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Monday - The Disappearance of Forty Dollars - David McGovern

“Well it is fucking shit! Ya hear me? If you’ll pardon the French”

“We are quite fluent in French ourselves,” Clyde replies without a pause.

The cabdriver, Clyde and myself all begin to laugh raucously.

“heh heh heh well alright then!”

I turn and look out the driver’s side window of the van.  The French fries and Coors Light from the Hobby Airport’s sports bar, once airborne and eastward-bound, left my stomach a bit off-kilter.

“So where you boys from?”

“Chicago,” Clyde and myself reply in unison.

“Chicago! I was stationed down in Champaign back when I was in the army.  Used to go down there on the Southside. It’s diff’rnt now though, right?”

Clyde readily took the reigns of the conversation:

“They tore down all the high-rises and are putting condos up.”

“Shit, ain’t that crazy man.  Well, shit, it is happening everywhere.  I got my brother-in-law over in Mississippi and they turning old factories in lofts.  He bought one of them up and it’s fucking nice, but fucking crazy.  Ya hear me?”

“Oh, yes.”

“mmmhmm.”

Both of us agree with the driver’s opinion.   

Ahead, on the left, I see the Superdome, so familiar from news coverage a few falls back.  To unexpectedly see the Superdome’s massive pale concrete rise in the Louisiana humidity takes my breath away.  After seeing something so much on TV still did not really confirm the existence of the building.  I want to tell him to stop.  I want to touch it.  I want to be a Thomas.  Seeing is believing.  This is real?  As if reading my thoughts the cabbie changes topics:

“Ah so ya see right over there?”

He points in the direction I am looking, but a bit behind us.  My eyes are glued on the rapidly approaching Superdome, but I reply:

“Yeah …”

“Ah, so right over there?  Right there is where the first levee broke.  Then, up there,” he motions further ahead of us, “the next broke.”

Clyde and myself remain quiet.

“Shit, all that fucked alot of shit man.  I been living in a trailer in my front yard since then.”

“What part of the city do you live in?”

Clyde picks up the new topic.

“9^th Ward.”

I know the name, not where it is.

“I got a buddy, up north a bit, and he asks me “Say, how much water you get?”. And you know what I said?  I go “Fuck man, ALL of it!””

The car is roaring once again.

“Then, heh, I got the same friend he is doing some work for me now.  And, shit man, these contractors fuck you around so much.  One say he do it in this amount of time and money and then, fuck it, it takes twice as long and twice as much!  Ya hear me?”

“Yeah”

“eh?”

“Yeah.”

“Eh, yeah.  So just the other day he is in there fitting windows and he is sawin’ away, sawin’ away, standing back and looking at his work and then sawin’ away some more.  He takes the glass and puts it into the place in the front of the house.  We got some nice big picture windows in the front of the house.  So we go out to my trailer and take a look at the window.  And ya know what?  That goddamn window is crooked!  My friend goes “Eh, well shit!  I do believe it ain’t straight.” And sure enough it ain’t!”

The driver lifts both hands from the wheel as we continue to drive down the highway to show how off from center the window was installed.

Clyde contributes “You can call it art” but the cabbie hadn’t quite finished his thought and upon realization of the interruption addressed the comment:

“eh, what?”

“You can call it art.”

I look at the Superdome shrinking in the distance now.

“eh? Haha sure.  Sure!  Is that a Rembrandt or a Picasso?! HeHehHA!”

I join the laughing half-heartedly.  As the ripples of the joke subside we pull up to the hotel.

“Ok now boys, get out of the side there.”

He gestures to the side of the car closest to the hotel, the passenger side.  Clyde and myself head out and back to the trunk where are bags were placed.

“Hey y’all ever see that movie D.I.?”

“No.”

We both reply.  I reach for my wallet as the cabbie hands the first bag to Clyde.

“Haha, reminds me of my army days. In training we had a curfew.  And the D.I., the drill instructor, would go on rounds, to make sure we’d go to bed on time.”

He picks up Clyde’s laptop and hands it to him

“So me and the boys we liked to go down to the basement of the barracks after curfew and shoot some dice.  Ya hear me? Ya know?”

He crouches and shakes his right hand furiously.

“Eh heh heh heh.  Anyway, so we down there and I’m getting ready for my throw and let the dice go and I look up and everyone is standing at attention and there I am crouched over the dice I just threw.  Ooooooh boy … he did NOT like that eh heh heh heh.  Oh man, you see what them D.I.s where like if you see that movie!”

Clyde and myself join in again with the merriment.  At this point we both have our bags and we are both standing out front of the hotel just chatting with the cabbie.  Eager to get the night started I finger my wallet and ask
”So how much do we owe you sir?”

“Twenty-nine and then a little tip … please.”

“Sure, sure no problem.”

I take two bills from the wallet and hand them to the cabbie.  He looks down and appears to count the currency twice.

“Thanks y’all you have a good stay! Go rent the D.I.!”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you sir.  Have a good night!”

We turn and head past the valet and towards the hotel’s giant revolving door, shirt already sticking on my back from the southern moisture and a half day of travel.  As we enter the lobby with our luggage I grin and turn to Clyde:

“Fuck man, ALL of it!”