Uber Joe waits for fares on the lot of the county supermarket where I am employed doing unspeakable things to helpless cups of yogurt. Yesterday morning, at 6:15, before we met, he had a fare of two called in by a girl named Ammantria...

“Ammantria had her skinny boyfriend with her and they were arguing the entire time, back and forth, blah, blah, blah. B-word, N-word, you name it, the entire vocabulary of ten words. The gist of the argument was, that she was headed down the road, right off of Stemmers Run down there where you get off the bus, to visit her other boyfriend.

“They were in their late twenties or early thirties, neither one of them big at all. They didn’t hit each other. It was all jawing. Then he starts talking about beating this other dude up.

“He says, ‘Oh, I’ll whoop dat niggas ass!’

“She’s like, ‘You know, you should really rethink that.’

“He’s like, ‘Oh, it’s ass-whoppin’ time and I’m bringing the whoop.’

“She says, ‘Maybe not so much.’

“He’s like, ‘Oh, this shit is on—I’m gonna be whooping that ass all day!’

“She’s like, ‘I’m telling you right now, that it’s not a good idea.’

“But he’s full-on invincible, ‘I will beat his ass so bad—girl.”

“And she’s like, ‘A-huh, okay, have it your way.’

"Well, it’s only a few minutes of this and I’m pulling up in front of this house. They both get out and my man is ready to go, walks right up to the door of that house next to his girl. Knocks, and when the door opens—Jimmy, that’s probably the biggest black man I’ve ever seen. Seriously, this guy was seven feet tall if he was an inch and was as thick as John Henry. I mean, all you could see was him in the doorway. You couldn’t slide an envelope past him.

"The guy in the door was cool, just looked at the dude and asked what he wanted after, saying ‘Hi, babe,' to the girl and the dude just blurts, ‘Oh, I just came here to cut your hair,’ and runs back to the car, looks straight ahead, says, ‘Take me home,’ and doesn’t say a thing all the way there.”