Consider This a Kiss
by Jane Hoppe
“Are
you the lady who’s a writer?” the cabbie asked. “I picked up a lady with your
last name from this apartment building about two years ago. I think she said
she wrote books. I like to write, too, so we had a nice conversation about
writing.”
Two
years ago, before I abandoned my book, I would have publicly called myself a
writer. But I blanked on this cabbie connection. Embarrassment about not
remembering him and reawakened discouragement about my writing paralyzed my
tongue. The publisher’s rejection letter in my dusty manuscript file flashed
behind my closed eyes. I dared not expose my pen’s two-year dry spell to the
driver of Cab No. 217. I squeezed back tears. No longer willing to say out loud
that I am a writer, I could not enter into his unspoiled enthusiasm for our
shared passion.
He
filled the silence. “I have so many ideas for books … so many ideas, but I don’t
write them down. It’s frustrating!”
“I’ve
heard writers say that what you’re experiencing is common among all writers. Do
you prefer writing fiction or nonfiction?” I inquired.
“Fiction. Once when I
was driving over a bridge, the rumbling of my tires got my imagination going so
strong, I didn’t even hear the dispatcher calling me.”
Just as my preference
for nonfiction was about to slip off my tongue, I remembered my charade and
kept silent. To lower the risk that he’d resurrect the subject of my writing, I asked some polite
questions about word processing software, and then, “What experiences driving a
cab do you want to write about?” I studied the wide bow of his horn-rimmed
glasses pressing into his graying right temple, and I returned his
rearview-mirror eye contact as he talked the whole rest of the way to the
airport. I scooched forward to hear the stories he wanted to include in his
book, if only he would write them down.
He had picked up a
Chinese lady in her forties and her elderly mother. As they spoke with each
other in No. 217’s backseat, he began to hear a different sound, like tiny
laughter, which he soon realized was actually the old woman softly crying.
He lobbed a cautious, “Everything
okay?” into the backseat.
“My husband. He stole
my teeth,” the elder lady replied in a wavering voice. No. 217 was just
thinking stolen teeth would make a funny story when she added, “He hide denture
so I not eat. He angry rit me. Punish me.” Shame almost swallowed her voice. In
the rearview mirror, No. 217 glimpsed the wiry white head disappearing into her
daughter’s shoulder. He refrained from asking how long this horrible cruelty
had gone on. I wondered if he would weep when he eventually put this story on
paper.
Then there was the
business-suited drunk girl deposited in his backseat by a concerned bartender. “Get
on 53,” she slurred. No. 217 did. “No, now go back the other way.” He turned
the cab around. “I want to go into Chicago.” He headed toward the city. She had
refused to tell him where she lived. Then she passed out. This couldn’t go on.
Yet he dared not touch her to shake her awake or even lift her head to receive
some coffee. So he stopped the taxi, turned to her, and spoke sternly, “If you
don’t tell me where you live, I’m going to take you directly to the police
station.” With this, the young woman stirred, propping herself up on one elbow.
“Derek, that’s my
boyfriend—well, former boyfriend—bought
me a couple margaritas. Then he went to the washroom. Twenty minutes of waiting
and I went to look for him.”
“Did you find him?”
queried the cabbie.
“Oh yeah, I found him
all right. I found him in the corner booth schmoozin’ his lips off with the
floozy entertainment.”
“Ouch.”
“He traded me in for a
go-go dancer,” she choked, “me, with a marketing degree and at only
twenty-five, my own advertising business—me, who loved him.”
No. 217 was quiet.
“How could he do this
to me? I turned away from him so fast and hid in a crowd of friends in another
booth, and well, I guess I ordered one too many martinis after that. Who called
you, anyway?”
“The bartender. Listen,
I am going to give you some advice. You would be better off worrying about your
advertising business than worrying about this guy.”
She gave No. 217 her
address. She paid him. But before she stepped out of the cab, she reached
forward and with two fingers on his chin, pulled his cheek toward her and
kissed him. With a gentle brush of his own fingers on that cheek, he shyly
showed me the exact spot.
“What’s that for?” he
asked her.
“Thank you for telling
me the truth.”
If not with a kiss,
then with words, I wish I had thanked No. 217 for showing me the truth. And I
wish I had at least admitted my discouragement to him. My conversation with this
compassionate cabbie showed me I can’t write and hide at the same time. I did
write down this story before I forgot it, and that’s a start. Other real-life
stories are waiting to be told.
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