It was the first day back at work after the Events. I wasn’t ready, but I needed to work and more importantly – I needed money. That was why I chose nightshifts. Another reason was my chronic insomnious disorder. Doctors told me it was a result of post-traumatic stress. Quite frankly, I don’t know if that was the reason, but I couldn’t sleep at night for weeks. I would just take forty winks during the day, and that was all. Surprisingly, I wasn’t sleepy, but I didn’t know what to do with all that time and with myself. I was also advised that it was better to take it slow at first, and Monday nights in Washington D.C. weren’t very busy for cabbies.

A girl in jeans and a black T-shirt hailed me in front of the 18th Street Lounge club. There were several more youngsters around her. She was probably in her twenties, but could have been sixteen all the same. You never know with youngsters nowadays, especially on the East Coast. I must admit that I had a couple of affairs with younger babes and, on several occasions, almost with underage girls by mistake, which probably disqualifies me from judging anybody’s age. The girl was with a couple, but they were too busy kissing passionately to notice me or her. I could see in my rearview that she couldn’t get their attention, so she simply pushed them into the cab.

They sat and the girl told me to go to the corner of Belmont Road and Columbia Road in Adams Morgan. I moved the cab and said my destination to the operator over the radio. I was still not at ease. My cab company was really understanding about everything that had happened to me, so they promised to give me all the support I needed.

A good sign that I was on my way to recovery was the fact that I still checked out girls the way I used to before the Events, but just when I was about to ask them ‘the question’, I faltered and changed my mind. While previously I would give girls a superficial compliment, now I just hated them. They were drunk, and doped, and rich ... and high. I realized then that I was driving to a suburb full of diplomats and local politicians. And for the last couple of weeks I hated politicians ... and businessmen ... and everyone else!

The couple was still busy with each other. The girl was laughing and teasing her friend that couldn’t get enough of her skinny boyfriend.

“Hey, bitch! Don’t suck him all up. You can’t keep him just for yourself. Share him with me.”

The other girl started to laugh almost hysterically. The twiggy boy was still silent but seemed to like the idea, or at least didn’t have any objections to it. His girlfriend pushed him to the girl in the black top. The boy, however, didn’t appear to register any change and they began their kissing threesome.

Foot on the brake and yelling, “Get out of my car!”

That was what I would have liked to have done at that moment, but I couldn’t. Instead, I continued to drive, trying to ignore them; but all the same, I couldn’t avoid seeing them in my rearview. I simply couldn’t help checking the headlights of the cars behind me. And I would keep tracking some cars until they turned into a side street or something. But one car looked like it was following me. The threesome were still kissing in the backseat, petting and laughing, making out. I was successfully ignoring them by this time and was completely focused on the car behind me. I pressed the accelerator firmly and the kick-down action changed the gear of the automatic transmission. The acceleration roused the crew in the backseat.

“Hey! What’s wrong with you?” The quiet boy finally spoke.

“Yeah! Give it a go, man,” the girl said from under him.

“Born to be wild!” the girl in black added melodically. Both girls started to scream, full of joy.

I really didn’t care what they were telling me. The car behind increased its speed to close the distance, and I immediately felt shivers down my spine and broke into a sweat of panic.

I thought everything was finally over. At least I hoped, but apparently they were still tailgating me.

“What’s wrong with you?” The boy was really scared. I could sense sheer horror in his voice. “Slow down! Slow down, now!”

Without even thinking, I automatically stepped on the brakes in response to the deafening command. The car behind moved correspondingly to the left lane to overtake us. In the side-view mirror, I noticed that the front and back right windows on the other car were retracting. I froze. It couldn’t be! I was waiting to see what would happen next. And then I saw the passengers in the front and back seats of the vehicle protruding their limbs through the window with something in their hands. I swallowed loudly.

The threesome from the backseat looked at me and then moved their heads all in one motion towards the overtaking car. Then we heard screaming and the horn. My eyes went wide as I saw boys with some booze in paper bags waving at us. The girls responded, shouting at them. The car with the cheerful boys was already some twenty yards away when I managed a sigh of relief and continued on driving.

The backseat was quiet now. The boy had lost his mood, and the girls were disappointed and tired. The car was quiet and peaceful too.

I was thinking. Will I ever be able to find peace again in America? The idea to go back to Bosnia raced through my mind.

***

I should probably introduce myself before I continue further.

My name is Zoran Bobic, and I arrived in the USA in 1993 with my wife, Selma, and my two kids.

If my best friend in America, Sima, had to describe me, he would say something along the lines of:

‘Zoran is in his late forties, just in the final stages of his mid-life crisis.’

American ladies that I dated on the side would probably mention my sexy East-European accent and my Balkan-featured face, resembling that of Tom Selleck’s. Although I’m not generally modest, I must say that I’m not that handsome. My head has a strange curve at the back, due to the thick-feathered pillows I had as a baby, well at least that’s Selma’s theory. I also used to have a moustache, which made Tom and me even more alike, but I lost it when I left Chicago. Selma probably thought that it was my source of mojo, but now girls often compliment my ‘nicely shaped lips’ that were more visible, and sometimes, even my slightly crooked nose. I used to have an athletic build as I was always active, but with the years I have gained a couple of extra pounds together with grayish hair and wrinkles around my eyes, just signs of maturity. I still hope that I am a good package. Coupled with a bad Serbian image and a sexy accent, I was still working well with the ladies.

I was happy in America. We were finally going somewhere with our lives. I felt lucky and clever enough to catch the opportunity of a lifetime to migrate my family as refugees to the United States. It may sound harsh, but quite frankly that was the only point, in what seemed a long time, where I was actually happy to have married Selma, a Bosnian Muslim. As an Orthodox Christian, my mixed marriage had a priority for getting us a refugee status. Of course, I had to lie about my non-involvement in the war and some other details. Although I never committed any crime with the Republic of Srpska Army, like ninety percent of other ordinary people, I was conscribed and assigned as a drafter. That detail, however, would have ruined my chances of immigrating. At the time this seemed a small price to pay for the chance to escape the misery of war, and finally having an opportunity to have my dreams come true. However, for eight years, that lie was standing as a tiny sword faraway, yet still in the back of my mind, threatening to ruin my American dream and have me deported.

When we came to the United States, eight years before this story took place, it was summer like now. We were happy and hopeful. We had got a new life in a country where we didn’t have anything and didn’t know anyone, but we had hope. We started our new life with poor English, without job, and in a Serbian ghetto in Chicago. The community helped us out and we started doing simple jobs like tiling, painting, mowing and snow cleaning during winter. We used to work long hours just to survive, as our so-called friends were using us for cheap labor. After two years we decided to move to Washington D.C. There were a number of reasons, but mainly due to my extramarital indiscretions. That was the best thing Selma ever made me do, despite it being much harder for me to pick up snobbish capital city ladies as a cabbie.

However, the breakup with the ethnic community paid off as I started fixing and trading cars in addition to driving a cab, and with Selma’s help, after just five years, we managed to buy a small condo, cash. It wasn’t the American dream, but an average lower-middle-class life. Quite good for fresh migrants, I must add. Especially when the future seemed brimming with promises, but the Events ruined everything. I still can’t even give it a proper name. I guess I could call it the ‘Linda Thing’. ‘Thing’ was the closest word because I am still not sure what had really happened. Yet, I will always remember the day we met, almost three months ago…

***