A taxi driver II
Quite some time ago, it must have been a year or more, D took a taxi somewhere here in Taipei. She was in a bit of a hurry, so she got in the first cab that stopped, although we always wait for a new car instead of riding in those sat-down, worn-down, smoke and betelnut infested old Ford Telstars. She said it felt wrong the minute she sat down and he took off. It was old, the seats were worn, the car reeked with the smell of betelnut, and the guy looked as if he was falling asleep, eyes glazed from another 24-hour-shift of driving and betelnut-chewing.
She didn't say a word besides letting him know where she was going, and she told him in Taiwanese, because you don't want to set these guys off if you can avoid it.
After a while, they got to a red light, and the car ahead of them, another cab, did a sudden brake, maybe because he didn't notice the red light, but more probably because he was planning on running it, and then realized that the cars in the other direction had already begun moving. D's driver, of course, had to do an even more sudden brake to avoid running into the other guy, not that a run-in would have made any difference to his old wreck.
That was all he needed. He started yelling and shouting, with red betelnut juice flying out of his mouth in every direction as if he had received a physical slap on the face by the driver in front of him.
He got out of the car, popped the trunk, got out the crowbar, and went completely berserk on the car in front of him, going wild on the doors and smashing the windows, screaming and shouting, while the driver locked it from the inside and tried to move over to the other side of the car before he got hit.
D had no change, so she placed a thousand entee dollars ten times the fare on the driver's seat before quietly slipping away. After all, you don't want a pumped-up, crowbar-wielding, betel nut-chewing berserk on your tail.
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