Saturday is always moving, tonight was no exception, except it was Friday. What can I say about Friday?, it's the start of the weekend and the end of the work week. Lots of people like to get their shopping done on Friday and Saturday nights. The thing is cab drivers love to avoid real work, like carrying groceries to someones door or helping an elderly person with a walker in the trunk to their feet, not most cab drivers style. So the start of most of my weekends is Safeway calls, and helping elderly women by driving them two dollars away, never worth it financially but always morally fulfilling, but morals don't pay the bills. I think thats why I'm stuck serving most of those types of clients by myself, all the other drivers avoid that kind of stuff like the plague. I picked up a lady that works in a half way house for handicapped males, she was at the Safeway, when I got to her she had already been waiting two hours. I told her that Mondays and Tuesdays are quiet nights, that if she wanted decent service to do the shopping on those nights. She already knew that, but the weather was impossible so she stayed home with the mentally challenged men. One of the guys she takes care of was with her, he might have had autism or something he was nice, imaginative. When we got them to their house (three bucks away) I helped carry the groceries to the door, the last load was carried by another man that worked there. The thing is while I was returning to the car from carrying the groceries inside the autistic guy was arguing with the worker guy about how some more stuff in the trunk was theirs, well the normal dude slammed the trunk and as he walked by me said "he thought some of your stuff back there was ours." I laughed thinking that the autistic guy wanted to steal my extension cord for the block heater. I took off to return to the rest of my night, but about and hour after the drop off I see a general message on the computer screen that says "green bag left in trunk" I knew it was theirs and I laughed cause the autistic dude was right but we ignored him. I should have checked the trunk before I let the other guy slam it shut, I usually do. I never got that bag back to that house, not yet but I will.
I had a scare tonight, actually I had lots the roads were dangerous, the cold is awful to drive in, the streets are made of Ice and people don't adjust their driving habits, they just drive like assholes. They weren't the real scare the real scare was these two guys I picked at New City Suburbs, I watched as one taxi driver denied them, that should have been enough for me to not except them but I let them in, and the moment they entered I knew that the ride was going to be painful, I just wasn't sure what kind of pain. They would not tell me the address another sign that they are no good. They told me that they're from New York and going to school at NAIT. There was one guy that was talking, all he could focus on was how he wanted to hurt someone, he kept implying that it's gonna be me, then the guy in the back asked "how many times you been robed?" thats an awful question to be asked when you're feeling threatened, it puts you in a panic. The Panic button in the car does nothing to relax you cause the guys are right next to you and your back up is nowhere to be found. Luckily they wanted alcohol and a liquor store was still open, I though if I could just get them out to buy booze and then while they were shopping I'd ditch them. The fucker in the back stayed inside the car, the violent one went in to buy the booze. While we were waiting for Mr. Violent to come back a bum walked up to the rear door and opened it, he leaned in and offered to sell the guy in the back some weed, four bucks worth to be exact, he as like "hey man, you smoke weed, I'll sell you this piece for four bucks, I need the money to buy a bottle." The dude in the back wasn't having it he just slammed the door on the bums face. Then Mr.Violent came out of the store, he was holding on to a big bag of booze, the Bum confronted him with the same story, except Mr. Violent started slapping him around. I knew that as soon as he finished fucking around with the Bum he was going to get in my car and try the same shit with me, so I started driving away with the other guy still in the back, I don' t kick people out very often, and I've never ditched anyone, but my gut was telling me to get the fuck out of there, so I did. The guy in the back was like "what the fuck are you doing?" I told him "get out, the rides free your friend isn't getting in the car and if you stay I'm taking you to the cop shop. He asked me why. I told him thats his friend is no good, the guy got out and I'm lucky nothing happened to me. But come to think of it I wonder what happened to the bum?
Lots of violent people on the streets tonight, if you did not stop for them they would kick your door or punch the window, it was scary.
Later I drove a couple, they wanted a hotel. I figured they wanted to fuck, but the lady told me that the guy just got paranoid and wanted to leave his house to go to a hotel. Strange. I figured they were smoking the crack, that causes paranoia, but no she told that they were just smoking weed and hash. What do you think? They ended up at the Edmonton Motor Inn, to smoke weed yeah right. I gave the women my blog address I hope she leaves a comment to explain that again. Hotel room to smoke weed in, hard to believe. Maybe the guy was scared his wife was gonna make it home before he was done smoking the joint with some women he met in the bar.
My last fare was to Enoch, a Native Canadian reserve, dangerous, except my fare was this little native lady, she was happy because she had a good night. The one thing that upset her was that she was going home to her man, "he's an asshole" she told me "he has two kids with me and he just got the neighbor, a younger girl, pregnant for the second time." I asked her how that made her feel she said that she was gonna stay with him because he won't leave her. I thought to myself neither would I, if I got whatever I wanted from one of my two wives, Some people get to have all the fun. The funny thing was that this guy gets his mom to pay all the bills, and because they live on the reserve rent in the apartment is on 200$ that's only $400 for one guy and two families, oh and mom pays the bills, what a fucking deal, I think that lady should leave him before he gets another women knocked up. Peace kids I'm done.
4 comments:
Sorry i don't have time to read ur post my parent are being even more but u said to leave a comment on ur blog
Yikes, good thing you can trust your gut instincts. Some people are so far gone that they have lost their self-respect and ability to listen to what their body is telling them they should do. Instead, they decide to go with whatever urge is currently pulling at their strings and go for it as violently as necessary to succeed.
It is sad that most Edmontonians feel wary of homeless people because we are aware of how desperate they may get. A month ago I was on a bus that had to stop and wait for a homeless man to get off because he was threatening the driver. You are one of the few people who has others pleading to meet one of their basic needs, face to face. It must be hard to turn them down in order to defend yourself.
hey jacob,
not sure if this is the right place to post. Thanks for the ride home tonight........small world. how have you been?? hope things are going pretty well. your experiences sound pretty wild, ever think of writing of book or something. not sure how the blog works, let me know where we can keep in touch.
greg
It makes me sad that the idiots you picked up were at New City..that place is one of my favorite haunts, yet lately, more and more jerks like that have been showing up, completely changing the dynamics of the place.
Post a Comment