The taxi driver seemed to be doing him a favor he hadn’t asked for.  He didn’t need to get to the airport in half the time.  He had already hit his head on the front-seat headrest once and been thrown prone twice.  Street noises stormed in through open windows and the radio was blasting drummy patriotic songs.  He had no way to get heard.  He had one hand on the door handle, the other on the seat, and he knew that removing either in order to grab at the driver would cause him harm.  And so he did what he had heard elders say to do in life. He nestled in the nook between the door and the backseat and rode the ride. It gave him chance to notice how hard that aging man was working at the wheel.  The driver was on seat’s edge, taut and jerky, muttering — it took moments to make out — a devotional prayer between tight flattened lips.  It was clear.  This man waged war on each ride to carve passage through anarchic streets.  Perhaps it was to give his days a reason, perhaps to sacrifice himself at the altar of his family.  Riding that ride, though, had nauseated him, but just his guts — for otherwise he felt a sense of true admiration. At the drop-off, he made sure he stood opposite the driver to hand him double the fare, and later recalled that he may also have bowed ever so slightly to acknowledge the driver’s devotion to the work that he believed himself to be doing.