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As soon as safe, she erupted into shakes and bouts of little shallow huff n gulp breathing. She didn’t have a lot of tears, but the few that blurred her eyes, came from the soul.
.
It had taken me a minute or so to rumble the freakiness of the situation. His intention was clearly to connect with her, then lay down an influence to sustain the connection, and calmly push forward his own self-centred agenda.

It was the weekend, late and the tidal flow of revellers was home-bound. These two had got in from the chaotic city center pick-up office.
She sat herself quietly in the front seat and he got in the back, then shuffled across and settled directly behind me.

“Hi Boss…. Busy?” He calmly and confidently enquired.

The office marshal was at my car window triumphantly announcing the area these were going (he was often wrong… but always happy) whilst waving furiously to usher us away. We set off.

“Hello”. Came my delayed, but courteous reply, even if I was ignoring the “busy?” tag line. After a standard check that the destination area announced was correct, I got another confident, careful voice pitched over from behind my head.

“You’re the Boss.”
Presumed to mean, yes.

A few seconds later, the girl spoke, quietly mentioning a new area name. It was one that was a further 15 minute journey out of town.
She was nervously polite and unmistakingly timid. The place name was spoken with the ending flicked up, which forces a one word comment into a question. No response came from behind and the atmosphere went a little hard-graft.

“Is that a change of plan?” I calmly asked.

No reply from either of them. Not a big deal in itself, but a drivers decision would now have to made about a minute up the road, at the roundabout.

“Is that the best way around?” She enquired directly at me, her voice hesitant, not confident, and it had that awkward angle of… ‘please answer correctly the question that I haven’t exactly asked’.

 

Hundreds of times there have been passengers… first dates or one night standers, trying to code talk, where they want to end up.
Immature, or drunk ones are the most annoying, and soon you, as a driver, will inevitably be dragged into the spacious waffle.
I’ve discovered a self amusement for this … I discretely select radio 4 from my steering wheel finger-tip controller, then, real slow, tap up the volume so as the broadcast debate or news is gently mingling along with their otherwise bickering or icky icky exchanges.

I remember once, the radio had Albatrosses being mentioned and as soon as I was dragged into the in-car argument, I quietly posed the notion: did you know that these birds, once mated, are bonded for life. The girl in the car then, had thought that was proper attitude…. the fella went pale…. I had a little chuckle or two.

Albatrosses was a great one that time, but any random sentence with a bit of humour, usually works fine.

 

I didn’t amuse myself regarding these two. There was an edge to the situation.
What this girl had asked me, was just popped out the blue. It wasn’t exactly a clear discussion, such as… there has been a change of agreed plan, we really need two drops, me first or last type of thing, but I twigged that just the original one-destination plan, in her head at least, had some flaw in it.

I enquired which of the two destinations she herself needed… It was the original one… As it happened to be the nearest of the two, the common mode-of-operation fitted neatly and I gave an answer.

“Nearest first and/or girl first. That’s a typical rule for journeys.”

 

This was the point where the true situation in the car started to appear. I visibly noticed her recoil then shrivel up, as if my reply had abandoned her to the depths of hell.
Then in absolute stereo I heard two simultaneous sounds amongst the background rumblings of engine and road noise.
In my left ear I heard a couple of very quiet, seriously muffled, squeezed winces. In my right ear drifting over from behind I’m sure I heard him announce to himself in a cocky style whisper: ‘my lucky day’.

 

The roundabout was coming up. I stole a glance at the girl. This girl was near petrified and clearly trying to hide it.
O.K…. His apparent lucky day seemed like her apparent distress. Her being dropped first, for some odd reason is clearly not good for her.

“Is that second area where you live mate?”
He remained annoyingly silent.

“We can do this the other way around. Whereabouts up there do you live?”

“No worries driver.” Came his over calm and seemingly calculating, curved response.

“Where is it, you want to go mate?” I calmly asserted.

“Ooooh, driver. You had it all sorted a minute ago. You were doing so well.”

 

He had never answered anything in conversation with her, in fact he had never spoken to her direct. He had always gone direct to me and his comments were all indirect, but all had inferred he should end up at the place she wanted to go.

“Need your address mate.”

All my words remained calm, but the subject had absolute purpose… to call some accountability out of this slime-like, control-like freak.

 

“I’ll just get out up here as well.”

He had answered as calmly as I had asked. His voice had an irritating confidence and for the first time I detected a hint of delight in it.

 

He had indeed succeeded in over-riding what I asked for/wanted… was this the root of his delight… is this what he was or has been doing to her… over-riding her requests, her wants… and calmly, confidently getting a delight out of it?

 

At the roundabout, I veered past her exit. Didn’t consider his area a viable journey option and so headed back to the city.

“What’s the plan, driver?”

I felt a slow strong push through the back of my seat. It bowed for several seconds before he released.

When times get interesting, I don’t reveal a response unless it is diffusing, usually through humour, or else to be decisive to prevent any escalation. I did provide him base information to account my decision.

“If you don’t have an address, I’ll drop you back in the city.”

 

The sense of ‘bad situation’ increased when he made another sharper dig in the back of the seat with the provocative comment:

“You going to throw me out driver?”

“Don’t interfere with my seat when I’m driving” Came my still calm response. Only responding to the issue involving me.

The next comment he made was, in itself irrelevant, but it was a with a sudden stroppy tone, accompanied by a more violent dig in the seat. This was the first break in his controlled voice. Does this guy have a sudden trigger point?

Then came an escalation. Another, more sudden jab in the back of seat.
It was now, no longer safe for this guy to be behind me… or even in the car.

I flicked the kiddie-lock to isolate the rear windows, hit the button to lower them, slammed on the brakes and was out and at the rear door before they were even down. He fumbled for the door locks, but that was fruitless as I had full access through the windows and commanded him out the car.

I heard his voice loose its cocky arrogance and he withered to the self-centred coward of his true form. Nothing else needed saying. Purpose achieved as was now removed.

He made a pathetic attempt of lifting his shoulders high, I remained unimpressed and he swaggered off across the road.

Eddie Izzard does a great stage comedy sketch about such swaggerers… with a tag line along the lines of… I’m a wanker, yeh yeh, I’m a wanker… The laughable image fitted perfectly.

 

Back in the car, the girl was still there. Now not holding back the emotions of upset. She wished to go home and on route revealed how he ignored her requests to be left alone. She was unsure how to deal with it. He had asked to share a cab and ignored her desire not to. Then when in the cab, seemed to ignore his address and acted as if a presumption of going to hers…. which is where we started….

The realisation of ending up at her place and him getting out was freaking her in her car.

We touched on how she realises ‘say something earlier whilst people are around’ would be more sensible. Also that she did good to squeeze the couple of points out in the car, albeit indirect points. We touched on reporting it… She may… She could call taxi office if need be… Didn’t hear.

 

I remember getting a slow warm smile and a mouthed “thank-you”, as she paused in her home doorway, before slowly closing the door.

 

 

More stories later…

 
 
 

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