The taxi driver had to stop at a gas station. He honestly warned me about this. He chose a good, expensive gas station

Andrey Kolesnikov

He drives under the brick, I tell him:

- This is not just a “brick”! It turns out that we are driving in the opposite direction.

“Exactly,” he agrees after thinking.

Having refueled the car, he begins to drive out and it turns out that he is driving again under the “brick” - along the path along which he was supposed to enter. That is, he is driving again in the oncoming direction. And then there’s already a car coming towards you, and it’s no longer possible to pass because of the snow dumps spreading onto the road...

“It’s okay, we’ll break through,” he mutters.

And they really broke through somehow.

He's still muttering something. I'm listening:

- If only there weren’t traffic cops... And if there are, so what... Let’s talk it out...

Well, I see: this one will talk.

But there are no traffic cops on the road. He generally cheers up and says:

“And I’m a traffic cop myself, I’ve recently been working in a taxi.”

This is a completely different matter. Wolf in sheep's clothing! Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde! I have never encountered anything like this before.

- Why are you violating so cruelly? - I ask.

- So what? — he shrugs. “During the years that I worked in the traffic police, I learned two things: ensure traffic safety and give way to a fool.”

And I understand that although he has stopped living the carefree road life of a traffic cop, when you can drive under a “brick” or with a brick, and no one will judge you for it (especially in court), he just forgot to change his psychology. The taxi driver still has the psychology of a traffic cop. Hell of a mixture. What to expect from a person? How does he cope with such a burden? Unanswered questions.

We move on quickly, although there is an icy mess under the wheels, and it is either snowing or raining. He endlessly talks about something to himself, although no one asks him to, and I’m not at all surprised: taxi drivers and traffic cops are talkative people. And then we catch up with a motorcade of cars cleaning the Kiev highway. There are nine of them, and they move in such an even formation that not only our Mercedes, but even a fly, or rather a “beetle,” will not slip through. In addition, a traffic police car is creeping behind them at some distance, which does not allow them to approach them.

This car becomes the object of his close attention.

“So...” he whispers. “Five stripes... or even six... You can’t keep up with them all!” Well, we wait until someone breaks out on the far right, and we leave on the far left...

-Will they catch you? - I’m interested.

“Let’s chat...” he whispers and waits for the raspberry minivan with Belarusian license plates to jerk. The jerk was made as he wanted, on the far right.

- Well, let's go ahead! - he exhales, and we break away when the traffic cops, as he expected, swing to the right in pursuit of the minivan.

- I know their psychology! — he triumphs as we come close to the snowplow. “There’s no way they’ll leave here because of one machine.” But because chaos will immediately begin here. And we need to ensure traffic safety!

“We’re not providing it well,” I say. “We won’t break through this system.”

- We won’t break through?! - he becomes gloomy and suddenly begins to honk at these cars, which, having seen us in such dangerous proximity to themselves, seem only ready to close their ranks more tightly.

And I understand that he again forgot that he is a taxi driver, and not a traffic cop. Mr. Hyde awakens in him, and he rushes forward, not understanding why these idiots don’t hear him.

But they hear! And they part! Although this no longer makes any sense: we have already approached the turn to the airport anyway.

“Well, that’s fine,” Dr. Jekyll’s face brightens. “Here we are!” Otherwise there are traffic jams, nine points, nine points...

I thank him, and he doesn’t know why.

I thank him for his miraculous salvation.

Usually these don't leave marks. Or, rather, this way: usually such people leave only traces on the road. And you need to look for them in a ditch.

But life is so much more complex and beautiful than all these assumptions! What, for example, could be more epic and confusing than the soul of a traffic cop-taxi driver... Darkness, such darkness...

But my plane never took off that day.

Where does the soul of a traffic cop go?