lets say it once and forever hold our peace: every person who steps into my car is supernaturally gorgeous.
im the hideous gargoyle with the intrusive questions. i should really wear a mask.
how i ended up near the long beach airport is none of your business, but there i was when i got a lyft black ping which is gold. it means you get 2x-3x the fare for the same trip. this one was 20 minutes for $30.
thats a better offer than the ones i get to sell pics of my feet.
as i drove through the quaint little airport that looked out of a 1960s small town doris day movie, i was scanning for some rich lady with a tiny dog and a hatbox. who would want a lyft black from the LBC airport?
the answer surprised me too. she was a smokin’ hot delta flight attendant who was breaking all the rules. her bag seemed a little big for what i thought was kosher for an employee.
and also what was she doing summoning me?
from this time to 6pm, she said, in the most delightful accent, there are no shuttles to our hotel, so we are allowed to take lyft.
but black? i wondered, and then stopped questioning blessings.
i typed a note into my iphone, though: be in long beach at 2pm whenever possible, and wait for a black ping.
i hear an accent, i told her, russian?
ahahahaha, she laughed, puerto rican.
i was all, ok lets see if i can name three puerto ricans
i bet you cant, she sang applying lip gloss while looking at the smallest of compacts
jlo?
si.
ok then marc anthony!
very good.
look at me! ok one more. i think i know some baseball players but thats cheating lets stick to musica. daddy yankee!
she was all, how do you know about him?
i spied at my rear view mirror and adjusted it to see myself. do i have that many grays? i was dressed in a plaid short sleeve button up and striped shorts. do i look like someones dad?
i once dated a girl, i told her, who said she learned spanish by singing his songs.
ok yes you got it, what do you win?
if you think my mind is in the gutter, gentle reader, i assure you it is, and yet i said,
delta gets to tip me a LOT for this ride!
we both laughed as we got on the 405 south.
i was in love. not just with her, but with life. when you live in the moment, it’s moments like that that keeps you smiling. the best money-per-minute of the week. nice stranger to learn from, and so much traffic for no good reason that i wasnt even gonna fight it.
lets get lost in this traffic forever princessa
why dont the people of puerto rico want to be a US state? i asked her
oh i dont know, she sighed watching her finger make a print on my tinted back window, they don’t trust anyone.
it would change america forever if we had a left-leaning new state i told her
you dont want us, she laughed. warning me of something. the price of rum to dip?
why wouldn’t anyone want an island of jlos?
do you think i look like jlo? she asked, judging me. she was less curvy than the singer actor dancer flygirl
you look like jlo if she was hungry, i said while moving the mirror to reflect her a little better, would you like for me to take you to in-n-out?
wow! would you?
id do anything for the person who is going to convince her neighbors to demand statehood.
PR is very corrupt, you dont even know, she laughed again.
miss san juan, im from chicago, trust me, i know corrupt. we could teach you some things.
the traffic opened up and i said, are we going to in-n-out for real or nah?
no, she said, i need to nap, my fiance comes in at 7.
please tell me his name is ben, i said, and he’s a pilot.
ahahahaha, a baggage handler. armando! she said and i was all but of course.
the funny thing about long beach in the middle of the day, is you can drive 10 minutes in any direction and have a totally different experience.
in this case, in 10 minutes we were at a hotel buzzing with flight attendants of all sorts, all dressed to match their airline, one hotter than the next. even the dudes were like models. it was like a hollywood casting call.
tell me something. which puerto rican, if there were only one, could convince your beautiful island that US statehood is the way to go? is it jlo?
then sometimes youre wrong so you question your instincts.
he was wearing a jacket on a 90-degree day. and he took a long time to get to me. the streets are overflooded right now in summertime with other drivers so you gotta get what you can when you can.
then i saw him helping an old man in a walker to the curb and i was both, oh thats why. and also fuck am i gonna have to take this old guy to ucla hospital by myself?
we were just going for a check up, nothing pressing, mark assured me.
it was estimated to be a 40-minute trip to the cooler part of town, so i didnt mind waiting, but holy god he was taking forever to get his dad to the car and then the walker in the trunk and then papi in the car.
he made joe biden look spry.
a solid 15 excruciating minutes later, they were in.
any other time i woulda cancelled after 2 minutes. i can be the most impatient, heartless person you know. if you live with a person and are aware it takes them forever to get in a car, omg have them outside when i arrive. it’s math.
dad’s name was whitey and he mumbled, which was cool with me.
once they were in, mark was all, the doctor’s appointment is for 4, so we have to hurry.
NOW YOURE INTERESTED IN HURRYING?
i looked at the tesla screen. while waiting for them i punched the address into the car to see what the ETA would be. 4:20pm, it said.
i was all theres no way we make it by 4.
he said, i know, but if we take the freeway we might be able to make up some of that time when we take the 405 carpool lane.
if this was a movie, this would have been the inside joke to the LA viewers.
there’s not one person in the world you should trust less than the person who thinks you will SAVE time by going over the hill on the 405.
but heres the crazy thing about me as a driver: even though im twitchy like a crack head before you get in the car,
once the wheels start rolling, the customer is always right.
you wanna take the most notorious freeway in LA as you rush your old dad to see his doctor, im not even gonna try to talk you out of it.
do i know the fastest way from los feliz to ucla, day or night, in rain or on the weekend? have i done hundreds of trips at ucla alone because of bonuses lyft and uber used to give us?
yes, but none of that matters because in the rare chance that my route gets fucked, then it’s 100% on me, and the whole time the dude’s gonna be pouting in the back thinking that his way woulda been the best way.
as we hit traffic on the 101 before the 405, it was clear that the freeway was the worst idea. but i didnt care because mark was talking my ear off about politics and podcasts and growing up in an all Black neighborhood and how they beat the crap out of him until one day he got a tazer
and how trying and failing to fit in fucked him up and his dad was an alkie and his brother died of liver failure at 35 and his sister was kidnapped and and and
it was a horror story. in traffic. and it was hot. and it only got worse.
pops held his hand up to his mouth and groaned, what do i do?
you know how some dads can be reading the newspaper and sense one of their kids is about to swallow a switchblade? well, i always know when someone is gonna puke in my back seat.
i say, mark theres a barf bag in the seat pocket next to your dad’s knee.
bro rushed to it, got it and dad started hurling.
no, keep it on your face, he told his father after a little while.
please please listen to him, i esp’d.
this tesla is 5 weeks old. i bought a little hand vacuum for it. it has car seat covers, snacks, water. theres towels in the trunk. car wax. i even put rubber heavy duty floor mats all around it so i wouldnt have to vacuum every day. pull em out and hose em down once a week was the plan.
pops was coughing and puking and spitting in the bag and i was going zero miles an hour being forced to listen to this young man explain how candace owens was a thousand percent right that women control everything because they have the power of the pussy
i thought, i need to get a dashcam in this thing so i can warn all passengers that they are being recorded.
but i dont want an hour of this guy on video, i want to capture the audio because i am not a talented enough writer to fully recall precisely what this guy said and how he said it.
he would fluctuate from the dumbest shit ever: fully racist, fully fox news indoctrinated, but more so rightwing podcasts and AM talk radio
but also sometimes he would bust out with some big words or shockingly accurate statistics, while structuring the sentence wonderfully
even though it was about how women are always trying to upgrade from one social status to the next via her man at the time. but she will dump him as soon as something better comes.
mark was also excellent at not letting me talk.
i was torn because he was the one who mentioned incel when he was complaining about how mad at his dad he was for never being there, always being drunk, never caring about his kids, and having the worst taste in friends because the last one turned into a squatter who sold drugs and intentionally wrote bad checks
mind you dad was sitting right next to him, still puking, grunting, making me worry he was gonna pour it on his caretaker
i am not an alcoholic, pops finally sneered, in his defense, between completely disgusting noises.
reader, i had put myself in this situation over a quest for $20.
i am a college graduate.
i have excelled in most of the jobs ive done.
but there i was creeping now near the overpass on the 405 where i remember someone had leapt from to their demise about 15 years ago.
sepulveda runs parallel to the 405 and i wanted to get these people out of my life as soon as possible.
years ago i drove a drunken marine, who i gave the barf bag to, and he used it, and i felt so proud of myself, but then he dropped it when he passed out.
so i was worried that pops was gonna do the same thing. i need to bring some plastic grocery bags, i thought to myself, hoping it would help me remember.
every minute that guy is in my sweet new used car the odds of tragedy increased.
sometimes i think, am i doing this for the right reasons? the son said, talking about how he takes care of his dad for money through a government program. i mean, he continued, i want the things he has had, a girlfriend, then a wife, then a family. but i can’t date if i am constantly with him. i cant do anything.
ive never had a girlfriend, he said.
perfectly average guy. good hair, fucker. ok clothes. but such a warped view of women. it was war to him. like every single woman wanted a millionaire and wouldnt be satisfied until they got one.
i wanted to tell him women get horny and lonely and will settle, trust me on this, for a guy who will listen and go to the movies with them, and munch their box and make them feel normal. i wanted to say so much.
when i got an opening i said, ok, hold up, when you were in high school, or even junior high, were there any girls who you heard had a crush on you? even if they were not hot in your book.
yes, but she was mexican and her dad didn’t want her to get with a guero.
i said, do you think she’s with a millionaire right now?
he raised his voice a tad and said, ok now that is a gotcha question and it doesn’t dispel my point. whoever she is with, she calls the shots and wont be happy until she has everything. All women….
i wanted to tell him it’s not just women who are insatiable, unsatisfied and ruthless. they say some dogs will eat until they fall over if they have unlimited food. but the reason sooooo many people marry non-millionaires is because tim pool and rusty nailbox or whoever you’re listening to on those podcasts are bullshitting for money. Insanity pays. Again, trust me.
i nosed over to the off ramp from the freeway to sepulveda and asked, ok Waze says we’ve got 23 more minutes on the 405, do you think we can do it quicker on sepulveda?
mark was all, you never know where the traffic will end on the freeway, but you always know on a side street you’ll have to stop at lights and signs, and there might be traffic there too. let’s stay on the 405.
so i just gave up. i let him tell me about going to jail for bouncing checks. about how i need to start listening to ben shapiro. and how, sure trump is a buffoon, but he’s the only one who can get us out of this mess.
youd be proud of your boy for biting his tongue.
you know how some people have parking karma – no matter how hard it is to get a parking spot, they can find one effortlessly anywhere they want? i feel like i have that about traffic. rarely am i stuck in it. but i was so stuck in it with these guys until i let go and just allowed him to vent his bootleg tucker carlson spiel all over the back of my neck.
i was trying so hard to give him advice on how to get laid but he needed to get his theories out at me.
hell, i might even know some girls who spoke his same insane language. but there was no room. and as ive learned, you cant save some people.
then traffic lightened and when it did i thought to myself, have there been people who have been trying to solve my problem but i was too busy yapping i never let them in?
soon we were flying past the getty, past brentwood, and down wilshire
got pops to the hospital, i leapt out and opened the trunk to get the walker unfolded and next to the passenger seat in seconds
and as we got the old guy out of the seat, i saw a puddle in the rubber floor mat
it was contained, but it was gross, but the rubber mat had done its job.
i ran to the trunk for the giant towel, a half bottle of water, and wiped it up. then i vacuumed the seat of all that negativity.
1:30am. 20something fresh-faced guy with frazzled hair walked outside a packed bar that had just announced last call.
he hugged a blonde, then a brunette. friendly-like.
when he opened my door, i had to yell, CHARLIE because it was so loud out there. everyone was hopped up on booze and summer nights and full moon and et cetera, probs
just ok? were the pretty girls not pretty enough for ya
meh, he hiccupped
oh sorry, were you looking for pretty boys? i asked. never know.
he hiccupped again, and asked ever feel like you’ve seen enough?
no, i said. kill yourself.
charlie paused, then laughed his ass off.
he was in the business. from austin. produced some pretty big music videos. i told him, thank you, because im from the generation that grew up on those things and thats the best way to learn about new music.
he said, it doesnt pay, and theres long hours. no one cares.
i was like, yeah but you’re learning. if making art was easy, youd be bored of that too.
art, he scoffed.
it was warm. there were a surprisingly number of hookers out. most looked like moms in short dresses. some trying for eye contact. others pretending they were waiting for the bus.
ever notice hookers dress less skanky than anyone on these streets? i asked charlie. who hadn’t until then.
ever get tempted by any of them? he asked, as we were stopped at a light, and a shockingly beautiful young latina shook her barely covered bottom in our direction, energetically.
what would i even do with her? i asked. she had sneakers and a mini dress. several shiny necklaces reflected the street light above. both silver and gold. long tattoos crawled up her bare legs. red lipstick. a lot to take in. but i did appreciate her energy. and deep down i shared in her joy of being alive in this incredible part of town on a perfect night.
free.
what do you mean what would you do with her? he asked.
well, im a weirdo. the only things i pay for are things either i want done quickly or things i cant figure out how to do.
so like, ive got this roomba, and also a ring doorbell. theyre sitting in open boxes because i dont know how to hook them up. if she could install those things, for sure id give her $100.
he laughed, and said, you wouldnt want to do things with her your girlfriend, or, are you married? your wife – won’t do with you?
maybe i need to turn this uber around and get you back to that bar. it is saturday night in hollywood and those girls you hugged got dolled up for hours and are now full of overpriced booze. why would they say no to your little kinks?
charlie said, the line is you dont pay for them to come, you pay for them to leave.
i guess he really wanted this to be about hookers and not him. fine.
heres what id do if i had money for hookers, tonight. id get that big black mom over there, that short mom over there, those two skinny sad ones over there and you and id pay ‘em all to dance in my living room for an hour.
and have you shoot it on your phone for a music video.
ahahahaha, he laughed and hiccupped.
look, if youre gonna puke theres a barf bag in the thing in front of you, i said.
im not gonna puke. he said, we turned down western with its hot dog vendors and taco tents lined with white twinkly lights.
he said, i know what id do with her, referring probably to the dancing sneakers girl.
of course she was hot, they’re all hot. get over it.
30s, super smart, super sharp. when i asked her if we were meeting her boyfriend in santa monica she said, no it was girls night.
soon she revealed she had no boyfriend and i said, whoops sorry, girlfriend?
this is always tricky because it could come across as probing, especially now that we have entered into a very private aspect of modern life, the ever controversial same sex smooching.
but for some reason, people just answer my questions AS THEY SHOULD which is a relief, especially when youre driving from DTLA to the beach in rush hour traffic. pretty much the only time both sides of the 10 are busy.
she looked me over and decided to just let it out. she had been in an intense three-month relationship with her gym crush, a man she stared at for a year waiting for him to make a move.
weak men do not interest me. here i am, i risk everything, she said about that agonizing year.
monday, wednesday, and fridays during lunch they would routinely enter the high-priced but popular gym frequented by other young professionals,
but it was clear she was looking at him for weeks and then months, and he quietly worked out by himself, stealing glances at her with the aid of the many floor to ceiling mirrors around the stylish but subdued joint.
did you run out and buy sexier than normal workout clothes? i asked. alo? lululemon?
absolutely not. im not giving it away. earn it.
she was from singapore, went to college in manhattan, moved to la to sell real estate to wealthy chinese families. but her true joy is cooking. she wants to be the hottest wife and smartest mother, but thats a secret she said while tapping on her google phone.
because you want to recreate your own childhood? i asked
because those are the two hardest roles to master. husbands and children are inconsistent, unreliable, selfish, unpredictable… she went on.
so it’s a challenge? i asked
anyone can sell an overpriced mansion to a wealthy man who has unlimited funds. but how do you get that man to utterly adore you and eat every drop of your dinner?
so this shy hunk approached you after a year, but he’s not your man now? did he have bad breath? was he unskilled? was he secretly married? gay?!?
he was a prince, she said. not literally, but a proper gentleman, a workaholic like me, funny but not obnoxious, very giving. Very giving, she repeated and fanned herself.
so what was the catch? dont tell me he was a vegan.
he was still in love with his ex who had broken his heart and he was terrified of having that happen again.
what astrological sign are you? i asked
aquarius, she spit out, suddenly happy with the change of topic. but it was not a change. it was a probe.
there is a theory, i said to this beautiful stranger. She had on zero makeup, perfectly behaved hair, and a summer dress short enough to show her toned, tanned legs, but long enough to invoke imagination.
a theory? she echoed, interested.
yes, that of the zodiac signs, aquarius can go the longest without sex and not freak out.
oh yeah. i havent even thought about being with another man. i will wait him out.
youre not disgusted he is fearful?
no.
he’s not showing a sign of weakness?
it is a weakness but it’s ok. i don’t want a player. i don’t want mr. cool guy look at my new younger girlfriend. hes earnestly sad that his best friend for years is gone and with some other guy. when you are broken up with, they are rejecting all of you, literally, she said.
was his body incredible?
sculpted.
may i ask one more extremely personal question?
she laughed, you may.
any time i see women ogle over chippendales dancers they run their hands down the guy’s chest and six pack. how was his?
i think about it every day.
so you’re thirtysomething, successful, the most beautiful woman i will have in this car all day, maybe all month, and you’re just going to sit and wait
and age,
gracefully of course, for this prince of the arts district to decide it’s time to get on with living?
little grey sweat pants with no draws, sports bra, white sneakers, overly tight curls so perfect was it a wig? belly so flat either she was the worlds greatest pilates instructor or a stripper or a Laker girl or
Temptation.
the problem was, it was 2am and we were in an irvine shell station parking lot. the request was from a guy named mario who was scuttling around the trunk of their car doing this and that. ive known a few paisans.
so when he put up one finger to coordinate what was happening in the overly stuffed trunk of her white toyota, i said, fine and wondered what about her story and the doberman puppy she had on a leash.
typically i’m pro-dog. but my Y is new and i don’t have the mud floor mats yet. and he was holding two full Super Big Gulps.
hows a tiny woman holding an active puppy and a grown man with two huge sodas gonna control either the pop or the pup when he gets excited in my back seat?
i watched her and the dog who sure looked like he wanted to take a piss. then i looked at how he was holding those cokes, dying to spill them in my car.
also what was up with them?
bloodshot eyes. confused. unorganized. why were there sooooo many things in her trunk? why is the gas station just letting them park it there tonight? aint no repair shop in that station. do they own it? then why do they live in south gate?
sometimes i want to know everything, sometimes i dont wanna know shit officer.
they were going to kill me and steal my car, weren’t they?
what would happen to my cats?
is this how i was gonna go out? over a $16 ride? at the hands of a coked up dude and his stripper girlfriend?
blood getting lapped up by an adorable but probably also coked up puppy?
or would it be more complicated than that. like, oh man, real quick can you just let us stop at this one place? i swear it’ll be just a second.
and then she, the dog, and i were there.
waiting.
bonding.
falling.
now i have a new girlfriend who has a fucking dog and a pissed off ex-boyfriend.
that life is behind me, mario, i thought as I watched her legs and belly and searched carefully for the slightest imperfections
and failed.
and this is how drivers get in trouble. either they haven’t had the great luck of knowing some stunners
or they wanted just one more for the road
the end is nigh after all
so I said, Mario, i’m sorry i can’t take that dog and i drove away
he was all, it’s a service animal!
i said my ass!
IM RECORDING YOU! she yelled all pretty af
and before i got to the super charger a mile away, my lyft app restarted, i got a text saying i had been deactivated. and i couldn’t log back in.
i shouldnta said anything about the dog.
i shoulda lied.
always lie, america
it’s funny how thats always the moral of the story.
i shoulda yelled MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE and then they woulda thought. whew that fools crazy
my hope is i will get to talk to someone on the phone who is reasonable, who i can say it wasnt the dog,
i was saying, fuck you to all of it.
so if you wanna say fuck you back at me, i get it,
no hard feelings
but at least i’m alive long enough to tell you a little more about her about those impossible sweat shorts
and if you dont tell me what you were doing in the place you just flew in from then that too will raise my spidey senses even though i know how outrageous it is for me to believe that every single stranger i pick up should answer all of my questions
honestly and thoroughly,
but 99% of them do, in part, because most peoples favorite topic is themselves and if you get off a plane and enter my car which is a welcoming cone of nonjudgement and support, youre gonna tell me all the things
this man did not.
and he was quiet in his avoidance, until he put his phone down and said:
ok, whats your deal?
we were listening to elvis costellos king of america and heading to dtla, which was smart on his part bc we were gonna get there in 50 minutes and it takes about that long to get from LAX to dtla, so bravo
my deal? i asked. im a mild-mannered uber driver in a robot car bound for all the thrills and chills of downtown los angeles in the middle of the night
no no, he said, are you a liberal or….
i couldnt place the accent from this white dude about 38-or 39-years-old. did he just get out of jail? am i in danger?
oh, i dont talk politics in this car.
why not?
because then you wont tip me later.
wait, what?
this is an extremely expensive vehicle. maybe the most modern on earth. i can’t pay for it simply off whatever smaller and smaller cut of the fare uber gives me, so i need tips. and if i enter into even a reasonably intelligent conversation about politics, i’m bound to say something you don’t agree with and when it comes time later to give me a tip or not, you won’t. ive seen it too many times.
dont worry, i’ll tip in the app, he said which any driver knows are the exact words everyone who fails to tip in the app says.
unnecessary. in this car if you wanna talk politics it’s $10, cash, upfront. and i held out my hand.
hoping to hear him laugh, he did not.
i dont have $10 cash, he said.
then i’ll give you this, for free, and who knows, it may upset you too, but fuckit. live dangerously. carry a knapsack. i am not a liberal. i am not anything. i am someone who believes public servants work for me, i dont work for them. i dont belong to government teams. team busblog. they need to win me over.
amen was heard in the back.
and here are the things i want out of this city and country and state. i want the best schools, the cleanest water, the smoothest streets, and cops and politicians who aren’t on the take. if weed is legal then let it be legal, knock it off with i can’t smoke weed at a ball game or a beach. stop acting like it’s dangerous and i need the gumment to protect me from it.
ha! he said and rustled his backpack
i think taxes should be low, but everyone needs to pay them, rich poor and even the church
woah
i love the lord but if i had a church id sock away 10% to pay the man. that money helps make sure my congregation can go to good schools and drink clean water and smoke weed in the rectory after service.
what do you think about abortion? women’s rights, he said in air quotes.
i held out my hand and said, $100 for the only correct answer about abortion.
the other was her older brother, who was a foot shorter than her twin.
we were all a foot shorter than genesis’ twin (and a foot less wide)
what’s your name? leviticus? i asked
whatever, he said. it doesn’t matter because i kept calling him that as we drove to valencia
the older brother was 23, it was a friday and i said
this is the most wholesome thing ever, all three kids are going to the movies together on a friday night. whattya seeing?
a quiet place!
oooooh that scary one?
yeah, the older kid said, in 5d — the seats shake during the crazy parts.
whats your name, older brother?
johan!
clearly i was in a silly mood, so i was all, johan?
earlier the twins told me that they had just graduated high school and they were all celebrating before it was time to get summer jobs
so i said, ok high school brainiacs, thinkin youre so smart, who was the world’s most famous johan?
genesis giggled and leviticus shrugged his shoulders
i said, johan sebastian bach, probably the most influential classical composer ever. 17th century: the year punk broke.
id tell you about the beautiful desert between palmdale and valencia, but it wasn’t beautiful. there’s just a lot of it.
genesis giggled, but i was getting silence from the boys.
they didn’t teach none of you about johan sebastian? what the hell are the schools up to these days?
you crazy, leviticus laughed. they all loved it. we were having fun.
siri, play tocatta and fugue, i said to the windshield and johan sebastian’s iconic scary movie organ song started to go through the tesla which has an amazing sound system: rich, bassy, clear, probably to mask some of the weird noises it makes, but whatever.
you see who you were named after, johan, a master!
they were into it. everyone know that banger.
i turned down the stereo and said, genesis, youre a pretty girl, it’s friday night in the summer, whattya doing with your brothers? wheres your boyfriend?
leviticus laughed, knowingly.
wait, johan, did your brother eat genesis’ boyfriend?
not only do i swear this is all true, but this is one we cant put in the book because these really are their names, poor babies, and i wouldnt want to embarrass them in the future.
so i’ll stop because they really were the sweetest kids.
when i dropped them off, i immediately got an offer for a great ride from six flags to union station. $35. 45 minutes.
a big woman in a very big dress approached the car and a shockingly good looking smiling motorcycle rider guy wasn’t far behind.
they live in santa barbara
in her car
he’s looking for work and she sells inexpensive jewelry on ebay.
whole time im thinking, whats in it for this guy? she has one eye looking out the window, the other looking at me. is that a muumuu? shes smiling and smiling but
which isnt to say everyone isn’t lovable, but what the hell is going on here.
so i say something that i say a lot and it’s always a treat to hear.
tell me about your first date.
she says, we met on this app called bumble.
i was all, did you think he was handsome when you first met
she goes, i thought he was hotter than his pictures
i asked him, could you tell she liked what she was lookin at?
he went, yep and i liked what i was looking at too.
let it be known that these two, just like the others before them, couldnta been sweeter, but id be lying if i didnt mention they smelled like they had spent a full hot day at six flags, so i was speeding to the train station with my window down.
she told me they were engaged and she had been engaged once before, to a Black guy
i was like, i feel like i should be paying you at this point miss muumuu.
i asked, where’d you meet your previous fiancé?
oh, he was trying to scam me and we fell in love.
i was all, do not tell me he was a nigerian prince
she gasped and said he was nigerian, yes indeed.
i asked, how long did it take him to propose?
she said, two years.
i was all, two years, what the hell were you two doing all that time? video chatting?
yep.
evel knievel, close your ears. were you and this prince having EXPLICIT video chats for two years, missy?
she laughed, put her hands over his ears and said almost every night!
and at that point i had so many questions that were all rushing to come out there was a log jam, so nothing came out.
and as much as i wanted to find out why mr. motorcycle guy, who even had a cool hat, was living in a car with her, because that’s actually a level of commitment all its own, the bigger mystery was to
sexy time video this woman for two years. sure willie wakanda was trying to be an american, but almost every night? talk about a long game.
speaking of long, i had to ask her, and i did, and she covered evel’s ears again and confirmed it.
but i needed to know what they talked about when they werent playing look at this for hours on skype.
she said most of the time he complained about his african girlfriend and his boss at work at the scam factory.
the story and the stench were battling each other because sometimes a breeze would whip around the car and id catch a whiff of corn dog mixed with oyster? so at that point we were speeding through glendale when i remembered i had taken an enormous lemon from the lawn of my friends os and kim’s storybook home
and that all natural lemon was in my glove box.
my plan was to somehow retrieve it, slice it open, and have it rest on the passenger seat to create a natural air freshener because my god. but the problem was i was driving.
so i said, have you two ever seen one of these tesla robot cars and how they can drive themselves?
they hadnt, so i showed them. i clicked a button and the car took over. i raised my hands in the air to show it was steering.
then i said, but strangely the improvement i like the most is what elon did with the glove compartment.
i clicked a different button and the glove box magically popped opened and the lemon dropped out.
as the car drove itself, i leaned down to the floor and got the slightly misshappen but huge citrus
i tossed it behind me to the dude and said can i offer you all some lemon?
evel said no because, random wtf
so i said to him, would you mind cutting me a slice then please?
and as i suspected a giant knife appeared out of his jacket and he cut open the lemon and handed it all to me.
i took a bite, said omg so sour, and threw the slice out the window
and placed the rest on the passenger seat.
when we got to union station, i waved good bye, and if you ever get a ride from me, ask me what i have in my glove box, but you’ll know.
two beautiful filipinas got in the Y in silver lake. swear to god. both holding drinks in see-thru plastic cups and straws sticking out.
both had designer sunglasses, sheer dresses with tasteful something or another underneath. swimwear? looked like they were going to a white party.
it was friday afternoon and they were heading to long beach. $32 for me.
maybe you don’t understand. $32 trips dont pop up on the screen all that often. usually they’re $4 or $7, sometimes $3. If they are $32 theres usually a catch like they’re way further than they should be or there’s “a stop” which might actually mean they want you to go somewhere far and then take you back.
so when you get one thats a straight shot from silver lake to the lbc on an afternoon in your new used car, you take it.
lyft estimated it’d take an hour. sometimes hour-long trips from silver lake to lax take an hour and only pay $20, so this was a no brainer.
got lucky they were chatty.
because im an idiot, when i saw these ladies on sunset heading to long beach i assumed they lived down there and had spent an early brunch up in the bougie, hipster, gentrified hollywood-y neighborhood and had to go back home.
but no, they were from young nurses from vegas of all places, and they clicked with me so fast i dont even know what music was playing.
so whats going down by the ocean home of snoop dogg today? i asked. no wait. lemme guess.
we were stopped at a light across from the recently closed 99 cent store, boarded up and heavily tagged with graffiti.
i lowered my sunglasses and looked into the rearview. they had pulled down the drink holder, properly placed their cups in there.
damn they were cute. what life is this im co-starring in?
and i said
last night in hollywood you met some boys at the club who swear they have a yacht and they want to take you up the coast to the marina and roofie you in venice?
they laughed and laughed and said you are so close!
the talkative one said, a good friend of mine is actually a very successful hip-hop producer and has a boat! he texted me this morning and said any time youre in LA hit me up. and i said im in LA with my sister…
wait, you two are sisters?
yessir! they laughed in perfect harmony.
truly stunned i yelled, nurse sisters? asian nurse sisters? am i in a porno? where’s the wah wah guitar?
traffic was bad on the hollywood freeway and i know i say these people laugh a lot in these tales but they do. we’re in these cars for such a short period of time, and in traffic, so live a little.
do nurses have the best drugs? i asked.
well, im an x-ray tech and she works in a hospice.
but you know doctors, a few who must be in love with you.
i make it a point of never taking drugs offered to me by men, the quiet one said and sipped the remains of her drink until it made that noise.
smart! i said and thought about it. maybe that should be the rule of thumb for everyone. no drugs from men!
then i added, although nowadays everyone should be testing their drugs before they do them.
omg i volunteer for a non profit that provides bars with test strips so people can test their coke before they do rails in the bathroom.
these are test strips to see if there’s fentanyl in your white powdery substances.
am i in love with you? i asked. do you know you’re getting VIP in heaven? you make the old people happy as they party in the home and you keep the kids in the bars from croaking in the can.
in Heaven VIP you’ll have the code to the best bathrooms. no lines at the bar and you can cut the line to kiss Elvis.
they laughed and laughed then said, ewwwww!
no love for the king? tough crowd.
then i said, doctor, do you have test strips for molly? because i haven’t done that in so long and i want to one day but i wouldn’t even know where to score any these days, but if i did i’d want to test it.
yes we do. i want my sister to try it soon.
why havent you tried it? you live in vegas, you’re carousing LA with your smoking hot sister, surely you’ve had the chance?
now she was chewing her ice. she said, im more a Special K girl and looked out the window.
ketamine? damn. forgot for a sec i was driving hardened Vegas women.
oh im soft where i need to be, she said and laughed.
heres what i recommend for you, i said, ignoring the easy reply. either get someone you like being naked with, or a group of friends who wont freak out if you want to kiss each of them; rent a cabin in the woods and put your cell phones in the trunk of a car.
then get a bunch of candy and snacks and robes and pajamas and bubble gum omg so much bubble gum and make a few playlists.
one playlist will be for dancing. one will be for spin the bottle. and one will be for that twilight period at like 6am where you havent fallen asleep yet and you sorta wanna drift off into la la land. but not zonk out quite yet.
the sister said, i guess i was turned off by it because i heard it was a sex drug and i like to be in control at all times.
come on, pretty olivia rodrigo, by now you must know control is an illusion. secondly it’s not a sex drug, it’s a love drug. it’s more about kissing with no tongue. telling your friends how much they mean to you. crying happy tears. having a contest to see whose hair smells the best.
i took off my cubs hat to reveal my bald head and bragged: state champ ’99.
her sister laughed and said, jesus can you dj her first trip?
yes, yes i can. of course. for a very low fee. but this should be your music. her music. your friends’ music. learning who the people you love listen to creates a level of bonding we don’t get much anymore in this era of ear buds. ask your parents, about the golden time, when people would walk around with enormous boom boxes on their shoulders forcing everyone to hear their terrible music.
benjamin franklin im pretty sure started the trend which is why we put him on the $100 bill, the price of Fischer boom boxes.
but, alas, we have devolved.
the quiet sister said she liked to shroom, but only microdose amounts, because, again, control.
one day you’ll break out, i said, and asked, how old are you?
20.
what? wtf? girl! you can’t even buy a beer and —
she interrupted and said, why buy when they’re handed to you? and laughed.
now on the Harbor freeway, speeding towards the 405 i said ok, tell me about this world of yours. ive never been a hot girl, and even though ive been to vegas dozens of times, today’s vegas is different. do you girls go to a lot of day parties?
you mean at the hotel pools? the older sister asked.
yeah. i went to Rehab a few times at the Hard Rock.
awwww, they both sighed, mourning its demise. no, day parties are too hot. and pool parties fuck up your hair and make up. do you know how long it takes to look this good?
filipinas dont wake up like that?
if you’re lucky, the 20 year old said, you’ll find out one morning.
ever eat too much ecstasy and nearly die in a hot tub in a giant suite in vegas in front of two smoking hot naked ravers who laughed at your teeny schween before they revived your lifeless soul?
sir?
her name was virginia. she lived in a shoe. looked fantastic for her age, had a soft, sweet, sing-song voice, was humble, a tad wacky, but only in the best way. tattoos and stevie nicks garb, wrinkles, but earned.
smelled of lavender and energized crystals shaped like a cross.
she would quickly realize i knew a few things about the Bible and she was free to testify without judgement, though she apologized a few times for “preaching.”
let it out virginia, it’s just you me and the holy ghost, i said, as we sped down the open road in my robot car with rancid barely noticeable beneath our convo.
she told me how at burning man there’s no exchange of money, so you do things for people or give them items you made leading up to the event, and in exchange they give you what you ask for like food, hugs, foot massages, whatever.
virginia, and her born-again pals, gave spiritual readings in their shaded tent.
but really they were speaking to god, she whispered, through us.
sometimes you just believe people. it doesn’t make sense. sometimes you know better. sometimes you see the red flags and you hush up.
other times you cross the path of someone who might be looney af, but when you talk to them for a few minutes you get it and they get you.
and thats what was going on as virginia and i were driving way too fast to whittier but the road was open and the tesla was humming and we were almost immediately talking on a deeper plane of no baloney and zero filter.
she told me how her man is a tattooed motorcyclist from florida who was racist and sexist and had no interest in the lord until they met.
what attracted you to him? i asked.
he had pure crystal meth, sir, and i was lost at the time.
i don’t like being called anything but tony, but i also don’t like telling people what to do even though i am regularly accused of telling people what to do. so i didn’t waste my time with correcting her. it was sweet.
one day we ran into a biker gang of christians and, sir, they bore witness in a way that stopped me from my destructive path and he turned his life around too. they had stories about sinning way worse than either of us combined.
things like raping, murdering, counterfeiting and drug smuggling. but when they saw The Light they started holding bible readings after AA meetings and their reputation spread.
sir, they told him i shouldn’t stay with him until he shed the evils of his past and put on the lifesaving cloak of righteousness and turned into a proper man for me to be with, and a purer reflection of christ.
did he go for it?
yessir.
where’s this stud now? will i meet him at the church?
no sir he’s in new mexico with our animals. we have a dozen stray dogs, bully breeds, pits, mutts, rejects.
what was your favorite drug before you got sober?
molly, sir. i liked going to furry parties which after a few rounds would explode into sloppy orgies of debauchery.
virginia, you are precisely why i will never stop driving uber.
she started telling me about how his love for her and his respect for the christian bikers got him to read genesis and see himself in the scripture and i had to interrupt because i needed to ask her a question.
im sorry, but i am nervous im going to go to hell, i confessed. a long time ago i was dating a sweet girl. pretty much all my ex-gfs were angels. if one day god says, i gave you my best, i’d be like, duh! but this one was so innocent, like maybe she just got promoted from beginner angel school to let’s see if you can make it on crazy ass earth.
she had never seen porn or gwar or smoked weed before me. or been touched by a man.
i love gwar, said virginia quietly. earlier she revealed she’d seen all the greats in punk and metal as a teen in the late 70s – early 80s thanks to her older sister
but the reason i am going to go to hell is because after we had sex the first time, she fell in love with me, and i was repulsed with myself. i knew i would only want to try to dress her in slutty clothes, turn her into the opposite of who she was, and never stop trying to change her from an innocent ray of sunshine into this cartoon character fantasy girl i always thought i wanted.
but i no longer knew what i wanted, so i broke up with her and it broke her heart.
why would that send you to hell, sir?
because i used the bible to convince her to get with me and i can’t think of a worse thing to do to such an innocent girl.
do you think your sin is worse than peter’s? she asked, reminding me that he denied jesus the day of the crucifixion.
because im an annoying contrarian, i asked, do we know peter made it to paradise? the catholics paint him as a glorified doorman at the pearly gates. i don’t read any scripture where he gets to swim in any chocolate rivers or kiss all the girls as they enter.
but sir, the lord died for all of our sins, even the ones we have yet to commit. did you ask forgiveness?
yes.
did you ask her for forgiveness?
yes, and she granted it to me.
sir, do you believe in jesus as the truth, the way and the light?
of course.
then you are free. take off your dirty robe, comfortable as it may be, and put on the clean one jesus is handing you sir.
when we got to the church she took my hand, closed her eyes, and said the most beautiful prayer. i nearly started crying.
she was from niger and asked if i had ever heard of it.
i said every kid, especially black kids like me, were quickly informed of your country the day our classroom was presented globes.
why’s that? she asked.
she was 72, and beautifully dressed in a detailed white shawl covering other layers of colorful clothing.
i had picked her up at the whole foods across from the grove in its janky parking lot currently undergoing construction. she had waved me down from behind her walker which had three bags of fruits and vegetables hanging from both of its handles.
i was thrilled to have upgraded from a benz sedan to this new used tesla Y because it has a large hatchback that could fully accommodate a few cute bags of groceries and the unwieldy walker, which, although modern, never really folds up the way you want it to.
when she got into the back seat she turned around to coach me as to how to arrange the bags and walker. overly confident at first, it turned out i actually did need her advice.
once we were rolling east i asked, where in the motherland was she from?
niger, she answered. can you find it on the map?
if i was a smart person would i be driving for uber on a friday afternoon i replied and we both laughed.
as they say lovingly, she was black as night. beautiful. old but in the way we should all be so lucky to age. so smart. so sharp. a little bitter, especially as she told me how her country was treated by the French and later the Americans, including my hero Obama.
yes, even him, she scoffed.
always trying to turn people’s frowns upside-down i asked if her people speak french in niger.
bien sûr, she said with another scoff.
ok great i said upbeat. i took two years of french in high school and a year in college and i can’t parlez to save my life. but ive always been curious, if you wanted to say F You to the french oppressors, or my man obama, how would you say it en francais?
i would never say that, she explained. if i ever said that word, my parents would have told me to get a switch so they could thrash me.
same, but it’s just you, me and ozzy here on a beautiful day in la, i continued. (i was once told it’s fu-toi, but ive never heard that in any french films.)
it’s m-e-r-d-e she spelled quietly so the spirits of her parents wouldn’t reincarnate in the back seat.
no no, thats shit, i said, laughing. you wouldnt say Shit You, France. I want to know what F you, france sounds like in french.
she said, my brother lives in canada. i was watching his 6 year-old great-granddaughter one afternoon and when it was dinner, right there at the table she said, m-e-r-d-e. my brother said, is this what you’re teaching her when i’m out? i said, you know i would never teach her something as wicked as that.
did he get the switch?
no! which i don’t understand, she said. when he was young my brother said it once and our mother heard it and he ran up into the attic and pulled up the ladder because he knew what was coming next.
it was a short ride and too quickly it was over. when she got out i put the walker next to the car door and arranged the bags on her handles.
she said, i want you to drive safely and slowly today.
