day THIRTEEN

SALT OF THE EARTH

I always seem to get these two old Christian fucks on Sundays.
They got a time-call at 10:00 a.m. to go to church.
They're on the voucher system paid for by the state.
I arrive at their fancy ass house in my cab

at 9:55.
It's raining a cold windy rain
and I stand outside their door knocking, knocking...
Finally the fat old guy opens the door
(and when I say old they're only barely 70.)
"We'll be right with you" he says.
Yeah right.
I wait in the car.
20 minutes later the wife comes out with her walker
just hating the world for raining.

Thanks Obama!

I get out and help her.
"Go back and help my husband" she says.
Dumbfuck husband is standing at the porch looking
at the rain like he's never seen it before
holding his hand over his forehead.
He's a retired preacher, one of the most
infantile useless shit-fer-brains you ever met,
300 pounds, all dressed up.
He wants my arm.
I walk him to the car, put him in the front seat

(he gets carsick in back)
then get the lady's walker in the trunk and her in the back seat
then I get in.
"My husband can't get his seat belt" she says.
The old fuck isn't even trying he's just waiting for me
to do his seat belt
(these people aren't retarded, you understand, just
completely helpless entitled dopes.)
"Wait," she says, "he needs his neck cushion."

I position his neck cushion.

Finally I get the cab moving.
Quarter mile down the road the lady says
"Oh, no! I forgot my tithe book!"
I turn around, back to their house, get her out, help her
to the door and she's inside for
10 minutes more
(the fare is a discounted set rate, no wait time.)
She comes out with her tithe book
and back in the cab here we go again.
The old preacher who never paid a cent
of taxes in his whole fucking useless life sits there like a fat turd.
Then the wife gets on her phone and calls someone
and you GUESSED IT she's a Trump supporter:
"Oh, Trump isn't gonna put up with that

Palestinian nonsense!
He's gonna have to fix everything Obama messed up....."
She jabbers the whole way
about her nitwit son who's also a preacher
in Idaho but unfortunately

he married a woman who "sasses too much."
We get to their church
the ugliest sorriest ramshackle piece of crap
church in town
and I get out and get all their shit and the walker
and help them both to the church door
while she clutches her tithe book
(no tip for me of course, that goes

against the lord)
and they go inside to pray
their idiot hearts out
so that the ignorant may see the light
so that the sinners will repent
and I drive away thinking

these are the winners, these are the winners

folks.

         --Mather Schneider