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

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?"