Jesus Lane

Past the waffle joint on Jesus Lane, where the grease still hangs in the air like a cheap tart’s perfume, two black cabs have locked horns in the middle of the road, their front ends crumpled together in a slow, metallic kiss. It was some skinny bastard on a bicycle who started it—clipped one cab in passing, wobbled, then pedalled off into the dark without so much as a glance back, his arse vanishing down a side street before the first horn even had the chance to scream.

Out climb the drivers, both built like beer barrels and already boiling, red-faced and bellowing over bumpers that now look like crumpled love letters. Money, always money—hundreds gone for a bit of paint and a dented pride.

Passengers hang out the windows, arms flapping, phones glowing, cursing the clock, the night, and every living soul in it. The cabbies swap insurance details longer than a loser’s rap sheet, faces twisted as if they’ve swallowed something foul. And a couple of blocks away, that cyclist kicks his feet up, cracks a cold one, foam on his lip and not a single fucking shred of guilt in his bones.

just another night,
another ghost riding free,
while we pay for it.