Your Driver Has Arrived: Ridesharing Stories by Nestor "The Boss" Gomez

By Nestor "The Boss" Gomez

A former undocumented immigrant and current American citizen documents his experiences chasing the American Dream through the gig economy years as a rideshare driver in Chicago. By turns heartwarming and hilarious, this book is a valuable reminder of the values we all share.
A dollar from every book sold will be donated to RAICES, the Refugee and Immigrant Center For Education and Legal Services, or to the Ascend Educational Fund.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tortoise Books
• Release date: Aug 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781948954303

Book preview

Your Driver Has Arrived

Ridesharing Stories by

Nestor The Boss Gomez

Your Driver Has Arrived

Ridesharing Stories by

Nestor The Boss Gomez

Tortoise Books

Chicago, IL

FIRST EDITION, AUGUST, 2020

©2020 Nestor Gomez

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Convention

Published in the United States by Tortoise Books.

www.tortoisebooks.com 

ASIN: XXX

ISBN-13: 978-1-948954-15-0

This book is a work of memoir, and is drawn from the author’s experience, various artifacts and photographs, and recollections going back to an early age. Dialogue is approximate and appears in quotation marks for the benefit of the reader.

Cover design by Victor Calahan and Gerald Brennan

Tortoise Books Logo Copyright ©2020 by Tortoise Books. Original artwork by Rachele O’Hare.

When I first arrived to Chicago from Guatemala in the mid-80s

I was undocumented

I stuttered

And I didn’t know the English language.

I didn’t have a voice.

Today, I am a U.S. citizen

I am a storyteller

And I speak English (with a very sexy Latino accent)

I have found my voz (voice).

Therefore

I want to dedicate this book

To all my fellow immigrants

And to all those who feel as if they don’t have a voice.

It all started a couple of years ago. I was driving downtown on my way to a bookstore, when suddenly…

A car appeared in the street. That car was wearing a mustache.

What was that? I thought. That thing in the front of the car?

I couldn’t believe what I had just seen, a car with a mustache. I needed to call my brother. He always seemed to know what was going on, or at least how to find out about it.

"HEY! You will not believe what I just saw…a car with a mustache…Yes, a car with a mustache. No, no, no, I don’t mean a mustang. I mean a car with a mustache. Bigote, mustache…No, I don’t know what it means, I thought you knew. You always seem to know about these things…Listen, I am on my way to the bookstore, you are in your office pretending to work. Why don’t you get on your computer and see what you can find about cars with mustaches? Let me know later. OK?"

I went to the bookstore, and after a couple of hours reading, I forgot all about the car with the mustache.

•••

A few months later I went to my mother’s house to celebrate her birthday. My brother was there, but he was acting very strange. He kept checking his phone every other minute until suddenly after looking at his phone, he left in a hurry.

He came back a couple hours later.

Hey, what’s going on with you? I asked. It’s Mom’s birthday, but you left for a long time.

I couldn’t help it, he said. I had to pick up a ride, and after I dropped that person, I got another ride request nearby.

What are you talking about? Are you driving a taxi now?

Not a taxi, he explained. I signed up with my phone and get ride requests through the application and get paid directly to my bank account at the end of the week. I get to use my own car, and they give me a cool mustache to put on the front.

A mustache?

Yes, he said. I got five hundred dollars just for signing up, then another five hundred dollars for recommending drivers. I got a couple of friends and my wife to sign up. I made over two thousand dollars in recommendations this month alone.

All I could think about was how I was the one who had told him about the mustache in the first place, and how I should have been the one making all that money.

Do you want to sign up? he asked me. You get five hundred dollars if you complete twenty rides in the first week, and you get a mustache for your car.

I signed up to be a