On Saturday night Blara, Caleb and I took a car service home from Greg’s birthday party. In Brooklyn, “car service” means “gypsy cab,” and it’s not at all glamorous.
Before we even got in the car, the driver was giving us attitude. Given that I’m not drinking, I was not drunk, and therefore sensed the tension. Blara and Caleb, on the other hand, were douchebag-numb.
“Man,” the driver said under his breath, as Caleb tumbled into the back seat, and immediately lay his head on my lap. “These fucking idiots.”
“Excuse me?” I asked him.
“What?” he said back, surprised that I was lucid enough to directly address him.
“WHAT??!!!” Blara screamed, and then slapped me on the side of the head.
“Where you going?” the driver asked me through gritted teeth.
I gave him the direction, and he accelerated off of the curb, throwing us back against the seat.
“How much?” I asked him once I had recovered from the impact.
“$17,” he said.
I scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” We were going a distance that in a yellow cab would have cost roughly $7.
“This is why I always ask before I get in the cab,” Caleb said from my lap. “They always cheat you.”
“Where were you three blocks ago?” I asked him, and then turned to the driver. “I’m not paying you $17,” I told him.
“That’s how much it costs,” he said. Clearly, he was not prepared to deal with someone who was sober.
“No, it doesn’t cost that much,” I said.
He gritted his teeth. He sucked air into his nose. He accelerated and slammed on the brakes through the next two stop signs. “Fine,” he said. “$15.”
“Where are you from, homeboy?” Blara yelled at him.
The driver leaned over the dashboard, and turned up the volume of his stereo. From the roof of the car, which was a suped-up minivan, a small movie screen descended. At an ear popping volume, the soundtrack for the Lion King began blasting over the stereo. In front of my eyes Simba, a tiny baby lion, curled up against the body of his dead father.
“Fucking children,” the driver sneered.
“Is this guy joking?” I said to Blara.
“I’m not falling for it,” she responded.
Thirty seconds later, we were riveted to the screen.
Right as we were turning onto Atlantic Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in borough, my phone rang. It was the car service that I had called from Greg’s house, the one that I thought had sent the car we were in. “The car has been waiting outside for you for 10 minutes,” he told me.
“I’m already in a car,” I said. “I thought it was yours.”
“Nope, not ours,” the dispatcher said. He paused. “Be careful,” he said, and then he hung up the phone.
I looked at our driver, hunched over the steering wheel, gunning through red lights. “Fuck,” I thought to myself.
In front of my eyes, Timon and Pumbaa came on the screen, and the opening chords of “Hakuna Matata” swelled throughout the car.
“HAKUNA MATATA!!!” Blara screamed.
The rest of the way home, we sang along at the top of our voices. When we got out of the cab, we tipped the driver 20%. “Fuck you,” he said, or so I imagine, as we spilled out onto the sidewalk, and sleepily made our way up the stairs to our beds.
