she was poorly dressed for the weather which had changed and was no longer scalding and repressive, and somehow flipped and required a hoodie or a jacket
all she had on was a long, what are those called, what you wear under a dress,
a slip
it looked like one at least from the glance i got when i picked her up behind birds across from the celebrity center
short blouse bangles catseye eyeliner and the tiniest purse ive ever seen
we were headed towards the hollywood bowl but she said oh shit can i change where we’re going
heres the thing about driving uber these days
these days you know where youre going, which seems reasonable, but in the earlier days you had no idea. soon they changed it slightly so that you didnt know where you were going but they decided they should tell you if you’re gonna be going more than 45 minutes away.
i think they were worried that people wouldnt take certain trips if they knew where they were going, and they were right. but at some point the amount of drivers they allowed on the platform had saturated things so much that they could tell you, you’d decline the trip, and the next guy will take it.
but when someone is in your car, and they decide to call an audible, even if you have nothing planned for the day, like how i didnt, can get a little squirrely for the 20 seconds between when they say that and you see it changed on your iphone.
ba-leep the phone sounded and you think just dont be san diego
and when its not youre all thanks lord
when its malibu though youre like ah fuck
not because of anything other than its hard to get back from there. people arent taking as many ubers from malibu to not-malibu as youd think. its why they live there. because it’s not woodland hills. it’s not mid wilshire. it’s not chesterfield square.
it’s great but you pretty much have to just get your ass to santa monica as fast as you can after you drop them off.
then she said oh wait no. fuck. ugh. and she typed in something more.
ba-leep. echo park?
ugh, yes. she sighed. we were about 15-20 minutes away from echo park. which is in the other direction so i made a u turn, right in front of a cop, who seemed ok with it.
seeing as it was legal and everything but you dont ever really know.
im sorry can you just drive, she asked, and started to cry
the tesla has this giant screen thats your map and controllers. it’s also your music. as we waited at the light i typed in monk paris 1969 light blue
its this live album of thelonious with a quartet or something. sax players good but not famous far as i know.
i just wanted to drown her out. no one who lives that close to birds should be crying in their nightie at not even 8pm
you could hear her back there texting, two thumb texting which ive not mastered. i dug into my center console and pulled out a little stack of mcdonalds napkins, she accepted and sniffed
usually id have asked what the crying was all about but the other day i was in the back of an uber myself and i didnt wanna talk to him and he didnt wanna talk to me and i happened to have ear buds and i sat back there in my own space with my head down and wrote a little poem to my baby telling her how i want her to tell the angels that im on to them that i know shes an angel because we were nuzzling the other night under the sheets before lights out and i whispered something and she laughed and i said i coulda sworn i heard a little toot
and that made her laugh even louder which sounded like another one and it made me jump out of bed grab a pen and put two lines on my man todds calendar under the date to remind myself that i was funny at least twice on that day
which made her laugh again but not to fruition
her phone rang silently and she got right into it with her bestie. about how her man had done her wrong again. i was trying not to pay attention. i was trying to give her her little space like i had had my little space. but charlie had written her a text that she was now reading to her friend in an imitation of charlie that i dont think he would have appreciated.
i had decided to take fountain as far east as i could. maybe thered be a cliff with a dragon awaiting i could drive into. they say libras are the wrong shoulder to cry on but i think im really a gemini. who even knows any more. her friend was giving her advice. i know. i know the crying woman in the back kept saying.
i just had to get out of there she said which explained the get up. i wondered if i had a hoodie in the trunk, if i gave it to her id never get it back and if it is the hoodie i thought it might be, it was a xxl black obey one i got at the obey sample sale and i love it so much in part because those sales are so good bc this thing only cost me 40 and i saw it at some store for 90 its why half of the things i wear are obey. and black. reasonably priced good quality goes with anything.
i know she said. ok. bye hannah.
and then she said sir excuse me. do you have any more?
of course i said and dug into another compartment and got some wendys napkins. but just call me merle. only the feds call me sir.
but on the app it says your name is–
merle. that app is crap i said and switched over to steve miller
this heres the story of billy joe and bobby sue
merle she said, can i pay you just to drive
two young lovers with nothing better to do
i feel like youve asked me to do that twice i said both times i was literally driving
i mean she said can you just drive around?
and as she said it she cried worse: ive got nowhere to go
and i wanted to say hey siri play nowhere is my home by the replacements
which you never know might have been the perfect thing
but i went back to thelonious monk
and at the stop light i ran out of the car. quickly to the trunk which i had popped. into the hidey hole under the trunk
pulled out my extra soft extra extra large obey hoodie
closed the trunk and hauled ass back to the drivers seat and tossed her the hoodie
and said how about i drive up there
and pointed to the hollywood hills
and she nodded
with mascara streaming
into my blackness