before we unscientifically speculate, let me say this: i have a 4.98 rating. i do hundreds of trips a month. you’re bound to have a clunker now and then.

also, as you could guess, i have a big fucking mouth filled with dad jokes. and i ask probing questions because i’m nosy AF bc i love people and am dying to learn everything about you.

Everything.

i am a sponge. i have the memory of one too. so i need you to spell it out to me, slowly, and with great detail because i need to remember the big parts of it for when i get home and write them down on here.

in an ideal world, i’d put a microphone in the back seat and record what people say, but that’s where the exhibitionist lives, not honesty.

i am due to have a few bad reviews but i care deeply about them. i never cared about grades in school. i never cared about the comments in the pieces i’ve written.if someone disses me on twitter, it doesn’t phase me. but for some reason i really give a shit about the feedback in my rideshare. it makes no sense. 

all day today i wondered: which asswipe last week gave me 1 star? 

obviously it could have been anyone for any reason. uber doesn’t tell us who they are or why i got the bad review because we know where you people live.

the only time they’ve ever fessed up was last month when someone whined because the pickup pin they dropped was not at the bus stop where they were waiting. uber acknowledged that it wasn’t my fault but refused to remove the poor rating from my tally. so that was #1. 

numero d’oh were these silver lake frat boys going to venice beach. they were very loud, very demanding, machismo up to the sky, but they met their match when the guy next to me asked for my AUX cord so he could play terrible music at loud volumes.

i explained i didn’t have a cord in the benz (the c250 is equipped with Bluetooth, peasants).

also, never touch a black man’s stereo.

when i said that, i looked at the lone brother in the back and said, “correct”?

i did generously allow them, however, to smoke weed in my car, when they asked nicely, since they were using a vape delivery system.

you’d have thought that that would have made us all friends, but apparently someone was still butthurt when the ride was over. so that was #2. 

now who could have been the third one? 

was it the priest of the russian orthodox church in east hollywood? picked him up in a pretty nice little house in echo park. it was under a name that didn’t appear to be him. did a nun order it for him?

when i arrived, i parked right in front of the door and after three minutes he poked his head out from the fence, looked around, and went back inside. so when it was time to cancel, i canceled, was credited $3.87, and sped off.

before i got around the corner, i got the ping again from the same spot. this is a risky move because now they might be pissed.

but i have a right to be pissed too, because time is precious and in my mind you shouldn’t order a car unless you are ready. furthermore, your honor, it will not kill you to wait outside when you see the car is approaching. so making a dude wait 5 minutes is bad enough, but to still not get in the car after it arrives, removes your “right” to be pissed at the driver. 

logic doesn’t always factor in to these things, which is why wise drivers never go back to the address where they just cancelled. i’m the opposite of wise.

smart drivers know if you take that trip, he can give you a bad rating when it’s over, but he can’t do so on the cancellation.

but i liked the offer the first time, i liked it again the second time and i was right there. the padre was on the phone the whole time speaking Russian. and when he got out of the car, a military dude was waiting for him in the parking lot and mama mia. a bad rating was suddenly the least of my fears. yet i survived.

another suspect was a friend of a concert promoter. i picked him and his gorgeous wife up far away from the east, near where they want to build a bullet train to Vegas.

it was warm, but not hot out there, yet still he asked if i could blast the AC. which i did. it was an hour ride.

wifey and i had a great convo. he was playing games on his phone and then watching the NBA playoffs annoyingly loud. as we got near the venue i said, you two must have the best juju because i’ve never seen traffic so light around this facility this close to showtime. or, maybe your buddy dropped the ball on this show and no one is gonna be here.

when i said it i thought, please laugh, please laugh. there was no laugh.

see how much they tipped

any time you pick up someone at a hospital you’re rolling the dice. they could have a walker, crutches, a sobbing family member… all sorts of obstacles for a smooth trip. they could also puke. my archenemy.

sometimes they’re dopey from the meds and they have no idea where they are so they place the pin in the wrong place which makes it hard for me to find them.

hospitals are very clear about where we enter, not so clear about where to pick up.

7:55am and this woman was nowhere near her pin. called her phone and it went straight to voicemail. usually that is enough for me to cancel because it’s a major red flag because YOU LITERALLY HAD TO USE YOUR PHONE TO ORDER ME so wheres your phone now?

but i was in need of a bunch of trips for my bonus, so i persisted.

she texted me. i texted back. she wasn’t annoying. we figured it out.

when she got in she didn’t look so hot. scruffy, tired, discombobulated. she had seen better days.

same, honestly.

i tried to call you but nothing happened, i told her and headed towards a ritzy address.

she laughed and said it was an old phone number.

from when you were on the run, with all that blow you stole? i joked.

cocaine jokes always do well with strangers.

no. ha. no. mine was meth, she said.

was that a southern drawl, I thought? she pronounced it may-eth.

zero traffic as we journeyed past perfect homes with tailored grounds. she was missing a few teeth, smiling, looking out the window.

whose house was she gonna rob? i wondered, shamefully. projecting.

because i wasn’t sure if she was joking about the meth, i told a tale about a time in college when i needed to read 150 pages of Moby Dick for class by the morning and I was nodding off and my roommate offered me some speed to stay awake.

because i wanted to relate to the woman, i lied and told her it was meth. but in actuality, who the hell knows what it was.

illustration by Gerard Dubois

how did you like it? she asked.

it made me feel normal, i said. i wasn’t tired any more. i wasn’t high in any way. i just suddenly felt perfectly adjusted. my only problem was that i couldn’t stop obsessing about how suddenly normal i felt. that circular thinking stopped me from being able to read.

she said, i was just in cedars for a sleep study. you probably have ADHD. they had hooked me up to wires all over my body and head and arms and legs and chest and neck and… she had a very long list.

and then i went to sleep and they watched and documented everything.

why were you getting sleep study of all things? i asked.

because i did meth every day for two years and it screws with your sleep after a while, she said fiddling with her lime green vape that looked like a coin purse.

she rolled down the window. it was warming up already. la is the best.

turned out we were going to her sober living house.

when did you sober up? i asked.

well, i had been sober for two months but then last week this guy kept saying he wanted me to party with him, she laughed.

she was ok looking. i tried to picture how she was just out in the world and some random dude, a stranger danger waltzed up to her and invited her to do the hardest drugs he had.

i told her, i have lived a million years and no one has ever asked me to do meth with them, especially a stranger.

men want the pussy, she cackled.

did you give it to him?

no, but I gave it to the other guy who joined us. he had some meth too and I went home with him. then she laughed louder, air whistling through one of her former tooth holes.

was it any good?

three pumps and he rolled over, she said.

no, the meth! i laughed!

and she said it was all worth it.

see how much they tipped

Dougie Gyro asks:

By now you have what they call in London, “The Knowledge.” What’s one of your favorite places to drive in LA? Is there a favorite sunset spot? Favorite tree-lined street? Favorite fast-food joint?

I have many many favorite places to drive in LA: Hollywood Blvd & the Sunset Strip

My favorite freeway is the 110 through Highland Park on the way to Pasadena because it’s the first freeway in California and it’s twisty and dangerous.

At sunset, I like to be in Venice Beach. I love the freaks. Also you can get soooo close to the beach without getting out of your car.

For sunrise, I like to be on the 105/110 interchange way above everything.

There are so many great tree-lined streets, sadly the best ones are in Beverly Hills. There’s a few secretly in South Central.

My favorite fast food joint, hands down is Jack in the Box. Great breakfast, for lunch the Sourdough Chicken with bacon, and for snacks you cant beat their deep fried tacos and curly fries. If I lived in Prague I’d create a bootleg one for the kids.

Lori Nelson asks:

Can you tell quickly who wants to communicate or who might have bad energy Have you ever refused entry? Or regretted not refusing a ride?

Of the 10k rides I’ve given, the only times we haven’t talked were if the passengers were asleep, on the phone, or they can’t speak English. If people are quiet and not asleep they can figure out pretty quickly that this is the place where we talk.

Bad energy is something I have difficulty sensing. It happens now and then but it’s extremely rare. You will hear very few stories that I will tell here of people being shitty to me.

Bill Downing Asks:

If you had a chance to pick up one of the mom’s/family/friend of this years’ American Idol top 12, who would you choose? Which one of the top 12 finalists?

I have no clue who any of the latest American Idol people are right now. But looking at this photo of the remaining Top 12, I’d pick either of the three friends/family of the Black contestants. Black folks, on average, tell me the better stories.

Grant Haughton asks

My wife got a ride from an airport in So Cal at 10pm last Thursday. It was the longest ride so far in the 5 months he’s been a driver. She felt unsafe most of the time.

He was a nice guy, not a sleazeball.

Yet, he was very jerky with the brake pedal. Lots of weaving in his lane and others. Stated that if he got a text he’d have to pull over and answer it. Oh and then he answered a phone call on speaker throughout the car.

The gentlemen was 87 years old! Do you feel there should be an age restriction on rideshare drivers? Any other restrictions on drivers needed that aren’t already a part of the rules?

One of the best things about Lyft and Uber are the driver ratings. Personally, I think they should be rated out of 10 instead of 5, but as flawed as it is now, bad drivers, regardless of age, get weeded out.

This driver, bless him, should not be on the road driving other people around. I would have given him 1 star for his own good.

Keith Thursby asks

Ever think of spending a day or week doing rides in OC to do some comparing/contrasting with LA?

I’ve done some trips around there. It’s tricky being in new places bc there are nuances in flows of traffic and “shortcuts” you pick up after time.

It’s really advantageous to know your surroundings for places to take a leak, ways to get around traffic jams, intersections with crazy long lights, and places to get short trips without dealing with things like gated communities.

Tea Marrocco asks

Who was the smelliest rider you ever drove?

Young men of USC, hands down.

Ilka Wagner asks

What was your biggest tip?

see how much they tipped

woke up at 4:20am ready to rock, but there were no rides. by 5 i had showered, eaten a nearly stale croissant and pooped twice. still no rides. 

at 6, i was out there. it was cold. turned on the seat heater. listened to howard stern. just before 7, the trips started coming in, and the rising sun lit up silver lake and echo park so beautifully that i wanted to climb baxter st. to see if it was even better up there. 

not really. but still nice. 

lots of good rides throughout the day, but the most interesting one was in inglewood with a guy with one lung. 

when trips aren’t happening i make my way to south central because my belief is there will be less competition from other drivers who are scared of my people. which is how i got dwayne. 

he emerged with a minute left to go and sure did seem to take his sweet ass time getting into my car and when he did, he was winded. 

my lung… is gaining… strength, he panted. I wouldn’t have… been able to do… that at Christmas.

‘that’ being a walk down a short flight of stairs, then across a small yard and into the car of an impatient jerk who suddenly felt terrible for judging this frail Black man who was going to mcdonalds.

the app told me we were going to mickey d’s and that was it.

does mcdonalds know we’re coming? i asked slightly judgmentally because one of the biggest pet peeves of rideshare drivers is having to go through a drive thru. but it was 8am. maybe he works there? 

no, I am so sorry, dwayne said. if the line is long, i will go into the lobby and if you could wait until the next stop, that would be so nice.

next stop? i thought. looking back at the app that said no such thing.

yes, the next stop, he said. apparently I said it out loud.

i could have sworn i pushed it in there. where is it in the app? 

i said, it’s in there. just find Add a Stop and type in where you want to go next. 

annoying things you can make me do on a trip, ranked: 

1. add a stop

2. have me go in a drive thru

3. wait for you to get something inside somewhere

4. wait for you to get in the car 

dwayne had checked off all of ‘em in 3 minutes.

if he had two good lungs, my attitude would have been much angrier. 

three coffees, 12 sugars, 4 creamers, 3 mcgriddles with sausage, 4 hash browns and 5 apple pies, he said through his window at the screen. 

but when he said it, he had to catch his breath mid-sentence and naturally the mcdonald’s worker kept cutting him off asking, what? 

now i was mad at the mcdonalds guy

THE BROTHER SAID FIVE APPLE PIES i yelled into the box. 

as we waited for the cars ahead of us, dwayne handed me a $20 and asked, if i pay you cash, can you to take me to the next stop?

why yes you can, dwayne, i said and tucked that bill into my emergency hidey hole.

but take note would be uber drivers, do not accept money for a new trip until you know the full details. they may want you to take them to malibu. or san diego. or omg in-n-out.

and if he passes out in your car and the meter is off, you are no longer protected by anything – you have no insurance for this and no record of anything. and now you have a half-dead Black man in your car drooling on his 3 mcgriddles and 5 apple pies. that’s a lot of explaining you’ll have to do,

especially if the cop looks at the receipt and it says five pies but they only count three.

but bro was strong, gasping for breath a lot, but hanging in there.

so, fuckit. i asked him how it happened. how did you lose your lung? please say from gambling, i joked, and he smiled.

one day i was feeling a little light headed, so i went to urgent care and the nurse asked me if i wanted any water. i said yes. and when she returned, i reached for it, i blinked and woke up a week later, he said.

i saw tears welling up in his eyes as he spoke, but surely thats just a condition?he couldnt be crying telling me this story? this is a tale he must have told hundreds of times.

but the more he went on, the more he cried. 

of the long list of bad traits that i have, is the fact i cannot have sadness in my personal space for long. i blame the 50 years of the chicago cub futility i experienced. as he was sitting back there waiting for his ridiculous mcgriddles order, crying his eyes out, i said something you would probably predict would come from me:

can a guy with one lung smoke weed?

we got to the window. pretty girl with great makeup refused to make eye contact with us and did not want to hand over the 12 sugars and 3 creamers but i was there for my man, forcefully, and she relented. 

i asked him where the next stop was. crips territory, he told me. and oddly i knew where that was because of a previous passenger – just like six blocks away. 

when we got there, he finally answered and said, i get high every day. it’s the one thing that really works for me.

shocked, i asked, edibles? vaping?

i have a little bong… on my nightstand. dwayne said. 

i gave him $10 back. he resisted. bruh, that was such a short second stop. that wasn’t worth $10.

are you sure, he asked?

yes, buy a nice dimebag with it.

then dwayne walked slowly into a raggedy apartment building with breakfast for himself and who knows who else. a dog barked as he struggled with the metal security door and two kids came running out saying, unk is that for us?

and now if anyone ever asks me to go into a drive thru or make another stop im gonna say this dude with one lung gave me $20 for such a request

see how much they tipped

drove 12 hours. sorta cuz i needed to. sorta cuz i could.

maybe this is how it is with you too, but even when i don’t have any responsibilities, there’s still a major tug of war in my head between the things i wanna do and the things i gotta do.

i want to drive uber every day. i was obsessed when i began 10 years ago. im still obsessed now.

i wear copper-lined fingerless gloves to help heal my occasionally pained hands. and like a baseball pitcher, i take days off to rest my bones.

drove 12 hours today because it was 12 hours of pain-free joy.

they were all long trips, each one longer than the last, from far on this side of LA to way east of it.

took an 82 year-old man from a hospital near long beach to an inglewood funeral home, and i got his phone number because i need him on my dumb podcast, the second love of my life.

that thing is my demanding young wife who asks me to be home tuesdays and wednesdays to deliver our weekly baby.

my third wife is the rock ‘n’ roll i am blessed to be able to write.

this old man had so much life in him. mostly Black, the rest Cherokee. from miami but moved to LA in the ’50s.

he said Blacks back then werent allowed to have any good jobs so he was a janitor for a while and when the owners of nate and als found out he knew how to cook kosher they hired him.

how did you learn to do that?

boy, even back then florida was full of Jews. i came here knowin’ how to cook that food.

i then took a truck driver from LAX to his recently repaired 18-wheeler way out in commerce

every question i asked returned a better, wilder answer

what made you become a truck driver?

got thrown in jail and no one else would hire a felon

learn anything good in the slammer?

learned how to grow the best damn weed in uruguay

uruguay?

in 2013, they were the first country in the world to legalize it, so i moved down there to do what i was doing in the mafia run warehouses in jersey. but bigger.

was taking a leak at the target in duarte, when i got a lyft ping from the city of hope hospital to take someone to a hotel in el segundo

was hoping it was a lonely nurse.

ended up being an actual angel

a lively german woman who could talk and talk and talk.

she flies from bavaria to europe, australia, and the states delivering life saving stem cells in a small blue insulated container that could easily be confused as her lunch.

her job is twofold: make sure the thing gets to the hospital in 72 hours (usually takes just 48), and make sure it stays cold. easy-peasy.

i told her she has good mojo and asked if there was a german word for mojo. she said nine.

what about juju? also, nine.

sometimes she gets to spend a day or two in the city to chill, but usually she flies back the next day to pick up another box of stem cells to take to the next country and save the next persons life. the life is saved 80% of the time.

shes paid well, makes her own schedule and gets to keep the frequent flyer miles.

i said i’ve never had a saint in my car before. please put in a good word to the man upstairs bc i could use it.

she said, what? you’re such a nice young man. you call your mother, you read the bible, you drive people so far with such ease, and you listen so well. i can tell you care. why do you feel you’re bad?

im not that young anna, and im not that good. one of my biggest regrets is that i broke someones heart who was probably also, like you, an angel, and when she reports back, im in deep trouble.

anna chuckled and took a sip out of her water bottle.

no really, what did you do to her?

i made her cry. i wooed her. i whispered all these things all night under the streetlights in my car. and then when she fell in love, i broke up with her.

but why anthony?

because i knew i wasn’t good enough for her. i wanted a slut. i wanted someone who would dress up like a hooker and do drugs with me and invite other women home and play outrageous games and drink and pass out and — all the things she was not. i didnt want to change her, because she was pure, but every date we went on i corrupted her more and more. i had to stop it. id never met anyone so truly… holy. so when you report in with the boss, please tell him im sorry and ive been trying to make up for it.

anna asked, what do you think the odds are we can get to el segundo in time for the sunset?

relieved to change the subject, i glanced at the eta on my phone, asked siri when sunset was, and stepped on it.

thanks to waze, the car pool lane, and bypassing the 101/110 interchange by zigzagging through dtla, we made it to the 105/405 with 20 minutes to spare.

so i said, anna i never do this. ever. but el segundo is no place for a saint to take in her first LA sunset of the year

how about we drop your bags off at your hotel front desk, and i take you to manhattan beach pier 12 minutes away? on me.

see how much they tipped

i dont usually drive at night as im nervous about drunks. but it was st. paddys which can be big money and i missed a day of work while recording the podcast, so i needed to make up for it by driving as long as i could.

even in the dark. 

i had been doing long drives during the day, ones id normally ignore, but uber and lyft were giving me offers i couldnt refuse. 

i got not one, but two trips over $60, each an hour and fifteen minutes long and 54 miles. was it christmas?

but after the second long ride, i experienced the thing i feared.

it was suddenly 8pm, dark, and i was in an unknown part of the world: on the wrong side of the orange curtain.

so when i received a decent offer for a short trip, i accepted it. 

naturally, two drunkards. but they were adults. parents, probably. looked like any rich mom and dad youve met. first, they whined about our handsome liberal governor.

but then they complained to me about how they had committed a faux pas at the restaurant with one of the gay waiters, and it escalated into dirty looks and shortness .the couple decided not to leave a tip on a $100 check. they thanked me for allowing them to vent.

you know what you can do, i said to the slurring pair, you can give me his tip and all will be right in the universe.

AND THEY DID. 

9 minute trip, $20 tip. $26.85 total?

it’s for the service of being our therapist, the dad said holding the door over for his tipsy wife.

great, but now i was in yorba linda, in the dark. st pukey’s day.

and thats when i got a ping to go from nearby placentia to reseda for $40. 

when i accepted, i saw the guy’s name was miguel. which made me nervous because i like to talk about “hear tales” and sometimes my passengers don’t speak english. and believe it or not, but when i DONT talk, and it’s night, i get a little drowsy. sometimes i have to pinch myself or pull nose hairs out to stay awake. its kinda dangerous to be honest.

i thought i should cancel because it might be a long stretch of not talking to each other. but i resisted. 

then i turned into a motor home park. i nearly canceled again, but i thought of you. you’d like to hear about trailer park miggy.

then i felt bad when i saw these were actually really beautiful motor homes. double-wides. fucking OC. this was like the best motor park id ever seen. there were flowers in front people’s homes and a covered parking lot. there was a pool for everyone. christmas lights hung between two palm trees, all strung up and cute. it was cool. better than my crib!

out comes a latino guy, middle age, cowboy hat, dress shirt, bolo tie, jeans, and a goatee. a minute later, an even bigger guy wearing all that stuff too. they got in the back and we were off. 

by now you know the first thing i do is verify where the hell we’re going.

OK, coco bongo in reseda? is that a restaurant? i asked.

reseda?! we’re going to downey, miguel said, looking panicked and opening his phone in the dark back seat.

i pulled over as he struggled to change the destination in the app. he explained it was a country-and-western dancing place. 

then he clarified ranchera, mexican country western music.

he figured out how to change the address. my screen was updated and we headed to downey. miguel sighed and said something in spanish to his pal. 

he asked me how much i knew about ranchera music, mexico, and mexicans? i said i had been to baja countless times, even san felipe and cancun, but none of those probably count. 

they count, he said. his buddy kept quiet. didn’t even fiddle with his phone. 

why did you go to san felipe? miguel asked.

oh, it was a long time ago, maybe 25 years ago. two of my stoner friends and i were at a lame party in san diego on a really warm night and decided to just drive all night into mexico to see how far we could go. this was before gps or smart phones. we ended up in san felipe. 

i really want to go to mexico city tho, i said, getting on the pretty empty freeway

miguel said he had lived in mexico city for a month for work and loved it. i’d move there if i could, he said. 

whats stopping you? i asked, wondering if i had ever heard of a mexican dude fail at trying to move to mexico. 

my family, my friends, he said 

and my husband. 

he squeezed the knee of the big strong silent guy next to him. 

MIGUEL! how long have you two been married? 

truthfully, we’re gonna get married in june. 

and like you, i suddenly had lots of questions. too many questions!

when did he come out? has he kissed girls? how did they meet? were his parents cool with him being gay? was the husband’s family cool with it? 

25, several when he was younger to fool everyone, at a gay country western dance club, yes, no but they’re warming up to it. 

did you say a gay ranchera dance club miguel? 

si.

was it in DTLA? 

no, anaheim. 

they have that in OC? 

amigo, we’re everywhere. 

looks like you are, my man. i love this! i said. so let me ask you this. i am black, and some black men feel they can’t be open about being gay. they have to be on the ‘down low.’ is that how it is in mexico too? 

it depends on how catholic the family is and how much machismo the dad has. many mexican dads don’t want to tell their friends the one thing they’ve always feared admitting: my son is gay. 

i shook my head and frowned behind my n95 mask

then he asked me, but do you know how important Black people are to gay rights? 

that page must of have been torn out of my critical race theory book, i said, educate me! 

stonewall. those were Black drag queens who had had enough, he said.

get out! 

really! he said and then translated it for his fiancé. 

all i could make out was negro. 

see how much they tipped

she was filled with attitude and an accent i couldn’t place at first. her name was victoria, but that had to be fake.

picked her up at the giant motel 6 near lax up against the 405. id dealt with passengers there before, usually travelers who needed to get to the airport. it was a short little jaunt as long as there was no traffic at the airport’s horseshoe loop.

but victoria’s request said she was going up century, east a few miles. simple.

as i rolled into its driveway, i could see about a dozen worn out visitors in the lobby waiting their turn to check in or check out.

first thing i noticed, you probably woulda too, was how fucked the feng shui was: construction in the parking lot, a fenced-in dog walking area over there, cones and nonsense over here, and a temporary chain-link fence near the doorman.

out came victoria with three suitcases, which i did not help her with because i was mad she made me wait the full three minutes to come to the car. 

but finally i sighed, and helped her anyway, because she was going to bring one of the bags into the car and that always leads to a seat getting scratched or the inside of the door getting dinged

or omg! dirty wheels rolling across my moneymaking back seat. 

they done kicked me out because i was burning incense, she said as i slid back behind the wheel.

who? 

those raggedy assed negros at the motel 6.

and indeed, one of her beat up bags did happen to reek, delightfully, like an entire incense convention.

they probably thought i was hiding the fact i was smoking. but I was not smoking. i burn it for my anxiety. i don’t even have any weed, but imma get some as soon as you get my Black ass to the next trap spot.

i turned down the heavy metal that was soothing my anxiety and worked my way out of the weirdly barren motel 6 parking lot. it was weird because it was the thursday of coachella. almost all of my passengers were either crashing in la for a night before heading to palm springs or coming to LA to escape the onslaught there. every other hotel was nearly full.

she kept talking while rifling through one of her purses. i didn’t do nothing wrong. i know what to do: i’m a sex worker. but i took last night off so i could sleep. i was burning incense and they got this big brother up at my door knocking saying, ‘you gotta get up out of here and leave.’ my friend told me to freeze my card so they don’t charge me an extra $250 fee, but i don’t even have $250 left on that card. but i done froze it anyway. HA! can i roll this down a bit, sugar? she asked while lowering her window. 

immediately i took her side in the discussion because that motel 6 was seedy af. they had no reason to kick her out. and Lord knows people are smoking all sorts of things in that place which is why they pay the $100 or whatever they do for a tiny room in the 8-story building across from a liquor store and a dozen shittier motels. 

one of which we were heading to. 

i wanted to ask her how much she charged, but how do you even say that?

she said, i just need a spot where i can make some money to get my mans out of prison. we were in san diego, and i done tole him he on probation, be cool, but he couldn’t resist and got popped for a two-eleven (robbery) with a strike. 

how many strikes does he have? i asked, knowing that if it was his third offense and one was violent, he would face a mandatory minimum of 20 years under the state’s controversial Three Strikes Law.

it’s his second, she said. was she filing her nails back there?

we passed a burger king, a dollar tree, a spanish language check-cashing joint and a row of abandoned buildings graffitied with all sorts of things. i turned a corner and we approached her new motel, which was row after row of motel rooms attached to each other. 

it was a weird little motel village, painted brown, with scenes of touristy LA landmarks on the walls: a sad, almost impressionistic hollywood sign, then marilyn monroe, then the santa monica pier sign. all of it looked rushed, painted by someone with an unsteady hand using paint that could not wait to fade. 

the driveway was too narrow. an unusually long pickup truck was blocking our path but I got around it. was i on shrooms?

baby, do you know where I can get some good schwerm? she asked. at first, i thought she was requesting mediterranean food, but this girl knows shes in the hood and there isn’t a shawarma spot worth the risk anywhere near here. 

so I assumed she meant indica. 

just download weedmaps and they’ll deliver it for free right to your room I said, and put the car in park. 

hold up. hold up. hold the fuck up! she demanded, clacking her long fingernails on my head rest. you telling me niggas gonna roll up to me with bags of weed, free delivery, and i pay them cash money and i don’t even have to leave my room?

that is what I am saying, yes. you are in Los Angeles now. the real magic kingdom. 

imma wear out that app then, victoria said, and whispered something to herself like, those delivery boys gonna give me a whole mess more than schwerm.

see how much they tipped

he was old. older than i thought. 

picked him up near the LAX in-n-out. he carried a small bag and a big suitcase. 

i had been waiting around the airport for a fat ride but there were 100 drivers ahead of me in the virtual line and uber is mad at drivers right now for some reason.

it doesn’t want to give us fat rides unless it’s a friday or saturday night after the bars close, but my benz has been vomit free and i’d like to keep it that way. so there i was at noon at the airport getting little rides. baby rides. rides that should be thrown back into the water to grow.

but the jokes on uber, which hasn’t yet realized that little rides add up if you can do them quickly.

his name was bernard. old and Black. usually i’d help people with their luggage, but earlier in the week, i helped a woman who had an extremely heavy metal suitcase and because God loves me i didn’t strain my back.

but in my ear he whispered, don’t be an idiot, let them break their own body. 

so bernard lifted his beat up samsonite into the trunk, scooted over to the door with a limp, and i felt terrible when i saw how hunched over he was. Black folk should help one another out. i didn’t realize how old he was. 

awkwardly he got in and said, sorry, I am blind in one eye.

oh god, i thought. im going to hell.

he adjusted himself in his seat like a rickety lawn chair trying to fit back into its box. 

praise Jesus for fixing us up with two eyes or i wouldn’t be able to see at all, he laughed cheerfully. 

this trip was scheduled for two miles.

the sheraton at the airport, correct?  I asked. always ask. Sometimes they type it in wrong.

especially if they’re blind in one eye.

correct. i’m meeting up with a girl i went with 40 years ago. We both have gotten rid of our balls and chains and arranged to meet in LA. she’s from N’awlins. I’m from savannah.

i smiled behind my covid mask. look at you bernard! i said, old as dirt and still having rendezvouses!

he he he he chuckled. if you don’t use it, boy, it’ll fall off. you know this!

i checked my uber map and saw two hotels side by side, the sheraton and the hyatt. to keep rides quick, it helps to triple-check with passengers as the trip is happening so there are no surprises at the destination.

you’d be shocked how often there are surprises.

OK, so are we sure it’s the sheraton and not the hyatt? I asked. 

he held the phone very far away from his good eye, and then very close. we were getting closer. then he said, hot damn, she booked such an expensive hotel. yes, the sheraton. does she think I’m made of money?

i laughed and said, the only reason men get paid more than women is so we can give them the difference.

i know that’s right, he laughed and clapped his hands. 

donna summer was playing on the groove station on siriusxm. channel 50. 

i was so curious what this woman looked like, but before i could ask anything stupid, we were there. 

a few cars were ahead of us. then I spied a vision walking out from the sliding glass doors.

it was a young woman, with her long hair pulled back into two long ponytails. her head was shiny from product.

giant sunglasses. 

she was wearing a little top and zigzag-patterned yoga pants that accentuated every curve of her lower half. 

hot damn, girl! the old man said a tiny bit louder than he should have. 

bernard has been healed by booty! i announced, laughing while getting out, and helping him this time, with his crusty bags.

see how much they tipped

i drove on halloween. i love the costumes and the people. even though it’s dangerous and could get pukey, i went for it

sergio, at the rideshare guy, was recommending drivers ignore long trips on halloween because we were getting $10-$24 bonuses on each trip regardless of its length

sometimes those bonuses were just $5 and the excursion from mid city to woodland hills was estimated to take 30 minutes and paying $34.

a buck-a-minute is a pretty good rate, so i put on my cap and got out of the house.

the best trip was with an associate at salesforce who had just gone to a birthday party at this place that used to be a classic, old firestone tires, over on la brea.

now it’s a trendy microbrewery with $10 mac n cheese and skee-ball.

he was drunk and happy, but nervous, because he was going on a blind date when he got home. so i tried to build up his self esteem by pretending i knew something about women.

i hear they’re as horny as we are, i said

get out.

thats what they tell me.

dude.

crazy!

he had been in the marines, stationed in some northern island off japan. he said you could get the best sushi meal up there for like $30.

how pretty were the women? 

soooo pretty. they didn’t even cost as much as you’d think.

wait wait, dont young women love a man in uniform? didnt you and your buddies walk around in your sunday bests and just rake in the lovelies? 

at first i was afraid they would hate us, he said, because we blew them up and whatever. but they don’t. most of them, even the older people, love us because we protect them from north korea. and china. and russia.

ok, so why did you have to go to hookers? 

well, i tried not to look like a marine. i never wore my uniform. i want people to treat me normally.

fine, but you look like a grass-fed nebraska man: tall, big-boned, all-american white usa. didn’t some of them want that? i asked. 

i wish. japanese girls love Black guys. so we just paid, had a good time and returned to the base on time.

the 405 on saturday night at 10pm was like pandemic-times. no traffic. at all. my uber app kept saying bro, 70 mph? well done. it was just chilly enough to keep the windows up. but not cold enough for the heater. i was wearing a mask. 

what did they have you do over there? 

jack shit, he said. 

excuse me?

modern warfare is all about long range missiles from an aircraft carrier hundreds of miles away – not boots on the ground in north korea. 

so cyber warfare?

yep.

did they teach you any of that? 

we were mushrooms, he said, as i cracked the moon roof open cuz i think he let one fly back there.

they kept us in the dark and fed us bullshit.

we got to his gated community of identical bachelor apartments.

we bumped knuckles. he stumbled out. 

see how much they tipped

she told me that she went to high school near the beach. her momma sent her there instead of to a closer school there in the hood

i was taking her from the airport to her little home on 60th street in south la

i love driving people so much it’s insane.

when she got in, she had her granddaughter on the speakerphone explaining how to do uber.

ok, im in baby, now what button do i push?

you don’t push anything. you just sit back and talk to the driver. we can see him taking you home. don’t worry, she said.

how can they see you? the woman asked me.

i wanted to make a slightly off-color joke about how big brother can see us all, even when we’re taking a dump, but i kept it to myself.

your daughter can see our dot on her phone

she’s my grandbaby, she said. i dont understand this technology these days. why are we a dot on her phone?

we might be a little car, im not sure. anyway, if i drive you to hollywood, they’ll see us, and they can call the police.

now why would anyone want to kidnap an old lady like me? she laughed.

are you kidding? i asked, i bet you can coooooooook.

you aint lyin boy. i put my foot in it.

tell your granddaughter we’re going to take a detour. then, lets get some, you buy we fry catfish at the corner.

she laughed. i laughed. granddaughter laughed, still on speakerphone.

he black, granny? the voice squawked from her phone.

seems so. light-skinned boy, she said.

boy? i laughed. im 57!

say what? black don’t crack, she said to herself.

black folk know. very few others do. which is nice too.

black man in a benz? does it look stolen? her granddaughter asked.

now how am i supposed to know what a stolen car look like? the woman, asked, chuckling. i never got her name because the ride was under her granddaughter’s name, anne.

yes, this is stolen. ’ll return it after i drop your grandma off, But Only If She Makes Me Some Hushpuppies with that Catfish!

oh you got a fool driving you, gran, ok bye! and she hung up, satisfied everyone was safe.

plus the dot was going the right way.

granny then told me about going to school by the airport in the 1970s:

sock hops, football games, always eating lunch outside.

sock hops?

i was so excited when i became a senior because i could sit on the senior lawn and eat, she recalled — beaming like she had just been blessed with this honor yesterday.

dont let them catch you sitting there if you weren’t a senior, she cackled.

i asked if everyone knew what year everyone was.

oh yes. don’t let ‘em catch you on that lawn, ya hear?

driving from near her high school, to the house where she grew up in the shadow of the 110 freeway, would take us exactly 39 minutes, so i asked her how long it took to take the bus to school every day.

multiple busses, she clarified. i took three busses. one to inglewood – market street, one to westchester and one to the school. it took about two hours each way, she said, but she loved that school.

what was your mascot? i asked her and she searched her memory banks.

the comets!

with good conversations like this one, i turn the stereo down to barely audible. low enough so there isn’t silence, but high enough so they dont have to yell if they want to say something.

kc and the sunshine band were playing when i caught her looking out the window as we zipped past dulan’s soul food on crenshaw

we would play crenshaw all the time. back then they were good. they hated us.

why?

because we were a white school. i was one of the few colored girls. they would wait for all us black kids to get off the bus at market to walk across the street to catch the next bus. they wanted to fight. i looked away. but i heard. i heard them call us all the most disgusting names just because we wanted to go to that school.

once, we were beating them badly in basketball. my friend saw people were whispering. the whispering got to us.

get on the bus, charlene

before the fourth quarter started, we were on a school bus

out of there.

see how much they tipped