I stepped into the cab on Bolyston Street. I told my driver my destination. He nodded, knowingly, and drove. It was a good thirty seconds before I noticed that there was, sitting in the dark directly to my left, another man sharing the cab with me. He was thin, this man, elegant and old in a refined fashion. He wore a golfer's cap of some dark indeterminate color and a cream-colored jacket with the collar turned up level with his earlobes. I looked at him for I don't know how long. Awhile. He was instantly familiar to me. Beams from the passing streetlights roamed, cyclically, across the carved features of his face. He was dreadfully familiar to me, this man, yet in the oddest fashion. For instance, I knew for certain that I had never met him before, and yet, I RECOGNIZED him; recognized him as if on some fundamental level. How?

Then, an instant later, I knew who he was.

He was a rock star. A famous, semi-retired rock star. I'd heard rumors that he was living in Boston, renting a place, for a portion of the year. Now, here he was, sharing a cab with me. Very civilian. Just a normal guy.

One might think that I should have found this situation surreal, but the man's presence was so low-key, so calm, our shared environment so pedestrian, I somehow managed to take the uncanny nature of this episode in perfect stride.

His eyes were watching the streets outside the left side window of the cab. He knew now that I had recognized him, though he'd yet to acknowledge my presence. Famous people have an intuition for when they've been recognized, even while looking the other way. This fact, like his identity itself, was obvious to me in the moment.

"Aren't you..." Here I said the rock stars name.

He turned towards me. A moment later I was availed with an amicable smile. "I am," the rock star said. He placed out a hand, thin, long, delicately shaped. "And you are?"

I told him my name.

We shook hands.

"It's nice to meet you," the rock star said.

"And you, sir," I said. "Very kind of you to share this taxi with me."

"It's traditional etiquette, isn't it?" the rock star said, an inquisitive lift to his brow. "I shouldn't have it any other way."

I looked at the driver. All I could see was the back of the man's head, one eye in the rear view mirror, watching the road ahead. The driver seemed oblivious to our conversation, oblivious also to-- or completely unimpressed by-- the identity of this one remarkable passenger.

Slowly, the rock star returned his gaze to the window. I figured this was the end of our conversation. I, in fact, intended it to be. I didn't want to bother this famous individual who had been so down to earth as to share his cab ride with a stranger and to shake that stranger's hand.

And yet, after a minute or so had passed, I found myself, almost against my will, confessing to him out loud, "My ex-wife was a huge fan of yours. I mean... still is a huge fan of yours, I'm sure."

"Oh?" Here, he turned to me again. "And how is she?"

I considered the question for a moment or two. "Quite well, I'm sure," I said. "I don't know. She... she treated me terribly." I diverted my eyes from the rock star, looked instead out through the side window of the cab. "That was a long time ago," I continued. "I... I decided to forgive her."

Something within the ensuing silence told me to turn. I turned. The rock star's eyes were appraising me, sympathetically. A moment passed then he reached forward, placed one hand on my knee. "You have to," he said. "You must forgive... everyone... always." He gave my knee two quick, soft taps, smiled politely, then returned his hand to his lap. He turned his head back towards his own window, watched the street, the cars passing by outside, one with a mumble, two others with a hiss.

Here, both of us knew that our conversation had ended. The taxi man drove. The night washed by the windows in an erratic chiaroscuro.

Five minutes or so later, the taxi reached my stop. I peered over the seat, read the digital meter, paid and tipped the driver without a word.

I opened the door. Placing one foot out into the street, I swiveled to face my illustrious cab-mate.

"Thank you," I said to the rock star.

He glanced at me, sideways, and somewhat shyly from beneath his cap. A tiny salute with that long, elegant hand.

"No," I said. "I mean, THANK YOU, for everything. All of it."

"You're... you're very welcome," said the rock star.

I finished stepping from the cab, shut the door, watched the car drive off into the night.

Three months later the rock star was dead.

I later learned that he was in the process of dying the night I had met him. He had managed, incredibly, to keep this sad and disturbing news quiet, personal, out of the press.

Sometimes I think about what I said to him that night, at the very end of our ride. Sometimes I think that maybe those words were exactly what the rock star needed to hear, in that moment, as he approached, with courage and equanimity, the end of his time. Sometimes I like to think that maybe I had spoken for everyone, everywhere, and by doing so, I had returned to this man a bit of the gift that he had given to us all.

Maybe.