IF YOU'RE FAMILY, LOOK AWAY

Except for a certain Polish corrections officer tackling an inmate on the Level IV small yard and driving him into the fence and confiscating two shanks, my countless hours as a prison educator have approached the rather mundane. I’m afraid this has given me plenty of time to reflect on my days as a chauffeur, and I have yet to exhaust my repertoire of night-life stories.

While I navigated a college campus wasting money on the institution of higher learning, Dave, an acquaintance from my high school graduating class, chose an entirely different career path. During our junior and senior years, Dave hired our hall monitor as an unofficial bouncer to collect the $5 cover charge for keg parties at his parent’s house. Dave would spin records from his turntable, piping music from his expensive stereo equipment into the nearby woods. We’d stand around a bonfire, sometimes lucky enough to find someone of the opposite sex to cozy up to.

Dave never had an interest in college. Instead, he started his own DJ service and many years later provided the music for my very own wedding reception. For all practical purposes, Dave became a rather successful businessman with a regular crew DJ’ing various gigs in the metropolitan Detroit area. For a little extra cash, he provided wedding packages—DJ and limousine services together. I haven’t seen Dave in more than ten years but I’m sure he’s expanded into the video market as well.

But I digress. Dave purchased his first limousine at a police auction—a pimped-out, former drug-dealer’s white Volvo stretch limousine with gold plated trim. When his limo wasn’t being leased, I became his personal chauffeur. He knew I had my chauffeur’s license and that I’d fulfill the necessary role—the typical stuff—driving from bar to bar, opening and closing car doors, and calling him boss. I didn’t mind.

Dave liked his beer too. And his women. There was countless times where he’d leave a bar with a gal under his arm. “Homeward James,” he’d say.

Interesting, how I had fallen into the daily grind of a chauffeur’s dull life, enveloped in the leather cocoon of a fancy car, reading required novels inside my parked appendage, wary of others parking too close; whereas, Dave partied the night away, meeting women from one local watering hole to the next. On one particular night, after closing time, Dave and some young hussy requested to be taken back to his bachelor pad. Naturally, he put the tinted privacy window up as I cruised down the road. I never paid much attention—it was always Dave and some awestruck, lightheaded floozy willing to perform God knows what in the back of his ride, his very own wing nut ready to go for a spin.

When I arrived at their final destination, I did the standard opening and closing of car doors. I never made eye-contact with his lady friends, the chauffeur’s cap remaining slightly tilted forward, but on this night, for whatever reason, I looked up. “Will that be all, Boss?” I asked.

He dismissed me for the night.

A couple days later, he called to see if I wanted to work again. “Sure,” I answered.

He complained about not getting laid. “My luck has got to change,” he said, “For some reason that last girl turned into a real ice queen when we got back to my place.”

I proceeded to tell him why. “Dave, she’s my cousin.”