blast from the past................god of hellfire

I’m sure we’ve all done it. You know, seen a long shiny black limo and wonder who’s inside and where they’re going. We catch ourselves staring into the blackened windows trying to catch a glimpse of a famous face like it’ll give our lives some sort of credibility. Some of us on a dare will attempt to chat up the driver who’s waiting with the patience of someone in the know,

“who ya driving”? “Can I look inside”?

Even the limo’s drivers carry an aura of richness and class, always dressed to the nines in a tux or dark suit, shoes polished to a high sheen and looking so self important talking on his cell phone. Well, I had a chance to work for a limo company once. And I’m here to tell you, it ain’t all that.

Top reasons people rent limos.

1. Weddings.

2. Prom night.

3. Business tours of the city. (When you see four or five limos in the driveway of a big hotel, they’re usually picking up business reps and taking them to meetings around the city. In the limo trade these are called “Road shows”).

4. Drug deals. (go figure).

5. Bar hopping. (For guys barhopping or having a bachelor party a limo is an eighty thousand dollar acu-jack. The same go for the women).

6. Sex. (Yup, there’s a lot of fuckin in the back of a limo).

7. The Rich & Famous. (It’s an ego thing. Some famous people won’t be seen in anything else but a limo. On the same hand I’ve had famous people who wouldn’t get caught dead in a limo; you better send a van or car).

Between doing gigs for the Man a few years back I had some downtime to kill and needed money in a harsh way. It’s a bitch trying to find work between government gigs because I have trouble lying and when the question comes up as to why I’m not with the Man, not only do I have to explain the weirdness of my job with the Man, but that when the Man calls me back I’m gonna go. That’ll get you the bug eye real quick from the interviewer.

On top of all that I usually walk in looking like the Mob, and the big black suit doesn’t help. You know after a while a cat gets the routine down pat. I usually hit the door with a generic job application, a list of references, resume, and a letter of introduction. And all this is typed and in triplicate on pretty letterhead. Damn impressive if I can say so. But it can also get a cat shown the door real quick. More then once I’ve had people say; “what the hell am I supposed to do with a guy like you”? I can’t really blame em, you know?

But this time I happened to hit this limo company that was looking for a dispatcher and I showed up in my big black suit and all my paper not really expecting a whole lot. This time though god hooked me up with a fellow freak. The guy that owned the company looked to be on his fifth pot of coffee, and it wasn’t yet nine o’clock in the morning. This cat was bouncing off everything in sight, and chain smoking like he was in front of a firing squad. He read all my paper then just sat there staring me up and down. What came out of his mouth next just floored me.

“Do I look like some kind of goddamned fool to you? My mother didn’t cut no slack with idiots or cocksuckers, and I don’t either. By the way you’re hired”

Needless to say I was perplexed but I had the job. Hell, he never did ask me if I wanted the job or not. He told me later that at the time he’d seen so many “unqualified” assholes that after reading my resume he was ready to sign me up at gunpoint if need be.

Being a limo dispatcher ain’t for everyone, dispatching was the easy part. The majority of the work involved scheduling trips. I still believe the reason that I was so good at it was the fact that my brain doesn’t work in a straight line, but squiggles around a lot.

Here’s what it took to be a top Limo Dispatcher.

• Totally embrace stress and all her bastard relatives.

• Memorize the whole city.

• Keep a floating 3-D map of the city in your head. (And if you can do this in color it’s even better).

• Keep a full color, floating clock in your head. (And the clock should be in military time. O100 to 2400 hours).

• You “must” commit to memory every limo or town car the company owns.

• You “must” commit to memory the tag numbers of all these vehicles.

• You “must” commit to memory the names and physiological profiles of every limo driver. (You gotta know who needs the long stroke or who’s real money hungry, and who can you count on to pull that last job that no one else wants).

• You gotta commit to memory the company’s regular customers. You need to know who’s a freak or high roller and what makes them tick. (You don’t want to put the crazy, very rich old guy in a black limo cause it reminds him of dying). That just isn’t kosher.

• And you must have huge nerve and a set of balls to match, cause to make the crazy shit work you’re gonna take some sick risks.

• And when the owner of the company is four inches from your face screaming and wanting to know why the limo was fifteen minutes late picking up some jerk who came in on his Lear Jet just to eat the local barbeque. You lean back and tell the cat that you’re the God of Hell Fire and sometimes shit just happens like that.

"and the monkey flipped the switch"