 Tuesday-
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. Contrary to what most people in West Oakland think, it's not the fact that it's a bad neighborhood that makes it so hard to get a cab to answer and come when they call. It's the fact that there are so many people calling every cab company they can think of, at the same time... and the fact that we all know half the client base on that end of town does it... that makes it so hard on the, admittedly downtrodden, neighborhood. On this particular day though, someone got lucky. I knew I could make it in 5 minutes or less, and I was feeling lucky. I was feeling quicker and closer than I figured any of the other three companies were gonna be. And besides, five minutes of my time isn't that much of a gamble... So anyway, I pulled up. And I honked. I was even considering actually getting off my hairy ass to go and knock on the door of the old Victorian. She came out the door before that became necessary though. She waved her finger at me, in the universal gesture of- I'll be out in just one minute, please don't leave me! So I just waved a friendly wave, and checked my watch. She had five minutes. Or, maybe four. Depending on how much snap I could see in her step... It was maybe two minutes, and she came out. She had a younger sister, or friend, or someone with her, and between the two of them they had maybe five to seven bags of assorted crap. It wasn't laundry though... and it didn't quite look like the bags of people who live out of motel rooms and have to move everything once a month to be sure the motel people don't figure out too much of their doings and go and report them to some sort of authorities... It was somewhere between the two. Which was a good thing, because no cab driver much cares for either sort. So anyway, they were bullshitting between the two of them, seeming cool and jolly... more or less. So I just smiled, let them load up free of charge, and asked 'where to?'. "Ohh, we just headed down to Telegraph." I just nodded. I knew where Telegraph was sure enough... so I pulled away and headed in the general direction. Of course, Telegraph is a long street. It runs from Downtown Oakland, all the way up to the UC Berkeley campus... but I'd been in the business long enough to know that a couple of girls using a cab, from this neighborhood, because they had too much crap to take a bus- that meant that even a moment dallying with the meter running was liable to start them screaming about how I was trying to rip them off. There was always the possibility that the meter might go up an extra 20 cents... I still don't know why they can't just tell me which end of Telegraph they're headed for though. My best guess is... that they're afraid I've got my cell phone on and I'm reporting the whole trip to the police. Or maybe they figure that, as soon as they tell me, I'll start planning a route that'll screw them out of... maybe 40 cents. Maybe in another couple of years I will
have been driving long enough to have figured that one out. (My final theory... they think of the street, and use the word they associate with what they're thinking of... and for most it never occurs to them how much detail they are simply glossing over...) Whatever the case, I figured taking 18th was a safe bet. For a few blocks at least. So I headed that way, giving them a few moments to settle in... just to see if they were looking to backseat drive. It's amazing how many people seem to think that's the only way to get their money's worth... After a block though, they just settled in to enjoy the view. I wonder, sometimes, if they really think I spend 35-60 hours a week on the road... and still think that only their section of Telegraph, or Bancroft (East Oakland, or Berkeley), or whatever, is the only real section of the damned streets. I soon asked though. "So, should I, like hop up to Grand?... or maybe keep on 18th across the freeway?..." And, to my surprise, these chicks didn't immediately respond "What?, don't you know how to get to Telegraph?"... No, these girls said "Yeah... go ahead and take Grand to Telegraph, and bust a left. Then make a right on Sycamore." I just nodded. "You mean a left at Sycamore?..." "What?... Ohh, shit... yeah. Whatever." "Ok, no sweat..." That was the way I liked it, when a fare says "whatever", then I don't have to worry about them giving me a hassle if a light changes and I don't run it... So, as I was coming up on my left, the girl, the older one, I hear her get on the cell phone. "Yeah, we here. Look, we don't got time for... look, we'll talk about that when I get there. No, I'm in the cab now, I'm around the corner, now go down and open the door!" It's a hard turn, left across a busy street. It's not really all that hard, it's just a little more difficult when you're distracted, trying not to laugh. At least, not to laugh too much. Suddenly though, the cell phone rings again. "Yeah?," answers the same girl, "What the fuck you want now?" I had to concentrate on the turn. There was really a pretty good pile of traffic there... "Yeah, I said we'd talk about it when I got there. Yeah... look, I'll be there in one goddamned second, now would you go and open up the door, bitch?..." I finally made the turn as she hung up on her... 'girlfriend'? I was only giggling a little bit. So the girls open up the doors, and the young one gets assigned the job of gathering together their crap, while the older one climbs out to start digging for the 4 dollar and change fare. And the phone rings again. "Look bitch," says the chick right off the bat, "I got the cab driver's dick in my mouth to pay the fare, and you keep interrupting... now would you just come down and open the fucking door?!...", and she hangs up the phone. And it's too much for me. I bust out laughing. And I laugh even harder as she reaches into her pocket for the money. For a split second, or two, though, I'd wondered if it was a joke... After all, five bucks is five bucks.
You gotta be shitting me Alex... |