A Lovely Drunk

I drove by her on Bush and Franklin with a customer in my cab. She was tall, thin, Chinese and wearing a sleeveless, party dress with high heels. She was leaning against a tree trunk in the cold and wind so drunk that she could barely raise her hand to wave as I passed her.

I only dropped a block away but wild horses couldn’t normally pull me back to pick up a person that hammered. Next to a teenage ghetto gangster, a soused twenty-something woman is the most dangerous person you can let into your cab. Maybe more dangerous in the age of credit cards. These days a stickup artist is lucky to get fifty bucks. A dedicated vomiter that puts your cab out of commission on a Friday night can cost you two or three hundred.

However, she looked at me with such desperation and she was so beautiful that I felt morally compelled to go back and save her. When I returned she had made it twenty feet and was hugging another tree. 

I approached warily. I gave her the test that I usually give to see whether or not a person is too zonked to handle. I pulled up ten feet away and stopped so that she’d have to pass my walking test to get in the cab. She failed in the first two steps. She almost fell over and stumbled back to her tree. 

Common sense told me to leave but she looked so helplessness that I couldn’t resist. I pulled up next to her. She lunged for the right rear door handle, struggled a bit, opened it and half slid and half fell into the cab. As she straightened up she said,

“I don’t usually drink.”

“No shit.”

My joke was a mistake. She started to laugh which quickly turned into a gagging burp. She unsuccessfully tried to lower the window.  I leaned over and pushed open the door. She stuck her head out and threw up. She somehow managed to do it with decorum and style. I gave her some napkins and she delicately cleaned her lips and mouth. 

Then I drove her home. Nothing else happened.

Why do I remember this? 

I think it was the look of gratitude that she gave me. Nobody else would’ve picked her up and she knew it. There is hardly anybody who appreciates what we do. But she did.

END

The Ex Cab Driver

He flagged down my taxi just before 18th and Castro and wanted to go to Union Square. The traffic bunched up in front of me so I turned right on 18th.

“You should have gone straight,” my customer snapped. “You're taking me the long way.”

I looked him over in the mirror. Short, pudgy, attire by Goodwill, a slob.

“Castro’s gridlocked.”

“Gridlock is an exaggeration. It’s clearing up.”

“I would estimate three red lights. That’s three clicks on the meter. That’s a buck sixty-five.”

“You’re exaggerating. It would be, at most, two clicks.” 

“Then it would be, at least, a buck ten. The long way’s cheaper.”

“Maybe,” He said after a pause. “Which way are you going?”

“Noe to Market to Franklin to Post to Powell,” I said pedantically.

“I guess that’s okay,” he said.

“Thanks,” I retorted with mild sarcasm.

We rode for a moment in silence.

“I used to drive cab, you know.”

'Oh shit!' I muttered under my breath. “That explains it.”

“That explains what?”

“It explains why you know the city so well.”

“Yes ... I came to know it rather well.”

“Who’d you work for?”

“Your company - I remember you.”

I looked at him closely.

“I don’t remember you.”

“I wasn’t there that long ...”

I stayed silent hoping the conversation would die a natural and lovely death.

“Yes,” He said. “I was fascinated with playing the radio. That’s all I did. My first night I had took 37 calls.”

Thus my response to his statement about being an ex-driver. When an "ex" brings up his (I’ve never had a woman driver pull this on me) former career, I know I’m in for absurd claims about his driving prowess.

One ex-driver told me that he made $500 a shift. Another one declared that he knew a way to get $100 rides out of a nightclub every night. I could never see the point of this. Yes, of course, they want to assert their superiority. But what’s the point of telling a ridiculous lie to somebody who knows that you’re lying?

This guy’s fantasy was a little better than most. It was remotely possible. Remotely! My best night over a twenty year career was taking 30 radio calls but there was always the chance another driver was better or faster or luckier than I was.

“That’s great,” I said. “So your first day was your best?”

“Oh hardly,” he laughed, “I had many many days better than that - it might have been my worst.”

Great. Another psycho. More gridlock ahead. I took a left on Octavia to go around it.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m driving up Octavia to avoid a traffic jam.”

“I didn’t see any traffic.”

“Well - you weren’t looking - besides, I’d forgotten. There’s construction on Franklin.”

“Van Ness. The construction is on Van Ness.”

“That was yesterday. Today it’s on Franklin.” 

“Take a right on Page. We’re going Franklin.”

“That’s where the construction starts,” I said as I blew by Page.

“Did I mention that I used to be a driver?!” He bust out. “I know the rules. You have to do what I say.”

“Within reason,” I retorted. “They say I have to do what you say “within reason.” “Driving into gridlock does not fit a reasonable definition of reason.”

“Turn right here!” He commanded. “The construction’s on Van Ness!”

I blew by the intersection saying. “Franklin’ll still be blocked.”

He glared at me. Started to say something. Then sat angrily back in his seat.

I took the next right. “Should be clear now.”

It was. I took a left on Franklin with almost no cars in front of me.

“Take a look behind you,” I said, “You’ll see the construction.”

He refused to look and just sat glaring blankly out the front window.

“Be sure not to tip me,” I said when we arrived, stealing his thunder.

“Don’t worry,” he snarled as he paid me the exact fare and climbed out of the cab. He closed the the rear door and came around to my side.

“Carl and I are friends,” he said ominously.

“I assume you mean the dispatcher.”

He shook his head up and down knowingly and threatening.

“Really? I didn't think Carl had any friends?” I said as I let the cab roll slowly away. "He must be desperate."

I watched him in the mirror standing hunched over and staring after me with impotent pique.

END

Do I know you?

“Hello,” I said to an elegant, bejeweled, elderly lady as she stepped into the back of my taxi.

She ignored me and continued a conversation with an equally elegant, bejeweled, elderly lady who followed her inside.

“Four Seasons!” she snapped, interrupting her conversation and raising her voice in an imperious tone before returning to her chatter - all without glancing in my direction.

“Hello,” I repeated cheerfully.

“Four Seasons!” She commanded more loudly, still without looking at me.

“Hello,” I repeated again with equal cheer.

She turned and looked at me, giving me a once over.

“Do I know you?” She asked in a tone of voice that let me know that such a eventuality was impossible.

“It’s a common greeting in the English language,” I said pedantically. “It’s a sign of recognition from one human to another. It’s a way of being polite.”

“Is it?” She asked haughtily. Then, she turned back to her acquaintance and again snapped,

“Four Seasons!”

I often tell people that I win 98% of my arguments in my taxi. This was one of those two percent. The bitch had me.

I couldn’t very well slap the shit out a 75 year old woman no matter how much she deserved it. (My guess is that she had 74 years and 6 months worth of slapping due her.)  And, I couldn’t 86 her out either. Taxi Services was not likely to back me up for tossing an old woman because she refused to say “hello.” Aministrators have no sense of humor.

I drove her to the restaurant.

When we arrived she started fawning on a black doorman calling him “Charles” and asking him what the special was for the day and how his family was doing. Her faux friendliness, of course, really meant the opposite. She spoke his name in such a way as to let him know that she was honoring him by the mere fact she remembered it. Or, maybe she didn’t? Maybe all the doormen were “Charles” to her?

The man looked back at her, nervous and anxious, uncertain of what to say or do. He either gave one word answers or said “yes ma'am “to all her questions.

“You realize that he hates your guts, don’t you?” 

She turned to give me a knowing smirk.

“Or, is that it? You know he hates your guts but he’s obsequious anyway. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

“You’re smarter than you look,” she said as she let Charles help her out of the taxi. Then, she turned back around and stuck her head in the window saying,

“Maybe you’ll find a job some day.”

END

Money Well Spent

He stood about 6'5", was skinny, balding and had only one top front tooth. He must've been in his late 70's or early 80's. His skin was discolored from living on the street. 

I’d been seeing him panhandling for years on O’Farrell near Macy’s. Good spot. The traffic backs up there most of the day. I occasionally give him a dollar. It’s good Karma. Besides, in my business, the words “there but for the grace of god go I” are a daily truth. I know I’m one accident, one piece of bad luck, from joining the old dude.

On this evening, I almost didn’t tip him. I’d been driving for seven hours. My back ached, my knees ached, my ankles were sore and I was exhausted. It seemed like too much trouble to reach for my one-dollar stash. Then, he glanced at me with a look that was both desperate and somehow proud, like he was trying to be cool.

I pulled out the buck and stuck it out the window. He saw it and his face lit up as he came toward me. He  broke into a big smile and started talking to me like I was his best buddy. Maybe I was the only one who ever tipped him.

“Homebody almost had the no-hitter!” he exclaimed joyfully.

It took me a second to understand.

“Oh yeah - the Giants - Cain.”

“Yeah - should’ve had it too. ”

“Didn’t see it”

“Lucky hit ... damn good we signed him.”

“Damn right. Can't think of a better use for $130 million.”

“Damn straight!”

An Extreme Sport

He was in his late 30’s and six feet tall wearing a tan jacket and slacks, a dark sweater and black tennis shoes. He stood, with his legs straddling his bicycle, in a driveway just back from the narrow sidewalk boarding Gough Street as it plunges steeply toward the bay.  

He glanced at me, giving me a bad-boy look, then he jumped the bike out into the street in front of my taxi and headed downhill. I was annoyed because I thought I’d have to slow down. There wasn’t room to go around him.

He stood up and started to peddle fast as he headed into next intersection and kept pumping his legs as he flew down the hill, easily doubling my speed of 15 or 20 miles per hour.

Fifty feet before next intersection at Broadway, the traffic light suddenly turned red. The rider jammed on his brakes. The bike skipped and jumped wildly as the front wheel twisted sideways and buckled spinning the man halfway around. He had a stunned expression on his face that quickly turned into terror. 

He didn’t have time to scream before he flew out into the street. His head smashed against the side of a mini-van breaking a plexiglass window. He hit with such force that his body bounced and flipped so that his head was facing back uphill as he settled motionless onto the street.

I don’t know how but I knew he wasn’t dead. A middle-aged man came over saying that he was a doctor. 

Suddenly the biker started to stand up, exposing the back of his head where more blood was seeping.

“Don't get up,” the doctor said helping him lay back down. “The ambulance is on the way.”

The man bolted up again and started walking jerkily in a circle with a desperate yet blank stare. The doctor gently pulled him down again.

As I drove off he was trying to get up.

END