An Act of God?

When I first started driving taxi many of my customers - especially the San Francisco locals - were unfriendly or overtly hostile. They would say things like "great route" or "you're the best cabbie in the world" in sarcastic tones of voice. Many of them stiffed me.

I got tired of this and used sarcasm myself when I told a yuppie who'd given me $6 for $5.80 ride,

    "Thanks for the tip!"

    "You've already given yourself a tip!" He snapped back.

I was what my father would've called "flummoxed." I was trying to do a good job and couldn't understand why people were so nasty.

After about a month, I picked up an old-time, hippie cab driver. White hair down to his shoulders. We'd gone two blocks when he suddenly raised his gravelly voice in excitement,

    "Hey man - you got yourself a hot one!"

    "You mean, my girl? How'd you know about her?"

He laughed.

    "Right! I mean that hot chick on your dashboard!"

    "What are you talking about?"

    "Boy are you good! That's great, man, you never know who might be a cop."

    "Are you stoned?"

    "Of course I'm stoned. I've been stoned all my life. Except'in the year I spend as a Tantric Buddhist in Tibet. But that amounted to the same thing - what's your point, man?"

    "Man, what's your point? I don't know what you're talking about."

    "O.K. We'll play it your way," he said laughing. "Your meter is hot."

    "You mean, it's fast?

He broke out laughing and couldn't stop for a long time.

    "No," he finally said, "it's not fast - it's a fuck'in world class sprinter."

    "How fast?"

    "Hmmm ... 35%, 40% - you really didn't know?"

    "I just started driving. It's my first cab."

    "Well, you hit the mother-load."

    "Really? I'll have to get it fixed after the shift."

    "Man, you are good!" 

He stared laughing again. Then he suddenly turned serious, leaned forward, grabbed me by the arm and fervently wheezed,

    "You don't fix nothing! I might drive this as a spare. You wanna squeeze these cheap fuckers for every cent you can get!"

Now that was just the kind of attitude I didn't want to be associated with - the stereotype of the greedy, grasping, cheating cabbie.

When I finished my shift I filled out a form to fix the meter, stuck it on my windshield and went over to tell the gasman about it.

He was standing, talking and laughing with a mechanic and a couple of other drivers. I walked up to them and said,

     "This one's got a hot meter. Can you make sure they fix it in the morning?"

The men fell silent and stared at me then at each other and back at me. After awhile, the gasman said,

     "Sure."

I'd walked about five steps when they burst out laughing behind me.

The next shift, my day driver Bob was waiting for me when I came to pick up the taxi. He looked me over intensely as I walked toward him. 

     "I see you wrote up the meter?" He said nervously.

     "Yeah - did they take care of it?"

     "No, there was something I wanted to ask you first."

     "Sure - ask away."

     "Are you insane?" He passionately ejaculated.

     "No, I don't think so," I said, startled. "I just want to earn my living honestly."

     "Did you fix the meter so it runs hot?"
     
     "No."

     "Did I fix the meter so it's hot? No!"

     "That's not the point. It's -"

     "If you didn't fix the meter," he interrupted, "and I didn't fix the meter who did?"

     "I haven't the faintest -"

     "It's an act of God!" Bob declaimed. 

I was speechless.

Bob leaned forward and grabbed my by the arms.

    "Listen!" He said. "I've been doing this for three years. Three years of eating shit. Three years of watching the owners steal all my money. You're new. you don't understand. Who are you to interfere with the will of God?"

I didn't really have an answer to that so I left the meter the way it was. I started telling my customers that I usually didn't driver this cab and that the meter seemed hot so they should pay whatever they thought was fair. Much of the hostility disappeared (the public is the public and it never completely goes away), the sarcasm went down and my tips went up.

A couple of weeks later, Bob was hit by a red-light runner who totaled the meter along with the car.

Did Karma trump God?

The Ugliest Sound

A Tall, white-haired man in his 50's carrying a violin case stepped into the back of my taxi. I recognized him as a violinist from a quartet that played all modern classical music.

I usually don't bother celebrities but his kind of music doesn't have a big following so I told him I enjoyed his playing and his dedication to the avaunt garde.

He looked back at me with boredom.

"I used to go to all your concerts," I added.

"Used to?"

"Yeah I guess I lost interest ... no - that's putting it negatively -  I fell in love with a woman who played Latin jazz. She's gone but I still gotta have that rhythm."

"It happens," he said with indifference.

After a moment of silence, I asked, "Are you working on anything now?"

"I'm been working on creating the ugliest sound ever heard," he said laconically.

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Well ... well ... because music should be beautiful," I said, sounding lame even to myself.

He sneered, then asked, "What is beauty?"

"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty," I quoted like some idiot college freshman.

"I like Keats," the violinist said. "But you have to admit that he wasn't what you could call a profound intellectual."

"I suppose not, but you have to admit that his poetry was beautiful - and does beauty really have to be defined?"

"Now you're on the right track," he said with a little enthusiasm, "listen to this."

He took out his violin and played the theme from Beethoven's Fur Elise

"Now that's beautiful!"

Without a word he switched to the Mediation from Thais.

"Wonderful! Bravo!" I shouted.

"Yes," he said. "Beauty IS. It defines itself.  But it's only half the story. What about ugliness?"

"What about it?"

"Who has defined it?"

"Who hasn't?"

"But pure ugliness? I don't think so – I've spend the last three years, three years of hard work, tireless research and endless experimentation, trying to make a sound uglier than has ever been made before.  But  finally – at last – I've created it ."

"Really?"

"And may I add that I felt much angst and despair during my quest."

"I can well image."

"Not even my wife understands."

"I can image that too."

"Do you want to hear it?"

"Is it uglier than chalk on a blackboard?"

"Oh, yes," he said laughing."

"Is it uglier than a car with brakes screeching and crunching metal as it crashes into another car?"

"Much."

"Is it uglier than women screaming as they are being slaughtered by soldiers in an insane war?"

"There's only so much one can do with a single violin," he said as he raised his instrument toward his neck. "But - yes. I should think that's it's uglier than the cry of any individual woman. Do you want to hear it?"

I threw him out of the cab. 

I probably should’ve run him down and I probably would have if I hadn't imagined how ugly his screams would be.

How to be Mugged

I saw them as I was walking back from the laundromat. A couple of lowlife druggies. They were medium height and scraggy wearing dirty old shirts and jeans. Indeterminate age. One was fat and the other skinny with a short beard. 

I noted them without thinking anything about it expect that they were out of place. My apartment was at Vallejo and Hyde on Russian Hill. Arguably as safe as any place in the world. It was 4 pm on a warm and sunny afternoon. A cable-car has just gone by and there numerous people wondering around the area.

I was almost at my apartment when the skinny one walked quickly by me and stopped about ten feet in front of me. As I walked toward him I head a man’s voice coming from slightly behind and outside of my right shoulder. The voice was professional, smooth and reassuring. 

“Don’t worry,” He said. “Don’t panic. Just relax and nothing’ll happen to you.”

I spun my head to look. It was the fat man. I was struck by the gap between his grubby appearance the educated quality of his voice. He stood a couple of feet away and stepped toward me in a vaguely threatening way. I started turning to confront him when he spoke again in the same calm, reassuring way.

“You’re not taking the whole situation in ... you’ve forgotten about Bob.”

I turned back and realized that the skinny man was walking toward me hunched over with a butcher knife hidden from side view by his jacket but pointing directly at my gut. He had the pocked-face of a junkie and a nervous, angry expression.

I started to step back but felt the spokesman’s large hand gently pressed against my shoulder.

“Take it easy,” He said. “I’m John. This is Bob. All you have to do is give us your money and we’ll be on our way.”

As he spoke Bob came up to me and stuck the knife an inch from my ribs. The two of them had me boxed in so expertly that the four people walking by laughing couldn’t see what was happening. To them, it must have looked like a normal conversation.

“Just take out your wallet and hand it to me?”

“What’s he gonna do?” I asked, looking nervously at Bob.

“He’s not going to do anything as long you co-operate,” John said pleasantly, his voice becoming superior, almost laughing at my fear. “Why don’t you give the man a little room, Bob?”

Bob moved a little away.

“Now - what about that wallet?”

I dropped my laundry on the street, pulled out my wallet and gave it to John. He looked inside and took out all six of the dollars bill that I had inside.

“You’ve only got six dollars?” John asked in sudden hostile tone. “That’s not going to be good enough!”

Bob stepped closer to me again and touched my shirt with his blade.

Despite my anxiety, I recognized that this was something of an act. They were clearly professionals and Bob was being a little crazy on purpose. On the other hand, what kind of a dimwit expects to get rich robbing a guy doing his laundry on a Sunday Afternoon? No matter how calm John pretended to be he wasn’t thinking clearly. These guys needed a fix. They were desperate.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said nervously. The phrase ‘I didn’t know you were coming’ popped into my mind but I suppressed it. “I was doing my laundry. Sorry I just don’t bring much money with me when I do my clothes. Sorry.”

I acted more nervous and frightened than I was. I even made my hands shake a little like Don Knots. 

Bob and John looked at each other with a hint of a smile. They relaxed and moved back slightly.

I inched imperceptibly away from them.

“Where’s your apartment?” John calmly demanded, “ Why don’t we go there so you can find  some more money for us?” 

“Yeah ... Yeah. That’s a great idea,” I said, “My place is right over there.” I pointed across the street.

They looked where I pointed. I spun around like a wide receiver and took off running. After about 5 strides I glanced back and saw them running in the opposite direction.

***

For years after that I became paranoid any time I heard someone walking behind me. But the experience was worth a thousand times the $6.00 I lost. 

If I’d seen John and Bob in the Tenderloin, they never would have gotten close enough to rob me. A great lesson for my future career in cab driving. There are no safe places. You always have to be awake and alert. 


Nobody's mugged me since.

That's Not a Question

"Are you taking us the long way," She asked.

She was thirtish and overdressed for the ballet. Ditto for her husband who wore a tux. I mean it was Thursday night.

Usually I throw people out of the taxi when they ask me that. But it was slow night and I was tired so I said nothing and kept on driving.

"Are you going to answer my question?"

"That wasn't a question."

"Well, then, what was it?"

"It was putdown, an attack."

"What's he saying?" she asked her hubby.

"I'll make it simple for you," I said ignoring her ignoring of me. "A question is a statement designed to elicit information but your faux question was clearly designed for another purpose. I mean, do you actually think I'd tell you if I was taking you the long way?

And, since you obviously don't know the city, you wouldn't know if I was telling you the truth or not. The purpose of your quasi-query, then, was simply to assert your  superiority over me by being a person entitled to say such a stupidly rude thing to another human being."

"What?"


"Would you ask your dentist if he was drilling the right tooth?"


"I don't know ... maybe?"


"Would you ask your lawyer or your shrink or your financial advisor if he was cheating you?"


"No ... but maybe I should?"


"Damn right you should. But you didn't because you'd feel it insulting." I ranted. "No - but you felt it was perfectly okay to submit a "cabbie" to such a rude, meaningless interrogation ... And," I added, "when you consider that you have a neurotic need to insult cab drivers in order to feel superior, your 'question' was truly pathetic."

"What's he saying?" She desperately asked her husband again.

"Yeah, Jack," I asked, "what do you think I'm saying?"

'I think we're leaving," Jack said opening his door and walking around to let out his date/wife. 

"Needless to say", he said, "we'll complain."

"Needless to say," I said mocking his East coast voice. "But about what?"

What a Little Music Can Do.

Bitches! No worse -  a couple of snots. Wouldn’t even look my way when they got in the cab. Too high class. For me? Huh! Drab looking snips. Snippy voice snapping out an address. A please at the end as in: 

“Union and Webster ... pu-leeease.”

Not a request. A command. The way one talks to one’s servants. Or, the way these prigs imagined that one might talk to one’s servants if one had servants. 

Then the inevitable insipid conversation. Barbie doll talk. How the last date went ... “the coolest bar in town ... the drinks cost $12 but the bartenders really mix a great drink.” Right - it takes a real artist to make a bourbon and water, “... you won’t believe what happened to Rachel ... did you hear about Jan and Bob? ... what are we gonna do Tuesday night?”  

What are you ever gonna do, witch?

I turned up the stereo to drown the dialogue. My classic rock 50’s mix. Chuck Berry. Fats Domino. Chuck Berry again. Then Wimoweh - ’61 Tokens version.

“My god!” one of them said, “You’re playing the greatest CD.”

“Yeah!” the other one seconded, ”Can you turn this up?”

“I can do better than that,” I said as I turned the volume up to rock out blast, “Let’s take it from the top.”

“In the village, the peaceful village the lion sleeps tonight ...” we sang. One mezzo, one contralto, my awesome bass.

“My god you’ve got an awesome bass!” The mezzo gushed.

I checked her in the mirror. Red haired. Not really too bad.

“A wimoweh! A wimoweh!” We sang along. They couldn’t quite hit the high notes. I tried falsetto. Did it for a few bars then my voice cracked and gargled to a wheeze.

We broke out laughing. I went back to bass. 

“A wimoweh! A wimoweh!” We sang out slightly off key but gleefully.

We pulled in front of their bar.

“This is the best cab ride ever!” the red head explained.

“It’s awesome!” Her blond friend said.

“You’re got an awesome bass,” The red mezzo said again as she climbed out. She reached back and gave me her card.

“You were awesome too,” I told her. “ Awesome.”

"Awesome!" She said laughing at my mockery.

She’s a hair stylist. I can always use a cut.

Disobedience

“Is the San Francisco Airport in Oakland?” She asked me in an Indian accent. She was in her thirties, dark skinned, attractive and wearing a business suit.”

“No,” I replied laughingly, “I’m going to turn just before the Oakland onramp - good question though. You sound like my girlfriend. She thinks my routes are crazy.”

“Have you been together long?”

“Five years.”

“Why aren’t you married?”

“Another good question,” I said laughing again, “We’re too old for kids and everybody ends up divorced anyway, so why marry?”

“That’s probably the right approach ... of course one can’t do that in India.”

“No living in sin?”

It was her turn to laugh.

“Of course but not for respectable girls like me.”

“Are you happily married?”

“We are now but we had a rough patch. I’m certain we would have divorced if we’d lived here. He used to beat me. Have you ever beaten a woman?”

“No - where I come from it’s lowest thing a man can do.”

“Where I come from the man has the right to beat a disobedient wife.”

“And you were disobedient?”

“Not only disobedient but defiant - as my mother-in-law put it." 

"It started when I invited her over to dinner and she said that I should clean my house better. I told her that my house was as clean as I could get it ... I make more money than my husband although his family is richer ... I said if she didn’t like it she could clean it herself because I needed to work to pay the bills that her son couldn’t pay ... that’s what started it ... I’m only telling you this because I’ll never see you again ...  after that my husband and I fought all the time.”

“Did he hit you hard.”

“Oh yes - as hard as he could. But, to the tell the truth, I wouldn’t let myself be beaten.  I fought back and I beat him worst than he beat me.”

“How long did this go on for?”

“Several years ... finally we sat down and had a talk. We decided that all our fights were about our parents so we would never discuss our parent again. Since then we’ve been very happy.”

“That was it?”

“Indian men are mama’s boys. If I didn’t mention his mother, there was no reason to fight. I’m raising my sons to be independent so the question of disobedience will never come up.”

Cultural Refinement

I took an app hail the the de Young Museum where the opening night of the Balenciaga exhibit was just breaking. A message from Mica said that she's be walking out the front.

When I turned the corner onto the museum road a bejeweled, skinny, elderly woman in a $5,000 dress jumped in back.

"The museum called for me," she said, "I'm Rossi."

"That's not the name I was given," I said. "Besides the call had come from a smart phone."

"We have to get my husband - Bill!" she screeched in my ear.

"You're screeching in my ear."

"Sorry," she said rolling down the window and sticking her head out to screech again, "Bill!"

We pulled in front of three 30ish, attractive women, one of whom was waving a cell phone and looking at me.

I rolled down the back window as the tuxedoed Bill, stocky and balding, climbed in front.

"I'm Mica,"  the woman shouted hopefully.

"Oh - you're the one," I shouted back and turned to the woman in the back seat. "I'm sorry, they called."

"Oh! Fuck it! - just go!"

"Sorry but I came for them."

"Go! You stupid ass! Go!"

Mica climbed in back followed by one of her friends.

"No wonder you're alone," the woman said to Mica, "what man would bed you?"

"What a wench!" Mica retorted as her blond friend leaned forward and caressed Bill's bald spot.

"Whatta you think Harold?" she enticed. "You wanna come with us or you wanna stick with this decaying skank?"

Harold/Bill wanted to get out to the cab as fast his chubby body would allow.

"Come back here, you wimp!" the woman shouted after him.

"I'm sorry ma'am but you've got to leave," I said politely. 

She glared at me defiantly.

“Come on. Please. This is their cab.”

She turned away and ignored me.

Suddenly my buried Germanic heritage popped out.

"Schnell!" I commanded. "Schnell!"

The woman bolted out of the taxi and then leaned back to snarl, "Sluts!"

A tall brunet, who had climbed in the front seat, calmly countered in a refined English accent, "Bite me, bitch!"

We drove away in silence for a moment then the brunet and Mica spoke in unison to the blond,

"Decaying skank?"

They broke into giggles.

Then, they all turned to me,

"Schnell?"

We drove off laughing into the night, warmed by the embrace of higher culture.