Your Driver Is Waiting

by Priya Guns

“This place is unsafe. The ceiling is going to fall, the floors are unstable. The restroom is a mess. People were smoking cigarettes in the kitchen. I think there are sex workers in those tents. There were so many homeless people asking me for money.” “Wait, that’s what you see here?”

Kadhal, love, born from a fear of letting go Roja, rose, the color of her lips. The yearning heart trembles at the thought of tomorrow Where lovers slide and whine from chest to hips Big up the folk dem massive!

she’d have gone outside where on an orange L-shaped bench people chatted about life after capitalism, life with communism, and classlessness, and that just may have been it! The ugly C words may have triggered a chord in her spirit and she lost all means of rational thinking.

Had she thought that Black lives mattered until her back was against the wall? Did someone whisper “racist” as she passed by, shooting the word off their tongue like a dirty dart dipped in poison?

Or Jolene, shaken out of her conversion to allyship, backslid into what she knew best. She didn’t think twice about it—it was too easy, almost natural. She knew exactly what she was doing and she actually thought I’d be okay with it. I was the exception. I was her validation.

For the hours I was on my own with my high beams on, I gripped the wheel, worried my heart would explode. Someone would find me with my blood splattered on the windows. CLEAN ME, I’d have written, with my index finger sifting through the red clumps of me.

To quote one of our anonymous callers, being silent is being violent.

That fucking bitch!

I smashed the cup on the counter, forgetting to let go. Shards pierced my palm, clinging to my skin. Blood dripped to the ground. One drop turned to a splatter at my feet and below me was art made from my body.

Amma stuck her head out from the hallway; her eyes moved down to my chest as the television murmured behind her. Do mothers see broken hearts over clothes and skin and flesh?

Just before I left she added, “I love you, Damani. Don’t ever forget, your Appa does too.”

It had been almost ten hours since I’d last seen Jolene, and she still wasn’t picking up any of my calls. Not a single response to my messages. She was somehow still able to carry on. Or was she dead? Had she killed herself in embarrassment? Did she choke on her fist because how does someone manage to sleep after having suddenly betrayed so many people?

Why was she ignoring me? Didn’t she want to explain to me how she saw her actions as justified?

I knew I was being intense, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her, about what she’d said to me. What she’d done. What she’d maybe told the cops. I don’t like being lied to—who the fuck does?

Then there was an Amy (4.9 stars) who had that look I like. Goth girls with piercings and neo-traditional tattoos, one placed terribly on their thigh. They cut themselves in soft places. Their dildos were purple and they used them religiously on Friday nights. The yeastiness from the beer they drank could be smelled from between their legs.

Jolene knew that if I got anything like a warning I wouldn’t be able to drive anymore. If I wasn’t driving, I wasn’t working until I could find another job. Did she really want to hurt me that bad?

In the bathroom there were clippers. I plugged them in. My reflection looked too familiar. I looked too kind. My hair was long because that’s how Appa used to love it. “It’s just like my mother’s was,” he had said. But my long hair made me look as though you could mess with me. You could grab it, pull me down to the ground, and put your foot on my face. You could stuff my hair in my mouth and call me pretty. I didn’t need anyone to ever have that much leverage over me.

I had seen people chopping their hair off in the movies in an attempt to show us that the character was losing control and about to do something terrible.

I was a woman who wasn’t going to take it anymore because I swear, I have taken so much already.

My body felt strong and I wanted to break things. Full speed, I was coming for her.

The edge of the knife was to Jolene’s neck. The reverberation of her heartbeat tapped my thigh and in that split nanosecond, I wanted to kiss her.

I couldn’t let Jolene just walk away from me again. Not after what she had done.

I wanted to bite his nose off. I wanted to make him dinner at his home, light him a cigar, then shit in his toilet. I wanted to feed him my shit for dessert.

I responded to him immediately: I’m sorry, Shereef. He was quick with: Why should you be sorry? I started to type: I love you in response, but then deleted it before deciding to send: Because I should’ve known better. To which he responded: You did nothing wrong.

She was alone. She looked around as if she knew someone was watching her. It’s not a nice feeling, is it?

We Need Love, her sign read and I almost laughed.

I swear I heard her fucking footsteps running to her God; she ran faster and faster, because fucking hell she was a horse that I should place bets on, and I had no choice but to show her that she wasn’t shit compared to my B16A engine. I drove forward, switched gears, and pressed on the gas. I saw how my revolutions per minute pushed to the right. She looked at me over her shoulder. I pressed even harder on the gas and closed my eyes.

“Are you okay?” Someone opened my door, letting the brisk air hit my face with a what-the-fuck-did-you-just-do.

“Get out. Get out quick. Can you run?” “Someone help!” “Shield the car!” “Protect her!”

My car was being pushed by hordes of people who understood me. I was shoved towards safety, and Jolene was out of sight.

The day my parents were forced to sell their house and rent out their own basement, I had asked Appa why life was so unfair. He had said in the calmest of ways, “Because the greater the divide, the stronger the rule, chellam.” Then he kissed my cheek and said, “This won’t be for long.” He could’ve just said it was because we came here broke, and we will probably die here broke, and that would’ve made more sense to me.

“I can’t do this,” I screamed. No one was there to hear me as the sound of my voice tapered off into the night.

Amma was trying so hard to be the woman she was six months ago. She and Appa did all they could for me. Seeing her as she was now, her age appearing more and more on her skin and hair, her story written on the lines of her face, I cried like I had never cried before.

From behind her back, she revealed a bag of chocolate almonds. Her face was mine, though she thought I looked more like my father.

“I’m here,” I said in her ears, brushing her salt-and-pepper hair with my paw. “Me too,” she said. “Me too.”

Jo with Attitude—I’m not ready to make a public statement yet. But, I’m on here to ask for all your help. My friend needs us! Please donate what you can. Her mother is disabled and they both suffer with undiagnosed mental health issues. Come on folks! Donate!

I know she did not just

“Amma?” “Mm.” “I lost Appa’s car.” “Okay. We’ll buy a new one. Appa will be okay.”

She laughed and I realized I’d missed it, so I asked, “How’s the sex with the old guy, by the way?” and she laughed some more just for me.

There was a thirty-second video of people thanking me where I was referred to as “The Taxi Driver.”

“Look.” There was another eviction notice on the table. “The bananas you bought are already black. Make some bread. We don’t have any flour, though.”

I had told Amma I’d written a letter to Michael Douglas explaining our situation. He was the one who gave us the cash, and Amma nearly pissed herself. “See, I told you! Michael Douglas is a good guy!” She made me print and frame a picture of him.

“It’s just a sandwich,” I reminded her. “You can be so horrible sometimes,” she snapped.

She was there, standing in front of Hot Kitchen, after all these months, holding hands with a woman who looked exactly like me from her thrifted clothes to her thick black hair, though she obviously didn’t work out.

But why would Jolene bring her new girlfriend here, of all the places to dine in the city? “I once knew a chick whose dad invented this famous sandwich. Hang on, there’s some sauce on your face. Babe.”