he watched as the cigarette butt flickered across the windshield in an orange sparkled dance right before he slammed the brakes and the horn. she was a brunette, and the dirty mercedes she was driving just danced a left turn across three lanes of incoming traffic, namely, jorge's bright yellow taxi, cab number 3650. her oversized sunglasses must have impeded her vision, or she was colorblind. whatever her ailment was, she cut so close that i could smell the chanel no five on her skin and see the herpes on her lip.

goddamn kids, jorge said. he turned and looked over his shoulder at me. the thing about this town is that they practically run things here. buncha twentysomethings running a damn city.

you say that like its a bad thing, i joked

he glanced again with a quizical look. lets just say that age will teach you how to tip.

I smiled. fair enough.

the drive was long. west 836 was closed down for a number of miles, the number of miles we needed to get on to get on to where i was going. we chitchatted during the downtime about business, his and mine. eventually we got to talkin bout what we do to pay the bills.

my boss wants to come down to miami and take a local restaurant nationwide, and hes got over a million dollars from his investors to do it, i said. its a pretty lucrative deal, theres a lot of money all around.

my boss makes a million dollars, and hes just a prick.

i laughed. whys that.

he glanced over his shoulder with a clever grin.

you know that bitch that just cut us off? that dirty slut with the chihuahua and the european purse?

what about her.

he grinned again.

that was his wife, he said. his third one.

the light changed and jorge turned back to the front.

bienvenido a miami