Page 15 - ARRS #582 - The Mystery of the Lost Wallet

Another Random Road Story #582

Finally he was all back inside, and he pulled the door closed behind
himself. The light went out but the door hadn’t closed all the way – I could
tell by the sound of the click when he pulled it shut.
“Your door isn’t all the way closed, can you give it another try?” I said.
The man with the sandy hair and island shirt rearranged himself and then
got the door good and tight. (Good boy.) When that was done I mumbled that
we were taking off, and I got us back onto the road.
I punched the button for the smooth jazz station on the radio, hoping that
the guy would fall back asleep and we’d have a peaceful end to the ride.
After all the road drama settled back down, with us comfortably on our
way again, I checked the rear-view mirror and saw that he was awake. He
was sitting up, sandy hair even more unkempt, looking out the window
through crooked glasses. He seemed more lucid. He was definitely awake.
Not a word from this guy. Some drunks, you can’t shut ‘em up.
I felt bad for him, falling in the mud like that. So I tried to set him at ease.
“My name is Mavis. What’s your name?”
After a brief pause he said, “Sebastian.”
“Nice to meet ya,”
“I’ve never had a woman cab driver before.”
“Well… we get to do a lot of things since they let us out of the kitchen…
we get to wear pants and everything!!” I gave him my standard smart-ass
response to a statement I’ve heard a thousand times.
[silence]
Hmm… usually that line gets a laugh… but not with this one.
He was still staring out his window.
“I went to the Hens game today,” he said, referring to our baseball team,
the Toledo Mud Hens.
“Oh, cool. How are they doing this year?”
By this time we were getting off the expressway and within a few miles of
his house. We chatted until we reached his home, which was in a spacious
high class neighborhood on a small winding lane – the kind that has no
sidewalks. Large houses sat far back from the lane, each in its own little
meadow surrounded by trees.
He directed me through several turns onto other small winding lanes, and
finally to one house in particular. My no-driveway policy doesn’t apply in
rich-people-land so I swung the big cab onto the perfect asphalt path. We
went up a small hill toward the big house.
It was a horse-shoe driveway (Of course!) and I positioned myself close to
his front door even as I still had a straight trajectory back out to the street.
The taximeter read $38.75 in big red digits. I hit the “time off” button.