Friday Morning
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.
So, I gassed up the car, and I picked up a fresh pack of cigarettes, and I hit the streets. I got a fare to downtown, and I only had to wait about 5 minutes at the BART cabstand before another came along. So I turn the ignition... but the fucking cab dies inside of a second. "Uhhh, no problem. We'll get you out to Jack London Square in a jiffy..." I assured the suit who'd climbed in, bluffing madly. What the fuck had that Nigerian asshole done to my fucking car?!... I got it on the third try though. As I breathed a sigh of relief, I spotted a huge cloud of whitish opaque smoke pouring out the back. And, when I say pouring, I mean pouring. James Bond would've been jealous of the smoke cloud my cab was pouring out. "Alrighttie then, off we go..." I muttered, trying to get moving before the smoke cloud swallowed the car and the paying customer started to get suspicious of just what the hell he was getting himself into. That's the problem with the 'suit' fares, they always seem to expect to have services provided to them that are backed by the Chamber of Commerce or something... If it'd been a gangsta in the car, we'd've been laughing our asses of bullshitting about what a piece of shit I was driving. Then again, a gangsta would've probably then demanded a discount for 'not having gotten his money's worth', or some shit like that. Anyway, the cab was running. It was running like an emphysema patient, but it was running. By the end of the block, it wasn't even spewing smoke anymore, at least not until it'd sat at the red light for a second... then it started all over again. And again at the next light I missed. And the next... We finally made it though. It wasn't until we got to the Square that the cab truly got swallowed by the smoke. "Damn, there seems to be something wrong with this car," I muttered, inserting as much surprise into the tone as I could muster, "I guess I better bring it back to the yard and have them take a look at it." He nodded agreement, and gave me one of those little business-man-whose-never-had-to-work-for-tips kind of tips, and hurried the hell out of my car. For the next couple of blocks, as I drove back toward the BART cab-stand, I jammed on the gas as much as I could, just to see what the hell was up with the car. It went clean for a couple of blocks, but then it started back up with the billowing clouds. "Fuck..." was all I could say. Un-professionalism was one thing, but trying to make it through another 10 hours of that was another thing. I didn't want to give up all the gas I'd put into the fucking car that morning though, especially since, if they fixed it today, that'd leave all that gas just waiting for that Nigerian Mother Fucker to use up on his night shift. And, worse than that, I hadn't even earned back enough money yet to get more than a couple of bucks worth of gas to start up with the next cab the company might offer me, assuming there was another running cab. Unfortunately, I was kicking out enough smoke to obscure entire city blocks. There was no way I was gonna make it through another 10 hours without the cops spotting me and hassling me... I was fucked. Nigerian mother fucker. He'd planned it. He knew about it, and he hadn't said a word... he knew I'd take it out, and get some gas, and then have to bring it back, and then he'd get the gas. It was a pretty wacked out theory. Paranoid even. But, this guy was that kind of scheming asshole. All the same, I bent over to take it like a man, and drove the fucking cab back to the yard. Sure enough though, by the time I got back, there wasn't any more smoke coming out the back. Probably something to do with the 80mph ride I'd taken down the freeway to get back. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think for one minute that anything had gotten any better... I just thought "Hey, I might be able to make it past the cops for 10 hours like this." And besides, if the car wasn't billowing smoke now, then what were the odds that is would when the mechanics finally got around to looking at it? And, if it didn't billow smoke, then there was no way in hell they were gonna go to any effort to see what was making me write it up as needing work. Which meant I'd get stuck with it on Monday, and have to go through the whole thing all over again... It was obvious what I had to do. I had to take it back out on the streets, and drive it until it started billowing smoke again. Or, at least until I'd burned up all the gas I'd invested. With any luck, that Nigerian mother fucker'd get caught in his own booby trap. So, whistling a happy little ditty, for the 2 seconds that my whistling skills allowed, I backed the cab back out onto the street, and hopped on the freeway back to downtown. It was a slow day though. Fares were few and far between. It was a beautiful, sunny day though... and while I'd usually be bitter about that making it slow, today I was happy, and smiling, and basking in the sunlight... content that my decision had kept me from double investing in gas on such a slow fucking day. My fares, when they did come along, were nearly bubbling over with joy, astonished to have found a cabbie in such a good mood. Or, maybe that was just a side effect of all the noxious fumes we were all inhaling... Be that as it may, we were all happy. And, the car wasn't spewing enough smoke to get me busted either. At least, not enough visible smoke... and that's all the Oakland cops care about with their taxis, the superficial appearances. Maybe they think they're laying the groundwork for some sort of future tourist industry... No matter though, because I was happy. Traffic delays because the city was tearing up the streets to fix the sewer systems... no problem. And there was always a radio station to be found playing good music too. Along came noon. It was so slow that I still had more than a quarter tank of gas... and I was still in such a good mood that I decided I'd try a new flavor of Taco Bell chalupa. Now, on a busy day I wouldn't even've considered such a thing... I mean, have you ever tried to drive while eating a chalupa?... If you do, you'd better be wearing a really busy Hawaiian shirt, cause otherwise the stains that'll inevitably wind up running down your frontside'll show for 20 yards. So anyway, I picked up my chalupa... not even concerned about the long line or the incompetently slow Taco Bell staff. What the hell? There wasn't anything happening out on the streets anyway... I picked it up, and I decided to just swing on by the Greyhoud cab stand and have me a leisurely lunch. Yeah, sure there was a chance I'd find a fare, but on a slow day, it was pretty slim. And, since there was the chance, I felt like I wasn't completely blowing a chunk of my day. Cab drivers aren't like cops, or anyone else being paid a salary... we don't get paid lunch breaks... so most of us just eat on the run if something comes up. And, something did. I was about halfway through my chalupa, when a Mexican guy, complete with a Durango-style big belt buckle and cowboy hat, comes up to me. "How much, go to Fairfield?" he asks. I took a deep breath, through my nose, to avoid spitting out a mouthful of chalupa all over my lap. "Fairfield? Like, out by Vallejo?" "Yeah..." "$50, $60... maybe as much as $80..." I guessed. Crockett runs $50, by the meter... and Sacramento about $150... but Vallejo is just over the river from Crockett... which meant, I didn't fucking know... "You take me for $50?" he offered. I recognized a Mexican haggle starting... I'd lived in Mexico for 6 months, once upon a time, and I'd shopped in markets run by indigena campesinos that looked a hell of a lot like this guy... "Make it $75." "$60." I looked down at my chalupa, waiting for my brain to work out all the variables. How long would it take? How much gas would it burn? How's traffic gonna be? What've I got to lose?... can I make the money if I stay in town?... Can I eat you, you cute little chalupa, on the move?... "Ok," I finally decided. It wasn't a conscious calculation, nothing a calculator could've helped with... it was just a matter of feeding the considerations into some back room in my brain, letting my professional intuition, considering everything it was able to predict about the day, given what it'd seen already, and waiting for an answer to come back out of that little back room. Today, the answer was yes. "Give me the money in advance, and you're on..." It wasn't so much that I didn't trust him, all the campesinos I'd dealt with in Mexico had been good people... it was more, well, I just wanted to feel the money in my hand to help convince my rational mind that it should put up with the hassle of trying to eat the chalupa on the move on a day when I was wearing a silk shirt I'd found in a thrift store in Vegas. "Uhh, no. I don' have. I pay..." He had an explanation, but didn't have the English to lay it on me. Luckily for him, despite all odds, he was dealing with a cabbie who could both speak Spanish, and stomach Taco Bell. "Que pasa guey, tienes el dinero, o no?" "No, la cosa es que alla, en Fairfield, tengo un amigo, y el va pagar..." The money was waiting at the other end. "Nevermind. Forget about it." I'd taken a chance on that sort of run to SF once before, black guy and his girlfriend... Ma was supposed to pay at the other end. A bad feeling had hit me, but I'd decided to take the chance. $25 dollar fare, and off they'd bolted... they lost me as I chased after them through the Walgreen's at Mission & 16th. Worst part was that the mother fucker'd even bummed a smoke off me on the way... adding insult to injury.
So I finished my chalupa, and dude was still standing around. "Tal vez, para $65..." he suggested. Hmmm. Still nothing on the radio... no sign of anyone else... sunny day... Slow. "Tiene un numero para tu amigo?..." I asked, hoping I wasn't being an idiot. Calling ahead to be sure there'd be money waiting had worked before though, with a guy who'd had a social security check waiting for him in Sacramento... but that's another story. Dude had a number, and and I called, and... he seemed willing to pay. No sign of hesitation, that's what made me decide to take the chance. That, and the fact that I'd never been done wrong by a campesino. So, off we went. Climbing up the on-ramp, I saw more billowing smoke. "Ohh shit... what the fuck've I done?!..." some piece of my mind started yelling. You know, that piece of your mind that panics. That piece somewhere right at the top of your brain... the piece that I keep praying will be the first destroyed by my daily intake of whiskey. At that particular moment though, it had a point. Fairfield was a long ways away, especially in a car that's smoking... It wasn't until about Richmond, or maybe San Pablo, that it started sputtering. I immediately eased off, slowing the fucker back down to about 65 or 70. It was a little better that way, but it still seemed to sort of wheeze every once in a while. I didn't push it though. When it wanted to do 40, I let it do 40. I turned down the stereo, so I could hear any major 'thunks' that might come along... I watched the rearview mirror, not for cops for once, but to monitor the smoke pouring out the back... I watched the guages... the 'service engine soon' light came on somewhere around Hercules... I still had gas to burn though, so I fondled the tacky St. Christopher charm that an ex- had picked up for me when she'd gone to Italy... I fondled that charm, and I prayed. I prayed "St. Christopher, grant me vengeance on that Nigerian mother fucker!..." And I just kept rolling. I chatted with Dude. He was from Nayarit. I'd never been through Nayarit, but I'd been through Durango, Zacatecas, and el D.F. ... and there was this girl in Durango... It wasn't easy to chat though. My Spanish is pretty good, but I was distracted, watching those gauges and shit. And it started getting mighty hot as we passed by Vallejo, so I had to roll down several windows and yell over the howling hot winds. It was really hot, and that started to make me nervous... whenever something goes wrong with an engine, it always starts to run hotter. Too hot. I was sweating, but I wasn't about to turn on the A/C. Then we hit traffic on some side highway we had to take. I didn't know whether that'd be good or bad. I wasn't sure what the fuck was wrong with the engine... The 'service engine soon' light went out though, but just for a second. Then it lit back up. Fuck... Dude knew where he was going, which was lucky, since I sure as fuck didn't have a map of Fairfield. We found the house, and Dude even left his bags while he went inside to get his friend. That was a good sign. I waited patiently, too terrified to turn the engine off, I just left it running while I checked under the hood. There was still water in the overflow tank. I just nodded, and shrugged, and closed the hood. No smoke. So, it was probably coming through the exhaust. Or, from the undercarriage. It was too much to think about. Dude's friend came out, and gave me my $65... not a bad guess, the meter'd run to about $68... I could live with that. And, with $65 in my pocket, I'd probably be able to arrange some sort of ride back to Oakland if the cab decided to up and die on me... Knowing the cab company they'd abandon the thing rather than pay for a tow truck to bring it back from Fairfield. I took it easy the whole way back. Fuck the dead-time, I just wanted to make it back. I was starting to get a funny taste to my cigarettes though... an all too familiarly funny taste. The cool, fuzzy taste of exhaust. That fucking car made it back though. I gotta hand it to the old thing, it made it. It was getting on toward 4 pm though... so I just said 'The fuck with it', and put in a couple more bucks worth of gas, and drove it for the couple more hours of my shift. Most of it anyway. I finally was just getting too loopy on exhaust fumes, about half an hour before I normally would've gone in, and I just said to hell with it, and went back in. "Yeah," I explained to the office fucker, "I don't know... it just started smoking, and I could taste the exhaust, and the 'service engine soon' light came on... You guys really gotta do something about that thing. I'll see you on Monday." I wasn't about to tell him it'd all started at 8 am. I found out on Monday that the cab'd blown a head gasket. I think that Nigerian mother fucker had to go home that night... no cab available for him... on a Friday night. Thank you, St. Christopher. It's enough to make a man become Catholic, in a sort of lazy pagan kind of way. Of course, a month later the joke was on me. They'd managed to put the thing back together, but it was never the same. At this point the thing's getting about 4 mpg... Which led me right into a ticket for 'solicitation outside of a cabstand'. Ohh well, at least I didn't have to try to hitchhike back from somewhere outside of Fairfield...
Knock on Wood.
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