People's Choice Award: Taxi

By Margot Schwass

EXCERPT:

Once they were over the bridge and heading away from the harbour, Ali had to concentrate more. They drove past warehouses, self-storage facilities, show-homes, timber yards. Beyond were blank suburbs whose names Ali did not yet know.

In the back seat, the young men were furiously texting.

‘So where can I take you, gentlemen?’

They didn’t know yet, still trying to track down the address. Just keep going towards Glenview, they said, down the Esplanade.

Ali did not often come over to Glenview, but he know the Esplanade. A very long road with many roundabouts.

‘Would that be the City end of the Esplanade, sir?’

He felt the air in the cab change, like when a plane starts its descent. Ali glanced in his rear
vision mirror. The young man with red cheeks had stopped texting and was staring at him.

‘Like I said, we don’t know. What’s the problem? Just drive down the fucking Esplanade.’

Ali concentrated on the road.

There was laughter now in the back seat. ‘Oh my golly, the City end, isn’t it?’ said the stocky one in a girlish voice that Ali knew was meant to sound like his. He studied the road signs intently.

‘Oh my gosh, oh my golly goodness me.’ The boy leaned forward between the seats, and reached out to Ali’s driver ID which hung from the rear vision mirror.

‘Wouldn’t you know! Its Ali Fucking Baba!’ he crowed to his friends.

Ali smiled. He knew this joke. Sometimes when he stopped by the office for a cup of tea in the early hours of the morning, the dispatcher called him that too. ‘Cheer up, Ali Baba, it might never happen!’ He would boom from behind his desk, his broad stomach spread out before him like a banquet. And Ali had learned to smile at that, once he’d checked with one of the other drivers about the Ali Baba person. Someone in a story, the driver had said. A good person? Yeah, a good guy, said the driver. He played tricks on a bunch of thieves.