Short Story by Bill Tope
Shepard Frailey, clutching a suitcase and a cane, thudded along the hospital corridor in a wheelchair being pushed by a young, pretty and downright bubbly African American hospital attendant, who kept up a non-stop prattle of giggles and silliness.
“I’ll take you right to the taxi, Mr. Shepard; it’ll meet you in the parking lot outside the Emergency Room entrance. It’s all good, Mr. Shepard, it’ll be waiting for us when we get there…” Frailey, unable to compete with the monologue, only nodded. After whisking through the endless corridors of the vast hospital, which occupied two full city blocks in the city, the pair came to a parking lot outside Emergency. “There’s your taxi,” Mr. Shepard,” she said with an irrepressible giggle, and halted the wheelchair and snapped on the brakes.
Frailey, physically and emotionally spent from eleven days in the hospital, where he’d had three gangrenous toes amputated, staggered from the chair and stumbled in the direction of the cab.
“Go on, get in, Mr. Shepard, she enthused with an ecstatic grin, urging him forward.
Frailey gripped the handle and pulled back; it was locked. He peered through the side window into the cab and saw the driver, a swarthy, heavy-set man with a mustache and wild eyes, scrambling to clutch a club protectively to his chest.
“No, no,” protested the girl, who addressed the hack driver as “Chico,” this is Mr. Frailey. This is Mr. Frailey, your fare.” Mollified somewhat, Chico unlocked the door to permit Frailey entrance. “Bye-bye, Mr. Shepard,” cried the girl, waving them off.
Frailey sat back against the blue fabric rear seat, which smelled of Aqua Velva, and sighed; it would be good to finally get home, he thought. He peered through the plastic screen which separated driver from passenger and observed an elaborate array of GPS devices. Good, he thought. There would be no problem traversing the 18 miles from the hospital to his home in Edgewood. Frailey was mildly surprised, but not alarmed, when Chico took not the road to his home, but to Packerville, a ghettoized, high-crime area just outside the city.
Slamming the car into park, the driver, uttering not a word, snapped on the emergency blinkers and exited the car. Frailey shrugged. A moment later, the taciturn driver returned and pushed a slip of paper through an aperture under the plastic screen and said, “Sign mileage receipt.” So, thought Frailey, the man could speak. Frailey struggled to read the receipt, but the evening light was failing; he thought he discerned “70 miles.” Well, he thought, if the hospital trusted this mug, then who was he to quibble? The facility had generously offered him a travel voucher, gratis. Shrugging again, he signed the slip and passed it back under the screen.
The car roared away, but pulled almost immediately into the driveway of a single, one-bedroom dwelling in the midst of a vacant, trash-filled field. “What are you stopping for this time?” inquired Frailey, annoyed. They had already spent 20 minutes of a 40 minute journey on the road, but hadn’t gone more than two miles from the hospital.
“House,’ exclaimed Chico vociferously, pointing on the window. “Get out!”
“I don’t live here,” protested Frailey. “I live in Edgewood.”
“No!” said Chico, raising his voice. “This your house!”
“Take me to Edgewood,” said Frailey patiently. It had become obvious that Chico’s understanding of the native tongue embraced perhaps 40 words at most.
After some back and forth, Chico slammed the vehicle back into gear and rolled further down the road. On several occasions, the taxi plumbed the depths of eerie, forbidding streets and alleys. On each occasion, he implored Frailey to alight from the vehicle, but on each occasion, the passenger adamantly refused. He peered through the passenger window and could see only scant dwellings, all dark and seemingly abandoned; myriad crack houses and meth labs predominated these streets, according to the news media. And Frailey, newly absent three toes, fatigued from his surgery and his hospital stay, couldn’t hobble more than 20 feet. To get out here would be to sign his own death warrant.
Struck by a sudden thought, Frailey said, “Take HY 157; I’ll tell you from there how to get to Edgewood.”
But Chico shook his head determinedly. “No. Get out here!” And he reached under the front seat.
Frailey’s heart froze into a solid block of ice. Would the crazed driver pull out a gun? No, it was only a pack of cigarettes. Chico lit up. Next, Frailey tried to finesse a new solution.
“Take me to a Quik Trip,” he urged, using his most persuasive voice. From the convenience store, he could use a public phone to summon a different ride, cost by damned.
“No,” growled the errant driver. “No Quik Trip.” On several occasions, Chico muttered forlornly into his cell phone, but could raise dispatchers who spoke only English.
After more than 90 minutes of this utter insanity, Frailey took a new initiative. “Im going to the cops, Goddamnit, and have you charged with kidnapping.”
Apparently, “cops” was one of the 40 words that Chico understood.
“No cops!” he implored.
“Then freaking take me home. Take me to Edgewood!” Frailey cried hoarsely. He glanced down at the fancy bag he’d packed for his hospital stay. It might prove tempting to the venal Chico. Frailey wasn’t certain what the other man was capable of. No, dammit, he seethed. Let him shoot me, he’s not getting my bag! Frailey himself now felt a little crazed.
The taxi sped down a road in one of the burbs, passed a currency exchange, and the driver stopped for a red light. Seizing what he saw as his final opportunity to escape, Frailey grabbed the handle and tried to push through the door. Locked! Damn!
Speeding away, Chico ran down yet another alley and stopped. “You get out here and pee?” he invited.
Though Frailey’s bladder was bursting from his meds, he shook his head. “Shit!” he spat derisively. “You’re not going to leave me behind in this ghetto.” He slammed his cane violently against the floor or the taxi. Chico frowned and tried the cell again. At last, reaching a dispatcher who spoke passable Spanish, Chico seemed to relax back against his seat and puttered onto the interstate.
“Now, where are you taking me?” wailed Frailey with desperation in his voice. Would Chico take him somewhere and murder him and then take Frailey’s coveted bag and the money in his wallet?
“Edgewood,” replied Chico. “Take you home.” And he said not another word.
From there, Chico drove like a champ, made not a stop and missed not a turn. Frailey kept expecting the other shoe to drop, but no: Chico was actually a pretty good driver. Pulling up in front of Frailey’s modest bungalow, Chico sprinted around the vehicle and opened the door. He offered to carry his passenger’s bag to the door, but Frailey refused the offer.
The last exchange between the two men was a question from Chico: “Cash tip?” he entreated with an earnest grin. Frailey just shook his head and laughed without mirth, then took himself to his home, glancing back uneasily several times.
Bill Tope is a retired caseworker, former construction worker and line cook, and one-time nude model for university art classes. He lives in the American Midwest with his mean little cat, Baby.
