In This House That I Call Home

Hey gang. It's taking me a while to sort out where I'm at, here. I missed my update Sunday, since I decided to drink way too much beer. I was watching the Super Bowl, barely, with no real interest. Sorry for abandoning you.

And, before that, I had broke off in the middle of a post when Blogger.com ate some of my stuff. So, even before missing Sunday's update, I was a day-and-a-half behind. Balls.

Most nights I jot down one or two key words about each fare of note on the back of a business card. An average night fills the back of one card, a crazy night may fill two. I come home, empty my pockets, and slip the cards under either my alarm clock or mouse pad. That's so the cats won't steal them, and I won't confuse them with the 100 or so old cards scattered around my desk and floor where the cats left them, the ink on many runny and smeared like a bad watercolor painting by the remnants of beer from bottles the cats knocked over.

The cards are most helpful in me keeping my sequences in order, and the rest comes from memory. The sequence is especially important when one fare affects my attitude towards the next, when I get multiple rides from the same party, and for keeping my times approximate. I try to take you inside the mind of the cab driver, and sometimes my attention is split five ways.

So, now, staring at my desk, dimly lit by the glow of the monitor, I have 4 stacks of two cards, and one single. Meaning I have my work cut out for me. It is 6:48 pm Thursday night. I had planned on writing all last night, but didn't. My buddy and former neighbor Brandon called me up to see about drinking some beer. We went to Shakespeare's for a pie, and called up our other buddy and Brandon's former roommate, Jerod. Jerod came over with his buddy Stephen, and I managed to snag all three discs of the Trailer Park Boys. So, I drank a bunch of Apricot Weizens.

I crashed out at one or two and woke up at 9am today, hung over. Not terrible, but bad enough to be essentially useless. Corpsy's fuel injector is still leaking, even after replacing the o-rings on it. My suspicion was that one of the o-rings got nicked reinstalling the injector, or, maybe the injector itself is leaking to the outside. Man, I hate working on the same shit twice.

I checked Wednesday, and a new injector was $69, and the seal kit was $5. I thought I might try the last-ditch effort of using some gas tank repair epoxy, smushing it all over the injector, to see if that stopped the leak. Hillbilly, yes, but no one would be laughing at me if it worked.

But it didn't, so feel free to laugh. In the process of trying to mold the useless shit on the injector, I saw the gas bleeding off (from the pressure of the fuelrail) around the injector, not really through it. So, I guess I'll have to pull it out. Again. I picked up a new injector and an extra set of seals.

Wednesday I went over to Gene's (the LA/Alaskan/Taiwan transplant I sold my minivan to). Gene said he had my last $100 for the van, and finally wanted the ignition switch fixed. He wasn't home when I got there, but his old van was unlocked. I swiftly dismantled the plastic trim under the dash and around the steering column, removing the ignition switch and lock cylinder. Gene and his wife pulled up in the blue van as I was all but finished.

They took some groceries in the house. His son was toddling on the grass, dumbfounded by the snow left in the shade. I figured Gene would come back out when he got everything settled in the house. I finished removing the switch, and went to the door of their apartment. They hadn't seen me when they pulled in.

I got the keys that matched the old van's ignition switch, and ripped the broken one out of the blue van. Luckily, the wiring harness and everything was the same. I installed the good switch, and crawled under the van to hook the starter back up. It worked perfectly. I pulled out the old yellow jumper wire from under the hood. Mission accomplished, in swift fashion.

But, today, hungover, and it about 36 degrees outside, I had no ambition to work on Corpsy. I finally managed to fall asleep around 12 or 1 and slept until about 6pm this evening. Which brings us more or less up to date.

So, back to the cab.

In the last update, I broke off with me returning from the airport and my customer (the Thing) losing patience at the Foxy Sauna while waiting for me.

So, yeah, he got tired of waiting, and dispatch sent another cab. I dropped off the woman from Austin at the Fairfield. Then I had a call to pick up at the St. Francis House, a men's shelter on Rangeline.

I pulled up and stopped in the street in front of the house. There were 3 or 4 scattered people, milling about aimlessly, smoking. I imagine it's pretty boring at the shelter and staring blankly at a cab driver was apparently somewhat stimulating for them. I saw someone inside, grabbing up a coat and various bags. A black man about my age emerged, carrying a backpack, a duffel, a coat, and a Styrofoam takeout box in a plastic bag, smelling strongly of warm food.

He got in the back. He reminded me of Crazy Legs from Don't Be A Menace. I asked him where he was going.

"I can't think of the name--it's over here...Stephen...Stephens..."

"Stevens College?"

"No, Stephen's, Stephan's...the club..."

"Stephanie's Cabaret? The gentleman's club?"

"Yeah, that's it." Great, I'm taking a homeless black man with all of his belongings and his dinner to a strip club at 9pm on a Monday. This can only end badly.

I zipped over to the cabaret. The guy was very friendly, if not too smart. I dropped him off in the parking lot. He unloaded all of his shit, and walked up to the door, his arms full. I figured the odds were high he wouldn't get in, but I wasn't sure if he'd have the money to get back home. Either way, I didn't want to wait to find out. I peeled out of the parking lot as soon as he was clear of the car.

I picked up once from the Workshop. Then I had a short run from Broadway to William, taking a guy to pick up his car at a friend's house. Around 11pm I took a guy from downtown south to the Gold's Gym off of Nifong. I thought it an odd time to be going to work out, in street clothes. Turns out someone had stolen his keys there earlier, and he had paid a locksmith to jimmy his car so he could get his housekeys out of it. The locksmith gave him a ride home, where he got his spare car keys. I was cabbing him back to get his car.

About midnight I grabbed my buddy Alex from north of town and brought him downtown. Then I had a call at University Place Apartments.

It was the homeless guy I had dropped at Stephanies. "How was the club, man?"

"Awe, man, I didn't even get in."

"Really?"

"No, man, The wouldn't let me in because I didn't have an ID on me."

"Well that sucks." I was heading to the address he gave me, which I figured was about $5 away. At $4.05 he stopped me.

"Let me out here. I've only got $4 left." I ran him the last few blocks anyway.

I had one fare south to Rolling Rock. It is a new street with a bunch of duplexes, which was swathed out of the woods off of Rock Quarry Road. A Rolling Rock streetsign lasts about one week in a college town, in case you're curious.

I figured I was pretty much done at this point. It was a Monday night and the bar scene had been pretty dead. I decided to park in front of El Rancho to see if I could catch some stragglers. Both El Rancho and the Jimmy John's across the street are open until 2 am weeknights. As I pulled in I spied a drunk guy across the street. He struck upon the cab and walked over. I ran him to Stadium Apartments.

He sat in front and saw the mandolin gig bag. He said he played a little bit of anything with strings, but nothing too well. He had once played a little hack mandolin to fill in for someone at a Renaissance Festival. He had been in the Marines. He tipped $2 or $3 on a credit card.

I got in a car early Tuesday. It was #9. #9 is a pretty nice Crown Vic. It is an Interceptor, like the other new cars, but doesn't really look like it saw much police duty. It is a '95 or so, with the older style window buttons, and power bucket seats. They told me they would have to change me out later in the evening, because the 'lights flickered' on it.

My first call was 15 minutes late when I got it, and they had apparently found another ride. My second call was a CMAAA charge(something to do with old people) . CMAAAs are $2 a mile without the $1.80 flag charge (the $1.80 for the first 1/10th mile). To compare, a 2.5 mile ride on the regular meter would be $1.80 + $.25x24 ($.25 per 1/10th mile x 24 1/10th miles) which equals $7.80. On CMAAA, a 2.5 mile ride is $5, and you'll never see a tip. And most of them are only about 1.7 miles, so let's just say they're not very desirable calls, especially considering you're dealing with really old people who take a long time getting in and out.

And, since they're not going anywhere, dispatch often hangs them out to dry, sending you on cash calls first. So, you get there late and they're all grumpified. In this case, I showed up at the Parkside Doctors' Building #2, as instructed by dispatch. I had been there once before on a CMAAA, and remembered which office it had been. I assumed it must have been the same old lady, and went looking for her. I checked all 4 offices in the building, all of which had separate external entrances spread out over the face of the building. No one was waiting for a cab.

I figured the woman was gone. I got caught up in an article I spied on a bulletin board in one office. After about 10 minutes of said bullshit, I decided to leave. It occurred to me that there may have been offices on the backside of the building. I pulled around to see that there, was, indeed, a complete lower level with separate offices. There was my cranky old lady.

She's actually pretty nice, but deaf as a post, and slow moving, with a walker. And, I'm always about an hour late picking her up, which doesn't make for a good impression. She mentioned something about how long she had been waiting. I apologized, and told her that I had been looking in the offices upstairs. She looked at her watch and told me she had been waiting 50 minutes. On a time call. I took her to the grocery store, which made for a $4 call.

I had a fare waiting on me from the grocery store, going back to Switzler, project housing. Probably more than half of my calls at the Gerbes on Ash are no-shows, since they're usually only going a few blocks and we're usually slow in getting there. It's rare to get anything more than a $5 call out of there, and no tips. This time, though, I got my fare right away, even before I could get the old lady into the store and stash her walker under her cart for her.

She was at least personable, and going farther than usual. It was a $6.80 fare. No tip. She had a CDL and was interested in driving a cab. I gave her the lowdown, and helped carry her groceries to her apartment.

I had another CMAAA from Oak Towers, this one going all of the way to the Wal-Mart Supercenter, a $7 call. She had greasy stringy black gray-streaked hair and some particularly off-putting body odor. It wasn't the straight-up pungent mansweat punch you get from a van load of Amish people in wintertime, but some lower, lingering idle-unwashed-folds-of-flesh smell. I found myself holding my breath and trying to breathe through my mouth.

Then I fell in love. With a wonderful French-Canadian optometrist I picked up at HyVee.

Well, she's actually just almost an optometrist, but that doesn't dampen my feelings for her. She's down from Montreal, doing an internship at the Veteran's Hospital on campus.

I was pleased to see an attractive young woman when I pulled up outside of the grocery store, instead of your typical fat Midwesterner. It was cold, and I jumped out and started loading her groceries in the trunk. She got in and told me her address. As we pulled away she said "so I guess everyone in America owns a car?"

I told her that that was a mostly accurate statement, especially here in the Midwest, in out-state Missouri. She told me she was from Montreal.

"French-Canadian? I love French-Canadians." We chatted a bit about the automobile and it's role in American culture. I apologized for giving her such a long answer to a short question.

"No, that's good. I want to learn about America. Is it also true that everyone here owns a gun?" I told her that that statement was less accurate than the one about cars. I did tell her that gun ownership was much more common in this part of the country, but that handgun ownership accounted for only a slight minority. It didn't hurt that I had just read that book on the NRA and Missouri's fight over conceal-and-carry.

She told me about being in optometrist school and I told her I had just recovered from pink eye. It occurred to me that she must not know that there were closer grocery stores to where she lived. I told her that there was a Schnuck's that was about a $7-8 cab ride vs. a $12-13 cab ride to HyVee. This pleased her. I also told her about the Hitt Street Market, which was within walking distance. She was overjoyed and asked if I knew where she could get an I-Pod. She also asked if I could annotate her map with the locations I spoke of, which I did, upon our arrival at her apartment building.

I gave her my card and told her she could request me any time she needed a cab and that I would be happy to provide her with way-too much information on nearly any subject. I popped the trunk and grabbed a couple of bags of groceries, while she was putting her map and the card away. "Did you say you were in "E," I asked, looking to see which apartment was hers.

"Yes, but you can just put them right there. I don't want to exploit you." 'E' was upstairs, but she could exploit me, all night long. I got the trunk unloaded and she thanked me graciously. "You have been so nice."

"Well, I try to be nice to everyone, but I'm especially nice to French-Canadians."

So that happened.

From there I had a call at the ER. It was an elderly woman, going back to her apartment at her retirement home. She was in some pain, and a little annoyed that the people at the home had called the ambulance for her before she was ready. She told me that I would have to wait for her to go upstairs in her apartment to get money to pay me. I got her home and escorted her upstairs. She told me to have a seat while she found her credit card. She lit up a cigarette, and produced the card. I had brought my clipboard upstairs, copied down the information, and went back down to the car to call it back in. There was a poster in the elevator advertising movie day at the home. They were showing Navy Seals, with Chuck Norris.

Chuck fucking Norris.

From there, dispatch called for me to bring number 9 in. A lot of those Ford cars have auto-dimming headlights, and the sensors fuck up in them. They are supposed to sense the light of oncoming cars and dim the headlights when on bright. In #9's case, the sensor was confused, and it would blink the headlights from dim to off at random intervals. I took it in and was issued #10.

Old Dies used to be my old faithful. But times are changing. I had heard a couple of other drivers complain to Phyllis about it, saying that it was unsafe. JW had lost control of it on highway 63 and ended up in the median with a customer from the airport. He said he almost flipped it. Mark, too, had complained that it wasn't safe to be on the road. Both drivers claimed that the front end was fucked up. Phyllis got mad and told them they were full of shit, and that everything on the suspension under the front of #10 had been replaced. Apparently Phyllis's son, Rob, the co-owner and mechanic, said that, 'no, we just put new brakes on 10.'

Either way, Phyllis had been making people drive it. I had been fortunate enough to have been cruising #s 5 and 7 since the first of the year. This was the first time back in old Dies in about 4 weeks.

Before I could get out of the office with it, I had two other drivers and Jerri that I had to take home. Rather, I had to take 2 other drivers home and take Jerri by her trailer, to get her cell phone charger, and bring her back to the office. Her electricity was shut off.

I got nostalgic as I swung behind the wheel of old #10. It felt better than I had remembered. This wasn't going to be so bad. Never mind the two broken door handles, 3 non-working windows, numerous oil leaks, squeaks and groans, and the old girl's quirky tendency to lock her steering when pulling out of parking lots. I pulled her in reverse and went to back out of the bull pen behind the cab shack. I tapped the brakes and they went nearly to the floor.

Motherfucker.

All bullshit aside, brakes are important. Especially in a fucking cab, when you are in traffic and on the road 24 hours a day. It's a near-certain fact that if you drive long enough you will have to make a panic stop. Even if you can get used to sub-par brakes and handle them for 'safe,' 'normal' driving, you're going to be fucked when some assjack cuts you off or pulls out in front of you. Which only happens 2 or 3 times a day, not to mention all of the times when someone forgets to tell you to turn at the last possible second.

And this is a giant fucking car. You don't have to have gone to law school to recognize the potential liability when you own a cab company and put a car with bad brakes on the road, especially after multiple drivers refuse to drive it on the grounds that it is unsafe. And, I don't really want to get in a wreck and get points on my license, and I'll be damned if I pay one fucking cent to fix the cab. Besides the fact that, with my somewhat dubious designation of independent contractor, I could also be liable should someone get hurt, since I am operating an unsafe car. Sure, I don't have to drive it, but that's like saying I don't have to pay my rent or income taxes. Don't do it and see what happens. I need the fucking job.

And did I mention that #10 only has one seatbelt in the back, the center lap belt that is impossible to dig out from behind the seat cushion in the dark?

So, here I am, with 3 cab people crammed in this shitbox, backing out of the lot. I remarked that the something was seriously fucked up in the brakes.

"They're full of air. They need to be bled, in the least. There's probably a leak at a wheel cylinder or something."

"They've bled them two or three times. There's not any air in them." This was Kyle. He's apparently the only driver that doesn't mind driving #10, which would make him a colossal jackass.

"Well, it must be the master cylinder, then. Either way, it's not smart. The master cylinder's like a $35 part. There's no excuse not to fix it."

"Just don't rear-end anybody in it, like I did." Motherfucker. The only driver willing to drive this pile has already had a wreck in it, due to the brakes, and it's still not fixed?

I shuttled the gimps home, and was taking Jerri to her trailer when dispatch radioed with a late time call. They wanted me to pick up South of town and take two people to the Blue Note. I'd have to do it with Jerri in the car, and I still had to get gas, since Kyle had brought the motherfucker in completely empty. And I had already spent $20+ on gas in #9.

And, on top of the brakes, #10 was a much scarier drive than I remembered. I had grown used to the Crown Vics, which were stable and actually went where you pointed them. #10 was seriously squirrelly. It pitched and yawed like a pig rolling in shit, all over the road. Handling was vague, spooky. The springs are wasted, and the car sags well below normal ride height. Thus, the front tires scrub the fenders badly when pulling out of parking lots, and the suspension bottoms hard on large expansion cracks and rough street crossings.

I picked up the couple going to the Blue Note. I apologized for the shitty car. Jerri was eating something she had bought at the gas station. I was having some severely mutinous feelings for the cab company.

Of course we were about 20 minutes late. I apologized, again. They did tip me $4 on an $11 fare, though.

Things were fairly calm. It was a Tuesday. I grabbed some people from ACT.

Then I had a call to the University ER. It was that squirrelly bitch who fell on the stairs at the shelter and racked up a $37.80 fare on wait time at Walgreens. Remember me saying she struck me as a hypochondriac?

Well, this time she had had an asthma attack. She bitched the entire time about the incompetence of the shelter in handling her medicine and calling the ambulance, like it was some government conspiracy to off her. She kept running her fucking mouth about how she could sue them for everything, blah, blah, blah. I just wanted her to shut the fuck up. I daydreamed about the French-Canadian chick.

The fare finally stopped bitching for a second, about a block before her house. She apologized for going off on me. I told her that I had just been distracted.

I ran a round-trip call from Albany to the IGA, for a guy to get some beer. He's a regular. I grabbed another regular from the Holiday Inn.

I had a call on Garth. It was the same couple I have ferried to the Forum 8 Theaters a couple of times. That's where they were going this time. "I don't want to tell you to speed, but we are running a little late." I gunned the Lincoln down the a vacant Ash, to avoid traffic on West Broadway. #10 is nothing you would want to get in a hurry in.

I pulled up to the theater in good time, and told them that "that is as fast as anybody would want to go in this pile of shit." $10.05. No tip.

Next I grabbed a habitual lush from the Prime Time Lounge, in the Days Inn. "I'm Laurie, the infamous #47 Blackfoot Trailer Park." She was going to Spanky's Sports Zone, in the Holiday Inn, just across the way. It barely made the $3 minimum, after I circled the lot to click off the last $.25, but she did give me $4. She said that she had lost her license on points a couple of years ago, and didn't have any intentions of getting it back. She said she spent about $400 a month on cabs.

I had a call at the brand new Ruby Tuesdays by the new Bass Pro Shops out on 63. It was two sloshed businessmen, heading back to the Hampton Inn. One of the interior lights had decided to stick on in the back of the Lincoln. It was right at the passenger's head, and very glaring. It had always stuck on at random intervals, and the cab company put red lens tape over it to mute it. One night when I was vacuuming I found an old piece of red tape stuck on the armrest, and couldn't figure out where it came from. So, I tossed it.

I tried to get it to go off before the fare came out, but with no luck. They laughed at the Lincoln. "Look how big this car is." And, "I don't think I've ever been in a taxi with leather seats." I had never been up there before, and its all new construction. I got a bit turned around leaving the lot, then I missed the 63 South exit. I made a quick u-turn, and headed south. Then, I missed the Clark Lane exit. It's a screwy bypass so travelers on 63 can skip the 63/70 interchange and all of the traffic there. Very unintuitive. So, I had to go all of the way down to Broadway to turn around. Most embarrassing. I mentioned how poor the car handled. "It does seem to wave a bit."

I apologized, but they didn't care. They were in no hurry. I was trying to guesstimate what the fare should have been, when I thought to ask if they remembered what it was out there. They did, so I just charged them that amount. I was still apologizing as I wrote out a receipt for them. "That's alright. At least you don't have BO. I asked the first driver for a receipt and I had to sit there smelling his nasty BO while he wrote out the Declaration of Independence. So, you're fine." I tried to figure out who the driver was, but they seemed to think it may have been another cab company. I told them I had had a fare with bad BO a bit earlier.

After they got out, one of the guys stood staring at the Lincoln, basking in the fluorescent glow of the Hampton's canopy. "Just look at it."

I grabbed the deaf BO lady from the Supercenter and took her back home. My next call was on Garth.

Garth borders the hood and it is usually a toss-up as to what you get. This time it was a law office. I waited, and no one came out. I took the opportunity to pry the lens off of the interior light that still refused to go off. I tried to twist the bulb out, shielding my fingers with a tissue. It still burned, so I hit it with my pocketknife until the filament blew, and reapplied the lens. I went and found my fare, in his office.

I recognized the name. I thought he may have been a guy who brought in an old '91 Bronco to Mr. Transmission. It came in with a bad transfer case. We lifted it up to find that it had a newly installed remanufactured unit in it. Turned out the had paid something like $1000 to have it installed and they forgot to fill it with oil. It burned up within 5 miles.

We put another transfer case in it. The back window was stuck down, and there was a large plastic political campaign sign with the guy's name on it poorly affixed in its place. I remembered it took an unreasonably long period of time--several weeks--for him to pick it up once it was done. It came back again, a couple of months later, with a bad tranny. We overhauled that, too.

The guy got in the cab, and was going out past the Lake of the Woods. Awesome. $20+ fare, with the opportunity for a good tip.

His car hadn't started. He was taking a cab home, instead. "Do you have a second vehicle?"

"Yeah, actually, I have a truck."

"Do you own an old Ford Bronco?"

"Yes, I do. It's for sale, actually." I explained that I remembered it from working at Mr. Transmission.

I asked him where he went to law school. He said MU. I told him I went there. Turns out I had a number of classes with his wife. He was amazed when I told him I had been #6 in my class after my first year, and that I was now driving a cab. He tipped me $4. I told him to tell his wife I said 'hello,' if she happened to remember me. "Yeah, I'll tell her tomorrow. She's asleep now, since she wouldn't answer her damned phone."

I was doing alright for a Tuesday, but was still annoyed to get a call in the hood around bar closing. I crept over there and found the right street. I was looking for #4 Austin. I turned on Austin but was having difficulty seeing housenumbers. There was a fat black woman pushing a bicycle who stopped and watched me pass, making no effort not to stare.

I saw #10, and turned around to look for #4. As I passed the woman with the bicycle again, she pointed behind me and said something. I opened my door (no working window) and asked her what she said. "There she comes--back there." I turned and saw a woman coming up to the cab.

I leaned over and opened the front door from the inside (broken exterior handle). As I sat back upright the woman looked at me and startled a bit. "You're not--" She got in.

"Where we headed?"

"I'm just goin'...I need to go...we're goin'...just take me over..."

"I need to know an address before I can take you anywhere." We were just a couple of car lengths off of Garth.

"Turn right here," she said, motioning to the right. "No, wait, just go that way," she said, pointing left."

"Where exactly is it you want to go?" She looked at me, full in the face.

"Are you like a manager or something?"

"No, I'm just a driver. Where am I taking you?"

"Oh, I just want to say...you sexy." Great. I laughed, ignoring the comment.

"Where we going?" We had only gone about 50', turning onto Garth.

"No, really. You look sexy." It was some pretty horrid acting.

"That's awfully nice of you to say, but where are we going."

"Just turn here--I'm just going right here." I turned left and we were one lot over from where I had picked her up. She panicked, and likely thought I would take her to jail if we went far enough to rack up some money on the meter, since it did not appear that I wanted a blowjob from a crackwhore.

The meter had barely clicked over $.25, to $2.05. Our minimum fare is $3, but I was going to call this in as a cancellation, anyway. "I tell you what, you just get out, and we'll see you next time," I said. She already had the door open before I came to a complete stop.

"I'm just out here--I'm trying to get--can you give me, like, $2?"

"I'm out here trying to make some money. I don't have any to give away." Bitch. She got out, I called it in as a cancellation, and rolled on.

I got a call to the Wal-Mart Supercenter. As I was jetting over there, I was cranking a Bloodshot sampler CD on #10's lone perk, the CD player. I thought I heard some weird feedback. I turned down the CD player and listened. There was a steady, audible, droning tone. I thought it may have been the CD player amplifying some feedback caused by the CB, but I'd never had any problems like that before. Odd. I ignored it, and went to pick up my fare.

It was two foreign guys heading back to campus. I apologized for the noise and told them I couldn't figure out what it was. They agreed it was annoying. I drove them back to campus and dropped them off. The noise never ceased. I drove over and parked in front of Campus Bar and sought its source.

The only thing I could think that it might have been was a door chime or maybe the fuel pump whining, though it didn't really sound like either. Door chimes are usually in the driver's kick panel, and the fuel pump is in the fuel tank in the rear of the car. This sounded like it was coming from directly under the passenger's seat. I looked inside, outside, and under the car. I thought maybe a cell phone or beeper had fallen under the seat, but found nothing. It was most perplexing. I had largely given up, and moved my mandolin's gig bag. The sound amplified.

Then I remembered the digital tuner I had zipped in the front pocket of the gig bag. It had been pressed on when I pushed it against the CB, and it was emitting an 'A.' I had moved it into the passenger's seat at Wal-Mart, and it was on the underside of the bag, muffled, disguising its origin. Damn. I had hoped it was a precursor to something exploding and taking #10 up in a ball of flames. Maybe next time.

My last call was from the ER to Oak Towers, some old black man with a cane.

At about 1:45, I was sitting in front of El Rancho when an MUPD cop car raced up, lights blazing, and parked in the middle of Broadway, behind me. I looked behind me and saw the cop get out and approach a guy, maybe 20, carrying a skateboard. Within two minutes 6 CPD cars rolled up. Five were parked in a row, bunched up, along the center of Broadway. 2 or 3 cops were talking with skateboard guy. The rest of them were off bullshitting in a circle, some 50' away. After about 5 minutes, the kid walked away with his skateboard, and all of the cops rolled out. I kept wondering how many crimes were being committed all around the city while all of their resources were tied up for a kid and a skateboard.

So that was my Tuesday. I had Wednesday and Thursday off, as per usual. Wednesday I slept until 6pm. Then I drank four beers and took a nap, from 10:30 until 12:30. Then I geared up my Redline Conquest, equipped it with my vintage CygoLite, and went out for a ride.

Lest you think I have a green bicycle, that is the 2006 model. Mine is pretty much identical, but a 2005, which is black and red, rather than green. It is the finder of lost souls.

It was about 36 degrees. My only concern was in not getting hit by any drunks. I took Grindstone Parkway to Bearfield, Bearfield to Old 63, Old 63 to Grindstone Park, and the trail over behind the Mizzou Arena, off of Providence. I thought the climb up to the stadium was going to kill me. Yeeouch. I started breathing again about the time I made it over to Hospital Drive, off of Mick Deaver. I worked my way across campus, and downtown. I was looking for cabs, but didn't see any. I took Rangeline over by the strip club, then crossed the Business Loop. I spied Mark vacuuming out #10 at the Phillips 66.

I thought it would be fun to surprise him. He had all of the doors open, and, though he was facing my direction, he had his head down, preoccupied by vacuuming. The sound of the vacuum further masked my stealthy approach. He glanced up about the time I was pretending to careen out of control, 'slamming' into the side of #10.

I would have hit it harder, but didn't want to jeopardize the health of my trusty Redline. I think the effect worked. It must have taken a couple of seconds to recognize me, bedecked in black spandex and neoprene, with a Northface bataclava disguising my mug.

We talked about how pathetic and decrepit #10 was. I told him that I had peeked under it on Tuesday night, and that the stabilizer bar end link was broken and missing it's bushings. This explains the cymbal-like ringing when cruising side streets, and the vague, unbalanced handling. This is also what causes the steering to bind, as the stabilizer bar isn't pushed up enough when you turn, and the tie-rod rides up on top of it, binding it into position. Then, upon completing your turn, the tie-rod pops free, causing the front corner of the car to buck wildly and making it even squirrellier.

He was taking it in early (about 2:30), because the serpentine belt was loose, glazed, and squeaking like a 1000-mouse orgy, only louder. It also stunk from leaking and burning oil.

I made my way back home, mostly retracing my earlier route. I flew down the paved jogging path behind the arena. Anything over 20mph induced a pretty good ice-cream headache, as the wind whipped under my face mask and chilled my forehead. I took Providence up to the new Green Meadows, pleasing myself with a steady pace up the long Providence hill. As I churned along Green Meadows, coming up to the Nifong connector, I saw an ambulance and several cop cars.

Sometime while I was out, a dipshit in a Crown Victoria wrapped himself around the concrete base of the light pole, snuffing his dim light. Fuck him. Cocksucker could have killed me. Almost killed his passenger. At least he had the courtesy to do the world a favor and not wear his seat belt. They had cleared the bodies when I got there, but the car was untouched. After going home and showering, I went to the gas station. The wreck was still there. I asked the woman at the counter if any of the cops working the wreck had come in, since it looked pretty bad. She said that the driver was dead, and added that he had had a wreck in front of the cops, and that they had been chasing him. If this was true there was no mention of it in the Columbia Tribune article.

Damn, it took me almost 4 hours to write that, which is to replace all of the shit I lost when Blogger crashed last week. No wonder I was so pissed.

Let's just get right to Friday, then.

I showed up at about 3:40. I'm supposed to be there by 3:45. Some days I have a car waiting for me when I get there, but it's usually at least a 15-20 minute wait. Friday night I waited until 6:15.

That's over two and a half hours, which is a long time to spend thinking about all of the things you could have been doing for two and a half hours. I was pissed. In addition to the time wasted, not making any money, I was by myself, left to stalk back and forth in the cab shack. I paced for about 2 of those two and a half hours. My feet were cold. My eyes were irritated by all of the cigarette smoke. Man, was I pissed.

And, to add insult to injury, I had waited two and a half hours to be put into that pile of shit #10. What the fuck? There was some serious douchebaggery afoot. I don't begrudge New Guy Dan any, but he's been driving #7 this whole time, and got right in it when he showed up for work. Motherfucker.

So, here I am madder than hell, and stuck in ten. I was considering Dr. Carvorkianing it, maybe finishing off the steering or serpentine belt. Luckily for everyone involved, I was busy right out of the gate and stayed that way until 4:30am.

My first call was to pick up two black girls from a dorm on campus. I took them to the Red Lobster. No tip.

My next call was out on Oakland Gravel Road. It was an apartment. Round-trip to the Gerbes, with wait time. It was a $22+ fare, no tip.

Friday was the third of the month. That's when most people get their Social Security checks, so we get a lot more poor people and indigents on those nights. Friday was certainly no exception.

I picked up three at the workshop. Those are only $6.84, but I ran three together, so it was about $21 for about the time it would take to run one normal fare. It was two of my regulars and one woman with a walker I had never had before. One of them told me about another resident of Paquin Tower who jumped out of her window in a suicide attempt the night before. She only fell two stories. No tips, of course.

My next call was two good-looking coeds going from one dorm across campus to another. It was only about $4, but I think they tipped $4. Good girls.

I grabbed a regular of mine, a drummer for a local band, who works at a downtown bar. It was his night off. The fare's like $4.55 and he always drops $7 or $8. And it's a short run.

Then I had to run out and pick up BJ, the group home regular with dentures and the high grandma voice. After that, it was a call to the Super 7.

The Super 7 is a crackwhore dive, but it was only 9 or so in the pm, so I wasn't too concerned. I pulled up outside of the room number I had been given, the door promptly opened, and a man in drag spilled out. Even from 30' away in the glare of headlights it was obvious he was a dude. He wove his way to me, in part due to some booze he had drank and in part due to his unsteadiness on high heels, like a colt trying out new legs for the first time.

He was wearing a Tina Turner dress, fishnets, and high heels. He had on a ridiculous wig that piled about a foot high on his head and was the texture of course, sturdy twine. His legs were those of a well-muscled late thirty-something blue collar laborer. Maybe a siding contractor.

He got in the cab. "Where are we headed tonight?"

"Uh, the SoCo Club." Go figure. I told him Aieta Buffet was an old college buddy of mine. He said he was new to the drag scene. He lives in Fulton and comes to Columbia for shows. He wanted to know if there was a hotel closer to the club. I suggested that Campus Inn was closer and probably a lot safer. He also referred to transvestites and drag queens as he/she, so maybe it's not as derogatory as I had feared.

He tipped a $1 or so, and I said "enjoy your evening sir." Is that a faux pas?

After that I picked up a Jamaican girl at the Hollywood Theaters. She had seen Something New. No tip.

Then I grabbed a regular and took her to work the overnight shift at the nursing home. No tip.

At about 10:30 I got a call to pick up at Jack's Gourmet Coronado Restaurant. I assumed it was closed, and that I was picking up an employee from there, as I had done a week or two earlier. No one came out, so I tried the door.

I had never been inside Jack's. It looks like a well-kept secret. The bartender there also works for the Blue Note/Mojos, and I'm guessing is active on comomusic.com, though I don't know his user name. I recognized him and said 'hello.' Some girl at the bar gave me a 'hey, Taxi Man' as I walked in. The fare was an older woman, in her late 50s, maybe, with several dishes of food. It had been mostly packed neatly into a couple of boxes. Bartender dude (sorry I don't know your name, buddy) carried the stuff out. The Lincoln's belt was chirping like crazy and it smelled of burning oil.

The woman had been drinking some, though she didn't want to freely admit it. She was talking about how great Jack's was and how accommodating they were to her. "They'll fix you anything you want, at about any hour of night. What time is it, anyway? Is it 2am?"

"No, not quite, it's only about 10:40." She lived on Garth. She talked about how she tried to fight to keep the neighborhood from turning completely to shit. I helped her in with her stuff and she tipped me a couple of bucks.

From there I was dispatched to the Baymont Inn. Awesome. People from hotels are spending money, and usually not just running down the block. I was pulling up under the canopy and saw who must have been my fare through the glass doors. It was a dude dressed in neat western clothes--not gaudy K-Mart cowboy stuff--holding a longneck. Before I could get stopped some dude ran from out of the parking lot and jumped in the back seat.

This coincided with the guy and his lady friend walking out of the hotel and to the cab. "Did you call, buddy?"

"Yeah, I called." He was panting, out of breath. The dude opened the back door of the cab, on the other side, puzzled.

"Did you call?" They had. "Where are you headed?" They were going to the Black and Gold. I asked if they minded sharing with the weirdo who had just jumped in. They were polite and said the didn't, though the chick got in the front. I asked the weirdo where he was going.

"Campus. The coed dorm." He was in his early-to-mid 20s, with short cropped hair, a goatee, and a hooded sweatshirt. He was still panting, talking fast, overly excited.

"Which one, dude, there are a whole bunch of dorms on campus?" He said he knew how to find it. His breathing was rampant. "Are you alright, man?"

"Yeah. I'm drunk."

"Are you gonna calm down some?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's cool."

I drove the couple to the redneck bar. They were from out of town, and had been there once. I mentioned they had a good juke box. The girl lit up. "Yeah, they actually have Cross-Canadian Ragweed on it." Okay, so maybe not that good.

I mentioned that they had played for free in the street in Columbia this past summer. "Did you go?" I did, but walked off when they started playing. I went to Mojo's to see The Reverend Glasseye, but their van broke down and they missed the show.

I dropped them off and took the weirdo to campus. He borrowed my cell phone to call his girlfriend, who lived in the dorm. He had driven in to see her from Kansas City. Apparently, in addition to being drunk, he was asthmatic and had trouble catching his breath after running to the cab. This made some sense. He also acted like my friend Galen, who has ADD, when he was off his meds. I dropped him off without incident. He paid me with a $20. A wet $20.

Man, I hate that.

My next call was in the projects. Great. It was a black man, drunk, in his 40s, hobbling on a busted foot, awkwardly carrying some crutches. I didn't think he was going to make it to the car. I took him over to the hood. He sprung a debit card on me. A shiny new one.

Crap. Credit/debit cards in the hood are nothing to bank on. So to speak.

I was writing down the info, and asked him if he wanted to put a tip on the card. The fare was $6.05. He surprised me by saying 'yes, $2.' Now I was really nervous about the card.

But, it went through. Awesome. While we were waiting I asked if he went by Eugene, the name on his card. It's my middle name, as is my dad's. My dad has always gone by 'Gene.' He said, yes, but that he mostly went by E.G. in Columbia. "You see, Eugene kept getting into too much trouble." Loud and clear, my brother.

From there I was sent to Providence Walkway, in the projects. I've run into some squirrelly characters there. To make matters worse, dispatch told me "good luck, she's pretty drunk." Fantastic.

She came out, quickly enough. It was a black girl, maybe 20 or so, going to Lou's Palace. She was tall, wearing slimming blue jeans with flared legs and an large white T-shirt. She may have been drunk, but also sometimes talked with a weird lisp, like she had bit her tongue, or had it pierced, or something. It was if she could turn it off if she wanted.

Like a lot of my clients in the hood, she sunk low in the seat and covered her face. I joked with her about the cops when we passed a cruiser. She remains the only person I have ever taken to Lou's Palace.

I asked her how she liked it there. She said it was pretty uptight there, that you "can't dance, can't laugh, can't do nothing without someone getting on to you." For some reason, she seemed to like me. She asked what my name was. "Garner. That's cool." I asked what hers was.

"I am not at liberty to divulge that."

"Fair enough. I'll call you 'Mary.'" She liked that. And, she tipped.

"You were a good driver."

I had another call on Albany. I was having difficulty finding the number, and a dude came running up to me. I was across the street from his house. He was an accountant, about 27, who had had some DWIs. He was just going round-trip to the gas station for smokes. He tipped $3.

After that I had a call to pick up at the Black and Gold. I expected the couple I dropped off there, since they had requested my card and I have only ever picked up there one other time in three months (the prick I almost kicked out at Lake of the Woods). Instead, I got a very drunk 51 year old.

His name is Don. I recognized him from when I went there a few years ago. He's a Nam vet and drinks himself retarded. He has faded blue 5-point stars on either hand.

After that I snagged a couple from the Forum 8 Theaters and took them to some apartments on Hitt Street. The must have been fighting. It was an awkward, silent ride. I got a couple dollars' tip out of it, though.

From there I went to Flat Branch, and picked up their head chef. He was pretty cool, and told me, when I asked, that he was most proud of some mushroom appetizers there, a recipe of his own invention. He also knew a shitload about beer.

Next I grabbed a nice young couple out of the Field House and headed South. They tipped $3 or $4. Then I got called back to Spencer, in the hood. It was Eugene again. This relaxed me. He said it had been a booty call.

"Everything work out the way you wanted it to?"

"Oh yeah, I hit that shit." Eugene told me about some of his sexcapades, including some chick in the projects that claims her baby is his. He said he was 41 and never had any kids. He also said he wouldn't be able to tip me this time. I told him that was cool, and ran his card again.

Declined.

Motherfucker. He only had $1 on him. I told him dispatch would want me to take him to jail, and that whole shpeil. I decided to write it off, and told dispatch that he paid in cash. It was $6.05.

I grabbed another drunk college couple, and took them to the Reserve. The chick was pretty funny. Her roommates kept calling her and she would answer the phone and tell them to fuck off, in so many words. The dude with her was a friend named Justin. She told some girl on the phone that her and "J-Boo caught a cab."

From there I went to Country Kitchen. A couple of fun-loving college drunks. They were headed to another party at a fraternity house. They eagerly told me that they had gone to a random party they found in the facebook. The cops had shown up and they bailed out of a bathroom window, breaking it in the process. "How did you guys end up at country kitchen?"

"We have no idea." Fair enough. I dropped them off on Stewart and rolled out.

My next call was on King Street. It is off of Sexton, and is one of those hit-and-miss hood neighborhoods. This one was a nice house, with three young professional white guys. They were going south, with a stopover on East Campus. A good fare.

We talked about the law and politics. Thankfully, they weren't republicans. It was a good shpeil. They thanked me for the conversation and tipped me $5.

Dispatch radioed with a late time call in a bad neighborhood. Shit. I was trucking down Broadway and got flagged by El Rancho. I radioed it in and got out of the bad call. It was three young guys, maybe post-military, going to the Marriott Courtyard. They asked me questions about the cab and how I got paid. They tipped $5 on a $15.05 fare.

After that I was sent to a call on East Campus, home to many an after-bar party. It was the dishwasher guy from the 'Berg, the one who doubled up with the tool and the emotional girl who puked. He was with another kid with a beard. We had a fun ride.

I complained about the car, and told him I would have likely killed it had I not have been so busy. I told them the story about #3 and they laughed pretty hard. They asked something about cab confessions and I told them about the legless lady riding a wheelchair wheelie in the van. I told him about my blog and gave him the addy. He asked if his prior ride had made it in and I said it had.

I went right back to East Campus and picked up a chick from the same street, heading South. She spoke freely like I was her oldest girlfriend. She had been leaving the party because her ex-boyfriend was there, and she is currently seeing another ex-boyfriend. She was describing her ex and called him a hippie. I made a face.

"Does he wear petuli?"

"Oh, hell no."

"Does he have dreads?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that."

"Well, what exactly makes him a hippie?"

"Well, okay, he gardens. He's into stuff, like, gardening. And he painted the outside of his house. A rental house."

"I see now." When we got to her apartment I was running her credit card. She stood up on her knees in the front seat.

"There's a cell phone back here." She picked it up and started scrolling through it. She was excited to send text messages to a stranger from another stranger's phone. I cleared with her and the phone rang. I told the girl on the other end that I was a cab driver and asked where the girl who owned the phone lived. She wasn't sure of the address.

"Does Bethel sound familiar?"

"Yes! That's it. Bethel. Could you tell her to call Ashley tomorrow?"

Sometime around 3am I got a "get cash up front" call in a shitty neighborhood. I pulled up and two fat black girls scuttled to the cab. They were from New Orleans, I think,and really hated the cold. I was taking them to the Extended Stay. I won't tell you what they smelled like, but it was rotten punani. Overwhelming. Like someone ran out of lube and burned up a condom. Or something. It was fucking disgusting. I breathed through my mouth the whole way there, which, thankfully, was a very short distance. As they scuttled to the hotel one girl's coat had ridden up, revealing some weird printed cotton thong hiked halfway up her back, where she had tried to pull her much-tighter-fitting pants over them, forcing them to migrate Northward. Gross.

I had a 3:15 time call going to MoEx, the airport shuttle. I got it 10 minutes late, but got her there on time.

For my last call, I was supposed to go to Schnuck's on Forum. Dispatch said there was supposed to be five of them, to get money up front, lock the doors, etc. There's no reason to be at Schnucks at 3:45am. The only thing open within two miles of that place at that time is the Break Time gas station across the parking lot. Why wouldn't they be waiting there? There are two bar-and-grills there that close at 1:30am.

Fuck all that. I drove over there, glancing at the grocery store parking lot as I drove down Forum. It was huge, open, and perfectly well-lit. Predictably, no one was in sight. I decided to go all of the way past the shopping center, and work my way back, to give me the broadest field of vision. I saw Tim in #5 gassing up at the Break Time. I pulled up in #10 and rolled down my only working window.

"What did you do to get stuck in that piece of shit?"

"Just lucky, I guess. Say, have you seen a group of five kids running around over here?"

Tim immediately began shaking his head. "Just roll on. Don't even bother stopping." I opened the front door for him and he climbed in, taking my mic. "10 to base. That call you sent Garner over here for--they's five black kids about 14 or 15, trying to be little gangsters. They've all got hoods on and scarves all up on their faces. I came over her and they weren't at the Schnucks. They were on a fence over by Stadium, and they came up chasing the car when I passed them. You don't want nothin' to do with them. They's trouble."

Thanks, Tim. They called back again and dispatch said she wouldn't send them a cab. They called back yet again and she sent the cops. I still didn't see anyone when I passed back by.

After waiting two and a half hours to get in a car, I was kept out an hour late. I ran 30 calls in 10 hours. A lot of them were small, though. I did right around $280 on the meter.

I called it a night and went home.