Take Away My Sin And Give Me Grace

Ah hell yeah fuck shit balls.

What is this? Wednesday night?

I slept until about 4pm. I got up and went to the Shell station, the UltraMart, Arena Liquor, at Green Meadows and Providence. I purchased a sixer of Bell's Cherry Stout, a sixer of Pyramid Apricot Weizen, and a sixer of Pony Express Gold beer. Then I grabbed an 8-piece bucket of KFC chicken, along with some macaroni-and-cheese, some mashed potatoes (no gravy) and 4 biscuits.

I wish I liked gravy. It is a good white-bread staple. Scott Biram has an original, in which he sings "your love's a lot like gravy, won't you come over here and save me." I shall never know such love.

Bobby Bare Jr. used to do a number, a love song tribute, where he sang "I'll make you biscuits and clean the kitchen." Likewise, I have never made biscuits. Except the Pillsbury instant kind.

Anyhoo, I ate some damned chicken. I love to shred me some poultry, but it had been a while since I had had any fried. The nice thing about fried chicken is that it brings you as close to the source of your meat as about any food. You're given a fried carcass, and you have to fight through the skin to pull the meat off of bones, ligaments, and tendons. Very visceral. Not removed like a lot of processed foods.

I like the contempt that comes with carnivorism. "Fuck you, bird, I'm ripping off your fried flesh. Take it and like it." I also like pork ribs, for the same reason. Fuck an animal. I am the top of the food chain. I don't even have to work for it. All I's have to do is drive my mechanechanized motor-vehicle through a window, and present some linen paper money. And, boo-ya, fried fuckin' bird. That is what I'm talkin' about.

So, I ate some fried dead bird. I found it disgusting. Nasty, fatty shit. I ripped away a little white meat. Even the tators and mac'n'cheese was a little lackluster. I peppered the tators. Damn, this is making me hungry again.

At this point I went downstairs and ate some more chicken. I also drank some more Cherry Stout. And, I did not return to blogging.

So now I'm back. I drank too much stout last night. That stuff carries quite a cock-punch, especially for someone out of practice. Now I'm drinking Pyramid Apricot Weizen. Quite tasty.

So yeah, I got nothing much done last night. I accomplished equally little today. I had thought about riding my bike and definitely planned on finishing up the Eastside sign, but, I didn't. I drank apricot beer and tried to clean my house.

The appy partment has become increasingly un-fung shui. Peat's shit has been taking over. My living room has consitantly shrank in usable space and the couch has steadily receded from the television. It hasn't bothered me, mostly because I never utilized the living room much anymore, due to my hours. Non-communal shit has cramped the living space. I'm talking a half-stack, speaker cabinet, two guitar cases, and the usual giant table of houseplants, a cabinet of insect specimens, a cooler, a rubbermade tub, a package of potting soil, the giant cardboard box the half-stack came in, 5 kitchen chairs, some weird cabinet, two empty metal plant stands, two glass aquariums, etcetera, etcetera. I couldn't see the fireplace anymore. The couch was a mile away from the TV. The dining table had crept into the living room.

I shuffled some shit around, but its still pretty fucking far from cozy. I'm all about having instruments at hand, and my banjo is readily available on the couch. Likewise, my RC-51 sits ready on a stand by the fireplace. So does Peat's acoustic. But, we also have the Warlock and the speaker stuff. Plugging in. Sheesh.

At least I don't have any neighbors yet. The other half of the duplex has sat vacant since the end of July. I know Homkor blames me. I think only white-trash types have even checked it out. I like to think that, after peeping my barn-fresh '67 Scout in the driveway, they peek in the window to see a banjo and a Warlock metal guitar. That should keep them out for a while. I wish I had some life-sized cardboard cutouts of myself, ala Big Pants, that I could put in the window as a solemn warning to would-be tenants.

The wind blew like stupid-crazy a couple of days this week, and riddled my yard with tons of errant trash from all the way up the street. One particularly impressive piece is some gigantor subway poster, of some purported teen idol or some such bullshit, on some celluloid film, blown up to my front door. Homkor visited sometime in the past couple of days, and no doubt they saw all of the shit. I know they were here because they doubled their leasing efforts, pulling up the 'for lease' sign and restabbing it more directly in front of the house. I'm bad enough about cleaning up my own trash, so I haven't exactly had a fire under my ass to pick up all of the shit that was deposited in my yard by that bitch Mother Nature.

But enough about that shit. Cab, you say?

Monday night. I showed up at the cab shack and waited for a car. I had been off for a week. There was a new guy. Some fresh-faced kid, maybe 25. His name is Dan, and he has some shaggy hipster hair, and was bedecked in Birkenstock closed-toe slip-ons, and some corduroy pants. He carried a outdoorsy-style water bottle, decorated with some scotch-taped-on postcards. One said simply "Son Volt," the other was some press release stock for a Japanese sculptor. In the bottle was, I am presuming, tea. Green tea?

So, I was immediately suspicious. My first thought was that he may have been a low-lying comoer, but I don't think that's the case. Some hipster's trying to cut in on my "not-creepy cab driver" angle. We'll see how things turn out. He introduced himself, and I asked if he was going to be a cab driver. "I have been, for two weeks now." Well, I was off for a week, so I can see how he slipped under my radar.

So, I waited for a car. New Guy Dan got #5. Hmm. I was the last to get a car, some 40 minutes later, an hour after I had shown up. I got number 8.

#8 was Psycho Ken's steady girl. It is a '96 or so Crown Vic, but it mucho worse for wear. Lowlights: exterior: aesthetically, it has a number of dents. It's subtle, but it has been jacked pretty hard in the rear, and the car is buckled ever-so-slightly, so that the doors don't fit tight. It has mismatched tires/wheels. Interior: this car has a tan/beige interior, instead of the more utilitarian blues/grays. Thus, it shows stains and dirt worse. I had never driven #8 before. They had tried to put me in it the previous Monday, when it refused to run properly. Well, at least it was running good, this time.

But that's about the last good thing you could say about it. 1) no radio. At all. Instead, a black plastic knock-out filling the hole. 2) the cop spotlight is gone, and there is wadded paper shoved into the empty hole it had passed through. 3) the steering wheel is upside down. Completely, 180 degrees out. This is very awkward, and a pain in the ass. The center of the steering wheel houses the air bag, and it is set low so that it does not interfere with your hands around the rim of the wheel during normal driving. But, turn it upside down, and the air bag is in the damn way. 3) #8 smokes like a chimney. It is ridiculous, bad enough to get you pulled over. One side of the exhaust pours thick, rich black exhaust smoke, and it reeks of burning oil. If you are parked the wrong way the wind will pull the exhaust smoke to the front of the car where the fresh-air intake sucks it in, and the car is filled with noxious fumes. I looked in vain for an idle police car. I was going to ask the officer to write me a warning ticket for the exhaust so that I could use it as an excuse to never drive #8 again. 4) the turn signals/hazard lights don't flash. Rather, you are expected to cycle the switch on and off to create the blinking effect while you're in the act of turning. Like you need one more distraction while driving a cab. 5) One side of the domelight was inoperable. 6) the rear end is well-past worn out, and screams like a banshee. A number of customers asked me if the car was going to make it. It sounded like a Formula race car, going 200mph, and you couldn't drown it out with the non-existent radio. Actually, this was my favorite thing about #8. 7) the heater blower motor was mounted on a toggle switch, and had one speed. High. This made modulating the heat very difficult.

But that's just me complaining.

While I was waiting for a car, Jason the dispatcher/driver walked through. We were talking a bit, and I mentioned something about the van from the previous Monday night.

"Oh, you were the one driving when the woman fell out of her chair."

"No, she popped a bit of a wheelie, but she didn't fall out of the chair." I told him in more detail.

"Well JW said she was crying when he got there." Turns out that after the fiasco I had with the wheelchair van, another driver picked up the same woman and didn't put any straps at all on the front of her wheelchair. She did a complete endo, fell out of her chair, and hit her head. The driver managed to pick her up and put her in one of the van's seats, before JW got there to help. Together, they were able to get her in her wheelchair and take her home. Ouch. And I felt bad for making her pop a wheelie. Poor, legless, bad-kidney lady.

So, yeah, I had been off of work for a week. Which meant I was broke. I like to have $30-40 in change to start out with. I went to the ATM and only had $37 in my account, with a couple of items likely outstanding. Crap. I took out $20, and still had to eat. I hoped to make enough money to deposit that night so that I did not overdraw my account the next day. After eating I had $17 to start the night on. I figured I'd be okay, since you don't get hit with too many twenties that early in the evening.

So, for my first call, after waiting an hour for a shitty car, was to pick up a group home regular. "How much cash do you have on you?" Kelly asked.

"Not much, barely $20." She then proceeded to tell me that I had to reimburse the fare for another cab ride she had taken a few days earlier. I was thinking maybe $5 or so. She was a group home charge, so I wouldn't be taking any money in, just giving it out.

Well, I'll be damned if I didn't have to give her $8.80. That left me with $8 on me. Crap. I saw that JW's Blazer was in his driveway when I drove by. I hoped he might have $100 for me, since I didn't see him on Saturday night, since I was at home sick. It was still there when I came back by, and I actually caught him in it, getting ready to leave. Luckily, he had $97 on him, which he gave me. Thanks, JW. Now I had some money to work on, and a little extra to put in my bank account.

I picked up one of my regulars. An older blind guy who is a student at the university. He's good for conversation, and we had a nice chat about the prospects of the 2006 Cardinals club.

I picked up one of my group home regulars, the one who makes choking, shitting noises the whole time. He's a giant fat black guy, a bit microcephalic, with the requisite magenta sweatpants pulled up past the equator. I hadn't carried him in a while, and couldn't think of his last name. Lets say its Conrad. I asked him what it was. "Dondahrd," very matter-of-factly.

"Donner?"

"Dohndrad."

"How do you spell that?"

"J-O-A-N." Again, very matter of factly. I just wrote his first name down and had him sign it. He wrote it, fairly neatly, C-O-N-R-A-D. He spent much of the ride telling me about what his mamma was making for supper, I think. He also said he'd be needing a ride the next day at 6pm. His rides are all set-up in advance by his case worker. I'm pretty sure his mamma was making greenbeans and cornbread.

I picked up Miss Jean, my regular. She was at the Olive Garden this time, a first for me. She usually only eats at Columbia's classier places, and never anything franchised. She was really fond of #10, because it had grab handles in the back which made it easier for her to get in and out of it. I expected her to fuss over #8. I purposely shut it off before going in to get her, since I was loading her on the side that smoked terribly. The passenger's side rear door apparently wasn't opening from the inside.

I went in and found her, sitting in the foyer. I greeted her warmly, asking her how her evening was going. She surprised me by being quite chipper and cheerful, which apparently also surprised the wait staff and hostess. She typically gives them hell. I noted that she had a different cane. I always check for her cane, since she has a habit of forgetting it. "I see you have a new cane. Did you get tired of your old one, or did it get misplaced?"

"I misplaced it."

I told her I didn't have #10, but that didn't phase her a bit. I took her home and escorted her in, receiving my standard $2 tip. Actually $1.70 this time, since the meter clicked over to $16.30.

I picked up Roberta, another group home regular, at the workshop. She's the one who told me of her half-Hispanic daughter, in foster care. We were riding along quietly when she said "my daughter called me, and she told me that this guy I used to go with was divorced, and that I should call him." She added that it had been some 20 years since they dated. She said she took down his number, and thought she would call him. You go, girl.

I picked up two people from the University Med Center at the same time, going separate places. One was a very congenial black woman, going to the Harbor House, a homeless shelter. The other was a 40something white guy, going out to the Lake of the Woods. Apparently he had made some suicidal threats, or something, and called 911. A sheriff's deputy had brought him into the hospital. He was miffed that they brought him in and he had no way home. He was discharged with a social work pass. He was lost in his own mind when I dropped off the homeless woman. She leaned over the seat and wished him better. He was oblivious to what she said, so she touched his shoulder and told him to get better. He roused and thanked her. It was a very warm human gesture. Apparently the two had chatted while waiting for the cab.

I couriered some blood between hospitals. It was frozen bag of it. I always feel like I am going to drop it or something. That would be awkward.

At one point, I picked up a woman from the Boone ER. She was suffering from some sinus problems and lead poisoning. She said she was poisoned by a rental house she was living in, with lead paint. I labored under the supposition that the passenger's side rear door wouldn't open from the inside for most of the night. But, one guy tugged hard and it opened. So, when it didn't open when I dropped the woman at Walgreens, I told her to just pull harder. She did, and broke #8's inner door handle off in her hand.

After 1 am I had a call to Ruby Tuesday's. It's not a huge drunkard's bar, but there was an American Indian from Montana who had ridden his bicycle there and got soused. The bartender insisted he take a cab back home. I told him we could put his bike in the trunk, and he was cool with it. The guy was drunk, but a lot of fun. It was a short ride, though, so I didn't get much of a story out of him.

I picked up 4 guys, a flag, outside of the Vogue. Cash calls had been hard to come by. We were really slow Monday, and I was running lots of group home charges. This was a tidy score. Unfortunately, though, they were only going as far as the Ramada. But, there were 4 of them, and they tipped $3 on the $7.05 fare. They were a little riled up. The three in the back were huge grizzled rednecks from Poplar Bluff, Missouri. The guy in front was lean and less rural, and was apparently from St. Louis. I'm not sure of their connection, but I imagine they all worked together. Along the way the guy in front wanted a cigarette and they wouldn't give him one. I think it was for his own benefit, like they were trying to keep him from slipping on his New Year's Resolution or something.

The guy in front was talking like he was mad, and threatening to kick some ass when we got to the hotel. I knew it was mostly all in fun, but they were some good ol' rowdy boys. Sure enough, they broke into a bit of a wrasslin' match as soon as they spilled out of the cab, taking out a trash can in front of the Ramada. He was horribly outweighed, and being tossed around like a rag-doll by the burly redneck. The other two rednecks were urging the third to stop before he broke the guy's arm when I rolled out.

My last call was to pick up at Club Shattered. I was pretty close when I got the call, and was pulling up to a group of girls on the sidewalk when dispatch radioed to see if I was getting anyone. Apparently they were on the phone trying to cancel as I pulled up. Dispatch guilted them into the ride, and I picked up two of them. They were only going as far as Jones Hall on campus, and talked among themselves the whole way. I didn't expect much of a tip, as in they were undergrads, had tried to cancel, and only gone a mile and a half. The fare was $4.30, plus $1 for the second passenger ($5.30). The girl handed me a $20 and asked for $7 back. I thought she must have meant to pay $7 ($1.70 tip) and get $13 back. I asked, to clarify, and, again, she asked for $7 back. Sweet! A $7.70 tip on a $5.30 fare.

On the night, I did $145 on the meter ($50 take-home) and made right at $20 in tips. So, $70 for 12 hours worth of work, which is less than $6 an hour.

At least I got called in a little early, at 2:45. I figured this was a reward for having been sent out last and in a shitty car, which made up a little for the new guy getting in #5 right away. But, I pulled up to see that I was the last one called in, on top of everything else. Bollocks.

So that was my shitty Monday.

So Tuesday I rolled in, and was put in #6. #6 may be our flagship cab. If #5 and #7 are dueling hot sisters, #6 is their Rachel-Hunter-aging-supermodel mom. Sweet. #6 is a '98 or '99 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, and, aside from the paintjob, is the same as CPD's cruisers. It has the newer front end and black plastic honeycomb grill. #6 has a few more miles than #7 (154K vs 104K) and a few extra holes in her headliner, from cop stuff. There are also three brackets adhered to the windshield where cop stuff was mounted. It has black-tinted windows, and no hubcaps. Just raw, black-painted steelies. Pretty stealth, actually.

#6 was just fuckin' fun to drive. A regular-ass cop car. There's one spot on North Anne where you can do the Hill Street Blues/Sabotage video cop-car jump. It is fun. Plain-ass fun.

My first call cancelled. Apparently she had waited over an hour. My second call was on the South side, at the Walgreens on Forum and Nifong. The guy got in and dispatch apologized over the radio for his wait. I asked him how long it had been and he said and hour and a half. He pretty much didn't care. He had learned to expect it, and set things up so he wasn't in any hurry.

He was fun to talk to. We talked about medical procedures, surgeries, and teeth-pulling. He mentioned something or other about having a procedure done on his testicle, where they left the sac open. He said every time he went to the doctor they would rip the bandage off and it was like getting kicked in the nuts. I can only imagine. He tipped well.

My next fare was the Conrad kid from the sheltered workshop. I asked him how supper had been. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it was good.

I picked up another group-home regular from where he works as a janitor. I've mentioned him before, briefly. He is stooped at the waist, pretty bright, older, and may have Tourette's. He got hosed once before when dispatch had me double up with him and a lady waiting at the grocery store, and he was 45 minutes late to work. On the way to the call, dispatch mentioned I would be picking up two people there, which was a first. I hoped (not assumed) that the second fare was on Bill's way, since he had got hosed so badly that one time before.

Bill has a new coworker, a high school kid named Tim. Poor old Tim is as dumb as a post. Or, he would be if he were any smarter. In his advantage, he is just slow enough to be considered developmentally slow, and not simply dumb. That's probably not very politically correct, but it is a fine line.

And, of course, Tim lived way out of Bill's way. Bend over for screwing number two, Bill. The cab company doesn't give a fuck about you. I apologized to him, and said I would take up his cause with the cab company. I tried to tell him that it must have been an oversight on their part, but neither of us believed that.

So, we had a long ride. The Tim kid sat up front. He said "this is an old cop car, isn't it? You know how I can tell, it's got that...light...in it." He was referencing the A-pillar spotlight. "Does it still work?"

"I don't know. I haven't tried it yet." It didn't. He noticed the tattoos on my forearms and asked what they meant. I told him something or other.

"I'm into body art," he said.

"Yeah, well, it's not for everyone," I said.

"You know what else isn't for everyone?"

"What's that?"

"Bull riding." Tim went on to mention that this was a field he wanted to get in to. I told him that I never met a bullrider with all of his teeth. He said that was a price he was willing to pay. "Maybe I'll just get dentures and I can take them out to ride." Good thinking, Tim.

Tim mentioned being in high school. I asked if he went to Rock Bridge or Hickman. He said Rock Bridge. I mentioned that I would rather be a Bruin than a Kewpie. "Me too. It's a naked baby."

After that I had to pick up some videos at Hollywood Video and take them to the daughter of one of our drivers, Beverly; some old, tootles, morbidly obese day driver, god bless her heart. I dropped by the video store, and purposely didn't run wait time to go in, an act of professional courtesy.

Of course I got screwed. There were two K-Mart cowboys trying to settle up with the video store over some video games that had been long overdue. There was also some GQ wannabe motherfucker acting all annoyed with his girlfriend, next in line. Fuck you all, I'm the one losing money here.

I was still waiting when Guy, another day driver, walked in. He was there to rent a videogame. Guy is probably around 50, with a nice furry white goatee, and a shaved bald head. He has some rather noticeable debilitating gimp limp in one rigid, locked leg. He is cool as shit. I had caught him on Monday afternoon, and he mentioned he was going crappie fishing at the Lake of the Ozarks on Tuesday. I asked him how the fishing went.

I finally got through the line and picked up 3 DVDs. One was Flight Plan, another was Red Eye, and the third was The Fog, or some such shit. I paid for them and took them to Beverly's daughter's old man's place. I got a $2 tip. I had saved them about $12 or $13 in wait time.

After that I picked up at the Boone County ER. I rarely ever get people who had accidents, it's usually just sick people. But, in this case, it was a trucker with his arm in a sling, zipped up inside his jacket. I asked him what had happened. He had been in the act of tarping a load on his tractor trailer, when the high winds had caught the tarp and yanked him off of the top of the load. He fell onto the headache rack on the back of his tractor, bruising his ribs pretty badly. I was taking him back north of town to the Eagle Pipe yard, where his tractor was. He was going to try to sleep a few hours before driving his load into Texas on Wednesday, and returning to his home in Iowa. Ouch. Banged-up ribs are no fun. He winced at every bump the Vic hit.

After that I grabbed my buddy Alex. He is a possible co-conspirator for my documentary project. I told him that the screenwriter dude had called about a brainstorming session, but that it was when I had pink eye.

The I had a handful. A drunk mother-daughter combo, straight out of the projects. It took me a while to find them. I had two different people trying to give me directions over the radio at the same time, with no reference to where I was actually at. I finally found the mom and picked up the daughter at the end of the parking lot, at the mailboxes.

They were going to Wal-Mart, the regular-ass hood Wal-Mart. Mamma had got a credit card and sister had just got out of county. She had drank three beers and had a good buzz going, since she had been in forced sobriety for eighteen days. They were all fired up because mamma had $302 on her credit card. The planned on paying for the cab with the card. This made me a bit nervous.

It was a bit of a ride to the Wal-Mart. Mother and daughter were exchanging jail stories, the food, the guards, etc. The didn't have a tooth between them. Daughter was about 260lbs, mamma maybe 90lbs. At one point mamma said something about "straighten up, and act like you know something."

Daughter said "She ain't put together for shit, but she's mean."

We got there and I took the card. The daughter had already asked how I would know if it were good or not. I told her that I radioed it in to my dispatcher, who ran it on the card machine. They assured me innumerable times that it was good, that there was $289 on it, that they had used it that day, that they had called and checked on the balance, etc., etc. And it better had be good, otherwise they couldn't pay me until Wednesday, etc., etc. It was declined.

Crap. Now I had them at the Wal-Mart. Dispatch had smelled something from the get-go, since we had so many problems finding them, and they were drinking. I knew the daughter had just got out of county, and she had mentioned a few times that she didn't have "no warrants or nothing," but she flinched and freaked out every time we saw a police cruiser. "It's just that every time a cop sees me they find something to arrest me for." The fare was $9.80.

I had already given up on getting any money. I just didn't want to deal with dispatch, since they would want me to get the police involved. I didn't want to deal with any cops, especially since I would be losing only about $3.50, and I would likely lose an hour dealing with the cops, where I wouldn't be making any money. Fuck all that. And, I would be expected to somehow keep them in the car while I waited on the cops. No, sir.

I reread the numbers, but they were all right. I was trying to talk to them and dispatch kept radioing. "Do we have a problem 6? I'm not getting an answer, 6."

To my surprise, mamma produced 2 $5 bills. They were wet. Creepy. But, money. They wanted to go back home. If the card was bad, they couldn't do any shopping. I was muoy surprised that they produced the cash, and didn't believe they were trying to hustle me. They wanted to charge a ride home until Wednesday. I told dispatch they came up with cash and got him off of my back. I told them I would take them back home if they were cool. I figured I had plenty of time before my next call.

I hadn't even made it out of the parking lot before dispatch radioed, and told me to pick up at the employee entrance at the Holiday Inn Select. There's a regular there, and he only goes about a half of a mile to some nearby apartments. I told them to be cool, that we'd drop this guy off, and then I'd run them home.

As I rolled up to the Holiday Inn, I immediately recognized that it was not my regular. It was a young guy with a bag. He came up and opened one of the back doors (tinted windows). He was surprised to find two drunk, black, toothless women in his cab. He got in front. He was going to the bus station.

The ride there was very entertaining. I couldn't apologize to the guy for the women without being condescending and insulting. They were all riled up. I got him to the bus station with no major incident. The fare was $11.05. He opened his wallet and the daughter said "Damn. Look at all that money, he's loaded."

"Yeah, and I'm going to take it all from him," I joked. He was cool, and tipped me $3 or $4. I got them home.

On the way, the daughter said, "Can we put the radio on 106.1 or something? This white-boy music is killing me." I was listening to BXR, adult contemporary.

The mom interrupted, scolding her, "I like some country music." She also added, "I bet he likes some of our people's music, too."

"Do you like rhythm and blues?" the daughter asked. I pulled the copy of "You See Me Laughin'" out of my cargo pocket.

"I'm a big fan of the blues. Look here, 'You See Me Laughin', the last of the hill country bluesmen.'"

"Oh yeah, they do bring it. They's good." The daughter started singing. She was making the mother laugh. She was mildly incontinent. And had to pee. The daughter antagonized her more. I didn't want the poor old lady pissing herself or my cab. The damp money in my shirt pocket was all the more suspect.

We made it back okay. I had told them twice that I didn't want anything for bringing them back, but they asked for my card and swore they would pay me Wednesday. I am starting to turn blue.

My next fare was a dude about my age, perhaps an aging hipster. He had thick rimmed glasses, longish wavy hair, and a goatee. He was drunk. I had got out to find him, and left the radio louder than normal. We got back in to a Cold Play song. I started to turn it down, apologetically. Then I looked at him. "You're not a Cold Play fan, are you?" I knew he was.

We talked a bit about British accents in songs. He brought up AC/DC. It was a bit discomforting.

After 12 am I picked up my Indian buddies from the Shell Station/UltraMart/Arena Liquor. I take the first out South for the first fare, then restart the meter for the second guy when we pass the gas station heading back towards his apartment, near East campus. So, I get about 45 minutes with the second guy, who is closer to my age and speaks better English. The guy works a shit-load, and is an engineering student. I admire that.

After that, I grabbed three girls from Willies, heading back South. The were pretty pleasant. The all three requested cards. As they were deciding who was paying, I heard the two in back whispering. The one in front called them out, making fun of them for doing the math. "What is 20%..."

"Oh, we already figured out what 20% is, but we want to give him more, because he was cool." I got a $4 tip, on a $12.80 or $13.80 fare. And perhaps some new regulars.

At around 2am, I picked someone up from a party on East campus. He was a scrawny white college student, trying to pull off some Jimiriqui Eurotrash look. Silly hat. He bitched a bit about the $2 service charge for using a credit card. His fare was only $5.05. He tipped $2 cash.

After 2am I grabbed a guy from an apartment downtown, and ran him way out off of Scott Boulevard. He had got shut down by some lady-type he was after. He had been mildly bent about it, before securing the key to some other chick's house from her roommate. That's where I was taking him. He was drunk, cool. A Columbia native, poli-sci student. The fare was $17.30, $4 tip. Mama's credit card.

My last call was after 3am at one of Columbia's finer eateries. It was the head chef/general manager, leaving after a long, long day at work. He was drunk. One of my more incredulous Columbia stories involved his boss (the owner/namesake of said restaurant), a wasted kid named Tripiano with a broken sandal, a beer bottle to the neck, 30some stitches in a thumb, and me telling two of Columbia's finest to "just get back in your car and leave." I told him a brief version of the story. And he was a talker, too. He wanted to fill me in on a regular of mine who had had a bowel/incontinence problem and had been banned by the restaurant for shitting herself (regularly) during lunch and dinner.

I let him keep talking, even after we got to his house. He was drunk, and hadn't paid yet. Dispatch had already told me to clean it up and bring it in when I was done with him. I figured indulging him would translate into a big tip. He told a couple of intertwined stories before I could get rid of him.

"You like to party?"

"Well, I do what I can. It's kind of hard to do much with the hours I keep."

"You like to party, wild?"

"I do a little drinkin', but that's a bout it. I try to keep it clean. I change jobs a lot, and that helps." Mostly bullshit.

He paid me, and gave me a basic tip. "Are you sure you don't party?"

"No, but thanks for asking."

I ended up running $231 on the meter, with a take home of $80 before tips. Much better than Monday, and pretty good for a Tuesday. I ran solid most of the night, and didn't have time to get bored. It was a good night to stretch #6 out, too.

I stood around talking to Derek, the dispatcher, and Lorette, the day driver, for most of an hour before going home.

So, since then, I have accomplished little. I did get my living room/downstairs bathroom a bit cleaner. And, I did some pickin'. A good coupla hours with the banjar, and some time thrown in with the mando and the gitfiddle. I also drank 5 Cherry Stouts (9% alcohol by volume), 6 or 7 or 9 Apricot Weizens, a Pony Express Gold Beer, and ate an 8 piece family bucket-o-chicken. I got You See Me Laughin' from the public library on Tuesday night. I watched it 3 or 4 times. I had it on a loop while housecleaning. I owned it before that thieving selfish ex-stripper ex-'girlfriend' of mine kyped it. I did officially give up on ever getting any of my stuff back, though, and did the spiritually cleansing act of officially deleting her phone number from my mobile. The movie rules. Brings tears to my eyes and makes me feel alive. Cuts right through the bullshit. T-Model is my brother.

So, yeah, my lack of accomplishment does benefit you, my faithful reader, with a timely blog update. I can't say why (or won't), but my heart's just not in it the way it used to be. We'll see how things keep up. If shit goes my way (and when doesn't it?) I'm going to have a knock-down, drag-out brawl of a party at mi casa real soon, with lost of free booze. You will all be invited. I look forward to seeing you all, and you better get used to the idea of listening to Bloodshot and Fat Possum artists.