The request comes in for a pick up off Cass Street in Trenton, which is to say the other side of the oldest operating state prison in the United States. It is, as you might expect, an area where the roads aren't in great condition, and rideshare drivers tread cautiously for fear of tire failure. It's late on a weeknight, and there are Department of Corrections trucks with full lights on the block.
The work is the work. I pull over, text my passenger, and wait.
A minute later, a cute little girl appears on the sidewalk, staring wide-eyed at me in my car. Seconds later, her presumed mother appears, opens the door, and they are in. Before I can recite the destination, the little girl, standing in the middle back seat area with full eye contact, asks me "Are you going to take me to my birthday?"
Having had little kids once upon a time, I reply, "Sure", in my best kind adult voice, and she thanks me with the sincerity that only very little children can generate. I confirm the address with her mom, who avails herself of the trunk. We eventually make our way out of the neighborhood, en route to a roadside motel south of the city.
It's a 15-minute ride, and what usually happens with little kids in my car is that my safe, slow and smooth driving style and warm cozy car puts them to sleep after a few minutes.
The same goes for drunk people. Feature, Not Bug.
Not in this case. For the entirety of the ride, the little one sings an improvised song about her birthday, all at a kind enough volume, but my car is a quiet hybrid, so I hear it all. It's impossible not to tell the story that she has learned not to be loud for reasons, that the pick up was at the end of an evening that the mother hopes she will not remember, and that the whole thing is straight out of a foreign movie about how life is really like in the United States.
A block away from the drop, I ask the little girl how old she is going to be, and she tells me three. I reply that I was sure she was turning 86, just to see if I can get her to smile at something silly, but she's not really listening to me, because singing.
The drop comes, and as the mom unloads the trunk, she tells the girl that they are going to celebrate her birthday next week, and its bedtime. There is, of course, no middle of the night birthday party for her at the roadside motel room. She begins to cry, at the same low and considered volume. The mom closes the trunk and they are out of my life.
I drive away and wonder if I'm about to cry as well.
I'm a little worried when I don't.
