ABP#03: [A Meeting]

His name was Adam Callahan. An ordinary fellow, a taxi-driver during the day, a self-proclaimed professional gambler at night. He wasn't the most remarkable person, commonly seen in a dull green attire of vest and khakis, a middle-aged fellow with a fierce deep-set frown to his face. And a bit scatterbrained, the type of person who would get insulted but come up with a retort... a good half-hour later, thirty miles away. As such, Dr. Morris (his psychologist) was not surprised when he confessed that he would be thinking about gambling while he taxied his clients around during the day, but then think of weird taxi-goers when he called on his pair of fours - although there was a slight grin and long-suffering sigh at the mention of the time Adam had inadvertently cried out "I'll raise a wallet!" when asked to call and subsequently lost his driver license and cash  (he had delivered a young couple from the local airport to their hotel and couldn't keep his eyes off the fancy Italian wallet the man had). 

As for his beliefs, Adam was fervently set that his only higher deity was Lady Luck - luck, he believed, drove the world and life. Dr. Morris personally held the belief that it was Adam's way of justifying his ridiculous bets and gambles that would consistently drive him to the abyss of bankruptcy, beyond which lay cardboard boxes in the middle of cold winter alleys. Denial was something Adam was quite good at. A mid-life crisis for a man who has no idea what to do with his money except gamble it away, indeed.

Their meeting was one of bewildering coincidences, perhaps something rightly attributed to luck. Adam had flipped his customary coin of the day to determine which side of the city to drive around. He had not, however, expected it to ever land upright. But Lady Luck called it so, and Adam hastened to follow her command, driving back and fro in the underground tunnels alongside the bridge. It wasn't a particularly busy day, so it was on his fourth?...fifth? pass that he saw her. At first glance, he thought she was a giant white dog someone had smacked with an industrial-size garbage can. But then she looked up, and his foot slammed into the brakes as his eyes simultaneously expanded in surprise and then rolled back as his face met steering wheel. The car horn that blared as his nose collided with wheel alerted the young girl to his proximity and with a hoarse cry of surprise, she fell backwards and rebounded off the tunnel wall onto his taxi. 

Luck, eat your heart out.

Adam didn't have good experiences with most crack-addicts. An understatement that he refuses to clarify upon. So when he woke to the presence of a young girl shoving him awake, flecks of white spotting her lips and cheek, emitting a strange smell that might be questionable, and hears "factory near the McDonalds near the river," he does not question or ask to clarify or do anything but respond "Yes, ma'am" before gunning his taxi into high gear. No, he wasn't watching his rear-view mirror to check if the girl had any weapon on her, nope. When looking back, he supposed that she might've been a pretty girl, but he didn't remember her well enough (and that wasn't because of fear, that was because of professional courtesy).

And he didn't really know where he was going either. Vague instructions? But he was too polite to question her further, it would be so terribly rude you know, so he wings it and heads to the chalk factory on Wilson and 4th, because it's the only factory he knows of that's near the river and a McDonalds (of course, that wasn't saying much since he was a Burger King-er and thusly didn't care to remember any local McDonalds). He arrives, clears his throat throughly before dryly opening his mouth to rasp something out. In the process of the opening of his mouth, the girl's nose perks up, and she promptly exits the taxi without any further prompting - but not before bumping her arm on parking meter and tripping over the trash can he parked next to. 

Of course, Adam, being the gentleman he is, doesn't ask for the girl to pay him, because he sees some questionable folks heading towards the girl and calling out a name that he could not discern. So with a muffled and garbled shout of "Aruallrhgtok!" he drives away with a sensation of... professionalism. Yes.

It was only until later when he was cleaning out the seats of his taxi when Adam lifted some trace amounts of the white material the girl had on her mouth, that he found out exactly why the suspected questionable substances smelled strange.

"Wait, that was chalk?!"