Memoirs of a Rideshare Driver: Demon, Demon

Episode 51 in a series of true rideshare stories

It’s Christmas Eve and snowflakes are falling gently, lit up by red and green lights. I pull up at a cul-de-sac in a gated community, where a longhaired, heavyset man in his late twenties wearing an ugly holiday sweater hugs a well-dressed man with salt-and-pepper hair before getting into my back seat.

I ask him if he’s coming from a holiday dinner with his parents. He says they’re not together anymore, but he was visiting his dad tonight for Christmas Eve, and he’ll visit his mom tomorrow on Christmas. I tell him it’s nice that they’re both still close by and he can see them both for the holidays. He asks if I’m visiting family and I tell him no. Most of my family is in Illinois, and my brother who lives here is visiting them. I have a sister here but she has a family of her own, so I will probably just be working, but I’ll give everybody in Illinois a call. He says he’s sorry to hear that, and that everybody should be with their family on Christmas.

When passengers ask me about my job, sometimes they ask if I have ever been worried for my safety and I tell them it’s never happened so far. The way this ride is starting out, I would never guess that this will be the one. But I’ve seen and read my share of dark stories. I should know better than most that horror has a way of sneaking up on you.

After a few minutes, conversation dwindles, and I get on the freeway, where we’ll be traveling fifteen miles to get to his apartment. In the back seat, he begins doing something I can only describe as aggressive whispering. It’s a guttural, snarling sound, too quiet to make out. It sounds like maybe he is wearing earbuds and listening to death metal, not realizing he’s half singing along. Or maybe he has sleep apnea and he’s dozing off. I look in the mirror.

He’s not sleeping. His eyes are open. I can’t tell if he’s listening to music though. It’s dark back there, and all I see is his silhouette and the whites of his eyes. Even if it was bright, his hair is covering his ears.

A few miles on, he’s louder. I still can’t make out what he’s saying, if anything, but it’s more than just labored breathing. There seem to be words within that throaty whisper.

“What’d you say?” I try asking.

“Nothing,” he says, in the friendliest of tones. I can’t see him very well, but I can hear the smile in his voice, like one of the helpful characters in a stop motion Christmas special. Or like the character who gets bitten by a zombie and keeps it to himself.

He is quiet for a minute or two.

Then he isn’t.

My best guess, at this point, is Tourette Syndrome. When I was a teenager I read the novel Motherless Brooklyn, about a detective with Tourette Syndrome, and it got me interested in the condition for a little while. I know that, while Tourette Syndrome often calls to mind people who involuntarily shout swear words, that’s actually not very common. That symptom, called coprolalia, only occurs in a small percentage of people with Tourette’s. Among those who do have the symptom, some use slurs, some use profanity of the sexual or scatological variety, and some just shout gibberish. What I’m not so sure about—what I begin to ask myself as I drive on this dark road with this stranger in my back seat—is whether, sometimes, coprolalia could take on the sounds of demonic possession.

A demon is exactly what this guy sounds like as those harsh, guttural sounds resume, starting as a whisper and then rising in volume to something closer to a standard speaking voice.

“You doing okay back there?” I ask.

“Yep! Doing good!” he says, in that overly cheerful voice, the gravelly, evil one disappearing once more.

And look, I’m sure it’s exhausting to have an illness that you’re made to feel you have to apologize for. I get that. So you can argue that I’m the asshole when I say this guy really ought to explain himself to me, but man, we’re going sixty miles per hour on an icy road and he’s making devil noises over my shoulder. For the safety of both of us, I would think now might be a moment when it would be worth saying something like, “I have Tourette’s, by the way, so if I’m making noises, don’t worry about it.” That would take down my level of discomfort pretty close to zero. He could go full Exorcist at that point, screaming about whose mother sucks what in which place, and I could shrug it off.

I’m no expert, but if it is Tourette’s, I think he’d be aware of the sounds he is making. That said, from what I understand, high-stress situations exacerbate symptoms, so if I start calling it out and putting pressure on him, it might make things worse. I certainly don’t want that to happen, but a little bit of reassurance that he’s not going to grab my neck from behind and try to bite my face off might be nice. Especially since, to reiterate, we’re on the freeway. There is ice, there is traffic, and there is no exit for the next four miles.

Still debating my best move, I look around my vehicle for anything that might function as a weapon just in case. The best I’ve got is the large, steel water bottle in my cupholder—not great, but not nothing. I keep one hand on it.

About the time I’m considering all this, the guttural voice reaches a high enough volume that I am finally able to make out a couple of words.

“Demon, demon,” he chokes out in an animal growl.

If this were a movie, this would be the part where I say, “Nope,” and then swerve off the road and deliberately ram into the guardrail, sending the car rolling hundreds of feet down the road, hoping the seatbelt and the airbags will save me and slay the demon.

But this isn’t a movie, so the strategy I go with is much less badass.

“You listening to music or something?” I ask him, trying to keep to a polite and non-accusatory tone.

“Nope, just enjoying the drive,” he says, back to that cartoonishly friendly tone.

“You sounded like you were whispering something,” I try, giving him the easiest path he could possibly take to explain his condition.

“Uh… Maybe just talking to myself,” he suggests.

The first hint of the growl starts back up. “Grrrrr…”

“Starting to look like Christmas out there,” I say, just to say something, just because, if I can keep the friendly Dr. Jekyll occupied with banal conversation, the evil Mr. Hyde seems unable to take the wheel.

“Yeah, hopefully the snow will stick. Demon…”

“Yeah, doesn’t feel like Christmas if there’s no snow on the ground.”

“I agree! Grrr…”

The last mile or so goes like that. It’s an introvert’s worst nightmare—make polite small talk or suffer the sounds of demonic rage. We talk about the weather, about Mondays, about traffic, and coffee, and boxers or briefs, and any fucking thing that can save us from two seconds of silence.

For those few minutes, I forgive every motormouth I’ve ever met—every vacuous, jabbering gasbag whose every opinion spews out like green vomit at the first trace of quiet. I wonder, do those people truly love the sound of their own voices as I always assumed, or have they simply met this fucking creature in back seat? Are they talkative, or are they afraid for their lives that they might encounter the demon again?

I get him to his apartment, distracting him all the while with benign chit-chat. He thanks me for the ride and I wish him a merry Christmas. Only after he’s shut the door and walked away do I release my death-trip on the water bottle, the edge of the lid having imprinted itself across my palm, practically drawing blood.

I never do get an answer as to what the fuck all that was about.

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Memoirs of a Rideshare Driver is a series that tells true stories of my 10,000+ trips as a rideshare driver. I will post them every Monday in 2025.