Cash Cab, but It's Uber and There Is No Money
Fiction by Michael Bettendorf
You don’t drive home because you’re a little tipsy and your asshole friend drove anyway. You’ve had enough of their shit tonight, so you wait outside the bar with college kids who will never die.
A silver Hyundai driven by Jerry pulls to the curb. You verify it’s the right car and get in. A small Igloo cooler sits wedged on the floor behind the driver’s seat. He says to take a water.
Jerry waits for a lull in traffic to pull away from the curb. While he does so, he looks at you through the rearview mirror and verifies your address. You uncap a bottle of water and nod. Soon, Jerry turns on the dome light of his Sonata and you see the stock bulb has been replaced by a purple black light.
“I forgot my aux cord,” he says. “Sorry.”
And he starts in on the fifty-dollar questions.
How long have you been in love with your asshole friend?
Easy. Four years.
Do they always treat you this way?
Another easy one. No.
And Jerry lays on another two easy ones instead of minding his business, but it’s fine because you only have a few blocks to go. Your hands are sweaty, maybe from the water bottle, maybe not. You wipe them on the back seat. The hundred-dollar questions start coming through.
Have you ever experienced unconditional love?
You stare at the mailboxes outside of your window and reply. Apparently, it was sufficient, because Jerry keeps ’em coming.
Did your mom or dad fuck you up more? Or was it the bullies at school?
Two-part questions always threw you for a loop, so you answer in rambling tangents until he moves onto something else.
What is your biggest regret? Let’s narrow it down to the last five years.
You ask to use a street shoutout. Your options are: a man in neon running gear out for a jog, a swath of garden gnomes, and a little free library full of cookbooks. The man has jogged by already and so you stare at your reflection in the Hyundai Sonata’s window instead. Only you can answer this one anyway.
There are only a couple of blocks left to go.
All right. This is it. Double or nothing.
Jerry’s voice is going in and out as he drives, your focus dwindling.
Who are you, are you okay, and—is this your place?
The black light fades back into a soft, yellow light and the water bottle is empty. Jerry pulls over to the curb and parks. He turns around to face you and asks again, “This your place? Do you need help to the door?”
“Yeah, this is the place,” you say and take another water.
You tip Jerry and get out of the car, losing the double or nothing as you walk to your asshole friend’s apartment. You don’t know who you are anymore, you aren’t okay, but you have a spare key and some time to figure it out before they get home.
Michael Bettendorf (he/him) is a writer from the US Midwest. His short fiction has appeared/is forthcoming at Drabblecast, Sley House Press, and elsewhere. Michael's debut experimental novel/gamebook Trve Cvlt is forthcoming at Tenebrous Press (2024). He works in a high school library in Lincoln, NE - a place he tries to convince the world is too strange to be a flyover state. Find him on Bluesky/ Twitter @BeardedBetts and www.michaelbettendorfwrites.com.