ROY HARBISON'S FOURTH DAY ON THE JOB

Roy picked up the couple at La Guardia. Or, rather, they snuck up on Roy as he waited in the yellowcab cue skimming the Post. He popped the trunk,got out to greet them, and asked them with feigned zeal, "Where you folks going today?" The man, burly but polite, responded, "138th and Lenox."

Roy nodded his head in agreement even though his shoal was typically the Columbus Circle and midtown circuit. He had not ventured above 96 yet, but had woken up with the zest of a man twenty years younger. He had decided to start his shift at La Guardia because he was guaranteed at least 25 dollars without tip. And chances are he was going to pick up a couple that were just starting their New York City vacation and would want to tip munificently.

Regardless, Roy had trouble exiting La Guardia, but after an initial meandering, zeroed in on the path most treaded. The couple in the back, noticed, and managed to sprinkle it into the conversation. Roy couldn't understand because it was mongrel English peppered with Spanish, or he thought so. Roy heard them whisper something, though, about Roy Orbison, and thought about how curiosity compels all tongues.

No, he wasn't related to Orbison because his name was Harbison and he chucked up the confusion to how the word Orbison is pronounced in Spanish. Was the name Orbison pronounced in Spanish the same way his name was pronounced in English. Maybe if he moved to Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico he could convince people that he was Orbison's, I mean, Harbison's brother or cousin. For a second, Roy lost himself in a bit fantasy in which he is pawed by voluptuous brown women in leopard print uniforms with atrocious,red lipstick at an outdoor concert aerated by Caribbean jetstreams and coconut incense.

The silence is broken by the couple which asked almost in unison about the weather. Roy responds in a token manner that the weather's been pretty good, almost as if he's rehearsed his lifeless, insipid answer. If the previous three days have taught him anything it is to stay focused because the obstacles and stimuli come at you pretty quick. The man says something about it being in the mid sixties a couple of days before leaving which he thought was pretty uncharacteristic. Yes, Roy says, that is rather strange for mid August and is going to add something small when he realizes that he is about to reach the toll on the Triboro. He thinks, Jeez, that went by real quick but instead of commenting on the trajectory of the trip decided to confirm the address, more importantly the cross streets.

The woman says, "Lenox and onethreeeight" and asks the man something that makes him have to troll the front pocket of his book bag. Roy continues on the Triboro but realizes that he has no idea how to exit when he sees a sign that says, East 138th. He decides not to ask the man if this is the right exit because it might transmit his ingenue status and Roy would rather not deal with that today. The man looks up right as the Bruckner Expressway reels its awesome berth onto the landscape. At that moment, the man begins his litany of "shits" and the woman presses herself into the corner of the cab, like a cat in a carrier. The man announces, "sir, you're in the Bronx, not Manhattan" but it takes a minute or two for Roy to fall into this understanding.

First off, the man nodded his head when Roy asked him to exit on East 138th. Second, Roy never said he could do the Bronx, but Ivan the dispatcher told him that on his fourth day he could surely handle the Bronx. "Vhat, Roy, there's one street in the main, the Concowrse, and then everzing else iz going to ze stadium, and then zat direction is you go." Roy wanted to strangle Ivan right now but thought that keeping his composure was more important than anything else. He kept it together.