“How do you like driving Lyft?” I asked.
He said “this is an Uber.”
Is there a difference?” I asked.
He said “No, not really. But to answer your question, it’s okay. But I was retired but everything just got a lot more expensive and I couldn’t afford not to work anymore. And there’s not a lot of jobs you can get at this age.”
“That’s rough,” I said.
He said “that’s life.”
“That’s fatalistic,” I thought, but probably still true. Instead I changed the subject and mentioned his hat. It was a Flying Squirrels hat. The local AAA Baseball team in Richmond, VA.
“Oh yeah,” he said “I love baseball, the stadium is great too.”
He went on about how nice the stadium is and baseball in general. He talked about his time in retirement. How he couldn’t afford to keep living too long. He needed to die soon. Topics shifted swiftly. We never lingered anywhere too long. He asked me some questions, I don’t remember what they were about, or how honestly I might have answered. I was just excited to see my friends, I’d been traveling for a few months and wanted to catch up. At some point, not far from the end of our drive, he said something that always stuck with me.
He said “It’s just strange to think…I never thought that a time would come in which I was just some small piece of data. Some small thing for someone to buy and sell. I never thought it would be possible to be watched 24/7 and to feel so helpless about it, like there’s nothing I can do. I just get bought and sold and watched over. And I have to have my phone for work. And for some reason I still have to work… What a strange world it has become…”
“Today isn’t my fear.” I said “it’s tomorrow I’m afraid of. Things are getting worse, not better, and people don’t seem to care except for in short intervals.”
He dropped me off at the bar. I asked what he was doing on Tuesday. He just looked at me strange. I reached in my pocket and handed him two tickets for the next Flying Squirrels game. I’d gotten them for free and wouldn’t be in town anyways. I’d be off travleing again in a couple days.
I walked into the bar. It was one of those bars you can still smoke in and you could tell from the moment you opened the door. I greeted my friends. My friends greeted me. “How are you?” she asked.
I said “I’m… I’m still me.”
She said “That’s life.”
“That’s fatalistic,” I said.