“You will wait, right?” he asked the driver as he fumbled in his pockets for his keys. Something about the blown bulb made him afraid of going inside.

“Pay first,” the driver said.

Phil gave him the fare plus extra. “Funny how the light just popped … weird, wasn’t it?”

“I was saying the same thing. It had me kinda spooked there for a sec … but being in New York and all, you got other things to be scared of, like ignant motherfuckers with guns.”

The driver cracked a smile. Phil felt okay to crack one too.

“Where you from?” the man asked, sliding over to the passenger seat. “You sound kinda different.”

Phil squatted so that their faces were aligned.

“The U.K.,” he replied.

“Where’s that? Canada?”

“No. Britain.”

“And where’s that?”

“Like England.”

“Okay, I gotcha now. So the U.K. and England are like Queens and Jersey then.”

Phil didn’t understand the comparison, but he said yes. “Where are you from?” he asked.

“Me? Originally? Georgia … Columbus. Little Richard’s from there.”

“Are Georgia and Columbus like Queens and Jersey too?”

“Well … not exactly … but kinda. You vacationing over here? … aah … scuse me but I didn’t catch your name.”

“Phil.”

“Doug.”

“I came to try out for an orchestra … I’m a trumpeter … but I ended up meeting a girl and we fell in love … but”—Phil paused a bit and searched the driver’s eye for sympathy and experience. He didn’t find them to the degree he wanted, but he needed to clear his mind—“she’s black. I’m not … being a racialist or anything,” he continued, “but it scares me. See, her boyfriend before me was black … and he’s going crazy because he wants her back. And it’s affecting her so deeply. She’s in tears, hysterical. She says it’s over his threats … but I don’t believe her completely. I think a lot of her tears are for him … for the sadness that he’s feeling. And that’s making me feel insecure, and I can’t help feeling that it’s a color thing. I mean he treats her like shit … always has … and I treat her like a queen … and he still can touch her in this way that I don’t feel I can. I can’t help feeling that it’s a color thing, Doug. Maybe I can’t connect with her in the same way a black man can … I don’t know … maybe a white man has to be twice as good.”

He told Doug about the threats and explained why he had come to this address in his cab.

“Get on back to the U.S. of K., man, and leave this shit behind. You said this nigger got a gun and he threatening her on the phone and he saying he think you out to kill him? I know people like that … I done been shot by one jealous nigger. No woman’s worth a bullet, Phil. Leave her ass and go back home. And if I was you I’d quit all this talking and get my shit together. Cause you never know when he’ll appear.”