I can’t sleep with all the sirens and explosions and drunks wheeling up and down my block so I just lay in bed and listen to the sounds of squealing brakes, drunken revelers and the overhead bus lines crackle and hiss until it’s time to go do the job. For good luck and tradition, the first ride I give is free of charge, he asks if I’m sure and I say Merry New Year and from there on it’s radio calls from the Armory for a woman with freshly bruised thighs, watching the sky go red and purple at Twin Peaks as dawn breaks from the East, old friends spilling out of speakeasies and dancing in the middle of 16th street, then baristas heading to work nursing hangovers, beautiful girls in sparkly skirts and tighter leggings, cops frisking a shirtless young man as I drive past the Endup, a tired little girl who doesn’t speak until halfway home when she politely asks for tissues as her nose bleeds dark red onto her hand and down her arm, bartenders going home to sleep at noon, a pair of women wearing angel wings who leave a trail of glitter all over the seats, a mother who holds her child tight to her chest as we drive to 850 so she can pay half a month’s rent she doesn’t have to get her car back, out-of-town tourists from club to bar to hotel, snatches of people who should have gone to bed last year instead of seeing how long they could make their taut bodies jump around the back of my cab without sleep…

I fill up the whole front side of the waybill with fares and run out of room as more than fifty people crawl in and out of my back seat in various states of dress, inebriation and grace, as I ride the edge of that paper-chase high and sit on a bankroll an inch thick while trying to shake the impending exhaustion that comes as I pass the 24 hour mark. I drive on until the sun disappears over the water and then I know that the work is done and it’s time to go.