164 – The New, Unofficial, On-line Writer's Guild

This week’s prompts are at the bottom. The words below are written for Ms. Rose and for practice. Practice makes perfect.

Here’s how to play along, ijf you are unsure.

It was almost forty years ago, late but not too late, maybe 10:00 pm, and I was stuck at Will Rogers Airport in OKC. I had missed my connection to Hunt Field in Wyoming. An alert ticket agent had managed to get me booked on a 7:30 flight in the morning and I needed to find my way to a hotel. I thought I’d best get some shuteye. I jumped in the first “Yellow Cab” I saw at the curb.

The driver was a little old lady. She introduced herself as Francis Holcomb and told me to call her Frannie. She told me she drove nights and slept days because she didn’t like keeping company with little old ladies. She said that the people she met in her cab were much more interesting to talk to and besides, how many times could you listen to Ole Ms Driskill tell you about her goitre surgery.

Frannie was a widow-woman. Her husband had been a ranch hand, maybe even a rustler, if you listened between the lines to her story.

She was a Grandma and a Great Grandma too. During the Great War, World War II, she’d been an Avenger Girl, ferrying planes from factories to Army Air bases, even had her medal in her purse and you could see the pride in her face when she showed it to me.

She said she was too old to fly these days but being a cabbie was almost as much fun. She got me to one of those airport hotels, but I told her I’d done changed my mind. I asked her if there were any good clubs where I could listen to music and have a few drinks. She took me to a place with dancers, called “Deja Whoo.”

I paid a cover charge and made my way to the bar where the bartender told me her name was “Rocket.” A small blonde girl wearing a cowboy hat and leather chaps (and not much else) was dancing to a western tune on a small round stage at the centre of the room. I asked Rocket for a bourbon and water then I turned to watch the cowgirl.

“That’s Cathy,” Rocket told me when she brought back my drink, “She’s kinda new. Works here at night and goes to OSU. She likes Country and Western Music. Me, I like Heavy Metal. I even play in a band. We call ourselves ‘Terminal Skull’”

I turned back to her, “You like Heavy Metal? Me too,” I said, “Do you like Death Angel? Or Metal Church? How about Havok?”

She said, “Who?”

I sipped my never-ending supply of drinks and talked with Rocket till it was about three o’clock. That was when she announced ‘last call.’

Standing next to my barstool I shook her hand. I said, “It’s been a pleasure meeting you and I wish you all the best.” I finished my drink and slid thirty dollars under the empty glass.

She said, “You too. Ya need a cab?”