“I saw grown men cry like little boys, after they killed someone for the first time,” my passenger told me. “I served a tour in Afghanistan a then one in Iraq.”
“Which was worse?” I asked.
“They were both the same,” he answered. “I enjoyed it, and would have stayed in the army until I retired, but I got a dishonorable discharge.
“How did that happen?” I asked, as I was driving my passenger to a psychiatric appointment that the social security office set up for him after he applied for SSI, because of being bipolar, as well as sustaining a back injury.
“I got in the face of a sergeant who was demeaning a female enlisted person, and told him to fuck off.” He told me and continued with the following story. I enlisted in the army with a bipolar disorder by falsifying my medical history on my initial application. My family kept sending me my medication in care packages that I go throughout my 4 year enlistment. When I was in basic training I was the only guy in my platoon who stood up to the drill sergeant. Everyone else was cowering, as he screamed at them, but I told him to go fuck himself, and he finally told me that he liked me.
“When I was in Afghanistan, we were on patrol the first week I got there, and my unit stumbled on a Taliban encampment in the mountains that was asleep, except for a couple of guards that scouts killed. Our orders were to try and take as many alive as we could, but we were free to shoot to kill if we felt threatened in any way. My squad entered a cave that must have had a couple of dozen soldiers sleeping in it. It was lit by our flashlights and a portable light and generator that we found inside. My squad leader began shooting the sleeping soldiers, and we all joined in, killing them all. Later that night when we set up camp for the night, one of my friends was crying in his sleeping bag. When I asked him what was wrong he told me that he was grieving for the soldiers that he killed. I felt nothing. Bipolar people make the soldiers, because they don’t feel bad about what they do.”
“What would happen if you didn’t take your medication?” I asked him.
“I would have either attacked you by now, or you would have thrown me out of the cab by now,” he answered.
When we arrived at the mental health clinic, I had the doctor sign my voucher, and later I drove the patient back to his address where I picked him up at 10 miles away on the other side of town.
Sometimes night run in themes, and tonight’s was mental instability, as I got a call to pick up an epileptic patient at the hospital and drive them back to their apartment after they were admitted for a major seizure, the day before. The nurse that pushed her out in a wheelchair gave me a list of what to do in case she had a seizure on the way home, which somewhat upset me, as I was thinking about how I would deal with that. Fortunately the trip was uneventful , and I helped her to the door.
It was a beautiful day and skateboarders were streaking down the streets talking on cell phones, while motorized wheelchairs were overtaken by bicycles in the bike lanes. While I was listening to the radio I heard that after the Lakers won the world championships the night before, celebrating fans set a taxi cab on fire outside the Staple center in Los Angeles.
My next passenger was a woman that I picked up at RAM, who came from a large party, that handed me a $20.00 bill to cover her fare, and then walked away. The woman was so drunk that she could hardly move and kept making retching sound like she wanted to throw up. It took her nearly 5 minutes to get into the cab, and then she moved in slow motion as she groped for her seat belt, which I finally buckled for her. She passed out cold on the way to the address that she gave me after 5 minutes of coaxing. When we arrived, I managed to awaken her, and helped her to the gate of her front yard. After she thanked me for my assistance, I turned and walked back to my cab, and called in my clearance. As I backed out of the driveway, I saw her fall in the bushes next to her porch, and just lay there.
Every night has a slow period, at one point or another, which is when I either listen to the radio, read a book or hang out with other cab drivers and exchange stories. Tonight I listened to the radio, as I bounced around the FM dial to AM where I started listening to talk shows that were discussing everything from the BP oil spill in the gulf, to a repeat of Art Bell’s “Coast To Coast” program, from February 5, 1998. I stayed with Bell as he talked to a woman who claimed that she had sex with a reptilian alien. She said that whenever she told her boyfriends, that she had been dating for anywhere from 2 months to a year, that they would dump her. Art Bell, was outraged that they would be prejudiced by a human having sex with a reptilian alien.
Then Bell had some guy who was talking about crop circles and how the grass was always bent at a 90 degree angle, just like the antennae’s of cars that low flying UFO’s bent. The man went on to talk about how arrogant human beings are, because they think that when aliens and UFO’s visit earth they think that it is to communicate with human beings. Plant life has a higher intelligence than we give it credit for, and besides that there is a mammal, the bottle nosed dolphin which has a greater cerebral cortex mass than humans have. These living entities have greater intelligence that humans, which can be seen in the fact that they do not have weapons, nor do they wage wars. About this time I was getting ready to see where driver #52 was, but I got another call to the RAM.
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