I’m Jayden, and at fifty-two, I’ve been driving for a rideshare app for about four years now. I started doing it after my divorce, at first just to fill my time, then because I realized I actually enjoyed the freedom of it. I’ve met all kinds of people during my late-night drives around the city: chatty college kids, tired business travelers, couples arguing in the backseat, and the occasional drunk who mistakes my car for therapy on wheels.
Most of the time, I let things slide. I’ve learned that people can be careless with their words when they think they’re invisible behind tinted windows. But that Friday night, the one I’ll never forget, two passengers crossed a line I didn’t even know existed.
It was a little after eleven, and I had just finished a long trip from the airport. I was thinking about calling it a night when another request popped up. The pickup location was a trendy downtown bar, one of those places where the music leaks out onto the sidewalk and the line outside is full of people pretending not to shiver in their party clothes.
The ride request showed two passengers headed to the north side, about a twenty-five-minute drive. I figured I’d do this one last trip before heading home. I pulled up, turned on my hazards, and sent the usual text: Hey, I’m out front in a gray Honda Civic.
Two young people came stumbling out of the bar, a guy and a girl, both maybe in their mid-twenties. The guy had that slick, self-assured look that screamed “trust fund baby”: designer jacket, perfect hair, a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. The girl was dressed up too, holding her heels in one hand and her phone in the other, laughing like she was trying to prove how much fun she was having.
“Jayden?” the guy asked as they reached my car. “Yep, that’s me,” I said, unlocking the doors. They climbed in, the smell of expensive perfume and alcohol filling the car immediately.
The guy sat behind me, and the girl took the passenger seat. The moment I started driving, I knew it was going to be one of those rides. “So,” the guy started, leaning forward, “how’s the glamorous life of being a rideshare driver, huh?
You get to drive strangers around all night? That must be… fulfilling.”
The girl giggled. “Be nice, Trevor,” she said, but she didn’t sound like she meant it.
I gave a polite smile through the rearview mirror. “Pays the bills,” I said simply. “Oh come on,” he pressed.
“You can’t actually like this. What did you do before this? Lose your job?
Or is this like a retirement hobby?”
I kept my eyes on the road, choosing silence. It wasn’t worth engaging. People like him wanted a reaction — and I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction.
He chuckled, clearly taking my quiet as an invitation to keep going. “You know, I read somewhere that rideshare drivers make, what, like fifteen bucks an hour after expenses? That’s barely enough for gas, man.
Rough life.”
The girl laughed again, sipping from a cup she’d somehow smuggled out of the bar. “Trevor, stop,” she said half-heartedly. “He’s just trying to do his job.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said.
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