Absolutely Fabulous
by Alex Farr
Nothing beats an evening ride in a taxi with a pimp his two showcase whores.
“Wow,” lots of people say, as I drive them… wherever they’re going, “you must meet a lot of interesting people driving a taxi…”
Now, I don’t know about other people, but I could meet a lot more people in my life if I really wanted to. It’s really not that hard… all you have to do is go out into the streets, the bars, the flower shops, the hospitals, the old-folk’s homes, the tow truck yards, the police stations, or anywhere else- and just say “Hi.” For some reason though, most of us don’t do it. I’ve given this a lot of thought, mostly as I sit at cabstands at 7 am, ‘resting my eyes’… because drinking in the privacy of my own home until the wee hours of the night seems to make them tired… anyway- I think about it a lot. And the conclusion I’ve come to is simple. Most of the people one meets aren’t interesting. You have to go through a lot of uninteresting people, actually, before you meet the interesting ones. And, hard as it may be to accept the bare truth of it, the most interesting people in this world may not be the ones that you really want to meet.
Of course, there is a little still-drunken voice in my head that usually, at this point of my morning philosophizing, suggests that I may be one of these people. I like this voice, it makes me laugh.
But the other day, I had proof that maybe I am a wise fucker after all.
I was, as often happens, cruising in the neighborhood of West MacArthur Blvd., when yet another call came in for one of the many motels along the strip. Some of the most interesting and/or amusing people you’d ever meet seem to stay in the many motels along the strip… and, coincidentally, when I used to live just a couple of blocks off the strip none of my friends seemed to want to come into the neighborhood to visit.
Where the annual Interesting People Convention is held.
I was in a good mood though, because this call would make 3 fares in one hour… and these days that’s a busy hour. So I took the call, and raced to the motel. I honked, and a dude came out in a moment to wave… which is a good practice, since we cabbies will just drive away if we don’t get any response within the time it takes to turn the car around in the driveway so we can pull back into the street. But this guy, man he was looking like a million bucks. He was wearing nice slacks, a well tailored shirt, and even a tie. He was looking like a double for Denzel Washington or something… Christ, I wish I knew how to dress as well as this cat.
So I wait semi-patiently, and in a minute out come two girls. For a moment I was thinking of that ZZ Top song “Sharp Dressed Man”, but then I got a look at the second girl…
The first one was a cute little petite thing, with an electric blue bob, unusual on a black girl… tight bell bottom jeans… nice. The second had an electric purple bob, also unusual on a black girl… but she was wearing one of those ass-length shag-carpet kind of coats, and a dress no longer than the coat, and low-cut… and it all just showed of a whole lot of jiggle. Jiggle everywhere you looked…
Needless to say, I quickly looked away.
But it was, like so many other things in this city, like a car accident. You just can’t help looking at the grotesqueness of the scene…
As I watched, Home Boy, whose theme song was quickly becoming “Superfly”, pulled out a wad of cash, and peeled off a couple of bills for the girls. They took ‘em stoically, and headed on over… but this guy, he had some sort of strange fatherly vibe to him, somehow. It was strange, but unmistakeable as he followed them out to the cab, like a father seeing his daughters off to the school bus. He even came up to my window, saying to me “Now, you be sure these girls get up to 65th and San Pablo safely…”
It was all I could do not to laugh. It was like Ward Cleaver meets American Pimp…
June still found time to make him a hot meal after turning her day’s tricks
The truth of the matter though, is that it wouldn’t really have been any more than an unmemorable few minutes of amusement, if he hadn’t suddenly decided I was cool.
“Whoah, look at this guy. My man, you a cool looking driver, with the earrings and that goatee, and that cool beanie… let me get your card.”
I’d just unbraided my goatee, and so now it was like 4 or 5 inches long… and I’d just shaved off my dreadlocks, so I was wearing a hat to keep my tender scalp warm, and I’ve got something like 12 earrings decorating my ears. I don’t even really think about it anymore. So I just shrugged, and wrote my name down on a card for the dude.
“Yeah man, you’re Alex? Good to meet you, I’m Fabulous.”
I just stared for a couple of seconds. He reached out to shake my hand, and I shook, saying “Of course you are…”.
A man who’d gotten his business plan from watching “Shaft”…
“Yeah, I’m Fabulous, and this here’s my girl Fantasy (indicating the cute little blue haired whore), and that’s Karma (indicating Jiggles).”
“Yeah… cool.” I answered, managing to keep from laughing out loud… or at least not too loud. “65th and San Pablo…”
The girls didn’t talk too much along the drive. All I could think of was the irony… of the Karma of whatever poor bastard paid to be with Karma… not to mention the Karma of poor Karma herself, being born as herself.
I’d heard of the ugly stick, but now I was picturing the Karma stick. Ouch!
Interesting people… Fabulous…
After I’d dropped them off, and I was heading back to a cabstand to rest my eyes some more, I suddenly remembered another girl… one I’d picked up in another motel, one rainy day, who’d been bitching about having to give her “friend” a hundred bucks, so now she didn’t even have any money for food. And how, when I drove her back to his pad, he wouldn’t even let her in. She was less obviously a hooker, new to the game maybe… and apparently not very good if her “friend” wouldn’t even cover the $4 cab fare and let her in on a rainy day… so I drove her to another friend’s house, only they wouldn’t answer the door either. So I finally took pity on the chick…
“So, can we work something out for the fare?…” she’d mumbled, near tears.
“Forget about it, you can catch me later…” I told her. I suppose I could’ve demanded a street blowjob, and I could tell that was what she was offering… but I just didn’t have the heart.
And besides, if she was any good she wouldn’t have needed to offer a blowjob for what wound up as a $9 fare…
Even a cabbie can sometimes be fabulous.
Besides, there was another call on the dispatch radio nearby.