Deal Making

Anonymous

            I checked my watch and a silent curse escaped my lips.  It was fifteen minutes until eleven, and that meant I had to leave at precisely that moment if I wanted to catch the bus.  I was in an exotic city, in a foreign country, miles away from my bed for the night.  However, I was making progress with a cute local girl at a cafe and wasn’t about to let the night go to waste.  I patted my back pocket to reassure myself that I still had my wallet and decided I might as well see where the night was going and not let public transportation mess it up.  I convinced myself to splurge and take a taxi later. 

            As the night progressed, worry faded as I enjoyed the good music and good company.  Sometime later the girl told me she had to go home.  We set up a time to meet later and said our goodbyes.  I decided to head back to the hotel, but when  I took one look at the tab, I realized I’d made a massive blunder.  I had gone out for the night expecting to pay for only one person and a bus.  The thought had not crossed my mind that I would meet a girl or that I would miss the bus.  Of course I paid for the girl because it would have been wrong not to, but in doing so I really screwed myself.  I looked at the pub owner and realized that there was no avoiding it, and after I ponied up, I looked at my pitifully empty wallet.

            I realized that I might as well head outside and clear my head with some fresh air.  After I looked around and saw the well-lit and busy street, I figured that there wouldn’t be a problem just walking back to the hotel.  I knew the address and the general location, so I decided to walk.  After about twenty minutes I realized that I was in a part of town I’d never seen before and I knew that there was no way I was finding the hotel on my own.  It was a sketchy neighborhood, so I turned around and tried to heading towards the pub again.  I figured I would have to go back to civilization, and show the hotel’s address to some people, and hopefully someone would point me in the right direction.  It was well past midnight at this point, and some not-so-charming characters were out and about.  Normally I wouldn’t have been so perturbed, but in a foreign country, where the customs were foreign to me, I was beginning to feel the gravity of my situation. Right as I turned around a beacon of hope emerged.  There was a taxi roaring down the street and instinctively my hand shot up.  As the taxi pulled over, I unconsciously jumped into it and gave the driver the address.  I was about as proficient in the language as a two year-old, but luckily I had the hotel’s card.  As the taxi started to accellerate I realized what I’d done.  I could have stopped right then and gotten out and kept wandering around adrift in a foreign country;  however, I choose to view the taxi as a sign that I was meant to be returned to my hotel in one piece.  I looked around and noticed that it wasn’t just any taxi; it was one of the luxury taxis.  I groaned a little, because I knew it would be twice as expensive.  I double checked the thing I already knew: I only had some pocket change remaining.  I watched as the fare calculator continuously ticked up.  When it crossed five, I realized there was no turning back.  I would have to steal from that innocent man just trying to make a living.   I tried to justify it saying that I could get mugged or even brutally murdered; just anything to make what I was about to do seem a little less criminal.  Thoughts ran through my mind.  What if I got arrested?  Did this guy have kids he needed to feed?  Did he have a gun?  Could I try to bargain with him?  I thought about my mom forbidding me to leave the hotel only hours earlier, and how if I showed up at her room past midnight requesting money for a cab fare, there would be hell to pay…it could potentially ruin the trip.

            As the taxi approached the square where I was staying I yelled stop.  I left the change on the seat and ran.  I went into a different hotel and straight out the back.  I kept on running to my hotel and went straight to my room.  I had just robbed that man of the pay he was due.  I went straight to bed with all my clothes on, but I couldn’t fall asleep for hours.  I was worried about the police coming, but also about how I had knowingly robbed an innocent man. 

            I replay that night over and over in my mind quite often and sometimes at the most random times.  I understand that I did the “safe” thing, but it was definitely not the right thing.  I had to make a subconscious deal with myself that night that I would take care of my physical safety and worry about my mental sanity later.