Four years ago, after a few drinks at a party, Frank Lee and I decided to take a taxi home, a fifteen kilometer ride across Melbourne. I was in the passenger seat next to the driver, as one does in Australia. Frank was in the back. The driver took an unexpected turn, in the wrong direction by my reckoning, causing me to query “Where the fuck are you going?”

That was a poor choice of words. The driver responded by shouting “Do not speak to me that way, you have no right to talk to me that way!” He was absolutely right.

Yet it didn’t stop there. He continued with lengthy passages beginning with phrases such as “You people think…” and ending with “…will get what’s coming to you!” He waved his arms about, several times taking both hands off the wheel, his eyes growing wild with fire as I cowered in astonishment.

After about five minutes of this, Frank shouted from the back seat “That’s enough, stop the car!” Instead, the driver hit a button that put us on the equivalent of a speakerphone. A woman’s steady voice identified herself as “Emergency Dispatch”. Continue reading 18. Street People →