Awaiting Southampton Avenue

"Nothing ever turns out how you expect it to, does it?"

"Huh?" Tony gave a small jerk. His nightshift was dragging on, and his mind had been lost deep inside the occurances of the day. The man he was driving in his archaic taxi hadn't spoken a word the whole ride except for a "Southampton Avenue, please," when he got in. And how long ago was that now? Twenty, thirty minutes?

"I said nothing ever turns out how you expect it to does it," the man repeated patiently. Tony glanced into the rearview mirror at the shadow of a man slouched tiredly in the backseat. Night had fallen several hours ago, so only the city lights sliding across the window and the occasional oncoming headlights could illuminate his face enough to give Tony any notion of what he looked like. Hair cut handsomely but not too handsomely. Clean-shaven, but with a five o'clock shadow hinting at a return, rectangular glasses shifted a little higher than it should have been.

"Yes, uh, I suppose that's true."

The man in the backseat shifted his gaze to the rearview mirror, right into Tony's eyes. Tony quickly, almost embarrassedly, whipped his eyes away from the man and back to the road.

A small chuckle by the shadow of a man in the backseat. "Sorry about that, mister. You probably have no idea what I'm talking about." Tony forced a breath of a laugh and a hopefully reassuring smile into the mirror. He really didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment, especially this guy. He had a sense about him, like he knew a little more than he should. Tony just wanted to concentrate on the road and get to Southampton Avenue as quickly as possible.

The man resumed his post gazing out the window. "I was just thinking, you know, how no matter what you think you're prepared for, something is always bound to surprise you."

Silence for a few minutes. Tony had never been much of a talker in the first place, usually describing which places in this city were the best restaurants and how the Red Sox were playing these days. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, readjusting his hands on the steering wheel.

"At three-thirty this afternoon I hit a little boy with my car because I wasn't paying attention. The poor kid, he'd run out to get his basketball and I coulda missed him, but you know I just.... I got out to try and help him, but...." The shadow of a man trailed off, like he had left his thoughts at the last intersection.

Tony's heartbeat bolted. If he had been tired before, he certainly was wide awake now. His palms prickled with the first hints of sweat, hs hands closing tighter on the wheel. Who the hell WAS this guy to just go blab this kinda stuff to a random taxi driver? A sense of dread was seeping into whatever the man was going to say next, but Tony just wished the man had lost hi words completely at that intersection and that Southampton Avenue would hurry up.

The man seemed to be talking more to himself now. "I, uh, I got out to help him but...and I mean, I'm a doctor a fricken doctor with all those years of training and crap...but damn, I was just so shocked and scared. I shoulda been able to help him, I knew well enough how but I just...just couldn't, ya know?" His voice was croaking, and Tony dared a glance in the mirror again. The city lights revealed two eyes, glistening with tears, a terrified expression on his face.

Tony's breath was escaping in barely suppressed gasps. Just keep driving regularly, Tony. You're almost at Southampton. Almost.

The car remained silent the rest of the drive, neither of them moving or daring a glance into the rearview mirror. The air felt like a balloon, ready to explode at the slightest pinprick. Finally the car slowed to a stop along the curb of Southampton Avenue. The man's expression showed no sign of having cried or being afraid, but he didn't move.

"This is your stop, isn't it?" Tony struggled to keep his voice as even as possible, his eyes dancing nervously anywhere but the rearview mirror.

"You forgot to set the meter," the man commented expressionlessly. And sure enough, the digital numbers still sat at $0.00. Normally this in itself would have given him a heart attack, but Tony at the moment just wanted the man out. Fast.

"Oh, well it's o---" but Tony was cut off by a hundred-dollar bill hovering in the corner of his vision.

"Just take it, I feel I owe it to you anyways. At least." Tony took it mindlessly."Is that your son there?" the man asked, pointing to a small candid shot of a little boy holding his first basketball pasted next to the steering wheel.

Pause. "Yeah," Tony choked, almost inaudibly.

Just a whisper. "Yeah, I knew it was him as soon as I got in the car."

The air was stifling, burning Tony's ears and poking pins and needles into his eyes until he succumbed to tears. He released a sudden, violent, raspy sob and whipped around, ready to see him face-to-face, see what kind of man could hit his son and walk to his house at the end of the day to see a wife and kids of his own. But he was already gone, slammed the car door, trudging the other direction. Just a shadow of a man.

Tony watched him go, until he climbed the stairs to his apartment a block away. He turned around, ripping the hundred dollar bill into two pieces, and driving off, all the while the man's words echoing in his head:

 

"Nothing ever turns out how you expected it to, does it?"

Author's Note

tell me what you think :)

Reviews

[Dave M. Pitman]

This is fantastic! I loved the twist at the end... how ironic.

[PianoandPage]

hmmm undecided about this. i love the twist about the kid being the taxi drivers. the client.. the doctor though. it's tragic that he is seems like a nice guy who just got in a fucked up situation. but still... there seemed to be little remorse. not sure how i am supposed to view the doctor. as a villian? as a victim?

the tragedy is good. some of the lines were just fantastic.

"The shadow of a man trailed off, like he had left his thoughts at the last intersection."

"Tony had never been much of a talker in the first place, usually describing which places in this city were the best restaurants and how the Red Sox were playing these days."