The three of them are coming home from Top Golf—all men, all in their twenties, all a little buzzed. They talk over each other, laughing and joking, until one of them says, “I’ll get to it eventually, as long as I don’t get hit by a car and die like Tom.”
One of them laughs. The other guy looks confused. “Wait, what do you mean?”
“You didn’t hear? Tom’s dead. He got hit by a car.”
“You’re fucking with me, right?”
“No,” says the other guy. “You didn’t see that? It was all over social media.”
I’m not clear on how long it’s been since Tom died, who Tom was, or how these guys knew Tom. What I am clear on is that they didn’t like Tom. The two guys who were aware that Tom is dead are more than okay laughing about it. The guy who just found out is a little shook up.
“Dude, he was the worst,” says Tom Hater Number One.
“Yeah, what are you, upset?” says Tom Hater Number Two.
“No, I just never knew anyone who died before,” says the Tom Apologist.
One of them recalls an increasingly confusing story about having to pick Tom up after Tom got stabbed in a drug deal. He then took him to Tom’s house and Tom wasn’t home, so he had to call Tom and tell him Tom had been stabbed.
“Wait, Tom got stabbed?” asks the Tom Apologist, and I’m glad I’m not the only one having trouble with this story.
“No, the other Tom,” says Tom Hater Number One.
“Tom who got stabbed is dead?” asks Tom Hater Number Two.
“No the other Tom is dead. I’m just saying, when Tom got stabbed…”
“Wait,” I interrupt. “You guys know a Tom who got stabbed in a drug deal, and he’s not even the bad Tom?”
“No, this other Tom was way worse.”
They keep interrupting each other, trying to get through the story of Tom and the other Tom—but there is no consensus on which Tom is Other Tom and which one is Tom Prime, so it’s impossible to keep track of which Tom is which, except when they occasionally specify that they’re talking about the dead one.
I start laughing and one of them asks what’s funny.
I tell them, “With most friend groups, if two people have the same name, they call them, like, Tall Tom and Short Tom, or Black Tom and White Tom. You guys have Alive Tom and Dead Tom.”
That gets them laughing—even the Tom Apologist.
It actually solves the problem, too. They go back to telling the story, and they start referring to them as Alive Tom and Dead Tom, and even though they’re laughing at the descriptors every time they use them, it actually allows them to get through the story.
I never get much clarification on what Dead Tom did that makes him so awful, but Alive Tom sure doesn’t sound like someone I’d want to hang out with. One thing is for sure: when it comes to this particular friend group, the Toms aren’t all right.
Memoirs of a Rideshare Driver is a series that tells true stories from my 10,000+ trips as a rideshare driver. I will post new stories every month in 2026.