The ICUD

          

            Number 69, also known as Jim Owens, of Universal Cab briefly experienced the interdimensional vortex when Trevor  #52, of Yellow Cab used the power of teleo on him.  However, teleo was nearly powerless with Owen’s beresheeth powers, as proven by the fact that he wasn’t absent from this universe’s reality long enough to be missed.  After he came back, he realized that #52 still thought that the NUC could access Earth, and that he would have to learn otherwise, the hard way.

            The ICUD was slandered by the NUC, but in actuality it was an acronym for the “Interdimensional Consortium for Universal Dominion.”  The NUC claimed that the ICUD accessed planets simply as food to feed interdimensional scavengers, when in reality all accessed planets were in reality simply dormant seeds that were awaiting the moment of impregnation to trigger their genesis.

            After Trevor Netzreg met with the other 11 and reported his findings, he received their reports and communicated it all to headquarters.  The result was that  he and the others were instructed to report back to base, immediately, if not sooner.  Jim Owens quit Universal Cab and went to work for Yellow Cab, as driver number 33, the last week of October.

            Halloween weekend was peppered with parties celebrating the “Witches Sabbath,” “Satan’s Birthday” or the official day that all good children dress up as characters that depict evil, and are rewarded for it, as everyone wonders why children are disrespectful of their elders.  It was also Mike Shaunacy’s first Halloween driving taxi, since he became a Yellow cab driver #21 in August.  He got the idea to become a cab driver one night when one of his buyers took a cab to his house to make a purchase.  He tested the idea out by calling a cab to take him to the store one night to buy some beer.  When he asked the driver about the kinds of people he drove he mentioned every possibility under the sun, including drug dealers, prostitutes, released prison inmates, lawyers, students, sick people, poor people and rich people, in every possible condition including drunk, sober and insane.

            Driver #21 didn’t have many legitimate jobs over the years, since he made a good living selling drugs, even while he was still in high school.  He was one of the most clever drug dealers, and had never been busted, because he only dealt with a an elite clientele that he built up over a 2 decade period, from the time that he began dealing in the summer of 1989, after he turned on at a Grateful Dead concert in Northern California.  By the time that he graduated from high school, he was making $2,000.00 a month, by just supplying his small circle of trusted customers.  He got different jobs over the years, just to try something out, and help his cover.  He worked at everything from construction to short order cooking, along with route and retail sales.

            Mike lived in a modest home, that was completely paid off, in the West Salem hills, that was surrounded by a grove of trees.  He invested much of his money in art from the 1960’s, including original Andy Warhol, Peter Max and Denny Dent, along with archival Silver Geletin photographs from the late 19^th century until the present, by everyone from Matthew Brady and Ansel Adams, to Henry Diltz and Robert Mapplethorpe.  His motto was “if you got the cash, I got the stash,” from weed and mushrooms to Heroine and Meth, with everything else in between.

            The torrential rains began, which didn’t seem to put a damper on the weekend Halloween parties as driver’s drove costumed passengers dressed like everyone from Freddy Krueger to the Queen of Hearts.  Around 10:00 PM, I picked up a guy at Walmart East, who was going to the trailer park on South Lancaster in the Sundial mobile home park.  His shopping cart was full of household items, like dishes, towels, a coffee maker and other items.  On the drive to his abode, he told me that he was just moving into the trailer, after he divorced his wife, who was a paranoid schizophrenic that quit taking her medication.  The final straw was one night when he came home after working swing shift, at around 12:30 AM.  She was on the computer like she always is, but when he turned on the TV and was sitting on the couch, she came up to him, holding a pair of scissors, and told him that she wanted to stab him in the face.

            “I was afraid that I may not wake up one morning, so I got out of there,” he told me.

            My next call was for South Salem, where I picked up 2 couples that were heading to “Copper John’s,” downtown.  The guy sitting up front with me was dressed like Dean Martin, martini glass and all.  His wife in the back seat was Cher, while the other woman was Janis Joplin and her mate was Jim Morrison.  I got a call for the parking lot at People’s church, and when I got there, a man of about 30 got in the cab wearing a pentagram T-shirt, that said, smile if you love Satan, on the back.

            “Take me to the nearest strip club,” he told me.

            “That would be the “Firehouse,” I told him, and added, “ but it wouldn’t cost you that much more to go to Stars, which is the biggest club in town.”

            “Take me to Stars,” he said.

            On the drive there he told me that church people looked at him weird when he wore his pentagram T-shirt.  I explained why a pentagram T-shirt would be offensive to a born again Christian, when he told me that he was raised in Herbert W. Armstrong’s “World Wide Church of God.”  Then in the late 1990’s the church began to change, and Saturday services that were part of the churches main teachings were changed to Sunday, and other important changes occurred, creating disillusionment, until my passenger completely quit going to church.