Christy nodded slowly. She’d heard that before. From runaways. From women leaving bad situations. From people who’d decided to start over with nothing but a suitcase and a bus ticket.
Christy Marks had driven a taxi in this city for twelve years, long enough to know that every fare was a story folded into a backseat. Some were loud, some were silent. Some left nothing behind but crumpled receipts and the ghost of cheap perfume. But Christy remembered them all, because Christy was the kind of woman who paid attention. christy marks taxi
She was sixty-two, with silver-streaked hair pulled back in a tight bun and reading glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. Her taxi, a battered but reliable Crown Victoria she’d named “Mabel,” smelled of coffee, old leather, and the pine tree air freshener she replaced religiously every first of the month. The medallion on her door read “C. Marks,” and beneath it, in smaller letters: “No music, but good conversation.” Christy nodded slowly
The woman hesitated, then smiled—small and fragile, like a crack in a dam. “Thank you, Christy.” From women leaving bad situations
“I had a fare once,” Christy said, “a man named Leo. Old guy. Used to work at the steel plant before it shut down. Every Wednesday at 7 PM, I’d pick him up from the VA clinic and take him to a diner on Grand Avenue. Same diner, same booth, same cup of black coffee. He never said much. But one day he told me: ‘Christy, you know why I take your cab? Because you’re the only person who still calls me by my name.’” She paused. “I picked him up for three years, every Wednesday, until he passed.”
The young woman was quiet. Then, softly: “What happened to him?”