The Uber Driver
cocaine and coffee
The low black car reeked of once-fresh coffee. When I closed the door behind me, it descended like a nostril full of drywall.
“Thanks for waiting so long for me,” I said, exasperated. An Uber virgin, I didn’t realize when you booked it on the app the driver started heading your way immediately. I thought I’d get to swipe through some more pages on my phone to select an exact time. I wasn’t ready when the creepy tracking device blinked that it was in my driveway. I didn’t even have my mascara on. And seeing as how I don’t treat myself to mascara often, I wasn’t about to rush it. Luckily this was his “second job,” so he didn’t mind.
Since my destination was a coffee house, and the driver was able to access which one, he took the opportunity to pitch to me his “first job:” a new coffee shop about to open up downtown. Which explained the gigantic smell. I decided I’d gladly listen to the origin story with relish and a closed nose but likely never set foot in the place.
Some of the intro to the story was lost forever. He started in before I had a chance to open the notes app on my phone. And because I was too focused on opening the app and getting the story down, I was unable to pay any attention to what he was saying, let alone commit it to memory. Sometimes I think part of healing is letting old thoughts die and decompose to make room for new ones. Evidently, there’s still a fair bit of composting left for me to do.
For reasons that died with the futility of the experience, by the time I finally got my shit together, he was telling me about his 1970s Volkswagon Beetle convertible. My aunt had one of those growing up. It was creamy white with red leather interior, and I remember singing “Red Rubber Ball,” my favorite Simon and Garfunkle, with her on our way out to Big Lake when I was 9. I tend to work better when I can picture things, make rapid associations in the moment. My fingers pecked white combinations into the black screen with a fervor known only to the slightly mad. I smiled, remembering, typing, composting.
Back in the day, he and his buddy decided it would be a good idea to drive a 40-year-old car across the country from Kansas City to Nevada. They ran out of money just outside Las Vegas and hawked the stereo and speakers for half a tank of gas to make it the rest of the way. This struck me as ballsy, if a little reckless. I silently approved.
From his poor-post in Vegas it dawned on him, maybe after a few lines of coke in the bathroom of “Paris, Paris,” that he could hop on a plane and be anywhere in less than a day. This somehow led him to travel to Guatemala, a word he said with what struck me as a misplaced Italian air. “HuAt-eh-mAlaa!” in an overzealous attempt to convince the cute girl in the back seat he was cooler than he was. But hell, I’m a sucker for a character and he was unmistakably that.
Once I got passed the ridiculous way that he said, “Col-OM-be-uh” I wrote down that he spent an extended amount of time with the farmers there. Which I thought was pretty cool. “My mission for my business is to draw a better connection between product and consumer. To close the gap.” He went on to say people don’t know where their coffee comes from. The work that goes into harvesting. They don’t know the families who grow the plants. If they did, they would care more. I considered how this was true. I love coffee, but I have no idea where my coffee comes from. I am completely disconnected from the process.
He almost lost me when he started bragging about the kids in the villages handing him coca leaves and eating cocaine with them. “That’s just what you do there.” I did nothing to disguise my eye roll. And hoped he could feel its reverberations in the front seat. He claimed to have spent a year in the jungle with no electricity. Said it was the best thing he’d ever done. How easy it was for his body to synch to the natural rhythms and cycles of the earth and sky and moon and sun. And how amazing it felt to be connected to that.
We were nearly there, and he missed the exit. Normally at this point, I would accept the fact that I was being taken to a warehouse for a good old-fashioned ax murder. But I decided I wouldn’t mind dying in the name of a good story. One that would eventually be found somewhere deep in the mud of the Westbottom stretch of the Missouri River, when they finally dredged my swollen body up a year later (Iphone 13. Waterproof).
He finally stopped to ask me what brought me to Kansas City, love or money? I said initially both. But that now I was splitting up with my partner. He said he was sorry, and I told him it was ok. That we both knew we were doing the right thing.
He said he believed in that. I said sometimes you just have to trust things even though you can’t see the clear picture of how they end up. He gave off the vibe of someone who was spiritual, even if it was occasionally stimulant-induced.
Then, he told me a story I will never forget.
At the time, he was living with the indigenous peoples of C-O-sta R-I-ca (pronounced pretentious-like). Maybe in mud huts. There was a tribal leader, a shaman he got to know pretty well during his stay. Who would teach him lessons about the culture and way of life. One day, in conversation with the shaman, he began to complain at considerable length about the state of his life. The shaman paused his amble, turned to him, and said this:
“Steven. Tell me. How many times a day does the Universe give you a legitimate, bonafide sign?”
Steven considered this for a brief moment. Then replied, “Two. Two times a day.”
“Don’t you see?” the shaman said. “This is your problem. The Universe gives you one hundred signs a day. One hundred opportunities to act in favor of your highest purpose. You just choose not to see them.”
“But here’s the good news,” he went on, “The Universe is relentless. It does not stop spitting signs at you just because you ignore them. The more you ignore them, the louder they get.”
Steven pulled his coffee-crusted car to the curb. I thanked him for his story. He handed me his card. I told him I was gonna hit him up for some names of medicine women I could go study with in HuAt-eh-mAlaa, when it was time. On second thought, maybe I would go check out his coffee shop. The sign doesn’t have to come in the perfect package in order to accept the gift inside.