“I had a fare once,” Christy said, “a man named Leo. Old guy. Used to work at the steel plant before it shut down. Every Wednesday at 7 PM, I’d pick him up from the VA clinic and take him to a diner on Grand Avenue. Same diner, same booth, same cup of black coffee. He never said much. But one day he told me: ‘Christy, you know why I take your cab? Because you’re the only person who still calls me by my name.’” She paused. “I picked him up for three years, every Wednesday, until he passed.”
The woman hesitated, then smiled—small and fragile, like a crack in a dam. “Thank you, Christy.”
Christy glanced in the rearview mirror. “Sometimes. Why?”
She was sixty-two, with silver-streaked hair pulled back in a tight bun and reading glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. Her taxi, a battered but reliable Crown Victoria she’d named “Mabel,” smelled of coffee, old leather, and the pine tree air freshener she replaced religiously every first of the month. The medallion on her door read “C. Marks,” and beneath it, in smaller letters: “No music, but good conversation.”
“Where to?” Christy asked.
The woman gave an address on the south side, near the old industrial district. Christy knew that area. Empty warehouses, a few struggling businesses, and a shelter for domestic violence survivors.