Trying Times

In a stroke of good fortune, I wasn't the only limousine that our Country-Club Rappers had engaged for the night. There were two of us, from different companies. And the really good news was that the other driver was a very cool dude, an older guy who'd been around the business for way longer than me.

Guys like Robert have seen it all. Nothing gets to them. A few punk-arsed show-offs trying to impress the girls make no impression whatsoever, and neither do the girls. Watching him operate was a thing of beauty. When someone put their drink on the trunk he was there lifting it off - not saying anything, but reprimanding with his action. If one of the guys started doing something truly stupid, you could feel Robert's power from a distance, and the kid would stop. He was a kind of bouncer/enforcer...but one who magically acted from a distance, like he had a magnetic super-power that alerted dumb drunks that they were behaving like jackarses.

Eventually we went in convoy to Ybor City, to the most popular club there. Two stretched limousines stopped on 7th Ave will block traffic, so we tried to get the drunks out and ourselves moving as quickly as possible. But no, these dopey kids literally stopped as a group in the middle of the road, lighting cigarettes, flipping cars the bird, resisting all opportunities to exhibit civilized behaviour. The cops had seen enough of this after a few minutes and moved everyone on - including Robert and me - much to my relief.

By now it's 11:30 pm, but there's not time to slack. Instead, it's time to clean. Of course these numbskulls have made a maximum amount of mess in the back of the limo. I often wonder why it is that people so often feel the need to do this. They wouldn't do it in their own home, or their own car...or perhaps they would. Apparently part of the stretched limo experience is to create and wallow in a dumpster. I look at the soaked napkins, spilled drinks, trash everywhere, bottle-tops inserted all-over and wonder why they do this kind of willful destruction.

It takes me an hour to clean up.

I buy us some coffee and a sandwich from the gas station in which we're parked.

We chat.

Another limo comes along, but the driver's not as nice company as Robert, so I withdraw to the airconditioned car for a while.

Around 1:30 I get a phone call, and it's not my people. It's The Boss.



Havana pic from here [link]

Ybor City Animals

Busy, a new feeling, even if it was only for one day. The weekend was the busiest for weeks, handy because now I might nearly make enough to pay a few bills.

Saturday was notable for blessing me with two (2) limousine runs. The first was an afternoon wedding run, which included a crying bride...but I'll save the tears for another post.

After that The Boss scheduled a 9:30 pm pickup. A bunch of twenty-somethings were heading out on the town in Ybor City, Tampa's high-crime sewer of a club district. Despite that, Ybor is an interesting place, centre of the cigar-rolling business for which Tampa used to be known.

Thesedays Ybor attracts the drunk and drugged crowd. I've seen more knife-fights, punch-ups and general anti-social behaviour on the streets there than anywhere else in the world. Besides that minor detail, the streets are narrow and there's no parking for a stretched limousine, so you can imagine how happy I was to be there.

As usual, the cops standing on the corner turned a blind eye to me stopping traffic on 7th Avenue to unload my people. It's a two-lane thoroughfare, and they understand we drivers are just trying to make a living. I move on as quickly as possible. But as I'm about to drive off to find coffee, another cop, a mounted policeman, guided his steed in my direction.

Using one of those dismissive hand gestures they teach in cop school, he indicated he had something to say.

"You can't park here," he said. I looked up at him, then to the two cops standing behind him on the sidewalk, and back to him.

I wanted to point out the double standard - two sets of cops, two different rules - but thought better of it.

Those horses are BIG.