Psychos and Drunkards are Forbidden to Take Taxi
an excerpt

He came, and he shuddered, and it was over. Not just the sex, which was clearly over, Max having rolled off of me and fallen asleep, but the relationship, which had lasted just barely longer than the sex, through two casual let’s-meet-theres and three actual dates.

This was the problem with waiting to have sex. Now all of those dates were wasted. I’d never be seeing Max again. Not just because the sex was bad, but because of the way it was bad. He would have been more sensitive and evolved if he’d hit me over the head with a club and dragged me to the bed by my hair.

I probably would have liked that better.

The flip side of my plan, sleeping with every man I was interested in on the first or second date, wasn’t brilliant either. I could see that.

Still, as I put my clothes on, cold in Max’s room, and went to the bathroom to clean myself up, wiping the mascara from under my eyes and combing my hair, I was irritated both by having wasted my time with him over the past few weeks, and with having slept with him, and I couldn’t seen an easy solution to avoiding one or the other with the next guy.

The streets were deserted. It was 4 a.m., too late for all but the most die-hard bar revelers, too early even for the earliest rising elderly Chinese, who would take over the streets at sunrise, doing tai chi and shopping for vegetables at the wet markets that in a few hours would sprout up (and smell) like fungus.
I took a taxi home, leaning my head back against the white slipcovered seat and closing my eyes. The sign of rules and regulations on the back of the Plexiglas frame surrounding the driver said, “Psychos and Drunkards are Forbidden to Take Taxi,” and I reminded myself for the hundredth time to bring my camera next time and get a picture of that sign. The Plexiglas partition was like a cone of silence, surrounding just the driver in his seat, leaving the front passenger seat available for a rider.

It was also a barometer of the Chineseness of the Chinese. Most Chinese people, even when taking a taxi alone or with one friend, sit in the front seat. The rear seat seemed to be reserved for foreigners and the unChinese, like the Returning Chinese – those who have lived overseas and returned – and those from Taiwan and Hong Kong (who, despite what Zhongnanhai says, consider themselves “Taiwanese” or “Hongkongnese”).

When my alarm went off just a few hours later, I hit the snooze button and lay there, my dry mouth open in a permanent snarl, my upper lip stuck to my teeth. Swallowing didn’t help at all, and I hadn’t been sober enough the night before to set out a large glass of ice water and some Tylenol like I usually did after a night out. I made a mental note to do that before I even leave the house next time.

I took a deliciously long shower, thankful that there are no water flow restrictions for Chinese showers, and thinking about how disappointed Al Gore would be in me.