It was another saturday night or, more accurately, sunday morning but I never considered saturday to be over until I'd been to bed.
As usual, I was queued up outside the local nightclub, slowly working my way to the front of the rank and, as usual, I was reading a book in between intermittently moving up one car's length at a time. I favoured light reading, especially Terry Pratchett books because you could pick them up and put them down without losing the plot and having to read the last paragraph over and over again. So I wasn't really taking much notice of what was going on around me which, on one or two occasions, had led to unfortunate interactions with undesirables trying to get into my cab but nothing that I couldn't handle. Strange thing, but, even though I knew virtually all the other cab drivers at least in a nodding sort of way, they would rarely come to your aid in such a situation, preferring to just laugh at your predicament and watch you extricate yourself from trouble but, sadly, that seems to be the way of the world these days although, despite that, I personally, have always been one of the first to go to a fellow driver's aid. Anyway, I digress.
On this particular saturday night, I'd worked my way to the front of the rank, put my book away and was watching the front door of the club to see who would be coming out next.
Three people emerged together, two guys and a girl, all apparently in their early twenties, and I gave them a quick once over as they approached my car. The girl was short and painfully thin, wearing a white top and tight, black lycra miniskirt that reached half way down her thighs to reveal skeletal looking, milk white legs with what seemed like disproportionately large, knobbly knees and, to top it off, on her feet, she was wearing black, ankle strap shoes with a two inch platform sole and four inch block heel that just seemed to make her scrawny legs look even thinner. All in all, not a good look.
The first guy was tall and thin, probably a little over my six feet but much weedier. He had short, dark hair and was wearing grey trousers and a blue shirt and very, very shiny shoes whilst the other guy couldn't have been more different, being much shorter, maybe five eight or nine and much bigger built. He had a dirty blond crew cut and was wearing his favourite football shirt and blue jeans with the obligatory shiny shoes. ( I've never understood a dress code that allows you to wear whatever you want as long as you've got shiny shoes ).
Now I'm not at all sure if this only applies to me or to all other guys ( how could I know ) but, whenever I encounter anyone new, I always assess them in the first few seconds on two very different criteria.
With women, of a certain age, it's whether I find them attractive or not and, with men of a certain age, it's whether I think I can handle them if things get unpleasant. Don't get me wrong, I don't consider myself some sort of macho man and I'd much rather avoid confrontation but I won't back down when challenged. Personally, I think that's a prerequisite if you're going to pick up strangers off the street but I've known plenty of guys sitting behind the wheel of a cab that, to me, are like lambs to the slaughter, a disaster waiting to happen but they tend to only work days and are home by six and still they have more than their share of trouble.
Digressing again but my point is that, to my eye, the girl was plain at best, the tall guy was totally inoffensive and, although the short one obviously thought of himself as a hard man, he definitely wasn't so I let them in.
They only wanted to go about five miles and, within yards, I knew that my assessments were correct. The tall lad sat in the front next to me whilst the other two sat in the back and it immediately became apparent that they were married and that he was in a stinking mood.
The girl tried to start up a conversation but her husband snarled at her to shut up and I took an instant dislike to him. I don't think that they'd had any specific argument, I think he was just a nasty drunk and, by the way that the other two cowered every time that he snarled, I was sure that they were well used to his outbursts. Not my problem, if they wanted to put up with a nasty bully, that was their problem.
It became my problem when the lad in the front seat asked me to stop about half a mile from our destination because he lived in a different direction so I pulled to the side of the road. The lad unfastened his seat belt but, before he could get out, the bully in the back seat snarled "Give me some money you prick".
The girl protested "Mark's not a prick, he's a mate"
The yob just growled "He's a prick, now give me some money you prick".
I could see that the tall lad was actually shaking as he croaked out "I'm sorry, I told you, I haven't got any money left, I told you I'll pay you tomorrow".
