The cab driver wore a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt with yellow and purple parrots decorating it. Despite the open window at the back of the car letting in an icy wind, he didn’t even shiver.

Alex, on the other hand, couldn’t get the goosebumps to leave her skin. She pulled her faux-fur lined coat closer. She frowned at the back open window but didn’t say anything.

The cab driver hummed to a song on the radio she had never heard. Some upbeat, funky tune too old for her. The driver, a man with greying hair peeking out from under his old-fashioned newsboy cap, kept tapping his fingers on the steering steel to the beat of the song.

“Do you know?” He asked her with an accent she couldn’t place, looking in the rearview mirror. His eyes were brown, full of a depth that only older people possessed, with wrinkles forming parentheses around each eye. “The e-song?”

Alex jerked her head, slowly making eye contact. “Uh... no.” She quickly turned her eyes away, staring out at the dirty, snowy landscape through the dark window. Small, shamble houses covered in icicles and peeling paint chips whipped by as they drove further away from the airport. The urge to go back was invading her mind.

It was one in the morning with no one outside. The city was desolated.

“Come and Get Your Love,” the cab driver said.

Alex kept her gaze turned toward the window. “Excuse me?”

“Name of e-song.”

“Oh, that’s... nice.”

The cab driver let out a huge belly-shaking laugh. “Is nice. A great e-song.”

He reached to the stereo volume, brushing pamphlets about Canada, Wisconsin, and Sweden off the dashboard with a shaky hand, and turned the song down. “You from here?”

Alex sighed. “Yeah. Born and raised.” They drove passed a lit-up coffee hut that sat in the middle of an open field. Nothing around except snow.

A thick silence filled the cab as the driver nodded. Alex looked around the car, spotting a shoebox, with a picture of walking boots on the side, sitting in the passenger seat. The fallen pamphlets rested on top. She noticed a pair of dog tags swinging from the rearview mirror. A bobble head of a Pope sat on the dashboard while another bobble head of a man with a double chin and brown skin stood next to him. She didn’t recognize who they were. One more bobble head of a blond woman swayed next to the Pope. It looked like Christina Aguilera.

As the silence started to become deafening, Alex forced her lips to move.

“Where, uh, are you from?” 

“La Serena. Chile.” He added after her quizzical look. He smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “A lot colder here.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah, I would guess that.”

“I live in Florida after I move from La Serena. Sunshine and beaches - is home for me.” After a pause he said, “I hate the traffic.” He laughed loudly. 

“Not much traffic here,” she said, nodding at her side window. A red sedan driving next to them passed by. No other cars were on the icy road.

“I know. I love it.”

Alex shifted in her seat, pulling her thirty-dollar manicured hands into her jacket. The cold wind kept hitting the right side of her neck. “I guess that’s nice. The one good thing about living here.”

“No, no, don’t say that. There are many great things about this place.”

Alex felt her lips twitch into a small smile. “Yeah? Like what?”

“Someone doesn’t like?” He flicked his eyes to hers in the rearview the mirror.

“Someone does not like,” she agreed, forcing herself to make eye contact.   

“Where is better a place? You have beautiful snow.”

“It isn’t exactly beautiful this time of year.”

The driver shrugged. “I guess.”

Silence dominated the small space again. Alex rubbed her cold palms on her second-hand jeans that she pretended cost her a hundred dollars. The small houses outside began to turn into homes that a middle-class income would support. They stood two stories tall with well-maintained mailboxes in the front yards, and brown picket fences offering protection. The dirty snow became pristine as they left downtown behind.

The bobble heads of the Pope, the unrecognizable man, and the pop singer stared at her.

She clenched her eyes shut. “Who are they? The bobble heads.”

The cab driver chuckled, the sound friendly and inviting. “That one is Pope Francis.”

Alex opened her eyes, watching as he then pointed to the blonde woman.

“Is that...Christina Aguilera?” Alex asked.

“Yes.” He laughed, causing a loud, gurgling cough to come out.

Alex winced. “Umm, ok.”

He cleared his throat. “My son’s wife gives it to me. I don’t know why.” He nodded at the bobble head of the double chin man. “That one is Pablo Neruda.”

The name didn’t register. “Who?” She squinted at the unrecognizable bobble head.

“A poet from Chile.”

“They make bobble heads of poets?”

He laughed again. “They make bobble heads of anyone you ask if you go to store that makes bobble heads.”

“I’ve never heard of a store that makes bobble heads.”

“I’ve never heard of one too.”

“Then where did you get the bobble head?”

“I bought online.”

A small smile framed Alex’s lips. “So... you like poetry?”

“No, no. I love poetry. Do you?”

Alex rocked back and forth, staring at her snowy boots that were falling apart at the heels. She was grateful the snow covered their imperfections. “You know, I never had much interest in it. I was forced to read it in school.”

“That is sad. Poetry is...really something. Poetry in Spanish is even better.”

“Hmm,” she said, staring back outside, as they stopped at a red light. A black-haired woman, huddling underneath a wool blanket, sat on a bench near a bus stop. The one streetlight illuminated her small frame. Alex frowned as they started moving again.

The cab driver turned the volume up, playing another song she had never heard.

“What’s this one?”

“You haven’t heard Red Hot Chili Peppers?”

“Oh, I have. I just don’t listen to them. So, are you a fan because...”

“Because?”

“You’re from Chile?”

The cab driver bellowed, hitting the back of his head on the head rest. His laugh trailed off in another cough. “I’m fan of the Chili Peppers because I’m from Chile? I never hear that one before.”

Alex’s face became warm. “Sorry, uh... I take it’s just a coincidence?”

“Yes, I guess so. I will have to use as joke in the future. I can tell my grandchildren.”

“You have grandkids?”

“Three. Maybe around your age. You are in high school?”

“Oh, no, I’m actually in college. I just look young for my age.”

“Oh, my fault. They’re fifteen, sixteen, and eighteen.”

“That’s... wonderful.”

“They’re great kids. You have family?”

“Um...yeah. I live with my dad.”

“Wonderful!”

Alex sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”

“He didn’t give you ride home?”

“No,” she said.

They broke off into silence again. The Chili Pepper’s song continued playing.

“What’s the name of it?” she asked. “You didn’t say before.”

“Under the Bridge.”

“Under the Bridge,” she repeated. “Ok.” She clenched her cold hands together. The slight breeze ruffled the hair she had tried so desperately to keep frizz free. She sighed, staring at the back open window. Shaking her head, she said, “How long have you lived in the states?”

“Thirty years.”

“Wow. That’s a long time. What made you decide to leave Chile?”

“I wanted to see more of world. But I fell in love with the... what would you call it? The feel of this place. The cold - less traffic. It’s more peaceful here than La Serena or Florida. What about you?”

“I want to see more of the world too. I actually want to go somewhere warmer.”

“Don’t go to Florida.”

“I know. The traffic’s terrible.” She smiled. “Maybe I can go to Chile.”

“Maybe. Don’t go to Punta Arenas. It’s cold there too,” he said, smiling back at her in the rearview mirror. “What is you studying in school?”

“Uh... English?”

“Yes? You can do a lot with English. Knowing English has served me well in this country.”

“That’s not...” She trailed off, while he looked at her quizzically, before he smiled.

“I joke.”

“Oh,” she said, letting go of a breath.

After a pause, she said, “You know, you’re the first person to not ask me if I want to be a teacher.”

“You don’t want to be teacher?”

“God no,” she said. “I just want to be a writer of some sort.”

“Maybe poet?”

She chucked. It sounded rusty to her. “Maybe a poet. No, I’ll probably write for a magazine or newspaper. Something like that. Maybe I’d get to travel.”

“That’s good, that’s good. You excited, yes?”

“Yeah, I guess. Unfortunately, my practical career isn’t the most... practical. I don’t expect to be making much from it.”

“You wanna make money, I see?”

“Well... yeah. Kinda.” She used cold fingers to play with the inexpensive scarf her grandma had made her. She told everyone she got it when she was in Paris.

“I don’t make much money. I’m happy.”

“Yeah, but you’re...”

He raised an honest face to the rearview mirror.

Alex turned her eyes away and stared at the bobble heads. Silence invaded the car again. The houses outside went from modest two-story houses to three story mansions, with just a street separating them. These houses glowed in the dark, despite none having any lights on. They radiated a wealthy happiness.

Alex swallowed tightly, watching the huge houses whizz by, a yearning in her chest.

The cab continued driving past the glowing houses as it entered a neighborhood full of single story homes. The houses had chain link fences entrapping them. Black bars covered the windows. All the driveways had cracks in the cement or didn’t have cement at all.

“Here we are,” the driver said, pulling into a gravel filled driveway that led up to a small house painted beige. It looked more like a prison.

“Thank you,” she said, pulling out a few dollar bills, “for the ride.”

“I’m happy to do it.” He took the money and started to count out change.

“Oh, no. You keep it,” Alex said, though her hand was itching to grab it.

Oh, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much.”

She shrugged. It was just a ten-dollar tip, she told herself. After he helped her with her single bag that only had one tag on it from Alaska, she stood in front of her house, fumbling with her keys in the dark. As she watched the man drive away, she had the strong desire to be spontaneous--to be able to ask him to take her back to the airport, whether he’d ever find out why his daughter-in-law gave him a Christina Aguilera bobble head, why he had dog tags hanging from his rear-view mirror, or if not having much money truly made him happy. She wanted to ask him what his name was.

Instead, she finally found the right key to unlock the door that had black prison bars encasing it, and headed inside.

---