 A Monday -Alex Farr It's a funny thing, driving a cab. You do it, but you don't think about it. You're better off if you don't think about it too much. But people keep asking... "I bet you've got a lot of stories...". Well, not at first I didn't. I drive in Oakland, CA. The dayshift is largely old ladies... going to the beauty shops, and the doctor's offices... but there're plenty of lunatics that slip through... Yeah, I guess I've collected some stories over the years. But, is it anything that the public wants to hear? It's not usually Hollywood style happy endings... It's usually gritty bits of weirdness... and if people really enjoyed that sort of stuff, then we'd all be down in the trenches, rolling along the avenues in cabs, risking our lives in search of amusing anecdotes... despite the fact that any city police force's Intro. Course for a new cab driver points out that it is the most dangerous job in the country. Period. More dangerous than being a cop, or a fireman, or even a fucking 7-11 night manager. It is the most dangerous job in the country. That's not to say it doesn't have its share of amusements.
One day though, I saw just how bad things can really get. Not just for the cab business, but all over. I happened to be in the right place at the right time to actually get a radio call. It'd been a while, so I was still grinning as I pulled up in front of the social services office downtown. I honked, and I waited... I honked again, sinking not-so-terribly-slowly into the conviction that I was too late. That's the thing about when it gets slow in the taxi business, it means more and more cabs around that aren't at all busy- which translates into less and less chance that you'll manage to get to a radio call before somebody else just stumbles across your fare and whisks them away. "Fuck!!" I was thinking, getting ready to give up on yet another fare, when suddenly some cat pops out the door and starts waving. I had to turn the 80s station down so I could hear what he was trying to yell down to me from the door at the top of the steps. "Yo, just a second. I just gotta..." something. Now, I generally prefer that the fuckers are actually ready when they call for their cabs, but what the hell?, it was slow, and I'd actually found the mother fucker... So I waited. And, I waited some more. I tried to read. And, I waited. 5 minutes waiting on a fare gets to feel like an eternity though, so I was back on the horn again. When there was no sign of him after another minute, I started pulling back into traffic... but then some woman, who looked like nothing more than a 40 year old crack ho, came trotting up. I waited to see if she was willing to pay me for a ride instead. "Hold on, he's just gotta pick something up. He'll just be a minute..." she said. Great... I was thinking to myself. "Well, if he wants me to wait, I'm gonna start the meter." I told her. "Uhh." she answered, and buggered off to let him know. Sure enough, Dude was out inside of 2 minutes. The meter'd climbed all the way from the $2 that is starts at, to $2.60... by the time Dude and his old crack ho had climbed in, so Dude immediately started sputtering "Hey, yo... what?..." "I started the meter." I immediately said, just so I wouldn't have to listen as he tried to switch over from Ebonics to English to try to formulate the sort of logical and concise arguments he'd learned how to make in high school to explain to me how I had wronged him, and how I ought to be ashamed... The problem with the people who come from the ghettos, when it comes to trying to be articulate while dealing with a white guy, is that they seem to always want to use the 'official English' that is used by middle managers at Walgreens... but they don't actually seem to want to study the grammar or vocabulary, so it ends up coming out as garbled as the Persian I use when I try to speak with my grandmother. I didn't want either one of us to have to go through the embarassment of that sort of episode. "I started the meter because you had me waiting so long. I waited five minutes for you, and there was still no sign. The only thing that kept me from driving away, which I'd started to do, was her coming up and telling me you were on the way out. I told her I was gonna start the meter, and she said not to pull away..." I explained, the way I'd realized judges want things explained the first, or maybe the second time I was in front of one. It's something you have to learn quick if you're gonna have any hope of beating the raps- especially in traffic court where a lawyer would cost more than the ticket itself. "So, where to?" The explanation had its intended effect. He shut up, and told me he wanted to go to High St. ... So I headed for the freeway, and left him fuming silently in the back seat. It turned out he wanted to go to a check cashing place. Apparently Social Services liked him... And, he wanted me to wait, and then take him... somewhere after. He was the kind of guy who doesn't like to tell his driver exactly where he's headed, in case the driver turns out to be a narc. He was willing to leave the crack ho in the car with me though, so I'd know he wasn't gonna try to run out on the fare. Lucky me. So, he came out eventually, and off we went to 23rd Ave. At about E. 24th he had me pop off Foothill and start driving down the side streets of the neighborhood, calling out "slow down" from time to time, to make sure he could see the "sights". We tooled around like that for a while, up and down E. 24th, E. 25th, back and forth on 23rd Ave., looking for a guy he knew. I didn't ask any questions. Except "Right?, Left?, Forward?, Stop?", not necessarily in that order. Back in the first year I was driving, I had a fare take me around West Oakland in the same sort of strolling way... she was looking for a friend... who had her keys... I figure everyone else I get riding around like that is just doing the same. It's just easier that way. Legally speaking... Anyway, Dude's friend didnt seem to be around, so he had me stop at a liquor store for him. Stocked up on supplies, we were now headed for another neighborhood that his 'friend' liked to hang out in, apparently. For some reason though, Dude waited until I'd turned onto Foothill, which is a plenty busy street, to pass forward the bottle of Peach Cisco. "Here, why don't you have a hit off that..." he offered. Of course, if there are any police officers reading this, I politely declined the offer. If not, well, I took a little swig and braced myself for the usual Cisco kick. I gotta say though, the peach flavor actually tastes sort of peachy, unlike the red and yellow flavors that the scene preferred back in my punk rock days. Ignoring Dude's bitching that I hadn't 'really hit it', I drove us all on up to Fruitvale, and over to School St. . Dude's friend didn't seem to be hanging around the Elementary school on the corner of Boston though, so we wound around and hit E.27th... taking it slow. Dude's friend must've been figuring, like half the cabbies around town, that it was a good time for a vacation. He was nowhere in sight. Not him, not his cousins, not his pahtnuhs, his neighbors didn't know where he'd gotten off to... So, muttering "Damn, there ain't no one out today. Not anywhere!...", Dude had me turn down 26th Ave., only the City'd long since put a bunch of planters and blocks of metal into the street to keep the traffic through there to a minimum, and Dude didn't much fancy having to get out and walk around to look for his friend. So we turned around, and headed back toward 23rd. It was about there, with the meter pushing $30, Dude having already put a $20 into my hand to keep me cool, that Dude decided he liked me. "Yo Dude, you cool. Most them Indian drivers, by now, they be sayin' 'You pay and get out here. You don' ride no more.', and shit. You though, you cool wit' it." I just shrugged, "long as I'm gettin' paid, I don't give a shit where we go..." I didn't mention how slow it was, or he'd've been liable to ask for a discount. I didn't remind him about the 60 cents waiting time I'd charged him either... not even to point out that, at this point, it was irrelevant. Better to just let him forget all about it... So we headed back down 23rd, just in case his friend had suddenly popped out of the woodwork. As we came up on the liquor store, the same one as before, he had me pull over again. There were a couple more crack hos hanging out in front, and they didn't look as old as the one still riding in the back with Dude. On the other hand, as I pulled over and checked 'em out, I had to hand it to the one in the back, at least she had all her teeth... So Dude got out to chat with them, let
'em know which motel he'd be going to for the night, and all
that. He was charming too, apparently, cause he had the both of
them smiling, and even falling all over each other laughing. After the two hos wandered down the avenue, promising the whole way that they'd look him up later, Dude went back into the liquor store. I'd figured that he'd probably finished off the last of the Cisco on the drive, but apparently he also finally found his friend inside, cause once he was back out, he was ready to head for the National Motel. Just as soon as he talked with this one other woman, who was looking for a friend herself. So, we finally got back to E. 14th, and headed down to the National. The old ho in the back got out to get 'em a room, and meanwhile I took another radio order for the Highland Hospital ER. Only, Dude wanted me to wait to be sure he could get a room. He'd given me another $20 by then, and the meter was still only at about $36, so I didn't argue. Turns out, they didn't have any rooms after all. So we headed for the Continental a couple of blocks down. Same routine, the ho went out to check, and they didn't have any rooms either. So, we pushed on down to the EconoLodge. No rooms there, either. "Uhh," I suggested, pretty much having written off the ER order, "so, you wanna head downtown to the Civic Center Lodge?..." "Nahh, they be lyin' anyway, sayin' they don't got no rooms even when you know they do..." I'd forgotten, he was black, so of course no downtown hotel was gonna give him a room. And I thought I was paranoid... Hell, I may have long purple hair with dreads mixed in here and there, a dozen earrings, tattoos, a wardrobe from the Salvation Army, and a beater used car with mismatching passenger side fender and front door, and duct tape holding one of the turn-signal covers in place... but I was white- the world is my oyster! On the other hand, he was probably right. In any case, I wasn't gonna argue. "So, that just leaves West Mac... unless you wanna head back up to Mac and Lincoln..." "Nahh, I don't wanna head to West MacArthur..." Ok, I thought to myself, then where to?... I waited quietly for the gears in his head to turn. "How about the Mosswood?..." he suggested. "Mosswood, sure thing..." I answered, trying to keep from pointing out that it was on W. Mac. On the way, he bummed my lighter. He didn't light a cigarette with it though... If I hadn't've known better, I'd've thought he was trying to use it to melt the plastic from the back of the shield, judging by the sickly-sweet smell of smoldering plastic from the back... I knew better though. On the way we stopped at the Motel 5, the Rio, the Sleepy Hollow, and then finally at the Mosswood. There were no rooms at any. "Looks like all your friends have your motel rooms, and they're keeping off the streets..." I pointed out, just to amuse myself. "So, where to now?..." He had to think. The meter was up around $46 at this point. "How about that one in West Oakland?..." "What, the S&P, out on 16th & Wood?..." "Yeah. Take me there..." I tried to keep from giggling... "Sure..." Finally, Dude and his... 'lady', found a room. The meter, in the end, came to $55. It took Dude 2 minutes to count out the last $15 he owed me. It'd been a long trip alright... It made me feel better though. Not only did I have one of the least mediocre days that I'd had in a long time... but it was good to see that I wasn't in the only business experiencing a heavy recession... I felt better about my life already.
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