AshezOne

I had just finished having dinner at Dixie that night. Taking a cab home seemed a wise decision since it was pretty late and I was sure no one at home would want to pick me up. So I waited for a cab on the sidewalk before Dixie. It needed only about ten minutes until a cab finally stopped at my wave.

“Jokteng wetan, please.” I said to the cab driver right after I landed my backside on the backseat.

The first minutes of the trip, none of use seemed to be interested in starting a conversation. Then the cab passed Cinema XXI which was so crowded. Many long lines of parked motorbikes and cars indicated hundreds of people are cramped in the building. Most of them were, of course, young fellows and ladies in so-called fashion-wise outfits.

“This town seems more alive at night, isn’t it?” I said, more to myself.

“Yes, it is,” the cab driver answered, “people like hanging around when it’s dark better these days.”

“You can’t blame them. The new mall, and then the new cinema – it must be pretty hard for them to stay at home watching stupid TV shows.”

“Yeah. But still, most of them are so young. They should be at home studying for school.”

I chuckled, “I always wonder what they think they’re doing and want to do on the road at night. You know, I personally will feel super tired if I have to lead both day and night lives. I mean, I go to school at days and rest at nights. I can’t go to school at days and hang out at nights. It’s going to be too much for me.”

“It all depends on how the parents teach their children, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those kids out there won’t be out there without their parents allowing them and providing them with money, right?”

“Aren’t those kind of parents cool?”

The cab driver shrugged. “I don’t think so. Look how their children are behaving. They spend the night God knows where when they should be studying at home – and people are complaining about how low our education standard is. They wear clothes that expose too much of their skin like that. I don’t know, those kids don’t seem alright to me.”

I remembered my parents, who would never allow me out at night if it wasn’t for important reasons. “I should thank my dull parents then.”

The cab driver laughed.

“So, speaking of exposing too much skin, do you mean those girls in tank tops and hot pants?” I asked him.

“Yeah, those girls.”

“God knows how they aren’t freezing in this kind of temperature with only those outfits on. Anyway, why would you think they’re exposing too much skin? Not that I don’t agree with you there, but don’t guys like seeing too much skin?” I said, grinning war to ear.

The cab driver chuckled. “Yeah, yeah… some guys might like it. But I’ve seen enough. I’m a cab driver, you see. Almost every night I end up driving those kind of girls home and they are not all pleasant.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Interesting. What have they done?”

“Let me give you an example. A couple of nights ago, there was this one girl who called my company and wanted a taxi to take her to a club. The company sent me. So I picked her up and took her to this club. She told me to pick her up at the club again at 3 in the morning.”

“Did you pick her up?”

“No, I didn’t. They can get crazy all they want but they won’t keep me awake when I should be sleeping.”

“So?” I didn’t know where the story was going.

“So I met this girl again the other night. She was in a small top and small pair of hot pants, wearing too much make ups for a girl her age, and was a bit drunk, I believe. So she sat on the front seat and asked if she could smoke with the Air Conditioner on. I can’t say no to a customer, so I said yes. We didn’t talk or anything, then she put her both feet on the dashboard and said ‘Do I still look pretty?’”

I burst into laugh. “I bet that was disturbing.”

“It was, indeed.”

“What did you answer?”

“She was pretty, so I said, ‘Yes, you look pretty. Everyone who sees you will say you’re pretty. But please, can you get your feet off the dashboard?’ She mumbled some stuffs and got her feet off the dashboard.”

“So, she was pretty, eh?”

“She was. Yet what to expect from a pretty girl who dresses up and acts like her? Usually when you see pretty girls, it will lighten your mood or refresh your mind, but seeing her was on the contrary. In act, being in a cab with her was depressing. Those morals and traditions we used to have – you’d wonder where they have gone.”

“Yeah, girls are made pretty to cheer the world up, not to make it slutty.”

We were already very near home then. I told him to go left from the highway and stop, then I handed him his money.

“Thanks for the ride. It was nice talking to you.”

“You too.”

This story happened several nights ago. I’ve been thinking it over and over and I can’t agree more with the super nice cab driver I was lucky to met.