 Like an Artist -Alex Farr So December finally comes, and the weather gets as bad as it ever really gets in California, somewhat rainy and somewhat cold, and me and all my fellow cabbies are rubbing our hands together... dreaming of cash, and trying to keep warm while we stand around at the cabstands for extended waits. Apparently California's economy needs some of the steroids Arnie used to use. He'll hook us up, one of these days... in the meantime, we feel the burn. Near as I can tell, it's gotten to the point where people have so little pressing business to take care of that, if it's raining, well... it'll keep. They stay home in the bad weather. So, now we cabbies just have to hope for the best when the weather is bad, and hope for the sunny days to bring people lazily out to take care of what little business they can afford with the world. Unless, of course, the weather guys fuck up... and the rain comes on the wrong day. It was one of those days. A short squall hit, and I found myself at a Bart station with no other cabs. I actually smiled... it was my chance to make up for the first four hours of the morning when I was doing nothing but barely breaking even (making those hours charity work to benefit the cab company, and the gas station). I found a fare in no time, and wanted to get back in a hurry because they were starting to line up to wait for the cabs! I was heading into Alameda (a little island where the police are liable to give tickets for doing 27 in a 25 zone) when I got the phone call. "Yeah Alex, where you at?" It was Sandra, my old Yellow dispatcher... apparently still working the "tip" market, as always. Apparently the $5 I'd given her the night before was enough to catch her attention. Times really were tough... "Me?, I'm headed to southshore... why, what you got?" "There's one around High and San Leandro. In a warehouse... you wanna go to San Francisco?" I hemmed, and I hawwed. It was close to where I'd be coming back over the bridge... and San Francisco was a real fare... and hell, the warehouses in the neighborhood are populated by punks, freak artists, and my kind of people in general... in fact, I live in one of the couple of warehouses around there. I had at least a little faith that I might not be wasting my time. Maybe. "Uhh... you think she'll wait for me? Maybe 10-12 minutes?" "Let me see..." she put me on hold a sec, and came back with "Yeah, ok... she'll be waiting." So I got busy... pushing the car mercilessly up to 29... watching the rearviews and sides of the street carefully... Hell, my windshield wipers sucked so bad that I couldn't hardly see out the front windshield anyway, so I was good to push it to the limits of what traffic would allow. I was there within 15 minutes. I honked. I honked some more. I tried to call Sandra back, to get a call out number... but the line was busy. And it was busy again. And I honked some more. After a couple of minutes of nothing... I begin cursing this woman, and her lineage, for wasting my time when it's so busy that the office phone lines are all tied up. I start her up, pull an illegal U-turn across San Leandro, where the cars fly along at 50 or 60 in a 35 zone... East Oakland ain't Alameda, after all. I made it about a block before I got caught by a red light... and then the phone rang. "Hello..." "Yeah, Alex, where you at?" asked Sandra. "Well, the broad didn't come out when I honked... so I'm headed back to the Fruitvale BART..." "Ok, she thought that might be you she heard honking. You wanna go back?" I thought it over a second... and if I'd've made that light I'd've had her tell that lady to just go ahead and jam her head back up her ass... but I'd only made it a block... so "Yeah, sure... but if she isn't out within another 2 minutes, I'm leaving her ass again." "Ok, she'll be out..." answered Sandra. We'd been working together for a while, she was used to my attitude. Actually, it's apparently better than most driver's... though mine probably involves more swearing. So I made a long turn around the block, and I was back, and I was honking... and still nothing. "Son of a bitch..." I was muttering to myself, when I spotted a woman on the street. She was walking down the street casually, but in my direction. She didn't wave, she didn't call out... but I suspected it might be her. She was using the California system of flagging down a cab- telepathy. Sure enough, when she got up to the car, she asked "Are you my cab?" I wanted to ask her if she was retarded. "How many other cabs do you see around here, you dumb cow??!!" I wanted to scream. "Yeah, you ready?" I managed to make myself answer, instead. "Ohh, just a minute. I have to get my stuff..." she breathed, like she was some sort of ex-debutante who was used to people waiting on her whims with well mannered patience. I had too much time invested in this trip at this point to tell her to fuck off... so I grinned and answered "No problem...", and turned on the meter. In another couple of minutes she was back, with a bag, and a 2' x 4' painting... which she immediately started cramming into the back seat, squeezing her not-at-all a debutante anymore ass in there too, while muttering "Yeah, I thought that might be you that I heard honking, but I wasn't sure..." I just nodded, not answering... because I wouldn't've been able to stop myself from answering with something along the lines of "Then why didn't you come out and find out, you stupid cow??!" Once she was wedged in, I took a deep breath, and asked "So... San Francisco... which exit am I gonna want?" "Ohh... I'm going to San Francisco." she answered. I just had to do a double take. My knuckles turned white on the wheel. I took another deep breath, and went back to watching the road for an opening to make another illegal U-turn. I could ask again once we were on the road. "So, I've got directions. I wrote them up, I got them from... [mumble]. I got some from MapQuest... but they weren't very good. They had you turning at... [mumble]... and it just felt like you were going around in circles. These directions are pretty good though. I think. Well, we'll see. I think they're better though." I just nodded. Then I did another double take. She'd talked up a good game, but then- nothing. "Uhh... so what are the directions?" I finally had to ask. "Ohh, would you like to see them? Or should I, I don't know, I mean, I guess I could maybe read them. Or, well, I don't know..." The last thing I wanted to do was have to interpret the fucking directions through her wispy brained tangents... "Yeah, why don't you give them to me. Yeah, thanks..." I looked them over. They were pretty simple... in fact, they looked downright familiar. "Are we going to CCAC in the city?" "Yeah, do you know it?" I'd done it a couple of times, and I knew more or less where it was... but it was in a strange area of SF, sort of the center of a strange spiral of one way streets that had never heard of a grid system... but it wasn't gonna be any problem. "Yeah, I been there a couple of times... my girlfriend..." "Ohh, that's just great! I guess I got the right cab, didn't I?..." she cut me off. I just shrugged though, not particularly caring to explain anything to this ditzy broad. I turned my attention instead to trying to drive through a traffic load of idiots while my windshield wipers spread the rain evenly over my windshield. "You know, there's really no hurry or anything, I mean I don't have to get to my final critique for another hour and a half... I was gonna just take BART, but it's raining... the rain affects the frame...[mumble]... varnish...[mumble]... I mean, it doesn't do anything to the paint, it just rolls off the oil... but the frame... [mumble] ..." At this point in her monologue, I just had to cut in "Wait, did you say you varnish the frames of your paintings?..." I just had to ask. It seemed wacky... I mean I've watched my brother stretch canvasses, and my girlfriend paints, and several ex-housemates... I've been hanging around with visual artists for years now, and I'd never heard of such a thing. I couldn't help wondering if it was a good idea... "Varnish?... You mean varnish the frame?... Wow, I never thought of that. That's a really great idea! Wow, thanks... I'll have to try that. That's really a great idea. Are you an artist?" "Me... well, I don't paint. No. I just thought that was what you said..." "Well, I mean... I guess you are sort of an artist. I mean, driving a cab... just driving through traffic all the time, it's like an art. Really, in a sense I mean. So, in a way, you are sort of an artist..." "Uhh, well, yeah... I am an artist actually. I..." I answered, in a vain attempt to admit that I write... and to dissuade any notion that driving a hack was artistic. Ok, it may be more art than science... but it is to art, usually, as the joke you had to be there to appreciate is to comedy. But, speaking of comedy, on she went, "So, in a sense you are really an artist. I suppose, we're all really artists... because there's an art to everything, when you really think about it. Don't you think?... I mean, [mumble mumble]..." It was at about this point that I started fiddling with the radio, while lane jockeying my way across the Bay Bridge. If I had to hear her try to explain to me the art of telemarketing I was gonna scream. If telemarketers are artists, then my ass is conceptual art. She shut up soon enough... or maybe she was just mumbling into her canvas. I didn't know, didn't care, and didn't dare say anything one way or another for fear of starting her talking again. Soon enough we'd gotten off the bridge, and I was following the directions she'd provided. It was a fairly straitforward, for that neighborhood of San Francisco, spiral of one way streets. "Ok, make the left onto 8th, get into the second lane from the left, make a left on Brannan, then a right on 7th, then a right on [something or other] and then another right..." "Wait, I think this is the left you need..." "No, that's Bryant, not Brannan." "Are you sure?" "Well, the sign says Bryant, and this is about where I remember it being... no, look, see... that's Brannan coming up next." "Ohh, wow, you're right. See, you really are an artist. You make it seem so simple, like you're an artist... of driving. You know..." Oops, I'd fucked up, and opened my mouth again. She kept up the monologue, but luckily we were close, and her mumbling was easy enough to tune out, once I turned the radio up a little more. "Look, we're getting the USF college radio station... cool." "Yeah... that's nice. What kind of music do they play? You know, music and driving... they're really both, like, arts that sort of... I don't know, they go together well. Are you a musician?..." "No, actually I write." "Ohh, really... yeah, a lot of cabbies do that. You know, there was this one guy, back in Minnesota, he was like a local legend. He wrote stories about driving a cab. He was great. So, see... you are like an artist... [mumble]" "Uhh, yeah. I've written a couple of novels too..." "So, yeah... you could, like, write stories about driving a cab... and driving is like an art... so, you know, it's like you've already got an understanding of art..." She may've said more. I don't know. I didn't listen. I'd've lost it, pulled over, strangled her... and then been in the news as the real life "Bone Collector". Finally, I pulled up in front of the college campus, and let her out to spew her pseudo theory at the poor fools that were, hopefully, being paid very well to critique her painting. The meter came up to $43 and change... and she pulled wads of bills out of somewhere, eventually coming up with a total of $55, all in 5s and 1s. I doubted it was a good idea, but I just couldn't stop myself. I gave her a card, with the website, and links to excerpts of novels, as well as many cab stories. "See, I am an artist." She smiled what turned out to be one of the glassiest patronizing smiles I'd ever seen in my life, and answered "Ohh, wow. Congratulations! You are an artist..." I just stared... it was kind of funny really, to
have this ditz completely miss it. It was clear in her ever so shallow
eyes that she was just sort of trying to humor me, by saying I was an artist...
and yet I travelled in circles with people who'd already gotten the degree
she was after, and I knew that she was basically an idiot... and I couldn't've
cared less about what she thought of me. My point had been to try to jolt
her out of her comfortable misconceptions. My attempt slid off her back,
like rainwater off a varnished frame...
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