Judson Carmichael - The Scared Stiff

“We could wait together.”

I shook my head. “I’d rather not.”

That surprised him. “But don’t you have something for me? Coming in on that plane?”

“It isn’t for you yet,” I told him. “Not till I’ve got my visa and my ticket north.”

“We are both wary, I see,” he said, as though the knowledge saddened him.

I said, “I tell you what. When the day comes for us to leave, you can give us a lift back here to the airport, and we’ll give you a going-away present.”

He smiled. “How generous we both are.”

Together we heard the sound of the plane and looked up to see it, high and small, gleaming white in the sun, just disappearing past the terminal. It would now make a long loop out over the savanna as it descended, and land coming back.

“I might like to see your wife again,” Rafez said.

“I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want to see you,” I told him. “Not now.”

He raised an eyebrow at me but then decided not to take offense. “Tell me,” he said, “has she ever struck you?”

I grinned at him. “Bony little fist, isn’t it?”

He smiled back, pitying me. “I wish you joy with her,” he said, and turned away.

The cabbies thawed as Rafez walked off. They glanced sideways at me to see if my very presence meant some sort of trouble in the general world of cabdom. I grinned at them and shrugged, and Rafez and his partner drove off, and the sun began to shine again, and the taxiing airplane got louder and louder and then abruptly switched off.

It was another five minutes before the passengers began at last to straggle out, angular with luggage, and among them here she came, out of the U.S.-built terminal, all in white, my Lola, smiling like a sunrise.

All the cabbies wanted that fare, but she was mine. She came to me, carrying her suitcase, and I took it from her, put it on the ground, and folded her in my arms. The other cabbies stood there with their mouths open, forgetting to yell “Taxi!”

All good things must end, even that kiss. Her eyes were full of sparks. “If you don’t take me away from here,” she said, “we’ll really surprise those fellas.”

I laughed, and we got out of there. And we lived happily ever after, the most devoted of brothers and sisters, Hansel and Gretel out of the woods; or at least until the six hundred thousand dollars ran out. But that’s another story.