My Uber driver, I just found out,
sings in a Mexican rock band.
`80s covers. Spanish only.
That’s why he asks me to sit in the front seat with him.
If I sit in the back, he explains,
the State Police will impound his grey Toyota
and he’ll never get to gig again.
They will keep his car for two months behind a barbed wire fence
next to a field where many dogs bark.
35,000 pesos it will cost him if he ever wants to see his vehiculo.
You see, the Regional Governor, owns the local taxi company
—100 shiny green and white cabs.
That’s why the State Police, in leather boots,
stop Uber drivers in my little town,
but only if their passengers are sitting in the back seat.
Not today, however.
I am sitting in the front.
Like his best friend.
This article appears in July 2017 Issue.
