinator. I am the dad. If I am not up, the rest of this finely tuned family unit will simply sleep through alarms and wake up calls from the front desk. The plane will take off without so much as a whisper. I am dad. And because I am, I start the unpleasant process of waking the rest of the house.

I nudge the wife. “Time to get up,” I say. There’s a moan beneath a mop of blond hair. “Five more minutes.”

“Time to go,” I counter. “We’re burning day light.”

I look out the window, the sun is popping up over the horizon. There’s a pink hue fusing through a canopy of dark grey.

“gonna be a pretty day,” I say. “Too bad we won’t get to see it.”

I walk upstairs and begin banging on doors.

“Let’s go. Time to get up,” I say as I infiltrate the inner sanctum of each room.

The ten year old is in the top bunk. He’s all ready awake and stretching.

“Ready to go?”

There’s no response. Typical, I think to myself as I move to the 17 year old’s room.

I push open the door and I’m greeted by teenage boy fermentation. Rock and roll banners hang from the ceiling, and there’s a drum kit in the corner.

“Time to get up, boy.”

There’s a gurgle of death under the blanket. “AAAARGHHH”

That’s about as good as it’s going to get here.

I move down the hallway and knock on the 14 year old girl’s room.

I pause for a moment. You never know what you will find in this one’s room.

I push open the door slightly. Something on the other side is blocking the door from opening easily. It feels like dirty clothes that are no where near a hamper. But I have come to learn in the girl’s room, this could be a teddy bear collection, cardboard boxes, suitcases?

Walking into this room is like LET’S MAKE A DEAL! You could win a power boat or take home a potty trained Llama. You just never know. “Do you want to keep what’s in the box, or trade it in for what’s behind curtain number one?“

I hear pursive snoring as I push the door open.

“Rise and shine girl.”

I feel like a parental drill sergeant as I muster the troops.

The girl pops up in bed like a snake coiling with rigomortis.

Her eyes are narrow slits and she has typical 14 year old angst dripping from her sleepy face.

“We’re out in 30,” I say loud enough for all to hear.

I drink a cup of coffee and make the sure the cats are fed. They know something is wrong, because the house is never this alive this early.

“Going to California,” I say to Bengal. He yawns, unconcerned, his food bowl filled to the brim.

As my 30 minute deadline approaches, I begin getting apprehensive.

“Come on, everyone, we have a flight to catch.“

My voice echoes through a seemingly empty house.

By this time, I have moved the bags into the car. I know they are within weight specifications, but at this early hour, they feel like a ton of bricks.

I wipe my forehead as sweat begins to glisten.

Great, I think to myself,. I’m going to be a soiled mess by the time we land.

The energy level picks up dramatically as my platoon of kids assembles. They are wearing back packs and all ready preoccupied with hand held technologies they are slaves to.

The two older kids have ear buds in and are rocking to whatever the musical flavor of the day is.

“Where’s your mom?“

“Haven’t seen her the ten year old says punching buttons on a PSP, barely looking up.

I check my watch. We are now 5 minutes past optimum departure time.

I feel like going up to speed her along, but years of marriage have proven one thing: hell hath no fury like a woman whose husband reminds her she’s running behind

“Get in the car kids.“

They pile in the back seat, elbowing each other and occasionally insulting one another. Pretty normal stuff.

I crank the engine. I hope the squeal of mechanized thunder will remind her that 80% of this family is ready to go and 20% of this family is starting to piss us off.

The digital clock ticks in slow motion. I hear high pitched cymbals in the ear buds of teenagers who are slowly going deaf, but don’t yet realize it or care.

Tick Tock. Tick Tock. The imaginary clock of frustration is banging.

I open the door and put a leg out.

“What you doing boy?,“ a voice in my head shouts at me.

I am startled. I look around quickly. I decide to sit back and listen to the voice. It is authoritative and experienced.

“You go up there now when she’s probably right on the verge of coming out of that house. Damn boy you do that and you might as well just put boxing gloves on your ears because she is going to work you over.“

The voice is right. It knows my wife too well. I sit back in the car seat and close the door. “We’ll make it,“ I tell myself.

A few moments pass and mom arrives clutching a purse that is over flowing with mom type stuff.

She gets in the passenger seat somewhat exasperated. “I had to turn up the thermostats,“ she says with a bit of anger. “I’m running behind. The least you could do was turn up the thermostats, while I was getting ready.“

I throw the car into drive. I don’t say anything. What’s the sense. I’m a man. I can’t win this conversation. Just take your beating and move on. Trying to retort would only initiate conflict. It would be like the Palestinians lobbing a rocket into Tel Aviv. It’s going to be ugly, ferocious, and ultimately cause massive collateral damage.

I had to turn down the thermostats? And what was I doing? I only woke up the house and fed the cats and carried the bags and did everything else.

None of these words are spoken, but I file them away in a special place. Maybe I’ll bring them out in 3 or 4 years when I need some extra ammunition during a fight I a losing.

Note to self: fed cats before plane trip in 2009. Got ass whipping for doing it!

I get to the interstate and begin to make up for lost time. The highway is wide open and there isn’t a cop in site. Good thing.

I pull into the parking lot at work, where I am going to park the car for the week. This is where the Yellow Cab will pick us up.

We start down the driveway and we immediately see the bright yellow vehicle. So far so good, I think to myself.

As we get closer I see the driver. His window is down, the sun shining in on his face. His head is tilted back, his mouth is open and he is either dead or asleep. I roll down the passenger window and holler at him.

“Good morning.“

The guy doesn’t move. He’s catatonic.

There are giggles from the back seat.

I eye ball my wife and try again.

“Hello Sir, we’re here” My voice is louder and I feel bad for bellowing across my wife’s personal space. The man is unresponsive.

I raise an eye brow and chuckle.

“Maybe he’s dead,” my 17 year old dead pans pulling one eye pod out of one ear.

I laugh at this, because if this cabbie is dead, the fact that he is dead, only rates removing one ear bud from one ear for my 17 year old. I wonder what kind of emergency warrants pulling both ear buds out. I am sure that I don’t want to find out.

I try again, with gusto. “Hey dude. Wake up!“ My tone is loud and a little harsh. I’m a little concerned that if this guy isn’t dead then he is at the very least very tired or even under the influence. Either option is unsatisfactory since he’s driving me and my family to the airport.

Just then the scruffy faced cabbie stirs. He opens his eyes and looks blankly at us. I can tell he is a little disoriented, but I am losing time, and I don’t really care.

“Follow me to that parking spot down there,“ I say pointing.

I zoom ahead shaking my head. The kids are laughing, and my wife eye balls me with that, “well isn’t this interesting kind of look.

We park and begin taking out the suitcases. Normally, a cab driver will pop the trunk and even get out to help. Not this guy. He is firmly entrenched in his seat, hands on the steering wheel, set firmly at ten and two.

I check my watch. Tick Tock. I am pissed, but I don’t have time for this now.

I help the 17 year old stack the bags in the trunk as the family piles in.

I sit next to the driver who has piercing blue eyes and a two day growth of sparse beard. His face is shaped like a melon and his forehead is somewhat pronounced. He is slouched in the driver’s seat and he doesn’t seem entirely sure what is suppose to take place next.

“Thanks for showing up,” I say facetiously.

The melon headed driver clears his throat. He has yet to look at me. “Where to?” he asks in a voice so gravely, so rough, It could polish rocks.

“Airport,” I say.

The driver puts the cab in gear and begins driving.

The problem is, he isn’t heading toward the gate we just came through. He is driving away from the gate. He is cutting through the parking lot, diagonally at maybe 5 miles an hour, heading toward the big green dumpster on the side of the building.

What the hell is he doing, I think to myself. Does he have to throw away his Happy Meal? Is he going to lean out of the car window and vomit?

I feel a sudden rush of panic mixed with a healthy allotment of anger. I don’t’ have time for this mutton-head, I think to myself.

“You gotta go that way, toward the gate we came in,” I direct with a stern finger point.
The driver slowly begins turning the wheel of the cab. When I say slowly, I mean watching paint dry kind of slow. When I say slow, I mean super slow-mo to see if the receiver had both feet in bounds kind of slow. It’s as if he is steering the Queen Mary, bringing the vessel around to a new heading kind of slow.

What the hell kind of driver is this? Are we every going to make it to the gate, no less the airport, I think to myself.

I can sense the kids in the back looking at me for some direction. Is this typical their eyes seem to blink to me in Morse code.

“Dude, I know you’re tired, but we got a plane to catch and I need you to give it a little more effort here.”

I try and throw a smile on the end of the sentence, so as not to insult this very bizarre man who now has the life of my entire family in his hands.

“Where you going?” he says in a raspy voice that is filled with razor blades and barbed wire.

“California,” I reply as we approach the electronic gate.

“Must be nice,” he says, his words stopping abruptly, as if they were a barrel going over Niagara Falls.

Must be nice? What the hell does that mean? Is he angry at the world, some suicidal ticking time bomb, and he’s ready to end it all and we just happen to be the last fare he’ll ever drive.

I look at the gate and wonder if we will ever reach it. We are inching along, the tires barely rotating.

“There’s an automatic sensor,” I say with urgency. “You’ve got to roll over it, and the gate will automatically open.”

The suicidal, gravel voiced driver of doom pops the accelerator suddenly. The cab lurches forward, racing toward the gate. Suddenly he bangs on the brakes. The cab decelerates like some carnival run roller coaster that failed a codes inspection.

The gate begins to open.

The driver with the death wish seems pleased as I hear a guttural rumble in his voice box.
I stare at the side of his head for a moment. His right ear lobe seems to be extra large, extra droopy. It’s as if his regular ear lobe has given birth to another hunk of ear lobe skin that is now clinging like a circus monkey to his jaw.

Note to self. Don’t grow any extra skin on my face. It is really not very attractive.

Somehow we get to the interstate. The old cab accelerates stridently, weaving through three lanes of traffic into the fast lane. The airport is only a few miles ahead. The interstate is practically empty and I wonder why the hell he has chosen this lane.

“We’re going to the airport right?” I say noticing the airport signs that read: airport traffic exit right 1 mile.

“Yup,” he says glancing up into the rear view mirror.

I see his trembling bony hands move the steering wheel slightly to the right. The cab begins to sway to the right.

The vehicle is brutally hot and I wipe my forehead. I flash back to the bag loading in the driveway, which now seems light years ago; certainly much safer.

“You hot?” the rumplestiltskin looking man says suddenly. His trembling bony fingers move to the air conditioning controls where he slides the dial into the blue. He then begins adjusting the window controls. Suddenly, my window comes down a few inches.
A vacuum of air rushes in.

All of this concern for my well being I wonder?

Just then, there’s a honking horn. I look to the right and a pick up truck towing a camper is right on top of us. The driver is angry, mouthing something a little harsher than good morning neighbor. He is aggressively flipping us the bird.

I want to say I’m sorry, but we are part of a diabolical suicide plot and we need you to call the SWAT team. Sadly I don’t know how to say this in a shrug.

I can only reach for the handle above the window to brace myself for whatever might come next.
The cabbie driving to Armageddon doesn’t blink, doesn’t say a word. He simply waits for the angry red truck hauling the camper to blow past us, then he merges into the lane.

“Close one,” I say trying to keep him alert, hoping he waits just a few more minutes before committing vehicular suicide.

He flashes a toothless grin and accelerates into the airport. The speed limit is 40mph and he’s coming in like Tony Stewart hitting pit row.

Again, I secure my grip on the strap.

Just a half mile to go. I know we can make it now, if only I can keep this delusional mad man on point. If I can remind his brain to signal his foot to engage the brake, we’ve got a fighting chance as a family to actually survive this tragedy in the making.

I look ahead. The turn into the airport is coming up fast, and the driver begins to negotiate his speed a little better.

“What airline?,” He says proudly, as if he has never successfully negotiated this turn before.

“Southwest,” I say again, feeling easier as the cab slows and merges into the lane designated for flight departures.

And then, like a bad dream, it’s over. He pulls over to the curb and throws it into park.

It reminds me of that Willy Wonka Bubble ride that goes through the tunnel of spiders and horrific visuals. Willy Wonka is screaming a blood curdling song and the passengers are wetting their pants. Then suddenly, the ferry boat emerges from the darkness and all is again right with the world.

“that’ll be $22.80,” he says returning his hands to ten and two on the steering wheel.

I jump out of the cab and smile at my 17 year old.

He flashes me a “yeah that was a wild ass ride, huh dad” kind of look.

The maniacal driver remains in the fetal position behind the wheel. His eyes are focused ahead, staring out the windshield. Maybe he’s wondering if there is a good concrete abutment that he can plow into up ahead.

Whatever demise he is surely conjuring, I want no part of it. We finish getting the luggage out of the back. I give him a 5 dollar tip. Why 5 dollars you ask, for the ride of death?

I think it was my way of saying thanks. Thanks for taking me and my family to the airport before you decide to put in a Peaches and Cream eight track and drive off the end of the Earth.

As the cab drives away, we all look at each other and exhale.

Suddenly the teenage girl blurts out.

“That was so weird”

We all burst out laughing as we enter the terminal.

It’s good to be alive I think to myself as I wipe another bead of perspiration from my head.

DING your are free to move around the country.