The Geriatric Cabbie Of The Apocalypse

Off-kilter is as off-kilter gets but there are absolutely bamboozling universal mysteries that defy sense and human comprehension: Well, I don’t know about you but there’s something tremendously askew about a sixty year old arthritic cabbie croaking all the lyrics to the Air Supply Greatest Hits.

As universal human knowledge would have it, Air Supply is what you’ll get if you combine prostatectomy excluding anesthetics, a steady abuse of helium as inhaler, a terribly inflamed larynx on a vengeance, the Ben Stiller zipper mishap in There's Something About Mary, and self-inflicted mallet hit upon the cranium—guaranteed to shred nerves the way a rusty fork scrape across a slick blackboard.

And that’s just the hors d'oeuvre to the great salad of today’s dose of horror.

It began quite unsuspectingly: I dashed out of the building where I live, burdened by five sets of dirty suits. I have a wedding to attend this weekend and I realized most of my suits are dirty. So I figured since it’s too early to hit my first meeting for the day, decided to bring the ones begging for dry-cleaning to the shop.

I live in Ortigas, my dependable drycleaner is a civilization apart, situated in Malate area. Don’t ask. The reason deserves a series of therapy session on its own.

“Roxas Boulevard”, I thriftily nod to the cab driver, who, upon second glance, strikes me as a geriatric hawk with the glint of someone about to drive me to a deep cliff. My skepticism is substantiated a few minutes into the ride: instead of hitting the EDSA-Roxas Boulevard route, which is most convenient, he U-turned under the Galleria Interchange bridge and slid through Starmall in Shaw Boulevard. Uh oh.

“Which route are we taking?” I calmly and politely asked though warning gongs erupted like church bells in the hands of an ampethamined Quasimodo at the back of my head.

“Kalentong, Quirino Avenue.” he matter-of-factly replied in an acutely bored monotone. I sunk backseat bracing for a Salvador Dali meets Calcutta experience.

This Charming Cabbie is one fine specimen in abrupt-burst split-second detours. Without forewarning he sharply swerved and plunged towards Addison in Mandaluyong-Greenhills rapidly rearranging my internal organs in the process. Several wrong turns later we emerged back to Shaw, reeling me back from a complete dread of being siphoned into black-holes only Stephen Hawking and Alan Lightman can only dream about.

Then it happened.

He reached for an MP3 Compilation CD (MP3 Compilation CD? Surely a phenomenon from the shelves of Mysterious Mind-Meld itself) and one banal click later All Out Of Love and Come What May contaminated the compact car interior like a livid hurricane involving Gillettes.

My inner Norman Bates twitched to surface.

Negotiating the third-world stretch of Kalentong and several suspiciously unidentified shortcuts spanning the districts of Makati, Paco and Manila marinated in pure uninterrupted Air Supply torment including Making Love Out Of Nothing At All, Every Woman In The World, Having You Near Me, Lost In Love, Even The Nights Are Better, Now And Forever my psychological and emotional quotient is beyond resuscitation. At this point I am increasingly suspecting that we splintered the invisible fabric of the Time & Space Continuum and suddenly got teleported to inhabit a Gary Larson Far Side strip.

It rained, and I swear It fucking poured like Hell Unhinged. It hemorrhaged industrial grade muriatic acid spiked with Boy Abunda’s saliva. And that’s just for appetizers.

Later, in what seemed to be a cycle of reversed Pleistocene experienced through a Pterodactyl’s molars, and having exhausted the hideous Air Supply Discography, the Charming Geriatric Cabbie reached for another disc and I suspended breathing, silently shuddering in anticipation of fortified horror coming my way.

Charming Cabbie didn’t disappoint.

For another forty minutes, or some second before I passed out, I remember hearing the more horrendous sing along to Kenny Rogers’ Coward Of The County.

Watch out tomorrow’s tabloid headlines. Scan the scandal sheets for a curious piece involving a mangled cabbie found in an abandoned taxi in some derelict landfill with a smashed MP3 player still coughing Nazareth’s Love Hurts or Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse Of The Heart.

You’d know who’s responsible.

~ ~ ~

Delightful Dispatch From A Parallel Universe: The Simpsons movie is about to burst into theaters.

God Bless My Beating Heart!