1 AM Taxi (like a real taxi)

 Arriving at JFK at almost 1AM, I decided to risk it all...on a taxi. Not an Uber, not a Lyft, no a Via. An actual, yellow, mystical, enchanted, 'as seen in the movies' NYC taxi. I got into the taxi with a driver who looked like he had been waiting for a passenger since the Ford administration. Hunched over the steering wheel, peering out into the darkness, he looked like Bela Lugosi. The taxi swerved out of the stand and had trouble staying within the dotted lines of the road. 

Ok, first thing: this might have been a mistake. He kept whispering an urgent question to me that I couldn't make out. I assumed it was about directions. I asked 'sir could you speak up' about 8 times before giving up. Finally I just punched the address into his phone. Bela sped down the highway, riding between two lanes. Fortunately the highway was mostly empty. The few cars that were out there steered clear of our 'creative driving.'  After a minute of this I offered some advice: could we, perchance, stay in one lane? After a few more minutes I politely asked a question that had been consuming me: could you turn off the right-hand turn signal? Yep, this was a mistake. 

Bela zipped down the highway like, well...like a bat out of some enflamed nether region. I started practicing my hunch position when we surely hit one of the pylons. I considered giving him a negative review and then I remembered...oh yeah, I'm in a taxi. Can't do that shit. I have to just sit there and shut the fuck up. 

It's interesting how quickly I began plotting some form of 'aggressive customer feedback.' Uber and Lyft have trained me so well to immediately note anything suspicious and run like swift-footed Karen to the cybermanagers of the world. Remembering my life before zoom and ride shares and social media, I recall several harrowing taxi rides. There were so many bad drivers, so many precarious, anxiety inducing trips I took. None of them ended in accidents. The old school taxi drivers cursed and smoke and swerve...and I just clutched my bags a bit tighter, cradled my jewels with more care, thought about my 'end of life' montages to distract me from the trip. And here was this old, I mean REALLY old guy who had probably been waiting for me or anyone to ride his taxi. And I was ready to immediately express my outrage about Bela. 

As the ride continued, he almost seemed to regress back to what I would consider a 'steady driver.' He stopped swerving, no turn signals were left on blinking for minutes. As the turns got tighter in pitch darkness, he handled all of them with a certain ease, as if he was rediscovering 'oh yes, this is what it's like to have a passenger, to be a taxi driver.' I was rediscovering my role too as a passenger: let the man DRIVE!! 

Exiting off the highway,  Bela reduced his speed and my anxiety went down. We were only a few blocks from my apartment. Suddenly I could hear his urgent question. Maybe it was the reduced noise level or I was just listening better but Bela asked me this most important question...'do you like American cheese...OR do you like Swiss cheese?' I thought about it and for a second I honestly considered: is this like one of those last questions a serial killer asks? A sphinx-like riddle or pop culture question a killer leaves his victims with...like a signature? Was he going to drive me this far, blast me, and then leave by the side of the road with a slice of cheese -of my choice- over my face as a warning to all you Uber-driving motherfuckers that TAXIS MATTER!! My anxiety level shot up...no, maybe he had some secret about health and wellness? No, maybe he had actual cheese in the car that he wanted to share? 

NO, AURIN! STFU!! What Bela is probably doing is making...conversation. Awkward conversation. A weird human interaction. OMG it had been so long since I had weird taxi driver conversation that I had to work through multiple catastrophe scenarios to see what was in front of me: Bela wanted me to answer the fucking question. Did I like American or Swiss? It's not that complicated!! 

'Well..." I thoughtfully paused and rubbed my chin like a person about to answer a casual question (because that's what casual ppl do, right?) "Bela...I suppose I like both." My tone went up like a Valley girl question. Then I added in a more firm masculine tone of making a decision 'but probably Swiss...a bit more.' Bela nodded and then gave his Sphinx answer to this great mystery "you shouldn't like either one. All cheese is poison." Ah. I see. Trick question. He continued on about cheese and evils of cheese for the few remaining blocks. Apparently cheese had fucked up Bela's whole spirit. Maybe cheese killed his family, stole his wife, forced him to work as a taxi driver...cheese did something bad to Bela. I nodded as if to say 'yes...yes...this is perfectly normal. Ahh of course...cheese is poison. Thank you for the reminder.' He arrived at my place and then I had a special treat for him...cash. Well actually he couldn't figure out the credit card machine in the car, but fortunately I did have cash. I gave him a $20 tip for not killing me and he warned me again about cheese. 

This morning I preparing for my preproduction episode meeting and I quickly ordered a breakfast sandwich on Uber Eats. I unchecked the cheese option -in case Bela knows some shit about my future- and then waited. As I wrote this, the Uber delivery arrived: quick, silent, apolitical. There were no opinions expressed about cheese or life. There were no words of advice the delivery person offered. He just gave me my cheese-less breakfast sandwich and ran down the stairs. I wanted to ask the delivery person 'do you like American or Swiss-' but he was gone in the blink of an eye. 

Oh Bela...what a world.