Another taxi story

A woman in her 60s walked to my cab from a beauty salon. I got out to open the passenger door. The woman held out her hand and said, “Gif me tin dollahs.” I thought: What? And, Dispatch sent me here to pick up a fare, not to give away money.

“Pardon?” I said. Two women stood at the window in the beauty salon, waiting, I suppose, to see if the older woman was going to get in the cab and leave.

“Gif me tin dollahs,” the woman said again. “I pay here. My son pay you back.”

Okay, I thought. She’s not going to run away.

She took the bill and went back to the salon and gave the money to a hair dresser. I had the door open when she returned to the cab. She got in. I closed the door and got behind the wheel. She gave me an address. “Is my son’s restaurant,” she said.

I drove to the restaurant, parked, opened the passenger door and followed the woman into the restaurant. The woman talked to a man in his 30s. Like the woman, the man had black hair and olive skin. He glowered at me. I thought, Hey, dude. I’m not the one letting his mother go out with no money.

The woman walked toward me. “I haf money,” she said. “You take me home.”

Glad to. Maybe my next fare will be something simple. Somebody wants a ride to the liquor store.

I drove the woman to the address she gave. There was a brick house, a yard with grass about a foot high, bushes growing wild … and a two-foot-wide hole in the shingle roof. An all-the-way-through hole.

I got out and opened the door. The woman got out. She gave me a ten-dollar bill and the fare. She said, “You nice boy.”

I made a silent request: Please do not call for me.

“Thank you,” I said.