DON'T TAKE ME THE LONG WAY
30 True & Truly Outrageous Cab Stories
Excerpt~
It’s an entry level job. Immigrants do it. People without verbal skills, who don’t have a lot of choices, drive a cab. So does anyone else who doesn’t want to have anything to do with a conventional life.
In my 20+ years of cab driving, I’ve probably met close to 200,000 people. Most have been solid, regular, everyday people. Some have had a great sense of humor. Some were assholes. A few were predators. One was a stone-cold killer.
Tourists tell me, “You should write a book.” Party people say, “Tell us your craziest story!” OK, that’s what I’m gonna do, tell you some crazy stories. But be warned. This is a book for adults.
Reading these stories, you’ll learn things about my life in the street that some of you will find repulsive. You’ll learn things about me that my ego would rather not have you know. Secrets, confessions, sordid details …
* * *
If you're a cab driver, making peanuts, one of the first things you’re challenged with is keeping your self-esteem intact. A cab driver may have been a doctor in India or a tank commander in Iran, but now he’s a guy who gets suspicious looks from hotel security when he uses their bathroom…. which brings me to the title “Don’t Take Me the Long Way!”
Why do people say that? Don’t they know it’s offensive to suggest imminent wrongdoing on the part of someone they’ve just met? And don’t they realize that just by saying it, they’re telling you they don’t have a fucking clue and they’re completely at your mercy?
* * *
Hey, Reader, you’re gonna ride shotgun. So imagine your cab broke down and you just got towed. You’re back in the garage… Everything you touch is greasy. So don’t touch anything. Watch out for the loose tools and shop lights, dangling from the underbellies of jacked-up cabs.
You’re standing at the cashier’s window at the end of your shift, queued up behind three other drivers waiting to pay. You’re so tired you can barely carry on a conversation. Your brain is fried. You’ve counted your money three or four times to make sure you got it right. After 11 hours of driving, that’s how it is. Out of 30 rides, 27 or 28 are a blur.
Men fall asleep here. Men become hypnotized by depression in this exhausted light. Dreams disintegrate here. Souls fall through the cracks like white dust, going nowhere....
BOOKS : DON'T TAKE ME THE LONG WAY
MC MARS
OFF D EDGE PRESS
REVIEWS
Hilarious and deeply moving ....
M.C. Mars is a great writer.
POZ MAGAZINE
Bling-bling lyricism and deep insight... The mutha fu$$#%#$ shhh...
XXL MAGAZINE
M.C. Mars has polished his day-to-day experiences, using the lyrical beauty of elegant, soaring language juxtaposed with raw, hip-hop inflected, street slang.... I couldn't put it down.
BACKSEAT RIDER
MC Mars puts it on paper so fine so clean so pure you'd swear he's got a heavenly mandate not an earthly medallion.
He's a night man, but his words are beams of light. Deep-down writing by a driven man who's just trying to see what drives us. Get this now and let it read you. Let him take you.
HUEY MOLINAR
donna beech
©2011 DONNA BEECH | webdesign donna beech
EDITING THAT PRESERVES THE LYRICISM OF THE TEXT
PROJECT
RESULT
PUBLICATION OF A VERY POPULAR GRASSROOTS BOOK
