A Fare to 121st and Lexington
His coaxing finger barks
for my attention through the fog
of car exhaust and cigarettes,
and I yank my piss-colored hack
across the swarm of late-night
Manhattan traffic.
Cigarette butt in one hand,
brown-paper bag in the other,
he stumbles into the backseat,
demands I take him to 121st
and Lexington, Teasers Strip Club,
and I venture towards the epicenter
of the City’s black hole.
He has no business being my patron;
even a broke cabbie has integrity,
but my own judgment lapses
at the thought of my children
rummaging through garbage,
searching for a future
the more fortunate throw away.
The city’s cacophony slices
through his indifferent silence.
Fellow motorists blare trumpets
as I cut them off on 78th,
but I rejoin the symphony
as a Honda Civic runs a red
on 116th towards Broadway.
He bobs his head melodically
to this dissonant opera,
one with the chaos,
the despondence, the anguish.
He finally breaks his reticence
to describe tonight’s main
attraction, a well-endowed
showgirl called Roxxie. He
shifts his gaze to the portrait
of my wife resting on the dashboard
and whoops that he’d pay good
money to see her strut the stage.
My eyelids flicker with silent
indignation, but I remain fixated
on the quiet tick of the fare box.
I approach 121st street, take
a left onto Lexington Avenue.
As we arrive, he glares spitefully
at his near-empty wallet,
hands me half the fare,
and, with a smirk too heavy handed,
promises to pay me the rest next time.
Trumpet blasting, I launch
one last hate-filled rant before he
disappears into the cabaret
with my little girls’ lunch money.
Zack Maluccio