JG etc.

Life just sort of goes by sometimes and you don’t stop and reflect. A woman name Alicia just gave me a ride to the airport in her cab. While I was upset that I was going to be late getting to the airport and thinking about work and how I wanted to be home, she went on to tell me about her life. She told me about her boyfriend that is in jail for domestic abuse. She told me about how he had drug problems and how she made cash being a cab dirver and at the end of the night when she came home he would try and steal the money sometimes. She told me about the bad times, being laid off from Applied Materials and other companies that made motherboards and memory chips for Dell. She was only a temp and although she was pretty good at soldering, when they layoffs came, she was almost always the first one to go. She told me about how with being a temp you never get unemployment and she never could afford healthcare. She told me how it was okay because while she worked there she picked up every overtime shift she could. On the good weeks she would make around $800 and that was plenty to hold her over when times were bad. She needed an associates degree to be hired full time, but night classes were hard and tiring after working all day.

Back to the boyfriend, that she thought she loved. The one that was abusive and stole her money. She thought it was love and maybe it was and she felt in the end she could help him. She told me about the rough times and how sometimes she wanted to get into drugs as well. Not a lot, just bite off a little valium and a beer. Just to veg in front of the tv and forget about it all. Or at least until she reopened her eyes and it was time to get back into the the cab. When there was no valium she would take some xanax, but she didn’t like it because it was so strong.

I told her I lived in San Francisco and she was very proud to tell me she lived on the outskirts of Austin. In a ghetto area as she described but she liked it. For $550 a month she got a two bed one bath palce with a workout facility and and lab area. With lab I think she was talking about having access to a public computer. But the rent was sometimes hard to pay when the boyfriend didn’t pitch in. She kept him there, partly out of comfort, a little out of fear, and the fleeting chance that he would start paying and loving again.

Alicia was honest. She had to get gas and she stopped her meter, and told me the exact dollar amount it was on in case for some reason it started running again. She seemed very concerned that I would be overcharged. She paid the gas attendent, leaving me alone her car with her equipment without thinking twice about it. She told me it cost $375 to lease the cab and $25 a month in insurance, but once you had the insurance bank up to $2000 you didnt have to pay in anymore. Alicia was proud because she has been driving since 2001 and was getting close to having the full amount.

When I got to the airport, the meter said $25 but Alicia only charged me $20. She enjoyed talking to people and wasn’t worried about the meter. I gave her $27 and told her that it was a bargain. It is a large world out there and sometimes you forget about the daily struggles of others. It is easy to criticize the system and be a snobby liberal and want change. It is something else to actually go and talk to people, see their problems, and think of ways to help where you can.

I guess in the end we are all just trying to survive. Alicia had a smile that I won’t forget, a smile of a survivor.