Transaction 2 July 2003, 14:31

November 14, 2002

The cab smells of jasmine, perfume throbbing irregularly from some source outside my tightened radar. Eminem’s Cleaning Out My Closet comes through on what I realize is the radio, and the spruce, honkyboy cabbie sings softly along. His mobile phone’s ring tone is also an Eminem track.

Separation anxiety stretches and peels away between my nerves and this laptop in its leathery case, far away in the trunk, briefcase be damned.

Six-sixty on the meter. “Drie Euro?” Change from a ten. “Twee drieënzeventig?” – “Okee.” Perfectly happy to throw in another quarter, with regard to the tip I sense a simple understanding that may or may not exist outside my tired and intuition-prone mind.

Later I’ll remember being more articulate than I am in actual fact, as I’m getting away with going native this time (absent the usual languid, subtle switch to English on their part). Any sense of language-barrier dread or victory is fleeting before that of the illicit luxury of a smooth ride, the external pricking of a fan’s muted passion.

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