My scary Uber

When I was in college I found myself Ubering to make money. This was in Southern California, and LA at the time was a constant flow of work. Occasionally you'd pick people up in a nice area and they'd tell you that they were sleeping with someone in a relationship, or that they themselves were cheating. This was depressingly common. I think that saying what they were doing to someone gave them a weird kind of relief.

Once I drove someone from Hollywood to Hemet, CA. He was very charming, and funny. When I dropped him off it was at a big blue building that they buzzed us into. He left me a $200 cash tip. I later found out this was what is known as "Gold base" for the church of scientology. If you don't know what that is, it's a completely normal not weird at all in any way location owned by the church of scientology. Feel free to google it!

A few months into my "taxi" career. Insurance companies started using ride share service, and some people who were more down on their luck would use it. Sometimes this was people just trying to get their kids to school, but sometimes it was much sadder. I can't tell you how many times I showed up to a doctors office to see someone with accessibility limitations face drop at seeing my tiny car instead of a van like they needed.

The people with substance problems were interactions that would stay with you.

Once I picked a man going to a dental appointment and I drove him for about a half hour. He told me about how he used to run drugs in the 90's, until they caught him with a few pounds of coke. He told me about when he was moved from Nevada to Florida for trial. How he travelled handcuffed in a van. How the cops would stop only once a day at McDonalds and for their one dollar menu item of the day. He asked me to stop at a liquor store he chugged a tiny bottle of booze, shoved mints into his mouth, then sipped on a soda.

He smelled like pure alcohol when I dropped him off at the dentist.

Near my house there was a methadone clinic. I would get up before dawn to be able to take those rides. (Early bird gets the worm right) Almost always they were sweet, and thankful. Sometimes they were a little out of it but I never felt in danger or anything like that. Just good people going through tough times. These rides were the most consistently depressing.

People who were going to court clearly drunk or high. Older women who had trouble requesting a ride and had been waiting in the parking lot of their dialysis place into the night.

They'd tell their stories sometimes. A person who was going to court for a child custody case, people struggling with mental illness. Some mornings were exhausting.

Being up that early you'd hit another crowd that I had never anticipated. Funeral goers. The saddest funeral ride was when a man and a woman got into my backseat. Rather than speaking to me the man handed me a neon printout of a map of a cemetery with instructions on what plot to go to. With, "Hello, I am attending my father's funeral. My wife and I are deaf. Please follow these directions." Written on the back of it.

The whole ride I could hear them signing to one another and trying not to cry.

There were also the retired gamblers. They'd leave their houses at 7 in the morning, take a $70 uber out to the desert, and spend the whole day gambling at the reservation casinos. The desert is where I saw the weirdest things.

The desert was the only place I had ever felt scared driving. It was in Temecula the "wine country" of so cal. Lots of wooded roads and desert. I picked up a lady just off the freeway at what I initially assumed was the edge of a golf resort but it was an unpaved access road. It was late and that area was especially dark. I was getting ready to call the passenger I saw them coming down the unpaved access road.

It was a tall blonde woman in a very nice pant suit. She was absurdly put together considering she had walked god knows how long in heels down a dirt rock road. She got into the car and was very pleasant. She said she lived in a gated community that was hard to get Ubers too and it was easier to send me to the access road. I thought it was weird but I did not want to be creepy asking about where she lived.

She was friendly, chatty even. She was going to a dinner party, and as she spoke to me I could feel her looking at me in the rearview mirror the entire ride. We drove a half hour away from the freeway. To one of those rural chic neighborhoods that you would hear celebrities had huge parties at.

Eventually we reached the "address" which was a paved road lined with trees. She told me to keep driving and I didn't think much of it because again we were in a mansion style neighborhood. We hit a white ranch style fence after a minute or so going down the road.

That was the when I started to feel a bit uneasy. There were around a dozen no trespassing signs, and one of those classic "Forget the dog, beware of owner" signs with a guy pointing a pistol at you. I thought it was more than a little blunt to have that many signs but hey not my property.

We drove for about a minute when we came to another fence. It was at the top of a hill and it overlooked a barn with some lights in the distance. I know this sounds weird but it was unpleasant. I couldn't put my finger on it. It was just a barn with what looked like a barbecue going on. But being out in the woods without any light had freaked me out.

The passenger told me I could just slide the gate open. As I approached the fence, I saw some signs that made me stop cold.

Off to the side of the gate, not quite in the dark, but on the fringes of my headlights. There were metal signs with bullet holes through them. Swaztikas, and confederate flags brightly displayed.

So-Cal has a lot of white supremacist pockets. I had dropped off dozens of passengers in Cities like Norco, and driven down streets with people drinking in the garage, and a nazi flag proudly hung behind them. It wasn't my favorite but I wasn't spending any time in those neighborhoods more than I needed to. This was different though.

It was after 11pm at night, and I had no idea where I was. I opened the gate , and down the road I saw what I assume were cellphone flashlights lighting up and coming up the incline. This made me very uncomfortable. I went back and I told the woman that I didn't think my car could make it back up the hill if I went down it.

"What are you talking about? Just take me it's right there."

She was getting more heated and I could see the lights slowly making their way up the hill.

She kept telling me I needed to cancel the ride, and that she wouldn't pay to not be taken the entire way. I told her the pin I was supposed to take her too was a mile back up the road, but I was so nervous I relented and cancelled on my end. She slammed the door as she got out.

I took off before I could see the cellphone light people get closer. The road back was much rougher at the speed I was going at. I felt a bump that felt like I hit a body but I kept going. My car was driving like shit but I kept driving till I was past the fence, out of the rich neighborhood until I stopped at a gas station. My right rear tire was fucked up, and I needed to change it.

There was a few nails that looked like they had been attached to a piece of wood on my tire. I was freaked out so hard and sometimes I wish I had called the cops and reported it. But of course all that happened was I got a flat on a back road, and I didn't want to spend the rest of my night waiting on a cop car.

I know it's far more likely that I freaked myself out than a bunch of nazis planning to mess with a random Uber driver. But when I pick up a well dressed businesswoman from a remote location, and drop her off at a separate remote location, gives me chills that I have trouble explaining to this day.