First of all, thank you administrators for not removing the diary, though at times, reading the comments, I thought it might be a good idea.
What follows is probably not going to be believed. I did say that all would be well.
So, I arrived at work and without the least hesitation went up to Brian – we’ll make it his humanized protect the innocent name – and told him that I wrote about the incident. He was very excited to hear this, asked me where I could find it and got out his phone. A short while later I’m sitting in the back seat of the bosses car, receiving the expected admonition...you’re an intelligent person, you know what Brian’s like, you can’t throw coffee, yadda yadda...., he’s perfectly right, when Brian, smiling like pre-election Brian, instead of sneering post-election Trump Nazi Brian, jumps in with us. I see he has the comments on the screen. He’s glowing. He exclaims, “This is great!”
He thinks this diary is the coolest thing to ever happen to him. He’s your typical man-child, collects Marvel comic memorabilia, and was delighted to be a Marvel comic villain. He said he might even make himself a Trump Nazi T-shirt. He thinks “Trump Nazi” is sort of like “Soup Nazi”. I gently advised against it, and started telling him about the Daily Kos, who shows up there, etc. I’ve never seen anyone so impressed to hear the name Bill Moyers. It was really sweet and funny.
“Can I go on it?”
“I suppose. Why?”
“I can deliver my rebuttal!”
“You have to sign up and stuff.”
“Oh.”
In the mean time the boss, ready to tear his hair out, tells us to get the hell out of his car, and we repair to Brian’s car. It was raining, we had a while before the train came in. I watched him thumbing through the comments, pausing now and then to read one aloud.
“’The bully....’ I’m not a bully.”
“You were being a bully.”
While he continued perusing, I explained the bully thing, how people feel about Trump voters jumping all over them, talking like Nazis at people who disagree, etc.
Brian, who has only looked at alt-right sites, was thoroughly fascinated by the calm and educated discussions. “I’m gonna read ‘em all,” he said. I warned him there were over 200 comments. “400!” he corrected me. The last time I saw him this happy was when he was showing me his new drone. He said he’s going to print out the diary and all the comments. It sounded to me like he intends put them in a binder, choose a picture for the cover, and cherish it forever.
The boss is furious with me, but only because the other drivers now know that he paid me for a day off. I was off today, but he warned me over the phone that the other drivers don’t like me because I’m a liberal, as if I didn’t know that already. He says as long as I don’t throw any coffee all will be well, that is, as long as the name of the town doesn’t come out, God help us then. I can handle it.
As to the hostile work place issue. I would like everyone to understand that we are cab drivers. Cab drivers, even in wealthy towns, have to be tough. We get into bad situations, sometimes are physically assaulted by drunks and crazies. There is hardly a cab company owner in the land who has not broken up an altercation between his drivers. Our boss is like a pirate king and we are his crusty old pirates.
Brian will be reading this, God bless him, he will laugh. Let us hope he reads a few more diaries.