TAXI DRIVER THE SURVIVOR
On the road again. Before even reaching the airport, a compelling story presented itself to me, I feel I should share with the reader. I arranged a shuttle to come pick me up from my house. My luggage is already on the stoop. As I am trying to get my final items together, I catch a glimpse of a red car pulling in onto my driveway. Usually what happens next is, the driver comes to the stoop and starts loading my luggage in the cab as I put on my coat and shoes inside. However, that doesn’t happen this time. The driver doesn't appear by the stoop even after I go out. I look toward the cab, trying to find an explanation. The driver is a woman. I don't even know why I am slightly surprised. I smile at her so does she at me. How could I know a nonstop chatter was waiting to burst just with the trigger of an exchange of smiles?
I will soon learn her name is Asila (of course i wouldn't publish her real name here just as I will change everything in this note just enough so that readers may not identify her). She is a redhead, most likely my age, my size, olive skinned; deeply set small eyes with her bangs giving her a mysterious appearance. Yet, the moment she starts chattering, two things become very clear: She is anxious, covering up her anxiety with her chattering. And, she might have a rough past; she has no teeth, is it just poverty or something else eroded her teeth too prematurely, something that endangers the children I see in my clinic day in day out, something that destroys families, lives, relationships, minds and bodies... Could she be a victim of methamphetamine addiction, on which I am specializing in a way?
For ten minutes she tells me how difficult it was to find my house and how she went the wrong direction and how police helped her find my place, on and on and on... In fact the address was so clear including the directions that I gave the call taker at her company. I am now intrigued by her enough that I want to learn more about her, who is she, where has she been, where is she heading? She has been working with this company for only the last 8 months. She tells me she likes it except for when people argue. She is in a way so personable, I can't understand why one would argue with her except for perhaps telling her "Can you please shut up?" if one doesn't care about "Who is this woman?". She tells me about a young woman for whom Asila was a bit late and took a wrong turn that made her even later, which made the customer even more upset. On top of all, she was also concerned that she was going to have to pay more than she had previously paid on this trip. Eventually, Asile decided to take over the extra charge and they settled down with what the young gal was willing to pay. Asila was still upset about it, though. A harsh sigh, almost a whip lash in the air, is clear indication that she has not forgiven her customer.
I ask her if she works days or nights, or both. She works only days since she can't see well at night. Her mother ordered her a pair of glasses that will help her see better. At age 50s, her mother ordering her glasses, how similar to the clients I see in my clinic. Constant “taking the wrong turn” both literally and metaphorically, how common in my clientele. In a way, as a child abuse pediatrician, I am feeling sad for this woman and want to not go any further with getting to know her better. But then, the anthropologist side of me is curious beyond measure. Furthermore, there is no stopping to her chattering anyway, whether I want to listen to her or not, I am doomed with no way out for another half hour!.
And, besides that, it is so clear she wants to talk, now that she's found a pair of caring ears to listen to her story, she goes on... Her mother is in her 90s with a painful physical condition on top of Parkinson's, which debilitates her mental faculties. Asila has to go to her mother every day to put on a narcotic pain killer patch on her in addition to giving her narcotic pain killer pills. Otherwise, her mom wouldn't remember taking them. She then throws in a fact about she, herself also taking narcotic pain killers. I feel uncomfortable asking her for what, she doesn't volunteer. With her usual chattering about everything but mentioning this just tangentially makes me wonder if what caused her loss of her teeth prematurely was replaced by prescription drug abuse.
I ask her if she has any children to change the topic. She does, a daughter very close to my daughter's age. She is out of state. I ask her what she is doing there. Instead of answering what I asked, she starts telling me about a very familiar story: The daughter has a child from a previous relationship, her boyfriend has two, and now they have a baby together. She doesn't have a car, when she needs to come visit her mom, Asila has to drive up north and bring her to Iowa. "It costs half a tank of gas you know", resentment in her voice. It will come back again and again when she talks about her daughter. I wonder if the daughter is the naughty one or the mother, or perhaps both, don't I see this intergenerational transfer of negative behaviors, they call it epigenetic nowadays.
At some point she volunteers that she is studying criminal justice and counseling at one of the online colleges. I get excited, "OK, perhaps, whatever happened in the past, she is holding onto life to recreate herself!" although in the back of my mind is also “Could this be wishful thinking?” To encourage her to talk more, I tell her, I work in a similar field and I work with social workers. She doesn't ask what I actually do, which is unusual for someone who indeed studies what she just said she is. Instead a frustrated if not angry "I detest social workers, they just took the children of some people I know and put them in foster care. And you know what the foster mother does? She tells this 6 year old girl she is an adult. She is now talking all about penises and vaginas. It is not her place to teach her these things, it is parents' job" comes out in one breath.
She is like a machine gun, clearly there must be more to this, looking at the emotional charge this should-have-been a benign conversation caused. I ask her how she knows these people. She tells me she let them stay with her for couple of months. It became four, she put a deadline, but before they left apparently social services got involved and they came to Asila's house to see the conditions of the house since the family resided with her after all. She volunteers "Well cleaning the house is not my thing. I clean it of course when it really has to be cleaned. They came and told me I was a hoarder and had a mental health problem. My mom laughed at this, she told me I had no mental problem" I hear the pain of the little girl in her. At this age, still looking up to her mother to understand herself? What led to her being stuck in whatever phase of her growth, who knows...
She then tells me she used to work at a major hospital as an administrator closely interacting with social services "They used to work with abused children..." Do I imagine the darkness that takes over her face when she says that? I ask her whether she retired, the most benign question I can think of to learn about why she left that very prestigious institution. The answer is simple: "They fired me!" Wow, almost brutal honesty. All I can say is "I am sorry." She continues "I got diabetes then. I was confused, I made mistakes and fell asleep at work one day. And there was this social worker...", she gave me the name, even, and went on and on and on that the social worker, younger than Asila, couldn't tolerate that people would go to Asila with their problems with their children "...because they needed a mother's point of view." It looks more and more she has created excuses in her mind to justify others being responsible for her failure in the past.
Concerns are chasing one another in my mind: "Narcotic pain killers, hosting a family whose children were abused/neglected, falling asleep at work (was she abusing prescription pain killers then, too, or was she under the influence of something else?) that led to being fired..." She declares humbly, "Since then I have been doing this and that. I like my job, it is good." I tell her it is great that she likes what she is doing, that is important as we turn left into the airport complex. I know, I scratched just the thinnest layer of what this redhead with no teeth has been holding in for how many decades. I wonder why she trusted me to open up like this? I wonder if she does this with every customer or did she trust me because I volunteered to sit by her in the front seat rather than sitting in the back seat, which would be my seat as well with male drivers. I wonder if this "session" will be of any help to her? I wonder if our roads will ever cross again? I give her a hefty tip and leave with a tangy taste in my heart. I look at her, it looks like there is the same tanginess in her heart, too....
