Lutman, Richard

The Stars are Out in

Cabland

Richard Lutman

August, 2012

Is it so much to ask to see the pure, clear stars against the sky? I can't help what I am. I didn't ask for this life. It just happened. When I look at the stars I know that I'm part of something beautiful and faraway where nothing matters.

From the floor of the cab I pick up the cheap western I wasted seventy-five cents on. The cover has a picture of a cowboy with his gun drawn.

I start with the blurb on the back cover. ‘Revenge. Hate. Love. Roper came to Wells Crossing planning to marry pretty Barby Ann. He was fed up with the lawman's life. All he wanted was peace. But there was to be no peace in Wells Crossing as long as Luders was alive.’

The park by the cab stand where I stop is empty. I tire of waiting for a fare and start the engine. The motor sputters and dies. As usual the cab needs a tune-up, but what do the bosses care?

I drive past the building where Grace lives. The lights are off in her apartment. When I picked her up in the cab that first night I didn't ever remember seeing anyone look so sad, a sad that was almost as beautiful in the way stars are on the last deep black night of summer. It was that feeling that first made me call her.

“Stars?” she had said. “That’s stupid. I’m not doing anything right now if you want to come up. I’ve never fucked a cabdriver before. Maybe you’re the one who can save me.”

I'm never able to tell her my deepest feelings because it makes her mad. Every time I try, she looks out the bedroom window at nothing or goes into the other room. I need what she has and I wonder if I love her only for that. Maybe I should blame her for the screwed up life I live because she doesn't care what I do. I wonder if someday I'll be able to ride out of the sunset in my cab and save her the way she wants. Then maybe things will be different.

I pull up at the chili place on Broadway. The guy inside leans against the door. His thin, tattooed arms are folded across a grease-spotted white apron.

"How's business?"

"Slow. Better on Friday. Weekends are always best. Friday, Saturday, sometimes Sunday." He nods his head to emphasize the last words. “You want anything? Going to be a long night. I can feel it”

I go back to the cab as I hear the dispatcher call me. I get in and circle the square, heading toward a doctor's office.

There are still no lights on in Grace's apartment. Maybe she'll request me later like she sometimes does. Maybe that’s why I drive, for the one crazy and innocent moment that makes a difference. A young sailor returning to his ship by midnight; the boy and girl on their first date at the movies; the girl in the green blouse with a kitten I bought milk for. The couple that argued then kissed and argued again. Perhaps it’s best to see people only through the rearview mirror as fleeting shapes in the darkness.

The call is an old lady. I turn the cab around and head for the address. She is waiting for me on the curb. I open the back door. She insists on sitting in the front seat. We say nothing. She leans heavily against the door, turning her false teeth about in her mouth. She smells like a pumpkin. It’s a three twenty-five trip. I get out and hold the door for her. She doesn't tip. I climb back in the cab and watch her, hoping she swallows her teeth.

The microphone fits easily in my hand. I start to feel angry at Grace for not being in her apartment. Why isn’t she there? She has no place else to go. I click the button on and off.

"Who's doing that?" says the voice over the radio. "Who's doing that? I can't hear the other cars."

I click the button again.

"Is that you, forty-five?"

"Three twenty-five," I say.

"Roger, forty-five."

I head back to the square. No other cabs are in sight. A new driver is lost, and I hear the dispatcher give him directions.

"Where are you twenty-one? Where? The party just called, she can't see you. That's pretty good. Go back about ten miles. Nineteen, where are you? Go get her. You know where the barn is, twenty-one? Good."

I get out and stand under a tree. Clouds block the stars. A park bum sits on a bench drinking beer from a bottle. He sees me and raises the bottle in a toast.

"Show a man a nickel and he pays for his time," he says, laughing to himself, then rolls the empty bottle under the bench. He wanders off toward the harbor side bars.

"Forty-five?"

I walk quickly to the cab.

"Forty-five?"

“Square," I say.

"The Toledo."

"Roger."

The Toledo's a rooming house near the railroad tracks. I park in front of it. I don't have long to wait. The guy goes to the Lightning Bar about this time every night.

"Forty-five. The Lightning."

"Roger, forty-five. Tell him to watch out for the elephants tonight."

"Fuck you," the man says to the radio.

The Lightning is seven blocks away. It's a quick, silent trip. The guy gets out. He doesn’t tip me.

"Fuck you, too," he says and slams the door. I hear loud polka music coming from the bar as he opens the door and goes inside.

I head back to the square. The street is quiet and the cab lumbers along. I stop at the phone by the movie theater on the other side of the park.

"Forty-five. Three fifty. Out for a couple."

"Roger, forty-five. Bring me a couple, too."

I get out and dial Grace's number. No answer. No answer.

I slump back into the cab.

"Forty-five back."

"All right, back."

Outside a theater I see a very fat man with a child who is eating ice cream. The fat man keeps pulling a watch from his pocket and looking at it.

“Gotta dime, Mister?"

A guy I didn't see coming shoves his head through the window before I can close it.

"No!"

"Come on. You guys always have dimes. You can’t fool me." I give him a dime, hoping he'll go away. "Thank you, Mister. Thank you for your help. You looked kind. Kindness is a good thing. I'm taking up a collection for the Savior. He's coming here soon. It'll happen when everyone can see him. He'll need some money to get started."

"Can't give any more right now. Later."

"Yeah. Later."

He drifts off toward the theater. The fat man grabs the boy's hand and pulls him away. I don't stick around to see what happens and head back to the cab stand.

I pull over to the curb by the park and sit in silence, the buzz of the unanswered phone still echoes in my head.

The words on the back cover of the western make no sense. There is no way to escape. Someone always gets the girl and someone always gets hurt.

Windy watches me from his bench. I'm glad to see him. He's the one wino I like. He gets up, walks unsteadily to the cab and sticks his head in the window. The smell of liquor is strong.

"How you doin', Ace?"

"Workin', just like always."

"Drivin' a cab ain't work. What I do is work. I'm the only guy in town who can get locked up, beat up, but I do get fucked up. Now that’s work." He laughs, his old body shaking. "Seventy years old and need a drink to clear my eyes. Seventy years, and going to run for dogcatcher. Dogs like me. When I was on the chain gang, I escaped. I was found feeding the bloodhounds with hamburger. A dogcatcher."

He totters off, laughing harder.

"Forty-five?"

"Square."

"A young lady at the Carlton."

"Roger."

She is very thin with dark hair and eyes and has a small suitcase which she doesn't let me take.

"I'm going to the train station," she says. "I have to get back to New York on the late train."

"Forty-five. Train station."

“Roger, forty-five. Be careful with that young lady now..."

She looks at me. She doesn't seemed pleased.

"That's just Lou."

"I don't care who it is. I should talk with his boss."

"It wouldn't do much good. The boss likes it."

"Well," she says. "In New York such a thing wouldn't happen."

I'm trying to get a good look at her in the rear view mirror, but she seems to be deliberately sitting in the shadows.

I pull up in front of the station and she gets out. I hope the train is late, and then maybe I could ask her if can see the stars from where she lives. She doesn’t tip me and slams the cab’s door.

“Forty-five. Two sixty."

"Roger, forty-five. How was she?"

"More than you could handle."

"Now, now, forty-five."

The clouds are thickening. The girl's perfume lingers and I breathe it in.

The lights at the curb are much too bright and I feel uneasy in their hot, white pools. I think of what I'll do tomorrow with Grace. Once I took her to the zoo because she said she liked animals. Another time we went to the beach to see a whale she'd read about, but it wasn't like she thought it would be. The corpse had badly decomposed and the smell was overpowering. We had headed for the nearest bar.

I get out and phone again. No answer. No answer. I pick up the western once more, and skim the words as my stomach tightens.

"Forty-five?"

"Bus."

"The Big G Market."

"Roger."

I leave the book lying on the seat, knowing I'll never finish it tonight or any other night.

I pull out into the street and start for the Big G. It's a late shopper going home with food. I help her with the packages.

"Forty-five. State Street."

"Roger, forty-five. Don't get hungry."

The woman looks straight ahead for the whole ride. I hold the door open for her and help carry the bags into the building. She tips me a dollar. I walk slowly back to the cab and sit.

"Forty-five?"

I don't feel like answering.

"Forty-five? Forty-five?"

"Four dollars."

"Roger, forty-five."

The door opens.

A man slides into the back seat. I can't make him out, but know that he's heavy set and drunk.

"The Spot Lite,” he says. “That’s the place I want to be. The place where everything happens in this town. The people there will understand what I have to say. How stupid can we Americans get? We're fooling around with wars and space exploration, getting poorer and poorer, spending money all wrong. Are enemies are laughing at us fools.” He leans forward and pounds the top of the seat with his fists.

"We're so sure of everything when all the time our enemies are getting ready to invade us using missiles and bombs. You just watch. I know what I'm talking about. I'm telling the truth. Even here our enemies will get us. You think they care about you? No one does."

He motions me to stop, gets out and gives me a three dollar tip, then heads erratically into the strip joint.

"Forty-five. Three dollars."

"Roger, forty-five."

I roll down the window and look up at the sky, half expecting the enemy missiles to be there. The stars are shining through a hole in the clouds, and I know I'm safe for another night.

I get out and try Grace once more.

“What?" she says.

“The stars are out."

"You're not into that again, are you? When you coming home? I got some whiskey."

Richard Lutman lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He has a MFA in Writing from Vermont College. He currently teaches short story classes as part of Coastal Carolina University's Lifelong Learning program. His fiction has appeared in Crazyquilt, Verdad, Slow Trains, The Green Silk Journal, Dark Sky Magazine, The Bicycle Review, Epiphany Magazine, The Petigru Review, Deep South Magazine, The Newport Review, Dew on the Kudzu, The Corner Cupboard Press and WritingRaw. He has also won awards for his short stories, nonfiction, and screenplays. He was a 2008 Push Cart Nominee. A chapbook of his flash fiction was published in June 2009 and a long narrative poem in 2011 by The Last Automat Press. See his website atwww.WordRealm.net.