Taxi

Diary Sunday 11^th September 1994: An older man, who hangs about the hotel drives a light blue Ford something or other. The body is no longer made of metal but of “putty” On the way to school we listen to enthusiastic Gospel music. It is his only tape and we listen to it over and over again. The dashboard is covered with a dirty and oily wool skin and crowned with a plastic gold coloured crown which emits a smell of sweets and fresh toilets. We bumble along quite friendlily at a leisurely pace, ttoting every once in a while to say thank you or please my I.. On the way back from school I walked to papine to a row of cards when an aggressive and expressionless man accused me with the word “taxi” I looked up into the bright light and said yes and was subsequently commanded to a red Lada with a large spider web crack in the front window. Inside, the car had been completely hollowed out. Those parts which originally must have been covered with the usual sky-leather coverings now looked like the dead-sea scrolls. This time the music was a loud dancehal-rap, with a hard iron rhythm of resentment. He drove at a frightening pace greeting cars he recognised along the way. His lips were oblong rather than the usual soft and generous cupid’s bow The skin on his hands and face had been badly burnt with acid. Never did he smile or acknowledge my exaggerated perhaps even servile friendliness. The music wouldn’t allow it.

Diary Friday June 28^th June 1996: Took a taxi from Waltham Park Road where my car was being repaired by Mr Morrison. The taxi-driver was heavily religious. His car was filthy. Bits of paper with prayers written on them were stuck all over the dashboard. At one point he leans out of the window, calls to a girl crossing our path, sees that she is ignoring him, she walk along the bonnet from right to left, He leans over me and shoults, “Eh girl, me like ya featcha d’ya hear.”