Jesus the Missing Years
Well, here we are crew. I'm comin' at ya on a Wednesday night/Thursday morning, rather than my typical Thursday night/Friday morning format. The reason for this is that I slept until 11:05 pm tonight, and haven't much else to do with myself. The internet is down at my house, so I'm writing this in Wordpad, which sucks.
I just checked and I had a connection, just long enough to get onto como and draft a response to the conspiracy theory that I am not really a cab driver. But, it blinked out again before I could post. I'm eating Wild Berries Gummi Lifesavors. I am also listening to John Prine: The Missing Years. I picked it up at the library. I've been trying to get right to the cab content at the tops of posts, so people who don't care to hear about my personal life can skip it at the end, rather than sift through it looking for taxi stories.
So, cab:
After blogging Sunday night I was up until 8:30 or so Monday morning. I was exhausted, but couldn't sleep much. I got about 4 hours in before Culito came over. I showed him the garage and regaled him with ornery drunk tales. Then I headed to work.
Lo and behold, if I didn't get put back in #5 again. Titties from Heaven. While I was waiting for the day driver to come back in with it, Phyllis came out to talk with me and another driver who was waiting. She said she fired Ken. He had complained about having to drive #10 on New Year's, and hadn't come in on Sunday, saying he wouldn't drive #10. He called on Monday, was told he'd be in #10, said he wouldn't drive, and was told to bring in his uniforms. He responded with some threats to bring A*1 down, alerting CPD to pull us all over, because we all smoked pot while we were working. It's a little weird, since Jerri the cab checker chick lives with Ken (they moved in together a few weeks ago). She had driven his truck to work.
Monday was slow and easy. I only ran 12 fares, I think. I average about 18 a night, and did 23 or so on New Year's, which may have been higher if I hadn't have gone out of town for an hour, or if I got into a cab before 5pm.
One of my first fares was a woman I picked up on New Year's Eve. I grabbed her early that night, and took her round-trip from her trailer to the liquor store, to stock up for the night. She bought some Jim Beam and Kahlua. She was psyched for an old-school trailer-court knock-down, drag-out karaoke jam. She was really nice, about 280lbs with a huge, sagging front-butt extending well down inside her sweat pants.
I picked her up with a beau at the Wal-Mart Supercenter. They loaded up the trunk and got in. I thought she may have been the same lady from New Year's. I had never got a good look at her face, but I never forget a front-butt. She asked if I remembered her from New Year's, cementing it for me. She asked me how my bootlegging went. I told her I kept it for myself. I asked her how her karaoke jam went. She said it was a good time and that they didn't run out of booze.
They were making a stop at the Dollar General before heading north. She sent him to get paper towels while she picked up something. They reemerged with an 8-pack of paper towels and a new karaoke machine.
"Getting you a new machine? Are you upgrading?"
"No, my other one broke."
"Did it break or did you just wear it out?" She had proudly told me of her huge collection of karaoke discs the last time I hauled her.
"I wore it out. I had it for three years."
I asked her what sort of songs she did.
"Oh, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette. And a lot of 80s stuff."
"80s country, or new-wave?" It was mostly 80s new-wave-ish pop tunes. I asked her if she always kept it at home or if she did the local bar karaoke circuit. She said they went to some redneck bar and the Arch & Column Pub.
"Not because its a gay bar, just for the karaoke," she was quick to point out. I told her that I did George Jones's the Grand Tour or He Stopped Loving Her Today. The truth is that I never have done the Grand Tour, but it was featured predominately in Jackpot. It's a good flick, in spite of what the fuckface at the bottom says. Anything over 25 words in reference to whether or not you liked a movie is essentially bullshit. There's no counting for taste.
But, I have sang He Stopped Loving Her Today on karaoke night at a bar. It was an extremely weird night, that included a rare visit to Johnny's Beanery on a Monday night, a special on double-bourbon-and-waters, sharing drinks with that thug Tony Harvey, harassing KOMU 8's Chris Gervino, and my crazy-bitch roommate 'Ambrosia' hooking up and going home with the Harvester. None of this was planned. The karaoke regulars were there. I watched one of them singing while she ate waffle-fries sitting in a booth.
Fuck that. I took the mic (cordless) and worked the room. I knew the song well enough, and they had the karaoke screen on all of the TVs throughout the bar (sports bar). I did my best Las Vegas lounge act, working my throughout the crowded bar while singing. I would go up to groups of people, drunk, oblivious to the goings-on, put my arm around them, and serenade them. It was pretty classy.
Yeah, but, back to the cab. The guy said he worked nights, 12-8. I asked where, and he said at Hearnes Center, for the University. I knew that meant "janitor." I told him that I knew someone who worked nights as a janitor, but then remembered it was at the Mizzou Arena. I figured they were closely enough related, though, and that the Mizzou Arena had only been open for a year or so.
Yup, he knew NIS alright, even without foreknowledge of his user name. Lets just say NIS cuts a striking visage.
I couriered some more drugs for the hospital. This time it was Advair, something used to prevent asthma attacks.
Man, there just wasn't much interesting happening Monday. I went two hours between calls at one point, and took an hour-long nap in the parking 'structure.' I read some from a book I picked up at the library, Showdown in the Show-me State: The Fight Over Conceal-and-carry Gun Laws in Missouri. The book isn't a spine-tingling must-read, but it does point out how the NRA has influenced and elected Missouri lawmakers, and discusses how Missouri is as divided between urban and rural (St. Louis and Kansas City vs. outstate Missouri) as viscously as it is between political parties. Missouri is also apparently looked at as a microcosm of national politics, since our divisions seem to mirror what happens in the country at-large.
The book follows the fight in the state General Assembly over conceal-and-carry from 1992 until the recent passage in 2004. The author is a poly-sci professor at the University. Politics in the abstract are very boring, and I am very apathetic. But, if you get tossed in the middle of politicians at a real level you can get mad, especially when you read about people from your home town or district. I figure if I'm ever going to do anything worth a fuck it may be in fucking up shit in politics. We'll see.
After 2 am I got dispatched to an address I was unfamiliar with at the edge of the hood. I passed the house two or three times until, on the last pass, I saw a whole passel of chillins running from an open doorway to the edge of the road. I pulled up and 7 loud screaming kids piled into the cab, fighting over the doors and seating arrangements. A disinterested black man, maybe 25, with names tattooed on his neck, stood watching as they piled in. When it became apparent that he was not getting in the car with them I rolled down my window (yay #5!) and asked them where I was taking them. I was a little appalled that he would put 7 kids, maybe aged 4-12, in a car with a stranger at 2:15 in the damn morning.
I was even more appalled when he couldn't tell me the address I was taking them to. Dispatch had tried to tell me once, from the phone call for the cab, but I couldn't hear over all of the commotion from the kids. "Oh, man, you mean their moms didn't tell you the address?"
"Ain't no one told me nothing. She may have told the dispatcher, hold on." I couldn't get the dispatcher right away, and every time he tried to say something it was drowned out by a kid. I asked them to be quiet, and tried again. One peeped and the oldest one started screaming for him or her to be quiet, again drowning out the transmission. I can't half-understand dispatch half the time anyway, even if they do pronounce things properly, due in part to the garbled CB transmissions.
The older girls were trying to tell me the name of the street. "It's Rowly."
"Rowly?"
"No, Rowling?"
"Rowling?"
"No, Row-ling."
"Rowland."
"No, Rowly. R-a-l-e-i-g-h. Rowly."
There was no Rowly, Rowling, Rowland, or Raleigh in my book. I got back with dispatch. He said the mom said it was "by Derby Ridge Area." Derby Ridge stretches through a ton of houses and a few subdivisions, but there was a lot of new construction near Brown School Road. Two of the kids said they could get me there, but their directions weren't the most logical (they were from the city and obviously didn't drive cars). They also bickered back and forth, competing for the honors.
I actually found it easy enough, but the whole ride was irritating. When I got there the fare was $12.30. The mom opened the door to the house, but apparently wouldn't come out in the cold. I had to wait for one of the girls to go inside, get the money, and come back, waiting for exact change. They were New Orleans refugees.
Since I was north of town, dispatch sent me across Brown School Road and told me to head south to Broadway by way of 63. At the base of the Broadway exit was a cop car with its lights going, with a red Mustang pulled over. I went up the off ramp and asked dispatch where I was headed.
"When you get to the off ramp there should be a cop there with a car stopped. That's who you're picking up." I got back on 63, headed north to the 70 interchange, and doubled back, pulling in front of the parked car. One guy came up to the car, dressed in military BDUs. He said we had to wait on two more guys. The cops were still there. A blue Toyota Corolla passed me and parked in front of me. A college looking kid got out and headed back to the cars behind me. "Is this guy with your bunch?"
"I don't know. He must be here to pick up the other guy."
A second guy got into the car. He was a white kid, all thugged out, chains, ear-rings, gansta wear. He talked like a complete thug, everything was 'fuck' and 'bitchez', but he also addressed me formally as 'sir', in regimented military precision. He offered to sell me one of his gold chains.
"Man, I don't have any use for it. Besides, I haven't got any money, either."
The first guy's brother had been driving, and was popped for DWI. The three of them were on holiday furlough from Iraq, and were supposed to be on a plane at 6am to fly to South Korea, on their way back to Iraq. It was almost 3 am. The guy said his brother had only had two beers. Besides having been drinking themselves, the brother hadn't had a driver's license for a few years. He had lost it due to an involuntary manslaughter conviction, an accident at the exact same intersection which killed his best friend.
Apparently the brothers were from the Jeff City area, and the third guy was from Charlotte, NC. They were trying to figure out how they were going to spring his brother and get where they needed to go. I lent them my cell phone so they could try to find out where the brother was and what they needed to do. I needed gas, anyway, so this gave them a few free minutes to figure out what they were doing. I ended up taking them to the CPD station downtown. The first guy hoped to get money from his brother to pay me.
I waited for a couple of minutes and had to go in after them. The thug guy was leaning on the window talking to someone. An officer apparently in charge came out to speak to the brother. I was trying to get cab fare. A random drunk being released butted in, speaking to the kid in BDUs. "Man, they got you buddy back there, and he is fucked up, man." Thanks, helpful random drunk guy.
I got my money and left them with an A*1 card, for when they figured out what was going on.
And I went home. I got in and got to sleep a little before 6. I was pretty wiped out from the lack of sleep the night before, besides 12 hours in a cab. Something woke me up at 8 am. Before I could get back to sleep, though, my phone rang. I normally turn the ringer off, but had forgot. They left a message. Curiosity was killing my cat, so I checked to see who it was.
It was a guy I used to work with, whom I sold a car to. He still owed me $50 for it. I still had the title, and hadn't heard from him in two months. I wasn't worried, though. He wanted to get together and pay me up, so he could license the car. All of this had woke me up proper, and I couldn't get back to sleep.
I went out and stared at the garage. I decided I wanted to build a new work bench/cart for the garage. I have one that is 2' by 3', but wanted to build a sturdier one, with some storage for my scrap metal stock, more like 22"x 48", since I had a nice piece of 14 gage steel for a top that size. I decided to take my Blazer and go get some angle iron for the frame. Along the way I changed my mind again, because I didn't have too much money after paying rent. I thought I'd wait until I at least had that $50 from the Buick. Since I was already out in the Blazer I decided to drive by JW's house. JW is another driver for A*1 (a good guy to request if I'm not working, along with Mark). He was interested in buying my Blazer.
It was about 10am. I had no idea what his schedule was, though he does work nights. He had been by my house a couple of times to look at it while I was asleep. I thought I'd knock, anyway, lightly and briefly. I didn't hear anything, so I was petting his huge German Shepard in the yard before I got back in the Blazer. I guess I woke him up from sleeping, on his couch. He came out and caught me. I waited for him to dress and then we went for a ride in the Blazer.
I then went to the Army Surplus store on Paris road to look for some black BDU pants, so I could avoid the uniform pants from work. I can't find black cargo pants easily, and thought these would do the trick. I tried some on, but the legs taper a bit too much for my tastes. I also dug through piles of mismatched field boots, but didn't find a complete pair that suited my tastes. By far the best place to buy stuff like that is at Fort Leonard Wood/St. Robert's, where there are a ton of salvage stores with nice stuff for cheap. Maybe I'll make a little road trip that way soon.
Though exhausted, I still couldn't sleep. I decided that if JW bought my Blazer I'd flush some money on tattoos. I've had a couple ideas, but nothing set in stone. Or embedded in skin. I always liked this woodcut by old Ben Franklin. I don't care so much for the politics, or New England, but I though the graphic was cool. I like dense, high-contrast, stylized black tattoos. Something to make use of the contrast with and interplay of negative space on my parchment colored, translucent skin. I started re-drawing it, giving it a little more dynamic, organic shape. It was working pretty cool, and looked to cover most of my upper right arm, maybe 5"x8". But, the more I re-worked it, the more graphic it became, until it was losing most of its original appeal. I did some Google image searches and quickly nixed the idea. Too many faux-hardasses with snakes on their upper arms. It was becoming much too cliche, even if I kept ol' Ben's chicken head on the snake. Back to the old drawing board, literally as well as figuratively.
I was still fucking around with it when my phone rang. The caller ID showed it was A*1. What? Don't bother coming in? That sounds like a great idea. I answered it. It was Kelly, the dispatcher, seeing if I could come in early. It was already almost 2:30. I said "sure" and took a shower. I grabbed a bite and was at work at 3:05. I figured it would be dead and I could sleep in the parking garage, and maybe come home early.
The car magic had worn off. I was issued my old girl #10 again. Fair is fair. No more titties from Heaven. At least I had some CDs in my pocket. I decided to spin old John Prine for the night.
Damn, that sun is some bright shit. I mean I know it's a star and everything, but, sheesh. Especially as it slants in from the west as the winter light fades to evening. Combined with relatively no sleep, I could hardly stand the glare to drive for my first few fares. I'm hoping this night-life will leave me with rickets. I have been forgoing any vitamin D in anticipation. Or maybe some scurvy. Perhaps I should drink this gin in the desk drawer.
My first call was a regular whom I've never driven, because he usually cabs it before 4pm. He asked if I was new. I took him round-trip to the bank and the gas station. He was pretty cool, a retired journalist from Manhattan, who had moved back here (where he went to J school) for simple economic reasons (had paid $4000 a month for a Manhattan apartment). He said that his lifetime had also seen him driving a cab in DC for a few months. He bought some grocery items at the gas station, along with 2 cartons of cigarettes and two 12 packs of Budweiser. "The essentials," he joked. The round trip plus wait time at two places worked out to a $19.55 fare. He gave me $25. That was worth coming in early.
My next call was a medical transport from Boone Hospital Doctor's Plaza out to Bethany. Bethany is not a nice place. But I wasn't too worried, since it wasn't yet 4pm. The woman fell asleep in the car before we passed through downtown, only making me sleepier. It was a quiet 20 minute ride out to Bethany. She didn't wake up when we slowed down, but I had her address. I guessed the wrong way, and turned on the wrong portion of Bethany. I was turned around and heading back when she woke up and asked where we were.
I had to wait on a school bus, unloading probably 20 kids without bothering to pull off of the busy 2-lane Scott Boulevard. I had to work my way through all of the kids, who apparently haven't progressed far enough to learn about sidewalks and traffic safety in school yet. Little bastards walk right in the road with no awareness or regard for bright blue 4500lb Lincolns. As I passed a handful one of them looked in the cab.
"Yo' mama's in that taxi! Yo' mama's in that taxi!" I dropped her off at her driveway and carefully wove my way through all of the little bastards and back to Scott Boulevard.
At about 8pm I had a call to go to Trinity. I didn't know where it was at, and looked it up in my book. "One street west of Providence on the north side of Park." I was right by Park and swung over there. As I pulled up on the first street I looked closely for the sign. Trinity. Bonus. It was a short, wide street barely 1/2 a block long. I found the address and pulled up, stopping at the curb in front of the sidewalk. I guess it was a laundry mat. Two black boys, maybe 10 or 11, maybe twins, saw the cab and lit up. Them and their nan started maneuvering two giant tubs and one giant-er bag of clothes out of the door.
I would have offered to help, but the boys were excited and she was putting them to work. I popped the trunk. I sat in the car with both passenger side doors open as the kids drug out and loaded the laundry. Then I saw a CPD cop car fly up behind me, lights flashing. What the fuck did I do now?
I watched him approach the car. My window didn't work so I kicked the driver's door open as he came up.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Pause. Muted look of confusion and disgust. Tired, bagged eyes. Woman and two kids dragging copious amounts of laundry into a taxi cab. Bright blue taxi cab with logos and lights on it. In front of a laundromat. Parked. Neatly by the curb. Taxi uniform. Taxi license clipped to my shirt. Wide vacant street. 8pm. Tuesday. This is a felony now?
"I'm waiting for a customer to load her laundry in my cab." Dipshit.
"You're driving the wrong way on a one-way street."
Actually, I'm parked, dipshit. You just drove the wrong way on a one way street, very rapidly, I might add.
"I didn't see any signs or anything. I've never been on this street before." I looked again, at the wide, vacant street. It was as wide as Providence. It's in the middle of project housing. There hadn't been a single car on it the 10 minutes I had been waiting, and there were none parked anywhere in sight. Two people sat in plastic stack chairs on their back porch, watching all of the excitement.
"License and proof of insurance."
Fuckface. I handed him the stuff and waited for him to run it. The woman finished getting all of her laundry in and climbed in front. "What does he want? They ain't happy unless they's always fuckin' with people."
He ran my stuff and handed me back the papers. "Be more careful. You're free to go." Was I detained, motherfucker? I thought it particularly comical that he didn't notice I was missing my front license plate.
The woman only lived right around the corner, less than the $3 minimum. The temperature had dropped quite a bit. She paid me $3 in quarters, and I carried the huge heavy basket of clothes from the back seat, picking up the overflowing garments from the seat and pushing the folded granny-panties down in it so they didn't fall out. The two kids were having too much fun with the chore. One lost his shoes running to the house. I took the the basket some 50' to the door. A woman there opened it for me, and I set it in her kitchen. "Thank you. You didn't have to do that." Then, to one of the boys, who was now sprawled out on the ground, "Git your ass up off of that cold ground, and git in here, now!"
I went back and looked at the end of Trinity. Usually, there's a "One-Way" sign on the same post as the street sign. There wasn't one here. There was a "Do Not Enter" sign on the opposite side of the street. But, Trinity is less than a block from an intersection, located where the main street (Park) curves to the left. If you're coming from providence, the Do Not Enter sign is at an angle, about 40' or so from the Trinity sign. If I drove there not knowing it was one-way, looking for the Trinity sign, I'd make the same mistake 97 times out of 100. All of the other one-way streets in Columbia are one-ways because they are incredibly narrow, and are marked with Do Not Enter and One Way signs on both sides of the street.
I continued to run steady all evening. I was surprised, and kept waiting for it to slow down. I stare out of a cab all night, looking for people walking--either potential flags or potential bad guys. When I'm exhausted I start to see things moving that aren't. There are 3 or 4 recurring phantoms around Columbia. They are bushes or trash cans or signs that I always mistake for people before I recognize them. I was too tired to be driving. I struggled to keep my eyes open.
I had a call to pick up at the Coffee Zone. It was a teenaged girl, with maybe her lip and nose pierced, wearing some teenaged punk clothing. Nothing outrageous, just jeans and a black sweatshirt. She hopped in the front seat of the Lincoln. A boy she had been sitting with outside of the coffee shop walked across the street, in front of the Lincoln. He nodded and gave her a look that was as intentionally comical as it was arresting. I took her to her house out off of West Broadway.
She said she had never been in a taxi, that it was her first time. I joked that that put a lot of pressure on me, and that I felt like I would have to be a perfect cab driver, lest I should ruin it for her for life. My mind was not sharp. My dialogue suffered.
I picked up one of my regulars at the workshop. I was talking about being tired and said something about maybe I should stop and get a soda. He said he hoped I would, because he wanted to get some stuff. I went in, used the restroom, and got a soda. He was standing outside scratching a lottery ticket when I came out.
"Did you hit it big?" He didn't. "Well, I guess you can't win if you don't play."
I must have caught my second wind, because I perked up enough that my driving didn't suffer and I wasn't sleepy. Just that functioning zombie state.
And then I experienced another cab first. I got burned; my first runner. A "runner" is a person who just runs off without paying the fare, though, in this case, it was by subterfuge.
I had a call up at Chris Drive. I bitched in an earlier post about having to go up there during bar rush, not being able to find the place (no signs), and getting a shitty fare. It was the couple whom I nearly killed myself in trying to get them to the gas station so they could by beer before it stopped selling. The guy was the one who called me Baby Boy. The first time.
I found Chris Drive easy this time, and it was the same duplex. A woman got in the cab and wanted to go to the Regency Trailer Park, which is where I took them the first time. I assumed it was the same girl, and wasn't too on-guard. Before I could get rolling another black woman came to the cab and opened her door, to the back seat. "Girl, where you think you goin', tryin' to leave me out here with no cigarettes. Trying to leave me tobacco-less. Me with a kid in there coughin' and chokin' and I gotta come out here and get my tobacco from you." The first said nothing, muttered a bit, and gave her back something.
"Fuck that bitch, coming up and bitching at me like that," the first girl said, as I pulled out. She said that she would have to go inside to get my money when we got there. That's pretty common, and I was glad she told me up front. She also said she didn't remember the exact number of the trailer, but that she would know it when she saw it. Again, common. I had a vague idea where I dropped her the last time. I have a startlingly accurate memory most times, but this trailer park is pretty screwy. The roads curve every-which-away and I've never been there in the daylight. The numbers are hard to read, and that night I dropped the couple at the end of a driveway, equidistant to three different trailers, and didn't see which one they went to.
Along the way she started talking about cops, for some reason. I mentioned their harassing work on me earlier in the evening. She said something about the cops harassing people outside of Lou's Palace. "I mean, I know that black people do sell drugs, and shit, but not every black person in a car with a white person is a drug dealer or a criminal."
We got to the Regency and started working through the maze. I remembered all of the turns as she directed me. I knew we were still a ways away when she said "stop right there by that Jeep Cherokee." She reminded me that she was going in to get the money and told me to "stay right here." Like I was going to go somewhere without my money? I was still thinking that was odd when she said "it's actually that one there by the red car" and closed the door. The red car was at the next trailer, which she disappeared around the corner of.
I knew then that I was fucked. She had had enough time to legitimately make it in the trailer by the time I had pulled up where I could see, but I knew she had ran in between the dark trailers to wherever she had planned to go. Bitch. The worst part was waiting to make sure she wouldn't come back, outside a trailer I knew she wasn't in. I didn't want to go up to a strange trailer after midnight and ask if a black woman had come in there, and, by the way, where's my money? I wasted 10 minutes waiting, to be sure. I had dispatch call the number she had gave when she called. It was the tobacco woman's cell phone. He told me to go on.
The fare had been $10.55. My cut would have been $3.18, and I hadn't expected a tip. I was most pissed off about the wasted time waiting. I would have probably been burned either way, but I had relaxed my guard a bit because this was a repeat customer. In the future I will be more vigilant and make sure they leave something in a car, and won't go someplace without an exact address if they expect me to wait for money. And will definitely watch them go in.
I had a call to go to the new Club Jazz at 1:15. An attractive blonde girl came to the cab. She was already in apology mode. She asked how many we could take at once.
"It just depends on how cozy you want to get. We'll take as many as you can fit."
"Good. We have a big group. We may need to put two up front." At that, I folded up the twin armrests on the Lincoln's split bench. "That'll work."
"If no one minds getting close to the cab driver."
"That's cool. I'll just sit here myself."
There were 7 of them. It took some doing to corral them all. One girl with a miniskirt and cowboy boots was determined to drive or ride with someone else or something. I think there were 2 dudes, but there may have been three. One was resistant. One girl was drunk enough to make zero sense, but still had the urge to talk. People were yelling at each other from inside the cab. The girl in the back told the stragglers that they were uninvited to her house if they drove drunk by themselves. The polite clear-headed ringleader was apologizing the whole time. Dispatch was on the radio. They were going two different places. They were stopping for booze. Every time I answered a question from the ringleader she relayed the new information to the others, to pacify and persuade them all into coming. Eventually I had all 7 in the car.
We took off. I was in the left lane to go to the gas station for booze. They changed their minds, and I had to turn right. I guess I ran over a divider/berm of some sort. The cab was weighted down so much from the 7 passengers that the suspension bottomed out and we dragged and scraped our way over it.
"Pay no attention to that. That's normal."
We worked our way across town. Luckily, we were away from downtown and there was no traffic. The polite girl was trying to give me unnecessary directions, as I already knew exactly where we were going, from experience. It was a cul de sac on a popular college neighborhood road. The super drunk girl was trying to say something incoherent, I only got "glasses...guy...care of us..." She looked at me as if she was waiting for me to get a joke and laugh wildly. In all of the commotion I hadn't been able to tell them that we charge $1 extra for each additional passenger. That's $6 over their fare. I like to tell people up front so there's no surprises. Some guy in the back said "that's horse shit. We'll pay it, but that's just horse shit."
Any other time this would have been dismissed. But my lack of sleep had shortened my fuse considerably. He wasn't joking a bit when he said. Over all of the commotion I said "yeah, that is terrible. Your fare's going to be like $18. That's almost $3 apiece to get home safely with no DWIs. I'm going to get rich off of guys. I may retire." The polite girl broke me off some, he wasn't really listening anyway, and his friends were chiding him. He was trying to defend his position, saying "I can take a taxi anywhere in Springfield to my house for $8."
That's fuckin' great, ass-bag. How 'bout you pay the fare and I will drive your ass to Greene County. You know why it's cheaper there? Because there's absolutely no reason to go anywhere in Springfield, Missouri. It sucks balls.
The polite girl asked me what it was like to be a cab driver. "Do you make a lot of money?" This seems to be a popular misconception.
"No. It varies, but I'm not going to retire anytime soon. With all of the students out of town this month I've been starving."
"I bet its a really interesting job." At last, something we can agree on. She said she had always thought it would be cool to drive a cab. But then she said "in New York." She asked me questions about my background. I talked about my education. "You don't look that old."
"Well, I'm older than I look."
"How old are you?"
"I am 29."
"Oh, I'd have guessed 25."
She asked me some more questions and I told her about my blog (I've mentioned it to a handful of fares over the past couple of months). She thought that sounded cool and wanted the address so she could check it out.
"Cool. I'll write it down for you when we get you home."
"What, is it really hard to remember or something?"
"Well, not for me, but it's basically my name."
"What's your name?" I told her, and repeated it a few times until I thought she understood me, though I was sure she would forget. "You better write it down for me."
"Will do."
I got them home and off-loaded. They paid me $20 on a $16.05 fare. Everyone seemed gracious when they got home. I wrote the blog address on the back of a card and handed it to the girl. She repeated my name and I asked hers, shaking her hand. She said it was nice to meet me, that I was an interesting person.
"Well thank you."
"You don't meet interesting people every day." Still shaking my hand.
"No. You don't," wondering if I was going to get my hand back.
"It's hard to meet interesting men." Still shaking my hand.
"Yes, I imagine it is."
Well, polite college girl (whose name I do remember). This is how I remembered it. If I am factually mistaken and you read this, please feel free to correct me. I am very skeptical, but on paper, and in the abstract, someone more vain than myself may have thought you were almost interested. In a 29 year old cab driver. Did I mention I only just turned 29?
But enough about me.
Sometime around 2am I was dispatched to "North 8th." This usually means Thirsty Turtle, Hoot-N-Anny's, or Club Vogue. After 2 am it almost definitely means Club Vogue. To my surprise, it was to a nearby house. There were 4 people in the yard. One ran up to the cab and said it would be just a minute. A couple with a dog headed down the street. Two girls came back and got into the cab. One asked the other about the couple with the dog.
"Are they not coming?"
"They're 'going to do it'. No, they aren't coming because they have the dog--they can't bring the dog, can they?"
"Sure they can, I'm not prejudiced." The girl yelled down the street to the couple, and said I was cool for letting them bring it.
"Oh, but we can't smoke in here, can we?"
"Well, I don't think dogs should smoke, but you're more than welcome to."
I took them home. It was a short ride, $3.05 for the fare, $3 for the 3 extra passengers, and nothing for the dog. While they counted and scrounged for money, the girl in front (1/2 of the dog couple) asked what we were listening to.
"John Prine."
"I like it."
"Thanks." The girl in the back summoned up some money, and, in mixed denominations and coins, presented me with $12 and change.
"See," to the other girl, "we were able to give him a 100% tip."
Thanks, ladies.
I had one call after that, to pick up on east campus. I vaguely recognized the girl. I'm sure I hauled her once before. She is nice, but usually too drunk to chat much. The most remarkable feature is that she takes the cab by herself. If I'm thinking of the right girl, she tips well. On this occasion I was taking her to someone else's house.
It was a dude. She called him to tell him we were on our way. She asked if I had had any "interesting" calls on the night. I thought for a second and remembered the runner. I was telling her the story as it came to me, and I mentioned that it wasn't that odd that someone had to go inside to get money to pay.
"You know, because sometimes I pick people up who are going somewhere for..." I was referencing crackwhores, but it didn't seem polite in mixed company. "Well, dare I say, 'booty calls'..."
The guy was trying to impress her, and had insisted on paying for her cab. She called again when we were a couple of blocks away. The guy said to ask if I wanted a beer. "I would, but I don't think he wants to get a BUI. I mean DUI." He met us in the cul de sac. It was one of the guys from the group of 7 from Club Jazz. He thought it an incredible, and incredibly funny, coincidence that I was the very same cab driver from before. Again, he insisted on paying. She said "can't I at least get the tip?"
"No, no no no," he said, laughing, still in impress mode. "I got this." He tipped me $1.70 on a $10.30 fare. All I could think was that he should have let her tip. She gave me $3 on top of the $2 service charge on a $3 fare once.
"And this is not a booty call," she informed me, good-naturedly, getting out of the cab. I didn't mean to imply...
My last call was to pick up at Hardee's on Providence. When I pulled in the parking lot from the back way I saw Blue Pete from comomusic.com. I had seen him earlier, walking out of Eastside Tavern near closing time. I knew Pete from tending bar at Mojos and the Blue Note. I met him officially when my friend Angel was a pain-in-the-ass over a purported "blue" vodka drink or some such shit. We had been formally re-introduced by Glow once.
I'll give Pete equal time to defend himself, but I think he would agree that he was shitfaced. He talked in short bursts like a reserved child, due, I'm sure, to his intoxication. "You know..we know each other, man. I'm Pete, Blue Pete, from como. What's your user name?" I thought Pete knew me enough to link me to Hadacol and the Taxi Blog, even before my picking him up. I see him downtown when I'm driving quite a bit.
"I'm Hadacol..." Pete burst out laughing.
"Hadacol? You're the...you're Garner? The Taxi Blog guy?" I'm not sure if he was genuinely that surprised or if I misunderstood him because he was drunk. We went through the drive-through. Pete mentioned that he had got a banjo for Christmas. We tried to talk about music, but I was stupid-tired and I suspect that Pete was stupid-drunk. I got him home safe without further excitement.
So that was my night. I had one more call, which turned into a cancellation. I ended up running 25 fares (not counting the runner), which was more than I did on New Year's Eve, though I topped out at $238 and change on the meter. It helped that I went in an hour early and had a cab right away, but I was busy all damn night. I talked to the dispatcher about the runner when I got done for the night. He had talked to the woman from the house she departed from, with the phone she had called from. Dispatch told her she could come in and pay the $10.55 Wednesday or they would send the cops out.
I turned off my alarm and went to bed at about 5:40 Wednesday morning. I did not open my eyes again until 7:05 Wednesday night. I thought it must have been morning, but couldn't figure out why it was still so dark outside. I heard Peat cussing the cats and trying to close the crisper drawer on the refrigerator downstairs. I passed out again, and didn't reawake until 11:05pm. That's 17 hours, 25 minutes. Now, I can sleep, but that's probably a new personal best, especially since I only woke up once.
JW had called a couple of times, and, despite leaving the ringer on, I slept through that, too. I called him back at 11:54. He was in the cab, driving around with an extra $700 cash in his pocket. That's the down payment on the Blazer. I got the title for it out of the toolbox in my garage and drove up to El Rancho. He met me and we transacted business. There was some kooky cowboy talking to the El Rancho guy when I went to order. He was saying some stuff in Spanish and the employee was nodding with wide-eyed-"this-guy's-crazy"-language-barrier politeness.
I didn't know if the cowboy was just shooting the shit or if he was going to order anything. He looked at me, after the El Rancho guy nodded in my direction.
"Are you waiting to order?"
"Well I was. Am I holdin' up your airplane or something?" A little put out.
"Nope, I thought you might of just been talkin'."
I ate my chicken tacos in the window. As I was leaving I was walking past the kooky cowboy, from behind him. He was saying something, not loud. I paused at his table, to his side, and he kept talking.
"What's that? " I asked. He looked at me like I was crazy. "I thought you may have been saying something to me." He still stared, blankly. He may have been trying to decipher my Split Lip Rayfield shirt. "Well, you have a good night then, buddy."
"You drive careful, now."
I went by the gas station, where I picked up a 32 ounce Diet Dr. Pepper fountain drink, a 20 ounce bottle of the same, and a 1/2 pint of Tanqueray. It remains in the desk drawer, where the cats can't knock it off. You'd think the little fuckers would have managed to knock everything over in the 3 months or so they've been here. It's not like I bother picking anything back up. But they are very diligent in their goal, and seemingly never cease crashing shit to the floor in the background as I blog all night.
So, yeah, I got to drive #5 again, but settled back with #10. I got burned at work. Ken got fired. I got some sleep. Culito has two motorcycles in my garage. I have $700 more in my pocket. I've got $750 more coming ($50, Buick; $200, Caravan, $500, Blazer). I was outed by a comouser in my cab (I'm sure Karl Rove is responsible, somewhere down the line). Blue Pete gets a laminated certificate.
We'll see if I accomplish anything Thursday. Not likely, since it is 7:59 in the am and I have only been awake 9 hours and drank 80+ ounces of soda. If I can figure out how to edit my links I'll add "Miss Lucky". She's got some great taste in music, its just a damn shame a man would have to go to the opposite side of the globe to corral her. Ciao.
I just checked and I had a connection, just long enough to get onto como and draft a response to the conspiracy theory that I am not really a cab driver. But, it blinked out again before I could post. I'm eating Wild Berries Gummi Lifesavors. I am also listening to John Prine: The Missing Years. I picked it up at the library. I've been trying to get right to the cab content at the tops of posts, so people who don't care to hear about my personal life can skip it at the end, rather than sift through it looking for taxi stories.
So, cab:
After blogging Sunday night I was up until 8:30 or so Monday morning. I was exhausted, but couldn't sleep much. I got about 4 hours in before Culito came over. I showed him the garage and regaled him with ornery drunk tales. Then I headed to work.
Lo and behold, if I didn't get put back in #5 again. Titties from Heaven. While I was waiting for the day driver to come back in with it, Phyllis came out to talk with me and another driver who was waiting. She said she fired Ken. He had complained about having to drive #10 on New Year's, and hadn't come in on Sunday, saying he wouldn't drive #10. He called on Monday, was told he'd be in #10, said he wouldn't drive, and was told to bring in his uniforms. He responded with some threats to bring A*1 down, alerting CPD to pull us all over, because we all smoked pot while we were working. It's a little weird, since Jerri the cab checker chick lives with Ken (they moved in together a few weeks ago). She had driven his truck to work.
Monday was slow and easy. I only ran 12 fares, I think. I average about 18 a night, and did 23 or so on New Year's, which may have been higher if I hadn't have gone out of town for an hour, or if I got into a cab before 5pm.
One of my first fares was a woman I picked up on New Year's Eve. I grabbed her early that night, and took her round-trip from her trailer to the liquor store, to stock up for the night. She bought some Jim Beam and Kahlua. She was psyched for an old-school trailer-court knock-down, drag-out karaoke jam. She was really nice, about 280lbs with a huge, sagging front-butt extending well down inside her sweat pants.
I picked her up with a beau at the Wal-Mart Supercenter. They loaded up the trunk and got in. I thought she may have been the same lady from New Year's. I had never got a good look at her face, but I never forget a front-butt. She asked if I remembered her from New Year's, cementing it for me. She asked me how my bootlegging went. I told her I kept it for myself. I asked her how her karaoke jam went. She said it was a good time and that they didn't run out of booze.
They were making a stop at the Dollar General before heading north. She sent him to get paper towels while she picked up something. They reemerged with an 8-pack of paper towels and a new karaoke machine.
"Getting you a new machine? Are you upgrading?"
"No, my other one broke."
"Did it break or did you just wear it out?" She had proudly told me of her huge collection of karaoke discs the last time I hauled her.
"I wore it out. I had it for three years."
I asked her what sort of songs she did.
"Oh, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette. And a lot of 80s stuff."
"80s country, or new-wave?" It was mostly 80s new-wave-ish pop tunes. I asked her if she always kept it at home or if she did the local bar karaoke circuit. She said they went to some redneck bar and the Arch & Column Pub.
"Not because its a gay bar, just for the karaoke," she was quick to point out. I told her that I did George Jones's the Grand Tour or He Stopped Loving Her Today. The truth is that I never have done the Grand Tour, but it was featured predominately in Jackpot. It's a good flick, in spite of what the fuckface at the bottom says. Anything over 25 words in reference to whether or not you liked a movie is essentially bullshit. There's no counting for taste.
But, I have sang He Stopped Loving Her Today on karaoke night at a bar. It was an extremely weird night, that included a rare visit to Johnny's Beanery on a Monday night, a special on double-bourbon-and-waters, sharing drinks with that thug Tony Harvey, harassing KOMU 8's Chris Gervino, and my crazy-bitch roommate 'Ambrosia' hooking up and going home with the Harvester. None of this was planned. The karaoke regulars were there. I watched one of them singing while she ate waffle-fries sitting in a booth.
Fuck that. I took the mic (cordless) and worked the room. I knew the song well enough, and they had the karaoke screen on all of the TVs throughout the bar (sports bar). I did my best Las Vegas lounge act, working my throughout the crowded bar while singing. I would go up to groups of people, drunk, oblivious to the goings-on, put my arm around them, and serenade them. It was pretty classy.
Yeah, but, back to the cab. The guy said he worked nights, 12-8. I asked where, and he said at Hearnes Center, for the University. I knew that meant "janitor." I told him that I knew someone who worked nights as a janitor, but then remembered it was at the Mizzou Arena. I figured they were closely enough related, though, and that the Mizzou Arena had only been open for a year or so.
Yup, he knew NIS alright, even without foreknowledge of his user name. Lets just say NIS cuts a striking visage.
I couriered some more drugs for the hospital. This time it was Advair, something used to prevent asthma attacks.
Man, there just wasn't much interesting happening Monday. I went two hours between calls at one point, and took an hour-long nap in the parking 'structure.' I read some from a book I picked up at the library, Showdown in the Show-me State: The Fight Over Conceal-and-carry Gun Laws in Missouri. The book isn't a spine-tingling must-read, but it does point out how the NRA has influenced and elected Missouri lawmakers, and discusses how Missouri is as divided between urban and rural (St. Louis and Kansas City vs. outstate Missouri) as viscously as it is between political parties. Missouri is also apparently looked at as a microcosm of national politics, since our divisions seem to mirror what happens in the country at-large.
The book follows the fight in the state General Assembly over conceal-and-carry from 1992 until the recent passage in 2004. The author is a poly-sci professor at the University. Politics in the abstract are very boring, and I am very apathetic. But, if you get tossed in the middle of politicians at a real level you can get mad, especially when you read about people from your home town or district. I figure if I'm ever going to do anything worth a fuck it may be in fucking up shit in politics. We'll see.
After 2 am I got dispatched to an address I was unfamiliar with at the edge of the hood. I passed the house two or three times until, on the last pass, I saw a whole passel of chillins running from an open doorway to the edge of the road. I pulled up and 7 loud screaming kids piled into the cab, fighting over the doors and seating arrangements. A disinterested black man, maybe 25, with names tattooed on his neck, stood watching as they piled in. When it became apparent that he was not getting in the car with them I rolled down my window (yay #5!) and asked them where I was taking them. I was a little appalled that he would put 7 kids, maybe aged 4-12, in a car with a stranger at 2:15 in the damn morning.
I was even more appalled when he couldn't tell me the address I was taking them to. Dispatch had tried to tell me once, from the phone call for the cab, but I couldn't hear over all of the commotion from the kids. "Oh, man, you mean their moms didn't tell you the address?"
"Ain't no one told me nothing. She may have told the dispatcher, hold on." I couldn't get the dispatcher right away, and every time he tried to say something it was drowned out by a kid. I asked them to be quiet, and tried again. One peeped and the oldest one started screaming for him or her to be quiet, again drowning out the transmission. I can't half-understand dispatch half the time anyway, even if they do pronounce things properly, due in part to the garbled CB transmissions.
The older girls were trying to tell me the name of the street. "It's Rowly."
"Rowly?"
"No, Rowling?"
"Rowling?"
"No, Row-ling."
"Rowland."
"No, Rowly. R-a-l-e-i-g-h. Rowly."
There was no Rowly, Rowling, Rowland, or Raleigh in my book. I got back with dispatch. He said the mom said it was "by Derby Ridge Area." Derby Ridge stretches through a ton of houses and a few subdivisions, but there was a lot of new construction near Brown School Road. Two of the kids said they could get me there, but their directions weren't the most logical (they were from the city and obviously didn't drive cars). They also bickered back and forth, competing for the honors.
I actually found it easy enough, but the whole ride was irritating. When I got there the fare was $12.30. The mom opened the door to the house, but apparently wouldn't come out in the cold. I had to wait for one of the girls to go inside, get the money, and come back, waiting for exact change. They were New Orleans refugees.
Since I was north of town, dispatch sent me across Brown School Road and told me to head south to Broadway by way of 63. At the base of the Broadway exit was a cop car with its lights going, with a red Mustang pulled over. I went up the off ramp and asked dispatch where I was headed.
"When you get to the off ramp there should be a cop there with a car stopped. That's who you're picking up." I got back on 63, headed north to the 70 interchange, and doubled back, pulling in front of the parked car. One guy came up to the car, dressed in military BDUs. He said we had to wait on two more guys. The cops were still there. A blue Toyota Corolla passed me and parked in front of me. A college looking kid got out and headed back to the cars behind me. "Is this guy with your bunch?"
"I don't know. He must be here to pick up the other guy."
A second guy got into the car. He was a white kid, all thugged out, chains, ear-rings, gansta wear. He talked like a complete thug, everything was 'fuck' and 'bitchez', but he also addressed me formally as 'sir', in regimented military precision. He offered to sell me one of his gold chains.
"Man, I don't have any use for it. Besides, I haven't got any money, either."
The first guy's brother had been driving, and was popped for DWI. The three of them were on holiday furlough from Iraq, and were supposed to be on a plane at 6am to fly to South Korea, on their way back to Iraq. It was almost 3 am. The guy said his brother had only had two beers. Besides having been drinking themselves, the brother hadn't had a driver's license for a few years. He had lost it due to an involuntary manslaughter conviction, an accident at the exact same intersection which killed his best friend.
Apparently the brothers were from the Jeff City area, and the third guy was from Charlotte, NC. They were trying to figure out how they were going to spring his brother and get where they needed to go. I lent them my cell phone so they could try to find out where the brother was and what they needed to do. I needed gas, anyway, so this gave them a few free minutes to figure out what they were doing. I ended up taking them to the CPD station downtown. The first guy hoped to get money from his brother to pay me.
I waited for a couple of minutes and had to go in after them. The thug guy was leaning on the window talking to someone. An officer apparently in charge came out to speak to the brother. I was trying to get cab fare. A random drunk being released butted in, speaking to the kid in BDUs. "Man, they got you buddy back there, and he is fucked up, man." Thanks, helpful random drunk guy.
I got my money and left them with an A*1 card, for when they figured out what was going on.
And I went home. I got in and got to sleep a little before 6. I was pretty wiped out from the lack of sleep the night before, besides 12 hours in a cab. Something woke me up at 8 am. Before I could get back to sleep, though, my phone rang. I normally turn the ringer off, but had forgot. They left a message. Curiosity was killing my cat, so I checked to see who it was.
It was a guy I used to work with, whom I sold a car to. He still owed me $50 for it. I still had the title, and hadn't heard from him in two months. I wasn't worried, though. He wanted to get together and pay me up, so he could license the car. All of this had woke me up proper, and I couldn't get back to sleep.
I went out and stared at the garage. I decided I wanted to build a new work bench/cart for the garage. I have one that is 2' by 3', but wanted to build a sturdier one, with some storage for my scrap metal stock, more like 22"x 48", since I had a nice piece of 14 gage steel for a top that size. I decided to take my Blazer and go get some angle iron for the frame. Along the way I changed my mind again, because I didn't have too much money after paying rent. I thought I'd wait until I at least had that $50 from the Buick. Since I was already out in the Blazer I decided to drive by JW's house. JW is another driver for A*1 (a good guy to request if I'm not working, along with Mark). He was interested in buying my Blazer.
It was about 10am. I had no idea what his schedule was, though he does work nights. He had been by my house a couple of times to look at it while I was asleep. I thought I'd knock, anyway, lightly and briefly. I didn't hear anything, so I was petting his huge German Shepard in the yard before I got back in the Blazer. I guess I woke him up from sleeping, on his couch. He came out and caught me. I waited for him to dress and then we went for a ride in the Blazer.
I then went to the Army Surplus store on Paris road to look for some black BDU pants, so I could avoid the uniform pants from work. I can't find black cargo pants easily, and thought these would do the trick. I tried some on, but the legs taper a bit too much for my tastes. I also dug through piles of mismatched field boots, but didn't find a complete pair that suited my tastes. By far the best place to buy stuff like that is at Fort Leonard Wood/St. Robert's, where there are a ton of salvage stores with nice stuff for cheap. Maybe I'll make a little road trip that way soon.
Though exhausted, I still couldn't sleep. I decided that if JW bought my Blazer I'd flush some money on tattoos. I've had a couple ideas, but nothing set in stone. Or embedded in skin. I always liked this woodcut by old Ben Franklin. I don't care so much for the politics, or New England, but I though the graphic was cool. I like dense, high-contrast, stylized black tattoos. Something to make use of the contrast with and interplay of negative space on my parchment colored, translucent skin. I started re-drawing it, giving it a little more dynamic, organic shape. It was working pretty cool, and looked to cover most of my upper right arm, maybe 5"x8". But, the more I re-worked it, the more graphic it became, until it was losing most of its original appeal. I did some Google image searches and quickly nixed the idea. Too many faux-hardasses with snakes on their upper arms. It was becoming much too cliche, even if I kept ol' Ben's chicken head on the snake. Back to the old drawing board, literally as well as figuratively.
I was still fucking around with it when my phone rang. The caller ID showed it was A*1. What? Don't bother coming in? That sounds like a great idea. I answered it. It was Kelly, the dispatcher, seeing if I could come in early. It was already almost 2:30. I said "sure" and took a shower. I grabbed a bite and was at work at 3:05. I figured it would be dead and I could sleep in the parking garage, and maybe come home early.
The car magic had worn off. I was issued my old girl #10 again. Fair is fair. No more titties from Heaven. At least I had some CDs in my pocket. I decided to spin old John Prine for the night.
Damn, that sun is some bright shit. I mean I know it's a star and everything, but, sheesh. Especially as it slants in from the west as the winter light fades to evening. Combined with relatively no sleep, I could hardly stand the glare to drive for my first few fares. I'm hoping this night-life will leave me with rickets. I have been forgoing any vitamin D in anticipation. Or maybe some scurvy. Perhaps I should drink this gin in the desk drawer.
My first call was a regular whom I've never driven, because he usually cabs it before 4pm. He asked if I was new. I took him round-trip to the bank and the gas station. He was pretty cool, a retired journalist from Manhattan, who had moved back here (where he went to J school) for simple economic reasons (had paid $4000 a month for a Manhattan apartment). He said that his lifetime had also seen him driving a cab in DC for a few months. He bought some grocery items at the gas station, along with 2 cartons of cigarettes and two 12 packs of Budweiser. "The essentials," he joked. The round trip plus wait time at two places worked out to a $19.55 fare. He gave me $25. That was worth coming in early.
My next call was a medical transport from Boone Hospital Doctor's Plaza out to Bethany. Bethany is not a nice place. But I wasn't too worried, since it wasn't yet 4pm. The woman fell asleep in the car before we passed through downtown, only making me sleepier. It was a quiet 20 minute ride out to Bethany. She didn't wake up when we slowed down, but I had her address. I guessed the wrong way, and turned on the wrong portion of Bethany. I was turned around and heading back when she woke up and asked where we were.
I had to wait on a school bus, unloading probably 20 kids without bothering to pull off of the busy 2-lane Scott Boulevard. I had to work my way through all of the kids, who apparently haven't progressed far enough to learn about sidewalks and traffic safety in school yet. Little bastards walk right in the road with no awareness or regard for bright blue 4500lb Lincolns. As I passed a handful one of them looked in the cab.
"Yo' mama's in that taxi! Yo' mama's in that taxi!" I dropped her off at her driveway and carefully wove my way through all of the little bastards and back to Scott Boulevard.
At about 8pm I had a call to go to Trinity. I didn't know where it was at, and looked it up in my book. "One street west of Providence on the north side of Park." I was right by Park and swung over there. As I pulled up on the first street I looked closely for the sign. Trinity. Bonus. It was a short, wide street barely 1/2 a block long. I found the address and pulled up, stopping at the curb in front of the sidewalk. I guess it was a laundry mat. Two black boys, maybe 10 or 11, maybe twins, saw the cab and lit up. Them and their nan started maneuvering two giant tubs and one giant-er bag of clothes out of the door.
I would have offered to help, but the boys were excited and she was putting them to work. I popped the trunk. I sat in the car with both passenger side doors open as the kids drug out and loaded the laundry. Then I saw a CPD cop car fly up behind me, lights flashing. What the fuck did I do now?
I watched him approach the car. My window didn't work so I kicked the driver's door open as he came up.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Pause. Muted look of confusion and disgust. Tired, bagged eyes. Woman and two kids dragging copious amounts of laundry into a taxi cab. Bright blue taxi cab with logos and lights on it. In front of a laundromat. Parked. Neatly by the curb. Taxi uniform. Taxi license clipped to my shirt. Wide vacant street. 8pm. Tuesday. This is a felony now?
"I'm waiting for a customer to load her laundry in my cab." Dipshit.
"You're driving the wrong way on a one-way street."
Actually, I'm parked, dipshit. You just drove the wrong way on a one way street, very rapidly, I might add.
"I didn't see any signs or anything. I've never been on this street before." I looked again, at the wide, vacant street. It was as wide as Providence. It's in the middle of project housing. There hadn't been a single car on it the 10 minutes I had been waiting, and there were none parked anywhere in sight. Two people sat in plastic stack chairs on their back porch, watching all of the excitement.
"License and proof of insurance."
Fuckface. I handed him the stuff and waited for him to run it. The woman finished getting all of her laundry in and climbed in front. "What does he want? They ain't happy unless they's always fuckin' with people."
He ran my stuff and handed me back the papers. "Be more careful. You're free to go." Was I detained, motherfucker? I thought it particularly comical that he didn't notice I was missing my front license plate.
The woman only lived right around the corner, less than the $3 minimum. The temperature had dropped quite a bit. She paid me $3 in quarters, and I carried the huge heavy basket of clothes from the back seat, picking up the overflowing garments from the seat and pushing the folded granny-panties down in it so they didn't fall out. The two kids were having too much fun with the chore. One lost his shoes running to the house. I took the the basket some 50' to the door. A woman there opened it for me, and I set it in her kitchen. "Thank you. You didn't have to do that." Then, to one of the boys, who was now sprawled out on the ground, "Git your ass up off of that cold ground, and git in here, now!"
I went back and looked at the end of Trinity. Usually, there's a "One-Way" sign on the same post as the street sign. There wasn't one here. There was a "Do Not Enter" sign on the opposite side of the street. But, Trinity is less than a block from an intersection, located where the main street (Park) curves to the left. If you're coming from providence, the Do Not Enter sign is at an angle, about 40' or so from the Trinity sign. If I drove there not knowing it was one-way, looking for the Trinity sign, I'd make the same mistake 97 times out of 100. All of the other one-way streets in Columbia are one-ways because they are incredibly narrow, and are marked with Do Not Enter and One Way signs on both sides of the street.
I continued to run steady all evening. I was surprised, and kept waiting for it to slow down. I stare out of a cab all night, looking for people walking--either potential flags or potential bad guys. When I'm exhausted I start to see things moving that aren't. There are 3 or 4 recurring phantoms around Columbia. They are bushes or trash cans or signs that I always mistake for people before I recognize them. I was too tired to be driving. I struggled to keep my eyes open.
I had a call to pick up at the Coffee Zone. It was a teenaged girl, with maybe her lip and nose pierced, wearing some teenaged punk clothing. Nothing outrageous, just jeans and a black sweatshirt. She hopped in the front seat of the Lincoln. A boy she had been sitting with outside of the coffee shop walked across the street, in front of the Lincoln. He nodded and gave her a look that was as intentionally comical as it was arresting. I took her to her house out off of West Broadway.
She said she had never been in a taxi, that it was her first time. I joked that that put a lot of pressure on me, and that I felt like I would have to be a perfect cab driver, lest I should ruin it for her for life. My mind was not sharp. My dialogue suffered.
I picked up one of my regulars at the workshop. I was talking about being tired and said something about maybe I should stop and get a soda. He said he hoped I would, because he wanted to get some stuff. I went in, used the restroom, and got a soda. He was standing outside scratching a lottery ticket when I came out.
"Did you hit it big?" He didn't. "Well, I guess you can't win if you don't play."
I must have caught my second wind, because I perked up enough that my driving didn't suffer and I wasn't sleepy. Just that functioning zombie state.
And then I experienced another cab first. I got burned; my first runner. A "runner" is a person who just runs off without paying the fare, though, in this case, it was by subterfuge.
I had a call up at Chris Drive. I bitched in an earlier post about having to go up there during bar rush, not being able to find the place (no signs), and getting a shitty fare. It was the couple whom I nearly killed myself in trying to get them to the gas station so they could by beer before it stopped selling. The guy was the one who called me Baby Boy. The first time.
I found Chris Drive easy this time, and it was the same duplex. A woman got in the cab and wanted to go to the Regency Trailer Park, which is where I took them the first time. I assumed it was the same girl, and wasn't too on-guard. Before I could get rolling another black woman came to the cab and opened her door, to the back seat. "Girl, where you think you goin', tryin' to leave me out here with no cigarettes. Trying to leave me tobacco-less. Me with a kid in there coughin' and chokin' and I gotta come out here and get my tobacco from you." The first said nothing, muttered a bit, and gave her back something.
"Fuck that bitch, coming up and bitching at me like that," the first girl said, as I pulled out. She said that she would have to go inside to get my money when we got there. That's pretty common, and I was glad she told me up front. She also said she didn't remember the exact number of the trailer, but that she would know it when she saw it. Again, common. I had a vague idea where I dropped her the last time. I have a startlingly accurate memory most times, but this trailer park is pretty screwy. The roads curve every-which-away and I've never been there in the daylight. The numbers are hard to read, and that night I dropped the couple at the end of a driveway, equidistant to three different trailers, and didn't see which one they went to.
Along the way she started talking about cops, for some reason. I mentioned their harassing work on me earlier in the evening. She said something about the cops harassing people outside of Lou's Palace. "I mean, I know that black people do sell drugs, and shit, but not every black person in a car with a white person is a drug dealer or a criminal."
We got to the Regency and started working through the maze. I remembered all of the turns as she directed me. I knew we were still a ways away when she said "stop right there by that Jeep Cherokee." She reminded me that she was going in to get the money and told me to "stay right here." Like I was going to go somewhere without my money? I was still thinking that was odd when she said "it's actually that one there by the red car" and closed the door. The red car was at the next trailer, which she disappeared around the corner of.
I knew then that I was fucked. She had had enough time to legitimately make it in the trailer by the time I had pulled up where I could see, but I knew she had ran in between the dark trailers to wherever she had planned to go. Bitch. The worst part was waiting to make sure she wouldn't come back, outside a trailer I knew she wasn't in. I didn't want to go up to a strange trailer after midnight and ask if a black woman had come in there, and, by the way, where's my money? I wasted 10 minutes waiting, to be sure. I had dispatch call the number she had gave when she called. It was the tobacco woman's cell phone. He told me to go on.
The fare had been $10.55. My cut would have been $3.18, and I hadn't expected a tip. I was most pissed off about the wasted time waiting. I would have probably been burned either way, but I had relaxed my guard a bit because this was a repeat customer. In the future I will be more vigilant and make sure they leave something in a car, and won't go someplace without an exact address if they expect me to wait for money. And will definitely watch them go in.
I had a call to go to the new Club Jazz at 1:15. An attractive blonde girl came to the cab. She was already in apology mode. She asked how many we could take at once.
"It just depends on how cozy you want to get. We'll take as many as you can fit."
"Good. We have a big group. We may need to put two up front." At that, I folded up the twin armrests on the Lincoln's split bench. "That'll work."
"If no one minds getting close to the cab driver."
"That's cool. I'll just sit here myself."
There were 7 of them. It took some doing to corral them all. One girl with a miniskirt and cowboy boots was determined to drive or ride with someone else or something. I think there were 2 dudes, but there may have been three. One was resistant. One girl was drunk enough to make zero sense, but still had the urge to talk. People were yelling at each other from inside the cab. The girl in the back told the stragglers that they were uninvited to her house if they drove drunk by themselves. The polite clear-headed ringleader was apologizing the whole time. Dispatch was on the radio. They were going two different places. They were stopping for booze. Every time I answered a question from the ringleader she relayed the new information to the others, to pacify and persuade them all into coming. Eventually I had all 7 in the car.
We took off. I was in the left lane to go to the gas station for booze. They changed their minds, and I had to turn right. I guess I ran over a divider/berm of some sort. The cab was weighted down so much from the 7 passengers that the suspension bottomed out and we dragged and scraped our way over it.
"Pay no attention to that. That's normal."
We worked our way across town. Luckily, we were away from downtown and there was no traffic. The polite girl was trying to give me unnecessary directions, as I already knew exactly where we were going, from experience. It was a cul de sac on a popular college neighborhood road. The super drunk girl was trying to say something incoherent, I only got "glasses...guy...care of us..." She looked at me as if she was waiting for me to get a joke and laugh wildly. In all of the commotion I hadn't been able to tell them that we charge $1 extra for each additional passenger. That's $6 over their fare. I like to tell people up front so there's no surprises. Some guy in the back said "that's horse shit. We'll pay it, but that's just horse shit."
Any other time this would have been dismissed. But my lack of sleep had shortened my fuse considerably. He wasn't joking a bit when he said. Over all of the commotion I said "yeah, that is terrible. Your fare's going to be like $18. That's almost $3 apiece to get home safely with no DWIs. I'm going to get rich off of guys. I may retire." The polite girl broke me off some, he wasn't really listening anyway, and his friends were chiding him. He was trying to defend his position, saying "I can take a taxi anywhere in Springfield to my house for $8."
That's fuckin' great, ass-bag. How 'bout you pay the fare and I will drive your ass to Greene County. You know why it's cheaper there? Because there's absolutely no reason to go anywhere in Springfield, Missouri. It sucks balls.
The polite girl asked me what it was like to be a cab driver. "Do you make a lot of money?" This seems to be a popular misconception.
"No. It varies, but I'm not going to retire anytime soon. With all of the students out of town this month I've been starving."
"I bet its a really interesting job." At last, something we can agree on. She said she had always thought it would be cool to drive a cab. But then she said "in New York." She asked me questions about my background. I talked about my education. "You don't look that old."
"Well, I'm older than I look."
"How old are you?"
"I am 29."
"Oh, I'd have guessed 25."
She asked me some more questions and I told her about my blog (I've mentioned it to a handful of fares over the past couple of months). She thought that sounded cool and wanted the address so she could check it out.
"Cool. I'll write it down for you when we get you home."
"What, is it really hard to remember or something?"
"Well, not for me, but it's basically my name."
"What's your name?" I told her, and repeated it a few times until I thought she understood me, though I was sure she would forget. "You better write it down for me."
"Will do."
I got them home and off-loaded. They paid me $20 on a $16.05 fare. Everyone seemed gracious when they got home. I wrote the blog address on the back of a card and handed it to the girl. She repeated my name and I asked hers, shaking her hand. She said it was nice to meet me, that I was an interesting person.
"Well thank you."
"You don't meet interesting people every day." Still shaking my hand.
"No. You don't," wondering if I was going to get my hand back.
"It's hard to meet interesting men." Still shaking my hand.
"Yes, I imagine it is."
Well, polite college girl (whose name I do remember). This is how I remembered it. If I am factually mistaken and you read this, please feel free to correct me. I am very skeptical, but on paper, and in the abstract, someone more vain than myself may have thought you were almost interested. In a 29 year old cab driver. Did I mention I only just turned 29?
But enough about me.
Sometime around 2am I was dispatched to "North 8th." This usually means Thirsty Turtle, Hoot-N-Anny's, or Club Vogue. After 2 am it almost definitely means Club Vogue. To my surprise, it was to a nearby house. There were 4 people in the yard. One ran up to the cab and said it would be just a minute. A couple with a dog headed down the street. Two girls came back and got into the cab. One asked the other about the couple with the dog.
"Are they not coming?"
"They're 'going to do it'. No, they aren't coming because they have the dog--they can't bring the dog, can they?"
"Sure they can, I'm not prejudiced." The girl yelled down the street to the couple, and said I was cool for letting them bring it.
"Oh, but we can't smoke in here, can we?"
"Well, I don't think dogs should smoke, but you're more than welcome to."
I took them home. It was a short ride, $3.05 for the fare, $3 for the 3 extra passengers, and nothing for the dog. While they counted and scrounged for money, the girl in front (1/2 of the dog couple) asked what we were listening to.
"John Prine."
"I like it."
"Thanks." The girl in the back summoned up some money, and, in mixed denominations and coins, presented me with $12 and change.
"See," to the other girl, "we were able to give him a 100% tip."
Thanks, ladies.
I had one call after that, to pick up on east campus. I vaguely recognized the girl. I'm sure I hauled her once before. She is nice, but usually too drunk to chat much. The most remarkable feature is that she takes the cab by herself. If I'm thinking of the right girl, she tips well. On this occasion I was taking her to someone else's house.
It was a dude. She called him to tell him we were on our way. She asked if I had had any "interesting" calls on the night. I thought for a second and remembered the runner. I was telling her the story as it came to me, and I mentioned that it wasn't that odd that someone had to go inside to get money to pay.
"You know, because sometimes I pick people up who are going somewhere for..." I was referencing crackwhores, but it didn't seem polite in mixed company. "Well, dare I say, 'booty calls'..."
The guy was trying to impress her, and had insisted on paying for her cab. She called again when we were a couple of blocks away. The guy said to ask if I wanted a beer. "I would, but I don't think he wants to get a BUI. I mean DUI." He met us in the cul de sac. It was one of the guys from the group of 7 from Club Jazz. He thought it an incredible, and incredibly funny, coincidence that I was the very same cab driver from before. Again, he insisted on paying. She said "can't I at least get the tip?"
"No, no no no," he said, laughing, still in impress mode. "I got this." He tipped me $1.70 on a $10.30 fare. All I could think was that he should have let her tip. She gave me $3 on top of the $2 service charge on a $3 fare once.
"And this is not a booty call," she informed me, good-naturedly, getting out of the cab. I didn't mean to imply...
My last call was to pick up at Hardee's on Providence. When I pulled in the parking lot from the back way I saw Blue Pete from comomusic.com. I had seen him earlier, walking out of Eastside Tavern near closing time. I knew Pete from tending bar at Mojos and the Blue Note. I met him officially when my friend Angel was a pain-in-the-ass over a purported "blue" vodka drink or some such shit. We had been formally re-introduced by Glow once.
I'll give Pete equal time to defend himself, but I think he would agree that he was shitfaced. He talked in short bursts like a reserved child, due, I'm sure, to his intoxication. "You know..we know each other, man. I'm Pete, Blue Pete, from como. What's your user name?" I thought Pete knew me enough to link me to Hadacol and the Taxi Blog, even before my picking him up. I see him downtown when I'm driving quite a bit.
"I'm Hadacol..." Pete burst out laughing.
"Hadacol? You're the...you're Garner? The Taxi Blog guy?" I'm not sure if he was genuinely that surprised or if I misunderstood him because he was drunk. We went through the drive-through. Pete mentioned that he had got a banjo for Christmas. We tried to talk about music, but I was stupid-tired and I suspect that Pete was stupid-drunk. I got him home safe without further excitement.
So that was my night. I had one more call, which turned into a cancellation. I ended up running 25 fares (not counting the runner), which was more than I did on New Year's Eve, though I topped out at $238 and change on the meter. It helped that I went in an hour early and had a cab right away, but I was busy all damn night. I talked to the dispatcher about the runner when I got done for the night. He had talked to the woman from the house she departed from, with the phone she had called from. Dispatch told her she could come in and pay the $10.55 Wednesday or they would send the cops out.
I turned off my alarm and went to bed at about 5:40 Wednesday morning. I did not open my eyes again until 7:05 Wednesday night. I thought it must have been morning, but couldn't figure out why it was still so dark outside. I heard Peat cussing the cats and trying to close the crisper drawer on the refrigerator downstairs. I passed out again, and didn't reawake until 11:05pm. That's 17 hours, 25 minutes. Now, I can sleep, but that's probably a new personal best, especially since I only woke up once.
JW had called a couple of times, and, despite leaving the ringer on, I slept through that, too. I called him back at 11:54. He was in the cab, driving around with an extra $700 cash in his pocket. That's the down payment on the Blazer. I got the title for it out of the toolbox in my garage and drove up to El Rancho. He met me and we transacted business. There was some kooky cowboy talking to the El Rancho guy when I went to order. He was saying some stuff in Spanish and the employee was nodding with wide-eyed-"this-guy's-crazy"-language-barrier politeness.
I didn't know if the cowboy was just shooting the shit or if he was going to order anything. He looked at me, after the El Rancho guy nodded in my direction.
"Are you waiting to order?"
"Well I was. Am I holdin' up your airplane or something?" A little put out.
"Nope, I thought you might of just been talkin'."
I ate my chicken tacos in the window. As I was leaving I was walking past the kooky cowboy, from behind him. He was saying something, not loud. I paused at his table, to his side, and he kept talking.
"What's that? " I asked. He looked at me like I was crazy. "I thought you may have been saying something to me." He still stared, blankly. He may have been trying to decipher my Split Lip Rayfield shirt. "Well, you have a good night then, buddy."
"You drive careful, now."
I went by the gas station, where I picked up a 32 ounce Diet Dr. Pepper fountain drink, a 20 ounce bottle of the same, and a 1/2 pint of Tanqueray. It remains in the desk drawer, where the cats can't knock it off. You'd think the little fuckers would have managed to knock everything over in the 3 months or so they've been here. It's not like I bother picking anything back up. But they are very diligent in their goal, and seemingly never cease crashing shit to the floor in the background as I blog all night.
So, yeah, I got to drive #5 again, but settled back with #10. I got burned at work. Ken got fired. I got some sleep. Culito has two motorcycles in my garage. I have $700 more in my pocket. I've got $750 more coming ($50, Buick; $200, Caravan, $500, Blazer). I was outed by a comouser in my cab (I'm sure Karl Rove is responsible, somewhere down the line). Blue Pete gets a laminated certificate.
We'll see if I accomplish anything Thursday. Not likely, since it is 7:59 in the am and I have only been awake 9 hours and drank 80+ ounces of soda. If I can figure out how to edit my links I'll add "Miss Lucky". She's got some great taste in music, its just a damn shame a man would have to go to the opposite side of the globe to corral her. Ciao.
posted by Garner at 11:58 PM
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