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.

On the Rudeness of Cab Drivers: One

A middle-aged couple couple edging toward aged. He in his 60's with white hair. She in her late 50’s. The were high but not drunk.

She climbed into the cab totally self-absorbed, simultaneously talking to the man outside and shouting into her cell with a squeaky, high-pitched voice. She leaned forward and turned to the man, motioning him in, while she continued hollering into the phone.

The man climbed inside as she snapped her cell closed. She leaned toward me and screamed out an address at the same amplification.

“Could you please lower the volume?” I asked. “You’re shouting in my ear.”

“You just take it easily, fella,” the man said belligerently.

“You’re screaming in my ear, ma’m,” I said quietly, “ Can you please speak more softly?”

“Fuck you, asshole,” the old man shouted.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave.”

They climbed out. The man slammed the back-door shut and then opened the front door, stuck his head in and snapped.

“I hope they shoot you tonight!” 

Four Kinds of Karma

I

He was mid-twenties, good looking, nicely dressed in sweater and slacks, obviously well-educated.

I picked him up at the emergency ward of a hospital.

"My brother's dying," he told me.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Bone cancer - nothin' they can do."

"I'm very, very sorry."

"Thanks I appreciate that," he said, "I was wondering if you'd do me a favor?"

"Sure."

"I have to get some things for my brother - can you wait?"

"Sure - no problem."

Ordinarily, I ask for money up front in these situations but what kind of creep would tell a story like that just to beat somebody out of six dollars?

The answer is the guy I had in my cab. I dropped him off at a Pacific Heights apartment and he never came back. It turned out they called him the "Fare Evader." He beat over a hundred cab drivers out of petty cash with similar tales. 

Actually, I later realized that he had come out of the building wearing a hat. He was with a young woman who looked at me with sad, guilty eyes. He must have bragged to her about his brilliance and my stupidity.

I thought that she felt guilty and wanted to tell me but didn't have the courage.

II

He was early twenties, Hispanic and poor.

He desperately flagged me down in the mission.

He got into the front seat. He could barely speak English. He was crying.

"My mama," he said chocking. "Mama ... die."

"I'm sorry," I told him."

"No dinero," he told me.

"Es bueno," I told him.

It was a six dollar fare. He left crying but grateful, saying, I think, that he would pay me back someday.

III

He was overweight, middle-aged and belligerent.

I picked him up on Fisherman's Wharf.

"You got a problem?" Was the first phrase out of his mouth.

I can't remember what I'd said. I think it was "hello."

"There's no problem," I told him, "I don't take drunks."

"I'm not drunk."

I looked at him closely. He was right. He was only high. He didn't have an excuse for the hostility.

"Then, I don't take problems."

He stuck a twenty in my hand and said with annoyance

"Just take me to North Beach."

"I don't have change."

"You don't need it - it's yours."

Twenty dollars for a six dollar ride? It was a slow night. What's wrong with a little belligerence?

We drove a couple of blocks and he reached out to hand me another twenty.

"What's this?" I asked.

"It's yours."

"Thanks"

"What-da-ya think of that?"

"Of what?"

"My over-tipping."

"There's no such thing as over-tipping. That a concept for the filthy rich."

"Then take this," he said, shoving another twenty in my hand.

I looked closely at him again. There wasn't a trace of generosity or kindness in his face.  All I could read there was arrogance. He was giving me the money to prove his superiority, to put me down.

'Demean me,' I thought, 'demean me.'

He hit me one more time with a twenty and left the cab without a word.

Eighty dollars for a six dollar ride. If that didn't prove his point, what would?

IV

He was in his mid-forties, athletic, wearing a sport coat with no tie, ruggedly handsome.

I picked him up coming out of Michael Mina.

He was polite, friendly and personable.

I was playing a classical station.

"I know this piece - what is it?" He asked.

"I know it, too ... but I can't think of it either."

"Schubert?"

"No Brahms -"

"Brahms Third!" We said simultaneously. 

"It's unusual to hear Brahms in a taxi," he said.

"It's even more unusual to find a customer who knows who Brahms is."

"Touché," he said with a laugh.

It's easy to describe sexual attraction and poets wax endlessly on love but how do you describe "like." I liked this guy and he liked me - an instant connection.

He was a bass who'd had master classes with Pavarotti and was currently singing with the opera in Seattle. He told me about how Pavarotti could project his voice so that a whisper could be heard across an auditorium.

I told him about my girlfriend who is composing a song cycle inspired by classical Chinese poetry. He gave me his card so I could send him her CD.

We talked music and art and politics and life. We talked about nothing.

The fare read $12.55. I thought that he's handed me a twenty as he stepped out of the cab. I looked at it. He'd accidentally given me a hundred. I called out to him and he turned back toward me.

"You gave me a hundred by mistake."

"It wasn't a mistake," he said, "best cab ride I ever had."