Que Up, and Form a Line

In four hours and twenty minutes adult contemporary radio stations will be playing "Brick" by the Ben Folds Five.

Hola, Amigos, its the day after Christmas. Since I last wrapped at ya--

I got my last update up at about 7 am or so and crashed out for some shut-eye. I got up and left the house at about 3:20 pm. I needed some food, though I had no real appetite. It had been hard to get out of bed. I didn't have time to eat at Jimmy John's but figured I would have time to eat a sandwich while I waited for my cab came, even though this meant that I would have to eat at the filthy table in a cloud of cheap cigarette smoke.

For those of you curious, I take a #4--Turkey Tom with no tomato, cheese, and BBQ Jimmy Chips.

Sadly, I was only half-way through with the sandwich when they gave me a car and a call. Bollocks. I re-wrapped the sandwich and swept the chips back in the bag. I was only half-upset because I had only been half-hungry.

And which car did I get put into? Why, dear old #3, the minivan that I went off about in my last post. Of course they hadn't done a damned thing to it other than top off the fluid, which is not the source of the problems. Jerri added some ATF before I pulled out. Reverse was on its way out. When you put it in "R" it did nothing, until you revved the engine for a few seconds, then, 'Bang!" it would slam into gear, feeling like the van had likely spat the transmission on the ground in disgust.

My mom had called me when I was in a rush to get into Jimmy John's. She wanted to know what I wanted for Christmas. I told her nothing. She said that she had thought she could replace some of the "tapes" I had stolen. For those of you who don't know, my CD collection was swiped late this summer. I told her that she could only find them online, as that was where I had bought them, either from artists' web sites or at concerts, and not to worry about it.

I had taken Split Lip Rayfield's live album with me to work, in case I got #10. Thus, I was even more disappointed in #3, which has a rattling empty socket where the stereo should be. The night would be slow for some time, and I would scream at myself and sing in random intervals. Once I screamed for no apparent reason, loud enough for a passing couple, bent against the rain, to turn and look at the cab.

So, yeah, #3 was alive, like a horror film antagonist or a clingy ex-girlfriend. I was not thrilled.

But, once again, we were predictably dead for the first 7 or 8 hours. I had about one call an hour and would pass the time reading Faulkner in the parking 'structure.' I was into my book and almost annoyed to get calls. Once I had a cancellation at the Gerbes on west Ash. That's one location where you're pretty much guaranteed to not make any money. It's almost always some low-income woman who lives a couple of blocks away. Anybody else would drive their own cars to Hy-Vee or the Wal-Mart Supercenter. So, I interrupted my reading to drive over there, only to come up empty. Dispatch sets up a rotation for the drivers, based on the order we show up that day, and hands out calls accordingly. When you run one call you're dropped back down to the bottom and have to work your way back up again. Thus, it really sucks to get a $3 call, because now you're out of the running for another hour, and the next guy may get a $100 fare. At least the cancellation kept me alive for a potentially better fare.

I tried to get into Toys 'R' Us to buy a gift for my niece. The first time I got a call the second I pulled into a parking space. The second time I went in, but nothing immediately caught my eye. The lines were extremely long, though, and I doubted I could get through one without getting a call from dispatch. My mom had told me that she had picked up something extra for my niece that she had wanted, and that I could tell her it was from me. I'm a shitty uncle.

I had one call in a subdivision on the south side. These are generally groups of students headed downtown for drinking, and they rarely ever cancel. But, when I pulled up to the duplex, no one came out. A neighbor stepped out and said that the people had got a ride from someone else, and had already left. I thanked him for saving the time waiting, and he said that his group may be interested in a taxi. He apparently couldn't convince them. I told him that since I was already there, and would be wasting a round-trip and time, that I would run them for 1/2 price. If I ran them for half-price and put the fare down at what it should be on my sheet I would be paying for 15% of their fare myself. I decided that I would just call it in as a cancellation and take the four or five dollars for myself. This would be the first time I ever didn't run a fare the right way. It was either that or come up with nothing, again, and I knew that that would be one more call at bar closing.

I explained the situation to them (it turned out to be four guys) and told them that it required silence on their part while I phoned in the cancellation. As soon as I pushed the button on the mic one of them said something loud and stupid. I laughed at my own stupidity, and was glad that he had at least spoke up before I reported a cancellation. I told dispatch I got my fare and was resigned to losing money on the deal. His friend told him he was stupid, and only then did he figure out what he had done. The straight fare was $18.05. I told them to give me $9. Even though there was four of them it appeared they weren't going to help me out in the least. Luckily, the last guy tipped, and I collected $13 from them, which covered the fare and gave me about $1 for the ride. Then one of them asked if I would pick them up for free later that night. "Dude, I'm starving tonight. I'll be lucky to make $50 for 12 hours at this rate."

I had one good fare, early. It was a guy going from Green Meadows drive all of the way to Wagon Trail Road, north of Prathersville Road. The straight fare would be $26 or so, and there was a 10 minute stopover at the pharmacy. The total fare was $36.80. The guy was a carpet layer with back problems. He picked up a prescription of 180 perkocettes, as well as two other pain killers/muscle relaxers. He said he took all three at once and worked all day like that. I took one perkocette a week after I broke my collarbone and nearly passed out when I had to stand up for an X-ray.

I picked up two other guys north of town and took them to TK Brothers'. It was a decent fare, and they asked for a card so they could request me later. They called at about 11:30 or so, to go to another bar, with another friend in tow. One of them lived in Chicago, was a salesman of some sort, and liked to beat the hustle. He tried to get me to turn off the meter and not report the extra passengers. Not so they could pay less, but so that I could pocket more. I've had a few business-types that try this. It's as if I am insulting them by going by the book. They'll try to convince me that hustling is the only way to do things, since honesty is misplaced in an essentially shiftless cash-based business. I always tell them that they can feel free to take the difference out of my tip and that I won't take it personally, but that honesty is the one thing I have going for me that I can be proud of.

And they usually do. I got the $.20 change from the guy's friend when he paid to get the first guy to quit arguing and go inside. I also try to explain to them that the cab drivers they think are hooking them up will steal from them too, by not running the meter and exaggerating the fare, or taking a longer route. But they just want to feel like they've won something and that they're street savvy, even when they're paying the same amount. As if fulfilling the cabbie hustler stereotype is a performance worthy of gratuity. Well fuck them.

Every time I got a student or young person in the cab I'd ask them what was keeping them in Columbia for the holiday. I got into a chat with one guy about small town life. I told him a story, for a change, about going to a bar in Lebanon the night before my 10 year high school reunion. I told him I would ask young locals what there was to do for fun in Lebanon, already knowing their answers.

"There's nothing to do here, except drink. Lebanon sucks."

"You know what I've found is a fun thing to do in Lebanon?"

"What's that?"

"Pack up and get the fuck out of here."

No one ever disagreed.

I picked a latina woman up at the mall about 9:30, with two little girls. She spoke Spanish to them in the cab. The younger girl, maybe 3 or so, was getting fussy and cranky. As we drove past the new Chuck E. Cheese's the mom pointed it out to the daughter.

"Bonnie, vamos a Cheese's? Vamos a Cheese's?"I had wished she'd say Queso's. Then, when she started crying a bit, "Tranquila, Bonnie, tranquila."

I took one girl to Harpo's around 11. I asked her why she was still in town, and she said she had worked at Chevy's until 10.

"Fresh Mex?"

"That's it."

"Do you guys have to sing birthday songs there?"

"Yes. I hate it." She gave me $6 on a $3.55 fare.

At about 12:30 I picked up a regular and took him to Club Vogue. He was the kid who celebrated his 21st birthday at work at Flat Branch a week or two earlier. He's a fresh-faced kid with short cropped blond hair and an earring or two. As he got out I told him to take it easy on the ladies.

"Don't go breaking too many hearts in there, Marshall. Those poor girls are delicate flowers."

I picked up a douche bag from there a bit later. He was probably 35, with a bit of a John C. Reilly quality to him. Dopey face, curly hair. He was wearing a Punisher sweatshirt. A grown-ass man.

I asked him about it and he said he got it at Hot Topic in the mall. He went on about how the girl working there had forgot to remove the ink-bomb security device on it.

"I didn't really care, because when I was a kid--I don't care who you are, you stole stuff when you were young. Anyway, I was always really good at taking off the ink capsules, without breaking them. " Rather than return it, he tried to beat the ink capsule and it exploded. He went back to complain and the Hot Topic manager threatened to fire the girl. He had got mad at the manager for being a dick, and went on about a 90 day probation period and how he knew how to manage people. He was also pissed off to be going home along. He was doubly mad that he had tried to get on some ugly chick and she shot him down. "I would have even settled for a blow job."

#3 had been holding up okay, I guess. A few customers were shocked when it slammed into reverse, and worried that it would break down. I assured them it wouldn't. One guy, a cab regular whom I have only hauled once, thought it was particularly amusing.

"Don't you have a NASCAR-like pit crew at the cab company, which like totally rebuild the car the second you drive it in?"

"I wish. We've got one sawed-off prison dyke (she's not a dyke) that checks the fluids and the owner's son tries to work on them. We're under orders to drive this one until the transmission completely blows up." I also reminded him that I picked him up once before, on Paris Road, that he had a six pack of Labatt's Blue, that he had asked me what my shirt said, that I told him it said "Brown and Burnside," and that he had said "Oh, you're one of those artsy-fartsy cab drivers." Then I told him where he lived.

"You've got a pretty good memory."

"Don't you forget it."

On top of its other ailments, the failing transmission, the dim excuses for headlights, the out-of-balance tires and worn front end, #3's rear tires were both losing air. I didn't notice sitting in the parking garage reading a book, but when bar rush hit they were both noticeably low, and, coupled with the loose front end, the van was getting pretty squirrelly. I was too busy to stop and air them up, besides, there was a cold rain falling and I was pissed that the cab company still hadn't repaired them. So here I am blasting through the dark with practically zero visibility, with the van all over the road. It was especially bad when a pot hole that went unobserved (no headlights) would nearly jerk the wheel out of my hands and set the little blue van a weeble-wobbling.

I had just cleared off of Ballenger Lane with a turbo-drunk student from downtown, and was trying to keep the van on the road when I got a call to go to the Arrowhead Motel, a shitty old roadside stopover which is a haven for crackheads and prostitutes. I was headed that way when dispatch called me off.

"Disregard that, I need you to come into the office here, ASAP."

I couldn't figure out what the big deal was. I wondered if maybe a cop had seen the van and noticed its poor headlights or flat tires and they needed it off of the road. When I got to the dispatch office I pulled around back. Apparently Taxi Terry, the Hustler, had been pulled over in the handicap-accessible Medical Transport van and told he could be driving it at that hour without a disabled passenger. I still don't know what the fuck that was about, but that's the same van on the road every night. He had had a passenger, which is why the called me in, to take him the rest of the way home.

I had picked him up before, from Hoot-N-Anny's. The guy gets more comatose drunk than anyone I have seen. He's in his 40s, and has a breathalizer on his work truck. There are apparently many mornings he can't go to work because he's still too drunk to get it to start. He wasn't as shitfaced drunk this time.

He got in and wasn't overly put out, since he was drunk. He was a little peeved about Terry, though, saying he had given him $20 already, just to get pulled over and delayed. Of course Terry didn't give me any of the money. So now I'm cleaning up another mess for the cab company (they should now the laws about their equipment) and getting screwed on payment. The guy said he was going out Route B, towards Hallsville. I ran the meter to see just how much money I would be losing on the deal.

I asked him what the fare was when he gave him $20. He said he never saw the meter. He also said that Terry always ripped him off, and that he had got him in trouble with his old lady one night, when he said "Oh, you're that no-tip motherfucker from last night." Apparently his lady didn't know he'd been out the night before, or with whom. I told dispatch he'd already paid Terry, and they told me not to charge him for the rest of the ride. When we got nearly to Hallsville--the meter was at about $23, we went by his girlfriend's trailer and she wasn't home. He wanted to head back home, on the south side of Columbia. I told him I had to charge him the meter for the ride back.

About the time we crossed 70, #3's transmission did the exact fucking thing it did on the last night I drove it. It lost power, coasted to the side of the road, and wouldn't stay running. I was livid. In addition to getting screwed out of $23 to Hallsville, now I would get screwed out of a $30 fare coming back, since the guy had his second cab strand him also. I got on the radio and told dispatch to send another car.

It was about this time that it occurred to me that a large part of the problem was that stupid wreath on the grill, blocking airflow to the radiator (which houses the transmission fluid cooler), and causing the tranny to overheat when driving on the highway. Then, when it had cooled off, it would work again. Phyllis was in the office now (the owner) and told me to put fluid in it. I asked her if there was any in the van. She said there were two quarts under the hood. No one had ever said anything about checking or adding fluid, besides the fact that I was so busy and it shouldn't be my responsibility.

I checked the fluid. It was a little low, but not enough to cause any problems like I was experiencing. I stood in the rain in the dark and added one quart. Predictably, it made no difference whatsoever.

After 4 or 5 minutes it cooled down enough to run again. We made it about a mile further before it did it again. This time I made it onto the Stadium off ramp. Again, I radioed for a car. The fare was at $29.05. After several minutes, Psycho Ken showed up in #8. I was mad as hell, and grabbed all of my stuff out of #3 and got in #8 with the fare. I told Ken that he could bring me back after we dropped off the fare and it would probably be cool enough to limp back to the shack. He radioed to say he had us and Phyllis went off, saying that I should have stayed with the van, and to turn right around and go back. We were on 63 and the guy only lived at the next (AC) exit. Ken ignored her and ran him home. He radioed and asked what he should charge the guy for the fare. It as $29.05 on my meter, $6.05 on Ken's, and he had already gave Terry $20. He had been in three cabs and it had taken an hour and a half to get back to his house. It was 3:30 am.

"Charge him whatever Garner's meter read plus yours." That's $35.10. I was in the back seat, shaking my head. If I was the customer I would have told them to get fucked, especially now that we were sitting in his driveway. Ken turned to him (remember, he's a regular).

"How 'bout we just make it an even $40, Mike."

Mike grumbled on about the time, the three cabs, getting pulled over, breaking, down, etc.

"Okay, let's just make it $36 then." He produced his credit card, still grumbling.

"Put it on there, and I'm gonna call and cancel it in a half-hour." I was sure he'd be passed out in a half-hour and not remember in the morning. He paid $36, no tip on the card.

Ken dropped me off on the side of the road. The van started, and acted like it would move, as I had expected. I radioed "this thing acts like it will move, do you want to cancel the tow truck and try to limp it in?" It was 3:30 now. I didn't even get a fucking response on the radio. I was livid. Normally I'm headed back into the shack at 3:30, and I had to be back at work in 12 hours, for Christmas Eve.

I was livid in the cab, and it took everything I had not to quit right then. I was going to call John Luter Transportation, our competition, and take a cab back to dispatch, get my car, and go home. I was hungry. I couldn't calm down enough to read. I waited for a drunk driver to careen off of the ramp and hit me. I resolved that the owner better or act right or we'd have a scene once I got back.

I wanted to blow up the van, but I also needed it to run so I'd have heat. The only thing that made me feel better while I was waiting was to bounce the tach off of the rev limiter and drop it in gear, at four or five minute intervals.

The tow truck arrived at 4:20. The driver had fallen asleep on his couch while putting on his shoes. Still, he beat my estimate by some 40 minutes. I ranted the whole way back about the cab. That made me feel a tad bit better. When I got back Phyllis didn't say 'boo.' I did my paperwork and dropped my cash. She said thanks. It was almost 5 and I was exhausted from my blood pressure skyrocketing. I had to be back in less than 11 hours, for another 12 hour shift.

"Do you just want to not come in today."

"That sounds like a good idea." It's that easy to placate me. I was instantly much happier. I had Christmas Eve off and could go visit my family on Sunday with less effort. I chatted with JW for several minutes. It turned out that Phyllis didn't even know anything about Terry getting pulled over. I couldn't figure out how the fuck the previous dispatcher could fail to mention it. I gave JW a ride home and returned to mi casa. I turned off my alarm and slept until 6:20 Christmas Eve.

I had just got out of the shower and dressed when I heard keys in the door. I knew Peat was coming back on the 24th but I only then made the connection. He was pretty beat but seemed interested in going with me to grab a bite to eat. He said Flat Branch was open, so we went there.

I would enjoy a meal, relaxed, sitting at a table, for the first time in a long time. I refrained from having a beer. I thought I might pick some up on the way home and have a little Christmas Eve celebration of my own. We ran into Francis, one of Peat's entomologist buddies. Francis is about 41, I think, and British. He was drinking it up at the bar. We invited him to join us at out table, and he did.

Francis is pretty cool, in that he's a British man's man, not a half-assed limey fruit. He's got a rockin' accent. I suggested he should duke it out with Simon Rose, and establish himself as Columbia, Missouri's premier British gentleman. Francis was getting tanked, killing time before he had to go to midnight mass. It was about 8pm.

We stayed at Flat Branch until 9, when they closed. I saw Marshall from the night before and chatted him up. I drove Peat and Francis to Eastside Tavern, where we thought we'd do a little drinking.

Francis had ran into a couple of ladies who liked ladies, whom he'd met while MCing a women's arm wrestling tournament, I think at Shakespeare's. We ran into them again at Eastside. The four of them hit up the pool table while I selected 18 tracks on the juke box.

I learned a bit of practical advice, which I shall pass on to you. I always hate it when I miss my first 2-3 songs while I'm selecting the remaining 15-16. A good starter tune is "Papa Was A Rolling Stone." Not only is it funky, it's really long, so you still get to hear everything you played.

The foursome had settled into a festive group at the pool table. I sipped a bourbon-and-water and took in the scene. Peat has a dancing habit. Lesbians are not immune to it. The booze was flowing and the bar became a haphazard dance floor. I watched cautiously, waiting for the first spilled drink, bumped billiards player, or otherwise put-out bar patron. After one particularly spastic fit of some jig or another Sal jokingly suggested he should "take your medicine, dude."

Francis couldn't seem to resist the allure of the gal-pals, though he harbored no illusions to their preferences. He and Peat and the ladies exchanged a number of bizarre group hugs and embraces. Francis is moving soon, and was carrying a book, having people write fond remembrances in it. The ladies each wrote poems, which moved him. Francis had also hurt a hamstring moving something heavy, and one leg would collapse, sending him to a knee in pain at random intervals and with no warning. I tried to keep an eye on his book for him, since he seemed to misplace it every few minutes.

I was thinking of my favorite British expressions when I remembered a story Jay Mohr told in his stand-up, about getting in a fight in a London airport. He was talking about how it's hard to take them serious when they're angry because they have such polite accents. He had been straddling two different lines, so he could get in whichever one moved first without committing to the other. A guy told him to "que up, and form a line."

I asked Francis if he would say that for me. It didn't make any sense to him, he was wasted, and trying to remember what he was talking about before. I figured it had slipped through the cracks, and had pretty much forgotten myself, when, in response to an innocent question from Peat, Francis bellowed at the top of his lungs, "I said que up and form a line!" Priceless. Fucking priceless.

Somewhere into my third bourbon-and-water I retired to the bar. I ordered a Bass, a Newcastle, and a Woodchuck from Jarrett, the bartender. He seemed to think a Red Stripe would round out the world tour nicely, and I succumbed to his keen salesmanship. I set the four bottles in front of me, along with my whiskey, and went to work. I told Jarrett I had seem him play on his 30th birthday, and I paid for some shots my friend Susan got for him. He was gracious. I also asked if I could make some grammatical changes to Sal's rules, posted behind the bar. The 'your' instead of 'you're's were distracting.

Jarrett assured me that he had worked there for a year and his boss probably wasn't up for such shenanigans.

At some point Peat made some non-friends, apparently from the pool table. I know no details. Someone said something to the bartenders. He came up to order a drink or something, and Jarrett took whatever he was drinking away, if I remember correctly. They had a bit of an exchange.

"Look, I can vouch for this guy, he's pretty cool (meaning Jarrett), and I live with this guy (meaning Peat). If we need to leave we'll do so, but I'm sure we're all reasonable adults here and we can resolve this amicably," I said, or some drunken variant of that. It think that was about all it ever amounted to. Jarrett told me that he had to suck dick for tips at his other job, at Flat Branch, and had zero tolerance with customers who got out of line when he worked at Eastside. I continued to mind my business by myself at the bar, and I'm not sure what Peat busied himself doing. Francis was MIA and we figured he had stumbled to mass at some point. I re-met Steam, but, as I was last time, I was again shitfaced.

Jarrett checked up on me some time later. "How are you doing, man?"

"Dude, those 'your's on that sign are killing me." I had my Sharpie out. Jarrett indulged me, and, at my direction, added an apostrophe and an 'e' to the misused words. I hope he doesn't get fired.

As best as I recall, no further drama ensued. We called A*1, and JW gave us a ride home. Peat was pretty worked up. I had made it out with another Woodchuck, which I slipped into a neoprene coozie and worked on sitting on the coach. Peat continued to rage around the apartment, and, well, in retrospect I suppose I should have dropped off the recycleables.

As I sat on the couch and laughed audibly, never looking behind me, I watched Peat make pass after pass through my field of blurred double-vision, hurling bottles near the front door. I knew with the first one that the fireplace would have been a more practical target, but could tell from the dull thud that the bottle had been embedded in the drywall. Might as well let it run its course.

Sometime later maybe a case of beer bottles, a couple of pint glasses, two clocks, a coffee pot, the Rubbermaid box from the porch, and its contents, all lay scattered and smashed at the entry way. One bottle stuck out from the wall. Since a 3 inch whole isn't much easier to patch than a 6 inch hole, and perhaps to make Peat less self-conscience of his efforts, I laughed and put my head through the wall in an act of kinship. I also took photos and told him I didn't take it personally, though I would have to document it on my blog. I passed out near two.



I woke of at 5:45, and took a shower. The lights and the TV were still on downstairs, the Power Puff Girls were on. I serenaded the cats with the Leadbelly song I had stuck in my head. I called a cab and drug the door over the broken glass to go outside. I drove to Lebanon listening to a Fat Possum sampler over and over.

If you would like to support this site, do yourself a favor and purchase this: Fat Possum: Not the Same Old Blues Crap. You'll be helping my site because you'll fall in love with the CD and buy all sorts of stuff from Fat Possum, if you have any soul. Then they can stay in business. Then I'll be able to buy their CDs when I get some money, and maybe I can work for them some day. And that will make me happy, and I'll be able to keep writing. So quit talking about it and do it, goddamnit. There are a few more volumes of the sampler, and can be had at Streetside for like $6 often times. $4.98 on the site. "Let's see, I could get a #2 extra value meal from MacDonald's, or everlasting salvation." Don't disappoint me.

Well before I hit Lebanon I was starving. I knew a trip to the Waffle House was in order. It was just getting good and light out as I drove down Jefferson Avenue. I saw a whiskey barrel being used as a trash can on the sidewalk. As I turned and circled back, I saw that they were everywhere, with lids on them with swinging doors. They looked brand new--the wood hadn't even grayed and the bands hadn't started rusting. I took the lid off of one and lifted out the plastic trash can inside it. The one downside I have discovered to my Corsica is that there is no way you can get a whiskey barrel in it. They're bigger than you might think. I had some white oak stains on my pants form the wet wood as I hit the Waffle House.

I had a double 1/4 cheeseburger plate with regular hashbrowns. A greasy gut-bomb. I went to my parents' house and tried to get some sleep. At 3:30 my old man woke me up and we went to my sister's house. She got me some useless stuff. An oversized Snoopy T-shirt, with snoopy as a seasonal Joe Cool. It says "Have a Cool Yule" on it. I asked her what she had been thinking. She also got me an MU Santa Claus figurine, a credit card style Swiss Army knife, and a mini-Mag Lite. Now that's nice. We wrapped up about 7 and I drove back to C-Town.

I was a bit exhausted and crashed out, sleeping from 10-12:30, when my cat woke me up, clawing at my door. She was smart enough to run down the stairs when she heard me at the door. I sprayed her with water from the squirt bottle I had in my hand, all of the way from the top of the stairs, in the dark. She freaked out, and, inexplicably, ran back up the stairs, and past me into the bathroom. I squirted her the whole way. She realized her folly and tried to hook a huey out of the bathroom, slipping and falling in the fresh water I just sprayed. Cats are retarded. I am superior to them. They are just little machines for turning cat food into cat shit. Of course I pay for their food and let them shit in a box in my house, which I in turn clean up. Perhaps I am the one who is retarded.

I took a shower and headed to the Waffle House. Gut bomb #2. And here I am, blogging. It's now T-minus 96 minutes until "Brick" hits the airwaves.