H

                                                                       H

H had not crossed his mind in years............ He thought back and all he could see was H standing by the Pay Phone at the East Entrance of the Winn Dixie on Big Pine Key, where one of   H's business cards was glued to the phone...as they were around all the pay phones on Big Pine Key,  H always wore a trench coat...even on the Hottest of days... he was a gangly man... tall thin long hair with an extreme  receding  hairline.... A bit of a Lurch perhaps?

H drove taxi around he had a business card it was a  simple white card with the capitol letter H embossed on it and his phone number.............. He owned  two pirate taxi's ... actually he lived in  them  24 sticky ball  hours a day... He kept things simple.... from time to time he would get arrested  for what he could not say, but soon enough he was back out on the street.... H, How do you spell that he wondered?  Aitch , Haitch,  H?

One Taxi was a  little white sedan...he used some , and other times when it would run, he would break out the Green Cadillac Limo.......... something was  mumbled  about it having been  used by the Heavy Metal band  Iron Maiden  once upon a grander   time...
it was one weird car.... H catered to the bar room strippers in Key West.... he would offer free Service , well advertise free service.... a Free of Sorts.........

It was a strange ride... the thing actually had 6 wheels and tires.... two of them were those doughnut tires that are used for spares some call them (Idiot tires ) .... and the other four were pretty bald except for one, he was always having to add air,
 to  the slow leakers you know?  The good life.

The whole back end of the thing had been plowed in  once when he was passed out on qualudes at the green light , at the only intersection on Big Pine Key Florida with a light  ....  it was a mess, he had to take some trailer lights and rig them up on the back end so he had tail lights , brake lights and turn signals, then of course he had the Two vicious dogs that rode along with him just behind the first partition  with the electric glass divider window that  was jimmied and did not work, it was stuck a few inches in the down position with visible dried dog drool and paw prints.... However he kept the far back  inside of the limo behind the second partition  nice and clean all armorall'ed clean ... shiny and vacuumed and the windows spotless  in just that area.. ..........the a/c blew semi cold.... colder then it was hot out, smelled pretty  good to ...he even had a couple of  dented  overused champagne holders in the back with salted ice at times  for icy  cold sweating green bottles of bubbly ......... that would go pop! and a Carton of pulp free Florida O.J. in the other... and some stolen Dixie cups.........in the service....

H kept a bottle of pharmaceutical  pain killers in the glove box, mainly for the pole dancer girls so if one of them was not feeling so good or had a headache... especially before going to work down in Key West... he would hand them out like candy and get them to feeling better,  there there, one  might ride down to Key West with her head in his lap sucking her thumb, one of many rough childhoods in the Keys.....and take a nap giving the capsules time to kick in, they shared some of their tips with old H on the return ride home around 4 in the morning all coked up ...    for that Free Service.

The Limo was named Eloise.  The one dog was a white Husky... snapping mean...He could not  seem to remember the other one's name, he was more of the kind of dog  that lurks with eyes rolled up the one could see the whites at the bottom of his eyes,  that  cowardly look,  he  would walk in tight circles a lot... trying to sniff is own butt, on occasion he was know to bite.

Shit, and here  He had almost forgotten about H.................though  he could see him clear as day standing there at that Pay phone by the East Entrance of Winn Dixie in that smelly old  trench coat... his balding forehead and the clever business card with just the letter H embossed on it and his phone number... He  wondered  if it was the phone number of the pay phone...come to think of it?

He heard H. died, maybe of a drug overdose?.... never saw any obituary... but that was standard for the homeless and downtrodden.... In the  Smiling Islands of the fabulous Florida Keys.

He Never knew the Man really well, but he did exist.................  anybody else out there remember old  H?

Or accept a Ride?              H.