 Shudders Like No Others -Alex Farr I was talking to a fare one day about what was wrong with her car. Driving a cab, you see, you get a lot of experience troubleshooting car problems. And if you drive a fucked up '86 Dodge Diplomat, ex-cop car, when you're not at work, well you get a lot more practice still. She was having brake problems... and I was commiserating, when I found myself relating a story that I hadn't thought about for a while. I know I'm a sick man, because I think it was funny. She seemed to be terrified at the very idea... go figure. Anyway, it was a couple of years back... back when the economy was good and traffic was strangling. I'd gotten a fare out to Lombard St. in San Francisco, which is out by the Golden Gate Bridge... and a long way from the Bay Bridge that connects SF and Oakland. I was feeling good, and loving life in general. It'd worked out to about a $50 fare, it was toward the end of the day, so the commute time back across the bridge, which was gonna suck, was gonna largely be time I would've been using getting back across Oakland anyway... I was smiling, and the stereo was blaring. And then, as I tried to turn around on a side street, the brakes went from squeaking, to death wails. Something broke in there, something must have... it's the only way to explain what happened. I've let brakes go until they're metal-on-metal before, but it's never been like this. As I came up to the stop sign on Lombard (which is a damned busy street at rush hour...) the car was squealing, and groaning, and slowing down a little too... and as it finally slowed to a stop it sounded like a disc grinder was tearing up the engine block, and felt like it was being applied from the right side. The car was shimmying so hard it was practically hopping, and it kept wanting to drag hard to the right. It was so bad I put in park and checked real quick to be sure I didn't have a flat tire that'd been torn off the rim, too. I didn't, it was just the brakes. It didn't look good. It wasn't gonna be pretty, at rush hour, to drive across San Francisco, get onto the highway, drive across the Bay Bridge, and then stay on the highway halfway across Oakland. I was gonna have to be careful. Very careful. "Or," the voice of reason suddenly interrupted me, "I could just call the company and have them send their tow truck..." The cabs at my company break down so often, you see, that the company has its own tow truck. Of course, it was gonna take til near midnight to get one of the brain dead mechanics to make it out to SF to rescue me. Then again, if I try to push it, and fuck something up... the slumlord bosses were liable to try to charge me for it. So, to cover my ass, I just called into the office. "Yeah, SK, it's Alex. Yeah, my brakes just died... they're metal on metal, and I'm out in SF by the Golden Gate Bridge. You wanna send me a tow truck?, or do you want me to just try to limp the fucking thing back?" He spent half a second thinking it over, before answering "You think you can make it?" "Yeah, sure... I can make it. But there isn't gonna be anything left of the brake system by the time I get there." "Ok, if you think you can make it, come on back." he answered. I hadn't really had any doubts of course. Arranging to send a tow truck would've required that he actually do something... this way I got the cab back, and then the mechanics dealt with the brakes. It was no sweat for him. So, I fastened my seatbelt. Anyone who knows me, their mouth drops at this point, because I almost Never wear my seatbelt (unless I spot a cop). At this point though, I figured that if I fucked up and thrashed the car, I wanted to at least not hurt myself too much. So I got going, VERY slowly. I waited for those written invitations to merge into traffic came. Once I had a clear half block, I made the right. I drove no more than 15 mph. I had the hazards on, and every time I tapped the brakes it sounded like a clumsy jack hammerer was attacking a street sign. Cars honked madly at me, and executed crazy merges, cutting off their neighbors in an attempt to get around me. After a couple of blocks I got the rhythm of it, and just turned the stereo up louder. I left a six car caution space ahead of myself, and I had to start braking for red lights half a block in advance. I'd made it the length of Lombard, and made the right onto Van Ness... which was extra fun, because at that point Van Ness has a serious downhill slope. I was shuddering and dancing tunelessly down the hill, getting cramps in my leg and ass from pressing so hard on the brake. I didn't let my foot go anywhere near the gas. I was riding in the slow lane, even giving the busses six cars worth of space. When they stopped at their stops, leaving their ass end out in the lane and blocking traffic, I fought the habit of trying to pull around them and instead waited patiently for them. I was doing just that, at one point, when a guy spotted me and came running over, and hopped in the back. "Are you free?" the dude asked me. I just about pissed myself laughing. "Dude, you DO NOT want to be in this cab. I have no brakes at all, and any minute I expect the right front wheel to just plain fall off, or maybe just explode into flames.." I answered, between nervous, neurotic giggles of amused terror. He looked at me for a few moments, obviously trying to decide if that was a bad enough sign to give up the cab he'd found at last. "So, you don't think you can take me?" he finallly asked. I thought about it for a few moments. The idea of taking a fare while I had no brakes did have a certain sick fascination... but then I was gonna have to try to find my way through that much more traffic to get back to the bridge. I was really not enjoying having to drive so slowly, either. "Uhh, no. No I don't think that would be a good idea. No." I finally answered. "Damn... ok." he answered, and reluctantly hopped back out to look for another cab. I could tell by the look on his face, as I looked back at him, that he was relieved by his decision once he heard the noises my brakes were making. It was slow going, stop and go crawling, shimmying, and shuddering to the freeway on-ramp. I'd never been so glad for nightmare traffic tangles before. I'd been afraid of how strong my resolve to stay slow would be, if given temptation. All I had to worry about though was keeping control of the wheel so that the off-kilter, lopsided grinding of the brakes didn't torque me into any other cars. Commuters nearby cringed as the grinding brakes made sounds worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. I considered asking them if I was throwing off sparks too, but they all rolled up their windows and avoided making eye contact. Poor vehicle maintenance is apparently a more embarassing subject than I'd imagined. Once I eventually made it over the bridge, the traffic did lighten up a bit. I got cocky, and let the car get up to 25 or 30 at a few points... though I never let myself get to within 15 mph of the speed of traffic. I figured that, if they could stop in time while doing 50, I'd be able to manage to stop before rear ending anyone if I was only doing 25-30. I had some close calls, and soon decided that that theory worked best when I was behind trucks, and going slower than they were. It worked like a charm. No sweat. I limped that thing back into the yard, sorry only that there wasn't anyone still around to cringe at the noises it was making. It was a couple of weeks before the mechanics managed to reconstruct the brake system in that car. I always get satisfaction out of a job well done, killing
cars.
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