Memoirs of a Rideshare Driver: The Blind Rock and Roller

Episode 45 in a series of true rideshare stories

I pick him up from an assisted living facility in the mid-afternoon. He is blind, and probably in his late sixties. A woman helps him out to the car and says goodbye.

For a rideshare trip, it’s on the long side. First we’re going to an address twenty minutes away, then we’re coming back.

In between rides I listen to podcasts and audiobooks. When I pick a passenger up, I tend to switch to one of three XM radio stations—one is classic rock from the ‘60s and ‘70s, one is alternative from the ‘90s and ‘00s, and one is metal mostly from the ‘80s. I basically make snap judgments when I see the passengers. Classic rock seems like the safe pick for this guy, and the first thing we get is Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run.

“I karaoke’d this song about forty years ago and got a standing ovation,” he tells me.

Swish.

That sets him off on stories of different songs he’s karaoke’d, bands he’s seen, shows he’s been to. We sing along with Mary Jane’s Last Dance and Baba O’Riley, then after a while he says, “So let me guess… 65.”

I pause for a minute. “What are you guessing?”

“Your age.”

I laugh. “I’m 35.”

“I am so sorry,” he says.

But he’s blind, and we’re talking about music from his generation, so it’s not really that weird of him to assume I’m his age. Still, I’ll try to remember this moment the next time somebody asks me to guess their age and then looks all hurt because I was three years high.

“My first concert was Lynyrd Skynyrd,” he tells me. “It was about ‘75 and Free Bird had just come out. It was an outdoor show. I was about 14 and my brother was going, so my parents made him take me along. He and his friends ditched me for most of the show, so I was just standing there by myself with about five joints in my pocket. I had a great time.”

He tells me a dozen stories like that one. He tells me about multi-week trips dropping acid and seeing all the greats, about playing the drums but never having the balls to join a band, about missing the draft for Vietnam by a year, about riding dirt bikes in childhood and motorcycles in adulthood.

“I spent more time on my bike than I did with any of my wives,” he says, “which is probably why I was married three times.”

When we get to his destination on the map, it seems to be an abandoned building.

“Where are we supposed to be going?” I ask him. “I don’t think this is right.”

“Wienerschnitzel,” he says.

Sure enough, there is a Wienerschnitzel next door. We go through the drive-thru and he orders three chili dogs and a chocolate shake. It costs $15 and he hands me a twenty to pay for it, saying, “Wow, that’s cheaper than the ride.”

“How much was the ride?”

“About forty bucks.”

I can’t help laughing to myself. This guy is spending $55 and the better part of an hour for chili dogs and a chocolate shake.

On the way back, he tells me that he recently visited a friend who took him out on his dune buggy and wanted to get drunk with him.

“I can’t do that stuff anymore,” he says. “I can drink a beer or two, but then it’s time to go to bed. He’s my age, but he’s still drinking like we did when we were 20. I don’t get it.”

He’s a little more pensive now, talking about how life has calmed down. He lost his sight to glaucoma four years ago and now he lives in assisted living and jokes around with the staff and they tell him he should do standup, but he doesn’t know how to get started.

“I run an open mic,” I tell him. “Come by one week. I’ll put you on.”

He makes me repeat the information to him, but he doesn’t sound serious about it. When you’ve had this conversation as many times as I have, you can usually tell the people who like the fantasy of doing it and the people who are genuinely interested in giving it a try. It’s a ten-to-one ratio, at best.

I get him back to where he lives, help him out of the car, and he takes my arm so I can guide him to the building. “The front door,” he says. “Girls don’t like it when I go in the back door.” Then he laughs like a child at the double-entendre. If he never shows up to my open mic, it’s probably no great loss.

“I’m not done yet,” he insists, as I open the door for him and hand him his chili dogs and milkshake. “I’ve got at least one chapter ahead of me. I already think—no, not think, I know—that the Lord is going to restore my sight. And then I’m gonna get back on my bike, and I’m gonna ride around spreading His glory.”

And hey, he never joined a band and he may never come to my open mic, but I wish him the best when it comes to the miracle. I don’t go in for a Divine Father so much as I do for Lady Luck, but he can pray and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for him, and that way we’ve got all our bases covered.

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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.