My favourite driver was one that I will never use again. I never got his name. He was a lesson in Jamaican culture and a cartoon short at the same time. He was an exaggeration of a Jamaican stereotype that amused and terrified us.
We were hot and sweaty in the throng of the roundabout with too many parcels and fragile bags of alcohol, when a Red Plate stopped at our request. The driver waved us in at our offer and we scooted across the back seat. He had a cell phone pasted to his ear and cut into traffic oblivious of the honks and glares.
He was having a lively conversation filled with colourful words and punctuated with hand gestures with his driving arm. The rudderless cab veered to the shoulder to be quickly corrected and his loud tirade continued. Pocketing the cell, he turned and explained passionately the story of his unfaithful girlfriend. How she had slept, and slept often, with a certain individual. I was impressed that he sincerely looked us in the eyes while addressing us but would have preferred he looked where he was driving!
Now he admitted that recreational sex outside of marriage was not a terrible crime and indeed he himself had some "sugar on the side", but he was completed outraged that his girlfriend and her auxiliary lover had "recreated", in HIS home, in HIS bed. He had not only suffered the sting of infidelity, but worse, the total disrespect of them performing in his own house.
It was clear that she would have to go. Punched up with anger he turned back to his front and disengaged the auto pilot. He reached for his phone and dialled a number. He started to scream into the phone in patois which I loosely translated as an eviction notice. But I soon realized that he was not speaking to his cheating girlfriend but obviously to the co defendant. He had called his girlfriends lover to arrange the eviction. He was expecting her gone when he returned home that evening. He was repeating the accusation that lover boy had disrespected him in his own house and was therefore responsible to remove the girlfriend.
We were grateful the hotel was a straight drive away as I'm sure we wouldn't arrive unscathed had there been obstacles. I tapped the drivers shoulder to announce our hotel. He pulled to the shoulder and I dropped 10$ in the front seat, grabbed our produce and we disembarked. He took off without a goodbye, still attached to his cell phone.
I still wonder how the eviction went. Oh, and I think I'll keep Linston's cell number handy!