So I haven’t done a cab story in a bit.  Mostly because most of the stories tend to repeat and I’ve put out some of the “best of” on this blog already…but last night…ahh last night was worth writing about.

Middle of the evening, one of the dive bars that I handle “direct” calls me. (They have a hard time getting dispatched cab service—for obvious reasons).  D (the bartender) says he’s got one for me.  I always take care of these guys and they make sure I don’t get stuck with the worst idiots so its all good.  I roll to the call and out comes this old white haired hispanic dude, mildly sauced.  He says he’s going to blah blah which is a bit of a drive, and off we go.

The ride started out typical, with weather, how ya doin’, busy tonight chit chat, and out of the blue this guy asks me if I like the King.   With his accent, I immediately got images of black velvet paintings south o’ the border…and there was no confusing who he was referring to.  There is a certain something when someone mentions “The King”,  dealing with the subject of Mr. Presley.

I’m not an uber fan, but I did like a lot of his music, so I say yep.  He says, “gonna sing you some”, and proceeds to bust out “Kentucky Rain”.

No more accent.  I had to look up in the rear view to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind.  This ol’ fella not only could sing the songs, he sounded….just…like…Elvis.  Right down to the nasal twang and inflections.

For the rest of the ride, I had Elvis in my backseat taking requests.  When he swung into “Return to Sender”, (my all time favorite Elvis tune) I just sat back and drove, stunned and in awe at how good he was.

At the end of the ride, the hispanic gentleman mysteriously reappeared in my back seat, paid his fare (minus a few bucks I knocked off the fare on the sly, just because, well, THE KING, duh!), and headed off home.

Sometimes this gig is awesome beyond words.