Three Million Witnesses

There were no cabs nearby, so I booked an Uber home.

Four people were crammed into the tiny, stuffy back seat.

The reek of stale sweat mixed with sour milk crawled up my nose.

The old woman cursed me in dialect for dressing like a slut. The wife griped that I was crowding her son.

I shifted toward the side, and the old man's body pressed right up against me again.

The driver had some tacky club track blasting and, without so much as turning his head, tried to smooth it over. "Come on now, let's all say less."

The car pulled into a tunnel, and in the pitch dark a bony, withered hand came down hard on my thigh.

Before I could even react, the whole car erupted.

The wife's hand cracked across my face, the old woman twisted around from the front seat and yanked my hair, and the driver slammed the brakes and roared at me, "You see how old my dad is? What could he possibly do to you?! You just want to shake us down, don't you?!"

I smoothed back my mussed hair, and then I laughed.

I flipped my phone screen around, aimed it at every one of their faces.

"Everything that just happened is going out live, right now, to my three million viewers."

"So. Does your whole family want to come with me to the police station, or would you rather wait for me to call it in?"

...

"Sorry about that, miss, got held up in traffic on the way over."

The driver's-side window rolled down to show a middle-aged man's face.

He gave a sheepish little smile. "Hop in, we'll head out now. I'll pick up the pace on the road and try to get us there sooner."

An hour late, and now the car was going to fly?

I frowned and looked over the beat-up gray sedan.

The body was covered in scratches, spattered with dried mud that hadn't been cleaned off in who knew how long.

My eyes moved to the back seat.

Three people were already sitting there.

On the left was a woman holding an infant, probably the driver's wife.

The baby was wrapped up in a swaddle, only half its face showing, sound asleep.

On the right was a gaunt old man in a white undershirt washed until it had lost its shape, pant legs rolled up past his knees, both legs sprawled wide open.

Each of them was taking up more than their share.

The middle was empty.

Left for me.

I stood by the door and didn't move.

I'd booked a private ride.

But now there was only a sliver of space left in the car.

"Sir," I said, keeping my temper down, "when you took the ride you told me family would be coming along, and I said that was fine. But you didn't say it'd be a whole carload."

"If I get in now, you're over capacity."

The man rubbed the steering wheel, his smile going even more awkward.

The old woman in the passenger seat leaned out and beamed at me, warm as anything. "It's fine, miss, my grandson's just a month old, he doesn't take up any room."

"Besides, if anything happens, the fine's on us."

"You won't get another cab at this hour anyway, so get in, we're only waiting on you."

She smiled at me like an old friend, all warmth.

I stood at the roadside, torn and irritated.

She wasn't wrong.

The train tickets had sold out ages ago, and there was no getting a last-minute ride.

My phone screen was lit up, a booking still sitting in the app after more than forty minutes with no driver accepting it.

If I didn't leave now, I wouldn't make it home today.

Grandma was still at home waiting for me.

She'd said last week that her chest felt tight, and she wouldn't go to a real hospital, just sat at the little clinic by the house getting three days of IV drips.

When I called her yesterday, her voice still sounded thick and off, like she wasn't feeling well.

I took a deep breath, pulled the door open, and got in.

Only once I sat did I realize how tight it was.

My whole left side was pressed against the woman's arm as she held the baby.

The second the baby stirred at all, she jabbed me with her elbow, terrified I'd squash her kid.

My right leg was up against the old man's spread knees.

His skin had a film of sweat on it, damp, rubbing against my bare calf.

Being wedged in the middle like this was unbearable.

I forced down the discomfort and shifted a little, trying to win myself some breathing room.

Instead, the leg on my right pressed in even closer.

And the elbow on my left dug in again.

I wasn't going to let it slide.

Under cover of a stretch, I threw my arms and legs out wide, exaggerating it.

The move forced that sliver of space into a real gap.

The woman clicked her tongue and jostled the baby in her arms, annoyed.

The car started moving.

It was an August afternoon, the sun scorching the ground.

Every window was shut tight, and the inside of the car was stifling as a steamer.

Dust, sweat, that faint sour-milk smell, and the old man's undisguised old-person odor all churned together, endlessly assaulting my nose.

I reached down to the vent by my leg and felt around.

There was a little air. It was warm.

"Sir, could you turn the AC up? It's way too stuffy in here."

The driver was about to say something when the old woman patted his shoulder and turned around to grin at me.

"Miss, bear with us a bit, my grandson's so little and he just got over a cold, he can't take the chill."

I pressed my lips together. "Then roll a window down a little, just a crack, for some air."

"No, no." The old woman waved her hand at once, half the smile dropping off her face. "Open the window and the wind's worse, the little one gets a draft and he'll get sick."

The woman shot me a sideways look, her voice thin and shrill. "You gonna answer for it if my boy gets sick? Kids these days are just selfish, only ever thinking about their own comfort."

That spark of anger in me flared right up.

"All right, all right." The man behind the wheel finally spoke, his voice as spineless and mild as the rest of him. "We're all out on the road together, everyone should cut each other a little slack."

"Miss, how about I put on some music? Listen to a few songs and you won't feel the heat."

"Really, a calm mind keeps you cool."

He poked at the dashboard screen a few times.

The next second, an ear-splitting DJ remix of "Love for Sale" exploded through the car.