Miguel.

Tall, tanned with a duffel bag he sits in front with me.   “I am Miguel” instantly my language centre of my brain deduces quickly that Miguel is a student, in fact, a foreign student. I say hello back, in English. Slowly.  I notice his knees are very tanned, already I’m annoyed he can get away with wearing shorts as I look stupid even standing next to a rack of shorts in a shop.  Me with my white british knees. “I love England, it is pretty” I sense he is reciting a Spanish Janet and John ‘how to speak the English’ book for the under-fives. Probably not though, last time I spoke Spanish I said “graphiarse” instead of gracias, somehow my lips got involved and both colluded to embarrass me. We are making good progress and about halfway to his destination he starts to move about in his seat to face me, he starts to stroke the side of the seat and that instantly puts me into my I-appreciate-your-gay-but-I’m-not-mode, as I am quite a catch for the younger gay men of this world. I am thinking he wants to stay in the UK with the perfect sugar daddy, which is me obviously.  It is funny what conclusions you can come to in a few seconds. “Have you want to seen my banana?” Miguel insists whilst tapping my arm and has a pout on, like they do in them ‘selfies’ you see on twitter and that Facebook. I have to stop, he’s crossed a boundary touching me and offering me his ‘banana.’ I pull over, get out and stomp around to the passenger door, open it and drag him and his tanned knees out. He is crying and wailing, not sure what he is saying but I get in and drive away. Feeling bloody miffed I can tell you, I’m always being picked on by the gays, just because I have perfect nails, lovely teeth, wear lovely clothes, wash almost every day and listen to Melody Gardot. I’m miffed me, miffed.   Much later while searching for a penny that fell out of my quite perfectly manicured hand down the side of the passenger seat, I find a bandana.  The penny dropping was perhaps a metaphor for the penny dropping in my perfectly moisturised and quaffered head. ‘Have I seen his bandana?’ is what Miguel was trying to say to me. I feel a bit daft and embarrassed; he was not trying to pull me to be his sugar daddy, he was looking for his bandana! I still have it. I wore it when I dressed as a pirate for pirate day, tied it to my sword. Very fetching.

Hank.

“Where can I get a REALLY good shag man?” He seemed very keen to get the best and I knew just the place. “How much cash do you think I’ll need?” I don’t know how much a really good shag is these days and told good 'ol American boy Hank you generally get what you pay for, he elbowed me in that manly way that’s quite annoying. We stopped at a cash point and emptied it, this guy is obviously out to pay for the best shag he could get while he’s here in England and I’m worried now that the little place I know won’t have what he’s looking for, fortunately I’ve seen what they have to offer and it looks good enough to me. “I’m a bit nervous! He is wringing his hands er… nervously; bit odd I thought, after all, it’s quite normal, maybe the town he lives in hasn’t got a place quite like the one I’m taking him to.  I tell him I think he will be pleased as you can get ready rubbed as well and they do quite a good rough one. His eyes light up. OH. MY. GOD!  He is starting to animate and jiggle about which is not really doing my suspension any good as Hank is quite a large man. We arrive at the bottom of the street in the old town and I cannot go any further. His large spongy wet hand shakes mine, he pays me and gives me a whole pound tip. I gesture where it is and tell him it is the fifth or sixth door up on the left. “How will I know it’s the right door?” I winked at him and told him he will know and watched him walk up the street, he stopped roughly where I said the place would be and I gave him the thumbs up. He did not look that happy, don’t know why, it’s the only proper tobacconist shop I know in this town. Some people are never happy are they?

Tony.

Quick mate! Quick! He wants me to get to a pub in the middle of town quick it seems. We arrive and park up a little distance from the pub. He is nervous, excited. We wait. Ten minutes go by. “What are we waiting for?  I whisper so the people in the pub 50yds away cannot hear me. “My children…” he gagged back a cry. “ I’m losing my children.” He was talking to himself and was getting more agitated as he stared at the pub door. Twenty minutes go by.  A woman comes out and lights a cigarette, he tenses, and she is clearly the person we have been waiting for. A couple of minutes later a man joins her, cuddles then kisses her grabbing her arse as he does. Tony is breathing heavy “My wife…” he is whispering to himself… My children…I’m losing my children” he then explodes out of the cab and runs at the kissing couple. Screaming. Pushing. A scene. I leave.  I leave because weeks earlier this same woman tore at my clothes demanding sex. I obliged. I didn’t ask if she was married, I didn’t ask if she had children. I feel sick. I never gave a thought.  I was single. I saw this man’s life fall apart. I took part in his downfall and watched it finally fall apart. He was whispering prophetically his own future moments earlier, the future where he sees his children at the weekends, where he over compensates with them at every opportunity, a future where his home is probably a dingy flat. He saw that future sitting next to me in the cab. I stopped women calling upon me to scratch their itches; I refused from then on to shape someone's sombre future. I have seen Tony in the park with his lovely kids, he was laughing and happy, but I knew at 5pm, he takes them back to the woman that has sex with complete strangers.

Hammy.

A small diminutive man. Drunk, happy and full of things to say, I cannot understand a single word so I nod an awful lot. He wears a tartan cap with a bright red bobble on top.  He is Scottish and sees the cultural irony in his choice of headwear. Worried that my constant nodding to his indecipherable drivel will turn into a twitch, I then decide to ‘hmm’ agreeingly. We arrive, he pays me in 2p and 20p pieces and I am now wondering should I reinforce the floor beneath my bed where my change bucket lives. He finally decides to leave the cab, his face bright red with joy matching his bobble on his cap. He stops, bellows something to me in drunk Glaswegian, opens his yellow polystyrene box of steaming hot fatty kebab meat, grabs a large handful of what scientists are still deciding whether it is meat at all and deposits it onto my instrument cowling right in front of me. The grease is hot and is already running down my leg and to my brogues that I dutifully polish every day. He is tearful at his bountiful generosity as he slaps the same greasy hand onto my shoulder and gives it a squeeze as he gets out, wobbles and falls into a bush. This was my tip. I drove home open mouthed, incredulous and in shock to wash and change. Took an hour to get the grease out of the carpet in the cab. AN HOUR.

Eileen

Her speech impediment makes it hard for me to understand her. You have to listen hard. In her late sixties and having spent, many years locked in her own home, away from the frightening outside world. She is now going to shows and taking part in community excursions, making friends. She pointed to a balcony on the second floor of the flats, on it, she grows herbs and flowers and especially strawberries. She loves strawberries. As we pull up to the entrance, she stutters violently and shakes and I hold her hand and ask what is making her so upset. Her neighbours spit on her herbs and strawberries from the next-door balcony, they pour beer and stub cigarettes into her herb pots. Laughing. Shouting. Poking fun at her speech. She hears them from her living room cackling like hyenas. She struggles to tell me she is being bullied. She is looking to move to a chalet type bungalow, small but with a small garden and this lit up her face. I watch her wave the electronic key at the door and it buzzed open. I sit outside, furious, watching and willing the hyenas to come out, Eileen is already on her balcony scanning her little pots and quickly disappears back in again. There is nothing I can do but stare up at the dirty net curtains of the hyena’s lair. I reluctantly leave. I am a working man and have to go to my next fare who is now wondering where I am. I do go back, slow to a crawl, sometimes park and look up. Today everything looks fine. Maybe I’ll pop back tomorrow. Maybe.

Karen.

I almost gave up waiting when a well-dressed, well-groomed young woman appeared with a small luggage case on wheels. She has been in the secure unit for six months. “We have to go and get my dog” so off we go to get her dog. She tells me she has been sectioned before and because of that, when the argument occurred with her boyfriend they locked her up again. She is worried, “What if my dog doesn’t recognise me? “What if he has been given a new home”? We arrived at the kennels that is some distance from the town. Karen has been in the office for some time and decides to stand outside. She needs to be outside. Way across the huge yard a dog is being walked and he is barking, Karen notices and is now moving from the door. The dog, a good 150 yards away is going nuts and is let go by its walker and runs across the vast yard. “Jimmy! Karen shouts, the dog is barking/crying as it missiles towards her. They meet in a dust cloud in the yard, both in the dirt, both shrieking with joy. Karen is on her back being washed by Jimmy, immaculate clothing not so anymore. A scene of happiness of such I rarely see in real life. It took an age to calm them both down enough to get them in the cab. Jimmies tail never missed a beat the whole journey. Karen only had the £4.20 she was sectioned with and my meter said £19.80 but that was ok. I took it and was happy with it. Karen saw me crying in the yard but that was ok as well.