A Good Man

I pull my taxi up to the hospital

and here he comes:

53 years old

cigarette in one hand

oxygen tank in the other.

I say to myself

Fuck this guy

I want to go home and

eat dinner.

He gets in the cab and

tells me he lives

out in the boonies.

An hour later the sun sets

on the road in front of us

and we keep going.

I say to myself

life is too short

to waste it

taking this dickhead home.

The desert wind blows my taxi in the dark

and the road weaves

and the rare headlights

blink

like the eyes of animals.

The man snorts in his sleep

and I say to myself

The state is paying for this ride

just as it paid for his helicopter trip

and his week-long hospital stay

and his oxygen tanks

and countless medications

including narcotic after narcotic

(while joint peddlers rot in jail)

and for what?

To keep a lifelong brain-dead cig-chimney alive

so he can watch tv for a few

more precious fucking years.

He wakes up when I crunch

onto his dirt road.

Dogs dash and bark in the shadows.

When we stop outside his door

he takes my hand

gently

looks at me with kind

grateful eyes

and tells me in complete sincerity:

"You are

a good man."

I back out of there and do not say a word

to myself

all the way home.

END