The specter of perdition hovered over these shit and vomit crusted streets along skid row. Vagabonds and tramps from all corners crawled along the crumbling concrete aimlessly seeking a safe solace that had long forbade them. Itinerant preachers were shouting futilely into the night for repentance and salvation among these forsaken children. Though they preached with the fire of a wrathful god their shouts fell like whispers into the maelstrom. Here the divine held no sway. No Christ would dare wave the hand of mercy. This was the underworld. Here judgement had long passed. The street walking whores and drug-fueled cretins had accepted their fate as paradigms of a new virtue: the virtue of sin and impiety. To lift the finger of sanctitude was an act of defiance against this unholy order. If there was a moral law that pervaded the universe then that law had failed.

So I was whistling and jingling the change in my pocket as I strolled through these defiled streets when I thought “fuck this shit.” So I threw out my thumb to hitch a ride. But because I lacked the provocative attire of the common street hooker the passing vehicles looked past me like a shadow in the night. My only option was to hail a cab. When the cabbie pulled up curbside he rolled down the window to yell out racial epithets to passersby. I spoke up when he was finished.

“Excuse me sir,” said I, “I’d like a ride to Norco.”

“Norco?!” shouted the cabbie. “The only things in Norco are Mexicans and fa-..”

“Yes sir I know. I’m half Latino I’ll have you know.”

“But it’s nearly 50 miles away!”

“So?”

“It’s the asshole of Riverside County!”

“And where do you suppose we’re in the asshole of in now?”

The cabbie shrugged and nodded. He unlocked the door and I climbed into the backseat. When I shut the door and buckled my seatbelt the cabbie turned around to look me dead in the eye. “I fuckin hate these goddamn Polacks polluting our streets,” he says. Then he pulled out onto the open road.

A few miles outside of the city I had to stop and shit. The driver rambled on. “And you know who else Trump should deport from this country?” he asks me, “Those shifty eyed Serbs!”. Then I saw a Starbucks on the side of the road.

“Do you mind stopping here?” I ask the cabbie. “I’m afraid I’m about to shit my pants.”

The cabbie pulled into the parking lot and I quickly scrambled out and into the bathroom. It was a noisy shit. I’m sure the patrons outside could hear the sturm und drang emitting from my ass. When I was finished I sat there for more than 30 minutes. Then I stood up to flush the toilet. The water climbed higher and higher as I stood there sweating the worst. Then the bowl overflowed and bits of toilet paper and shit gushed out onto the floor.

I rushed out of there without saying a word to anyone. Back in the cab I urged the driver to go. “We need to leave this parking lot now,” I said. “Hurry!”

About an hour later we were in Norco. I pretended to shuffle through my wallet to find the right amount of cash because the toll was over $792. “I need to stop at the bank,” I told the driver. So we stopped at the first ATM we saw. “Wait here,” I told him.

I climbed back out of the taxi and approached the ATM. But instead of inserting my card and withdrawing money I made a beeline to the bushes several yards away.

TO BE CONTINUED…