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Thursday, August 18, 2011

TAXI WRITER


    No child ever viewed with strains of emancipatory anticipation that glorious day when he or she could announce to gathered family and friends that he or she had grown up to be a taxi cab driver. Some may have seen this destiny approaching or may have looked upon it as a failsafe position that would Bonus Size their income. But no one ever extended nighttime prayers by begging any Deity to make life worth living by adding the blessing of taxi driving to the employment resume. So grotesque is the very suggestion that even the criminally insane do not yearn for it, although run of the mill mental defectives often explore the occupation.


     I drove a taxi for three-and-one-half years, equating to thirty-seven years in human time. Therefore, I feel somewhat qualified to form and express an opinion as to what type of individual selects this profession. There is something very wrong with the majority of these people. As to the few who are not disturbed prior to joining the ranks of the perpetually late and lost, it may be safely assumed that they will have fallen from Grace by the end of the first week of transporting other people for a living. Gambling, drinking, doping and womanizing are—in that order—the most common addictions to lead one into the beneath-the-radar world of the professional hack. Anyone damaged enough to believe that the glint of reflection from a poker chip, an ice cube, a hypodermic needle or a stripper’s eyes in any way leads to long term happiness is well-suited for this business, as is the distraught fellow who cons himself into believing he can actually get ahead in such a racket.


     I fell into the latter category. After being robbed three times in two months, I decided I needed a different sort of clientele than one tends to find by taking calls off the dispatch radio and so went out on my own. I became a gypsy. I bought a high-mileage Lincoln Town Car, swerved through the minimal bureaucracy required for legality in Arizona, and handed out stacks of business cards.
     Nearby hotels were enthusiastic. What I lacked in experience I made up for in contrast to my distant behind-the-wheel colleagues by capitalizing on the unfortunate bigotry possessed by my new select clientele. First of all, I owned my own vehicle. That meant that I kept the car in good working order and took quiet pride in the fact that whenever the Check Engine Light came on, I actually checked the engine rather than using the typical taxi driver’s solution of applying a strip of electric tape to blot out the warning signal. Second, I was not addicted to drink or drug. Third, I prioritized personal hygiene far above getting my pencil sharpened down at Madame Leah’s House of Obedience. And finally, I did not appear to come from the country of Somalia.

     Six hotels accounted for ninety percent of my business. Most of these were Marriott properties and the majority of their customers were exhausted business travelers, most of whom required very basic transportation to and from the airport. The next largest chunk of my customers were personals, or what the rest of the world would call local individuals who call one specific driver for all their transportation needs. After that came a small number of drunks and occasional mystery callers whose source of referral would be murky. This latter type often may have been infuriating, but also tended to yield the best compensation, so it was a rare thing for me to pass on one of these calls, just as it was unusual for me to enjoy it.
     I was asleep. The telephone rang. I grunted a greeting. It was Bobbi Jo. She said, “One of the dancers has a customer whose brother has a friend who says he might need a ride Tuesday, sometime, he’s not sure when. Are you available?”
     “Who is this?” I asked, hoping to stall until my brain returned to its normal alignment.
     “This is Bobbi Jo! Come on, Phil. You know who it is. Are you free Tuesday?”
     I asked my dog Roscoe to check my calendar.
     Bobbi Jo would feed me business like this once in a while in exchange for a free ride home from work. I remembered that I almost always got the better part of these deals, so I said “Yeah, sure,” and went back to sleep.


     Sure enough, Tuesday came and a voice I did not know said over the telephone, “How long will it take you to get here?”
     Some small number of people presume that their taxi driver has mental capacities which allow him or her to know everything about the customer, every detail from what the anonymous stranger looks like to his or her present location. Much as I hated to dispel this illusion, I asked, “Where are you?”
     “Residence Inn,” came the soulless charcoal voice. “Eighty-Third Avenue and the 101 Freeway. I’m going to the Airport. I’m wearing a blue leisure suit. Hurry up.”
     I hate being told to hurry up. Nevertheless I arrived in seven minutes. The man was not joking about the leisure suit.



     I introduced myself. He slumped into the backseat. “Can I trust you?” he asked as we roared off.
     I told him I thought so.
     Watching my expression in the rearview mirror, he asked, “Do you know the name Cokie Roberts?”
     I told him I did. “ABC News? National Public Radio?”
     I watched him nod. He said, “I’m her father. I find myself in a bit of trouble. The young lady who recommended you swears that you are reliable. Do you think you can help me?”
     I know my share of history, even when I’m delirious from lack of proper sleep. “Cokie Roberts’ father, you say? That would make you Hale Boggs?”
     “Correct.” Pure charcoal, no soul.
     “Congressman Hale Boggs from Louisiana?”
     “Indeed.”
     I adjusted the mirror and gave my passenger a long, soft stare. “You disappeared back in 1972, you and a guy from Alaska.”
     “Congressman Begich.”
     “Your plane was never found.”
     “I see.”
     “And yet here you are in the backseat of my car.”
     “Here I am.”
     The man plopped into the rear of my Town Car with only two briefcases for luggage certainly looked old and crafty enough to have been a politician. I smiled into the mirror. He smiled back. I said, “Hey, you know, a lot of people have been worried sick about you! Where the hell you been?”
     The normal ride to the Airport took twenty minutes. This was not an ordinary ride. So I shut my sarcastic mouth and listened. He told me that he had made trouble for himself a year before he officially disappeared. “I’d been in World War II. I’d met dignitaries and the hoi polloi. So when that pipsqueak Director of the FBI tapped my phone, well, young man, I was mortified. I marched right into the House Galley and called for the resignation of J. Edgar Hoover. Only two people had ever done that before and both of them were dead: John and Robert Kennedy. Shoot, I’d been on the Warren Commission. I knew what these FBI bastards were capable of doing. Well, the excitement died out after a while. I calmed down and after a time I didn’t give the matter much more thought. Then one day I had a visit from a fellow in New Orleans. A public figure there. He gave me information that linked the then-recent break-in at the Watergate with the assassination of JFK. He wanted my help.”
     I liked this. It was much more interesting than the guy who told me he was Paula Abdul’s illegitimate grandson.
     My passenger pointed to the Freeway exit, which was not the way to the Airport. I followed his instructions. He continued with his story.
     “October 16, 1972. I was scheduled to board a Cessna 310C in Anchorage and fly to Juneau. My friend in New Orleans called my hotel and said I should miss that plane. So I did. I learned later that night that the plane disappeared. The Coast Guard and the Air Force searched for thirty-nine days and never did find it.”



     We hopped on Route 60 westbound towards Wickenburg. I was getting uncomfortable. I asked where he had been all these years.
     “I took up with an Inuit woman and we muled for some Chinese heroin traffickers. Well, we did until Sak Red—that was her name—until she burned one of the Tibetan juice guys. Since then I have been holed up on Nogales, biding my time and watching a lot of TV.”
     “That’s some story,” I said, following his instructions by taking the 303 Freeway southbound. “How may I be of service, sir?” This was where I expected to be asked for a donation. But he surprised me.
     He patted my shoulder. “I’m old, son. May not have a lot of spare time left. I want you to take this Route over to the I-10 and go east. That’ll take us to the Airport. Long way around. I’m going to leave one of these two briefcases in your car. Cokie’s at the Biltmore tonight. You bring her the briefcase. Tell her it’s from Tom.”
     “Tom?”
     “She’ll know. Do not ask her a truckload of questions. Don’t go into any detail. Just do this for me. Here, take this.”
     He folded four one hundred dollar bills into my hand.
     “I’m not happy about this,” I said.
     He again patted my shoulder. “We’re public servants, young man. Happy doesn’t enter in to it.”

     I dropped him off at Terminal 2, the United Airlines ticket counter. He left the briefcase with me.
     I floored the gas and shot over to the Biltmore Hotel. I parked alongside the jogging path, turned off my top light, and examined the case. Oxblood, fake leather, not too heavy. I pictured myself getting arrested by federal agents for handing Cokie Roberts a case full of anthrax and dynamite. I pictured myself screaming at the TSA guys, “Wait! You don’t understand! This belongs to Hale Boggs, the missing Congressman!” That did not provoke much courage in me so I flicked open the dual locks and looked inside. All I saw was a manila envelope. I took it in hand and tore it opened. I found some photographs and a note that read: “Come to my garden at Trenton and Main where the crows and the alligators stick in the drain.” Dr. Seuss had nothing to worry about. As for the pictures, there were seven of them, all shots of Cubans, all of them with the faces circled in red ink.
     It was very much out of character for me to buy into a lunatic’s delusions, having more than enough of my own to consume my time, but this was so bizarre that I wondered if any of it amounted to anything. While wondering, I parked the Town Car, walked right by the smirking valet and into the old world hotel. I approached the front desk, placed the briefcase on the counter and wondered what to say.

     I read the name tag of the brunette behind the counter. Jennifer asked how she could help me. I told her I had a car service and that one of my passengers had asked me to drop off something for one of the hotel’s guests.
     This Jennifer’s face took on the wide-eyed stare of teenage mania. “Oh my God! Is this the package that’s for Ms. Roberts on that TV show on Sundays?”
     I told her it was.
     “Oh my God! I could get in like just so much trouble for telling you this.” She stopped to breathe. “Ms. Roberts was delayed or something and she won’t be here for like hours. I can put this in the hotel safe for her.”
     So surprised was I to learn that Cokie Roberts was actually staying at the hotel that I stuttered out my answer that what she’d said would be just fine. I gave Jennifer the briefcase. She inventoried the meager contents, placed everything in the hotel safe, and gave me a receipt. I tipped her twenty dollars. “Oh yeah,” I said, over my shoulder as I walked away, “Be sure to tell her that briefcase is from Tom.”
     I watched the evening news every night for a month, read the local and national papers, and even called a guy I barely knew at CNN. There was no news on Kennedy, Watergate, a long-missing Congressman, or anything else besides a raging war in Iraq and a booming economy for two percent of the people who lived in America.
     The truth is that I probably would not remember all this in such detail except for three things. First, I looked up Hale Boggs on the Internet and there was a faint resemblance to my passenger if you added thirty-five years and used your imagination. Second, it turns out the Congressman’s real first name, which he seldom used, was Thomas. And third, a black Mercedes 450 SLC stayed in my rearview mirror for a solid week. After that it reappeared on and off for another seven days. One morning it was simply gone and I never saw it again.



     The day after I dropped off the briefcase, I called the Biltmore to make sure Cokie Roberts had picked up the item I’d left for her. The front desk person sounded bewildered and transferred my call to the assistant manager, a fellow named Jeffrey. This Jeffrey told me it was against hotel policy to discuss guests with anyone and certainly I could understand that, couldn’t I? He reckoned thus even though I was obviously confused because they did not have anyone named Jennifer working at their hotel and as far as he knew they never had.
     I hung up and grabbed my wallet, where I’d kept the hotel receipt. It had apparently fallen out during one of my few financial transactions.
     My only other clue was Bobbi Jo, a long shot at best. I called the bar where she worked. She had been fired. Nobody knew why. The world was crazy as a soup sandwich. I taped the message about crows and alligators to my car’s visor, just for old time’s sake.
     I continued to take mystery referrals over the next couple years. They helped me pay the bills and buy a little relief here and there. I never did enjoy a single one of those mystery trips, but as a wise man once told me, happy doesn’t enter into it.






   Although I drove a taxi in Arizona for a few years, I no longer do so. There are three excellent reasons why I stopped doing this. First, twenty-five hundred taxi cabs are licensed and operating in Maricopa County, which is about twice as many as are needed. Second, many of my passengers were too strange for my taste. And third, I became tired of being robbed at gunpoint. (I did not care to be robbed in any manner, but guns are much more distressing than, say, a slingshot or a water pistol.) Anyone who has ever ridden in a taxi (or robbed one) may find my point of view on the subject enlightening. 


     When I began driving a cab in 2005, the state had licensed only about 1,200 taxis in Maricopa County. At that time I owned my own taxi and my business was very good. Granted, I worked fourteen hours most days, but the money was excellent and because there were far more people who needed me than I could possibly accommodate, many customers were literally begging for my business. I liked it when the customer begged. It gave me a sense of being in control. But far too soon, the State of Arizona began issuing licenses to almost anyone who could pay the fee. As a result, in Old Town Scottsdale, for example, hundreds of cabs would circle the blocks for hours hoping for a fare. Fortunately, I charmed my way into the good graces of some front desk people at nearby hotels and their business kept me going. But the money was not quite as good. 


     Another thing that changed with the times was the nature of my passengers. When I began the job, most of the people I picked up were professional types who wanted to go to the airport or to some other easily identifiable location. But as more and more cabs flooded the market, many of my customers became quite odd. Many were intoxicated. I recall one evening in Old Town, five drunken women tried to get into the back seat of my Lincoln Town Car. There was not enough room, so one of them crawled over the seat and climbed up front with me. In the process of doing this, her six inch heel punctured a styrofoam cup of mine that was filled with Coca-Cola. Once she finally disgorged her heel from my drink, a thin spray of soda shot out through the hole and landed in her lap. She drew her hands up to her face, turned to her friends in the backseat and told them she had wet herself. I did not bother to correct her. I had really planned on drinking that Coke myself. 


     To be fair, I could have endured both the unfair competition and the insane passengers were it not for the added disgrace of getting robbed. After the first time someone held me up, I wised up a bit and began carrying two wallets: one with thirty dollars in it and another with my real money. Few robbers expect a driver to be smart enough to carry two billfolds. Then again, I did not expect a robber to be smart enough to figure out my scheme. Maybe intelligence thrives on holidays. I say that because on Christmas Morning, 2007, I was parked near Broadway and 40th Street, standing outside my taxi, trying to read my map and figure out where in the world I was going. I heard a voice behind me ask if I was lost. It was such a stupid question that I ignored it and went on scanning my map. The voice repeated itself. I was very flustered by now and spun around with the intention of telling the guy off, when I noticed he was wearing a floppy Santa Claus hat, holding a small revolver and pointing it at me. He took the wallet I handed him and then asked for another. At least he did not wish me Merry Christmas.
     I hung up my keys the following day. Since that time I have worked in a few other capacities in different industries, none of them having anything to do with transportation. The jobs have not been especially interesting, I’ll admit. But so far no one has punctured my cup with her shoe. And no one has robbed me on Christmas Day.




    
   The headlights were what bothered me the most. Exhaustion stretching up the back of my legs, sweat clotting on my eyelashes, a wrench of pain in my chest and a question mark controlling my spine--none of it was as bad as the headlights from cars turning left toward me onto Fifty-Seventh Avenue, revealing far too much of me and nothing of the men and women behind them, me looking like Jack Kerouac without the excuse of weed, whites, wine and talent, them looking like cones of ivory heat jutting out from the terror squeals of nocturnal indigestion. It's late August in Phoenix, Arizona, born in a coma, what does it matter, la dee dah, la dee dah, and thank you, Hoyt Axton. The temperature gauge in my mind says it must be over one hundred, even though the watch on my wrist says it's after midnight and by the way why aren't all the people who own these headlights in bed, don't these people have to work tomorrow and if they don't then why exactly is it that they think they can afford to drive up and down this street or avenue or boulevard as if they had all the money in the world while all I really want to do is find a nice comfortable place to fall down and sleep until the sun wakes me up or a cop runs me in or a pedestrian steps on my face and says, "Oh, dear me, lad. Didn't see you sleeping there. Terribly sorry, don't you know"?
    This is the delirium I found myself experiencing that hot August night, in a rush of eternity, with no place to go, no one to call, no telephone if I had, and a positive-negative zero sum-remainder of prospects, whatever the word prospects might mean as I slid on what was left of cold tennis shoes up and down the sidewalk beside a construction site fenced off from the rest of Fifty-Seventh Avenue as headlights roamed in pairs and packs, seeking out some refuge from the night. 
    Can a man feel this cold inside when the temperature is this hot? Is that a fever or more delirium? Have I at short-last tipped my hat to the Joker's Jailhouse and bid ado to all sanity or are my reactions appropriate to my condition? Do I even know what my condition is? Granted, I have been in this situation once before, four years earlier, but I was at least twenty years younger then and far stronger. Tonight, this night, I am far more weak and out of shape, cursed with friendships I cannot reach because of embarrassment. Those friendships torture me almost as much as the horrid headlights cutting through the black and piercing my eyes like daggers of the mind--thanks, Macbeth--because the last time out I would have traded my future for just one hour with the least of those friends and this night I will bargain with God not to let even one of those friends see me as I am, hungry, jagged, and red, even though the one hundred degree temperature out here is cold as space. 




    I fell face down onto a small pile of saw dust, my arms out in front of me, my legs backing off from the tiredness, my mind in the hands of some malignant being. If only those headlights don't interrupt me, maybe I can catch just enough rest here, I thought, enough rest to get back up and get the hell out of here and on my way someplace else. But of course that was just the fantasy of a lunatic because within seconds six cars followed one another left onto Fifty-Seventh Avenue as if some benign deity had sent Her minions out to find me and bring me back. I hid beneath my palms and wanted to cry, the tears just as stubborn as everything else this hot and cold night, refusing to cooperate with the weakest man alive. 
    I used the sudden break in the traffic to lift my head and squint through the dark at my surroundings. The hurricane fence--why'd they call it that? In Arizona?--the sawdust, the mounds of earth stacked neat beside some concrete building that would never be used for anything of value, muffled laughter from somewhere, cans bouncing across the street in the same heavy winds that had robbed my cap, leaving me one piece of clothing closer to nakedness. 
    A city park was somewhere nearby. I could tell from the smell of dog feces. I could tell because I could hear the sprinklers. I could tell because of some faint memory. So I pulled one aching leg out from beneath another and found myself standing more or less erect, spinning around in horrible sobriety, willing to confess to sins I hadn't committed, at least not yet, not for the escape route from this hell but simply for some explanation, lie or truth, it didn't really matter. I knew there were junkies and alkies and thieves and wife beaters out there inside those homes in the distance, and here was I, just escaped from three and a half years of cab driving without one day off and only in this situation because it was summertime in Phoenix and there wasn't much business for a self-employed taxi driver in the hottest cold city in America in August and so I had had to move out of the hotel where I'd slept for those three years, I'd had to sell my dog Roscoe to a nice guy for food money, I'd had to abandon the car I'd driven and couldn't afford new tires for, I'd had to leave my few possessions in the trunk of that car, I'd had to smile as I watched the tow truck pull off with the car I'd been sleeping in for the past week or so, wondering where the hell I was going to live now, what with the seventeen cents in pennies in my pocket not being much kind of a down payment on new digs.
    I got out of it. One always does, somehow or other. It wasn't dramatic or even melodramatic. It was just as stupid as I felt and it might not have happened if the damned headlights that had blinded me seconds earlier hadn't fallen on just what I needed. I didn't steal and I didn't beg and I didn't lie and I didn't hurt anyone. I just crawled and hopped and limped until in an instant I looked back and came upon a folded and rusty twenty dollar bill beneath that stinking pile of saw dust I'd fallen face down in, just as I was looking back at it to make sure nothing had fallen out of my pants pocket, the one with the seventeen cents in it. I probably wouldn't have seen it had it not been for the headlights, the ones I had cursed through dried lips only seconds earlier. That twenty bought me cold food--Spam, pack of tuna, pork and beans, peanut butter--which gave me strength to do day labor which bought me shoes so I could walk into the University with everything I owned wrapped in a pillow case and say to the friendly man with the graying beard that I wanted a job as an instructor, a job I received almost instantly and from which I have seldom taken the time to look back. 
    So now every smell, every trace of light, every instant of every day screams its peaceful magic at me. I can only with rare exceptions find anger at the world within myself because I treasure moments much more than the future and certainly rethink the past in terms of happiness rather than reality. 
    The stupidity of all this is not lost on me. I have no religion. I have only appreciation for the value of existence, in whatever condition. Thank you, morning. And please remember to dim the lights. The sun is up.






    
    I haven't been much of a drinker since my college days. If ever I had been inclined to resort back to swilling nice refreshing drinks all night and nursing hangovers all day, my three years driving a taxi cab would certainly have cured such an impulse. Some drivers of my acquaintance found the whole clubbing scene to be vaguely exciting. I found it downright disturbing. 
    The flashing lights, the hired bimbos posing with bottles, the nicely-attired doormen, the bouncy barmaids: I can see how some people might find that type of thing--and the ridiculous conversations that go with them--mildly amusing. But my personality simply is not cut out for those types of lures. Let me explain.
    On a typical Friday or Saturday night, I would drive through an area called Old Town Scottsdale, a swank neighborhood of overpriced drinking establishments--bars--where the emphasis is on seeing and being seen, drinking and being drunk. You can dress it up in expensive sound systems, velvet ropes and murderous "mixologists," and it still comes down to getting bombed and finding yourself to be much cuter than I find you to be. 
    One night five of these idiots--all of the female variety--crowded into the back seat of the Lincoln Town Car I was driving. They were each and every one of them ripped to the gills. After hitting a few bumps in the road, one of them, the leader of the pack, crawled over the seat and landed up front with me, in the process of which her six inch heel poked itself into the Styrofoam cup in my car, puncturing the container and allowing the Coca-Cola inside to spray out onto her drunken lap. I watched this with a blend of disgust and amusement: disgust, because I had planned on drinking that Coke; amusement, because I could tell she knew something was going on but hadn't much idea exactly what. After a few moments, she slapped her hands onto her thighs, opened her mouth in a gape of horror, turned to her fellow idiots in the rear of the car, and shrieked: "I pissed myself!"  
    I could have disabused her of that notion. However, I thought better of it and decided it would be more enjoyable to wrack up a nice fare taking them all home than rolling them across the street to yet another bar.

    The whole Old Town Scottsdale experience is such a scam that I am still amazed that people fall for it. Vacuous music, mindless patrons, cuff links the size of golf balls, bad drugs, overpriced alcohol, stupefied women, lecherous men, and nine thousand taxis vying for their collective attention. If Dante had envisioned a tenth circle, that is what it would have resembled. 
    One must never arrive in Old Town before ten in the evening. To do so is to mark oneself as completely over the hill with nowhere to land. The current idea is that you arrive some time between ten and eleven. It is a good idea to have a beautiful and calculating young woman with you. This latter will enable you to glide beyond the mouth-breathing security personnel without having to cough up a bribe to get in. Just inside the door, you will find a pair of bikini-clad tarts who are getting paid to stand there. Don't talk to them. They haven't anything clever to say. They haven't even the sense to say anything stupid. They may not have the awareness to carry a pulse between them. But that's okay. They are merely the hood ornaments that someone forgot to name.

    Lots of employees will be promoting lots of things, none of them inexpensive. Drinks? $10.00 - $20.00 is a good start. VIP room ? Well, we have the $1,500 tables and the $1,000 tables. Which would you prefer? Hey, check out those babes over there! Hmmm, those guys are cute. No, remember that guy, Dave? He smells funny. She is so insincere, you just gotta love her. Oh, you wanna go to that place across the street later? No? What do you mean it's only for old people? How old are you? And they let you in here?

    It is as crazy as a shit house rat.

    But what do I know? I'm just a silly college professor teaching an obsolete subject (English) to people who only want to be certified so they can keep their jobs. That said, let's take a ride through Old Town and have a few laughs at someone else's expense, shall we?
    Drift is at 4341 N. 75th Street. They have bamboos and torches, aquariums and "drink umbrellas." Woo woo! Back in 2007, I watched as a middle-aged man stepped out their door, fell face forward, landed straight on his forehead, and bounced right back up onto his feet. He shook his head as if to clear out the webs, turned around and walked right back in. Perhaps he meant to do that.

    The Acme Bar and Grill, which sits at 4245 N. Craftman Court, brags that it has whatever you are looking for. I took their modified use of the English language to heart one night and asked the bartender if he had a cherry red Coupe de Ville. He said he didn't think so. I left, not a little disappointed.

    And no speedball trip through the bowels of Scottsdale would be complete without a snatch of air from Axis/Radius, two nightclubs for the price of three and a half. Here is what they say about themselves: "Two clubs, joined by a glass catwalk with a high strut-ability factor, lure local trendsetters and celebrities alike. Axis sports a shimmering bar that connects the patio to a comfortable, couch-laden interior. Upstairs, the inventively lit UV Room glows blue. When you're ready to crank it up a notch, wend your way to Radius, where pop, Latin, and techno beats bring the dance floor to life. For a special night out, reserve the VIP Amber Room, which features flowers and twigs captured in a glossy, floating amber bar." Aow! The Amber Bar! But wait! What if I don't have amber highlights? Hey, nobody cares. Just don't forget to sneer. Quaint as hell.


    But what night in or on the Old Town would be complete without tossing our cookies clear across the room at Myst, a fla$hy, trendsetting hole in the wall with four bars and seventeen brain cells. Conveniently located at 7340 E Shoeman Lane, you'll never tire of trying to find a parking space or a valet who looks old enough to drive. Once you pass the velvet ropes, you'll see Shaq, DMX, Justin Beiber (well, it's his birthday,) and the queen of electronica-didge, Mia. Gabba gabba yeah. 
    By now you should be ready to hurl some pizza, so we'll stop off at one of the puke palaces--What? You aren't hungry? No? You just want to molest your driver? Well, honey, I'm afraid that is impossible for two reasons: One, you are less than half my age. Two, I never mate outside my species. 
    All in all, though, I hope you have had a thoroughly splendid evening. Please watch your step and as the man once said, "When you pay the bill, kindly leave a little tip to help the next poor sucker on his one-way trip."


    I receive more direct (non-public) emails regarding the stories of my three years driving a cab than about anything else. Seeing as I feel hard pressed to think of anything else at the moment, I will share a tale or two from the days of motorvating up and down the city streets and nightmare alleys of Phoenix and environs. 
    The majority of the time I was driving I worked for myself, which is to say that I owned my own car and had no one to report to except me. That also meant I had to drum up my own business and take it where I found it. It was during one such excursion that I found myself in Phoenix at 19th Avenue near Bell Road, which, for the benefit of you out of towners, is in the northwest valley.  

    A woman about thirty flagged me down and I u-turned in the middle of the street during what might be thought of as an otherwise slow period, some time between three and four in the morning. She plopped down in the backseat with her mouth pressed up against a slimy-looking cell phone. "Fifth Street and Fillmore," she mumbled. 
    "Shit," I said to myself. "That's a scuzzy part of town. I'll bet this bitch ain't got no money." I always talked that way in those days because I wanted to avoid people saying things like, "My goodness, young man, you have quite the extensive vocabulary and refined erudition for a man in your position, don't you know?"


    I looked at the woman through my rear view mirror. She was slumped into the backseat, leaning to one side, that phone cradled against her head as if it were a pillow.
    "Honey, you got any cash on ya?"
    She mumbled something I couldn't understand. I repeated what I'd said.
    "He'll pay you when we get there."
    That's what we in the business think of as bullshit. 
    I told her what I thought.
    She repeated herself.


    I was in a bit of a jam. The ride would earn me forty bucks if there really was a he waiting at the other end of this trip. On the other hand, she looked like a jumper, somebody who would open the door at the last second and run like hell through the dark night in a part of town where I personally did not relish running after her. On yet another hand, which I could have probably used, if I refused the trip at this point I would have to stop the car and somehow disgorge her relaxed body from the rear of the vehicle, presumably stranding her, assuming I could get her out without those three inch nails scratching me to death. 
    I decided to take my chances with the he
   She wasn't much on conversation. All I could hear her do was mumble into that frigging phone of hers as we rode through the night, passing pick up trucks hauling lawn mowers and smiling at police officers weary from long shifts. I turned onto Fillmore at Central and made a left. The farther we drove the worse it looked. To my left sat buildings that were probably shooting galleries, dilapidated rust factories, and empty parking lots. To my right loomed a string of box homes that should have been abandoned centuries earlier. I squinted at the curb on my right, trying to see the address she had given me. 
    "This is it," she said. I heard her try to unlock the back door. I had already master locked it. "You wanna let me out so he can pay you?"
    I saw a guy, I'm guessing he was about twenty, standing alongside the cab, right by my driver's side window. I clicked open her lock and she sprang out.
   I auto powered my window down about halfway and said, "$40.70, please," to the man.
    He smiled. I grinned. He pulled something out from under his shirt. I stopped grinning. Just as he was about to ram the pistol into my face I floored the accelerator, knocking him to one side as I roared away.


    I would have roared away, that is, had the street gone all the way through, which it did not. When I reached Sixth Street, I hit a dead end and spun back around. My headlights caught a glimpse of the young man picking himself up off the ground. I couldn't see too clearly but my intuition told me he was not in a good mood. 
    I pushed the pedal down and hit fifty miles an hour on a street where fifteen is dangerous. He was feeling around on the ground for his gun. I blew my horn and brushed by him, neither of us all that concerned about the fare any longer. The woman threw something that bounced off the back glass. I ran the next stop sign and took a turn at a speed that lifted at least one wheel off the ground. I wasn't concerned that this made me look like a coward. When I am actually afraid for my life, disguising fear is low on my priority list. 
    I got a ticket, of course. The police officer thought my story was a little funny. He didn't care to investigate the veracity of my tale and I couldn't really blame him. It was getting cold. 


When I first began driving a taxi cab, I had no choice but to work for an actual company, rather than for myself, as I would later do. At that time Allstate Cab (no relation) was hiring and so I met with a man named Fred. The way he pronounced his name was Fuh-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-duh. But he wanted everyone else to call him Fred, so that is what I did. Fred was Armenian. He was a short, stocky man with at least three working teeth and a mind that never stopped for coffee breaks. That guy was always thinking. Mostly he was thinking he needed some good drivers to handle the trips Allstate was given from the State of Arizona via Child Protective Services or CPS. So Fred sent me down to get my Fingerprint Clearance Card and within an hour I was back with the card in hand. Fred was smiling with all three of his working teeth.




    "You go to Mingus Mountain Girls Academy," he said. "You pick up Lindsey Ragen. You take her to Kingman. The trip pay $750. You wants it?"
    I told him I did. He handed me a sheet of paper with the details on it. I thanked him and jumped in the Crown Victoria with 450,000 miles on the odometer and peeled out.
    It took me forever to find Mingus Mountain. It took even longer than that to find the Girls Academy because the address Fred had given me was wrong. When I finally saw a tiny sign in the fog bank that read Mingus Mountain Girls Academy, I wheeled the car up and down unpaved roads and winding trails where I could hear but not quite see wild dogs flailing themselves onto the side of the Crown Vic. 




    I arrived at the gate three hours later than the piece of paper Fred had given me said I was supposed to get there. But then again I hadn't received the assignment until after the time I was supposed to be there, so I didn't feel all that bad about it.
    I signed Lindsey Ragen out and she plopped herself merrily into the backseat. She was a skinny thirteen year old with blonde hair and a singsong voice. The first thing she said was, "Goddamn, I'm glad to get the fuck outta that place! Shit the fuck. Been locked up in that crapper for three years. You know why?"
    I said I did not.
    She was happy to explain. "My parents, they're like Fred and Ethel, y'know? Dumb as dog vomit. They got in a big fight with shooting and knives and drugs and shit and the judge, once he'd sentenced them to like life without parole or some such shit, he didn't know what to do with me so he sent me across the hall to family court and they said I had to be incorrigible because my parents were insane so they shipped my happy ass off to that hell hole in the wall back there so thank you thank you thank you for getting me outta there because I really do not think I would be lying if I said I hated it there because you have all these dyke girls crawling on ya when you just want to sleep and you got the bulls--that's the guards--fondling you like they think you're sixteen and interested and all I ever did anyway was just cry the whole time until my friend Jenny--that's Jenny with a Y--she'd kick your ass if you got that wrong--she and I got to be friends and just about that time I heard I was in for an early release which I guess is where you come in. My name's Lindsey. What's yours?"
    "What's in Kingman?"
    "Kingman? Oh, I'm catching a plane from there to Eugene, Oregon. Yep. My step dad--he's a nice guy--and my real mother--not the one who got sent up--they are gonna take me home to Oregon. Well, it's not really my home, it's just that that's where I was born even though I don't remember. Hey, do you think we could stop at that Dairy Queen, there? I haven't had an ice cream in years?"
    Two things: One, the last thing this kid needed was a sugar rush. Two, the rules said you didn't make unauthorized stops. But doggone it, the idea of a hot fudge sundae did sound pretty good and I needed to get gas anyway, and there was a filling station right next door.




    We ate our ice cream. Sitting on an old bench in front of the dairy Queen I let her tell me her life's story, one which made incongruous changes about every third sentence. I wasn't paying too much attention to the time. I figured as long as we got to the Kingman CPS office by early afternoon we would be there in plenty of time. After all, her flight, she said, didn't leave until the next day.
    We found the Child protective Services office right in the east side of town. She hopped out of the car and I followed her up the stairs. I signed in at the front desk and she went off with a matron. I noticed right away that the people who worked in that office were giving me the greasy eyeball, but I just chocked that up to the prejudice that a lot of people have against cab drivers. 
    As it turned out, the two women in charge of Lindsey's case wanted to talk to me. The older of the two women did most of the talking. "Where have you been?" was her first question.




    We had our little tete a tete in a large conference room. I was nervous. I was new to all this stuff and had no idea what was going on.
    What was going on was that the people in that office had expected us three hours earlier. When they had called Fred, he had lied and said that I had left in plenty of time to get there ahead of schedule. (I later learned that Fred always did this as a way of keeping the clients happy with him and mad at the drivers). To his credit, Fred had tried to reach me by phone but my lousy stinking Cricket device didn't work up in the mountains so, technically, no one had known where I was. 
    Fortunately for me, Lindsey Ragen was a good egg. While the two women were interrogating me, two other women were asking Lindsey the same questions and once our stories matched up, I was released--released!--and made my way out of the mountains and back to Phoenix. The return trip was largely uneventful, probably because of the state police escort that followed me all the way back to Maricopa county. 
    Fuh-re-re-re-re-re-re-duh gave me holy hell for owning a phone made by Cricket. "You gonna work for me, pal, you gots to get a better phone. Here. Take you's money and buy something that works."
    He snatched the phone from my pocket and threw it in the dumpster. Then he handed me a check for $300.
    "What's this?"
    "What you think it is? A rooster? It is you money."
    "You said $750."
    "I know, I know. But that is what CPS gives the company. The company gives you three hundred. What? You don't want it? I take it back, you don't want it."
    I took it. What else could I do? I bought a new phone with a price plan that ate up the money I had made that day. 
    "What a job!" I shouted, not realizing that things would only get more like Fred and Ethel every day.


   What uplifting tale about the ruminations of humanity and other presumably superior creatures shall I impart today? Hmm. Well, I could always relate another spine-tingler about the gloriously bad old days when I drove a taxi, but you'd probably rather hear about something more pedestrian, so to speak, possibly something to do with nuclear fuel rods or the obscene uses to which a plumber's helper may be put. What's that? The cab story would be just fine? All right, then. So it shall be.


    I could tell you about the time late one night when I drove my cab across one of those spiked-out tire shredders as I attempted to make a less-than-legal exit from an insurance company's parking lot, only to find out to my redoubled horror that the fellow I had been trying to pick up was drunk and rich and wanted me to drive him to and from Las Vegas, a trip which would have earned me a little better than one thousand dollars instead of costing me six hundred to replace the tires that were now tapioca. But that tale sort of tells itself, doesn't it? Wait. I know. I will tell you about Super Bowl Sunday in Phoenix! Yes, that's the ticket.
    It was early February 2008, right smack dab in the heart of the Valley of the Sun, rainy as hell, if memory serves, and the city was crawling with out of town people who wanted to watch the big game. The Patriots were playing the Giants. The entire week was one jammed with excitement, even for those who, such as myself, didn't give a rat's hindquarters about the big game. I should even point out that I feel about the Super Bowl exactly the same way I feel about a TV show called "American Idol." I resent the very existence of the thing because I do not like the name of something bestowing a value judgment upon that thing itself when the judgment, it seems to me, should come from the viewer. The producers of "American Idol" are in no position to determine in advance that you or I are going to idolize the winner of the contest. In the save vein, the penultimate American football game may be great or it may be lousy. The determination of its "superiority" over other games is one that should be made by the fans rather than the networks, owners, or even players. Plus, there's just the fact that I simply don't care. So, I was only excited because it is kind of a furtive thrill to have a huge collection of strangers in town, people who will ask you what things are like here and who may be inclined to compare what they see and hear with how things are back home. 
    There was also the money.
    Oh my. There was a lot of it to be had and every scumbag with a cash flow problem was out in full force, embarrassing as an open fly on prom night. I heard all kinds of stories from other drivers about how much money they were going to make and all that brouhaha. I knew most of them were delusional and would spend the day in front of their TV sets rather than working. I also knew this fact was to my own advantage.




    I had quite an edge going into Super Bowl Week. Eleven major Phoenix hotels relied up me personally for their guests' transportation needs. I had spent much of the previous two weeks designing sign-up sheets for the hotels and explaining to the managers that anyone who waited until the day of the game to request a cab was going to be completely out of luck. Therefore it would behoove the manager to make sure his front desk people inquired of everyone checking in what their traveling requirements might be. I also worked out a deal with airport parking to circumnavigate the standard rules and regulations about picking up customers. Then I got on the phone and reached out to the five most trustworthy drivers I knew. Among the six of us we should have been able to handle all the business that would be lined up.
    By the Thursday before the Big Game I had to buy a second cell phone. My regular device did not stop ringing long enough for me to retrieve even one message. I was logging something close to twenty calls per hour, just from the hotels. I gave my assistants my second phone number and told them to talk fast whenever they talked at all. 
    That same Thursday I spent much of my day with a man named Roger Director. He had written a book called I Dream in Blue, a fine story of his fixation with the New York Giants team. He was in town to promote the book. I had heard of him because of his TV writing credits ("Hill Street Blues," "NCIS," and others) and because his is the kind of name that stays with a person. In between taking him from a remote local station set up in one part of town to a book signing in another, I handled phone calls, more often than not suggesting that people from out of town did not have any idea just how big Phoenix is and that such being the case they had best make their reservations now rather than later because later was going to be too late. 




    I did not get any sleep Thursday. The same condition applied Friday. I managed to get three or four hours late Saturday afternoon when I at long last turned off both phones.
    Sunday morning at five I sat in a McDonald's with my five assistants. I had already supplied them with enough business to pay all their bills for the next several months, taking people to the various activities at the University of Phoenix Stadium and to various nightclubs and restaurants throughout the week. But this was the day when no man or woman would sleep. This was the day of the Big Game. I gave each of my drivers a piece of paper with their pick ups and returns. Each sheet would translate to approximately $5,000 per driver for that one very big day.




    By this point I had recognized that I needed to relegate myself to the role of supervisor. We needed a point of contact for the hotels and their guests and I chose to be that contact. I told my guys not to deviate from the list of rides. I told them that if any passenger kept them waiting more than ten minutes that they were to leave without that person and go on to the next listing. I told them all what fares to charge. I made sure they all had plenty of credit card receipts and spare change. Their gas tanks were full. Their eyes were wide. We were all very excited.
    Most of the effort was well invested. I didn't make as much as my drivers because I only filled in when they got behind. That was okay. I had still made a ton of money that week and trusted that these drivers would do the right thing by tipping me for all these referrals after the game. Two of the five actually did that.
    The Giants won the game. Who cares?




    The next day, Monday, was still incredibly busy because everyone was heading back to the airport. I was driving a huge Chevy Suburban with seven sulking Bostonians to Sky Harbor when the gear shift control shredded. We were, of course, on the freeway at the time. I knew that if I stopped the vehicle, we would never get started again so I kept going in second gear as the automobile made hideous sounds that spurted and spewed from beneath the hood. The rains returned. The passengers were nervous and suddenly quite alert. 
    I pulled up alongside the curb at Terminal 2 and the Suburban died an ignoble death. I was so embarrassed at what had happened that I offered to not charge the passengers for the ride. I now realize that if the Patriots had won, the riders would not have taken me up on this foolish offer.
    My problems were not over. I had a huge money trip waiting for me in the other end of town. Once the tow truck drove off with my car, I flagged down an airport shuttle bus and gave the guy two hundred dollars for the use of his van.  was surprised he let me get away with that. I drove the thirty miles to my final appointment in just under twenty minutes in one of the worst rain storms I've ever seen. The passenger waved as I pulled up and I had a great time listening to his stories of Super Bowl Week in Phoenix, Arizona. He paid me with a credit card. The bill? $300. The tip? $50. The authorization? Declined. 
    What the hell? I let him go. I had brought in a little more than five grand for myself that week, an amount that would go a long way toward keeping me in and out of trouble until the next big event, some tractor-trailer rope pulling contest or whatever it might be. 
    Phoenix is due for another Super Bowl game in the next few years. That should be nice. I don't care who wins. All I know is that I won't be driving that day. Probably I'll stay home. Maybe I'll watch "American Idol." 

 

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