Mousav

Necking? Still? How long have they been at it?

Mousav took the next corner a little harder on purpose just to spite the obnoxious lovers cooing in the backseat. No use. He watched them in the rearview, his rage boiling.

He’d been driving a cab for fifteen years, and it never seemed to get better. The man in the backseat, hair spiked to the ceiling, shirt unbuttoned to his chiseled abs, stroked his pretty little pet with a jewel encrusted hand. Gaudy, awful rings.

And she was no better. Just a mess of big fake diamonds on big fake tits.

Mousav watched the man’s hand hover in the air. He knew what came next, but prayed desperately for some originality. If he cups her, I swear to God.

Cup.

The taxi lurched and swerved suddenly into the adjacent lane. Mousav put on his cabbie charm.

“A little bumpy back there. Sorry, friends.”

“Just watch what you’re fucking doing, man.” The man scorned from the backseat, trying so hard to be hard. What a pussy. The man checked on his mate, who herself was tenderly touching her lip, a pained expression on her face.

“Is it bleeding?”

“Let me see, baby.” The man leaned in to inspect, but the enchanting aroma of tanning oil and Red Bull vodkas must have crept up without warning, for they went right back into their drunken gnawing.

Mousav tilted the mirror away from the guineas in the backseat towards his own face, unrecognizable to him from the scarring. It had been his face for fifteen years, but he’d never gotten used to it. Where was the face that had inspired courage among his men, and fear among his enemies? Long gone. The acid took it all.

It was supposed to be his ticket to freedom. His way out to a better life.

“Oh, Paulie.”

Mousav swatted a hand up, angling the mirror at the ceiling.

The club he dropped them at was entirely predictable. There was not a more boring place in the whole city. Everyone looked the same, dressed the same, drank the same -- and they were all goddamned orange.

He parked his cab, flipped off his light, and let it idle for awhile outside while he flipped through a magazine. He could read some of the words, but he was more interested in the pictures. So skinny, all of them. So pale. He continued perusing the periodical. The women in this country, I swear to God...

A knock at the window roused him.

A young, Black man. Very dark. Medium build. Clean shaven.

He stood outside the cab, bobbing up and down from the cold. Frosty breath coming out his nose. Eyes begging for a ride.

Mousav scoped him: No backwards hat, no oversized coat. In fact, the young man was quite the opposite. A button down oxford and a messenger bag: Completely out of his element. Mousav jerked his head towards the back seat and set the meter running.

“Thank you, sir.” The young man said, his sharp voice laced with markings of an African accent, it was faint, but it was more than enough to bring Mousav back to that place -- that time.

“It’s no problem, my friend.” Mousav grinned, “Where would you like to go?”

“Franklin and Highmore.”

Mousav stomped the brake. Shifted to “P”. Stopped the meter. “Ok, you have to get out now, my friend.”

“What?”

“I don’t go to that part of town.”

“But, I’m paying you to --”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“It’s freezing.”

“Should have worn a coat.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

“How?”

“Do you take drugs?”

Of course he did. It was the only way to keep the memories at bay, and the reality of his situation at arm’s length. Vaseline on the lens.

“What can you get?”

“Anything.”

“Anything?”

“Everything.”

Mousav shifted in his seat. He chewed at his tongue. Franklin and Highmore.

“Okay. But only for you, my friend.” And they were off.

The young man sat politely in the backseat through the first few lights, his brown leather messenger bag resting on his lap. He looked out the back windows, eyes following the streetlamps.

“Student?”

“What’s that?”

Mousav cleared his throat, “Are you going to school?”

“No, I’m too old for that shit.”

“So you just --?”

“I make money.”

That was enough to silence the talky cab driver. He turned the radio up. R&B drivel.

They came to a stoplight eight blocks later. Something caught Mousav’s attention. There on the sidewalk, a gaggle of club girls tiptoed through ice and slush, having a time of it with their stilettos and mini skirts.

It was the middle of February.

One girl in particular seemed to have had the most fun that evening, as it took two of her friends just to keep her from keeling over on the sidewalk.

She wore a tiara made from plastic penises.

Oh God. Bachelorette party.

Mousav couldn’t keep himself from chuckling. Low bass tones resonating from his chest.

He watched it all as the light remained red. The gaggle rushed to cross the street in time. The Bachelorette wobbled into the crossing, her attendants guiding her every step.

“Watch this.” Mousav was giddy.

The party came to a patch of ice in front of the cab. They took it slow, and for a moment, it appeared Mousav would be robbed of the payoff he so strongly desired, but soon, that red hand started flashing.

This sent the gaggle into a frenzy as, in an astonishing display of groupthink, they rushed to the safety of the adjacent sidewalk, arms flailing wildly as they did so.

Mousav’s chuckle came faster now. More pronounced.

Now, the poor bachelorette was left out there, stranded on the ice, her friends laughing and screaming on the other side. She struggled to keep her balance just standing there.

The light changed to green, and Mousav -- a wicked smile of anticipation on his face -- blared his horn.

The bachelorette jumped back -- a dire mistake. In a flash, she was down, her head and stilettos switching places.

Mousav lost it. He loosed a long, loud “HA”, that turned staccato before dying in a fit of wheezing and gasping. He continued this cycle as the gaggle came to dust off her woeful bachelorette -- tears in her eyes -- and escort her safely to the sidewalk.

Mousav had to wipe the tears from his own eyes as he set off through the intersection.

“Are you from Burundi?” The silence from the backseat was broken. It threw Mousav. He was too busy coming down from the high to arrange his lies. “Your accent is tricky. It’s American, but not quite. Burundi?”

“Uh,-- Yes. Around there. Yes.”

“I’m from Burundi. But, the war... Were you there during the war?”

Mousav’s breaths became short. “Yes, but I left.”

“Is that how you --” The young man didn’t need to finish the sentence to know he was talking about his charred, deformed countenance. The tight flesh burned with anger and embarrassment.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

Silence again. Mousav prayed it stayed that way. They were almost there.

“I lost my mother in the war.” The young man blurted. “I was just a kid, but I remember.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was eight. Some men came to my village, a patrol. We had barely even heard about a war, but there it was, right in our village. There was a man, the leader, I can’t remember his face, but he was tall and thick.

Knuckles clenched hard on the steering wheel.

“He and his men tore through our homes that day. Taking whatever they wanted -- whoever they wanted. When they tried to take my brother, my mother fought back. Then, the big man approached her. He pushed her back into the house. I heard him beating her. I heard her screams. And I heard that bastard laughing.”

The memories came flooding back to Mousav now. He remembered the mother, so angry, yet so powerless to change the situation. Falling to the ground and bouncing up with another flurry of wild punching and scratching and kicking. Just a bird flapping on the ground with a broken wing.

Revisiting the image again, Mousav couldn’t help but crack a smile. He hid it from his passenger.

They’d arrived at their destination at last.

“We’re here.” Mousav announced. The words were gentle.

The young man sighed and opened his door. He walked to the driver’s window, hand in his bag.

“Do you want to pay me in drugs, or some drugs, some cash?”

“You know, I don’t remember the bastard’s name, but I’ll never forget that laugh. Not as long as I live.”

The two stared at each other. It was out now.

“I found you, you son of a bitch.”

The young man pulled a snubnose and let fly. Mousav floored it, but the bullets found their mark in spite of it, passing through his left wrist and into the dash. He lost control. The taxi careened into a lamppost. Trapped.

Mousav saw the young man fast approaching in the rearview mirror, gun at his side, strutting confidently. He tilted the mirror down to his face. Where was the old face? The footsteps outside grew louder and louder. He heard the hand slap down on the window frame, and one last exhale from his attacker. Then, five shots in quick succession buried themselves in his chest.

He heard the young man flee, shouting to the onlookers, his neighbors, his countrymen, “The tyrant has fallen! Mousav is dead!”

Mousav studied the strange sight in the mirror. Where was the old face? No answer. Then, he looked into his own eyes, searching for something, a flicker of what used to be, but it was so weak, and then, there was nothing at all.