You might think I'm mad, or some sort of inhuman, cold-blooded, unfeeling creature. Well, that's not the case. It's just that I have a binary emotional response to whatever is happening around me. A binary system only has two possible settings -- on or off -- sometimes expressed as a choice of two digits - one or zero.
Some people think I'm "on the spectrum" and in some way autistic, whatever that means. I'm not sure how all that pigeon-holing of people works, but all I can say is either I like what's happening and react accordingly or I don't like it and then I take what I think is appropriate action to avoid any further unpleasantness. I don't generally recognise shades of grey. Things are pretty much black and white as far as I'm concerned and I don't spend a lot of time trying to fix what can't be fixed.
I'm telling you this, so you will understand that I acted with reasonable justification. I know we all have to live with the consequences of our actions, but I'm not worried about that. I'd just like to make sure folk understand why I did what I did. As far as I'm concerned, it was a simple binary choice involving two digits.
I'll try and give you an example. Say you're a farmer and you found out that your crop was rotting, would you look for the cause of the rot and make sure it wouldn't happen again, even if it meant damaging or destroying the crop, or would you do nothing? You have the choice. You can do something or you can do nothing. Choose one or the other. One or zero.
By now, even if you understand that I see things pretty much in black and white, you're probably wondering what I'm getting at. I guess I better tell you my story and then you can consider whether or not you understand me. My wife and I have been married for nearly ten years and I thought she understood me, but evidently not.
*
Firstly, I must admit I'm not the brightest bulb in the festive lights, but I work hard and I do my best to be a good citizen. I pay my taxes and I vote in all of the elections. For a living I drive a taxi in a big city. Each fare is like solving a problem - how to get from A to B in the most efficient, effective and economic way. I like to think that, in our city, the folks appreciate good service and it has been my experience that they do tip accordingly. I would probably be poor in New York or London, but where I live my fellow citizens are tough cookies who like it when you don't mess around. I am very direct, both in terms of how I get them from A to B and how I talk to folk.
I've had loads of interesting people in the back of my cab and there have been good experiences and bad experiences. Some folk are all about themselves, but most prefer to have some enjoyable social intercourse, sharing a conversation. It's definitely an advantage that my passengers and I are unlikely to ever see one another again. That's why sometimes I get to hear things that wouldn't be possible if I wasn't driving my cab. I could tell you true stories about football stars and their wives, but that would be betraying confidences.
I've also seen loads of incidents on the roads that you probably wouldn't believe. I once saw a guy use a motorcycle to transport lengths of sawn timber. That went badly wrong for him when he tried to cut across the oncoming traffic and someone hit the back end of his load. I've seen buses and trucks wedged under low bridges. And of course I've seen all sorts of sexy shenanigans going on in other vehicles. That sort of stuff gets more frequent the closer we get to the end of the year.
People party hard, get tanked up and lose their inhibitions. Taxi drivers have to know where to draw the line when it comes to our passengers. I don't mind looking the other way if people want to get a bit frisky in the back of my cab, but I won't stand for any nonsense. If your travelling companion has no idea what is going on, then I'm going to have to ask you to cease and desist. I carry a baseball bat in the cab, just in case anyone wants to argue.
The other thing that happens at this time of year is that normal people go slightly mad and some of them buy large fir trees, which they transport in cars that are too small for the job. Whenever I see people transporting Christmas trees like that, I always think of the story of how the fairy ended up on top of the Christmas tree. It seems Santa was having a particularly stressful day when a little fairy appeared with a large tree and asked him where he wanted to put it.
Unlike all those people who favour expensive little designer cars, I don't have a problem transporting stuff. Apart from the taxi, I have a big red flatbed pickup that I use to deliver stuff for a mad friend of mine who runs a vehicle repair business. Johnny and I have been best friends since we were young lads. He looks after my vehicles and I do his fetching and carrying. During the week my wife Karen uses the pickup, which saves her from relying on our piss poor public transport system to get to and from the office where she works.
Anyway, a couple of days before Christmas, I dropped off an elderly couple somewhere in the outer suburbs of the city and I was musing on what to get Karen for Christmas as I drove back towards the city centre She had asked for "something special", but I still had to decide what that might mean. The safest bet was probably jewellery that she could return if she didn't like it.
All of a sudden a big red pickup came hurtling out of a side street, cutting me up. There was a fir tree strapped to the back of it, which didn't look very secure. Braking sharply to avoid running into the back of the pickup, I glanced at the vehicle registration and realised I was looking at my own pickup. Why the heck was Karen taking time off work to go and buy another Christmas tree? I had fetched a tree last weekend and we had set it up and decorated it in our lounge.
The next set of traffic lights up ahead was red, so I pulled up alongside the pickup and lowered the passenger side window to find out what Karen was up to and let her know that her load needed to be more secure. To my surprise, instead of my wife, a strange man was looking back at me. He lowered his window and scowled at me.
"What are you staring at?" he asked.
Now, just because I see things as black and white, that doesn't mean I charge in like a bull in a china shop. I can be very diplomatic and I wasn't going to get agitated without knowing the facts. I had no idea what was going on, but it occurred to me that maybe Karen had loaned someone my pickup as a favour, albeit without my permission.
"Er... Your load is loose," I replied. "You need to tighten the strapping."
"OK," he replied in a friendlier tone. "Thanks for that."
"Nice pickup, by the way," I said. "Is it yours?"
"It's my girlfriend's," he grinned, as his window closed, terminating our brief conversation.
This was looking like very bad news, but I needed to know more. I gritted my teeth and tried hard not to think about the implications of what he had said, as I followed him along the road. He stopped briefly to tighten the straps more securely on his load and I drove slowly past, turning off at the next side street and doubling back to wait and see if he continued along the main road. Sure enough, he passed by and I quickly turned onto the main road behind him.
*
Taxis are everywhere in our city, so I was easily able to remain undetected as I followed him to a detached house in a nice inner city area much favoured by better paid white collar workers. I parked farther up the street where I had a view of the house and waited to see what would happen. I could see my red pickup in front of his garage, still with the fir tree strapped to it, which indicated to me that he was in no hurry to return the vehicle to my wife. I briefly wondered whether he had stolen it, but that was unlikely if he had driven it to his home.
Karen knew I was on a back shift and wouldn't be home until around 10pm at the earliest. If this guy really was Karen's boyfriend, or hopefully just someone who used the term "girlfriend" in a platonic sense, then he would have to return the pickup to her before my shift finished. I decided before I leapt to any wrong conclusions I better call Karen and hear whether she had any news, like for instance whether she had loaned my pickup to a friend or reported it as stolen.
She told me she was busy and she didn't have time to chat, so I decided to see if I could jerk her chain a little and I told her I'd probably be back earlier than I had thought.
"Oh," she responded. "What time do you think you'll be home then, Charlie?"
"Probably between nine and ten," I told her. "But there's no need to keep any dinner for me. I'll get something on the way back home."
Not long after that, the mystery man reappeared, presumably having been told he better unload his tree sooner, rather than later. He wrestled the tree in the front door and then ran an electrical extension cable from the back of the house and used a portable vacuum to tidy up the pickup and remove any evidence of fir tree debris.
In the meantime I radioed despatch and told them I had a mechanical breakdown and would be off the road until the next day at least.
The weather was comparatively mild for December, but the sun sets early and dusk was encroaching as the afternoon wore on and I sat and waited. It was now getting quite dark and the lights were on in the house. The curtains were open in the front room and I could see the guy setting the tree up near the large bay window, ready to be decorated.
