Lucky Break

Chapter 1

Chapter 1“Lucky Clover Taxi and Limousine Service welcomes you to the team, Redmond.” Rishi, Lucky Clover’s Springfield division owner and dispatcher, had an accent that was smooth as silk. “You will be the very first driver behind the wheel of this one.”

He’d recently acquired a fleet of six brand-new, bright green minivan taxis. The way he caressed the bumper of the one we stood beside in the massive, wide open garage space, I wondered if I should give them a moment alone.

“Lucky me.” I pulled my quilted flannel jacket closed across my chest. Two weeks into March 2020, just before ten at night, the raised bay door was letting in a lot of cold air.

“Are you ready, Redmond?” Rishi did the same, just as I was about to get a good look at the little pin on his shirt pocket. Whatever it was, it kept catching what seemed like a million lumens from the fluorescent bulbs overhead.

“Got my drivers’ license at eighteen.” I’d been curious since I’d arrived. “And there’s not a blemish on it.” Palm up, I waited for Rishi to drop the key fob into it.

“Eighteen?” His grip tightened instead. “Why not sixteen?”

My hand started to shake a bit, so I put it at my side. “You remember why.”

“Our previous encounters were definitely memorable, even if some details escape me.”

“Hey, Rishi.” I was ready to move on from memories.

“Yes, Redmond?”

“Have you been christening the new cars before their maiden voyages? Ya know, like they do with cruise ships?”

Rishi’s dark eyes grew wide. “Are you suggesting I smash a bottle of alcohol against the side of one of my brand new cars, Redmond?” He added my name to the end of too many sentences.

“Maybe not smash…It’s supposed to be good luck.” I thought about the piece of jewelry I might have worn for luck, had it not been lost going on ten years now.

“I do not think the bank that is financing the vehicles would consider a dent in the side of one the least bit fortuitous.”

“I can see that. How about…car coining? That’s supposed to work.”

“I believe people make their own luck, Redmond.”

“In all fairness, the company’s name reeks of superstition.” Rishi seemed to like me, so I thought I could get away with some good-natured ribbing. “Plus, you did call me lucky.”

“You look like a giant leprechaun.” Rishi teased me right back. “So, I assumed.”

“I look more like a redheaded scarecrow, and most days, I’m the complete opposite of lucky. A little help in that area can’t hurt, right?”

“Throwing coins at my taxis would scratch the finish.”

“There’s no throwing. No potential damage of any kind, really. You reach into your pocket and drop some nickels, dimes, pennies, whatever onto the floor mats. Simple. Easy.”

“For what purpose?”

“I guess because a car that’s been used a lot…ridden in…would supposedly have spare change on the floor. If we put some there, car gremlins won’t know it’s a new car, and therefore, they won’t be as eager to mess with it.” Even I thought my explanation was dumb.

“Gremlins?”

The road outside the garage was busy and loud. A passing semi gave me a moment to conjure an explanation. “Imaginary purveyors of bad luck. Or possibly not imaginary, depending on who you ask.” Some days, I was certain the gremlins—or at the very least, bad luck—was responsible for the loss of my special ring and myriad other calamities that befell me over the past ten years “Just more superstition.”

“I see. In my culture, we watch out for black cats, and drinking dairy after eating fish is a no-no.”

I had a black cat at home and shared a tuna sandwich and a glass of milk with her before coming in to work. Something better left unsaid, I figured.

“Mongooses are good luck.”

I didn’t own one of those, and didn’t want a massive rodent as my copilot if Rishi did. “Coins are likely easier to access right now.”

“Many believe mongooses are rodents, but they’re not.”

“I knew that.”

“Hmm.” Rishi took a moment to ponder something, perhaps my fib, but likely something else. Coupled with the sound he’d made, I could see the wheels turning as he closed his right eye and let the left roll up to the corner of its socket. I hoped he was considering car coining and not mongoose rental. “That sounds like a good notion to follow. I shall drop some loose change in all my cars, Redmond.”

I was superstitious enough to think doing it after a car had already been on the road would double cross the ritual and bring foul luck instead of good, but I kept that thought to myself, too. Since my car would be hitting the road for its intended use for the first time, I figured I’d be safe under any gremlin’s considerations.

Or not.

“Would you like to do the honor, Redmond?” Rishi opened the passenger door.

“I think it has to be your change, since, technically, you’re the owner of the vehicle.” Truth was, after eighteen months of unemployment, I didn’t have any change. I barely had two nickels to rub together at any given moment, hence the reason I’d taken a job driving a cab.

“That makes sense.” Rishi dug so deep in his pocket, he had to pull up his sweatpants when he was done. Two quarters, a dime, a nickel, and eight pennies, when he tossed them in, they made a series of thuds, like heavy confetti, against the floor mats.

“That should do it.” Crossing two fingers on one hand seemed a good way to back things up, especially once I gave thought to the duplicitous nature of car coining. Trying to fool fortune, my mother had always warned me, often ended in bad luck instead of good. She cut her own honeymoon short when she and Dad were booked in room 1421 in a luxurious Waikiki hotel with floors numbered 11, 12, 14, etc.

“Why?” my father asked, according to how the story was handed down. “Because you know it’s really the thirteenth floor?”

“No,” my mother told him. “Because destiny knows.”

“Key?” I couldn’t wait to scoop up the coins and wondered if there was anywhere on Earth in 2020 I could get a cup of coffee for sixty-nine cents.

“Weather’s not the greatest, Redmond.”

“Partly cloudy…” I looked up at a million stars in one clear corner of the sky. “It’s a wonder they didn’t call off school for tomorrow.”

“You are funny, Redmond.”

I had a special affinity for people who told me I was funny and tried to keep Rishi smiling, since he was one who had upon our first meeting years prior. “Thank you. It’s almost five after. I should go.”

The graveyard shift appealed to me, ten at night to six A.M. Way smaller than the Big Apple or Chicago, ours wasn’t the most populated Springfield in America. It was considered a city, though, and was close enough to some major ones to allow flow over and pickups and drop-offs in several. That in combination with a dozen bars, several nightclubs even with the Silver Note now gone, and a hopping theater and arts district within our own borders, the gig had the potential to be quite lucrative, especially on weekends. That was Rishi’s selling point when he hired me.

“It’s supposed to rain after midnight,” he informed me now.

“I know how to turn on the wipers if it does, Rishi.” Since it was Thursday, I assumed I’d barely make enough to pick up a McMuffin on the way home even with Rishi’s change thrown in.

“Yo, guys.” Jordan, another Lucky Clover driver, arrived with two coffee cups. “I’m glad I caught you.” He was tall, like me, which meant I didn’t have to bend down when he offered me a chaste kiss. “Hey, Richie.” Jordan mispronounced Rishi’s name all the time, placing the accent on the second syllable instead of the first. Like Richie Sambora or Richie Rich.

“Hello, Jordan.” Rishi was too polite to correct him.

“Hey, Jordie…Jor…Jordan.” I was too insecure, because Jordan was hot. I was also momentarily tongue tied after conjuring my version of a Richie Rich I once knew intimately.

“I wanted to send you off with a full tank.”

The coffee cup Jordan handed over nearly scorched all five fingers when I wrapped them around it. “That’s so sweet.”

Jordan didn’t have to stand on his tiptoes when I leaned in to kiss him, either.

We’d met at taxi school. I was pretty sure Jordan cheated off my written final exam just days earlier. Still, he’d barely passed with a seventy, while I got a perfect score.

“How was your first day?” I asked him.

“Pretty good.” Jordan had chosen the afternoon shift. “No one tried to stab me or ride and dash, so that’s a win, right, Richie?”

Rishi frowned.

With dreams of starring on Broadway, Jordan admitted from day one he was only taking the job to make enough money to move to New York. He was at least ten years younger than I, but we had a love of musical theater in common which was evident right off the bat when Jordan showed up the first night of class in a Les Misérables T-shirt and hummed “One Day More” through that night’s quiz. When he caught me humming the same tune in the hallway after dismissal, he belted out the final refrain in front of sixty people, half a dozen from taxi school, and the rest from various other night classes that had just let out.

Jordan had sung for me a few times since. He had a voice as crisp as a trumpet, as deep as a bassoon, and as melodic as a piano. The guy definitely had the looks and singing chops for Broadway, but as I knew all too well, talent at one’s chosen craft only got them so far, sometimes only as far as the driver’s seat of a taxi.

Jordan basked in the applause at the community center where the night classes were held, thanked me for accompanying him with my humming, even though I’d stopped the moment he’d sung the first word, then he’d asked me out for coffee. Jordan seemed to live on coffee and cigarettes. I worried about his vocal chords.

“I should go.” The coffee he’d brought me burned mine when I took a sip. Since my musical prowess was more instrumental than vocal, burnt fingers mattered more than burnt vocal chords. “It’s almost ten after now.”

“Yes.” Rishi looked at the big clock over the side entrance Jordan had used despite the garage’s bay door being up. I still didn’t get my key.

“What say you I come back here at six?” Jordan offered in put-on Cockney. “We’ll have a spot of breakfast.”

“Isn’t that a bit early for you?”

Jordan worked in a British funeral home at night. Well, he pretended to, currently in rehearsals playing younger as teenage Noah Claypole in the Springfield Playhouse’s production of Oliver.

“No problem.” He kept the fake accent going. “Maybe after, we can go to my place and take a nap.”

Jordan and I had been out a few times, but we hadn’t yet napped together.

“Such a handsome boy.” Rishi reached over and brushed my cheek. “All the others are after you.”

“Jordan is the handsome one.” I thought Rishi might stroke Jordan’s cheek, too.

“In an obvious sort of way.” He didn’t. “Be careful out there, Redmond.” But Rishi did finally drop the key fob into my hand.

“I will.” I couldn’t wait to ask Jordan if the day shift had to deal with Rishi’s separation anxiety, too.

“Would you like to snap a photograph before you head out?”

It dawned on me then what the situation reminded me of.

“You know,” Rishi said, “to commemorate the occasion?”

A father sending his son off on prom night.

“Maybe to share with a loved one.”

My list of loved ones was short and didn’t currently include a father to make a big deal over life’s minor or major milestones. That might have been why my first thought when the caress happened wasn’t a report to HR.

“Or to post on social media.”

Social media wasn’t really my thing, either, except to keep up with a couple of wayward family members and an ex. Still, if it would get me out on the road, “Sure,” I didn’t see the harm in getting my picture taken.

“Hand me your phone, Redmond.”

Jordan watched intently as I dug into my pocket, then he stifled a laugh when Rishi offered yet another first day lesson.

“Looser pants make for a more comfortable ride.”

“Note taken, boss.”

Rishi fumbled with the brand new Samsung Galaxy I’d gone into hock to purchase, since a cellphone was required for the job. Less than four seconds, the juggling and bungling seemed to happen in slow motion. We all tried to catch it, Rishi, Jordan, and myself, but in the end, my phone hit the floor. “I am so sorry, Redmond.”

“It’s probably fine.”

Glass hitting concrete from six feet up, it probably wasn’t.

“Oh.” I picked my phone up and swiped. “Not a scratch.” There was my black cat, Jinx, my screensaver, who might have actually saved my screen because I hadn’t named her Bella Fortuna or Jackpot. “It must be my lucky day for real.”

“Allow me to take the photograph with my phone and send it to you. Yes, Redmond?”

“Sure.”

Rishi did manage to retrieve his phone easier than I was able to put mine away, but then he had to pull up his sweatpants again. Seemed like a tradeoff to me.

“Smile, Redmond.”

I did my best.

“And one of the two of us.” Jordan was immediately at my side with his arm around me.

“A quick one.” Rishi seemed on the fence about Jordan and I getting lucky, maybe even leaning strongly toward the no side. “There.”

With my eyes still adjusting after the quick flash, I asked, “Now can I go?”

“Yes, Redmond.”

I was back to the prom scenario when Rishi straightened my pocket flap after I retrieved my glasses from behind it and put them on.

“Have a pleasant night,” he said, “and be safe.”

“Bye, my guy.” Another kiss from Jordan, this one on the mouth and far less chaste, sent me off dateless to prom, something that never happened for real, since I’d skipped prom ten years earlier altogether.

Redmond Hennessy, once finally behind the wheel, I came eye to eye with myself, first my reflection in the rearview mirror, then my driver ID placard on the visor. I had my father’s red hair and green eyes and my mother’s frown.

“I’m sitting down, and I have a horn.” I tooted it as a so long salutation to Jordan and Rishi when finally my taxicab tires hit pavement. “Close enough?”

It was now official, after eighteen months of hitting the pavement in the metaphorical sense, I’d given up on my dream of playing trumpet with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. Hence the look I imagined on my mother’s face.

Rishi sent both photos in a text right away.

Do not read this while driving.

Hands-free talk and audio texts I’d synced up to my phone upon arriving to the depot at nine forty-five meant I could disobey Rishi’s order. I also had to wonder if he knew how said technology worked when he’d had it installed in his cabs.

“Yikes.”

I did have to glance over to see the photos, though. The depot lighting had Jordan’s blond hair looking angelic, like a halo. Mine, on the other hand, looked like paprika sprinkled on a deviled egg. Maybe it was time to ditch the buzz cut.

“Text from Jordan,” the car told me after my ringtone.

“Read text.” I straightened my glasses. Not that Jordan could see them.

Jordan: Sexy Ren. Nice pic Rishi took.

Renny: Of one of us.

I answered with my voice, and some form of technology that made cars harder to repair in modern times translated it to type.

Jordan: You’re hot as f**k, bro. You a fire crotch?

Young people were so forward.

Jordan: Send me a nude.

Renny: Maybe not while I’m at work.

Jordan: I’ll send you one.

Renny: Maybe not while I’m at work.

Jordan: LOL. OK. After.

“f**k!”

Voice to text could still be distracting. It was also possible I’d closed my eyes a moment too long imagining tall, buff, beautiful Jordan with no clothes on. He looked in the photograph as if he’d been posing for a professional headshot. Tight black T-shirt, bulging biceps, bright smile, grayish-blue bedroom eyes, it could have been his People Magazine Sexiest Man Alive cover.

Jordan: What?

My expletive had gone out as a text.

Renny: Nothing. Sorry.

I wasn’t about to tell him I’d missed the light going from yellow to red and had almost been T-boned by an Uber.

Truthfully, I wasn’t the best driver on the road. I didn’t even like driving, but while scouring want ads one afternoon in desperate need of grocery money, there was the Lucky Clover Taxi Service listing. The little drawing of a cab had music notes coming out of its tailpipe. I asked Rishi why upon applying for the position. Music notes meant something to me, so I wondered if they meant something to him.

“It represents the sound of the horn. Toot-toot.”

To this day, I don’t know why the horn sound was coming out of the tailpipe.

I’d liked Rishi immediately, and he seemed to take a liking to me way back when. Lucky Clover would foot the bill for mandatory classes and for my taxi and limousine classification, I was told, so what was there to lose? Other than what little faith remained I might someday see my musical dream come true and any time to pursue said endeavor, nothing.

Jordan was still texting. I was four behind.

Jordan: You wanna skip breakfast after your shift and just f**k?

I took a while to form an answer to the last one. I wanted to say yes, but dating a coworker was tricky. On the other hand, working different ends of the time clock, we never had to see one another unless we wanted to. By the time I got to the depot to sign on for duty, he’d be gone.

Renny: Maybe start with breakfast and see how it goes?

Jordan: Sure. You’re awesome. Enjoy the music of the night.

“Smiley face emoji.” The Phantom of the Opera reference tickled me.

“Redmond.”

“Jesus.”

This time, the expletive served dual purposes. It expressed my surprise when Rishi’s voice on the two-way radio scared the s**t out of me, and also my panic when I didn’t see the eighteen wheeler in a complete stop in front of me in time to halt my momentum.