Cabbed
Death was in the man's eyes as he stood stock-still on the street, caught like a fat white rabbit in the taxicab's headlights. Dan knew it too, and he screamed as the driver jammed on the brakes impossibly late, tires squealing as they locked up and began to skid across the hot cement.
Dan had never seen such reckless abandon, such speed as these drivers displayed, and yet so few accidents. He'd been in and out of the city a number of times, each one a struggle as a held tight to the door handle and tried hard not to watch the world whizzing by. Comfort, even in small measure, came with familiarity, but mercies could be washed away in an instant by bodies bouncing up and over the white hoods of cars for hire.
Even the cabby seemed resigned, quiet in those few moments as the doomed man approached.
Fortunately, the cab itself appeared unaware of the pedestrian's incoming demise and stopped a full six inches short of the man's stocky frame, wisps of yellowed spoke curling up and out from its hood as the full weight of the car slammed forward.
Narrowly avoiding his own collision with the dashboard, Dan looked up to see the street crossing man shrug his shoulders and shamble away into the night, no anger on his face. A tourist, but a damned bold one in Dan's estimation, and more foolish than he would have believed possible to be out alone in the city. Next to him, the cabby was smacking at the steering wheel, cursing in Spanish at the car; it had prevented a fatality but was now refusing to start – the former meant avoiding a potential prison term for its operator, the latter meant losing a fare, and it was apparent which one the driver considered more important.
Pulling back hard on the door handle, Dan was almost out and onto the street before the cab roared back to life and the cabby started chewing out promises in broken English. Though getting out seemed the more sensible option, doing so would mean not only convincing the driver to stop, but taking his chances in the city's narrow streets on his own. Away from the shopping district, he was just another short, white, target for the locals, and there was the possibility of a mugging or kidnap, not to mention death at the business end of a gun or a car's grill.
“Lesser of two evils,” he thought as the avenues whipped by, each one fractured with a hundred guilt-ridden TV charity images. Dirty children and lean dogs, playing together in littered streets, backed by dirt-floor houses and snapping clothes on a line had him running a list in his head of first-world platitudes about evil governments and the distribution of wealth, but at least the burden of his relative plenty was enough to push the face of the nearly-departed out of his head.
There was a sound from the cab, part protest and part mechanical ailment, and the rusted bullet began to shake. Five blocks more passed, three thanks only to a slight decline in the road, before the cabby finally curbed the beast, jamming the shifter into first and wrenching up the parking break.
“A second, a second,” the man said, pulling the hood lever and hopping out of the car. Dan was no expert in engines but a part of him advocated a quick exit, even if it was only to see how badly he was now screwed. A more rational part advanced staying put as his safest bet, especially given the two hand-spans that lay between the sun and the western horizon.
With a deep breath, Dan settled back into his seat and tried to catalog what he could see rationally, tried to take the opportunity to observe culture from a shorter distance, only a thin pane of glass separating him from its ebb and flow.
It was the bright blue awning that caught his eye, branded with the name of a local soft drink company. The snapping pennants were next, followed inevitably by the spidery metal structures that took up the bulk of a city block.
A carnival, machines rusted and old, but new to the area based on the heavy trailers that lined the roadway, and the state of partial completion many of the larger rides were in. Not yet in business, the carnival must have just moved in, offering the locals a chance at wares typically reserved for tourists.
Dan hated carnivals. Carnies aside, they had a smell, a savor that was both unpleasant and desperate, and here, in the creeping dusk, he had trouble keeping himself under control. He'd given his room number to a white-shirted guard when he left hotel property, so presumably someone would know if he didn't return, but help was a long way off. He pounded on the windshield, fist hammering out a staccato rhythm to match his heart.
There was jolt as the hood fell, jarred loose by his frantic pounding and revealing a street devoid of life.
Dan pulled up hard on the door handle and leapt out of the car, racing around the hood and hoping that somehow the vehicular problem had led the cabby underneath his vehicle, but only black asphalt stared back.
Behind him, a ride's long arm creaked in the low breeze and Dan began to run. He would not die in a seedy amusement park, a rich tourist cut down by some local gang or vicious thug. He would not die, unknown and unaccounted for on a street whose name he couldn't pronounce. The highway was nearby; he could hear it. The highway couldn't be far; he would make it.
Pavement disappeared under his feet as he ran, pulled on by the sound of speeding cars. He was almost there. Almost there. Almost there.
There was a screeching sound as he rounded a corner and he stopped, stock-still on the street like a fat white rabbit caught in the taxicab's headlights.
- D
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