This Ain't Sunset Boulevard

No stranger to a bit of bad luck and a sense of cynicism, Mr. Jay Chase shows us why it's crucial to be able to distinguish the full-blown crazy cab drivers from the mediocre nut-jobs. Sitting on the bus after this shit went down, he goes on a bit of a verbal-killing-spree, writing for SuckitbySina a play-by-play of the most dangerous $5.50 he ever did almost spend. Well, almost the most dangerous: the cheap hookers will get you, Jay. Hail with caution kid:

I like to flag cabs like I imagine a gentleman would. I puff stoically on a cigarette, turn my back defiantly against the wind and confidently ignore the peasants on the bus, the model in my head being based roughly on the Monopoly guy. I heiled the Bay Cab and it swung across three lanes, brakes whining like a selfish toddler at Christmas. Admittedly, not a good start.

I climbed into the backseat quickly, casting a semi-apologetic shrug to the indignant traffic honking and screaming at the what seemed to be the Crocodile Dundee of daring cab drivers. He looked like a cookie cutter mold of all the old Bears fans from the nineteen eighties I'd come to know in Chicago: overweight, a thick, impractical neck and a voice like a belch.
“Where you headed?” he expelled. 
“Uh, Fulton and Parker,” I murmured. 

I don't claim to know a great deal about bears but it seemed to me a safe bet to not make eye contact, or whatever his woeful neck could manage from the front seat. He fit into the car like a mistake, his overwhelming girth stretching the limits of the narrow driver's seat. To say that we took off from there would be an insult to fighter jets. As the cab accelerated my back smacked the seat, my fingers flying frantically for the “OH SHIT” handle on the door. 

I don't wear seatbelts in cabs. As I see it, it's an act of feeble defiance to the Man. Don't fuck with me I'm PAYING to be here. Also, I like to imagine myself a cosmopolitan urbanite who simply cannot be bothered with the hassle and inconvenience of the two point five seconds it takes to click it or the impatient tug at the pudgy reminder of last night's pizza. Even so, at that moment, my eyes pressed into the back of my skull and my genitals scrambling back into my torso, I'll admit that I considered it.

First, however, I checked to see if Dundee was wearing one. No, the bulge of his massive stomach clearly would not allow it. I sunk back and decided to find my happy place. Not knowing where that was, I elected instead to study the cabbie's massive forearm, casually gripping the passenger seat as we broke the sound barrier. Out of the many frekcles and age spots next to the snarl of fat that must have been his elbow, I could make out what appeared to be a box turtle. It was like connecting the dots. Flakes of dead skin hovered above the outskirts of his faded Grateful Dead tattoo.
Thats what I was thinking about the moment the cab dug its teeth into the back of the white Lexus ahead at speed. Had the crash been fatal, I take great offense that my last living memory would amount to the terrified mental equivalent of a Highlights! Magazine puzzle you find at the doctors office and lazily fill out when somebody has already grabbed Home & Garden.

On impact I flew forward, frenching the back of the headrest and chest bumping the seat like an exuberant frat boy on rape night. I'd always entertained the idea that in such circumstances my body would react much like a Navy Seal. I would clutch the seatbelt, lasso it around my arm and brazenly brace for sudden impact with my war face on. Instead, I leaned back as the cab came to rest and examined the spit on the back of the seat with what I'd call my retard face drooping across my head. 

Dundee gave a great sigh in which the syllables of “shiiiiitttttt” could be detected. The Lexus driver got out and began to wave his arms like a drunk juggler.
“Sorry, man,” said the cabbie.

I looked at the meter: $5.50. I'd made it just over four blocks. I briefly considered paying, scrapped the idea, decided to be a man and reassumed my composure. I opened the door I surveyed the damage. The cab took the most of it, the hood at a slight angle and the front grill cracked and broken. I left the two drivers to deal with it all and this witness started down the block. 

A crackhead made a joke which I didn't catch, a bird shit on my shoe and I got on the bus with the other gentlemen.

-Jay Chase