We hurtled through the city’s vehicular arteries, skipping between lanes in an erratic rhythm. The taxi driver’s saliva-stained lips and wide, rounded eyes betrayed his hidden sexual joy for the inner-city taxi gauntlet.

We shuddered to a stop that would invoke a cursory nod of technical acknowledgement from most Boeing engineers. I attempted to control my bladder, which was screaming for evacuation with more insistence than a wayward kitten clicking its claws on a household roof at night.

The vehicle was swimming in NewsRadio, which had been boosted to maximise volume and distortion. A solemn announcer continued his analysis of the latest events in the War Against Euphemisms.

My driver stabbed a finger in the general direction of his audio system. ‘You do know who’s responsible for all this, eh,’ he remarked.

Sensing he is summoning the taxi driver within, oft induced by an all-day non-stop audio diet of news and current affairs policy dissection, intersected with a peppering of vitriolic talkback; I withheld my misgivings in regard to his political commentatation background and sat back, awaiting explanation.

‘All them thriller novels,’ he banged a frustrated fist against the window.

‘What, Tom Clancy and all that?’ I wondered.

‘Who?’ the taxi driver turned to me. ‘Is that who wrote that book there ya readin’?’ he demanded.

My eyes shifted to my ragged copy of one of my literary favourites, Michael Thomas Ford’s ‘That’s Mister Faggot To You’.

‘In a word,’ I responded, ‘no.’

‘Because they train them up from them books, they do,’ the pudgy man on my right insisted, breaking out into a desperate, sheen-like film of sweat. The beads suffering underneath his weighty buttocks creaked in agony.

‘You’re suggesting that they provided the ideas for their attacks?’ I asked carefully.

‘YES!’ he reiterated with another pounded fist. ‘And that’s not all,’ he assured me.

We swerve dangerously to the left, narrowly avoiding a lawsuit from a lycra-wrapped cyclist. ‘Do tell,’ I requested.

‘What’s that actor’s name, the one who does all the explosion moves ‘n that,’ he wondered out aloud.

I shrugged and attempted to return the atmosphere to one of sedated listening of AM radio, leaning back in my seat and glancing out the window.

‘He’s an Aussie,’ the taxi driver continued. I immediately knew the answer, and was not prepared to suggest my guess for fear of further hypothesising.

‘Mel Gibson,’ he triumphantly blurted, after a blessed extended period of silence between us. ‘He’s no good, all them explosion movies, and terrorist movies, and he gives ‘em all ideas, he does.’

Not intending to extend the conversation further than it had already progressed, I remained tight-lipped. Catching myself willing the vehicle faster towards my destination with aid of an invisible accelerator, I closed my eyes and willed the discussion to end.

‘Then there’s the gays,’ he continued. My eyebrows raised.

‘Oh?’ I asked, snapping my novel shut, hoping he hadn’t noticed the title.

‘Nothing ‘gainst all that sort and that,’ he graciously assured me, ‘but they just cause trouble, and hate and that, innit?’

‘Yes, I’m sure they do,’ I replied, and sat back in my seat, willing my suburb to draw itself closer towards us.

Mel may have caused the current military situation, but indolent taxi drivers will surely be the cause of mental impuissance en masse.

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