A couple weeks later someone organized an all-class outing to Georgetown.
Per usual, drinks, yadda yadda, dancing, yadda yadda, flirting with Putty, yadda yadda.
But this night was different. He seemed into me.
When the possibility of hooking up is in the air somehow the conversation always turns to how boring the night had become and “maybe it’s just better if we leave…”
So, we got a cab back to the dorms. In 1998. some cabs took credit cards, some didn’t. This cabbie waited until we were already several minutes in to tell us he only took cash.
We didn’t have any. He said he was going to stop at CVS so we could buy something and get cash back.
Putty went from zero to ten in as many seconds.
He got violently angry and said there was no way he was going to get cash out after the guy failed to tell us he didn’t take a card. They started yelling loudly. Putty told me we were getting out of the car.
The cabbie got out after us, demanding to be paid his fare. They got into each other’s face, arguing over at most, a five dollar charge.
Then, Putty did one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. He dropped to his knees and lying on the pavement barked “I’ll tell the cops you hit me! I’ll tell the cops you hit me! Who will they believe?”
After the shock, the cabbie raised his hands in exasperation, swore at us while he got back in the cab, and drove off; effectively abandoning us in a bad part of town to die.
Putty didn’t think about that during his tantrum.
Unfortunately, the next cabbie we hailed didn’t take a card either. Ironically he offered to take us to CVS. I said that would be fine; Putty, silenced and dejected, pouted next to me.
I came out of CVS with a tube of toothpaste I didn’t need, but also with the cash back to get us home.
We stumbled into his suite as the altercation with the cabbie had all but been forgotten. He invited me to see his 80s CD collection, we threw on some tunes from St. Elmo’s Fire, and well…
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