A late Monday night in winter. It was so cold that I drove up Taylor through the Loin without even seeing a derelict or an addict.
A young black man came jogging down the street carrying a shrink-wrapped Sony digital video camera and looking repeatedly over his shoulder. He ran in front of me to cross the street then, glancing back, turned around and came over to the cab.
"Hey man," he said rapidly, showing me the box, "I think they're after me."
If the camera was actually in the box, it was the Sony digital video that sold for $2,000. I was in film school and this was the same digital camera I'd been lusting over for two years. Real movies had been made using it, not just documentaries ... if the camera was in the box.
"Come on man," he said almost in whisper as he continually scanned back and forth looking for cops, "just give me a hundred. Take it off my hands."
"Let me see it," I said.
"Hey man," he said, protecting the box. "You're not gonna try and rip me off are you?"
"Don't be ridiculous," I said, "I'm a cab driver."
He thought about this for a few seconds then handed me the box.
It felt right. I shook it and could feel the camera inside the packing. I quickly turned the box over and over. It had the original cellophane tightly stretched around it.
"Come on man," I gotta motor, "take it or not."
"I don't have hundred - it's been a slow night."
"Whataya got?"
"I can give you forty."
He took it. I grabbed the camera, hid it behind the seat and drove off. I stopped a few miles away after checking to see that I hadn't been followed.
It turned out that the box didn't have the original cellophane on it after all. The wrapping had just been cleverly pushed into the corners. I opened the box. It was tightly packed with newspapers. I dug through them and found a smaller box about the same size as a video camera. I opened it. It was also packed with newspapers. In middle of the papers was a rock.
Smuc! Idiot! Liar! Thief! Sucker! Loser! Me.
Who ever said that writing the truth was easy?
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