Help There's a Fire

Hoo boy, if it isn't Thursday night already.

It felt like a Sunday all day to me. Not sure why.

Cab!

Monday: I was pleased to see a large pinkish-purple puddle beneath #3, seeping into the ash-colored silt of the chat lot behind the cab company. I guess that bitch finally bled out, and now I hope to put it behind me. I was in trusty #10, with CD in hand.

Monday was a weird night. It was pretty dead, but I still had a pretty good night ($199.79 on the meter). I had a couple of decent fares and most of the other drivers went home, so I got to clean up all of the calls after 1 am. I didn't have too many crazy characters.

I picked up one guy from the Wal-Mart Supercenter and took him to the Eastwood Hotel. It is pretty old, and dodgy. I think the guy probably worked there. He was Indian or Pakistani, or something, and smelled rather fragrant. It may have been something in his groceries, but I'd wager that it was him alone that I smelled, and it smelled very much like he had his pockets full of leftover Thanksgiving turkey. And cologne. Tasty.

That reminds me of one fare from the Med Center a couple of weeks ago. Dispatch had me double up on two fares. One was on a social work pass, so I ran the cash fare first. I felt like I should have given the woman the $16.05 fare for free, for having to sit in the van with the other guy, who reeked horribly. He smelled like the half-empty box of Arm-and-Hammer baking soda that's been in my refrigerator since 1999, only more pungent, with a chemical aftertaste. I think a lot of it was his rotten ass-breath. Like rotten vegetable matter and garlic. My eyes practically watered.

I picked up one guy on Anthony street and took him round-trip to the Petro Mart.

"I just need to go somewhere that sells batteries and liquor."

I remembered him from my first week, and told him several details about himself. He was impressed.

I ran out to the Centralia exit off of I-70 to pick up a Yellow Freight truck driver. He was staying in Columbia for the night, and had the option of staying at the Ramada or the Super 8. I told him the Ramada was a little further, but a lot nicer. He didn't care about the extra $4 or $5, since it was on the company dime. It was about $25 to the Ramada. I was still writing the time down on my sheet when he came back out and knocked on the window. I though he'd forgotten something, but it turned out that his company had cancelled their contract with the Ramada and he had to go back to the Super 8. So I made some more money on the deal, and he tipped me. Nice. I found out after my shift that the Super 8 wouldn't take him either, and he had to cab it to a third hotel.

I picked up one urban girl from Target. She may have been a tad bit Latina, but looked mostly Caucasian, though she had a very exaggerated urban accent. She said she was from St. Louis. She was talking about all of the stuff she got and all of the money she spent. "It's okay, though, I still got my rent."

"I went to Payless, to look for some princess shoes for my Goddaughter, and I was like, damn, $30. That's more than I paid for my Lebron James' for my daughter. I remember when you could go to Payless without yo' mama. Now I need my mama to go with me an I'm grown."

I asked her if she had a good Christmas. "Shit, I don't even do the holidays. I had to come down here. My people's calling me and sayin' to come over, and I'm like 'I'm in Columbia. Don't even bother.'"

She was calling her friend, who she was staying with, on her cell phone. She wasn't answering. "That bitch better be there, or she's gettin' a beat-down." When we got there no one was at home. I took her to her friend's mama's house a few blocks away. She knew the streets extremely well for being from St. Louis.

"Oh, I used to live in Columbia. If this bitch's mama ain't home I'm just gonna say 'fuck her' and have you take me on to Lynn's."

Ahhh, the tie-in.

The bitch's mama was home, so I left here there. She was gracious and tipped, $1 on a $9 fare.

I picked up a woman at the Break Time on Rangeline as they were closing. It was a thin black woman, in her mid-40s, maybe older, with no teeth, smelling of booze. She was in the parking lot, and waived at me when I pulled in. Not in a hail-a-taxi sort of manner, but the way your friend would wave at you to be silly when you were trying to park the car. She waived at the guy locking the front door as he flipped off the lights.

She was pretty fretful, urging me to drive fast because she didn't know if she'd have enough money to pay me. I explained to her that our meters ran on distance, not time, but she didn't get it. She kept telling me to hurry. I explained it to her again. She relaxed some, but not much. She said she used to walk it but that she just found out she had lung cancer and couldn't do it any more. She was wheezing a bit in the back of the cab, leaned forward anxiously. She was also smoking.

She had me stop when her money ran out. I knew we had to be close. "How much further is it?"

"It's just around the corner."

Statements like this are rarely accurate, but I was willing to drive her the rest of the way, because it wasn't a good neighborhood to be walking in after dark. To my surprise, it was just a few hundred yards more. She was moved almost to tears by my modest act of kindness. Her eyes were wet and she wiped at them as she said "you're my Christmas present. This was a Christmas present for me." She leaned forward and hugged me over the seat, the shell of her puffy coat cool against may face.

At 11:15 I picked up a girl getting off of work at the Casey's on Clark Lane. When she told me the address I recognised it. It was the daughter of the woman who drives for A*1 that I had to pick up for work in my first couple of weeks. She was the one who complained to her mom about a cab driver being rude, and she thought it was me, since it was "a young guy with glasses." I made sure she knew the difference.

My next call was to pick up a guy walking near St. Charles and Keene. I wondered what kind of shenanigans were afoot, though I myself have called a cab in similar situations. I drove a ways before I found him. He was bouncing a basketball.

The guy was Crow Indian. He had lived on a reservation in Montana. He had lived for years in Salt Lake City, and had been a Mormon. He had also been drinking, though he was very lucid and polite. He had come this way looking for work, his father had got him a job here. He had grown dissatisfied with the job and quit. He had been walking for an hour and a half. We stopped and he got a 40oz at the gas station.

He had me stop at the end of his driveway. I didn't know if that was for his or my convenience. The fare was $16.05. His wife had called for the cab, and he waited in the car as she came out. She opened his door and handed me a $20. "Oh, you reek," she said, not angry, mostly amused.

"Well, I was at that place."

I gave her change, 4 $1s. She handed one or two back, and was in the act of contemplating, when he said "you've got to give him more than that." I think I ended up with $5 in tip.

After 1am I got a call to the Thirsty Turtle. I pulled up to an odd mix of three men standing outside the bar. A squirrelly drunk guy with a blazer, glasses, beard, and a mop of hair, a nondescript friend of his, and a black man in his 40s. None seemed to be waiting for a cab. I rolled down the passenger window and checked. Just then the bartender stepped out of the door and held up his finger for me to wait. The bartenders there are pretty good about calling cabs for people and helping them out. The concrete steps and curb outside of the door were an irregular afterthought or accommodation, and are perfect to induce a drunk into a nasty header. They tilt askew on a couple of different planes and are of unusual height.

After a couple of minutes the two bartenders managed to herd out two 30something women. They were somewhat dumpy and unfashionable, though they weren't into girls. One had a somewhat fashionable, if unfashionably short, haircut. They were toasted and having too much fun with everything. Not mischievous, entertaining drunks, as I fancy that I am, but just irregular, babbling, prattling women laughing at things that shouldn't be funny, even after drinking whatever they had drunk.

It took some doing to get them into the cab. Luckily I could rely on the bartenders to do so. They weren't bent on driving, or really anything, but they did posture that they wanted out so they could drive themselves, though I think it was just another not-funny attention-grabbing mechanism that was overly entertaining to them.

It was one of the more annoying rides I've had with drunks, though they just thought they were funny. I guess the most annoying part was how even when drunk they were still completely unfunny. One was asthmatic, and would laugh ridiculously about nothing to the point where her bronchial tubes would try to collapse. This, too, was apparently funny, and would exaggerate her laughter into a sick equine snorting chortle, like a fat man in the throws of a particularly unnerving snore. At one point she was lying across or on top of her friend and said "oh, I've gotta fart, Nigga!" Her voice was more that of a little girl's, perhaps with a mild cold.

And she farted. It was a most graceless and indelicate spectacle, but high-fucking-larious to the pair of them, as was the other's frantic demands to roll down the window. Did I mention they thought I was cute? And funny? Trust me, I wasn't trying.

It was as hard to get them out of the cab as it was to get them in. What a handful. One tried to hug me only to clamp down with crude drunk strength on my Adam's apple. Thanks, but, ouch.

After that I couriered some blood between Columbia Regional and the University Hospital. It's kind of fun, the feeling of accomplishment when you successfully navigate your way to a destination within the hospital. It's typically a $9 charge, which isn't a lot considering it may take at least 10 minutes on each end to find the right places. But, there wasn't too much doing at that time of night.

At about 2:55 am I picked up a woman from a used car office on Parkade. I had picked her up once from the Red Roof Inn and brought her there, perhaps a month or so before. This time she came out with some luggage and was going to the Greyhound Station. To go to Milwaukee. She didn't have much else to say. After making change for her I listened for the rustling as she got her stuff together to get out. I didn't hear anything, though, and turned to see her holding up a $1 tip, which was beyond my expectation.

I had just finished gassing the cab and was getting ready to take it in for the night when I saw some squirrelly ethnic dude humping a big pack across the sidewalk in front of the gas station.

"Are you driving taxi?"

"Yeah, that's me," I said, walking up to him.

"How much to go to grake hount?

"Greek Town?"

"Graketown."

"Gatehouse? Gatehouse Apartments?"

"Grayhoundt, bus."

"Oh, Greyhound. From here, about $4." I figured the other bus had already left. He got in the cab and we headed over there. He was telling me that he and his brother, whom he was living with, had been fighting over a girl. He was trying to relate to me, that he just had to get out of town. I dropped him off at Greyhound, $4.05. I doubted another bus would be there for some time.

That was Monday night.

Tuesday: I had spent a fair amount of time obsessing over my hair Monday night. I became convinced that it conspired to keep me unhappy and foolish-looking. I would shave it off. I woke up late Tuesday, and was in quite a fog. I knew the only prudent thing to do would be to wait until my days off and give myself a trim. Rather, a spread a plastic bag over the sink, put on a #1 guard (1/8") and buzzed it off.

Shaving your head is cathartic. I'm not a good candidate for the cue-ball look, though, so I leave an 1/8". That keeps it from being a shining white beacon, and looks less vain than if I were to Bic it. Of course it is a bad time to shave your head, since it is so cold out. But fuck it.

My first call was to the Harbor House, which is a homeless shelter on North Ann. It was a family, though, so I guess they're temporary residents. Two black woman and three kids, maybe 8-13. I took them to the Golden Corral. They were pretty excited. Apparently it's not a good idea to walk around a homeless shelter gloating that you're going to the Golden Corral, or everyone will hate you and try to glom on. I told them it was $1 extra for the second adult passenger and the woman in front said, "I don't care, just hurry and get us there."

As I was turning into the Golden Corral a car topped the hill in the oncoming lane. It's a four lane there, with a turn lane. The oncoming lane crests a hill where the speed limit drops from 45 to 35, though most people are doing at least 50 when they top it. I had plenty of time, but as the car topped the hill the woman in front freaked out for a half second, before she realized we were cool and that the car was decelerating. "Ahhh! You're not trying to get me killed, are you?"

"I thought you were hungry! I'm just trying to get you there. What, you'd rather not eat in an ambulance; you're not that hungry?"

"No if a car hit us the baby would come and I wouldn't get to eat for a week." I gave them a healthy dose of post-Christmas candy canes from the still-half-full tub.

I headed from the Golden Corral across 70 to pick up Miss Jane at her gracious-retirement-living home. She was pleasant enough, for Miss Jane. We were heading to Murry's (I've been misspelling it 'Murrays'). I've developed a habit of making sure she has her cane, since she tends to forget it and have no idea where. She had it this time.

The parking lot at Murry's doesn't flow too well. There were cars parked blocking the door, so I couldn't pull right up front like normal. I stopped the cab, turned on the flashers, and escorted Miss Jane inside. I had left the back door of the cab open.

I came back out and there was a semi-professional looking white dude, 40-somethingish, in a nice new Toyota SUV, stopped, waiting to get through, coming opposite the direction the cab was facing. Though there are parking spaces facing that direction, they were already full. He had his window down as I walked quickly around the cab, closing the rear door mid-stride.

"You could have done just a little better job parking," he said, in an overly-polite tone. Why bother dressing it up? Just because you say it nicely doesn't make you less of a dick. Am I supposed to feel guilty? Should I apologize, and lie prostrate before you? To think I delayed you for nigh on a minute's time, when you're in your autumn years and couldn't possibly reverse and use the other exit?

I managed not to say anything. I grinned and tossed my head back, nodding with a wild-eyed stare, as if in agreement. What the look said was 'you'd best not fuck with me, I'm likely at the end of my rope and would like nothing better than the excuse to eat your soft heart,' or so I thought it might convey all of that. It was a brief exchange. People. Entitlement. Inconvenience. Importance. Urgency.

It was an unseasonable 50 degrees or so when I showed up for work. People mistook it for spring, and there were legions of people loitering idly in the somewhat suspect neighborhood I drove too as dark set in fully. I wondered when that neighborhood had been taken over by thug life. It's funny how insular race is in a town like Columbia. Most white people live in their own neighborhoods and only see black people in passing cars or at the Break Time. Columbia is just big enough to support separate bars and business for different races. White flight has not slowed one bit since Brown v. Board of Education.

I picked up another regular whom I seldom haul. She is an attractive blond girl, from Maine. I think she's paid to take her clothes off, at least part-time. She has some more 'legitimate' pursuits, as well. She was very conversant the only other time I picked her up, in my second week of driving.

"Are you new? I've never seen you before?"

"Yup, brand new. Fresh as a daisy."

"Really? So this is your first night?"

"No, actually I've been driving for a couple for weeks now." I suspected she may have been a stripper the second I saw her. She had on a nice tailored mid-length wool coat, over what must have been a short skirt, short enough that I did not see evidence of it. She was wearing some shiny leather boots that came over her calves, a la Condy Rice.

She asked about Creepy Clyde, and told me a story about how he had driven her the day before, then said, "well, I guess I'll see you around."

"Then he showed up where I work. I was like 'are you working tonight, Clyde?' And he said no, but gave me and my friend a ride home, anyway. I just thought it was funny, though, that he would show up where I worked."

Pause.

"You, know, where I work."

Bait.

"Where's that you work?"

"Club Vogue."

I suspected she may have been fresh in the game, as she wasn't completely jaded, bitter, defeated, pregnant, tattooed, pierced, strung out, etc. Most strippers aren't chipper about their jobs (in my limited experience), and it seemed like it was fresh for her, like she enjoyed saying it aloud. As we chatted she asked me how I came to be driving a cab. I said something about going to college for seven years.

"Seven years?"

"Well, I got a degree in English, then I went to law school."

"Really, I'm working on a degree in English. Let me guess, you're doing this so you can write a book?"

The thought had never crossed my mind, but I had just written my first real blog entry. I thought it somehow prophetic.

"Well, I guess I'll see you around, then." She said.

She definitely stuck in my mind more than my average fare. I spent a while fancying how a chick could fancy me. Then I spent a while longer chastising myself for being an idiot, and how pathetic it was that an attractive woman could rule me so simply and effortlessly, and that these ladies were particularly well versed in male puppetry.

That night I asked some other drivers about her. None of them knew anything about her stripping, so she may have only just started. It was one of those cases where you're sure you're talking about the same person, but you each know a completely different side of her, so you'd rather think that you're talking about two separate people, so as you don't have to admit that your perceptions were erring or illusory.

She had largely slipped out of my subconscious when I got the call Monday night, some 6 weeks later. She was wearing the coat again, but this time with some of those trendy yet less-fashionable ugh boots. She got in the front of the old Lincoln. Her face looked more ordinary and approachable than I remembered.

We chatted about something or other related to the cab business on the short ride to her house. The conversation continued. We chatted about music, and she impressed me with her interests. In as much as anything might have impressed me, as I had adjusted my musical requirements downward in inverse proportions to how attractive she was. Yet, she exceeded even what would have impressed me in a far more modestly-attractive female.

The length of our conversation, parked in her driveway, easily exceeded the length of the cab ride (though it was only about 5 or 6 minutes to her house). It ended, again, with, "well, I guess I'll see you around."

Again, I spent some time over-analyzing every nuance. I have given up on reading women. I assume all of them should find me irresistible, though most don't. It's not that I can't read signals, it's just that if I am wrong one times in ten the embarrassment and burning anger with myself is enough to keep me erring on the side of the conservative. Maybe in another 6 weeks I can get another chance. Baby steps. Leave 'em wanting more.

At 9 o'clock I had a call to pick up another regular. In a recent post I mentioned how I returned his gloves to him at 4:30 in the morning because I thought he was cool enough. This time, he wanted dropped off at the Wal-Mart on Nifong, a couple of miles from his house, from which he would walk. I was sure this was because he was broke, though he didn't say so. I estimated the fare would be about $10 to there, and I was going to just run him in the rest of the way for free since he was a regular and was working hard. I wasn't going to bring it up, though, until we were close.

We had only gone a little over a mile when he said "is that meter right?" It was at $4.80, which, with $1.80 for the first 1/10th of a mile, was about right. "Nah, man, it only cost me...like...I got all of the way to Wal-Mart the last...two times...for like $5 something."

Bull shit. No fucking way. Now way in hell on the meter, and I knew no other driver would ever hook him up, since he was a black guy with his grill all crunked up. He was trying to bullshit me, which was pretty insulting, since I had done him the unthanked favor of returning his gloves and had been planning to help him out. Then he said he only had $10. The fare to Wal-Mart is $10.30. Why you gotta do me like that?

I went to the library. I got a Bukka White CD and a copy of an R.L. Burnside CD I had lost (I think I left it in the CD player in a truck I sold). The Bukka White is alright.

I picked up the same girl from Caseys as the night before, the one who had confused me for the other driver. "Didn't you give me a ride last night, too?"

"Yeah. I shaved my head, though, so no one would mistake me for that other dude anymore." She was mightily indifferent.

At about midnight I had a call to the Fairfield Inn. I picked up two early 20-something males, dressed a little pimp, like they should be downtown at the Field House.

"Where we headed, guys?"

"3215 Rangeline."

Hmm. The last houses on Rangeline, near the business loop are in the 1200 block. 3215 should be further North. I couldn't think of any houses up there, except Lynn's, the whorehouse.

"Is that a house or a business you're going to?"

"It's a house."

Hmm. We headed up that way. 3215 is Lynn's. Who the fuck were they trying to kid? I'm a cab driver, goddamnit.

"You guys have a good time."

I ate some El Rancho chicken tacos, the first time I had been back since my puke-o-rama night. They went (and stayed) down with no incident.

Shortly after 1am I had a call at Tellers. I pulled up in front and waited. The front doors were papered off, and said "Closed: Private Party." I saw several people milling around inside, saying their good-byes, drunkenly, and finding their coats and drinks. Sal from Eastside walked out the door. He kind of glanced at the cab, and went back in. Then a woman with a black cocktail dress came out and got in.

She said something about Sal calling a cab for her, and watching for it.

"That Sal is a real country gentleman."

She lamented being a woman by herself at a wedding reception. Apparently everyone was hitting on her. Then she tried to wait outside, where bums and transients hit on her. She was nice enough, though not in a pleasant mood. She helped herself to a candy cane and crunched away at as she spoke.

I had to wait on her to go inside to get money to pay me. She was drunk and bobbing along the walkway to her house. She had lost her right shoe, though the straps were still tethered to her ankle. She tried to put it back on without breaking her wobbly stride. She took her shoes off inside, and I saw her pass the large front window at least five times in both directions before she reemerged and paid me. As I was heading back downtown I saw a tube of lipstick that must have fallen out of her purse. It was 'WET WET RED.'

I got another good fare out of Tellers before the party had completely evaporated. Then I picked up a group of four drunk college males, at the Steak and Shake out on Worley. They were pretty cool, and we spent much of the ride exchanging Clyde stories.

My last call came at about 3 am. It was to go to Santa Barbara, in the El Chaparral subdivision, out east of town. That place is shady. The streets are like a maze and heavily lined with cars. Visibility is poor. My street guide was confusing on the location of a certain street, and I had had a frustrating experience the first time I went out there. I was wary of what kind of legitimate call might come out of there at 3 am on a Tuesday.

I found Santa Barbara right away, this time, and the house numbers started at 4200. The address I was given was 1115. I called dispatch and he was telephoning while I drove around to see if I missed something. I saw a couple of slender girls in coats walking on an adjacent street. They didn't look at me, which I found a bit odd, since I was the only source of activity in the otherwise dull, mute neighborhood.

Dispatch radioed back and said the phone number he had been given was a wrong number. This coupled with the nonexistent address was exceptionally fishy. About this time I passed the girls again, walking a different direction. I have heard of a number of robberies in Columbia that begin with a woman asking for help and then a number of men appearing suddenly to rob you. One of the girls threw her arm up. I still had the car in gear, with a clear lane ahead of me, and no one else in view. I opened my door.

Now they were walking away again, like they didn't see me. "You guys call a cab?" One of them said 'no' without looking. They were probably only 15. I think maybe they were sneaking out of their houses and had considered taking the cab to go somewhere, but chickened out. Either way, I left them to their own devices and got the fuck out of there.

That was Tuesday night. I did $145 on the meter, so I took home about $50 plus some tips. It was misting and cold when I walked out with Psycho Ken.

"I was thinking about riding my bike to Rocheport on the Katy Trail, but this mist is none too inspiring."

"Ah Hell no," Ken said, the words barely out of my mouth.

I had thought I might do something useful on my day off, Wednesday. But, I woke up and it was rainy and overcast. So I slept until 6 pm or so. I was kind of mad at myself. I dug out my old NiCad Cygo Lite bicycle headlight, thinking I may get that ride in sometime.

I went to Buckingham's and had some ribs. Then I went to the library, where I got a Ralph Stanley CD and Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, a documentary about the abomination that is Fox News. I will find Bill O'Reilley and kick him in the dick. I also picked up a sixer of Pony Express Rattlesnake pale ale. I watched the vid, drank 4 brews, and got nappy. I slept from about 12 until about 3am. I was considering riding, but needed some food. I figured I'd wait until 4 am, and get some MacDonald's breakfast. While I was waiting I finished up Faulkner's "Light in August."

Well, I ate some breakfast, but couldn't get much further past that. I watched a documentary about Howard Hughes on cable. Then I checked out my blog, actually reading a little of it myself. Sorry for the typographical and grammatical errors in that last one. I should try proofreading some. I explored some other blogs, also. I uncovered a handful of taxi blogs. One was old and dormant, from a Manhattan cabbie. One was from a woman in California, one a guy in Boston, another from Anchorage. The one most like mine is written by a 42 year old bisexual male in Lexington, Kentucky. Which is not to say its just like mine.

I also looked at incredibly bad band web sites. This all kept me busy until about 8am. I was exhausted, but couldn't sleep. I went to my garage and decided to try to fire up the old Homelite. I first put the new handle in my splitting maul. Then I mixed some gas for the saw, and filled it up, along with the bar oiler. But, try as I might, I could not make her run.

I cleaned the air filter and the spark plug. I had ran it out of gas the last time I used, probably 18 months ago. It always started remarkably easy, but not this time. I'll have to do some research. I didn't bother checking to see if it had any spark while I had the plug out.

Damn.

Well, I decided that, in that case, I would try to clean out the garage some more and haul off some scrap. I am a bit of a hoarder and a pack rat, and hate to throw stuff away. Especially raw materials, since any single scrap of steel could be just the thing I need in a future project. But, in reality, being able to use that one little piece may save me $.30, and I have to store it and it's thousand little buddies, butt ends of tubing and flat stock, scraps of sheet metal and diamond plate, in the way, for indefinite periods of time. And, if I need a 3" length of a given piece of tubing, it is usually easier to cut it off of a longer piece of stock, rather than the 6" piece I've been saving, since it may not be long enough to clamp in my chop saw and I could lose a finger trying to hold it. Fingers cost more than tubing.

So, I hauled off a surprising good lot of scrap. Then I decided to ditch the giant metal desk someone had given me, to make more room in the back of the garage. The desk was not the optimal fit, and I have a large mechanic's roll-away chest I built for working at the tranny shop to take its place. It took a second trip to haul off the desk. I still have plenty of cleaning and organizing to do, though. I slept again at about 3 pm, getting up at 9pm. Then I went and ate, and grabbed some cat food and litter.

That pretty much brings me up until now. At least I accomplished a little something on my days off. This Saturday is New Year's Eve, and I'm working, so I hope to make some damn money. As much as I complained about money when I started I've about got used to starving this month. It will be nice to start doing $200-240 on the meter again, vs. $108-$145. And, who knows, maybe some nice girls will show me their nekkid breasts for my troubles.