Poison in a Pretty Package

Prejudice is alive and well in Chicago. I was dispatched to the Mt. Prospect train station to pick up two passengers under the name Prasalli at 9:00pm. Usually, when it's a time order at a train station, the passenger is coming in on a train.

I arrived at the station around 8:55. The night after Christmas was cool, damp and rainy, with a light drizzle falling as I waited. At 9:00 nearly on the dot two young women approached from the station house and got into my cab. Since no train had pulled in yet, I verified that they were my customers.

"Hi. Did you call for a taxi?"

They were both young, probably college age, both very attractive. They both responded at once. The brunette said, "Yes."

The blond replied, "Who are you?"

"You did call for a taxi?"

Blond said, "We called one of our friends. What's your name?"

I told her my name. "I'm waiting for a customer who ordered this taxi. What's the name you gave when you called?"

Blond said, "Erin."

"Well that's not the name I have on my order."

Blond asked, "What's the name you have?"

Brunette said, "Doesn't matter. He can't take us."

"Prasalli," I replied.

The confused conversation continued, and they told me that they had a couple of taxi drivers they use regularly.

"We find the good guys we like, and we call them when we need rides so we don't get any ...weirdos. You know what I mean?"

I was pretty sure I knew what she meant.

They chatted on and told me that one of their best friends had just died, and that one of their taxi driver friends was apparently coming to get them in an unmarked green van, which Blond was uncertain about getting into. I told them that, as it was now after the scheduled time for my customers' pickup, there was a good chance they wouldn't show, and I could take the ladies to Palatine after all. Resigned to the likelihood that I wasn't available to take them to Palatine, two towns up to the northwest along the rail line, they got out.

The railroad crossing gates came down, signaling the approach of a train from Chicago. The two young women approached me again.
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They both were under the delusion that my incoming customers were a woman, named Priscilla. Blond seemed to be in charge, or at least the stronger personality. "Where is this Priscilla going?"

"Wheeling," I replied, about a ten-minute drive north from the train station.

"Do you think maybe we could ride in your cab with them to wherever they're going, and then you could take us to Palatine?" she asked.

"That's up to my customers," I replied. "If they're cool with sharing, then I have no problem with it, but you'll have to ask them."

Moments later, train in the station, there was a knock on my driver's window. A dark-skinned man with straight hair combed and parted on one side, and sporting a mustache asked me, "Wheeling?"

"Did you call for a taxi?"

"Yes," he replied, his crisp Indian accent evident even in one brief word.

"What name did you leave on the order?"

"Prasani."

It was close enough to "Prasalli" to call it a match, so I told him and the woman who accompanied him that they could get in my car. I mentioned to them that the two young women standing now about 20 yards away from the taxi were interested in sharing a ride, though I'm not sure Mr. Prasani understood what I was saying.

I rolled down the window and called to the women. "Do you still want to share the ride?"

"No, we're good."

I find it amusing that they were willing to do just about anything to get a ride right up until they saw that their car mates were Indian, no doubt the kind of "weirdos" they were so concerned about having as their taxi driver in the random taxi lottery into which calling for a taxi enters you.

So I drove Mr. Prasani and his companion to their destination in Wheeling, all the while contemplating a return to the Mt. Prospect train station on the slim chance that those two young women would still be there. I mean, they were attractive, I am a horny middle aged man and I did want to be a hero. But the more I thought about it, the more disgusted with them I became that they had a change of heart when they saw who they thought was "Priscilla" actually was. So I said screw 'em! I am bound by the laws of this state to serve all customers, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender. If those women had gotten into my otherwise available car spewing racial hatred, I would have had to take them wherever they wanted to go. However, the circumstances as they were, I was not bound in any way to head back to get them, to save them from the rain.

No, as a matter of fact that thought quite pleased me!