When I got into the waiting taxi, the driver was talking on his cellphone. I listened to him murmuring into his handset and I hazarded a guess. "Is that your girlfriend?". He put her on speakerphone and passed the conversational baton to her. "Are you my girlfriend?"
A pause. Then an amused voice spoke up from the palm of his hand "I guess I am."
That settled, I suggested to Curtis (that was the driver's name) that we pass through a McDonalds drivethrough. I was hungry and there's nothing like Maccers after drinks at 2am. He let me buy him a fizzy orange soda. With the ice thus broken, I indulged my curiosity.
He said it was his first day driving a taxi since his return. Return from where?, I asked. From away, he said. Away where?, I probed. My hunch was right. He had just got out of prison.
How he got into prison was quite a tale. He had been driving an NFL player who was with the Bengals. He'd been doing it for a while and thought they had become friends. Until the day they got hit by a car. Curtis got hurt and missed an appointment with a probation officer (so clearly he'd been in trouble before). For missing the meeting he had to go to jail. His NFL buddy turned out to be no friend and no help.
While in jail, Curtis' girlfriend told him that she had delivered their baby. And that the baby was now his problem. So when he came out, he had to take charge of the child as well as two other children from two other relationships.
And so here he was, driving a taxi through Cincinnati early in the morning, telling his story to a complete stranger.
How much of what he'd told me was true, I wondered. And what were the things that he had left out?
