Endangered Demeanor.

Late, again.  Cab driver cuts along the side of the road, 90’s style, pre-traffic-camera style.  I’m so glad he doesn’t care.   It’s an unexpected relief: he is willing to drive like and asshole.  The opportunistic Beijing cabby is an endangered demeanor.

Way up high in Lido area.  A view I know implicitly from the ground.  Consider the view northward, eastward from yet another vantage in this city of angles.   Down to old apartment blocks and early versions of “suburbia” that have been eclipsed three or four times in the last two decades.  The airport highway with the flow of red break lights out of the city.    That’s a road I’ve probably ridden more times than any other road in my life.   Is that true?

Quick cab to the next meeting.  Very late now.  Call apologizing, clarifying, updated confirmation.  We’re not going far.  The traffic is merely bad.  How much money do I have?  Forgot to visit the ATM.  I’ve thirty-three yuan.   The meter is at twenty-eight yuan.  Honesty remains the best policy.  “Hey, I’ll just get out at the corner, I only have thirty-three kuai.”  Then, in a rather base and automatic way, I add that we could, of course visit an ATM.  He suggests we just head on up, as he prints the receipt. 

Windy autumn night.  People pulling themselves at the shoulders to keep warm, now as they walk.  Eyes move from one young lady’s confident steps to the next lady’s assent of the walk bridge until they pass to the blind erhu player, sitting at the center of the crossway.   The building I used to work in towers up ahead of me.   That person I was then joins me for a few meters until I am distracted again.  She’s descending.  The meeting I’m hustling to is in the same building.   If you’re going forward we’ll head right.