Pickup Lines

People always dis' our kind and say we're scum. And I guess they're right.

But still, if they knew how difficult it is to do what we do, the planning that goes into each trip, the determination and affection to the cause, and how it requires more patience than enduring a birthday party... It'd be enough to impress anyone.

We had been driving around for hours. It was a job like any other, I guess. And I an old fool, full of pride. They probably laughed at me, the others, they did. Johnny and Charlene. My so-called "partners in crime".

What a nice term for us. The dirtiest of living filth, with smelly mouths, pussing eyes and crooked noses. You can't be a partner like that. No. Can't comb the remaining three strings of hair back over a scab-ridden scalp and pretend it's an afro. Can't have every other word be a swear, or dress in rags that would embarrass a blind man.

No, no, no. You had to wear suits with abstract ties to be a partner. And utter grunts with three syllables to be the real McCoy. Buy the newspaper and skip ahead to the chess section only to be amazed at how someone had just discovered a brand new way to move little sculptures across a wooden board.

Knowing the back-stories to every obscenity on the front page, didn't give you the same cred'.

But we weren't all bad, I guess. Just an outcome of humanitarian decline. Or society's bastard children. Excuses like that. Yeah, that worked well enough. In theory at least.

"I'm getting pretty tired of this shit," Johnny said. "Haven't seen one in ages."

I looked over at his ugly mug. "You wanna call it quits?" He didn't reply, but I kept on pushing. "You wanna dump this car, steal a suit and start a company? See how long you can make it in the savagery of white-collarism? How long you can pretend you're something else?" I heard a sigh form the back seat. "No, I didn't think so. We are what we are, and we do what we do."

"Jeez, relax man. I only said..." Johnny tried.

I stopped him before he could utter his usual stupidity. "Yeah, I heard you, and it was abundant."

"Abundant? What's that mean?" He was unable to keep those yellow teeth clenched together.

"It means shut the hell up and watch the road, you skull-monkey!" I put an end to the triviality.

He mumbled something I couldn't hear. Probably saying shit about me to Charlene. But checking the mirror I saw she was just glaring out the window with that distant look she sometimes got.

She wasn't a bad lay. Not the best, of course, but pretty good, for being no charge and all. I wondered if she'd seen some nasty shit out there?

Not to say that what we were doing wasn't bad or anything. I just wondered if there were even scummier bags out there? Or were we as far down the chain as they come? The final link so to speak. If anybody had seen worse, it was her, that was certain.

"There's one!" she suddenly blurted out.

My eyes shot back and forth. "Where?"

"There! Over at the bus depot."

"That skanky old bitch?" I laughed. "No, I want something that's innocent and won't cause no trouble."

"She'll be fine," Charlene insisted. "Look, she can barely stand up right."

"Yeah, I can see that. And I can also see her puking all over the road. So, no. Find another one."

Charlene blinked her eyes and pressed her lips together, speaking in that cartoonish voice she used when she wanted to annoy me. "Yessir, Mr. President, sir!"