Behind the Partitions

Fiction, first published in the Anthology, 'From Here to There:  Stories from Mobile Virginians,' and the piece was later performed at the Roanoke Civic Center. Something I'm still working on, but here's a secret taste, C.A.

Behind the Partitions

1991, Midwest

           

“Cowboy to base, you copy?” I said over the two-way radio.

The office said, “Base copy Cowboy.  All clear.” It was Tiny’s voice.

I don’t need street signs, maps, red lights, or scarecrows pointing the way. I know every inch of this city, from the alleys to the highways, and every sweat shop and mansion in between. Been driving limos for as long as I can think back. Before I started crawling, seems like my hands were already black, covered in slick, leather gloves. My chauffeur cap was already on my bald head before I could even stand. Drove limos before I drove Playschool cars, before I pulled red wagons, before I rode big wheels down the driveway, before I could chew, spit, talk right, eat right, before I even had a woman. 

Janet and I made our first kid in the back of a white, stretch Lincoln. Made our second kid in the back of a black 8-passenger before I left for my run to pick up a pain in the ass boy band from England. Let me tell you about some others - the hard rock superstars I drove who had two cars, one for the drunks and one for the smokers. I was just glad I was driving the smoking car. It was easier than vomit, and they paid for burns. Then there was the Pop singer from L.A. – made me go buy her plugs because she was on the rag, damn, but the tips were good. Then there was that Rock wailer with the bad back. He just hugged on his manager and gave me no grief, other than the sob story about how he was worried the band was going to find another singer. I listened, but what could I do. And then we had the multi-platinum beach bum guitarist, the good old family man who brought them all in town for each show. All sixty of them. Took our whole fleet. And the heavy metal guys who cracked me up. Day after day, whoever it was, these stars all told me the same things - turn off the AC, turn it on, put the partition up and leave it there, I thought we ordered a white car, not black. Let’s just say nobody was calling me “sir.” You get the deal, buddy.
 

I just smiled and kissed some backsides and kept their secrets and tried not to cuss my brains out, opening doors and shutting them, bowing down, ready to jump, ready to sit down, just damn ready, buddy. That’s chauffeur life - we let them step all over us until the last stop when there was only one gloved hand held out open, waiting for a tip. See, it was all about the secrets and the tips.

And then there were the office girls -- the long-legged, short-skirted, fake-nailed girls in the office. Buddy, I mean long legs. Back at the ranch, there were three sets of long legs - the manager, the owner, and the “go-fer” girl, Tiny, who did all the work while the other two filed nails or ate these huge meals of ribs. Amazed me how those girls ate so much food and stayed as thin as radio antennas. And how they could keep from slurring on the telephone, even after putting away six coffee cups full of champagne. That’s who was in charge. Over and out.

I drove LIMO10, which had a dent in the passenger door, so when I opened it for the VIP, I stood in front of the dent, reminding myself to write it down so I didn’t get blamed for it. Which I swear happened to me more than once.

           

Good morning, sir, I told the singer guy right after I smoothed my mustache in place.

           

The singer just stared at me and didn’t smile. He was a billionaire, but his face was straight and worn out looking. He wasn’t exactly frowning either, and neither was his ape of a manager. They were both just expressionless, faceless, and the swollen eyes, the black circles underneath them, the baggy clothes and hanging eyelids just made them look like they were frowning. Just the two of them mumbling in the backseat. They thought I couldn’t hear with that partition up.  Then again, everyone seemed to think that. And they seemed to think chauffeurs liked fried chicken better than steak. That’s what they fed me backstage the night before - freaking greasy fried chicken, while the managers ate steak and the singer ate some godawful veggie thing with roots and trees and stuff in it. Boring, buddy, boring.

As I drove him to the airport, I lowered the partition just a crack to watch him in the rearview mirror, not because I felt like it, but because I knew Tiny would drill me later with the same old questions - what was he like? Was he cute?  Did he talk to you?  So, I watched the singer twist his body into a pretzel in the backseat. I guess it was some kind of hardcore yoga. That guy was so little and flexible, but he never smiled once, so I’m not sure if the yoga was working. People thought it was a big deal and all, being a limo driver, but really the singers mostly seemed serious or scared to me. And hell-bent on getting some exercise. I mean, it’s one thing to work out, but Jesus, we’re all gonna die, and if you’re already a billionaire, who gives a fu…I’d say fuck, but since you’re riding along with me, I wouldn’t want to offend you and all. 

           

So anyhow, the pretzel singer gave me some kind of big tip and said, Thanks, what’s your name again? after he was all meditated out.

           

Thank you, sir, name’s Cowboy, I said, tipping my hat. 

But he was gone and on his private jet before I even got my freaking name out. That’s the way it was with stars and anyone, really. They were all just all one blank face, handing me cash and trying to remember things like names. That was how the morning went - faceless money, pretzel boys, and gorilla managers. Did I mention Tiny’s legs? 

           
Cowboy here. You copy?

           
Copy, Cowboy.

           
Out from airport. Off to the tit show party at the church.

           
Base, copy.

AC went out in the car by noon. I was on my way to a wedding, a three-car wedding, and I had the bridesmaids in my car because Tiny knew I was the best with the women. When I picked them up, they were already drunk, falling into the backseat, all six of them, stuffing their dresses in with them. When we got on down the road, two of them started kissing. The partition was up again, but even then, I could hear lips smacking. 

           

So, pretzel singer, then the lesbian bridesmaids, two more airport trips, three cups of coffee, a biscuit from Hardee's, then turning on my two-way radio to check in with Tiny and her legs.

           

Cowboy, on my way back to the ranch.  You copy?

           

Hey, Cowboy, got a night out run tonight, can you take it?

           

Damn sure knew I shouldn’t have checked in with her. Hadn’t slept in two days, and had been bossed around by Sting’s manager that whole time. That’s the thing about being a chauffeur- they don’t tell you that the job description includes things like picking up condoms, strippers, gum, mints, lubricating lotion, Chinese, Mexican, beer, liquor, smokes, yeast infection medicine, toothpaste, floss, shoe polish, lipstick, and mistresses. 

           

Sure, Tiny. Cowboy out.

           

I said yes cause if I said no, they’d strip me of the good runs all the next week, put me on nothing but airport customers that stiffed me. So, I said yes. And mostly I said yes cause of the way Tiny looked in her skirts, and because when she bent across the desk to read something, you could see down her blouse sometimes.

           

An address was all I got, buddy, and I was always just expected to know - the office girls just gave you an address and you just knew. Yeah, we knew, and if we didn’t, we were pretty much screwed. You late, you suffer, and get crappy airport runs the whole next week.  That’s the thing about the office girls - you screwed up, and they remembered.

           

So, I filled LIMO10 with gas again and headed over to the Quality Inn, where I downed three more cups of coffee and cleaned leftover wedding streamers from the back of the car.   I waited.  Then I waited some more and some more, smoked a cigarette, fixed my cap, tried the AC again and it worked that time, watched a little of Rambo on the TV, picked at a scab on my face, smoothed my mustache in place. I waited. Cleaned Hardees biscuit crumbs from my mustache.  Sprayed potpourri scent in the back of the car. I waited.

When she came out of the hotel, she walked fast, faster than most drummers, who always seemed to be in a hurry. She was dressed all in purple. Even her purse and the hat on her head were a lavender color. On the other shoulder hung a camera.  I knew it was strange, but a chauffeur knows how to read the crazies after a while.  Just by the way they walked - head down, few belongings, alone, and they’d be all short in their speech, as if they too were talking on a two-way radio, only they would stare at their hands when they did it, cracking knuckles and cracking them again. That’s what the purple lady did.  Crack, crack, crack. 

All she said was, “Waterfront,” sitting with her face pressed against the window, gripping her camera, spacing out like a kid on the bus. She wouldn’t try to kill me or anything. She was too spacey. The scary ones paid much more attention to the way I drove.

           

I got back on the highway, driving slowly so she didn’t flip out or anything, watching her in the mirror.

           

“Partition’s broken,” I said.

           

She didn’t look up. She smoked and pulled a notepad from her purse. She didn’t write in it. She just flipped pages. Flip, flip, flip. Then she got on the phone and said, “I’m in the car. I’m in the car.”

           

Would’ve thought she was chasing her cheating husband at first, but I could tell by the way she was all dressed up that it was more than that. (Wives chasing their cheating husbands down usually wear sweats and have makeup smeared from their face, and they'd drag along two kids with them or something). Not the purple lady. She was in it for some money, she was taking secret notes for someone else, watching and noting what happened.  What happened was that she got out of the car and said, “Thanks, Cowboy,” handing me a two-hundred-dollar tip at the Waterfront restaurant. “Leave the car running,” she said.

That was it with the purple lady. Hired stalkers were the best to drive. They paid you to say nothing. Secrets - it was all about keeping things in - husbands cheating on wives, men robbing Getz jewelers, brides-to-be kissing bridesmaids, businessmen taking prostitutes to the Playhouse, stars smoking pot or doing speed or twisting their bodies into pretzels, and all of those sounds coming from behind the partitions - the mutters, chuckles, farts, belches, moans, rustles of clothes, laughter, loud music, snot blowing from someone’s nose, screams, calls to clients, calls to girlfriends, calls to clients that were girlfriends, calls to wives and kids and dogs, and then there were those who talked to themselves, or the window, or the radio, or the door locks.  Never drove the speed limit with those kinds of talkers. 

           

Then there was the purple lady running from the Waterfront with a man in a suit chasing after her, and her jumping in, saying, Make it to the Quality Inn in five minutes.

           

And I made it, and another two hundred. You do what you got to do. No attention is paid to speed limits, buddy. I dropped her off and forgot about it.

           

Through downtown at 3AM, when all the faces were black, when the eyes were as white as the walls on tires, when the prostitutes were smacking gum, I waved at one and she waved back and said, “Heya Cowboy,” before I was on my way home to Janet and my two kids. 

           

When I stretched out next to her, still wearing my black suit, she turned over and breathed on me, coughed, and kept on sleeping.

           

“Good night,” I said, reminding myself that nothing, nothing happened that day.  And nothing had happened when I dropped the car off at the ranch, when Tiny was there to take my run sheets, when she asked me if everything went okay, when she bent over the desk and looked at my notes on the pretzel man Sting, the two airport trips in between, the bisexual homosexual bridesmaids, and the purple stalker, when she batted her lashes and asked, What was Sting like?  Nothing happened.  I gave her my hours, and then she bent over that desk again, and Buddy, she had the longest legs, and well, the partition was up.  I didn’t need any directions.  I was Cowboy and nothing had happened. You can bet nothing happened, buddy. 

           

You copy?

-- C.A. MacConnell