PG 13 for drug reference.
Please feel free to rip this thing apart. And remember, I do Review4Review!
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She fetched a yellow cab off the gray streets of the city and climbed into it with her purse bopping up and down, slung on her shoulder. She didn’t leave the door open for me.
The driver’s hands on the wheel were sick tree limbs groping for leather, and the back of his head was like an entire forest, sagging over the skull. She could see his face in the mirror, but after looking once for a second she drew her eyes away and reached into her purse. Outside people darted all around, but the driver’s figure seemed almost relaxed, if not already asleep.
“Take us to a park, any park, and make it a big park please.” When the driver didn’t start moving, she recognized her mistake and said, “And don’t fool with me, make it a short ride. I ain’t gonna waste all my cash on dirty taxi men. I look young but inside I ain’t. I know my stuff.”
The man started the engine and coughed. “Central sounds good to you?”
“Yeah.”
She took out a fag from her purse, lit it, and started chewing on it. The smoke gathered inside the car, like a gray fog over the city. Her cherry lipstick flickered with ash, and her hair twinkled with the spare sunlight from the open window. It blew with the breeze, it rose and sank like an infant’s breath, but then it died down as she laid her head back on the chair. “Lissen up, baby. Never trust men who don’t ask you no questions, but then say the same thing you said like a question. You understand?”
She puffed a little off the cigarette and closed her eyes in pleasure. “Betta yet, never trust no men. ‘Specially men who they want money from you. Like taxi men.”
I bit my lip and studied her almost round face, her life-size chest, her dark legs. She blew smoke blurs like kisses out the window every homeless person we passed. I studied the slender cig between her fingers. With it she was a princess, and there was fire in her throat and in her mouth, majestic fire, every cigarette she had. I knew she liked it, that she wouldn’t ever survive without them; but when I asked her for one, she said I was too young and that it will ruin my life.
The driver coughed again. “You girls, where you from? Whatcha doin’ in the big city?”
“I no girl!” She snapped. “I eighteen years old. And I catch you sayin’ anythang rude to me ever again, I ain’t paying you.” Her eyes were hot hazel, and her hair flung behind her face like a flowing sewer tube. I knew she was lying, that she was still seventeen, but I didn’t find the voice inside to contradict her. I saw her fingers clutching the purse under her feet, the macho pulse ringing in the veins on her hand.
Then she put both her arm on her lap, one of them still holding the cigarette gracefully. “We from Jersey,” I said, “and we come here searchin’ for our mama.” She eyed me sternly as he nodded. Then she looked out to the sun-drenched sky out the window. I felt the tears cut in my throat, she was almost as beautiful as mama.
Then she said, “You coulda less us down over here. I see a park right there, why didn’ you stop?” She pointed outside to a petite park lined with lofty, fleshy trees. The bark-stripped branches reached to the benches, and a black fence surrounded the veiled square. Leaves faded on the earth.
“You girls don’t wanna get down o’er there. Is dangerous. There prostitutes an’ predators, people you don’t wanna meet. Especially with that young girl of yours, she’d be taken moment you open the door.” He tried to protect us, but she only saw the ways he could cheat us, she only saw that he was trying to steal our money, to drive longer and take more cash than we needed to give him.
“Less us down right this second!” She yelled, and her arms shook with each breath she took. There was no fresh air in the car, and the fire from her smoke was ember in my lungs and throat. It was terrible. I felt the car screech under my feet, and she grabbed my wrist and dragged me out. The trees were in front of us, and when she kicked the car she fell backwards on the ground. The cigarette was crushed in her palm.
As the taxi drove away, my sister began yelling and moving her arms frantically all about. She didn’t pay him, but in all of her turmoil and annoyance she forgot the handbag in the car. When the cab disappeared into the streets, she started sobbing on the floor. Bearded men and drugged teenagers chuckled at us, stared at us, passed us by without a glance. And as she came to her feet, I saw in her eyes the shock. Now, in the middle of the city where the men were repulsive, evil, unintelligent, abusive—only then did she realize that the only truly good man was the cab driver. We never saw him again.
know what I mean? Also, take out the "almost" it weakens the sentence.
