Every Sunday afternoon, Leo pulls an empty suitcase behind him and insists on putting it himself into the trunk when the cab comes to send him to the airport, lest the weight (the lack thereof) arouse suspicion. The ride is almost always about half an hour as the sun sets, sometimes a little brighter or dimmer depending on the time of year. Sometimes the driver tries to talk with him, but mostly they’re silent, the radio playing a tinny tune over stock speakers. Sometimes there’s an ongoing call, Leo assumes from a friend or loved one, maybe even another cab driver, both spending their days and nights winding I-80 or 280 or otherwise the narrow interminable city streets, grinding their wheels down into shining pavement unmarred by rain or snow or salt, screeching to a halt every hundred feet at the endless stop lights that chop the 7 by 7 mile square into an infinity—can you divide a finite quantity enough times that it becomes infinite? Leo’s not sure. The point of the Sunday exercise isn’t the math.
He asks to get dropped off at departures, changing up the terminals each week. From there, it’s a short walk to arrivals, and by now he has it memorized where the rideshare pickup locations are. For this airport, it’s almost always in one of the parking garages on the roof—you have to find the right elevator, follow the signs, hit the button for the top floor, and then pick a zone. Your car will come to that zone. B1 – B6. Six options. All arranged neatly in the semicircular drive as the sun is just about hitting the horizon and the lights on the towers around the garage are coming on, casting brooding glances in the twilight.
From there, he waits. He’s respectful—he only lets himself ask a woman occasionally, never one very young, never someone who would think too much of it. He always wears a ring on his fourth finger left hand. His clothes are clean but nondescript, the suitcase not too shabby but also nothing expensive. He works hard to fade into the background. There’s only a short window of time before it would become strange to be lingering in that dim lobby, but that’s no issue—this is about the time when the first batch of evening flights lands. Inevitably, some fifteen, twenty people will come squeezing into the elevator and then disperse out into the lobby, and now is his chance.
“Excuse me,” he asks, making his selection quickly. “Is there any chance you’re heading into the city and would be down to split a ride? This surge pricing is just so crazy.”
Sometimes, they refuse. Sometimes someone nearby hears and asks if they can join also, or offers in the place of the one who refused. But almost always, in the end someone accepts, and either Leo or that someone hails the ride, and shyly, Leo asks how best to charge them (in the case that he calls it), or how best to pay them (in the case that they do). It usually ends up being one of those apps you can send money through, and Leo opens the folder on his phone with all of them downloaded and selects the one Someone prefers to take down their contact information.
From there, it’s just a matter of waiting for the ride. They make pleasant conversation, or stand in slightly awkward silence as the little car icon crawls around the screen, inching closer to its destination. Sooner or later, the headlights swing around the bend of the semicircle and the car crunches to a halt in front of them in their selected zone. Sooner or later, the two of them peer side by side at the license plate, matching it to the app, and someone opens the car door.
“For Leo?”
“For Someone?”
The man or woman will nod absentmindedly, and the trunk pops open, swinging its yawning jaw like a slow alligator, hinges well practiced. And then the suitcases and backpacks and purses and whatnot are swallowed, and Leo and Someone step into the backseat, and the car slowly starts up again and vacates the parking lot, returning to the winding highways and interminable streets, back to its natural habitat.
At home, Leo opens his journal and writes a one line entry. Name, approximate age, what they looked like. App contact info, price to expect to be charged or price he’ll charge. He examines last week’s note and if it was a to-charge memo, he sends the request in a leisurely fashion, savoring the moment, picturing Someone wherever they may be hearing the notification and turning to their phone, to him, invisible on the other line. Importantly, he doesn’t note the address. He tries his absolute best to forget where they dropped off Someone, he averts his eyes when the car arrives, he never looks back at the actual route the tiny car draws. It would be deeply inappropriate for him to do so, and it gives him great relief to look back on prior entries and realize to his satisfaction that he truly has no inkling of where the ride ended up.
That night, he’ll dream of Someone.
It’s always the same dream despite the ever changing panel of faces. In the dream, they’re sitting somewhere unknown, a vague cityscape that looks like this city but perhaps isn’t. It could be, but there’s never quite enough detail to know. Leo is facing this Someone, but they’re looking away for the longest time, enough time for him to notice things like how the wind blows through their hair, or what clothes they’re wearing, or how they hold themselves. And just as Leo thinks this is how it will be forever, sitting side by side as he cautiously examines their slack gaze, their faces turn, expressionless, and he can see them about to say something, their mouths forming around his name, and then he wakes, sweating, without a sound.
