Zipp

The kid had been filming the whole time.

Chester knew it.

As he pulled away from the curb, he thought, “How bad could it be?”

Later that evening, he got his answer.

“White Zipp Driver Threatens Lebanese Passenger With Beheading,” said the headline.

The kid had started making racist statements as soon as he’d set foot in the car. He looked Middle Eastern, young and handsome and cocky, with the swagger that identifies someone as possessing not only privilege but cultural immunity. Probably a med student at U of M, with his gelled hair and his reek of Clive Christian. He didn’t have an accent, meaning he was at least second generation. His girlfriend was white, lobotomy-eyed with feathery blonde hair, the tips dyed black under a stylish grey wool cap. Both of them wore expensive-looking coats.

Chester had picked them up at the Quad, intending to bring them to Mongolian Barbeque. Right away he could tell this guy was going to be a problem. He was drunk, no question about it.

The night was bitter cold. Ann Arbor’s white streetlights seemed to burn holes in the air. In any other season, the distance would’ve been easily walkable. Chester hated winter — hated the cold, hated driving in the snow, hated the claustrophobia of it all.

The trouble had started as soon as the couple got in the back of Chester’s Prius, the open door sucking all the toasty air out. Chester had greeted them, they’d shut the back door and the heating vents began to fill the car up again.

Chester had only just pulled off the curb when the guy spoke.

“Do you think by driving a hybrid you’re somehow less of a white man?” he asked, a drunk half-moon smile on his face. It was a smile that said, “I always get away with everything and can’t conceive of life being any other way.”

Chester turned.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a white man. Your people are the most destructive force this planet has ever seen. Why are you driving people around like a slave?”

“This is my second job,” said Chester. “There’s a lot of white people driving Zipps these days.”

“So you need a second job? What’s your first one?”

“None of your business.”

“White boy,” said the passenger. He looked right at Chester through the rear view mirror. “That’s what you are. White skin. You realize your kind is going to be completely gone within a century, right?”

His girlfriend was smirking, cuddled up against him, enjoying her boyfriend’s dominance games.

“Does that piss you off?”

“Not really,” said Chester. He’d made the turn from State Street onto Liberty. The Mongolian Barbeque was only a few blocks away.

“You are a poor white man,” said the guy, pulling out his phone and tapping it, probably getting a text from another one of his thots. “All that automatic privilege and you can’t even make enough money to work only one job.”

Chester looked at him in the mirror. They locked eyes.

“What’s your fucking problem? I’ll let you out right here if all you’re gonna do is be like that.”

“Are you going to hit me?” The guy asked, still smirking, looking up from his phone.

“I’d rather not. I’d rather you just get the fuck out of my car.”

Chester pulled over as best he could, stopped. The car behind them honked angrily, sped around them.

“You guys can walk,” he said, turning to face the two of them.

“Why are you being like this?” said the guy. His smirk hadn’t left his face. His words were slurred and his head was bobbing. He still held his phone up. “Hit the gas. Take me where I wanna go.”

“No, you can find someone else. Or you can walk. I’m not putting up with this.”

Chester was livid. He’d been minding his own business, and now this spoiled punk gets in and starts giving him shit about his economic situation. Chester was getting by, but he wasn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination. And he wasn’t privileged, either. He had five grand in the bank, he rented a one-bedroom apartment in Ypsilanti, and he worked as a forklift driver for Fed-Ex when he wasn’t driving for Zipp.

“What if I just sit here?” the guy said. “What if I report you to corporate? You going to do anything then?”

“I’m not saying it again,” said Chester. “Get out now and take your girlfriend with you or I’ll cut your fucking head off.”

“All right, all right,” said the guy, shrugging. “We’ll go. We can see we’re not wanted. You’re blocking traffic anyway.”

He threw open the door and stepped out. The girl, who hadn’t said anything, followed him.

“One star,” the guy said through the passenger window.

Chester gave him the finger.

Then, the bombshell.

“YouTube’s gonna love this.” The guy held up his phone and showed Chester the vid he’d been recording.

Chester’s balls turned to raisins.

“Hey, wait,” he said. “What do you mean by that? HEY!”

But he was gone, off down the sidewalk and around the corner. Another car behind Chester honked.

He had gone straight home, not interested in working anymore, shutting off the light-up purple “Z” on his dashboard. The dumbass had ruined his night.

Now he sat in his apartment, chewing his fingers over a cup of tea and wondering what he would do now.

The headline stared him in the face. The story was trending on Google News and Twitter.

Against all instincts of self-preservation, he clicked the video.

It started right as the guy was saying, “Are you going to hit me?” He sounded way more scared in the video than he had in the car. Chester being aggressive, telling them to get the fuck out. Then, the beheading threat. Then they open the door to go. Then it cuts off.

No racist comments. No build up. Just a white guy aggressively — savagely — telling a well-to-do multi-racial couple to get the fuck out of his Zipp. Chester could already see it — there would be no questions about what caused the incident. People would only see what they wanted to, what they were conditioned to. He logged onto Reddit and saw he was trending on /r/news. He didn’t read the comments.

They’d baited him. For fun. For what reason, Chester would never know. Maybe just because they were mean-spirited. Because they could.

Chester didn’t even know where he’d come up with the beheading threat. He’d been so angry, so quickly. He’d wanted the guy out. He was tired of being passively disrespected or outright ignored by his passengers. Ann Arbor was full of young people overflowing with their parent’s money, and they knew it. Every now and then this would result in a great tip, but mostly it was just condescension and coldness.

Chester’s phone began to buzz with numbers he didn’t recognize, and Chester tried to fathom just how difficult his life would be from then on.