I’m an Uber driver. The days are long, pay is bad, no benefits. That's the 

way it is in the gig economy. 

 I didn't start out to be an Uber driver. No driver I know did. It's 

where I wound up, options dwindling. It doesn't take much to be an Uber 

driver.  

 I grew up in Texas City. a grimy refinery town where the fumes 

linger in the air and the sky is a gritty gray. It’s perched on the Gulf 

between Houston and Galveston right on Highway 146. Once 146 crosses 

south of I-10, it might as well be called Refinery Row. For thirty miles 

from Baytown just north of the Houston Ship Channel to La Marque just 

north of Galveston, the gulf coast is just a shout east of 146 and is lined 

with refineries and petrochemical plants with a brief interruption for 

Kemah, a tourist attraction where the wealthy park their yachts for their 

seasonal joy rides. All along 146, countervailing gulf breezes slow down 

the prairie winds, the humidity dampens the atmosphere. The air is laden 

with city smog, the toxic wastes of the ship channel, the belching 

refineries and chemical plants. 18-wheeler container trucks, pickup 

trucks, SUVs and cars cough up their exhaust in the never-ending road 

construction traffic jams. Fast food chains, modest independent 

businesses, pawn shops, auto repair shops, bars, ice houses, and, 

improbably, a British pub, dot the landscape along 146. And of course, 

gun stores galore stock the corridor, well stocked loaded with Glocks, Sig 

Saurs, Barettas, Smith and Wessons just to name a few, and shooting 

ranges, offering fun for the entire family! 

~ 

The state calls them "process escapes", releases of toxins from the 

refineries and plants, the periodic alarms signaling a hopefully 

temporary evacuation of the plant and nearby homes. The state duly 

records the process escapes and promptly forgets them. Chronic asthma 

is a way of life for those mostly minority families who live in the oldest 

and poorest neighborhoods closest to the refineries. The refineries give 

them $500 a year to compensate them for their unfortunate proximity to 

the plants and get them to sign non-disclosures agreements. $500 is a lot 

for most of these folks.  

  In Texas City, we survived hurricanes and tropical storms like Ike. 

We grew up seeing our parents, aunts, uncles and neighbors lose their 

jobs to computers and robots. Proud men who had gotten their hands 

dirty keeping the pipes humming, the gauges regulated, anticipating and 

heading off disasters with knowledge, grit, and determination, they 

wound up stocking shelves at the grocery stores and discount shops. 

Their drinking got heavier. New careers opened in cooking meth for a 

steadily growing market, redistributing opioids, or offloading coke, 

weed, poppy, opium, heroin, fentanyl, ecstasy, and exotic specialties 

from fishing boats, pontoons, yachts, schooners, sail boats, along the 

coastal inlets, nooks, crannies and marshes, for inland distribution in a 

buzzing hive of off-the-market supply chain management to rival that of 

major corporations.  

  One of these proud men was my Dad who left Mom and I when I 

was five. I don't remember much about him. Mom always worked two to 

three jobs at the same time when she was sober. I didn't see that much of 

her. I was mainly raised by my Aunt Louise, who had married a refinery 

executive and lived off the settlement money after her divorce. I worked 

boring minimum-wage jobs part-time after school, barely worth the 

money. Me and my fellow working stiffs would sneak out to smoke 

weed by dumpsters on asphalt pavement at the back of stores and 

warehouses as much as possible. It's a miracle we never got caught. 

 As high school graduation approached, we wondered what the 

future held for us, at least the few of us who weren't doping and failing 

all the time. Every adult within shouting distance told us we had to go to 

college for our future. Not much attention was given to why, other than 

to get a good job. To get a good job, they said, you needed to major in 

some form of engineering, business administration, or computer science. 

That's why you went to college. English, History, Art, and the like were 

for losers.  

 The kids of refinery execs went to private schools and then the Ivy 

 leagues or, failing that, Ut or A&M. The rest of us scrambled.