Race: Human
Sex: Male
Real Name: Albert Hesch
Nickname: Hesch
Birth Date and Location: 10th July, 1956 – New York City
Last Seen: 28th August 2005 – Los Angeles (Read About It)
Position: Cab Driver and owner of ‘Hesch 24-Hour Cab Service’
Group Affiliation: NONE
DESCRIPTION:
Hesch is 5’7” in height and 225 pounds in weight. He has dark brown eyes and almost entirely bald except for a short crop of greying hair around the sides of his head. Hesch has a very gruff voice, yet is surprisingly capable of compassion.
On first appearance Hesch appears to be just a regular guy – fat, bald and reticent. Except Hesch isn’t all that reticent. In fact, he talks as much as he listens, and he listens intently, gathering information whenever it presents itself. He’s closely associated with Bob Wedge, in addition to scores of other personalities as variegated as the locales he drives them to and from.
(Hesch is played by Ed Asner)
BACKGROUND:
Before Los Angeles ~
Hesch has been married twice in his lifetime, first time was to a girl named Nelly – after that he was married fifteen years to a woman named Madeline. Hesch also is father to 1 ½ children, the first is named Freda and was daughter to Nelly. The ½ was Madeline’s unborn baby although the chances of this baby actually being Hesch’s were 50/50.
His marriage to Madeline came to an end on August 3rd, 2004, the day he ran Madeline down with his taxi cab. He had knocked off early one night, rounded the block, and spotted her through the rain and windshield wipers. She was standing in the driveway, dressed only in a dripping wet robe. She was kissing another man. Hesch murdered Madeline that night, along with their unborn child - Hesch likes to think of the unborn child as being worth a full point, because Madeline’s belly exploded across the grill of his car as he rammed her into the garage door. That had to count for something.
The day Hesch murdered his wife is the day he bound her soul to the cab, his body as well. She's now a bigger nag than ever. She never lets him go anywhere.
A self-inflicted curse binds him to his taxi. He cannot leave it for any significant length of time, or if he does leave it, he cannot go far. Hesch hates curses. They can be so scrupulous, but arbitrarily so: for every 60 yards Hesch strays from the vehicle, he can be gone for no longer than a minute. For every 60 minutes he is away, he must limit his retreat to just under a yardstick. All that falls between is mathematics, a continuum of give and take.
If Hesch challenges the curse, that is, if he breaks the 60 to 1 rule of time and space, the taxi cab will begin calling to him. He will hear his ex-wife’s, Madeline’s, dirge in his mind, and it will not stop until he breaks. Her spirit will call to him, mock him, tug at his esteem, do whatever it takes to bring him back to the four-wheel prison they share. Alas, if ever Hesch beats the system, manages to break away long enough, far enough, manages to block out the voice of his jailer. . .well then the taxi cab will simply have no choice but to come fetch him herself. It is an unholy matrimony.
Los Angeles ~
Anyone who lives in L.A. has taken Hesch’s cab at one time or another. Hesch drives the streets of L.A. by day and by night. He is never officially off-duty. He sometimes rents hotel rooms, but more for the showers than the beds. All too often he can be found stretched across the back seat of his car, snoring away. He keeps the interior immaculate, frequently stopping to groom the upholstery with coin-operated industrial vac's. For good measure, he keeps a box of air-fresheners in the trunk.
In 2005 Hesch took up with a frequent passenger, an unfired young model named Kimmie. She was beautiful, of course, and sex with her was an attempt at recapturing his youth. A few months back Kimmie left him for a patron of After Dark. Before long, Kimmie literally forgot the name Albert Hesch. He was and is crushed. He hate’s Kimmie, and he loves her. He wishes he could have her. He wishes he could let go.
His curse can be broken. But it will require that the Kimmie-Hesch-Madeline triangle be severed. In the centre of this triangle Hesch has placed a young man called Sam Aubrey. He's taken the boy under his wing, nurtured him, desperately holding on to the possibility that the kid will wake up and do what he was summoned to do: deliver vengeance upon Kimmie.
The demon Killroy explained it to Hesch very clearly. First, she must pay; and, as a result, Hesch's deep felt betrayal, that which binds him to the world of masochism, will vanish. Justice will allow him to let go. Letting go, Killroy said, is contagious. It spreads. Perhaps, if all fares well, he will be able to let go of Madeline, too. Killroy is, oddly enough, more of a counsellor than a demon. It troubles Hesch to think that the hell in which he lives has been caused by himself. He is his own worst enemy.
Hesch is still driving the streets of Los Angeles in his cab, forever bound by his curse.
ITEMS:
Hesch owns the cab that he is forever bound to by his curse
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