The inside of most taxi cabs crawl with more bacteria and disease than a petri dish in the Health Alteration department of a government spy organization. The drivers themselves tend toward cleanliness, despite all appearances to the contrary. The passengers, however, often stench up the backseats with the human detritus from their pants pockets, the debris from briefcases, the non-medicinal odor of their breath, and the jet propulsion fluid spurting from their skin pores. For every simple, clean and rosy-cheeked business traveler looking for a comfy hotel room there are seven hundred merchants of grease and decay, either physically or spiritually dilapidated souls in need of another drink or a line of this or a shot of that or a pull on the slot machine or a beating from an estranged spouse or the ear of an exhausted driver looking out for speed traps and more than anything simply wanting to go home and sleep.
Sometimes I imagined that passengers could pay their fares in sleep increments rather than cash or credit. The very fact of being available at all times or else risking the loss of a prospective customer--such a customer, in each driver's imagination, being a high roller headed to Las Vegas and in reality being nothing more than a state assistance veteran wanting to go across the street to the convenience store--it is a condition which so tears at the sleep patterns of a cabbie that he or she will not recognize the degree of deprivation until collapsing into bed and awakening three days later, wondering how exactly things got so out of hand.
There's also the problem of strange black vehicles turning up in the rear view mirror.
On television the cab driver is often portrayed as a struggling actor, a between-novels writer, a needy college student, or a local resource for all things shady. The reality is far more fascinating. The drivers I met during my three-and-one-half years of non-stop behind the wheeling were a puzzling blend of starving Somalians, parolees, retired people padding their pensions or military benefits, or six-time losers who simply feed their various addictions with the adrenaline of the gas pedal and incessant chatter, most of said talk crammed tight with lies.
Chuck never once told the truth in the two years I knew him. He claimed to be a former physics professor who had been in the Marines during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, who'd had a wife who'd died, who supposedly made more money driving a taxi than Bill Gates did in ten years. A guy who called himself Reno never failed to get laid every night of the week, even on nights when I know for a fact that he was passed out in his cheap jack hotel room. Kathy had been a nurse before she was wrongfully terminated for stealing Demerol and further asserted that she had been clean and sober ever since, so that white powder I saw her ingesting off a passenger's shoulder must have been Talcum. Kamul had been a Catholic priest back in Turkey. Raymond had been expert in computer aided design. Ralph had ridden with the Hell's Angels before getting tossed for being too tough. Not a truth teller in the bunch.
Yet here I sit writing these words, a confessed cab driver myself. What are we to make of that? Can anything that follows be trusted? Unless I am the grandest of deluded narcissists, the stories to follow must be of a highly captivating quality or else I have no cause to bother. But if all cabbies are liars, then I must be a liar too. But if I am a liar, then how can you believe me when I assure you that all drivers lie? Must that not mean that they actually speak the truth? I do not know what to make of such a paradox. All I can say is that I was there. I paid attention. I even took notes.
I
What worried me most was the ten pound bag of cocaine stuffed into the driver's side door panel. It set my mind to wondering how many other ten pound bags of cocaine the crazy skank had hidden in the Trans Am, a car not exactly invisible to the radar of the Phoenix Department of Public Safety. I eased off the gas and made an effort to blend in with the other night time drivers heading south on the Interstate, most of whom I felt certain were handling cars they could prove they owned, cars that did not contain large amounts of highly punitive and illegal white and shiny powders.I called Raoul from speed dial. "In the car, headed back to town."
"What's your ETA?"
"Twenty minutes," I said, disconnecting the call. He could just sit and wait until I got there, the impatient scumbag.
I'd driven Raoul north in my cab, let him out at the Home Depot parking lot where the Trans Am had been waiting, just like the lady with the overactive sweat glands had said it would be. I went inside the store to buy a couple mousetraps and some D-Con (I was there anyway, so why not make the most of the trip?). By the time I unlocked the Pontiac and sat my happy ass down in the cool leather bucket seat, Raoul had made it all the way back to the valley, the lead-footed heathen.
I thought about saying something to him when I had him on the cell. I thought about saying, "Dude, you'll never believe what I just found!" I mean, it's not every day that a cabbie from the Big Enchilada comes across a nervous lady in her mid-thirties who says she'll give you two yards for picking up her car and bringing it back to her hotel. Did I think to ask her why she'd left the car in the first place? Yes, I did. Did she lie to me with more cavalier finesse than even a Phoenix cab driver? Yes, she did. She'd said that she'd been too tired to drive the rest of the way in to Phoenix on her mission of mercy for a dying aunt. (An obvious "tell" for identifying a liar is that someone in his or her life is always in the process of dying.) Did I ask her the logical and obvious follow-up question about how did she get from the parking lot of the Home Depot fifty miles south to the Fairmont Hotel? No, I did not. Did I already regret that decision? Indeed I did.
Cops are all over the freeway on Sunday nights, hoping to catch as many stray drivers as possible, folks hoping to shave a little time off their weekend trips from Sedona or Flagstaff, any place where the summer temps were a bit more reasonable. The enthusiasm the highway patrol bring to the apprehension of speeders has nothing whatsoever to do with public safety and everything to do with enhancing revenues. Even though I had bribed my way out of more than a few speeding citations, there was no telling what kind of pressure the police were under to pad the books, so I thought it best to play things mellow. I was already driving one of the world's most conspicuous automobiles, just the sort of sophisticated death trap that should come complete with a set of moving violation tickets in the glove box, just to save everybody some time and trouble. But now I had to decide on an appropriate speed level. Too fast and I would certainly get pulled over. Too slow and I'd be even more conspicuous. I opted for four miles over the limit, which put me at sixty-nine. I couldn't find the cruise control device, if there was one, and I would have been too nervous to use it in any case.
I'm not sure why I decided to feel around in the pocket of the door panel. Actually, that's not entirely true. Maybe that's just the cab driver in me, trying to rationalize after the fact. If the sweaty lady had had some mints or gum in there, I would have taken one, so maybe that was why I snooped. All I know is that I was pulling out of the parking lot of the do-it-yourself boutique when the fingers on my left hand started feeling around for whatever might have been resting in that car pocket when their innocent tips tripped over a sealed baggie. I tapped on the overhead light and looked down at what my hand was bringing up. With far more panache than I typically display, I punctured the bag with my thumb and brought my loyal opposable digit to my lips, teeth and gums. Yep. I knew what that was. That was Cousin Cocaine and I was in a world of hurt.
The fact that I, a man of erudition and poise, was working as a taxi driver might suggest to suspicious sorts that I had somehow lost my way along the path to righteousness and glory. Indeed, I had lost my way so often that neither enhanced stabilization nor GPS could have put me back on the proper route, a condition which may also indicate why it was that I was not only able to recognize the substance in the large baggie but was also able to confidently determine its weight. I knew people who knew people who could have taken ten pounds of soda off my hands for, say, $150,000, had I been so inclined to engage in such an unwholesome enterprise. Between the fear of getting pulled over for something stupid such as an All Points Bulletin for the driver of a 1999 summertime blue Trans Am coupe, license plate WOLB-FM, which sure as hell was no radio station--between the anxiety over that and the uncertainty over who else might be looking for this car--which, after all, I only had sweaty-face's word for it that the car was hers and I knew what the value of a coke head's word was--well, hell's bells and cockle shells, I've lost my train of thought here, but what it comes down to is that I was nervous as a monkey with his tail tied to the tracks, struggling to gain control of my respiration so that I didn't hyperventilate. I took the exit into Black Canyon City and pulled over beneath the canopy of a Union 76 station.
I checked my face in the rear view mirror. I looked reasonably okay for a guy who was scared to death. This just happened to be one of the few remaining full service stations in the state and the boy came dutifully strolling out. I waived him off and he returned my pleasant gesture with a look of contempt. "You still got to pay the full price," he advised me. I popped the gas cap and set the nozzle to a slow drip.
The driver's side bag was resting where I'd left it, nothing but a tiny gouge to indicate I'd even discovered the bounty. I crawled over the seat and opened the glove box, just for kicks. The cards showed the vehicle registered to a Juan Hernandez. The insurance card was expired. That figured. It wasn't as if the cops were likely to talk things over amongst themselves and decide to let the pesky possession charge slide, but go ape shit over the lack of proper auto insurance.
I checked the passenger side panel. Yep, my friend on the driver's side had a twin sister, a discovery which instantly doubled my paranoia.
Before I could investigate further, the pump clicked, letting me know that the boy would be hurrying back out to make sure I paid him without driving off first. "Looks like seven dollars forty-five cent," he said. "You want me to tap it off?"
I shook my head and he rolled his eyes as if to say that he could kiss his tip good-bye. I tucked a ten dollar bill into his palm as the black-and-white pulled up along the other side of the pump.
"I'll has to get your change," the pump jockey said. I said he should go ahead. He told the officer sitting behind the wheel that he'd be back in a second.
Many years earlier I had once felt myself having what I took to be a heart attack. I awoke in the night feeling as if someone had slammed me right in the chest with a sledge hammer. My left arm burned with a numbness. My skin lay in a swamp of sweat. My mouth was barren of moisture. The only thing that had saved my life, or so I was later told, was that I had been determined to stay calm. First time heart attack sufferers usually succumb to the terror and that's what kills them. I stayed as calm as possible, even as I called 911 and crawled over to the front door to let in the paramedics so they wouldn't have to break down the door.
I thought of that as I looked over at the cop and saw him studying my face. "Hey," I said, hoping to sound as much like Goober as possible. Better to be thought of as stupid than culpable.
"Nice car," the officer said without taking his eyes off my face. "That a ninety-eight?"
"Ninety-nine," I said. "Thanks. Gets me where I'm going."
"How fast you had her up to?" That cop just wouldn't look away from me for a second.
I smiled. "I wouldn't want to admit to anything severe."
The cop grinned. He seemed good-natured enough. Still, I wondered. He said, "What size engine you got in that thing?"
I may have been a cab driver but I still don't know shit about cars. "V-8," I said, knowing that wasn't what he meant. "I just change the oil and buy the gas." He kept on grinning and I sighed a relief when the boy came back with my change.
"That's two-fifty-five," he said as I held out my hand.
The cop leaned out his window just slightly. "From the city, I'll bet." I nodded. He said, "I knew it. Crime to drive a sweet ride like that and not know nothing about her."
I stuffed the two dollar bills, the two quarters and one nickle into my jean pockets, said good night to the officer and wheeled out and back onto the Interstate, making my escape neither too fast nor too slow.
I hardly thought at all as I felt the late summer wind brush through my hair from the unrolled window. I sang Beach Boys songs to myself and felt like a kid.
I took the exit off the Interstate and sailed into the Fairmont parking lot. Through the glass door I saw Evelyn, the night auditor. I killed the engine, got out and locked the doors. I walked inside the lobby. Evelyn looked up from her book and smiled. Before she could open her mouth, I said, "Would you let that lady know I'm back with her car, please?"
Evelyn reached under her desk and brought out a thin mailing envelope. She motioned for me to take it. "She said to see that you got this."
It wasn't sealed and I looked inside. Starring back at me were two crisp one hundred dollar bills. That was my reward for retrieving a thirty thousand dollar car and a quarter million in cocaine. Okey-doke. "I want to give her the keys myself."
Evelyn shook her head. "She said for you to leave them with me. Besides, she's over at the Waffle House next door. Only been gone a few minutes."
I dropped the keys onto the desk and walked outside. I found my cab right where Raoul had left it, out in the rear of the hotel. I started up the engine and swung around the lot until I was adjacent to the Waffle House. There she sat, Ms Whatever, slurping her coffee and donut without one care in this wicked old world of hurt. No way in hell was I going to leave until I had satisfied myself that this woman had the car back in her possession. I sat and waited, watching her very much the way that cop in Black Canyon City had watched me. I grinned like a freaking Cheshire.
She finally finished and walked across the shared parking lot into the front desk area where Evelyn handed her the keys belonging to Juan Hernandez. She wiggled her merry way back outside, hesitating as she scanned the lot, then suddenly realizing the car was parked right in front of where she stood. She flicked the remote, the car beeped, and she opened the driver side door. She checked both pockets, seemed satisfied, didn't appear to notice the thumb-hole in the one bag, shut the door and activated the lock. She tossed back her hair and returned to the hotel, walking by Evelyn without a word and disappearing, I presume, into the safety of her own hotel room.
I was already kicking myself a hundred different ways. I should have kept the cocaine myself, a voice said. I should have extorted a bigger reward, said a second voice. You should have kept both the car and the coke. You should have told Raoul. He would have known what to do. After all, he was one of the friends of a friend who you would have sought out.
I sat in the parking lot, watching the summertime blue car until sun-up, somewhere near the time I apparently fell asleep. When I awakened, my watch said a little after eight in the morning. Evelyn was no longer behind the front desk. The Trans Am no longer sat in the parking lot. Ms Whatever was already gone. I'd had my big chance. Instead, I'd done the right thing, approximately. Granted, I hadn't turned her in or confronted her, but I hadn't ripped her off, either. I had walked away from a chance to get out of the lifestyle of the professional cab driver and return to the lifestyle of a professional whatever the hell I had been.
The Pinal County Sheriff's deputies found the summertime blue 1999 Trans Am license WOLB-FM in a culvert thirty miles south of Tucson. A blood-drenched and limbless female torso was discovered in the car's trunk. Both car doors had been torn off and confiscated, causing some in the Sheriff's office to suspect that drugs or weapons had been secured inside the doors themselves, something that had not occurred to me. No tire tracks leading away from the culvert were discovered, although the trail of several desert animals feasting on the remains of Ms Whatever were photographed and made their way into the Sheriff's report.
The case remains open.
II
I was on the I-17 going north with little Randall Wanamaker chewing on a feeding tube and all of a sudden there's no more sound coming out of the baby. Hey, it's not like I could pull off the freaking road, you know? So I'm keeping one eye on the highway, one eye in the rear view mirror, and I'm feeling around in the seat behind me, trying to ascertain if this two-day-old child placed in my reckless care is still breathing. Kids, man. They'll scare you to death.
So, everything with little Randall turned out fine. I mean, he was just making a face while he filled his diaper and I guess he decided he couldn't poop and breathe in synchronicity. All the same, it gave me a hell of a scare.
I get there, though, up in Kingman, probably four to four-and-a-half hours after we start out and I end up at the Child Protective Services office right there on the main drag in town. The lady in charge, she unbuckles the car seat and lifts the thing up like a professional weightlifter might do and she smiles at me and signs the form with her free hand and that's it. The thing of it is that this strikes me even now as being one unfortunate way to spend the second day of your life on this planet.
I had regulars, even with the CPS business. There was this gal named Rita, thirty-five years old, with eight kids! She lived up north in a little quaint village called Cottonwood. I used to drive up there about once a month and bring her down to Phoenix where she would go to the public library and enjoy a supervised two hours with her eight children, two of whom were twins. I let her ride up front because that's what she asked to do and besides, it was a two hour trip and it was easier to talk that way. She would yak about her husband. He was always going to be getting out of the slams any time soon. He was doing a five year stretch for meth production and distribution. I wondered if she saw him often and then I remembered that her youngest child was sixth months old. I can do math.
Funny enough, it was the older kids who really got to me. You know, the ones who truly shook me up inside and made me hurt for them in their situation. A good bit of the time, with CPS kids, it was the parents who were the screw-ups. But once in a while you'd have a situation where the kid had gotten into some kind of trouble. Maybe the parents were trash, maybe they were fine. It can happen in any family. Well, there was this place, it still exists, called Canyon State Academy. It's way out in the outskirts of a town called Queen Creek. I still recall the address: 20061 East Rittenhouse Road. Jesus, the things a guy remembers. Anyway, it was like my second day on the job and I was driving this old piece of garbage Crown Victoria that had at one time been a cop car and carried something like 450,000 miles on the odometer. The damned thing only ran on compressed natural gas, or CNG. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's not a lot of places around that sell that particular type of fuel. The boss man, Fred, a guy I've written about here before, he says to me in that gruff voice of his, "Listen to me. Put twenty dollars CNG in you tank, okay? You pick up this kid, you take him to his doctor office, you wait, you take him back, is yes? This good trip. You make big dollar."
See, I only had twenty bucks on me at that time, so I only put ten of it in the tank. That was very stupid of me. By the time I got to Canyon State Academy (which was a sort of school that focused on athletics more than academics and from what the kids themselves told me was really the last alternative to locking them up in juvie detention), the fuel indicator light was on. It turns out that CNG gives you something less than eight miles to the gallon. Whoops. So the kid gets in the car and wants to listen to the radio and I say, "Don't worry about the radio. Just worry that we have about forty miles to go and not enough gas to get there." This kid, probably a nice guy, I don't really remember, he's all white knuckles and silence in the back seat. There is no place besides the taxi shack and the airport that sells freaking CNG and by the time I got within one hundred feet of the shack the engine stopped and I had to push the car up to the fuel dispenser. By this time we are already one hour late for the kid's appointment and we aren't even there yet. Fred is standing there outside so he can publicly yell at me and that is what he did as I coughed up the other ten dollars and put the CNG in the tank. After he yelled at me for three minutes, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, sotto voce, "Don't worry, kid. It be all right."
That Fred was a hell of a guy.
I got the kid to the doctor's office and the receptionist stood right beside the doctor and the latter said, "Son, you're too late for this appointment. Nancy will reschedule you."
That kind of crap was just always happening in those days.
Another time I was sent to Oak Creek Canyon, a mostly high-end area, except for the part I was going to, the mission being to pick up a mother and son and bring them back to Phoenix. It was night. It had been raining. And I had never been to Oak Creek Canyon before. As a matter of fact, it would be fair to say that I know YOU better than I know that town. Okay. So I finally find the house these two are staying in. There's wet clay everywhere and I see right away that my taxi-van is going to get stuck, but there's no time to worry because these two are being evicted right on the spot and so everybody starts to load all of these people's very last possessions into the sinking van. By that point in my life I figured I'd been everywhere and seen everything so I didn't get in spaz-mode over things like a taxi in quicksand any longer. I helped them load their junk and just when I think we're done, the boy--who was about fourteen and not quite right in the head--says he forgot something and runs back in. Meanwhile, I'm rocking the van loose from the clay. When I get back in the driver's eat, I notice the kid is holding one of those aquariums for reptiles and amphibians, whatever they're called. The lid is off and he's talking to a bunch of tiny little frogs and a big-ass golden colored snake, probably about a foot-and-a-half long. I didn't ask the kid what kind of snake it was because it didn't matter to me since I treat all snakes the same way which is to say I stay the fuck away from them. I told the kid to put the snake back in the terrarium--that's what I think it was--and we rolled on down the highway.
About halfway there the kid takes the snake out of the terrarium and plops it down on my shoulder while I am driving. I did not crash the vehicle. That's all I'm saying about that.
A few hours later we arrived at the parking lot of the CPS office in downtown Phoenix. No one from the organization was there to meet us. I called Fred. He said, "Put the woman in a motel. CPS is on way. You be all right."
Like an idiot, I paid for the woman's motel room out of my own pocket and a few hours later CPS came and got the kid. Three weeks later I was still picking dead frogs out of the upholstery.
These anecdotes are, I suppose, vaguely amusing and that is nice. The point, however, should not be disregarded. The lives of these people got messed up because (in most cases) the grown-ups made a bad decision. They may or may not have been bad people. That is not for me to say. But even good people screw up sometimes and unfortunately the consequences can be rather unforgiving. These stories I've related and hundreds more forever changed the way I feel in this world. I try not to take any moment of pleasure for granted because I've seen just how fleeting those moments can be.
I get there, though, up in Kingman, probably four to four-and-a-half hours after we start out and I end up at the Child Protective Services office right there on the main drag in town. The lady in charge, she unbuckles the car seat and lifts the thing up like a professional weightlifter might do and she smiles at me and signs the form with her free hand and that's it. The thing of it is that this strikes me even now as being one unfortunate way to spend the second day of your life on this planet.
I had regulars, even with the CPS business. There was this gal named Rita, thirty-five years old, with eight kids! She lived up north in a little quaint village called Cottonwood. I used to drive up there about once a month and bring her down to Phoenix where she would go to the public library and enjoy a supervised two hours with her eight children, two of whom were twins. I let her ride up front because that's what she asked to do and besides, it was a two hour trip and it was easier to talk that way. She would yak about her husband. He was always going to be getting out of the slams any time soon. He was doing a five year stretch for meth production and distribution. I wondered if she saw him often and then I remembered that her youngest child was sixth months old. I can do math.
Funny enough, it was the older kids who really got to me. You know, the ones who truly shook me up inside and made me hurt for them in their situation. A good bit of the time, with CPS kids, it was the parents who were the screw-ups. But once in a while you'd have a situation where the kid had gotten into some kind of trouble. Maybe the parents were trash, maybe they were fine. It can happen in any family. Well, there was this place, it still exists, called Canyon State Academy. It's way out in the outskirts of a town called Queen Creek. I still recall the address: 20061 East Rittenhouse Road. Jesus, the things a guy remembers. Anyway, it was like my second day on the job and I was driving this old piece of garbage Crown Victoria that had at one time been a cop car and carried something like 450,000 miles on the odometer. The damned thing only ran on compressed natural gas, or CNG. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's not a lot of places around that sell that particular type of fuel. The boss man, Fred, a guy I've written about here before, he says to me in that gruff voice of his, "Listen to me. Put twenty dollars CNG in you tank, okay? You pick up this kid, you take him to his doctor office, you wait, you take him back, is yes? This good trip. You make big dollar."
See, I only had twenty bucks on me at that time, so I only put ten of it in the tank. That was very stupid of me. By the time I got to Canyon State Academy (which was a sort of school that focused on athletics more than academics and from what the kids themselves told me was really the last alternative to locking them up in juvie detention), the fuel indicator light was on. It turns out that CNG gives you something less than eight miles to the gallon. Whoops. So the kid gets in the car and wants to listen to the radio and I say, "Don't worry about the radio. Just worry that we have about forty miles to go and not enough gas to get there." This kid, probably a nice guy, I don't really remember, he's all white knuckles and silence in the back seat. There is no place besides the taxi shack and the airport that sells freaking CNG and by the time I got within one hundred feet of the shack the engine stopped and I had to push the car up to the fuel dispenser. By this time we are already one hour late for the kid's appointment and we aren't even there yet. Fred is standing there outside so he can publicly yell at me and that is what he did as I coughed up the other ten dollars and put the CNG in the tank. After he yelled at me for three minutes, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, sotto voce, "Don't worry, kid. It be all right."
That Fred was a hell of a guy.
I got the kid to the doctor's office and the receptionist stood right beside the doctor and the latter said, "Son, you're too late for this appointment. Nancy will reschedule you."
That kind of crap was just always happening in those days.
Another time I was sent to Oak Creek Canyon, a mostly high-end area, except for the part I was going to, the mission being to pick up a mother and son and bring them back to Phoenix. It was night. It had been raining. And I had never been to Oak Creek Canyon before. As a matter of fact, it would be fair to say that I know YOU better than I know that town. Okay. So I finally find the house these two are staying in. There's wet clay everywhere and I see right away that my taxi-van is going to get stuck, but there's no time to worry because these two are being evicted right on the spot and so everybody starts to load all of these people's very last possessions into the sinking van. By that point in my life I figured I'd been everywhere and seen everything so I didn't get in spaz-mode over things like a taxi in quicksand any longer. I helped them load their junk and just when I think we're done, the boy--who was about fourteen and not quite right in the head--says he forgot something and runs back in. Meanwhile, I'm rocking the van loose from the clay. When I get back in the driver's eat, I notice the kid is holding one of those aquariums for reptiles and amphibians, whatever they're called. The lid is off and he's talking to a bunch of tiny little frogs and a big-ass golden colored snake, probably about a foot-and-a-half long. I didn't ask the kid what kind of snake it was because it didn't matter to me since I treat all snakes the same way which is to say I stay the fuck away from them. I told the kid to put the snake back in the terrarium--that's what I think it was--and we rolled on down the highway.
About halfway there the kid takes the snake out of the terrarium and plops it down on my shoulder while I am driving. I did not crash the vehicle. That's all I'm saying about that.
A few hours later we arrived at the parking lot of the CPS office in downtown Phoenix. No one from the organization was there to meet us. I called Fred. He said, "Put the woman in a motel. CPS is on way. You be all right."
Like an idiot, I paid for the woman's motel room out of my own pocket and a few hours later CPS came and got the kid. Three weeks later I was still picking dead frogs out of the upholstery.
These anecdotes are, I suppose, vaguely amusing and that is nice. The point, however, should not be disregarded. The lives of these people got messed up because (in most cases) the grown-ups made a bad decision. They may or may not have been bad people. That is not for me to say. But even good people screw up sometimes and unfortunately the consequences can be rather unforgiving. These stories I've related and hundreds more forever changed the way I feel in this world. I try not to take any moment of pleasure for granted because I've seen just how fleeting those moments can be.
III
I drove a taxi for three-and-one-half years, equating to thirty-seven years in human time. Therefore, I feel somewhat qualified to form and express an opinion as to what type of individual selects this profession. There is something very wrong with the majority of these people. As to the few who are not disturbed prior to joining the ranks of the perpetually late and lost, it may be safely assumed that they will have fallen from Grace by the end of the first week of transporting other people for a living. Gambling, drinking, doping and womanizing are—in that order—the most common addictions to lead one into the beneath-the-radar world of the professional hack. Anyone damaged enough to believe that the glint of reflection from a poker chip, an ice cube, a hypodermic needle or a stripper’s eyes in any way leads to long term happiness is well-suited for this business, as is the distraught fellow who cons himself into believing he can actually get ahead in such a racket.
I fell into the latter category. After being robbed three times in two months, I decided I needed a different sort of clientele than one tends to find by taking calls off the dispatch radio and so went out on my own. I became a gypsy. I bought a high-mileage Lincoln Town Car, swerved through the minimal bureaucracy required for legality in Arizona, and handed out stacks of business cards. Nearby hotels were enthusiastic. What I lacked in experience I made up for in contrast to my distant behind-the-wheel colleagues by capitalizing on the unfortunate bigotry possessed by my new select clientele. First of all, I owned my own vehicle. That meant that I kept the car in good working order and took quiet pride in the fact that whenever the Check Engine Light came on, I actually checked the engine rather than using the typical taxi driver’s solution of applying a strip of electric tape to blot out the warning signal. Second, I was not addicted to drink or drug. Third, I prioritized personal hygiene far above getting my pencil sharpened down at Madame Leah’s House of Obedience. And finally, I did not appear to come from the country of Somalia.
Six hotels accounted for ninety percent of my business. Most of these were Marriott properties and the majority of their customers were exhausted business travelers, most of whom required very basic transportation to and from the airport. The next largest chunk of my customers were personals, or what the rest of the world would call local individuals who call one specific driver for all their transportation needs. After that came a small number of drunks and occasional mystery callers whose source of referral would be murky. This latter type often may have been infuriating, but also tended to yield the best compensation, so it was a rare thing for me to pass on one of these calls, just as it was unusual for me to enjoy it.
I was asleep. The telephone rang. I grunted a greeting. It was Bobbi Jo. She said, “One of the dancers has a customer whose brother has a friend who says he might need a ride Tuesday, sometime, he’s not sure when. Are you available?”
“Who is this?” I asked, hoping to stall until my brain returned to its normal alignment.
“This is Bobbi Jo! Come on, Phil. You know who it is. Are you free Tuesday?”
I asked my dog Roscoe to check my calendar.
Bobbi Jo would feed me business like this once in a while in exchange for a free ride home from work. I remembered that I almost always got the better part of these deals, so I said “Yeah, sure,” and went back to sleep.
“This is Bobbi Jo! Come on, Phil. You know who it is. Are you free Tuesday?”
I asked my dog Roscoe to check my calendar.
Bobbi Jo would feed me business like this once in a while in exchange for a free ride home from work. I remembered that I almost always got the better part of these deals, so I said “Yeah, sure,” and went back to sleep.
Sure enough, Tuesday came and a voice I did not know said over the telephone, “How long will it take you to get here?”
Some small number of people presume that their taxi driver has mental capacities which allow him or her to know everything about the customer, every detail from what the anonymous stranger looks like to his or her present location. Much as I hated to dispel this illusion, I asked, “Where are you?”
“Residence Inn,” came the soulless charcoal voice. “Eighty-Third Avenue and the 101 Freeway. I’m going to the Airport. I’m wearing a blue leisure suit. Hurry up.”
I hate being told to hurry up. Nevertheless I arrived in seven minutes. The man was not joking about the leisure suit.
I introduced myself. He slumped into the backseat. “Can I trust you?” he asked as we roared off. I told him I thought so.“Residence Inn,” came the soulless charcoal voice. “Eighty-Third Avenue and the 101 Freeway. I’m going to the Airport. I’m wearing a blue leisure suit. Hurry up.”
I hate being told to hurry up. Nevertheless I arrived in seven minutes. The man was not joking about the leisure suit.
Watching my expression in the rearview mirror, he asked, “Do you know the name Cokie Roberts?”
I told him I did. “ABC News? National Public Radio?”
I watched him nod. He said, “I’m her father. I find myself in a bit of trouble. The young lady who recommended you swears that you are reliable. Do you think you can help me?”
I know my share of history, even when I’m delirious from lack of proper sleep. “Cokie Roberts’ father, you say? That would make you Hale Boggs?”
“Correct.” Pure charcoal, no soul.
“Congressman Hale Boggs from Louisiana?”
“Indeed.”
I adjusted the mirror and gave my passenger a long, soft stare. “You disappeared back in 1972, you and a guy from Alaska.”
“Congressman Begich.”
“Your plane was never found.”
“I see.”
“And yet here you are in the backseat of my car.”
“Here I am.”
The man plopped into the rear of my Town Car with only two briefcases for luggage certainly looked old and crafty enough to have been a politician. I smiled into the mirror. He smiled back. I said, “Hey, you know, a lot of people have been worried sick about you! Where the hell you been?”
The normal ride to the Airport took twenty minutes. This was not an ordinary ride. So I shut my sarcastic mouth and listened. He told me that he had made trouble for himself a year before he officially disappeared. “I’d been in World War II. I’d met dignitaries and the hoi polloi. So when that pipsqueak Director of the FBI tapped my phone, well, young man, I was mortified. I marched right into the House Galley and called for the resignation of J. Edgar Hoover. Only two people had ever done that before and both of them were dead: John and Robert Kennedy. Shoot, I’d been on the Warren Commission. I knew what these FBI bastards were capable of doing. Well, the excitement died out after a while. I calmed down and after a time I didn’t give the matter much more thought. Then one day I had a visit from a fellow in New Orleans. A public figure there. He gave me information that linked the then-recent break-in at the Watergate with the assassination of JFK. He wanted my help.”
I liked this. It was much more interesting than the guy who told me he was Paula Abdul’s illegitimate grandson.
My passenger pointed to the Freeway exit, which was not the way to the Airport. I followed his instructions. He continued with his story.
“October 16, 1972. I was scheduled to board a Cessna 310C in Anchorage and fly to Juneau. My friend in New Orleans called my hotel and said I should miss that plane. So I did. I learned later that night that the plane disappeared. The Coast Guard and the Air Force searched for thirty-nine days and never did find it.”
We hopped on Route 60 westbound towards Wickenburg. I was getting uncomfortable. I asked where he had been all these years.
“I took up with an Inuit woman and we muled for some Chinese heroin traffickers. Well, we did until Sak Red—that was her name—until she burned one of the Tibetan juice guys. Since then I have been holed up on Nogales, biding my time and watching a lot of TV.”
“That’s some story,” I said, following his instructions by taking the 303 Freeway southbound. “How may I be of service, sir?” This was where I expected to be asked for a donation. But he surprised me.
He patted my shoulder. “I’m old, son. May not have a lot of spare time left. I want you to take this Route over to the I-10 and go east. That’ll take us to the Airport. Long way around. I’m going to leave one of these two briefcases in your car. Cokie’s at the Biltmore tonight. You bring her the briefcase. Tell her it’s from Tom.”
“Tom?”
“She’ll know. Do not ask her a truckload of questions. Don’t go into any detail. Just do this for me. Here, take this.”
He folded four one hundred dollar bills into my hand.
“I’m not happy about this,” I said.
He again patted my shoulder. “We’re public servants, young man. Happy doesn’t enter in to it.”
I dropped him off at Terminal 2, the United Airlines ticket counter. He left the briefcase with me.“I took up with an Inuit woman and we muled for some Chinese heroin traffickers. Well, we did until Sak Red—that was her name—until she burned one of the Tibetan juice guys. Since then I have been holed up on Nogales, biding my time and watching a lot of TV.”
“That’s some story,” I said, following his instructions by taking the 303 Freeway southbound. “How may I be of service, sir?” This was where I expected to be asked for a donation. But he surprised me.
He patted my shoulder. “I’m old, son. May not have a lot of spare time left. I want you to take this Route over to the I-10 and go east. That’ll take us to the Airport. Long way around. I’m going to leave one of these two briefcases in your car. Cokie’s at the Biltmore tonight. You bring her the briefcase. Tell her it’s from Tom.”
“Tom?”
“She’ll know. Do not ask her a truckload of questions. Don’t go into any detail. Just do this for me. Here, take this.”
He folded four one hundred dollar bills into my hand.
“I’m not happy about this,” I said.
He again patted my shoulder. “We’re public servants, young man. Happy doesn’t enter in to it.”
I floored the gas and shot over to the Biltmore Hotel. I parked alongside the jogging path, turned off my top light, and examined the case. Oxblood, fake leather, not too heavy. I pictured myself getting arrested by federal agents for handing Cokie Roberts a case full of anthrax and dynamite. I pictured myself screaming at the TSA guys, “Wait! You don’t understand! This belongs to Hale Boggs, the missing Congressman!” That did not provoke much courage in me so I flicked open the dual locks and looked inside. All I saw was a manila envelope. I took it in hand and tore it opened. I found some photographs and a note that read: “Come to my garden at Trenton and Main where the crows and the alligators stick in the drain.” Dr. Seuss had nothing to worry about. As for the pictures, there were seven of them, all shots of Cubans, all of them with the faces circled in red ink.
It was very much out of character for me to buy into a lunatic’s delusions, having more than enough of my own to consume my time, but this was so bizarre that I wondered if any of it amounted to anything. While wondering, I parked the Town Car, walked right by the smirking valet and into the old world hotel. I approached the front desk, placed the briefcase on the counter and wondered what to say. I read the name tag of the brunette behind the counter. Jennifer asked how she could help me. I told her I had a car service and that one of my passengers had asked me to drop off something for one of the hotel’s guests. This Jennifer’s face took on the wide-eyed stare of teenage mania. “Oh my God! Is this the package that’s for Ms. Roberts on that TV show on Sundays?”
I told her it was.
“Oh my God! I could get in like just so much trouble for telling you this.” She stopped to breathe. “Ms. Roberts was delayed or something and she won’t be here for like hours. I can put this in the hotel safe for her.”
So surprised was I to learn that Cokie Roberts was actually staying at the hotel that I stuttered out my answer that what she’d said would be just fine. I gave Jennifer the briefcase. She inventoried the meager contents, placed everything in the hotel safe, and gave me a receipt. I tipped her twenty dollars. “Oh yeah,” I said, over my shoulder as I walked away, “Be sure to tell her that briefcase is from Tom.”
I watched the evening news every night for a month, read the local and national papers, and even called a guy I barely knew at CNN. There was no news on Kennedy, Watergate, a long-missing Congressman, or anything else besides a raging war in Iraq and a booming economy for two percent of the people who lived in America.
The truth is that I probably would not remember all this in such detail except for three things. First, I looked up Hale Boggs on the Internet and there was a faint resemblance to my passenger if you added thirty-five years and used your imagination. Second, it turns out the Congressman’s real first name, which he seldom used, was Thomas. And third, a black Mercedes 450 SLC stayed in my rearview mirror for a solid week. After that it reappeared on and off for another seven days. One morning it was simply gone, although it reappeared occasionally over the next several months.
The day after I dropped off the briefcase, I called the Biltmore to make sure Cokie Roberts had picked up the item I’d left for her. The front desk person sounded bewildered and transferred my call to the assistant manager, a fellow named Jeffrey. This Jeffrey told me it was against hotel policy to discuss guests with anyone and certainly I could understand that, couldn’t I? He reckoned thus even though I was obviously confused because they did not have anyone named Jennifer working at their hotel and as far as he knew they never had.
I hung up and grabbed my wallet, where I’d kept the hotel receipt. It had apparently fallen out during one of my few financial transactions.
My only other clue was Bobbi Jo, a long shot at best. I called the bar where she worked. She had been fired. Nobody knew why. The world was crazy as a soup sandwich. I taped the message about crows and alligators to my car’s visor, just for old time’s sake.
I continued to take mystery referrals over the next couple years. They helped me pay the bills and buy a little relief here and there. I never did enjoy a single one of those mystery trips, but as a wise man once told me, happy doesn’t enter into it.
Although I drove a taxi in Arizona for a few years, I no longer do so. There are three excellent reasons why I stopped doing this. First, twenty-five hundred taxi cabs are licensed and operating in Maricopa County, which is about twice as many as are needed. Second, many of my passengers were too strange for my taste. And third, I became tired of being robbed at gunpoint. (I did not care to be robbed in any manner, but guns are much more distressing than, say, a slingshot or a water pistol.) Anyone who has ever ridden in a taxi (or robbed one) may find my point of view on the subject enlightening. I hung up and grabbed my wallet, where I’d kept the hotel receipt. It had apparently fallen out during one of my few financial transactions.
My only other clue was Bobbi Jo, a long shot at best. I called the bar where she worked. She had been fired. Nobody knew why. The world was crazy as a soup sandwich. I taped the message about crows and alligators to my car’s visor, just for old time’s sake.
I continued to take mystery referrals over the next couple years. They helped me pay the bills and buy a little relief here and there. I never did enjoy a single one of those mystery trips, but as a wise man once told me, happy doesn’t enter into it.
IV
When I began driving a cab in 2005, the state had licensed only about 1,200 taxis in Maricopa County. At that time I owned my own taxi and my business was very good. Granted, I worked fourteen hours most days, but the money was excellent and because there were far more people who needed me than I could possibly accommodate, many customers were literally begging for my business. I liked it when the customer begged. It gave me a sense of being in control. But far too soon, the State of Arizona began issuing licenses to almost anyone who could pay the fee. As a result, in Old Town Scottsdale, for example, hundreds of cabs would circle the blocks for hours hoping for a fare. Fortunately, I charmed my way into the good graces of some front desk people at nearby hotels and their business kept me going. But the money was not quite as good.
Another thing that changed with the times was the nature of my passengers. When I began the job, most of the people I picked up were professional types who wanted to go to the airport or to some other easily identifiable location. But as more and more cabs flooded the market, many of my customers became quite odd. Many were intoxicated. I recall one evening in Old Town, five drunken women tried to get into the back seat of my Lincoln Town Car. There was not enough room, so one of them crawled over the seat and climbed up front with me. In the process of doing this, her six inch heel punctured a styrofoam cup of mine that was filled with Coca-Cola. Once she finally disgorged her heel from my drink, a thin spray of soda shot out through the hole and landed in her lap. She drew her hands up to her face, turned to her friends in the backseat and told them she had wet herself. I did not bother to correct her. I had really planned on drinking that Coke myself.
To be fair, I could have endured both the unfair competition and the insane passengers were it not for the added disgrace of getting robbed. After the first time someone held me up, I wised up a bit and began carrying two wallets: one with thirty dollars in it and another with my real money. Few robbers expect a driver to be smart enough to carry two billfolds. Then again, I did not expect a robber to be smart enough to figure out my scheme. Maybe intelligence thrives on holidays. I say that because on Christmas Morning, 2007, I was parked near Broadway and 40th Street, standing outside my taxi, trying to read my map and figure out where in the world I was going. I heard a voice behind me ask if I was lost. It was such a stupid question that I ignored it and went on scanning my map. The voice repeated itself. I was very flustered by now and spun around with the intention of telling the guy off, when I noticed he was wearing a floppy Santa Claus hat, holding a small revolver and pointing it at me. He took the wallet I handed him and then asked for another. At least he did not wish me Merry Christmas.
I hung up my keys the following day. Since that time I have worked in a few other capacities in different industries, none of them having anything to do with transportation. The jobs have not been especially interesting, I’ll admit. But so far no one has punctured my cup with her shoe. No black cars have appeared in my rear view mirror. And no one has robbed me on Christmas Day.
V
The majority of the time I was driving I worked for myself, which is to say that I owned my own car and had no one to report to except me. That also meant I had to drum up my own business and take it where I found it. It was during one such excursion that I found myself in Phoenix at 19th Avenue near Bell Road, which, for the benefit of you out of towners, is in the northwest valley.
I looked at the woman through my rear view mirror. She was slumped into the backseat, leaning to one side, that phone cradled against her head as if it were a pillow.
A woman about thirty flagged me down and I u-turned in the middle of the street during what might be thought of as an otherwise slow period, some time between three and four in the morning. She plopped down in the backseat with her mouth pressed up against a slimy-looking cell phone. "Fifth Street and Fillmore," she mumbled.
"Shit," I said to myself. "That's a scuzzy part of town. I'll bet this bitch ain't got no money." I always talked that way in those days because I wanted to avoid people saying things like, "My goodness, young man, you have quite the extensive vocabulary and refined erudition for a man in your position, don't you know?"
"Honey, you got any cash on ya?"
She mumbled something I couldn't understand. I repeated what I'd said.
"He'll pay you when we get there."
That's what we in the business think of as bullshit.
I told her what I thought.
She repeated herself.
I was in a bit of a jam. The ride would earn me forty bucks if there really was a he waiting at the other end of this trip. On the other hand, she looked like a jumper, somebody who would open the door at the last second and run like hell through the dark night in a part of town where I personally did not relish running after her. On yet another hand, which I could have probably used, if I refused the trip at this point I would have to stop the car and somehow disgorge her relaxed body from the rear of the vehicle, presumably stranding her, assuming I could get her out without those three inch nails scratching me to death.
I decided to take my chances with the he.
She wasn't much on conversation. All I could hear her do was mumble into that frigging phone of hers as we rode through the night, passing pick up trucks hauling lawn mowers and smiling at police officers weary from long shifts. I turned onto Fillmore at Central and made a left. The farther we drove the worse it looked. To my left sat buildings that were probably shooting galleries, dilapidated rust factories, and empty parking lots. To my right loomed a string of box homes that should have been abandoned centuries earlier. I squinted at the curb on my right, trying to see the address she had given me.
"This is it," she said. I heard her try to unlock the back door. I had already master locked it. "You wanna let me out so he can pay you?"
I saw a guy, I'm guessing he was about twenty, standing alongside the cab, right by my driver's side window. I clicked open her lock and she sprang out.
I auto-powered my window down about halfway and said, "$40.70, please," to the man.
He smiled. I grinned. He pulled something out from under his shirt. I stopped grinning. Just as he was about to ram the pistol into my face I floored the accelerator, knocking him to one side as I roared away.
I would have roared away, that is, had the street gone all the way through, which it did not. When I reached Sixth Street, I hit a dead end and spun back around. My headlights caught a glimpse of the young man picking himself up off the ground. I couldn't see too clearly but my intuition told me he was not in a good mood.I decided to take my chances with the he.
She wasn't much on conversation. All I could hear her do was mumble into that frigging phone of hers as we rode through the night, passing pick up trucks hauling lawn mowers and smiling at police officers weary from long shifts. I turned onto Fillmore at Central and made a left. The farther we drove the worse it looked. To my left sat buildings that were probably shooting galleries, dilapidated rust factories, and empty parking lots. To my right loomed a string of box homes that should have been abandoned centuries earlier. I squinted at the curb on my right, trying to see the address she had given me.
"This is it," she said. I heard her try to unlock the back door. I had already master locked it. "You wanna let me out so he can pay you?"
I saw a guy, I'm guessing he was about twenty, standing alongside the cab, right by my driver's side window. I clicked open her lock and she sprang out.
I auto-powered my window down about halfway and said, "$40.70, please," to the man.
He smiled. I grinned. He pulled something out from under his shirt. I stopped grinning. Just as he was about to ram the pistol into my face I floored the accelerator, knocking him to one side as I roared away.
I pushed the pedal down and hit fifty miles an hour on a street where fifteen is dangerous. He was feeling around on the ground for his gun. I blew my horn and brushed by him, neither of us all that concerned about the fare any longer. The woman threw something that bounced off the back glass. I ran the next stop sign and took a turn at a speed that lifted at least one wheel off the ground. I wasn't concerned that this made me look like a coward. When I am actually afraid for my life, disguising fear is low on my priority list.
I got a ticket, of course. The police officer thought my story was a little funny. He didn't care to investigate the veracity of my tale and I couldn't really blame him. It was getting cold.
VI
"You go to Mingus Mountain Girls Academy," he said. "You pick up Lindsey Ragen. You take her to Kingman. The trip pay $750. You wants it?" I told him I did. He handed me a sheet of paper with the details on it. I thanked him and jumped in the Crown Victoria with 450,000 miles on the odometer and peeled out.
It took me forever to find Mingus Mountain. It took even longer than that to find the Girls Academy because the address Fred had given me was wrong. When I finally saw a tiny sign in the fog bank that read Mingus Mountain Girls Academy, I wheeled the car up and down unpaved roads and winding trails where I could hear but not quite see wild dogs flailing themselves onto the side of the Crown Vic.
I arrived at the gate three hours later than the piece of paper Fred had given me said I was supposed to get there. But then again I hadn't received the assignment until after the time I was supposed to be there, so I didn't feel all that bad about it. I signed Lindsey Ragen out and she plopped herself merrily into the backseat. She was a skinny thirteen year old with blonde hair and a singsong voice. The first thing she said was, "Goddamn, I'm glad to get the fuck outta that place! Shit the fuck. Been locked up in that crapper for three years. You know why?"It took me forever to find Mingus Mountain. It took even longer than that to find the Girls Academy because the address Fred had given me was wrong. When I finally saw a tiny sign in the fog bank that read Mingus Mountain Girls Academy, I wheeled the car up and down unpaved roads and winding trails where I could hear but not quite see wild dogs flailing themselves onto the side of the Crown Vic.
I said I did not.
She was happy to explain. "My parents, they're like Fred and Ethel, y'know? Dumb as dog vomit. They got in a big fight with shooting and knives and drugs and shit and the judge, once he'd sentenced them to like life without parole or some such shit, he didn't know what to do with me so he sent me across the hall to family court and they said I had to be incorrigible because my parents were insane so they shipped my happy ass off to that hell hole in the wall back there so thank you thank you thank you for getting me outta there because I really do not think I would be lying if I said I hated it there because you have all these dyke girls crawling on ya when you just want to sleep and you got the bulls--that's the guards--fondling you like they think you're sixteen and interested and all I ever did anyway was just cry the whole time until my friend Jenny--that's Jenny with a Y--she'd kick your ass if you got that wrong--she and I got to be friends and just about that time I heard I was in for an early release which I guess is where you come in. My name's Lindsey. What's yours?"
"What's in Kingman?"
"Kingman? Oh, I'm catching a plane from there to Eugene, Oregon. Yep. My step dad--he's a nice guy--and my real mother--not the one who got sent up--they are gonna take me home to Oregon. Well, it's not really my home, it's just that that's where I was born even though I don't remember. Hey, do you think we could stop at that Dairy Queen, there? I haven't had an ice cream in years?"
Two things: One, the last thing this kid needed was a sugar rush. Two, the rules said you didn't make unauthorized stops. But doggone it, the idea of a hot fudge sundae did sound pretty good and I needed to get gas anyway, and there was a filling station right next door.
We ate our ice cream. Sitting on an old bench in front of the dairy Queen I let her tell me her life's story, one which made incongruous changes about every third sentence. I wasn't paying too much attention to the time. I figured as long as we got to the Kingman CPS office by early afternoon we would be there in plenty of time. After all, her flight, she said, didn't leave until the next day.
We found the Child protective Services office right in the east side of town. She hopped out of the car and I followed her up the stairs. I signed in at the front desk and she went off with a matron. I noticed right away that the people who worked in that office were giving me the greasy eyeball, but I just chocked that up to the prejudice that a lot of people have against cab drivers.
As it turned out, the two women in charge of Lindsey's case wanted to talk to me. The older of the two women did most of the talking. "Where have you been?" was her first question.
We had our little tete a tete in a large conference room. I was nervous. I was new to all this stuff and had no idea what was going on. What was going on was that the people in that office had expected us three hours earlier. When they had called Fred, he had lied and said that I had left in plenty of time to get there ahead of schedule. (I later learned that Fred always did this as a way of keeping the clients happy with him and mad at the drivers). To his credit, Fred had tried to reach me by phone but my lousy stinking Cricket device didn't work up in the mountains so, technically, no one had known where I was.As it turned out, the two women in charge of Lindsey's case wanted to talk to me. The older of the two women did most of the talking. "Where have you been?" was her first question.
Fortunately for me, Lindsey Ragen was a good egg. While the two women were interrogating me, two other women were asking Lindsey the same questions and once our stories matched up, I was released--released!--and made my way out of the mountains and back to Phoenix. The return trip was largely uneventful, probably because of the state police escort that followed me all the way back to Maricopa county.
Fuh-re-re-re-re-re-re-duh gave me holy hell for owning a phone made by Cricket. "You gonna work for me, pal, you gots to get a better phone. Here. Take you's money and buy something that works."
He snatched the phone from my pocket and threw it in the dumpster. Then he handed me a check for $300.
"What's this?"
"What you think it is? A rooster? It is you money."
"You said $750."
"I know, I know. But that is what CPS gives the company. The company gives you three hundred. What? You don't want it? I take it back, you don't want it."
I took it. What else could I do? I bought a new phone with a price plan that ate up the money I had made that day.
"What a job!" I shouted, not realizing that things would only get more like Fred and Ethel every day.
VII
I could tell you about the time late one night when I drove my cab across one of those spiked-out tire shredders as I attempted to make a less-than-legal exit from an insurance company's parking lot, only to find out to my redoubled horror that the fellow I had been trying to pick up was drunk and rich and wanted me to drive him to and from Las Vegas, a trip which would have earned me a little better than one thousand dollars instead of costing me six hundred to replace the tires that were now tapioca. But that tale sort of tells itself, doesn't it? Wait. I know. I will tell you about Super Bowl Sunday in Phoenix! Yes, that's the ticket.
It was early February 2008, right smack dab in the heart of the Valley of the Sun, rainy as hell, if memory serves, and the city was crawling with out of town people who wanted to watch the big game. The Patriots were playing the Giants. The entire week was one jammed with excitement, even for those who, such as myself, didn't give a rat's hindquarters about the big game. I should even point out that I feel about the Super Bowl exactly the same way I feel about a TV show called "American Idol." I resent the very existence of the thing because I do not like the name of something bestowing a value judgment upon that thing itself when the judgment, it seems to me, should come from the viewer. The producers of "American Idol" are in no position to determine in advance that you or I are going to idolize the winner of the contest. In the save vein, the penultimate American football game may be great or it may be lousy. The determination of its "superiority" over other games is one that should be made by the fans rather than the networks, owners, or even players. Plus, there's just the fact that I simply don't care. So, I was only excited because it is kind of a furtive thrill to have a huge collection of strangers in town, people who will ask you what things are like here and who may be inclined to compare what they see and hear with how things are back home.
There was also the money.
Oh my. There was a lot of it to be had and every scumbag with a cash flow problem was out in full force, embarrassing as an open fly on prom night. I heard all kinds of stories from other drivers about how much money they were going to make and all that brouhaha. I knew most of them were delusional and would spend the day in front of their TV sets rather than working. I also knew this fact was to my own advantage.
I had quite an edge going into Super Bowl Week. Eleven major Phoenix hotels relied up me personally for their guests' transportation needs. I had spent much of the previous two weeks designing sign-up sheets for the hotels and explaining to the managers that anyone who waited until the day of the game to request a cab was going to be completely out of luck. Therefore it would behoove the manager to make sure his front desk people inquired of everyone checking in what their traveling requirements might be. I also worked out a deal with airport parking to circumnavigate the standard rules and regulations about picking up customers. Then I got on the phone and reached out to the five most trustworthy drivers I knew. Among the six of us we should have been able to handle all the business that would be lined up. By the Thursday before the Big Game I had to buy a second cell phone. My regular device did not stop ringing long enough for me to retrieve even one message. I was logging something close to twenty calls per hour, just from the hotels. I gave my assistants my second phone number and told them to talk fast whenever they talked at all.There was also the money.
Oh my. There was a lot of it to be had and every scumbag with a cash flow problem was out in full force, embarrassing as an open fly on prom night. I heard all kinds of stories from other drivers about how much money they were going to make and all that brouhaha. I knew most of them were delusional and would spend the day in front of their TV sets rather than working. I also knew this fact was to my own advantage.
That same Thursday I spent much of my day with a man named Roger Director. He had written a book called I Dream in Blue, a fine story of his fixation with the New York Giants team. He was in town to promote the book. I had heard of him because of his TV writing credits ("Hill Street Blues," "NCIS," and others) and because his is the kind of name that stays with a person. In between taking him from a remote local station set up in one part of town to a book signing in another, I handled phone calls, more often than not suggesting that people from out of town did not have any idea just how big Phoenix is and that such being the case they had best make their reservations now rather than later because later was going to be too late.
I did not get any sleep Thursday. The same condition applied Friday. I managed to get three or four hours late Saturday afternoon when I at long last turned off both phones.
Sunday morning at five I sat in a McDonald's with my five assistants. I had already supplied them with enough business to pay all their bills for the next several months, taking people to the various activities at the University of Phoenix Stadium and to various nightclubs and restaurants throughout the week. But this was the day when no man or woman would sleep. This was the day of the Big Game. I gave each of my drivers a piece of paper with their pick ups and returns. Each sheet would translate to approximately $5,000 per driver for that one very big day.
By this point I had recognized that I needed to relegate myself to the role of supervisor. We needed a point of contact for the hotels and their guests and I chose to be that contact. I told my guys not to deviate from the list of rides. I told them that if any passenger kept them waiting more than ten minutes that they were to leave without that person and go on to the next listing. I told them all what fares to charge. I made sure they all had plenty of credit card receipts and spare change. Their gas tanks were full. Their eyes were wide. We were all very excited.
Most of the effort was well invested. I didn't make as much as my drivers because I only filled in when they got behind. That was okay. I had still made a ton of money that week and trusted that these drivers would do the right thing by tipping me for all these referrals after the game. Two of the five actually did that.
The Giants won the game. Who cares?
The next day, Monday, was still incredibly busy because everyone was heading back to the airport. I was driving a huge Chevy Suburban with seven sulking Bostonians to Sky Harbor when the gear shift control shredded. We were, of course, on the freeway at the time. I knew that if I stopped the vehicle, we would never get started again so I kept going in second gear as the automobile made hideous sounds that spurted and spewed from beneath the hood. The rains returned. The passengers were nervous and suddenly quite alert.The Giants won the game. Who cares?
I pulled up alongside the curb at Terminal 2 and the Suburban died an ignoble death. I was so embarrassed at what had happened that I offered to not charge the passengers for the ride. I now realize that if the Patriots had won, the riders would not have taken me up on this foolish offer.
My problems were not over. I had a huge money trip waiting for me in the other end of town. Once the tow truck drove off with my car, I flagged down an airport shuttle bus and gave the guy two hundred dollars for the use of his van. was surprised he let me get away with that. I drove the thirty miles to my final appointment in just under twenty minutes in one of the worst rain storms I've ever seen. The passenger waved as I pulled up and I had a great time listening to his stories of Super Bowl Week in Phoenix, Arizona. He paid me with a credit card. The bill? $300. The tip? $50. The authorization? Declined.
What the hell? I let him go. I had brought in a little more than five grand for myself that week, an amount that would go a long way toward keeping me in and out of trouble until the next big event, some tractor-trailer rope pulling contest or whatever it might be.
Phoenix is due for another Super Bowl game in the next few years. That should be nice. I don't care who wins. All I know is that I won't be driving that day. Probably I'll stay home. Maybe I'll watch "American Idol."
VIII
The telephone caught me in mid yawn. It was a woman named Carol. She worked for Child Protective Services in Mesa, Arizona. She apologized for the late night-early morning interruption. I forced the remainder of my yawn into my arm pit and told her I was happy to hear from her, my first lie of the new day.
Two hours later I was halfway across the valley, pulling into the CPS respite facility in Mesa. I had never been to this particular place before. Truth be told, I hadn't known that it existed. Not to put too fine a point on the matter, but I was until that morning unaware that a need existed for such a facility.
The need did exist. Boy, did it ever.
For my immediate purposes, all I needed to know was that CPS wanted me to transport three sisters from Mesa to the town of Congress, Arizona. It was a two hour drive northwest. I could see no reason why this should be a big deal. Having selected the Dodge Caravan for the journey, I would be able to keep the kids in the back of the van while I drove. Even if they talked my ears off, it would all be over soon enough. The only alarm that went off in my mind was that Carol said the job paid $450, a bit high for such a presumably easy gig.
The man at the respite facility took me into a back room and disabused me of any notions I might have had about this being a simple matter. "These three sisters," he told me, "have been through a lot. Now, you understand that I can't talk to you about the specifics of their case. But I should explain that where you're taking them is to their foster home. The foster parents needed a break from these young ladies. That's what we do."
By now my eyes were opening a bit wider. I said, "Are you telling me these girls are incorrigible?"
He shook his head. "I am telling you they may get on your nerves a little. They have been known to do some damages to other driver's vehicles. We've had reports in the past--"
"Wait a minute."
"--that some drivers have refused to transport these young ladies a second time because they were so unruly."
"Wait. Damages, did you say?"
"Yes. But CPS will reimburse you for any reasonable harm that comes to either you or your automobile."
"Forget it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that this is not something that I want to do."
"But you have to."
"Pardon me?"
"What I mean to say is that we have no one else to take them back to Congress."
"That's a shame."
"Please?"
"What did you say?"
He cleared his throat. "Please?"
I am such a dope. Say that magic word to me and you can get almost anything. It's ridiculous the effect that one syllable word has on me. I shook my head but agreed all the same.
The girls' names were Mary, Madeleine, and Margaret. They were eight, ten and twelve, respectively. They were bright kids. They waited until we were on the freeway before they started cutting up the seat covers. That strategy spoke well for their collective intelligence. Had they pulled out their pocket knives and sliced into the seat cushions while we were still on the surface streets, I could have easily pulled over and taken away their weapons. But these girls knew how the world worked. They waited until we were doing 70 mph on the I-10 west before they brought their danger to my attention. I yelled for them to stop.He shook his head. "I am telling you they may get on your nerves a little. They have been known to do some damages to other driver's vehicles. We've had reports in the past--"
"Wait a minute."
"--that some drivers have refused to transport these young ladies a second time because they were so unruly."
"Wait. Damages, did you say?"
"Yes. But CPS will reimburse you for any reasonable harm that comes to either you or your automobile."
"Forget it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that this is not something that I want to do."
"But you have to."
"Pardon me?"
"What I mean to say is that we have no one else to take them back to Congress."
"That's a shame."
"Please?"
"What did you say?"
He cleared his throat. "Please?"
I am such a dope. Say that magic word to me and you can get almost anything. It's ridiculous the effect that one syllable word has on me. I shook my head but agreed all the same.
Two of them continued exploring the intestines of my van's seats. The third, Mary, thought it would be more interesting to take out the ashtrays from the rear of the vehicle and hurl them against the back glass. Margaret retrieved a lipstick from her little purse and scrawled obscenities on the ceiling. Madeleine decided to scream, just for the hell of it. I waited until we reached the off ramp for Route 60. I pulled over to the berm and stopped the van. The three sisters were oblivious. By now two of the backseats were in tatters, one could hardly tell the original color of the van's ceiling, and the back glass was sporting a new spider web of fractures. We had only been on the road ten minutes. I also observed an empty bag of Cheetos on the floor and a swath of orange dust on what was left of one of the seats. I ordered the girls out of the van. They complied happily, Madeleine even saying that it was such a beautiful day that she thought she would take a whiz right on the Interstate.
By the time we were back on the road I had the three sisters secured with their seat belts. I had removed their knives from their clutches and had assured them all that if they did anything further to annoy me that I would tie them to the roadside cacti and laugh while the buzzards picked their bones. I kept thinking about what the CPS guy had told me. These girls have been through a lot. I had no idea what that meant specifically, but just the fact that they had been placed with Child Protective Services indicated that they had not had easy lives to this point. I even allowed myself to feel bad about controlling them through intimidation. That is, I felt that way until we pulled into the long driveway off the beaten path on the outskirts of Congress.
"No one's here," said Madeleine.
"What are you talking about?"
"Nope, no one's here," chimed in Mary.
"That's impossible."
"Nobody's home," sang Margaret.
I stopped the car in front of the large house. I blew the horn. I turned off the ignition. I stared at the front door. Nothing.
I told the girls to stay in their seats and jumped out of the van. I ran to the front door, knocked, waited, ran around back, hollered, waited, ran back to the van, told the girls to get back in the car, dammit, and honked the horn in vain.
This was deepest summer and the temperature had to be over one-ten. I popped the hood and checked my radiator level. It was holding nicely. I walked around the van and admired the damages. The $450 wouldn't touch the harm these girls had done. But the man had said CPS would reimburse me, which meant, of course, that I would still have to go out of pocket initially, which was going to keep me from using the van until those repairs were made. I was semi-suicidal.
We waited nearly an hour, a period of time rarely measured in geologic time, but one which stretched like the Protozoic Era. I tried to pick up from their whispered conversations some clues as to what tortures the three sisters had endured, what evil had transpired to cause them to strike out so violently at a person who was simply trying to take them back to the only legitimate home they presumably had. Nothing came of my eavesdropping. They were too wise and guarded to let anything slip.
When the foster parents returned I met them at their car door and thanked them for being there.
The man said, "I know those gals can be a handful, buddy. I sure am sorry."
The woman swept her arms around the kids as if they had been rescued from kidnappers. "Did you have a nice ride?" she asked.
Madeleine shot me a look and then didn't say anything. I leaned against what was left of my van, hoping in vain for a tip that never came.
My idle threat about cacti and buzzards made its way back to CPS but that didn't stop them from asking me to transport the girls again three months later. Carol, my contact there, reminded me that they had been through a lot.
"So have I," I told her.
"Please?"
I hate that word.
"No one's here," said Madeleine.
"What are you talking about?"
"Nope, no one's here," chimed in Mary.
"That's impossible."
"Nobody's home," sang Margaret.
I stopped the car in front of the large house. I blew the horn. I turned off the ignition. I stared at the front door. Nothing.
I told the girls to stay in their seats and jumped out of the van. I ran to the front door, knocked, waited, ran around back, hollered, waited, ran back to the van, told the girls to get back in the car, dammit, and honked the horn in vain.
This was deepest summer and the temperature had to be over one-ten. I popped the hood and checked my radiator level. It was holding nicely. I walked around the van and admired the damages. The $450 wouldn't touch the harm these girls had done. But the man had said CPS would reimburse me, which meant, of course, that I would still have to go out of pocket initially, which was going to keep me from using the van until those repairs were made. I was semi-suicidal.
We waited nearly an hour, a period of time rarely measured in geologic time, but one which stretched like the Protozoic Era. I tried to pick up from their whispered conversations some clues as to what tortures the three sisters had endured, what evil had transpired to cause them to strike out so violently at a person who was simply trying to take them back to the only legitimate home they presumably had. Nothing came of my eavesdropping. They were too wise and guarded to let anything slip.
When the foster parents returned I met them at their car door and thanked them for being there.
The man said, "I know those gals can be a handful, buddy. I sure am sorry."
The woman swept her arms around the kids as if they had been rescued from kidnappers. "Did you have a nice ride?" she asked.
Madeleine shot me a look and then didn't say anything. I leaned against what was left of my van, hoping in vain for a tip that never came.
My idle threat about cacti and buzzards made its way back to CPS but that didn't stop them from asking me to transport the girls again three months later. Carol, my contact there, reminded me that they had been through a lot.
"So have I," I told her.
"Please?"
I hate that word.
IX
For the benefit of anyone unaware of my sordid past, the long and short it is that from 2005 until early 2009, I drove a taxi cab here in the twisted city of Phoenix, Arizona. My first few months found me in the employ of a grimy little company called Allstate Taxi. The remaining time, which was a tad less than three years, and substantially less grimy, I worked for myself, even occasionally enlisting a few other gypsy boys and girls to help me out. I was connected with ten or eleven hotels here in the Valley of the Sun. They called me whenever a guest of theirs needed a ride. During the day, the transportation typically involved taking the guest to a sales meeting, a seminar, or to something business related. At night, the tone of the destinations changed a bit, our town's casinos and strip clubs holding more interest than our zoos and botanical gardens.
As I was relaying this trivia to a wonderful friend from way back in my high school days, somehow or other we started discussing the fact that here in Phoenix most of the taxi drivers are originally from the country of Somalia. This is not an opinion. It is a fact. Phoenix is a big refugee city. Many of the folks who need rescuing are from Somalia. And one of the easiest jobs for a person to get, if he or she is a bit undernourished and unable to do manual labor, is to drive a taxi cab. If you laid every cab in Phoenix end to end, they would stretch the length of the city, that length being, north to south, eighty miles, and east to west, sixty miles. Lots of cabs and lots of city for them to drive around in equals more competition than could possibly be warranted. And yet I did compete. And I usually won. When I did win, it was almost always for the exact wrong reason, that reason being that most of the hotels did not want their customers riding in a death trap driven by a fellow who in all likelihood did not speak English and who in greater likelihood would not know how to find the hotel. Due to a bit of bias on the part of the hotels, along with some genuine and practical concerns, I had those hotels' business locked up. Any time, day or night, if they called, my ass was behind the wheel en route. Whee.
I was regaling my friend with the horrors that often befall an out of town visitor who happens to get the wrong Somalian behind the wheel. You see, a few of these guys (and it's really only a few) cannot or will not pry their cell phones from the side of their heads no matter what is happening.
So you say to the driver, "Oh dear, perhaps you should consider slowing down a wee bit so that we do not run over those nuns and orphans." The driver will lean his mouth away from the phone and reply, "اننى سوف بالسيارة فى الطريق التى انا عودت لك الخنزير الكلب," which means "I will drive the way to which I am accustomed, you dog of pig."
Look, there aren't many laughs behind the wheel of a taxi and those poor bastards have to get their jollies somehow.
What should concern an out of town passenger to this or any other city is the possibility that you might find yourself the victim of a nasty scam.
I am not referring, as you might expect, to getting screwed on the fare. Getting screwed on the fare is a given and not because the driver is actively trying to rip you off. He simply will have no idea whatsoever where you want him to take you and if he stopped to check a map or tune up his GPS, he might miss a few words being yelled at him over his phone. So you tell him to take you to the Devil's Martini (a Scottsdale bar) and he nods while you take a nap in the back. You wake up three hours later to find that the driver made a couple of wrong turns and was halfway to Colorado before he realized not everything was kosher. Your bill? $10,649.25. The fact that you got there at all? Priceless.
Again, though, this is not really the scam to which I refer. Naturally, I have gone on at such ridiculous lengths that I will have to save until tomorrow to elucidate upon a much more serious problem than may befall you, either as a passenger or simply as another motorist on these here Interstate highways and intercity byways should you have the misfortune of encountering the Scam Man. He's out there. His name is Tea. And he's looking for you.
See you tomorrow.
If Tea doesn't see you first.
I was regaling my friend with the horrors that often befall an out of town visitor who happens to get the wrong Somalian behind the wheel. You see, a few of these guys (and it's really only a few) cannot or will not pry their cell phones from the side of their heads no matter what is happening.
So you say to the driver, "Oh dear, perhaps you should consider slowing down a wee bit so that we do not run over those nuns and orphans." The driver will lean his mouth away from the phone and reply, "اننى سوف بالسيارة فى الطريق التى انا عودت لك الخنزير الكلب," which means "I will drive the way to which I am accustomed, you dog of pig."
Look, there aren't many laughs behind the wheel of a taxi and those poor bastards have to get their jollies somehow.
What should concern an out of town passenger to this or any other city is the possibility that you might find yourself the victim of a nasty scam.
I am not referring, as you might expect, to getting screwed on the fare. Getting screwed on the fare is a given and not because the driver is actively trying to rip you off. He simply will have no idea whatsoever where you want him to take you and if he stopped to check a map or tune up his GPS, he might miss a few words being yelled at him over his phone. So you tell him to take you to the Devil's Martini (a Scottsdale bar) and he nods while you take a nap in the back. You wake up three hours later to find that the driver made a couple of wrong turns and was halfway to Colorado before he realized not everything was kosher. Your bill? $10,649.25. The fact that you got there at all? Priceless.
Again, though, this is not really the scam to which I refer. Naturally, I have gone on at such ridiculous lengths that I will have to save until tomorrow to elucidate upon a much more serious problem than may befall you, either as a passenger or simply as another motorist on these here Interstate highways and intercity byways should you have the misfortune of encountering the Scam Man. He's out there. His name is Tea. And he's looking for you.
See you tomorrow.
If Tea doesn't see you first.
X
One of the worst aspects of the job--a job I often enjoyed--was being on the look-out for contrived and deliberate criminality. A lot of people who would toss about in the back of my Lincoln Town Car or Dodge Caravan would ask me to access all sorts of illegal substances for them, connect them with members of one sex or another, or even assist them in interstate trafficking of things that should not really be trafficked. But the scam, the con, the rip that I want to tell you about today is the one perpetrated by and initiated by the driver him or herself.
There was a guy named Tea. He drove a Crown Victoria death trap for a company of swindlers named Allstate Taxi. It was an unusual job for a man with a cleft palate that was so severe that his own mother could not have understood a word he said. It was an odd job for a guy with a felony conviction. It was a curious job for a guy who never once drove with his own drivers license in his wallet. [Incidentally, I should perhaps insert a word to potential litigants here that I have in my possession all kinds of physical evidence substantiating my claim that Allstate Taxi was a company of swindlers, that Tea had a much-deserved felony record, and that he held a fake license; but if anyone wants to challenge this in a court of law, I would very much welcome the opportunity to expose those people to full disclosure, including last names, photographs, dates, etc. Just dare me. Please.] Here's a guy who frequently was called upon to transport small children at the behest of the state's Child Protective Services, a guy who was certainly no stranger to narcotics, in or out of his taxi. Here's a guy who often pulled a very big knife on the company dispatcher when that dispatcher refused to take bribes in return for the good fares. And, more to the point, here's a rancid little scumbag prick who used to make most of his money by stopping short on the freeway and getting unsuspecting motorists to plow into him. Usually those motorists were out-of-towners in heavily-insured rental cars.
As anyone who has ever had the misfortune of rear-ending someone else can attest, it was your fault, even if it wasn't. The car in the rear is required to maintain assured clear distance between himself and the vehicle ahead. In practice, this quite reasonable rule gets disregarded, particularly by people unfamiliar with an area, and most especially in one part of our humble little Phoenix Town. The absolute most dangerous part of our Interstate highway system is The Tunnel. The Deck Park Tunnel.
Again, this is Phoenix, the sunniest freaking place in America. You're driving along, squinting against the hideous glare, when all of a sudden you enter this abyss of a tube where everyone else drives seventy-five miles an hour, despite the disappearance of two lanes of roadway while an off-ramp urges new cars into the heavy merge. One thing that most tunnels have in common is that they are not especially well lit. The notorious Deck Park is no exception.
So there you are, cruising along, wondering where the hell the stadium is, following a cab because "Those guys know where everything's at," when the stupid bastard in the taxi slams his brakes for absolutely no other reason other than to have your sorry ass wind up in his backseat.
This was Tea's specialty. He was very good at it. Sure, he got banged up a few times, but he didn't care. He didn't care because the financial payoff was huge.
How huge was it?
When a taxi in Arizona is involved in an accident, the law requires that the driver be pulled off the road for five business days. The innocent driver's insurance company will then be required to compensate the taxi driver for his lost wages. Tea would invariably claim that he cleared five hundred dollars a day, a statement the manager of the cab company, at that time a guy named Dennis, would happily substantiate, in exchange for a piece of the action. So Tea would get a fat check from the insurance company for two thousand five hundred dollars, peel off five hundred of that to Dennis, and stay high for a week or two.
After which, the dance would repeat itself.
Sometimes Tea would have to wait a month or more to find the right victim. But he always found one.
And yet Tea was hardly the worst offender in the taxi racket in Phoenix. Manager Dennis (who made Louis DePalma look virtuous) was the absolute worst, and not only because he himself profited from this criminality.
Another layer of the scam is that Dennis used to steal the petty cash the owners brought in every two weeks, cash that was supposed to go toward incidentals, such as toilet paper for the restroom, office supplies, coffee, donuts, and that sort of thing. The people who worked in the Allstate Taxi office had to bring their own toilet paper from home or else do without. Why? Because Dennis was a fan of the casinos.
His roommate was a driver for the same company and you can rest assured that the roommate and Dennis made out quite well. They did, that is, until the day the extremely old and somewhat avaricious owner got wise to Dennis' bag of tricks and threw him across the parking lot on his face. The last time I saw Dennis, he was being tossed out of a casino by three very big and pissed off security personnel. Seems his line of credit had dried up in the summer sun. Aw.
I am sharing these anecdotes of cab lore with you so that you may take heed to give those ugly vehicles on the road a wide girth. I am also hoping that you will take a few seconds to find a bit of sympathy for the less larcenous among them, such as a man named Ali. Ali was originally from the country of Iraq. He has lived here twenty years. When he was in the business, he kept his vehicle spotless inside and out, knew his way around the city better than the people who built the place, and was courteous to a fault. One night he had the misfortune of picking up four Arizona State University students at a fraternity house. They wanted to go to a bar. During the trip, one of them asked Ali where he was from. He told them his country of origin. The four men in the back of his cab whispered among themselves. Some giggling was heard. When Ali stopped in front of the bar, he hopped out to open the door for the passengers. The four men beat him bloody and ran away. He still carries a scar on his face from the attack.
There's a lot of bastards out there. Some of them drive taxis. Some of them ride in taxis. Others are still slouching toward Bethlehem waiting to be born. Here's hoping you and I don't encounter them anytime soon.
So there you are, cruising along, wondering where the hell the stadium is, following a cab because "Those guys know where everything's at," when the stupid bastard in the taxi slams his brakes for absolutely no other reason other than to have your sorry ass wind up in his backseat.
This was Tea's specialty. He was very good at it. Sure, he got banged up a few times, but he didn't care. He didn't care because the financial payoff was huge.
How huge was it?
When a taxi in Arizona is involved in an accident, the law requires that the driver be pulled off the road for five business days. The innocent driver's insurance company will then be required to compensate the taxi driver for his lost wages. Tea would invariably claim that he cleared five hundred dollars a day, a statement the manager of the cab company, at that time a guy named Dennis, would happily substantiate, in exchange for a piece of the action. So Tea would get a fat check from the insurance company for two thousand five hundred dollars, peel off five hundred of that to Dennis, and stay high for a week or two.
After which, the dance would repeat itself.
Sometimes Tea would have to wait a month or more to find the right victim. But he always found one.
And yet Tea was hardly the worst offender in the taxi racket in Phoenix. Manager Dennis (who made Louis DePalma look virtuous) was the absolute worst, and not only because he himself profited from this criminality.
Another layer of the scam is that Dennis used to steal the petty cash the owners brought in every two weeks, cash that was supposed to go toward incidentals, such as toilet paper for the restroom, office supplies, coffee, donuts, and that sort of thing. The people who worked in the Allstate Taxi office had to bring their own toilet paper from home or else do without. Why? Because Dennis was a fan of the casinos.
His roommate was a driver for the same company and you can rest assured that the roommate and Dennis made out quite well. They did, that is, until the day the extremely old and somewhat avaricious owner got wise to Dennis' bag of tricks and threw him across the parking lot on his face. The last time I saw Dennis, he was being tossed out of a casino by three very big and pissed off security personnel. Seems his line of credit had dried up in the summer sun. Aw.
I am sharing these anecdotes of cab lore with you so that you may take heed to give those ugly vehicles on the road a wide girth. I am also hoping that you will take a few seconds to find a bit of sympathy for the less larcenous among them, such as a man named Ali. Ali was originally from the country of Iraq. He has lived here twenty years. When he was in the business, he kept his vehicle spotless inside and out, knew his way around the city better than the people who built the place, and was courteous to a fault. One night he had the misfortune of picking up four Arizona State University students at a fraternity house. They wanted to go to a bar. During the trip, one of them asked Ali where he was from. He told them his country of origin. The four men in the back of his cab whispered among themselves. Some giggling was heard. When Ali stopped in front of the bar, he hopped out to open the door for the passengers. The four men beat him bloody and ran away. He still carries a scar on his face from the attack.
There's a lot of bastards out there. Some of them drive taxis. Some of them ride in taxis. Others are still slouching toward Bethlehem waiting to be born. Here's hoping you and I don't encounter them anytime soon.
XI
One thing and another and the years passed. I was driving a cab and I hadn't seen Lanie in thirteen years. I was standing outside the hotel that served as my residence one rainy morning when a bread truck pulled in and a passenger waved at me with some enthusiasm. It was a woman. I knew I knew her but it took me a while to recognize Lanie. She had changed. It was just a fluke, the two of us meeting up. She had hitched a ride with the bread truck driver and he had decided to let her out at the hotel. I ran down to say hello as he drove off. Hugs, giggles, stares, laughter.
She looked a little different. Thirteen years will do that. But it was her demeanor that had really changed. She kept saying my name over and over, as if the sound held some mysterious sense of wonder for her. We sat up in my room and I listened to her skirt the issue of the ensuing years. It didn't seem at all strange to her that I was a cab driver. It seemed very strange to me, but then again it seemed strange to run into her after all these years.
It turned out she had a little drug problem. Meth was its name. She also had no place to stay. I told her she could stay with me a few days, but there was to be no sex or other hanky panky. That would be fine, she said. Over three days she did not once leave the room. I did. I had to work. She didn't eat much and she took up very little room, but still I was getting uncomfortable. I had a hunch she was hiding from someone. That's all it was, just a hunch. She didn't talk much about herself at all and she said nothing about her kids.She looked a little different. Thirteen years will do that. But it was her demeanor that had really changed. She kept saying my name over and over, as if the sound held some mysterious sense of wonder for her. We sat up in my room and I listened to her skirt the issue of the ensuing years. It didn't seem at all strange to her that I was a cab driver. It seemed very strange to me, but then again it seemed strange to run into her after all these years.
I started feeling a little creepy and suggested she leave. She whined that she had no place to go. I told her that the police made regular visits with the front desk to see if any of the guests of this fine low rent establishment were wanted by the law. She said she would be leaving that evening. I said okay.
When I returned from a short drive, she had gone. Also gone were a large stack of rare and valuable comic books I'd been hanging onto for decades. That is probably not a coincidence.
I still miss those comics.
I also wonder what the hell ever happened to that young woman whose wedding I attended. What ever happened to her kids? And why do we tolerate people selling meth as a way of making money from other people's misery?
