Clips

I don't know what people say, what the general consensus is, but most fares are fine. They're pretty OK, as far as people go. You run into the jerks, the drunks, the drunk kids (which is worse), the people who know how to do what you do better than you do and who are all too eager to tell you. I'm a good driver. I don't swindle, I'm fast but safe, I'm friendly, I'm not obnoxious, I'm good. But what am I supposed to say when someone starts clipping their fingernails?

"Excuse me," I said, real congenial-like, "could you please not do that?" She had her headphones tucked inside her ears, underneath some awful wig. Or I hope it was a wig. "Excuse me."

"Yeah?" I finally got as she pulled out an earbud.

"Could you please not clip your nails in my cab?"

She gave me a pause. "I wasn't." She knew what she did.

"I heard the clips, ma'am."

"That coulda been anything, this raggedy-ass cab, who knows what's wrong with it?"

"The cab's in good condition, ma'am—"

"Don't be callin' me ma'am—"

"OK, what is your name?"

"Psh, I ain't tellin' you my name." There's no reasoning with a person like this. She put the bud back in. I drove.

I don't know when things got so complicated. When everybody started getting so uppity all the time. I wasn't even asking her to do something. I was asking her to do nothing. I was asking her to sit there in the backseat and not clip her nails, I was asking—politely—for her to cease her current activity and merely sit there. It would have saved her energy! It would have been so easy. Following the rules is by and large an easy thing to do, but for all their stupidity people don't like easy sometimes. Sometimes they have to bend the rules just because. Just to see if they can. And then I'm the bad guy. I'm the bad guy if I don't want the floor and seats of my cab covered with some stranger's nail clippings. Then what will people think? Cabbies are not high up on people's respect lists. I don't need any help.

And then there it was again, the measured clip.

...

Clip.

...

Clip.

"Ma'am—"

"I ain't doin' nothin'." She still had a few things to learn about rule-breaking. Namely, don't deny before accusal.

"I can see the clippers. I'm looking at them in my rear view mirror."

"You should be looking at the road."

A person can only take so much, you know? I swerved off that road, hard, jolting, brake-slamming, pushing it into park harder than I ever had. I stopped the meter and made sure she saw me do it.

"There. Now it's got my undivided attention." They were gleaming, I don't even know how they got that bright, but those clippers were gleaming. Without the road moving under me I could hear the sanguine pop notes leaking from her ears. No wonder she couldn't hear me, she was too busy listening to how some guy did some girl wrong, how it'll get better from here, how she's always right. I could see the slivers strewn about the backseat, resting on her knees. Tiny crescents of protein, little pieces of her, that she was just going to leave there for me to clean up. You wouldn't cut your hair in a cab! You wouldn't pull a tooth! And she certainly wouldn't let me pull this crap in her vehicle. That's a highly doubtful situation.

"What the hell are you doin'?!" Irate, ill-mannered cow.

"I want you to clean up your fingernails and toss them out the window before I finish driving you."

"Oh whatever, I'll walk from here," and she went for the handle. And all those clippings, the ones on her legs, she brushed them off into the darkness. And I snapped.

"Hell you will!" I locked the door. Smart? No. But people don't always do the right thing. She reached through between the front seats and started hitting me, my shoulders, my neck, scratching me with those nails. All those clips and still long enough to scratch, and boy they got in there deep, they stung. She got the door open, jumped out, left it open, came running around the side. She kicked my door, bashed her giant knockoff against my window, called me whatever ethnic or religious slur she thought made sense by the sight of me.

And I just sat there. I let it happen. A few people gathered to watch her. What was going on in their heads? Crazy lady attacks cab driver for no reason. Another driver gets what's coming to him. Whatever it is it's a cycle all the same. Eventually she left, stormed off down the sidewalk, slightly bent over in terrible heels. And I moved to the back to pick up the clippings. This isn't my job. This is not what I'm paid to do. Not that she paid me for anything. This was coming out of my paycheck. My own blood, that was coming out of my neck. And the thing is, if I put them all together, she's not even the worst fare I ever had. Not by a long shot. You turn the light on, circle around, pick up somebody else, keep driving.