Friends,
Angels? Do you believe they walk among us? I sure do!
Read this and see what you think.
xox
As we rushed out through the smokey maze of the Casino at the old Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, it suddenly hit me that he had once again forgotten to give me my show bonus. The monetary incentive he used to physically wring me dry.
The realization stopped me in my tracks.
F*#&!
We had just finished a week-long, Estate Jewelry Show.
I was bone tired from being on my feet for over twelve hours a day—in heels, and to add insult to injury, our plane reservation left us no time to eat before the flight home, so to top it all off—I was hangry.
In other words—I was in NO mood for any fuckery!
We had grossed over one million dollars—in a week. The two of us. And I was about to fly home empty-handed, once again.
You see, I had a boss who hated to pay me. He just did.
And no carefully scripted notes or heartfelt talks, or angry outbursts on my part had done anything to change that.
I had coached him repeatedly on the merits of showing respect. It wasn’t difficult, all he had to do was pay me. And not make me ask for my money, which I HATED.
What would this be, the third time that day I’d had to ask him for my money? I was quite familiar with this humiliating power play, and I was sick of it! Listen, I had done everything I could think of to sidestep this idiocy! Even after years of his bonus structure consisting of whatever loose cash he had in his pocket, not his fat, overstuffed money clip mind you—but his pocket change, I had won one hard-fought battle by finally getting him to agree to a pre-set bonus amount.
“Why are you stopping?” he bellowed back at me impatiently. His aluminum wheelie suitcase, a rectangular R2D2, skipped from wheel to wheel, trying to keep its balance. I could’ve sworn it looked in my direction with a help me face.
He continued his frantic march through the casino toward the door.
“I’d love to get my bonus before we leave?” I asked for the third time, running to keep up. I knew that if I let it slide, even for a day or two, the odds of getting it would become so slim even a Vegas bookie would pass on that bet.
I wasn’t sure he’d heard me until in one fluid motion, he swung to the right, deftly executing a wide, sweeping, u-turn back in my direction. Still in motion, he reached into his murse (man purse) and dumped a handful of gambling chips in my direction. Surprised, I reached out with both hands in time to catch most of them. Several of them did make a break for it, the slippery little buggers rolling on their sides underneath the dollar slots nearby.
“That should cover it,” He insisted. “Now hurry up, we don’t want to miss our plane.”
I stood there red-faced and flabbergasted, knowing that he’d left me no time to cash them in. Quickly, I shoved the chips in my purse and proceeded to get down on my hands and knees to see if I could retrieve the ones that had made their escape.
A pot-bellied, middle-aged woman, with a cigarette with two inches of ash precariously dangling from her lipstick-stained lips, was straddling two stools in front of three slot machines. Without ever looking away from the rapidly rotating numbers she was counting on to change her life, her foot kicked the chips my way, like a bedroom-slippered hockey stick.
“Uh, thanks” I mumbled, crawling around on the ground in my skirt and heels, totally in awe of her unbroken focus.
“Janet, let’s go!” He chided from inside the automatic revolving glass exit doors before turning right to join the cab line.
I could hear the damn plastic chip clattering together in my bag as I ran to catch my flight back to LA.
In the hour it took to get from Vegas to Los Angeles, I began to seethe with rage.
Not only had he made me repeatedly beg him for money he had literally thrown poker chips at me in lieu of my bonus! I had never felt so disrespected. In. My. Life.
I don’t know about you, but when I get in touch with that level of anger, I have a tendency to burst into flames tears.
Hunched down in my middle seat toward the back of the plane, I cried and cried and cried. Big, wet, sloppy tears.
I decided I would rather die, covered in honey and tied on an anthill than take the prearranged ride home to Park La Brea with him and his wife. What I knew for sure was that someone was going to die if I got in that car with him. And I was way too overdressed to spend a night in jail.
As we exited the terminal, the crowd spitting us out onto the curb, I spotted his wife’s car to the left. Without making a sound, (or so much as an indecent hand gesture) I made a beeline to the right, jumping into a single cab that just happened to be waiting there for me.
The moment the door shut and we pulled away—I freaking lost it.
I began to ugly cry, complete with gasping for breath and rivers of snot running down my face.
There I was, trapped in a horrible working situation with no solution in sight. What do you do when you ask someone repeatedly to treat you with respect and they blatantly disregard that request?
I know what you’re thinking, quit! But I couldn’t. I had the kind of career everyone wanted. Travel, great pay, jewelry, prestige. Which led to a lot of financial obligations, AND I was thirty-seven and single. Wahhhhhhhhhhhh. That sad truth made me cry even harder.
As we wound our way through the late-night traffic on LaCienega, I spotted the dark, soulful eyes of the cab driver, staring at me in the rearview mirror. His deep brown skin, white turban, and singsongy accent gave away his country of origin. India.
“Beautiful lady, why you cry?” He cooed.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’m just feeling so sad,” I boo-hooed. “I don’t know what to do.”
I watched his eyes search my face in the mirror as I inadvertently wiped snot into my hair with the back of my hand.
“Beautiful lady, don’t be sad, it can’t be that bad,” he murmured in his soothing, heavily accented voice.
“Ohhhhhhh it is, I think I hate my boss…he doesn’t show me any respect…he paid me with…”
I started to wail. Loudly. “With, with, poker chiiiiiiiiiiiiips!”
I grabbed a couple out of my bag and tossed them onto the front seat for dramatic effect.
“Beautiful lady, you have God’s respect and that’s all that matters.”
“Really? I mean, I guess…”
At that moment, the cab came to a slow, rolling stop in front of my high-rise apartment building.
Since I had cried the entire ride home, he had to wait as I scavenged around in my bag for cab fare. In the meantime, the lovely man retrieved my suitcase from where I had launched it, the driver’s side backseat, opened my door, and wheeled my bag inside the lobby, depositing it in front of the elevator doors. When he returned to the cab, I had composed myself enough to hand him his fare, including a generous tip for being such a good listener.
“Here you go, thank you for being so kind to me,” I said sheepishly through the tissue that was attempting to wrangle my false eyelashes back into place.
“Oh no beautiful lady, you keep that. This ride is on me.”
And before I could even argue with him, he pulled away into the dark Los Angeles night. As I watched his tail lights fade into the distance, I realized a couple of things that were not normal. And they gave me goosebumps.
They still do.
Number one: I never told him where I lived!
I just got in the cab and fell apart while he drove me home — to Park La Brea, a literal labyrinth of apartments, turnabouts, and one-way streets. My friends refuse to pick me up lest they never find their way out. Even with my best directions, many a cab driver has made a wrong turn and been spit back out onto Wilshire Boulevard.
Number two: There are ten high rises inside that complex. How is it that he had managed to navigate all the twists and turns and one-way streets and deposit me right at my door?
I’ll answer that. He was an angel. My angel. Plain and simple.
When I finally managed to come out of my stupor, slowly walking inside the lobby, I noticed he had propped the elevator doors open with my bag. Getting inside I was stunned to discover he’d also pushed the button to the ninth floor!
My floor! How did he know?
I really, truly believe that angels are everywhere and only show themselves when we need them.
THAT is the story of my Angel in a Turban.
Carry on,
Xox