Anger

*

A thin guy in his middle thirties. Said he used to drive cab at my old company. He started dropping names. I knew some. I didn't know others. In the cab business you can talk to a driver for years and not know his name. I was going to say "his or her name" but I always know the names of the women.

"Remember Jack?" the ex-driver asked.

"The dispatcher?"

"Yeah - he died last year.

"It wasn't soon enough!" The words exploded out of me. "I'm glad he's dead!"

We were both shocked by my outburst.

I drove in on in silence for a few minutes while he looked nervously about as if trying to decide whether nor not he should bolt. He finally decided that I wasn't immediately dangerous and changed the subject. I think he talked about the Giants until we arrived at his destination where, as is the custom with many ex-cab drivers, he under-tipped me and walked off smiling as if he'd done me a favor.

I turned off the car and sat stunned, staring out over a small park. I had no idea that I carried so much anger, so much hatred around with me.

Jack was the head dispatcher at my first company twenty years earlier. He was tall and well-built with dark hair and good looks. He spoke in a whinny, New York intellectual, Woody Allen way, as if he'd read every book in the world and found them all beneath him. He knew endless trivia about Joyce, Pound, Stein etc. and constantly made allusions to their works.

His intellectual pretension was one of the things I despised most about him. I mean, here he was  - this superior being, talking about Baudelaire while extracting $5 from me before he'd let me go to work.

"- Hypocrite reader - my fellow - mon frere." Personally, I doubt he'd ever gone beyond Cliff Notes.

I took him home in my taxi once and he talked to me as he was an aristocrat straining to communicate with the common man. ("I mean, what do say to such people?" ) He told me that before he'd been "chosen" as a dispatcher (i.e. connived, lied, bribed and blew his way into the job) he was "just a cab driver."

Jake showed us "just cab drivers" what he thought of us every day.

The shifts changed daily at 4:00 pm. And, every day at precisely 4:00 pm, Jake went to the bathroom. He stayed there for 15 or 20 or 25 minutes while dozens and dozens of drivers waited in line losing money, while dozens and dozens of customers desperately wondered why there were no cabs on the street. When he finally showed up, wiping his runny nose, Jake looked at the line of waiting drivers with a sardonic glint and nonchalantly, slowly, started handing out the medallions.

One day, when he'd taken an especially long time fixing his nose, when he was finally reaching out to give me the my taxi license, his hand stopped in mid-air while he started hitting on a nearby woman driver. All smiles and charm. This went on and on.

"Is it okay if I get my medallion?" I finally snapped.

He looked at me and tossed the metal through the window with contempt.

"You don't have to be rude!"

"I don't have to be rude?!!! Fuck you!"

I was walking back to get my cab when a big hand grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around to see Jake hunched a little over, ready to launch a round-house right at my head.

"Come on asshole!" He screamed, "Come on! Fuck me?! Fuck you!"

Jake was as big as I am and, with those big hands, could probably hit hard enough to do some damage but he didn't know how to fight. He was getting ready to throw a slow, sweeping punch. I'd have stepped inside, blocked it and hit him fiver or six time before he could react. It would have been the only punch he threw.

But, I made a mistake. I hesitated and waited for him to move first. And, when I hesitated I thought - thought about how beating on him would cost me my job and how I only took it in the first place because nobody else would hire me. On top of this, Jake would probably have me arrested for assault. All the guys in line would testify on his behalf because they were in the same situation as me.

Suddenly, Jake was right up eye level. My hesitation had emboldened him. He filled with the courage of a beast preying on the weak.

"Come on! Come on!" He screamed, getting closer and closer until he almost bumped my chest.

I stared at him, paralyzed by realism.

"That's right!" He yelled, backing up a step while sticking a finger at my nose. "You don't fuck with me! You wanna get along around here, you get along with me! You got that?"

I turned and walked away. He grabbed me by the shoulder again and spun me back around.

"I asked you a question!" He demanded, "You got that?"

"Yeah," I finally said, "I got that."

I turned and looked around me, my face turning red with humiliation. The other drivers were all staring at the the ground.

I felt the same sense of humiliation every time I saw him after that, every day that he kept me waiting before handing me the medallion with smug superiority, every time that I handed him the $5.

Even more humiliating was the thought that it was all my own fault that I was even there. I should have been the doctor or the lawyer my parents wanted me to be. I should have written better books. I was a "cabbie" - a loser - and Jake rubbed my nose in it every day.

I try to be a follower of Mahatma Gandhi but I'm not that pure. If I'd hit Jake, I never would've thought about him again. I might has well have. They "didn't like my attitude" and canceled my lease a few months later anyway. As it was, as it is, I'd let the anger fester and grow for 20 years ... over a pretentious smuc.

Living the Blues

*

Tori thought the staging in Aida was tacky.

"Did you expect Radames to ride in on a real elephant? " I asked

"They didn't even have a horse for the triumphal march."

"It's a recession," I said, "they save money on the staging."

"But with Aida the sets are are the main thing," Francoise added.

A specular trio (mezzo, tenor, soprano) finale made me forget everything else about Aida. For me the music is always what it's about, but I wasn't going to argue - it was Francoise's night. After 20 years, she finally owned her medallion; 20 years of driving cabs five or six nights a week to raise three kids on her own; 20 years with no vacations; 20 years of worrying every month about the rent. No, I wasn't going to argue. I raised my bottle of beer.

"To Francoise," I said toasting her.

Tori and Barry,  Francoise's daughter and her boyfriend whose names I never caught joined in, clicking bottles and glasses.

"To Francoise!"

She clicked her glass with us and tossed back a warm, lovely, impish smile.

Yes, I was drinking my beer from a bottle. Inappropriate for a discussion of Aida, perhaps, but perfect for the dumpy, half-empty, blues bar we were sitting in.

It was a pickup night and an old black man standing next to his wheel chair was singing Otis Reddings' Dock of the Bay backed by two aging white guys, a young Asian and a middle-aged Samoan playing  guitars; a half-blind Mexican on a toy piano and a young, blond woman blowing wonderfully on a harmonica. You tell that they either were (or had been) professionals but they were a little out of sync. When the piece ended, a couple of guitars introduced themselves to each other.

As the night went on they got better and better as our conversation grew warmer and friendlier.

We were a good match for each other, the band and us. We were all a little beat up and maybe had seen better days.

Tori, Francoise and I could all have lost 30 pounds without noticing it and Barry always wore a hat to cover his bald spot. Tori and Francoise were artists, Barry a cameraman and I try to write but we all earn our living driving cabs. Probably always will.

We been lied to, we'd been cheated, we'd been robbed, we'd been mistreated.

But, at that moment, as a bass guitar played a duet with the gravel-voiced singer and the harmonica jabbed beautifully over the top, as we rocked in time to the soulful beat, as I noticed Francoise's daughter smiling with adoration at her mother, I wouldn't have lived it any other way.

The Karma of Rudeness

It was my day off and I was indulging in my favorite pastime of wondering around the city when I came across a hip, new bistro. I'm hardly a hipster but the prices were moderate and it was late afternoon so the joint wasn't busy.

I sensed that I'd made a mistake the moment I walked inside. A blond bartender of around 35, gave me a "what-you-doin'-here" look. It was so pronounced that I reflexively checked my fly. It was zipped. I glanced in the mirror and saw a good-looking middle-aged man wearing a nice sweater and slacks staring back at me. I walked over to a table near a window and sat down.

The bartender huddled with a 25 year old waitress. They took turns sneaking peaks at me. "Good-looking" and "nice" apparently weren't hip enough expressions for their customer profile. I suppose I could have left but, as a cab driver, I'm used to snobs finding me undesirable and I don't let people with attitudes keep me from doing what I want to do.

What I wanted to do was have a meal and a drink.

After about 10 minutes, it became clear that the waitress had no intention of taking my order so I got up, walked over and took a menu off the bar, told the bartender to send me over a Guinness then went back my table to read the menu.

Another 15 minutes passed. Three couples, proper hipsters, came in, were immediately seated, given menus and had their orders for drinks taken by the obsequiously smiling waitress. As she passed by me, I said in my most booming, bass voice,

"Could you please give me that Guinness now ... and I'm ready to order."

I was so loud that the couples turned and looked over at me. The waitress glanced at the bartender who gave me a blank stare then nodded to her. They rightly decided that it would be less trouble for them to serve me then not. The waitress brought my beer and, with a snippy expression on her face, took my order.

A half hour later, the three couple all had their food and there was no sign of anything or anybody heading in my direction. I held up my empty beer mug and was about to yell for another when the waitress pre-empted me by rushing over with a dead chicken.

It was supposed to be a dish called "Fusion Chicken" but it was just dead. And it had been dead a long time before they sort of cooked it.

I should have sent the chicken back and had them bring me a decent dish but I have a neurotic block when it comes to such behavior. Every time we ate out in my childhood, my grandfather send his food back to be re-cooked. It didn't matter how it was cooked. He send it back. I have a horror of becoming an ass like that.

I ate the third of the chicken that I guessed wasn't rotten, finished my beer and tried to motion the waitress for my check but she refused to see me. This went on for another 15 minutes. Finally she headed in my direction.

"Can I have the check?" I asked politely as she blew by me and went out the door. She came back 15 minutes later and it was yet another 15 minutes before I was able to pay and leave. I seriously thought about having her give me change for a dime and then leaving a penny tip but I decided that would be stooping to her level. I simply stiffed her. It's the first and only time in my adult life that I haven't tipped.

I can't remember exactly how many of my taxi customers I talked out of going to that restaurant but there were at least a half a dozen who had reservations and changed their minds after talking to me.

I also related the tale to every cab driver I knew. This is the ultimate gossiping network. I'm sure that in no time at all, a thousand drivers were trashing the place for me.

"Have you heard anything about "...." Bistro?" My customers would ask.

"Yeah," I would tell them truthfully, "the food's rotten and the service is terrible."

"But the online reviews were very good?"

"Don't be naive," I'd tell them, "they write that stuff themselves."

Several months after my dead-chicken meal, the bartender got into my taxi and commanded me to drive him to the bistro. He was wearing an expensive suit and didn't recognize me.

"Have you heard anything about this place?" he asked as we arrived, clearly fishing for compliments.

"Yeah - the food sucks and the service blows."

It's not easy to describe the expression on his face and as he stepped out of the cab.

He scowled at me with a combination of hostility and deflation. He looked a little like he wanted to assault me and a little like he wanted to cry. Must have been the owner. He kept glaring at me as I smiled cheerfully and drove away.

Three months later he was out of business.

Tough luck, fellow. It's too bad in a way. From what I hear, the food ordinarily wasn't half bad.

Where's a Cop When You Need One?

I picked up two Samoans and took them to the outer mission. One of them, a huge man of about 6'8" and 325 pounds with enormous hands sat in front with me while the smaller man sat in back. They were a little high but personable and friendly, especially "Big Man" as his buddy called him.

Big man offered me a line, which I politely refused, then talked about how he used to be a cop in Samoa where he couldn't carry a gun. All he was a allowed to use was a baton which he became pretty good at.

"How do stop a drunk?" he asked me.

"I don't know," I pondered, "I guess ... hit 'em in the face."

"Naw," he said, "doesn't work."

"You're right," I replied, "it doesn't. I thought I just had a weak punch."

"Naw - if they're drunk they can't feel it. Hit 'em in the skin or the knee. They go right down. The knee's best 'cause they don't get up again."

"I'll remember that."

"Never know when you're gonna need it."

We drove down Mission Street almost to Daly City where we dropped off Little Man. Big Man then told me that he needed to go down near the Geneva Towers, which were the toughest housing projects in the city. He said he lived across the street.

I don't like going down there but, as I've always said, it's not where you are it's who you're with, so I turned on Geneva to take Big Man home.

As I drove on, however, he stated to change. He lost his friendliness and became morose. He talked about how he'd had nothing but bad luck since he moved to the mainland. He's lost his wife. He'd lost his job. He couldn't see his kids.

"Of course I've got enough to pay you," he reassured me.

Big Man asked me turn left off Geneva with headed toward the Towers. I turned, drove half a block and stopped. The area was deserted.

"How's this?" I asked.

"Actually - if you could keep going for a little bit," he said.

"I thought you weren't going to the Towers," I said.

"Oh - I'm not," he said leaning slightly toward me, "I know this sounds strange but it you could pull down that alley behind the sign. That's where I live."

It was a huge tennis shoe advertisement. If I drove behind it, I couldn't be seen from the street.

"You can probably walk it from here," I told him looking at the ball point pen I'd attached to the sunshade with a rubber band.

I'd fantasized about using it as a knife in just such a situation as this. What I hadn't fantasized about was Big Man's girth. If I did manage to stab him, I didn't think the pen would penetrate his flesh deeply enough to stop him. It'd probably just piss him off. I looked at his shins and his knees wishing I'd taken that self-defense course instead of putting it off.

My mind was reeling. The only prayer I had of stopping him if he attacked was grabbing his juggler veins and rendering him unconscious before he broke my grip with his huge hands. It wasn't much of a prayer.

"Is there a problem?" I heard a man ask from outside the car.

I looked out and saw that a squad car had pulled up across the street from me. A big, blond cop had asked the question.

"No officer," I said with relief, "this gentleman was just leaving ..." I turned to Big Man, "weren't you?"

Big Man didn't say a thing. He nervously dug into his pocket. The meter read $10.75. He finally came up with a roll of crumpled one dollar bills. He only had nine of them.

"That's good enough," I told him.

Without looking at me, he pushed the roll of bills into my hand and climbed out of the car. I watched him stagger off for about 100 feet, then turned to the cop and said,

"Thanks. I think you saved my butt."

"He was going rob you?" the cop asked angrily.

"I can't say for sure because it didn't happen but I think you stopped it."

Without a word he spun his car around and drove over to Big Man.

When I drove off, Big Man had his hands in the air and the cop was making him try to walk a straight line. If nothing else he'd get Big Man on a possession charge. Six months in the box.

Tough luck, buddy.

Another Cop Story

It was a slow, rainy night with very little business and hardly anybody on the streets. I was in the Sunset and decided to stop by a local store for a juice drink. I drove around a corner and saw about eight police cars double-parked at various angles turning the road in front of the store into a one-lane thruway.

I parked my cab a block away and walked toward the scene. Whatever incident had occurred was clearly already over because the cops were standing around telling each other jokes. Back then I assumed that so many cops descended on a call in order to back each other up in potentially dangerous situations. It was only latter that I leaned that the real reason they showed up en masse was to file for overtime.

I started to walk around the crowd to get into the store when I spotted a man laying face down on the street with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was chubby, in his mid-fifties and needed to turn his head to one side or the other to keep his mouth out of the puddle that the rain was forming around him.

He looked up at me with a dazed, distraught expression and said, "Madness ... Madness ... Madness."

I went into the store and bought my juice from the distracted store owner who kept looking out at the scene outside.

I stepped outside.  The situation remained the same: the cops swapping jokes while the stunned man stared after me, twisting his head from side to side to keep from drowning.

The next day, the store owner told me what had happened.

The man in the street had been mugged by two guys who stole his wallet. He chased them, kicked their asses and took his wallet back.

Just as he grabbed his wallet the police came up, arrested him, cuffed him and threw down on the street into the position he was in when I spotted him.

Okay, anybody can make a mistake. It must have looked like the victim was the thief when the cops showed up. That I can understand. What they did next, however, blows my mind: without bothering to look at the picture on the victim's license, they gave the wallet back to the thieves who walked merrily away - no doubt to burst out laughing as soon as they went beyond the reach of sound.

"Madness .... Madness ... Madness ... Sloth ... Sloth ... Sloth."

The Rabbit

"This town's gone to hell," Big Walt told as we broke for coffee. "Look at that," he said sweeping his arm toward the shops across the street. There were a couple of Mexican fruit and vegetable stores and a Vietnamese fish market with several people shopping at them.

"I grew up in this neighborhood," he said. "Now it's a fucking slum."

"I mean, San Francisco used to have class. I used to be proud to drive a cab here. Half the scumbags these days don't know how to act - know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

"I mean, used to be you'd take a bar or restaurant call and, if the customer left, the bartender or the hostess'd give ya a couple bucks - maybe even a fin. Just by way of appreciation. Remember that?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Now they look at ya like you're bothin' them. One hostess snapped at me, "they're gone - whatya want me to tell ya?

"'How about tellin' me you'll give me a couple bucks for my trouble,'" I told her. So she told me, 'how about I just call another company' - and in a snotty tone of voice. As if that would be a punishment. 'Go ahead' I told her, 'soon enough you won't get no cabs at all.'"

"I don't pick 'em up anymore," he continued.

"Bars and restaurants?"

"Yeah - and hostesses. I'm done with those bitches. Ditto for waitresses. And bartenders - they're all a bunch of low-class snobs. They actually think they're better than we are!!! I mean, how much brains does it take to carry a drink? ... And, I've had it with freaks and weirdos ... I don't pick up guys with baseball caps on sideways or backwards, women with tattoos, girls with rings in their noses, guys with red tattoos, guys with their pants hung around their knees, girls with holes in their jeans, men with sandals, women with big boots, guys with sunglass on top of their heads ... and sailors? Who needs those cheap drunken bums ... And, construction workers used to know how to tip. Not anymore ... I don't pick up Australians, Italians, the English or tourists from Minnesota for the same reason ... I don't pick guys carryin' big radios or anybody talking on a cell phone. Drives you crazy. I wouldn't own one myself ... And I don't pick up minorities."

"But Walt," I pointed out, "more than half the people in this city are minorities."

"Somebody's got to make a stand."

"What about yuppies?"

"I used to pick up the women until I had this investment banker type - you know, your typical Stanford snob bitch. She snapped out a location without so much as a hello - like they do - and I started to drive when she suddenly screamed."

"What'aya yelling about?" I snapped. "You could cause an accident doin' that."

"But there's an animal back here," she said.

"Don't worry about that," I told her, "it's just a rabbit."

"A rabbit?!"

"Don't worry about it, it's dead."

"Dead?!"

"Yeah - I keep tellin' the day driver to clean it up but the lazy bum just ignores me."

"Would it take too much effect to throw it out yourself?" she asked in this snotty, sarcastic voice.

"I tell ya - I snapped. I mean, if there's one thing I can't stand it's sarcasm. If you got something to say. just come out and say it."

"You know," I told her, "one thing I can't stand it's sarcasm. If you got something to say, just come out and say it."

"Why don't throw it out yourself?" she asked in the same snotty tone of voice.

"Because it's the day driver's responsibility not mine." I told her again. "Not that responsibility is anything you'd know about. No - you just sit in the back, snap out commands and think you get someplace by magic - You don't think about how much skill and training goes into this job - how much real intelligence - not the abstract shit you live on - if it weren't for my responsibility you wouldn't even get nowhere alive - and you talk to me - I wouldn't talk to a dog in the tone of voice you use on me! Thanks for treating me worse than your dog!"

"And thanks," she cooldly replied, "for finally revealing the meaning of that obscure biblical passage."

"What biblical passage?" I asked her.

"The one that goes, 'and she was smote by the jawbone of an ass.'"

"I mean, a Stanford graduate and she can't even get the quote right - it's 'He was smote' ... "

"So what'd you say?"

"I didn't say nothin'. I 86'd the bitch ... "

"I tell you, man," Walt continued, "I'm getting out of this business . Used to be you could earn a decent living - not anymore."

Flying Off to Roma

Tall, wearing a stylish pants-suit and in her early thirties, she put a couple of packages onto the back seat before climbing in herself.

She was open, friendly, and attractive but not my type - not that it would've mattered. Thinking of me as a "partner" simply would not have entered her head. She wasn't a snob. She just belonged to a different world. She would no more think of having sex with me than she would with a pet cat she was fond of.

"I've got to run some errands ... it'll take three or four stops," she said breezily, "I hope you don't mind ... I can always grab another cab if you have to be somewhere."

Usually, I do mind. But my policy on this is: if they ask - I don't mind, if they demand - I do. Besides, she looked like a true San Franciscan, that is, a 30% tipper.

First we went to her laundry.

"I've been dating this fantastic man," she told me en route, "he's a little bit older but he's highly successful. He has just the littlest touch of grey hair - but he's very fit ... he plays baseball and he has a great sense of humor."

"Sounds like a good catch ... if you ladies still talk like that."

"We don't talk like that - but we think it," she said with a laugh as she got out to drop off her clothes.

When she returned, we headed for her wine shop.

"We go to the operas and ballets and we eat at all the top restaurants."

"Sounds great."

"Yes, he spoils me ... but I've met this other guy ... he's more my age - actually a little younger and he's not nearly as stable or secure ... in fact he's a little wild ... but he's ... how shall I put it?"

"More passionate."

"Yes - exactly - more passionate. Exactly the word. Passionate. Anyway ..."

We arrived a the wine shop.

"... to be continued."

She came back with the wine and I drove her to a fancy foods store.

"So my problem is," she continued, "he wants me to go to Roma with him."

"Which one? El Appassionato or Mr. stable."

"El Appassionato," she replied, "very appropriate name."

"So what's the problem?"

"Well ... maybe he's a little too appassionato, too wild."

"He's wouldn't want to marry you?"

"I ... don't ... know if I'd want to marry him. I'd have to worry too much about where was all the time - if you know what I mean? ... but still ..."

"He's very passionate."

"Yes."

"So you're afraid that things ultimitley won't work out in Roma and your trip might cost you Mr. Secure."

"Exactly," she told me as stepped out to buy the groceries.

When she returned, I asked her,

"You don't intend to tell Secure that you'll be traveling with Appasionato do you?"

"Well, of course not!" she replied. slightly annoyed by the question. "I'll tell him I'm going with the girls."

"Then, I don't see what the problem is ... go to Roma and if you come back, the older dude will still be waiting for ya.'

"Are you sure?" she asked, concerned and a little doubtful.

"Of course. If you don't go to Roma you'll regret it the rest of your life."

"I guess you're right," she said, sighing with relief. "That's a load off my mind."

She counted out the 30%, then happily tossed in an extra ten.