A Convergence of Drivers

            Mike Shaunacy was driving his taxi down 12^th Street around Midnight, when he spotted a woman frantically waving at him on the side of the deserted street.  He pulled into the parking lot by a transmission repair shop and the woman hurriedly got in the front seat of the cab with him.

            “Get me out of here as fast as you can,” the woman told #21, as a jet black BMW pulled into the lot about 10 feet from the cab, as a large man got out and began to walk towards the taxi.  “Take off before he gets to us,” the woman blurted out in a panicked tone of voice, as she handed him a $20.00 bill and told him that it was all his.

            “That’s great,” Mike told her as he peeled out of the driveway heading South on the one way street, “but where are we headed?”

The woman gave him an address in the middle of felony flats, so Shaunacy turned left and headed there.  The woman asked him if he ever helped helpless females to get away from their assailants before, and he told her that he had only been driving a taxi for a few months and had not.  When they arrived at the destination his passenger thanked him as she got out and begged him not to tell anybody where he took her.

Shaunacy headed to the Greyhound station after he cleared, where there were already 2 other cabs in the 1^st 2^nd  taxi stands.  When he pulled in both drivers were out of their cabs and standing between them with their windows down and the radio microphone resting on the outside of the driver’s door with the volume up to the max.  It was drivers #11, Dora Dimes, a hard as nails middle aged woman who #21 decided that he wanted to fuck.  She had a nice body, but her face usually wore a scowl that scared off most suitors.  For some reason she seemed interesting to #21, so he began to flirt with her.

“Hey beautiful,” #21 said to #11, as he nodded to #33, who was standing beside her.  The rain had let up for the time being, so the drivers all decided to stretch their legs as they began to talk about the way that #52 had just quit showing up for work after being a model employee for the past year.

“He always seemed strange to me,” Dora said.

“I only talked to him a few times, but he was kind of different, that’s for sure,” #21 agreed.

“I think that he may have only used his job as a taxi driver as a cover for something else that he was involved in,” #33 said.

“How would you know?”  Number 11 said, “you didn’t even start working here until after he was gone.”

“That may be true, but I ran into him a couple of times when I worked for Universal Cab, and besides that everyone at Yellow Cab talks about it so much that I can piece together the story from what they say.

“Okay, I guess that makes sense,” #11 said, “did you hear about #43 getting parked?”

“I thought that I heard something on the radio last night, but it was so busy that I forgot,” #21 said, and asked, “what happened, while he wondered if #33 was hinting at knowing that he was only driving taxi to deal drugs to his customers.”

“I guess that he picked up a flag on Portland Road and then before he could call it in, he got a time call for Walmart North.  He told John the dispatcher that he already had a flag, but would go right over to Walmart after he dropped him off.  Then John told him that he wasn’t supposed to pick up flags because it was too busy, and when he got to Walmart, he couldn’t find the time call, but there was a DC Cab sitting next to the grocery door, so they or another company may have gotten it.  Because of this he was parked and sent home,” Dora explained.

“Number 11, get South Liberty Bar & Grill for Tammy,” John called over the radio.

“Roger,” #11 said, as she got in her cab and drove off.

“Number 33, get ER for Samantha,” the radio announce.”

“Yes, I have it,” Owens answered.

Finally John said, “#21 get Miguel, at the Lucky Fortune.”

“Confirm,” #21 said, as he wrote it down and drove down Church Street and took D Street to Lancaster.  When he got there and went inside he found his fare playing video poker and told him that his cab was waiting.  His passenger, who looked to be in his mid 40’s told him that he would be out in a minute, and after about 5 minutes, he came out with a young blonde anglo woman, who looked about 25 years old.  They both got in the back seat of #21’s van and the man told him an address off Silverton Road.  As they headed there the man asked if they could stop at a convenience store.

“Sure, just let me know which one,” #21 told him.

The woman began to speak and she said, “I hope that I don’t ever get thrown in jail for an indefinite number of years, without any clothes, while being abused by my captors.”

“Neither do I,” #21 said, while the older man nervously laughed. 

When they arrived at the convenience store they both got out and went inside, while #21 ran the meter.  Since they were in the neighborhood of one of the deliveries that Shaunacy needed to make, he called the buyer on his cell phone, while waiting.

“Hi Scott, it’s Mike,” #21 spoke into his phone.  “I’ll be at your place in around 15 minutes, with your order.  It comes to 5 big ones.”

After he hung the phone up his passengers came out and got back in the cab.  The Latino man pulled out his wallet and started talking about what a beautiful country America is.  He said that he forgot his wallet inside a convenience store 2 times and in each instance, when he returned the clerk had it and returned it to him, with all the money and his ID intact.  He said that in Mexico, he’d be lucky if he got the empty wallet back.