Dolphin-Safe Blogging
Hey Gang.
It's Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I haven't accomplished much since last we spoke. I worked Monday and Tuesday, and spend the rest of the time sleeping. I slept until about 4:30 today. I had thought I might magically wake up to a sun-shiny day and go work up the log in Culito's yard. That didn't happen. I woke up around 2:30 and remembered that the forcasted high was for 18 degrees. It was gray, overcast, and none too inviting. I continued to sleep.
I got up-and-around when Ely came in, near 5. Our front door has become increasingly difficult to latch since the weather got so bitterly cold. Something has shrunk or warped from the extreme temperatures. It had apparently been open most of the day, while I was roasty-toasty in my snug little bed. Ely feared the cats had escaped, but they're no fools. They were chilling in the 72 degree tropics in my room.
One reason the door is a bit finicky is because I kicked the shit out of it last year. Rather, I lowered my shoulder and broke it open. I had been having a real shitty week and found myself locked out of my house at 6 pm in the freezing cold one November night. My water heater had rusted out and had been leaking. Though the leak grew severe I didn't notice, because it was going right down a drain under the water heater--thus, no flooding or mildew. My normal water bill was about $12-16 a month, and I was quite surprised to get one for nearly $300.
I checked with the water company, which had noticed the irregularity and tried to call. My old number. Who thinks to inform the utility company when they get a new number? Not me. So, they must have assumed I built a large pool in the middle of winter or began my own bottled water company. Mmmm...Sulfur and Bleach Boone County water, in a convenient 12 oz bottle.
I had to get the landlord involved, which sucked because I had two cats I wasn't supposed to have and a roommate he didn't know about. I stashed the cats and the roommate and called about the water heater. I came home to a note saying I would be without water for the weekend, and, of course, I was filthy and greasy from work at the transmission shop and my neighbors were out of town. There was also the surprise $300 expense, and the fact that the landlord locked the door knob, for which I had never carried a key, relying on the deadbolt.
And the deadbolt did its job, remaining firm as I ripped away half of the door jamb. I had to cut most of it out, mill a new piece, reattach it, and cover my handiwork. I did a pretty good job, and checked and rechecked that the door closed good. It did, but once I reattached all of the weatherstripping it was a little snug. That has worked fine until this cold weather.
Anyhoo, I talked Ely into going downtown with me to get a pizza. I picked up some Shakespeare's and a DVD, a comedy with the peeps from Upright Citizen's Brigade called Martin and Orloff. It was what I expected. Ely grabbed some Beamish and I had two during the course of the movie. Despite having slept 11 hours earlier, I became quite drowsy. I didn't feel like doing anything in particular, so I took a nap from about 9:30 until 11:30. I got up and planned on watching some trash TV. The best I could do was Private School, from 1983, with Phoebe Cates and Matthew Modine, your classic 80s sex-romp, complete with dudes in drag and a shower scene.
So, here I am, trying to get a little writing in.
Monday I woke up and got ready for work. I checked for a second to see if I had any traffic from the blog. That's when I noticed that my snide-ish follow up to some antisemitism quibbles had flared into a full-fledged shitstorm. Some grand PC/racism debate had erupted. I avoid these like the plague, and didn't even have time to read it all--still haven't. I don't want people thinking that I stoked it to boost attention for my little blog, or that I meant anything at all by the comment. It stemmed from this:
"I drove off, believing that despite his gentile, Midwestern appearance he was most likely Jewish, due in part to the shrewd, smallish tip."
In case you're not familiar with the context, it came following a debate with a drunk passenger who called me a fuck, thought I was Jewish, proclaimed himself Jewish, and gave me a modest tip after promising me a big one. I was never convinced whether he was in fact Jewish, and made the above statement as a bit of an afterthought, to try to put a humorous cap on our bizarre exchange (what is a blue crab party, anyway?) and segue into some more crap.
Since I began writing this blog and pimping it on the comomusic site I have had nothing but positive feedback (in correspondingly modest numbers). I had been waiting for an inevitable 'thread pisser' to try to let a little air out of my balloon. A thread pisser is someone who has to interject on a topic to balance out any positivity with an essentially irrelevant, useless, negative statement. Typically this comes in the form of someone who wanders into a messageboard topic about something they have no particular care for (such as a debate on some finer points of the 2005 St. Louis Cardinals' starting rotation's depth) and offers an unsolicited, nonconstructive comment (such as, "I think the whole game of baseball is boring and stupid").
Thread pissers just want to be heard, even if it is on a topic they don't care about or have nothing to contribute to. Their numbers are great in the cyber-world, and, when combined with the anonymity of the Internet, they can become quite boisterous and monstrous pains-in-the-ass. They also enjoy provoking useless arguments, often by personal attacks, and, especially in the context of hobby-related sites, seek out 'newbies' to harass and bully. Thread-pissers have got my goat more than once, and it has taken me a while to get the proper perspective, restraint, and serenity to deal with them properly.
Thread pissers have accounted for me scuttling across a few messageboards, looking for a decent community outlet in which to pass time. Comomusic has been a great find for me, because there are a lot of cool people on there, and there is a pretty laid-back atmosphere. Hobby forums tend to become competitive venues, and you find yourself corresponding with people you would dislike on 9 out of 10 levels because you have one mutual interest. At least people who are interested in and inspired by music tend to get along pretty well. I have always enjoyed the atmosphere there, and it has the bonus of being rooted locally, where you have even more common experiences and real chances to meet real people in real time.
But, I have been ever-wary of thread pissers, and, was, in retrospect, preemptively defensive for the occasion on which someone would decide to vocalize their dislike for my work. Not that everyone--or anyone--has to like it, it's just that no one has to read it, so I wouldn't like anyone to read it with the purpose of coming back to rain on my parade and tell the people who do seem to like it that its not that good. That would be thread pissing, and I am generally opposed to it. I also recognize that I'm a bit of an egomaniac, but then I would have to be to do this with any real conviction.
And I will say that the comment I got concerning the antisemitic remark was not thread pissing. I'll repeat that: it was not thread pissing. Rather, a reader made a comment on something he found distasteful. It wasn't meant to be an nonconstructive negative comment. And I didn't take it personally. Rather, I noted it as a hallmark--the first non-positive feedback, which was something I had been anticipating.
I wasn't completely comfortable with the notion that someone would believe that I was a racist, when I didn't think I was. I also suspected that the comment may have been taken out of context, and, had the author been familiar with the body of my work, he may have seen it as something less harmful. I thought (incorrectly) that I may have used the quote in question as a teaser when I pimped the update, and that the aggrieved reader may have read the single line and little more. This, however, wasn't the case.
I also imagined that this was someone whiter than me, who knew little more than institutionalized PC mandates and third-person discrimination. Again, wrong on my part. Sadly, I did not do the proper fact checking. After thinking about it while driving the cab for 12 hours, I responded with the following defense:
| Re: Taxi Blog: Bright Lights, Big City | [ Block Author ] | |
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When I checked back after my next shift I was surprised to find more than 100 posts had followed. Again, I still haven't read them all, but I think most of it was just people arguing amongst themselves, and my blog was merely the ignitor.
I touched back with this:
| Re: Taxi Blog: Bright Lights, Big City | [ Block Author ] | |
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Yeah, again, not the most delicate. Part of the problem stems from the 2 dimensional relationship of bloggor to bloggee. Online, you are deprived the opportunity to weigh nuance and the multitude of human expressions that make it easier to see when someone is racist or just full of shit, like myself. Add to that a healthy dose of stubborn pride and a dash of egomania and you get the Skank the Angry Sock you know and love (here I looked in vain for a picture of Skank to link to).
So yeah, that happened.
Monday night I was in trusty #10. I ran pretty steady for several hours. At about 11 I was dispatched to FLynn's (name changed to protect the innocent whores) up north of town. I had picked up a lady from there a few nights before, and taken her to the Best Value Inn. Prior to that I had expected to pick up johns when I visited, now I look for whores (whore is a crude word, but know I use it with no judgment or malice).
Everyone would want to know what she looked like. "C'mon story man, give us the graphic-yet-poetic detail." Well, there was nothing really striking about her. She looked like an ordinary Midwestern blond girl in her mid-to-late 20s, not pretty but not fat. She didn't say much. She was wearing a pink sweatsuit like young moms wear to the mall, with a hood and some white striping down the legs. I tried to read the letters across her ass but she was bouncing jauntily, running from the cold and eluding my focus as I looked up from my clipboard.
So, yeah, this time, too, a young lady came out and got in the cab. She was slight, if not scrawny, with the exception of some budding saddlebags in her tight blue jeans which flared at the leg. She was maybe 18 or 20, and looked like any working-class Midwestern teenager. She had rather unfashionable straight, blond hair and was wearing a sweatshirt and eyeglasses. Nothing flashy or trendsetting about her.
As she got in she said something about it snowing. It had been dry all night. I looked up and for the first time noticed thick snowflakes swirling rapidly in the headlights of a parked Chevy Avalanche. She said she was from Texas and that even this little snow was pretty cool. I asked her where she was going and she said McDonald's. It made perfect sense, matching her ordinary demeanor and slightly pallid hue.
We headed to the McDonald's on Smiley Lane. Along the way she asked if I thought it would be cheaper to go inside or to use the drive-through. We debated until we wheeled in the parking lot and saw an angry-faced fat woman locking the lobby door and shunning us away with an awkward wave of her least-favored arm.
"The drive-through it is, then."
As I pulled around to the speaker I heard a recorded voice saying the restaurant was closed and then reciting the normal hours of operation. Morale in the cab sunk.
As I turned back towards town I said we could try the Business Loop McDonald's, which I was sure was open 24 hours. She said "yeah, but I don't have enough money for the cab fare."
As we were passing Jimmy John's on Rangeline I mentioned that they were open late and delivered.
"Yeah, but we already had that for lunch." It was as if the pretty girl next door got a new pony and it had just shit in her ice cream.
As we got back to FLynn's the meter was at $5.55. She had resolved to just go back, defeated. I felt bad taking some poor whore's $5.55 and seeing her back empty handed. I thought about who her piece-of-shit pimp was who kept her off-site at a trailer in the back of a whore house in mid-Missouri, with a handful of other girls with no money or cars. But mostly, it was just sad to see some poor girl who wanted something as shitty and simple as McDonald's deprived on a bitter cold impersonal Missouri night, lacking the resources or even the desire to seek satisfaction. It seemed that she was resigned to accepting such routine failure in life without the slightest of whimpers, something perhaps she was long accustomed to.
I'm not out to save the world. I am as indifferent to it as it is to me. And people, as an abstract, are largely responsible for their own miserable lots in life, which they all-too-often refuse to admit, rather blaming their misfortunes on abstract evils beyond their control. But that is no reason why I can't help someone out, 'deserving' or not. It's fun to help people when they least expect it.
"I'll tell you what. If you write down what you want I'll run up to the Business Loop McDonald's and pick it up for you, and bring it back, no charge, if you trust me with your money. I've got an honest face, don't I? I'm slow right now and don't have anything else going on. It should only take a couple of minutes." It felt weird pitching myself to someone when I was trying to do them a favor. Almost like I was the one asking for something.
I hated to see a bunch of whores go hungry, and I figured there might be a nice tip in it for me. She had a piece of notebook paper with her with orders for the other girls. I gave her my pen and she added her own order in the dim light of the cab's back seat. She thanked me, perhaps speculating upon my true motives.
It had been snowing with a purpose. There was already about 3/4" of powdery white stuff on the road, and traffic slowed dramatically. A rear wheel drive V8 Lincoln can be squirrelly on the slick stuff, and I was in a hurry. I wanted to get to McDonald's and back before my dispatcher could give me another call. I didn't expect one any time soon, and could stall long enough if I had to without raising suspicion. Technically, they'd be pissed that I was running a 'fare' off of the meter, but, it was more important to me to avoid the embarrassment of doing favors for whores. I can't stand it when someone equates kindness with naivety. I hadn't been solicited. I had volunteered a good deed.
So I get to McDonald's on the Business Loop, and I'll-be-damned if the motherfucker isn't closed too. Now I'm about fucked.
I could 1) turn around, take the whores their money back, disappointing them a second time, failing in my charge and leaving them aching for the meager satisfaction a Fillet-O-Fish brings to their battered, chapped pussies, or 2) try to get over to the McDonald's on Worley by the mall, and get back north before anyone was the wiser. I chose option B.
With renewed anxiety, I barreled the Lincoln along the Business Loop. I bemoaned the fact that every time I tried to help someone I ended up fucking myself. I was weary of getting popped for speeding and/or spinning out avoiding the few slow-moving cars congesting the loop. I couldn't get to the Worley McDonald's fast enough. I was also paranoid that it, too, may have closed at 11.
I was quite relieved to see that it was, in fact still open, but apparently everyone else in Columbia was having a Big Mac attack. Okay, so there were only about 5 cars in the drive through, but that's a lot when you're trying to rush as much as I was. I circled the building, just to see if the lobby was still open. When I came around to the drive through lane I saw a European looking guy bundled against the cold walking to the lobby door. He was looking at me. I thought maybe he wanted to flag me down, since he looked like he was on foot. I opened the door to talk to him (window didn't work) and to see if the lobby was open.
That's when I recognized the guy. I had picked him up at the Gatehouse Apartments in my first week of driving. His name was Dave and he was from Italy. I had surprised him when I showed up early. The dispatcher had told him to expect me in about 20 minutes and he thought he had time to take a leisurely shit. He was interrupted by the dispatcher's phone call.
He wanted to go to Columbia College, but only had $6, and wanted out when that ran up. I told him I'd see how far that would get him. $6 would have left him on Worley, west of Providence. Business was slow, and told him I would run him all the way in. I thought it better if he didn't have to walk down Worley late at night. He was very gracious, and said he used the cab all of the time, and that he would make it up with a good tip next time around.
He had recognized me first. "I know you, buddy." The lobby was closed. He was bummed. he had walked from Gatehouse in the bitter cold only to be thwarted in his attempts at commercial fast food bliss. It seemed to be a common theme. I told him to get in the warm Lincoln, that we would go through the drive-through, and he could tack his order onto mine.
"Thanks, buddy. I remembered you. Maaan, I'm glad you were here, man. I really wanted a cheeseburger, man. Man, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't seen you, man."
I looked for the first time at the piece of notebook paper from the whores. There were three separate orders on it:
Yvette-
fish w/cheese value meal
ext. tartar
hi-C
dbl. cheeseburger (no pickle)
Aileen-dbl che 2 cheesebuger meal [sic]dbl c hi-C
(ketchup)
Nae Nae
fish value meal
extra cheese double cheesburger
no salt on fries
orange hi/c
The last meal was added in different handwriting by my pen. It was feminine, but cramped and angular, unlike the more-rounded bubble letter style above. I kept the note and just double checked it for accuracy. No, it's not really that creepy that I kept it. It was for journalistic purposes and I am a pack-rat. I don't throw anything away. I thought it was folded weird, maybe in the way that men's and women's pants and shirts button from opposite directions. When I opened it just now I thought it smelled fragrant, like perfume or body spray. I took a few closer sniffs, and it began to just smell like paper. The olfactory senses fatigue rapidly. Upon laying it back on my desk I thought I again detected a scent of perfume.
"Damn, these whores are picky" I told my Italian friend David (who may be Jewish?). David agreed. Dave ordered two double cheeseburgers off of the $1 menu, and a medium order of fries. "And ketchup for the fries. And a separate bag." He asked me if I was hungry, as had the lady. People always ask me that when I take them to a restaurant or gas station.
David also seemed to forget about his promise of a tip from before. I suspect he remembered, but didn't bring it up because there were only a few lonely $1 bills in his wallet.
I ordered everything as directed by the note. I asked for ketchup and an extra bag and culled out David's order. I sent him walking because I had to hurry back the other way. "Thanks, dude."
My dispatcher radioed once, right after David got in the car. I motioned for him to hush, and told my dispatcher I was stopping to get some gas. I told him I would radio back when I was done. After getting David out and heading back towards the interstate he radioed again. I told him I was done and he told me I had an 11:45 time call on campus. It was 11:30. I figured I would be late, but didn't want to tell him that and raise suspicion. I drove a wary 65 mph down 70 to Rangeline, with two stuffed McDonald's bags in the back seat and a drink container with 3 orange Hi-Cs in the front. Cab drivers agree, three out of three working girls prefer Hi-C.
On the way back I imagined a number of frightening scenarios, such as me sliding off in the ditch and having to explain why I was on that side of town, or the whores getting impatient and calling the cab company to see what was taking me so long. FLynn's snuck up on me faster than I remembered. I had made good time. The little blond girl came right out, apparently waiting. She thanked me as she collected the food. The food cost about $14. The fare from before was $5.55. She had given me a $20. I told her we were pretty much square, maybe a dime apart. She apologized, saying she didn't really have any money to tip me. She asked what nights I worked. I gave her my card and wrote my hours on the back. She said she would "definitely send me some business." While we spoke a black woman with a dirty-southern accent stuck her head out the door. It was cartoon like, completely parallel to the ground, a little below door knob height. "Thank you so much, honey." The thank-you was drawn out, sing-song like.
That note does smell of whore.
I tried to jot down a few words to remind me of fares, like I did when I started blogging blog-core. I think lately I have been glossing over minor characters and exchanges. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm trying to give you your money's worth here. And some of you would probably rather read about retards and whores in my cab rather than what I had for breakfast.
You may remember a group home regular I discussed in an earlier post. He's the school bus photo guy, and I described him, in part, thusly:
He's a big overgrown kid with a thick neck. His head doesn't set on top of it, but is part of the same mass. He moves with a slow lumber. He is fond of sweat pants, which aren't completely up to the task of covering his ass crack. He wears those buckskin/suede shoes that the Verve helped bring back a few years ago. He speaks slowly, in a high tone that sounds like its been altered to protect his identity.
I picked him up Monday, along with two other sheltered workshoppers. Dispatch will try to stack charges from this particular workshop, so I run 2 or 3 fares at once. It works okay, because, in this case, they live close enough to each other and know each other from work. One of them I also mentioned before:
The fare was a giant woman, clutching a 1/2 gallon insulated thermos style 'mug' and eating a chocolate bar. She was very upbeat. I told her about the fare with the cat, and she knew of the woman. I asked how that cat was, and she told me that it was doing well. The cat, Lilly, had had an allergic reaction to an earlier inoculation, as Dr. Garner had predicted. I mentioned that the woman had been rather concerned and seemed closely connected to the cat, and the fare assured me that she was a bit crazy, and further told me that Paquin Tower was a nut house, including herself in that estimation. As we passed a construction crew resurfacing College Avenue she said "my boyfriend can't look at flashing lights." I asked if he was an epileptic and she said that he had seizures. They live together at Paquin Tower.
I'll call the guy Jason and the woman Terri.
One other time I had the two together. I had Jason in the car and I told him we were going to wait a minute on Terri. Jason said "I like Terri. Terri's nice. She's my friend." Jason is the last of the three to be dropped off. We actually have about a 10 minute ride together, on the interstate.
Monday, after I dropped Terri off at Paquin Tower, I turned to go down to Broadway, along Hitte Street. I like to drive down Broadway with my mentally disabled friends. I figure they aren't in a huge hurry to do much, and I believe they like the Christmas lights, as well as the hustle and bustle of people. Like what you'd imagine a town to be like from watching Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.
After we dropped Terri off Jason said "I like Terri. Terri's my girlfriend." This was all delivered in Jason's slow, exhaling, warbling Pooh-style of speech.
I chuckled a bit, to myself, remembering Terri telling me about her boyfriend one time before. Jason went on. "I used to have another girlfriend. Her name was Martha. But then I found out she had another boyfriend."
"Oh, that can be a problem."
"Yeah. So Terri is my new girlfriend. I need to have one. I need to be hooked up to someone."
I chuckled again to myself. We rode the rest of the way in relative silence. As we got to his house, I thanked Jason for riding. It took him a second to turn and climb out of the seat behind me. As he was doubled over, hatching from the door opening, I heard him mutter, almost under his breath but perhaps for my benefit, "Oh, Terri, my sweet," in an exasperated tone that would make a Shakespearean actor covetous.
Tuesday was my birthday. I forgot about it. I got to work and was handed the keys to Sweet 16. I remembered Sweet 16 being superior to Dies in many ways, but forgot about the driver's window that didn't go all the way up and the makeshift cardboard wing window, poorly affixed with Scotch tape (did you know that the term 'Scotch' tape was based on an ethnic stereotype? The first manufacturers tried to save money by only putting adhesive on the edges. When it didn't work the angry customers sent it back and told them to shove their 'Scotch tape' up their ass. Apparently the Scotch were also known to be 'frugal').
The day driver had tried to wedge the driver's door glass in the closed position with folded bits of cardboard scrounged from a pizza box. The wing window was cut from an O'Reiley's 10W-30 carton. The window had fallen a couple of inches either from vibration or when the driver wanted to smoke. I refolded the cardboard and jury-rigged the window closed. It was supposed to get down to 7 degrees that night. At some point I thought a business looked closed, and tried to remember if it was a holiday. "Oh yeah," I remembered, "It's my birthday today."
My first fare was to pick-up near the dispatch and head downtown, to a bank. It was a woman in her 60s, with a curly mop and a holiday sweatshirt stretched over her sizable midriff. She was out of breath when she got in the cab, and complained that the cold weather exaggerated the symptoms of her congestive heart disease. She had yellowing teeth with sharp, square edges. The were set straight and resembled orderly planks of descending size in a fence row. Two were missing on one side, top front. She had two fleshy pink moles squeezing each other for turf near the corner of her mouth.
Dispatch was telling customers on the phone that we were backed up for about 45 minutes,which I took to mean an hour. Along the way downtown this woman decided she wanted me to wait for her and then take her to the Wal-Mart Supercenter. This miffed dispatch a bit, because she already had another call lined up for me. Dispatch grudgingly relented, and I dropped the woman off at the corner of the bank. She needed to pay her utility bill directly across the street before going to Wal-Mart. I told her I would be parked in the City Building's parking lot, across the street, where she would be coming out. I told her I'd wait until I was parked to start running wait time, which might save her a buck or so.
I parked across the street, where I said I would, in plain sight. I watched her walk out of the bank and across the street. It was 4 o'clock. I waited for her to come out of the utilities building. I know there can be a line there sometimes. After about 5 minutes ($5) I decided to check on her. I got out in the cold and walked to the front door. I saw her there, talking to an employee. I went back to the cab. After a few more minutes (about $11 wait time) the dispatcher radioed and asked where I was at. The fare was calling on the phone. I said I was exactly where I told her I'd be, and went in and got her.
She got in the cab and started complaining about the wait time, thinking it my fault she couldn't find me. "I parked right here in the parking lot, where I said I would."
"Oh. I didn't even know they had a parking lot." Like we didn't just discuss it 10 minutes earlier. And I watched her walk across the street. And this is after I did her the favor of dealing with dispatch, to save her an hour wait downtown with no cab. I told her there was an extra 4 minutes or so, and I'd split it and drop a couple of bucks. She wanted $5 off. The fare was at about $16.05. To get her to shut the fuck up I said I'd knock off $5. This set me in a bad mood. Working on my birthday and getting hosed by senile old ladies whom I tried to help.
A little after that I had a call to go to Target. I picked up this awesome hard-core European grandma who is wonderfully frank and crotchety. I picked her up once before, at Gerbes on Nifong, where she had been waiting for an hour. She was fairly bitchy, and old, so I didn't expect a tip. To my surprise she tipped nicely.
This time I helped her load several bags of generic Christmas gifts into the trunk. Candy gift boxes and shit like that. She got in the cab and started talking about there being "too much of this business" to Christmas. When I got her to her house it was decorated festively, which I commented on. "I don't like all this decoration. It is my granddaughter--she likes these things." I unloaded her bags and she tipped well again. I was feeling a bit better. I was immediately dispatched from there to a nice neighborhood to the north of Chapel Hill near Scott Boulevard, around Grant Street.
I am not familiar with that neighborhood and relied on my street guide book. I wasn't sure if I was north or south of Chapel Hill and guessed wrong, driving North. The road turned into a narrow country lane that was very dark with no good spots to turn around. I tried to slow down to find a driveway but had locals bearing down on my ass. I finally got turned around, and, tense, headed back the right direction.
I found the street easily enough, to my surprise. I sat outside of a nice house with no lights on. There's not too great a chance of cancellations when someone is headed into town, especially around 6pm, but I was concerned by the lack of lights. I beeped the horn but no one came out. I sat and waited. I had dispatch call the number the fare had left.
"They'll be right out."
I sat and watched the door. There was no movement and no lights. Then, the garage door directly in front of me started to open, on an opener. As it raised it revealed the lower half of an attractive young lady. I followed her modest light blue jeans to a slightly exposed waistline to a retro-ish yet neat sweater to a grinning face and straight brunette hair to a large wool hat with a ball on top.
I've learned that whenever I see an attractive girl like this to wait for her douche-bag-looking boyfriend to appear right behind her. In this case, that didn't happen. She stepped out and the door closed behind her. She still wore the grin, like she was extremely happy to just be alive or perhaps freshly stoned. I don't know anything about the latter. She didn't strike me as a stoner or smell like reefer, but, boy, was she happy.
She was headed across town, to the Old 63 area. I had come into the neighborhood from the southwest of town, so I asked her if there was a closer way out of the neighborhood. She said she didn't really know, that she'd only lived in Columbia a week and this was her first time on this side of town.
Along the way I asked her what brought her to Columbia. I had a 'funny' story involving her home town. My unfinished law school background came up, and we chatted about employment. She had been working as a landscaper, and really like working in the dirt, though she had taken a job waitressing at a downtown bar in the meantime. I asked her if she read any of the Transcendentalists and she said yes. I explained my employment philosophies to her and she was amused. I realized that this was me talking about myself, not manufacturing conversation to plumb people for stories or give them the enjoyment of sharing their thoughts. I got to use the word 'asshole' a lot, pronouncing it like G Fresh the Japanese Indian in Cannibal! The Musical. She seemed to take similar delight in the word, and it had never sounded so joyous or festive to me.
I pulled up to her apartment and picked up my clipboard to write down the fare. "$15.55, please." She already had her money out and handed it to me as she opened the door. As I took it from her I saw it was a $20 folded around another bill. I thought $6 was an awesome tip, and opened the $20 to see a $5.
"What are you doing? You're killing me here! You can't do that." I turned around and she was standing outside the cab, looking back in, a bit embarrassed and trying to act modest. "I'm just going to have to to where you work at and give this all back to you in tips now."
"No, you don't."
She never lost that perfectly happy smile.
As I drove away I started thinking that that was my birthday gift. I wouldn't tell anyone that it was my birthday. It was there,though, under the skin, all night. I decided that that had made my night, like a wayward stranger handing me a basket of unsolicited El Rancho shrimp tacos when I was most hungry and unsuspecting.
I was dispatched from there to Wal-Mart. I wondered if it would be the same old lady that beat me for $5 earlier. It was, but I didn't care. I was a happy man. I got out and loaded her stuff in the trunk. There was an artificial Christmas tree, a wreath, a large generic frozen pizza, and a number of bags with smaller items.
I was very upbeat and pleasant. I told her it was nice to see someone in the holiday spirit, as everyone else I picked up either bemoaned their added responsibilities or where exhausted and relieved to be done shopping and ready for the season to be over. She was correspondingly chipper as well. When she got in the car she asked if she could eat a tangerine in the cab. I told her that was no problem. I added that it smelled especially sweet. She offered me a slice. I told her no thanks, that I had just eaten. She said she wouldn't want to make me hungry by eating in front of me, and commented that it was an especially good tangerine. She spoke for a few minutes about the price, availability, and relative quality of tangerines, especially in the aftermath of the season's hurricanes.
These particular tangerines were a shocking $.48 each. She had limited herself to four, hoping they were of good quality, with the intention of nursing them until Christmas by strictly regimenting her indulgence in them. I contrasted my own spending habits and lack of thrift. She started talking about her family, her health problems, and the plague of diseases and malfeasance that had ritually struck the members of her family.
Someone had commented that "you couldn't kill them (her clan) with a hammer." She went into detail of the innumerable ailments her relatives had survived, each in a row, stretching the act of dying out for twenty years or so, before succumbing to death in their 80s. Her mother had had survived cancer and diabetes, having more and more of her legs whittled away over the years, until she sat legless in a chair without enough strength to hold up her own head. Yet she was "still sharp, funny, and could tell you stories like she always had." The woman talked about how people would comment that she was still alive, God-bless-her, yet pity her state. That she was alive and her mind worked was all that mattered for my fare. I thought of my own grandmother who died a couple of months ago. She lived on her own and cared for herself until her death at 88 years old. Other than losing most of her hearing and some balance she was the same granny I remembered from my 20 some years with her.
I told her that she had very healthy perspective and a great, optimistic outlook that most lacked. I commented on how many people are bitter and angry that they are struck with ailments, and feel cheated, blaming forces larger than themselves. She acted as if this cemented all of her own ideas and thoughts into one, pat philosophy. I think I made her night. She tipped me $8 on a $10 fare. I carried her packages into her modest apartment. She apologized for the smell, stating that she had forgot to take out her garbage. It just smelled like old people to me. I looked for a cat or lap dog, but only saw a small porcelain puppy figurine, curled into a sleeping posture, on a rug under the coffee table. I felt a bit guilty for taking her $8. I thought this, too, must be yet another birthday present.
I'm trying to make good on my promise for more fares, so I'll get me another cold one and resume. A cold soda, that is.
Another favorite group home regular is Roberta. Or so I'll call her. The other sheltered workshoppers I've referred to are more severely disabled. I asked Jason what he did one time and he said "I stack tapes." VHS cassettes for packaging. Roberta works at another workshop, which I imagine involves less structure and more responsibility. I asked her what she did once and she said something about putting things in bags. It's some sort of assembly line piecework, but she used some overly technological jargon and shop talk I couldn't rightly cipher.
Roberta is a big ol' gal. The walk to the cab leaves her winded and wheezing. She has just about caught her breath by the time I get her to Paquin. The first night I picked her up she looked at me and said "you're new."
I said I was, and that I guessed the cab company had a lot of turnover, that they'd hired a few new drivers. "Yeah, they have a lot of drivers. Some of them aren't very nice."
Roberta talks a lot like the woman from Sling Blade, who was Carl's love interest from the dollar store.
"Well, I try to be nice."
"You're nice. I can tell." She was very matter of fact.
I asked her how she was doing and she complained about a pain in her side and said she had a doctors appointment the next day. I picked her up that night, too, and asked her if she was feeling any better.
"I fell out of my chair and hurt my bottom. The chair leg broke. I fell out and hurt myself."
Roberta has often says things two or three times. Tuesday night she said something about how the cab company should fix the door handle on the car. I told her I was just happy that all of the windows worked, even if they didn't go back down. I commented that it would be nice if they went down, for the drunks. I said that even if they didn't actually vomit that the fresh air made them feel better.
"I used to go with a Mexican man. He was married, too. He was married and running around with me, too, on the side. We ended up having a baby together."
Whoa, that was a right turn.
"I told him I wouldn't see him no more. His wife got mad at me. He came over to my house, and he was drunk. I told him I wouldn't see him anymore, and he wanted me to pour cold water on his head. That's what he wanted me to do. To pour cold water on his head."
"Oh, to sober him up?" Ahh, the tie-in. "I've heard of a few things, but I've never tried that one."
"Well that's what he wanted me to do. To pour cold water over his head. That's what made him sober. His wife come over one time, to my trailer. And she was mad at me. She said she was going to go get the knife and stab me."
"Ooooh. That's no good."
"That's what she said to me. I was going to say something to her. But I stopped. I told them I didn't want nothing to do with it. But we had a baby girl. She was beautiful. She's in foster care. We named her Betty Joe Vargas, cause that was his name. He had a Spanish name, he was a Mexican man. She's real pretty. She's a cheerleader in her school now."
I had a couple more regulars Tuesday who I'll introduce to you in good time. Sometimes after a second or third ride stuff comes together and I'll give you the back story, like Italy Dave and Roberta, above. I guess that's some fodder to get me through the lean times, too.
Things slowed down considerably Tuesday. And, by that, I mean everything just died. I tried to sleep in the parking garage once, but was stirred by a call. At one point I went home and got my 5 string. I started to do a little pickin' in the Lincoln. It was a very odd sound inside the burgundy confines of the Reagan-era luxury automobile. The 5.0 engine's loping, irregular idle, slight vibration and exhaust leak did not mesh well with the syncopation of the three-finger picking. The tones reverberated oddly off of the frigid windshield. I think I was getting some weird vertigo sensation when I was cut short by another call. I hated the thought of putting the banjo in the well-below-freezing trunk, so I leaned the old girl against the passenger's seat and rolled out.
I had one call, late, kind of in the hood. I got to the house and didn't see any lights, maybe a little glow from a TV. I'd been very deliberate and backed up in front of the house two or three times looking for the number. I thought I saw movement and maybe the dim glow go out. I beeped the horn but got no one. I was a bit tense. I radioed the dispatcher who called the number. To my surprise, he said the fare would be right out.
After a minute a tall shadowy figure in a long coat and a hood came out. The hood enshrouded a particularly impressive Caucasian 'fro. I thought it was a tall chick at first, but it turned out to be a guy. He got in and was very non-threatening. We weren't going far. He was a nice guy, but we didn't talk about much. He used his debit card. It was a $4.55 fare. I told him of our $2 service charge. He was cool with that. "Do you get that as a tip?"
"No. I don't really know where it goes but I know I don't see it."" He told me to put another $2 tip on the car. I thanked him kindly. I looked at the name on his card. "Dylan Greer." I asked him if that was as in Bob Dylan or Dylan Thomas. He said, "both, actually. My dad really liked Bob Dylan and my mom really liked Dylan Thomas."
That's when I remembered Bob Dylan's real name was Robert Zimmerman, and that I thought I had read that he took the Dylan from Dylan Thomas. This was news to Dylan Greer, who seemed a tad impressed. For some reason, I said "I went to school with a Graham Greer." I felt stupid pretty immediately, like when you meet someone from Norway and you tell them you dated a girl from Finland.
"That was in high school, in Lebanon, where I'm from."
"Really? We grew up in Lebanon." Turned out I did know his brother.
"Wasn't he some sort of a musician?"
"Yeah, he played upright bass. You know, the big, stand-up one."
"Oh yeah, I know it. I've got my banjo right here," and I picked up the case where he could see it.
"Cool."
I kept thinking about it and I remembered his brother. He played an electric bass for the school band. In parades, he would follow behind, in his own row, playing the bass. There was another kid who walked behind with a lawn-and-garden utility cart, like a wheelbarrow, with the amplifier for the bass. He was the same kid who 'managed' the athletic teams when cut and became a rental cop at the Taco Bell in Lebanon. I ran into him at out 10 year reunion this summer. He has lost a ton of weight. And he's a real cop now. Nice guy.
One thing I liked about #16 when I got in her was that she had working high-beams. #10's bright lights suck. Half the time they won't click on. The car is also equipped with a sensor to automatically dim the lights if another car approaches. But, it doesn't work very well, and almost any street light or sign reflection will cause them to dim. It's pretty annoying when you're cruising down a street and the Lincoln's giving you the ol' strobe pulse. So, I was enjoying the relative luxury in #16 of having bright lights on command.
But, during the night, they became increasingly difficult to disengage. Finally they just wouldn't dim, and were hopelessly stuck on high. I didn't want to say anything to the dispatcher though, because 1) they always bitch if you say anything about the car on the radio, and 2) I didn't want to be sent home and not make money because of their defective equipment. Besides, the lights weren't an issue downtown, since it is already pretty bright and the headlights won't glare at you. And I was running so slow I was spending a lot of the time parked. And, there was very little traffic to blind, anyway.
But, another A*1 driver met me in passing. He flashed his lights at me, but I couldn't dim mine. He radioed dispatch to tell me to dim them. I told dispatch they were stuck. He told me to call in on my cell phone. Then he told me he couldn't have me driving with brights only, and I'd have to bring it in. It was 1:30 now, so I thought, cool, I will get off early on my birthday. I asked him If I needed to clean the car and gas it, since it likely wouldn't be on the road that morning. He said I needed to anyway. I put another $25 in it. I had put $20 in it because the day driver left it empty for me. I get reimbursed for fuel, but, on nights like Tuesday when 1/2 my fares are credit cards or charges, there's not enough cash to cover my cut of the meter and reimburse me for fuel. So, I have to wait until the next night I work to get all of my money. A minor inconvenience, but an inconvenience nonetheless.
So, I had to go through the empty exercise of vacuuming a car no one would drive in the 9 degree weather at the car wash. Not inspiring. Then I radioed in and asked about going home early. The dispatcher said I couldn't because Tim was already leaving early. And he was giving me Tim's car. Cocksucker.
So I went in. It was past 2 am. They put me in Tim's car, #1, the minivan. It's not a bad ride. They told me it was all warmed up and ready to go. I got in it and it was fucking freezing. I started it and there was zero heat. Fucking cocksuckers.
Miraculously, I had a call. I picked up a frantic old black woman who had experienced a panic attack alone in her house. She was going to her daughter's, 2 blocks away. $3 fare. That was worth coming out for. I still had no heat, so I circled downtown, waiting for the van to warm up. The temp gage was still registering zero. My feet were completely frozen from vacuuming #16. This sucked.
After a while I gave up on the notion of ever getting any heat and cussed Tim in my mind. I figured it was low on coolant, and he should have noticed it after 9 hours in the son-of-a-bitch. But, it was already after 2:30, and I didn't want to have to stop and buy coolant or go back to dispatch and fuck around with it in the cold. I would save that for the lucky day driver so they would be pissed at dispatch. I got bored and decided to study the alleys.
I inched my way through Columbia's alleys. Stopping to study every nuance. I decided this would become my new night-time ritual. I want to form a mental map and offer late night alley tours to comoers, once I get things down. I figure I may be able to incorporate some sleaze elements, like a brothel tour or crack house tour once I learn more. I waited for the cops to catch me and harass me in the alley. They didn't.
At about 3am dispatch told me I could bring it in. For the first time in a more than a half an hour I tried to drive faster than 2 mph. The transmission was slipping horribly; the van would barely pull itself. I looked down at the temp gage. It was up a bit, still well short of normal. There was not enough coolant in it to immerse the sensor. So, even though the motor was hot, the temp gage was inoperable. That it was reading anything now meant that there was steam in the coolant chambers and/or the intake was about to melt, so hot that it heated the sensor pellet. The drastic overheating had also overheated the transmission fluid and the transmission. It was on the verge of a complete meltdown. Oops.
I put it in low gear and got going fast enough for it to air cool enough to operate again. Had it not been 7 degrees outside the entire drive-train would have likely imploded. I radioed to see if I need to vacuum it, since I thought Tim would have. That cocksucker hadn't, so I had to fucking vacuum another shitty cab, freezing my nads off after an hour with no heat. Cocksucker.
I limped it back in and parked it. I told the dispatcher to make a note to check the coolant level.
I had told the dispatcher Monday night that I had paid off the $200 for number #10 with my last cash drop. The owner had the dispatcher radio me Tuesday to tell me that I only owed $20 more. Fuck all that. I have records. I think I know which date the confusion stems from, and I intend to correct her.
I did my paperwork and Psycho Ken came in. I tried to get him wound up a bit. I told him the story of the landscaper girl and the $10. He thought I was an idiot for saying anything to her about the tip. "She's not gonna be your girl, she's not gonna be your wife, you just take that money and go, just as soon as you can get her out of the car, and don't look back." I told him I wouldn't have said anything if I thought she was going to take it back.
I also asked him if he had hear Roberta talk about her Hispanic love child. He hadn't. He rolled his eyes at the mention of the words 'group home.' I said that they were a good time. He told me that my idea of a good time was warped. I took my money and left. The cab company owed me $13.23 on the night.
So, happy 29Th to me. My sister called tonight to ask me if I got my card. I hadn't checked the mail. I looked, and had a card from her and one from my parents. I forgot them in my car when I went and got the pizza. At about 9pm I was thinking about going to the tavern, and wondered if there might be some drinking money in the card from my mom. No such luck.
I have to get up 'early' for a 1:30 court appearance, in a few hours. It's from the accident I had in #10. A belated birthday gift from the City of Columbia, I imagine, I just hope I don't do anything antisocial. I'm sure the midday sun will weird me out a bit, combined with the lack of sleep. I know I've got one good Network moment in me, but I don't feel this will be it. Ciao.
posted by Garner at 3:29 AM
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