What next?

This is a very recent (December 29, 2009) photo of me. If this looks weird to you, it's a mirror image, and I haven't the technology to flip it...and it is me.

So I have hair again. Almost. Not certain if the director of the upcoming play I'm in will want me to keep it, so until I know, I must keep it.

So, what next? keep growing it? Comb-over? Mullet? .... Mull-over?



°

The Gypsy Prince

I knew long before I ever got behind the wheel of a taxi cab that cab drivers love — nay, prefer — long rides. They’re more money per minute.

One cool evening I sat on one of the posts in this quaint northwest suburb, and the dispatch computer in the car sounded the alarm that I had a fare. The passenger name was Susie, a name and address I had been called to only two evenings earlier.

I drove to the house and pulled into the driveway, but instead of the young Susie, out came a young man carrying a small armload of clothes. He got in, said, “Hello,” and told me where he wanted to go: “Clark & Division.”

I turned to face him, mildly incredulous. “Downtown?”

“Yes, sir.” Tee hee! He called me “sir.”

“I just want to make sure you know how much that’s going to be.” He was asking me to take him into the heart of Chicago, about 25 miles away.

“How much will it be?”

“I don’t know, exactly. I have to run the meter. It could be up to seventy-five dollars.”

“That’s fine,” he said, unblinking.

And so we went on our way.

I mentioned to him that two nights earlier I had picked up the woman Susie from the same address where I had picked him up.

“That’s my sister.” He leaned forward and offered his hand, which I took. “I’m Ricky.”

I had noticed a resemblance to his sister, not that I had gotten a great, long look at her. They bore the identical traits of an olive skin tone and strange, slightly bulging, blue-gray eyes. Where Susie is very petite, Ricky is considerably bigger, both in height and in girth.

Conversation continued, and soon he had lured me into talk about politics, a subject cab drivers from this company are instructed to avoid, even though he and I were on the same side of the political fence. I mentioned voting, and he responded that he can’t vote. I pressed him for the reason.

“I’m only sixteen.”

I had to turn around — briefly — to look at him. With his looks, demeanor, and voice, he presented himself as around 25 or so. But sixteen?

My apprehension was telegraphed by my stammering before my words could deliver the concern. “Are you going to be able to pay for this ride?”

“Oh, no worries. My mom will pay you when I get there.”

I don’t remember how we got onto the next subject, his family’s heritage, but I think I expressed my curiosity regarding his skin tone. Middle Eastern? Greek?

“We’re gypsies,” he clarified. “Have you ever seen the palm-reading places around these towns?”

“Yeah,” I lied. I’m certain I had caught a glimpse of one here or there, but I couldn’t say where one was off hand.

“My parents own those. My parents and my aunts and uncles.”

“Oh,” I nodded.

“They’re just big scams.”

I stifled a laugh. “Really?!”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s all bullshit. I mean, come on! We’re gypsies. It’s what we do.”

“So what exactly does that mean, ‘gypsy?’ I mean, I know gypsies are somewhat nomadic. What is your family’s heritage?”

“We’re gypsies. That’s it.”

“No, I mean...” What did I mean? “Do you have any relatives from ‘the old country?’”

“Yeah. My grandmother.”

“Does she speak the language of her heritage?”

“Yeah.”

“What language is that?”

“’Romanesh.’ It’s kind of a mix of many languages, just like gypsies are a mix of many cultures. We have no country of our own. Everybody hates us, even worse than Jews. We’re just a bunch of thieves.”

I thought I heard quotation marks, in his voice the voice of his critics. I feared I was touching on a sensitive subject and, perhaps, upsetting him or making him upset himself, so I tried to switch back to a safer subject — like politics — again!

It was a long ride — about 40 minutes — and a long conversation. The topic drifted here and there, but seemed to keep coming back to Ricky’s gypsy roots.

“It’s in my blood. I was scamming when I was six years old. I had a woman — the mother of a friend of mine — giving me money every day. I told her my parents were poor and couldn’t afford to give me lunch money. She gave me ten dollars every day for months. She even bought me clothes and school supplies!”

His tales started to seem rather tall, and I began to doubt whether they were exactly what he said they were, or if they were real at all. I felt my interest begin to wane as my disbelief grew, and my feedback ‘uh-hums’ and ‘uh-huhs’ started to feel forced. But he was on a roll, now, seeming to enjoy stringing me along on his tale of con artistry.

I continued to engage him in conversation, a passive spectator to the imagery he created across the air.

“...And the whole family, basically, works scams together.”

“Like what?” As if it was any of my business.

“Okay. When it all boils down, I’m a thief.”

I suddenly got a dim view of the immediate future. “Okay, now, you’re not instilling a whole lot of confidence that I’ll get paid for this ride!”

“Oh, no,” Ricky smiled. “I’m not that kind of thief. You’ll get paid. Don’t worry.”

He might as well have added, “Trust me.”

“Here’s what I do: basically I steal tons of shit, usually from stores like Best Buy; expensive shit, electronics, small packaging and all. Then we make bogus sales receipts for each one, and then we go to different stores — never the one where we stole the shit — and use the bogus sales receipts to return the merchandise for cash.”

It all sounded plausible, and like he indeed knew from experience what he was talking about. I got a slight chill that climbed up my spine with the thought of his reasons for telling me all this, and what possible consequence — should he be legit...as it were — his divulging it to me could have.

When he finished his confession I was speechless. What would I have said? “You’re a naughty boy! Stop that!”

We approached the corner of Clark and Division streets in Chicago, and he said, “When you turn onto Clark you’ll see a psychic storefront on the other side of the street. Just pull in front of it, and I’ll run in and get your money.”

I did as he asked, and when I stopped the meter it read $67.40.

He pointed a finger toward the storefront. “See that woman in the white top?”

I looked, and I saw her.

“I’m going to go in and get the money from her.” He opened the right side rear door. “Been a pleasure talking to you. I’ll be right back.” He stood erect and then paused. He bent again to poke his head in the doorway, a wry smile stretching his face. “Keep an eye on me now. I might rip you off!”

He gave voice to the exact sentiment I was hiding in my silence! I couldn’t suppress a nervous chuckle as I blurted, “You bet I will!”

He walked across the street and into the psychic’s lair. He spoke to the woman in the white top. He pointed out the window toward my taxi. She looked out at me. She didn’t appear to have been expecting to see him, and she appeared none too pleased that he asked her for money. Gypsy thief in the family business or not, he was still a teenage headache to his parents, sucking money out of their pores.

The woman in white stepped out of view. Then Ricky stepped out of view. For a minute or two. What’s my next move if they don’t come back? Do I cross the street? Do I brace for confrontation? Do I call the cops? I chuckled at myself and at the absurdity of the situation. The kid seemed so damn likable! But then, I guess that’s the way it’s played, the grease that makes the gears turn, that which makes the con man an artist.

Without much more waiting, Ricky emerged from the psychic’s shop and approached me.

“See? I told you I’d be back!” He handed me four 20-dollar bills. “Thanks again. Keep the change!” He spun back toward the store and disappeared inside.

I rather absently checked my pockets to make sure nothing was missing, and I made my way back to the northwest suburbs, thoughts of Ricky — and more questions about him than I had answers — running through my mind.

Just about every day I drive past the house where Ricky and Susie live, and each time I pass by I look at it — usually at night — and usually there’s a light on upstairs illuminating what is either an unfurnished room or a stairway foyer, and each time I wonder. What are you up to in there?



°

Freaky Weirdness

I think it's safe to say that I'm not what most would describe as the typical cab driver. Number one, I am "the best cab driver EVER." Two, I hear enough horror stories from passengers about other cab drivers whose rude behavior, foul attitudes, and questionable driving skills have left them with elevated blood pressures. Unfortunately some of those other hacks drive for the same company, so I often find myself apologizing to the customer for the dud they got before. Three, I speak English.

I'm a nice guy; it even says so on my personal calling card. I don't know if so many other cab drivers from Eastern Europe, the Middle East or Africa are just plain unfriendly, or if their lack of a full grasp of English makes them reticent and therefore seemingly rude, or worse, if the language barrier has caused so much rude treatment from passengers that they no longer give a shit any more. All I know is that, as a taxi passenger I experienced such a lack of service at times that I had to shake my head. When I started driving a cab, I got it into my head that I would never treat passengers like baggage and, so far, I think — I hope — I haven't wavered from that.

Little Old Ladies and Fair Damsels
Good news: one of my passengers is in love with me. Bad news: she's 83 years old.

Early on in my cab-driving career I picked up Rose. The instructions for her fare, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are fairly particular: no phone calls, no mini-vans, "must be on time-SHE HAS TO MAKE IT TO DIALYSIS!!" The first time I picked her up — at 4:00am — she stood on her walk just outside her door and apologized for her slow speed, and commented that she had suffered a mild stroke some months before, and still had some difficulty walking, and she didn't see in the dark so well. So I walked to her and offered her my arm. Every time since then (I have missed a few, getting sent by the dispatcher on other calls before I could position myself in Rose's zone in time to get her fare from the computer) it has been the same scenario. I pull into the driveway of the house where she lives with her daughter, positioning the car where she has the least distance to walk. She is always, ALWAYS waiting at the front door for her cab and is often already making her way down the driveway by the time I get to her and offer my arm.

Few of the other cab drivers who have received the order for her fare have ever done that, but rather have just sat in their car and waited for her to get there. Others have helped her as I do, but, she says, those drivers have quit or otherwise disappeared.

Rose's is an extremely short ride; it's less than a mile from her home to the renal center where she has her dialysis done, and the fare is only $3.80. That pisses off most cab drivers. I go out of my way to make sure I get the call so that Rose is taken care of properly. She's Italian, and was delighted to learn that I am half Italian. She has promised to portion off some of her family's approaching holiday meal for me to take home with me, and she has told me I'm in her will! She has said to me repeatedly, "You are with god," or something like that, in answer to which I just bite my tongue and smile. It's not that I fear to upset her or that I don't want to start an argument, but rather that I fear she might be carrying a rolling pin in her bag. She might be a frail old woman, but she is Italian, so she probably has a few good swings in her, and, despite the macular degeneration, no doubt has excellent aim!

---+++---+++---+++---+++---+++---

This morning I had dropped off Rose at the renal center and made my way toward the shopping center where I normally sit and wait for the computer to assign me my rides, about 10 miles away to the northeast from Rose's renal center. Around 4:20am, perhaps not quite halfway there I was on a wide stretch of main arterial roadway approaching a pass beneath an interstate highway. There I saw a most peculiar thing: a car straddled the center dividing curb, its emergency flashers activated. As I neared the car the thought ran through my mind: How the fuck did you get THERE? The dividing curb is, at the very least, eight inches high. At the nearest intersections on either side of the bridge, the curb is much too wide for the car to straddle, so I had no clue how the car got there.

But then I realized the car was probably stuck. There were no emergency vehicles around, so I decided to stop, if only to make sure that the driver was unhurt and had called anyone for help. I pulled in front of the car and into the narrow end of the nearby left-turn lane, activated my emergency flashers, and got out of my cab.

As I approached the car, a very attractive young woman got out from the driver's side (into the opposite-direction traffic lane!) and approached me. She was holding her mobile phone to her ear and was frantic and near tears as she tried to explain to me what had happened.

After spending the evening in Chicago, she had driven a friend to his car at a nearby commuter train station in this far northwest suburb, and then headed toward home in a west suburb about 20 miles to the south. She told me she was simply exhausted (though she admitted having had a couple drinks early the evening before, I didn't smell any alcohol on her) and in unfamiliar territory. She made a left turn toward the underpass, but misread the intersection and started heading east in the westbound lanes. She had quickly realized her error and, thinking she could hop the median, she attempted to do so, and got hung up on it, with the underbelly of her car resting on the concrete shelf about two feet wide.

Jen, as she told me her name, didn't know what to do, so I helped her to calm down and told her she needed to call a towing company. She looked up the nearest on her internet-enabled mobile phone, and was told a truck would be there in about 30 minutes. She kept voicing her wish that we could just push the car to a point where her front tires could get traction, and she could just drive off, but I showed her that her driver's side rear-wheel wasn't even touching the ground. Unless the Incredible Hulk happened to drive by, there was no way we two were going to make that car budge.

I told her that, if a policeman happened to show up, she shouldn't tell him that she was "simply exhausted," but to just stick with the "unfamiliar territory" part because, even if her car was drivable, he probably wouldn't let her drive home if she was indeed that pooped. I then told her that I would stick around to wait with her and, if she couldn't drive the car home, I would take her.

Some passer-by must have reported an accident because, just as the tow truck arrived, so did no fewer than four cops: two Cook County Sheriff's deputies, one Illinois State Police trooper, and one local municipal cop! At first they believed there had been a crash, but after I told them, and then Jen told them that I had come along shortly after her mishap and offered to help her, I actually saw one of them gesture toward me and heard him tell her, "He's a nice guy."

See?

The young driver of the tow truck made his assessments, called his supervisor, made some more assessments, and determined that he didn't have the right kind of truck to get the car off the curb. The local cop called another towing service, and told us it would probably be another ten minutes until that one arrived.

After the deputies and the trooper left, the local cop stuck around to keep traffic clear of our area while we each waited in our cars for the tow truck. As I was in front of everyone, I noticed in my rear-view mirror that the cop was talking to Jen through her open driver's side window. He was fairly young, so I figured he was making time with the beautiful young Jen. Hell, I would've were I he. Him...?

A few minutes later I heard a soft knock on my window. It was the cop, telling me that he had instructed Jen to get in my cab after her car was squared away, and to have me take her home. I told him that I had already offered, and that I would cut her a break on the steep fare the trip would be, not wanting to take advantage of her, and all. At least not financially.... OOPAAHH!

He told me that she was to go home, and that if she told me to take her to her car, I was to call the police and let them know. Great. Conscripted snitch.

The flatbed tow truck driver arrived and within 15 minutes had Jen's car off of the median and on his truck. The cop said that the car was being taken to a nearby auto dealer where the tow truck driver would leave instructions for their service department to assess any damage to the undercarriage and make sure it was roadworthy.

Jen said that the cop had told her that if she directed me to where her car was taken, he would arrest her! The poor kid was embarrassed, exhausted yet certain she was okay to drive, and fearful of confronting her uncle and his wife, with whom she lives, the latter whom is the co-signer with Jen on the car loan.

I entered her address in my GPS and told her to just try to relax on the drive and maybe take a nap. However, on the way we got into a conversation. She's 25 years old, a student in her final year of a management degree at a local university. We got to talking about the suburb where she lives with her aunt and uncle, and I asked if she grew up there. She said, "No. I grew up in the south suburbs."

"Really?" I asked.

I grew up in the south suburbs, in a town so far south and to the edge of the same huge county that holds Chicago — Cook County — that when I mention Chicago Heights, I assume no one has heard of it, let alone knows where it is. So unless I'm talking with another south suburbanite, I simply refer to my childhood roots as "the south suburbs."

"I'm from the south 'burbs. Which one?"

She said it with the confidence of a long-lost child, certain no one was ever going to find her. "Chicago Heights."

It was our good fortune that we were stopped at a red light at the moment. In mild shock I slapped the steering wheel. "You're kidding me!"

"What? Why?"

"Did you go to Bloom [High School]?"

"Yes...?"

I reached my right arm back behind the passenger side front seat and offered my hand.

"What are you doing?!"

I couldn't find the word, "alumna" in my vocabulary, so all I blurted out was, "Alma Mater! That's my Alma Mater!"

It was her turn to be shocked. What a freaky, weird coincidence that she could be stranded so far from her home in so unfamiliar a place, and the one dude who comes to her rescue, himself so far removed from the place of his roots, is from her home town!

"Oh, wow! This is so strange!" She took my hand in hers, warm and soft, and squeezed gently.

We shared a few of our individual memories from "da Heights" — as it is not always affectionately referred to — and our mutual sadness at its slow demise, a once hale and hardy, thriving burg, now a dying patient withering away to skin and bones, pocked with sores and cancers and important things missing.

I got her home, charged her $25 for a $56 fare, in return for which she authorized a $30 charge on her debit card.

The incident ate up most of my morning, precious Monday hours ripe for airport rides for good money. But sometimes doing something nice for someone, or doing something for someone in need is worth more than any amount of money I could have made in those hours. Bonus that she was über-cute. Double bonus that we're homies!

Scene From a Taxi Cab — The Sequel

The cab sits at one corner of an intersection in the trendy downtown area of the quaint suburb, an intersection with one bar on each of three corners, and three on the fourth. It is a fairly slow night, so the cab driver has decided to try his luck trolling along the stream of passers-by on the street.

Before too long the right side rear passenger door opens and a woman gets in quickly, sitting heavily with a sigh.

"How are you, tonight?" she asks, her tongue thick with the effects of much alcohol.

The hairs on the driver's neck stand up as the woman's voice rings familiar in his ears. He turns to look at her, but his memory is too foggy. Could it be her?

"I'm well. And you?"

"I'm good," she says. "But I'm ready to go home."

After a beat waiting for her to give him an address, the cabbie asks, "And where would that be?" all the while feeling quite certain he knew.

"I'll tell you the way."

The cab driver heaves his own heavy, quiet sigh, fearing another wild goose chase through the streets of this town. He puts the car in gear and rolls forward.

"Are we... what street is this?" the woman asks, twisting around in her seat to take in her surroundings, her display of awareness encouraging to the driver.

"We're on Vail, ma'am," replies the driver. "Cambpell is just behind us."

"Okay. Take a left at the next street."

He drives according to her instructions.

Mere seconds later the passenger heaves another sigh. "I just moved here recently."

"Where from?" Now he is convinced this is the same woman.

"Oh, from points far away..."

"Cagey," the driver thinks to himself as he secretly rolls his eyes.

Her instructions are precise and accurate, and within only a few minutes of leaving the bar, the cab pulls up to the woman's apartment building. It is indeed the very same place. She is indeed the very same woman.

"How much is it?" she asks, squinting at the red LED of the meter.

"Three-eighty," recites the driver. He recalls the woman's previous ride in his cab and the fare of $8.00, and appreciates just how confused and disoriented — and drunk — the woman was the last time. He also remembers that she was three dollars short then, too.

The woman hands him a five-dollar bill. He pulls out a single dollar bill to make change, as he never assumes a passenger will tip, but before he can hand it to her, she says, "Wait. Give me the five back."

The driver does as she asks, and she then hands him a ten-dollar bill. "Give me three back."

The driver adds two more singles to the one he has already pulled out, and hands them all to her.

"Thanks."

"You're very welcome."

The woman pauses a moment, and then hands the three singles back to the driver. She opens the door, pauses, and then says, "Make sure I get inside, okay?"

"Absolutely." The driver looks at her over his shoulder.

The woman lingers. She opens her wallet again and pulls out the five-dollar bill she had originally chosen to pay with, and hands it to the driver. "Thanks."

"Thank you!"

"Have a good night!" The woman leaves the car and slams the door.

The cab driver, true to his word, stays and watches the woman make her way to her apartment, the very same 6B to which he helped her the last time they met. As she enters her apartment and shuts the door, the irony strikes him that, despite her lack of memory of their first meeting, she had not only repaid him for the amount she fell short the last time, but she had tipped well for both rides!

He pulls away from the apartment building and catches a glimpse of a pair of street signs, and is struck with the revelation that there is a GPS problem with this part of town: Salem and Miner do intersect.

Resurfacing

Hello. Remember me? I have been woefully remiss in contributing to my blog. It's not necessarily that anyone cares, but if one is to maintain a presence somewhere, one has to be... well... present.

Much has gone on in the month and a half since I last posted, mainly in the taxi, as that is where I have spent practically Every. Last. Waking. Moment. of my life recently. Let's see... there's the story about the gypsy kid, and the one about the ousted husband, and then there's the return of the drunk lady, and another about the polite puker.

Last, and certainly not least, is the story of Lucky Stiff, with photos (all of them of me, of course (ooh! Freaky use of "of," no? Heh!)).

With this post to act as a sort of syllabus for the course of the next few, I can be held to sharing all of them with you over the course of the next few days or weeks. ...or months.


Cast and crew of Lucky Stiff, Northeastern Illinois University
Stage Center, November 19 - December 12, 2009, with me
front and almost sorta center, where I belong.



°

Shack My Crit Up!

"They're playing that??!!"

One of the way more cool — in my opinion — Chicago classic rock radio stations, WDRV The Drive 97.1 FM (look for their live stream on their website!) is doing their twice- or three-times-a-year "The Drive A to Z," where they select around 2000 titles from their library and then play through them in alphabetical order. It takes them about eight days to get through them, and it's something I enjoy immensely when I get the chance to listen, because they invariably play some songs you just don't hear on the radio very often any more...if at all.

This evening I was driving alone in the cab while they were playing through the Ds, when I heard what my brain couldn't process as reality: Dueling Banjos.

"Dueling Banjos??!! They have that in their library?!"

Naturally, I cranked the tune, as I haven't heard it in years, certainly not in its entirety.

After the final, electronically reverberated, curt chord dissolved into silence, the DJ's voice intoned, "Yes we did."

It's rare that subtle DJ humor so effectively elicits a belly laugh from me, but this was too absurd. Crack up I did!



°

The $52 Tip

At risk of belaboring the fact that I’m a taxi driver these days, I share another story from behind the wheel. One surprising observation I have made since starting the night shift about three weeks ago is that I have drunk passengers more frequently on weeknights than I do over the weekends.

One evening last week — Tuesday or Wednesday — it might have even been the same night as the woman who didn’t know where she lived — I received a fare notice to pick up a passenger named Kevin at a 7-Eleven store nearby. It was only about eight minutes away, and the roads were desolate. I arrived at the convenience store and saw no one waiting outside, and the only person inside was the store clerk sweeping the floor. I stepped in and asked if someone named Kevin, waiting for a cab, was here. The guy looked at me with a confused expression, and said, “No.”

I had another fare or two afterwards, and then I got a fare to pick up at a particular address, which the dispatch message indicated was a White Hen Pantry. The name on the order was Antonio. I drove past where the address was supposed to be, but there was no White Hen Pantry. I drove in both directions along the road to see if there was one a block or two in either direction, but there was not. I returned to the address and saw that there was a liquor store there, and there was a man waving at me. He seemed a little upset — and drunk — and asked me what took me so long. I explained the confusion, seeing as there was no White Hen for miles around the liquor store. Then I asked the guy if he was Antonio.

“NO!” he shouted. “I’m Kevin.” One must bear in mind that we were several miles away and hours after the no-show at the 7-Eleven store.

I put two and two together and realized the call was indeed for Kevin, so I told him to hop in. He carried a plastic grocery bag containing I don’t know what, and he clutched a bottle of some kind of liquor, the brand or spirit I could not make out. Immediately, he said, slurring heavily, “How ‘bout you turn off that meter? You’ll make a lot of money with me. I’m serious.”

It sounded as though he wanted me to do something shady or illegal — or he wanted my help for him to do something illegal. I told him that I had to leave it on so that my dispatcher knew I had a customer and wouldn’t try to send me to another fare. He kept insisting I turn it off in return for some grand jackpot at the end of the ride, but I kept refusing.

He never told me an address, just gave me directions: turn here, go past that light and take the first left, etc.

The first stop along the way was a grocery store that appeared open, but was not. He got back in the car and once again insisted that I turn off the meter, or I wouldn’t see the cash potential.

So I turned it off. He told me to roll on. At the end of the parking lot where the grocery store and a strip mall are, he guided me to a bank’s drive-up ATM stand. There was the cash potential of which he spoke! He stepped out of the car and got some cash, and then got back in and directed me forward. The meter was on again, and this time, when he told me to turn it off, I said, “Look, if you’re going to pay me as handsomely as you say you are, then what difference does it make what the meter reads?”

He replied with indifference. He directed me around a corner, beyond which loomed a large gas station, closed.

“Shit!” He muttered. Despite the fact that he had been sipping from his bottle for the entire ride, it was apparent he was looking for another place to buy liquor. I began to wonder if Antonio at the “White Hen” liquor store had refused his business.

After one more unsuccessful attempt at getting me to turn off the meter, Kevin said, “Okay, my friend. I guess you’re not interested in making a lot of cash. Just take me home.” I followed his directions until he told me to stop outside an apartment complex. He asked me what he owed me.

I said, “Well, the meter shows eight dollars, but the first time you got me to turn it off, it read thirteen dollars.” I knew, if it ever came down to an argument and calling a cop, I was likely stuck with what the meter read at the moment. “Just pay me whatever you want.” I really just wanted him and his stupid, drunken game out of my cab.

Kevin handed me a twenty-dollar bill and said nothing. I never assume — at least not out loud — that I’m being given a tip, so I made change and handed back twelve dollars. He sat there with a smirk on his face for a few moments, and then he handed the change back to me.

He got out of the car, stood by the open rear door, and then he said, “Here,” and he handed me another twenty.

“Thank you very much,” I said, as it was indeed very generous. He weaved off on his way to I know not where.

A little while later, after the night had gone quiet, I moved to the back seat of my cab so I could try to go online outside a free WiFi hotel. I had no success at that particular moment, and, for no apparent reason, I looked down at the seat. Obscured in the shadows cast by the front seat in the harsh dome light of the cab was another twenty-dollar bill! Kevin had indeed come through on his promise to make the night worth my while, but not entirely as he had intended!! The good Samaritan in me was inspired to take the money back to him, however the closest I could get to him was the apartment complex where he lives. I know not which building or apartment is his.

So, score one — or 52 — for Farrago!



°

Scene From a Taxi Cab

The cab pulls up to the bar, the driver searching for the name of the establishment to be sure he’s at the correct address. Outside the bar, a young man points at the cab driver, indicating that he’s the one who called. Next to him is a fairly attractive blond woman, but she is apparently quite drunk.

The young man holds the woman by an arm and she staggers as they approach the taxi, and the driver opens the automatic rear window from the controls on his door. The young man appears displeased.

“Here ya go, buddy,” he says.

The driver consults the words on his computer’s screen. “Are you Ryan?”

The young man’s expression reads frustration; fear, even. “No, but I think he’s the one who called. We called your cab company, anyway.”

“Okay.” says the cab driver. “I’m here.”

The young man opens the rear door and guides the woman into the seat. He shuts the door and says, “She’s all yours.” He leaves without another word.

“How are you this evening?” the cab driver says cheerfully.

“Mm wunnerful,” says the woman from under her stylish hat. She neither sounds nor looks like she feels wonderful.

“Where are we off to?”

“Take me home,” she says sloshily.

The cabbie feels a twinge of the absurd. “And what’s the address?”

Silence follows. Then the woman sighs thickly. “I don’t know.”

Ever helpful, the cabbie reaches for his GPS unit on the center console between the seats. “Is it here in town?”

“Yes,” the woman slurs.

As the cab driver begins to tap on the screen the name of the town, the woman gushes, “It’s at Salem and Miner.”

The cab driver backs out of the GPS address finder and goes back in through the intersection finder, entering the name of the town again. After entering the second street name, the GPS unit reads, “No information.” The streets don’t intersect.

“I can just tell you how to get there,” blurts the woman. And as the cabbie puts the car in gear, the woman adds, “He said it would all be paid for...”

Another twinge hits the cabbie, and he quickly decides that, since this is a short ride anyway, it’s most important that this woman get home safely. If she has no money, so be it.

He drives the car under the inebriated woman’s direction and, after her second utterance of “Where are you taking me?” he decides that following her directions is an exercise in futility. He stops the car and asks her again for the address.

“It’s at the intersection of Salem and Miner.”

“Ma’am, the GPS says those streets don’t cross.” He thinks for a moment. “Do you have your driver’s license? I’ll just get the address from that.”

“Yeah, I have my driver’s license,” she blathers. “Oh. But I don’t have one for this county. I just moved here.”

Gritting his teeth, the cabbie says, “Can you remember the address? If you can’t, then we’re stuck here.”

In drunken despair the woman whines, “Please help me.”

“I’m doing my best, ma’am,” says the exasperated cabbie, “but without an address, I can’t get you home.”

The woman heaves a huge sigh. “202 north Salem.”

“Excellent!” says the cab driver as he subtly shakes his head in the dark car and enters the new information into the GPS unit.

No more than a minute into the trip, the cabbie hears the sound of a cigarette lighter being operated. He turns to face the woman. “There’s no smoking in this cab, ma’am.”

She flicks the lighter again.

“Ma’am, this is a no-smoking cab! Please put the cigarette away.”

The flame licks the end of the cigarette, and the tobacco glows red.

The cabbie pulls to the curb and stops the car. “Ma’am! There is no smoking in this cab, PLEASE PUT THE CIGARETTE OUT.”

She says, “Okay. It’s out.”

The cabbie looks at the cigarette still clutched in her fingers and notices that the cigarette is indeed out. How she managed that he could not guess.

A mere few hundred yards down the road, the cabbie hears the lighter flick again. He just wants to be rid of this woman, now, so he simply opens both rear windows and locks out the rear controls so she can’t close them. He takes silent glee when he hears the woman pushing her window button to no avail.

The GPS guides them to the address, but the woman points to a building across the street. “It’s that one there.”

There’s no parking lot entrance from the street they’re on, so the cabbie backs the car to the intersection and pulls to an entrance across the sidewalk, but it is clearly not a parking lot entrance, but rather to a loading dock of some sort. “Ma’am, are you sure this is it?”

“Yes, I’m sure. You have to go back to the other street.”

Gritting his teeth again, the cabbie reverses the car back onto the street and returns to the street where he originally stopped.

“It’s this one,” says the woman, this time pointing to the building opposite the one she indicated the first time, right where the GPS had guided them in the first place.

The cabbie stops the meter at $8.00. The woman digs in her wallet and produces a five-dollar bill. The cabbie can see that it is the only paper currency there.

“That’ll do. Let’s just get you home.”

The woman looks at him. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“I’m Tony,” he says.

“Tony, I love you!”

He steps out of the car and walks around to the passenger side rear door, which the woman has already opened. He offers a hand, which she accepts, and guides her toward the building, entirely uncertain if she’s even at the right place.

“Which apartment is it?” he asks.

“Six B,” comes her reply.

Of course, six B is on the second floor. The cabbie is fearful that she’ll never make it up the stairs on her own, so he helps her stagger up both flights, and then he helps her to her door.

The woman fumbles for a minor eternity in her purse, but can’t find the keys, so she thrusts the purse at the cabbie who takes the handles and holds the purse open in order that the woman can fumble two-handed. She produces a set of keys and lunges at the lock, but she can’t manage to single out a key, let alone fit it into the lock. She thrusts the keys at the cabbie, and he finds one that looks like a house key. It slides into the lock effortlessly, but, try as he might, he can’t turn it.

“Are you SURE this is your apartment? Are we at the right building?” he asks, picturing a man on the other side of the door, trembling in fear and aiming a shotgun at the door.

“Yes, this is my place.” The woman tries the door handle, but the door is still locked. “God, I have to pee.”

“The key’s not turning, Ma’am. I don’t know what else to do.”

She lunges at the door once more while the cabbie, stuck with his own sense of responsibility, looks helplessly down at his cab parked at the curb, beckoning him return.

Finally, a minor miracle occurs and the door opens to reveal a fairly nice interior and an unenthusiastic, white Pekingese looking up at her as if to say, “Again?”

The woman staggers to the doorway, and the cabbie puts one, final steadying hand on her back. She makes a futile grab for his hand and stumbles into her own living room and says, “Wait. Come here.”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” says the cab driver, backing away from the doorway, HELL NO! screaming through his mind. “I’m not allowed to go inside.” He pulls on the door handle. “You have a nice night, now!”

“No! Wait!” In her attempt to keep the door open, her weight carries forward and she pushes the door shut.

Heading down the stairs, the cabbie chuckles to himself, shakes his head, and pities the woman for the morning she is about to endure.



°

Bad Night

It seems odd to me that this taxi driving job started out, with no interference from the taxi cab company, as somewhat idyllic: extremely nice people getting into my cab, some of them gorgeous young, talkative women; people really appreciative of my efforts at courtesy and good service. And the money seemed adequate, with a hint of being good in the future.

Large Richards
Lately, however, things have been a bit on the side of suck. At least once a night for the past two weeks I have received dispatches either to addresses that don't exist, or to existent addresses where no one has called for a cab (a no-show). I guess some people have plenty of time in their schedules to be dicks. I just wonder if they're sitting somewhere they can see the cab as it pulls up to where the address is supposed to be so they can stick their hands down their pants for the final glee as the driver searches in futility, or if it suffices just to know that a cab is being sent to wherever their cell-deficient brains asked for it to be sent.


My First Scary Ride
Sunday night I started around 9:00, about an hour earlier than what I had established as the usual. After one no-show call, I received another dispatch, with a pickup name of Danny. It was an apartment block in a nice enough looking neighborhood in a nice, clean, suburban town. As usual, the number was nonexistent in the building, or the block was laid out weirdly and the building with the number I was looking for was on the other side of the block. Honestly, I don't know how the police can find these places in emergencies.

I pressed the Callout function on my cab's computer, which then triggers a computerized call to the customer announcing that the cab has arrived, and then instructing the customer to enter the number of minutes he or she would like the cab to wait.

I received a "Coming out in 1 minute" response. And then almost immediately a man came out shaking his head. Danny came to the cab and asked if he could pre-pay twenty dollars with a credit card for me to take his nephew only a few blocks down the road. He absolutely could, and after the card was authorized and the transaction completed, he directed me around to the back of the complex where he said his nephew was waiting. On the way I asked him for the address to where his nephew was going. Uncle Danny said he didn't know; the nephew would tell me. The nephew, around age 20 or so, by my estimate, said good-bye to his uncle and then got in. I asked him the address of where he wanted to go, and he said, "I think it's 2421."

"Street name?"

"Uhhh. I don't know the street name." A little alarm bell went off in my head.

"Do you know how to get there? You can just guide me."

"Okay. Yeah. I'll guide you."

So then we commenced on a meandering path from that town to the one adjacent. He directed me only to major roads and seemed to have no clue. More alarm bells. I had started the meter so that the dispatcher would know that I had a customer, as well as to know just how much of a tip I was going to wind up with at the end of the trip. At $9.20 on the meter, the nephew said, "Can you take me back to my uncle's? I'll just stay there and have to [mumble, mumble]... Is that okay?"

Trying to conceal my frustration, I said, "It's fine."

I set the GPS to the original address because I knew we had not traveled in the most time-efficient manner, and, by the meter, I was already nearly halfway through the pre-paid amount.

I dropped him at the place where I had picked him up, and he asked, "How much?"

I said, "Your uncle already paid."

Nephew got out of the car, and I beat it out of there. A few minutes later I called the dispatcher to tell him there was something fishy about that ride. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was suspicious of the whole thing. The dispatcher asked me if it looked like the kid was trying to make some sort of drug deal connection. I told him that I saw nothing of that sort, but felt possibly that he was casing the cab, perhaps for a later attempt to do something to me or another driver. But would they pay $20 to do that? Maybe if it wasn't their credit card...

Later in the evening I had another call to a different town, this time for Benny. After "Danny," the alarm bells were ringing again. I activated the Callout function, and the response was that the customer would be out in one minute. Five minutes later no one had come down from the apartment. I pressed the Callout again, and again I received a one-minute response. Five more minutes later (that's the time I'm required to wait before I can request a callout or request a no-show) there was still no one in or near my cab. So I pressed the no-show request function. No sooner had I done that than two young men came out of the apartment building. They stood behind the car for a few moments while one of them finished smoking a cigarette. Then they got in the car. The one on the passenger side said, "Why you didont call?" His voice was thick with an eastern European accent.

"I did call," I said, but my answer apparently didn't matter to him, nor did the fact that I "didn't" call. "I tell you where to go."

Amid a non-stop conversation with his friend in what I can only guess was Russian...maybe Ukrainian, he directed me to another apartment building about $7.00 away. Then he asked if I could then take them to "the liquor store. Is good for you, yes?"

"Absolutely," I replied, while the voice in my brain was replying, "Get the fuck out of my car!"

So I drove them to the liquor store, waited for them to get their elixir of choice — while fearing they were going to rob the place — and then returned them to their destination. The fare was $11.00, and the guy gave me $18. Not so bad for being a somewhat unnerving couple of passengers.


What the Suck?
I spent the rest of the night fighting — and losing to — the urge to sleep. One more fare from a bar I've picked up from at least twice each week that I've worked nights, and Rose, my dialysis Gramma who loves me, and for whom I park in her zone at 3:30am so I'll get the call to pick her up (the dispatch computer sends the closest cab).

From 4:00 on it was so dead out there that my computer booked me off for lack of activity! I had sat on one post for more than three hours, so I decided to move, and to get a breakfast sammich and some coffee. Of course, no sooner had I started on my way than my computer came to life with a fare! Easy pickins, the guy was headed to a nearby commuter train station, where I dropped him off.

When I booked back in to the system, I saw there was an open fare in a town about ten miles away. I have no idea how long it had sat open, but I booked it within a minute or two of seeing it. I fairly raced to the address, as I knew it was at least a fifteen minute ride to get there, answering the dispatcher once when I was asked my ETA to the customer, which, at that moment, was less than five minutes. The customer never canceled, but when I got to the address, the Callout response came back as "Invalid response or no answer." At that point I have to wait five minutes before I can ask for a No-show, but after the alloted time I did another Callout, just in case the caller was on the phone or something. After another five minutes, I hit the No-show. Fucker.

From there I finally got my breakfast, and then I went to the Village of Schaumburg office to turn in my application for a chauffeur's license.

So, on the night, I took in $52. I spent $21 to fill the gas tank at the end of my shift. The chauffeur's license application cost $60 (and that's the half-year rate!). I finished the night $29 in the hole.

Aren't jobs supposed to make you money?



°

Dietro il Volante

I wound up not being required to attend the play rehearsal Saturday afternoon, so I chose to work extra hours Friday night. It didn't amount to a hill of beans — or cash — like I had hoped it would. It was especially slow for a Friday night. That, or there were a lot of other cabs out there.

I was asked to help out in one of the oft-abandoned west zones, and the dispatcher told me he would help me out in return later in the morning, so I did it, which led to me being sent to another fare out there, only that one was a no-show. Then he sent me a fare from Elgin to O'Hare airport, a $46 fare! But still, the night amounted to a small mound, not a hill.

In the morning I booked off at 9:30 and headed to the Apple store at Woodfield Mall to see if they had a car power adapter for my Mac laptop. They did, but it was too much product for what I need. Thanks, but I don't want 2 USB ports, an espresso maker, and a sock warmer as part of the package. What, is the thing manufactured by U.S. politicians? I'll have to look online.

Then I went to the Verizon store to see how much it would cost to get an "air card" so I can get online from my cab during the slow times at night. Too much, it turns out, so, if I can find an affordable power transfigurometator, I'll only be writing in the cab, and not posting.

As I was leaving the parking area near the Verizon store, an older gentleman very timidly hailed me — with his index finger up in the air, not the typical "Hitler salute" kind of hail. It actually took a second for it to register that he was actually signaling me!

I was off duty, and I really wanted to go home, but then the newly awakened business man in me thought, "ees more money!" so I cranked my window down. He spoke in another language, something like "libero Woodfield Mall." It sounded like Spanish to me. Then he showed me words written on the back of a computer-printed map: "Woodfield Mall."

At first I thought he was just asking directions, but then I said, "You want to go?"

He said, "Yes."

I booked back in to the dispatch system and started the meter. Woodfield Mall was literally only blocks away, but the fare was going to be at least enough to pay for the steak, egg, and cheese bagel I had just eaten at McDonalds in Woodfield before I hit the Apple store! As we neared an entrance to the mall parking lot, I asked him "Which store do you want to go to?"

He replied, "Centro commerciale." Only the second word was pronounced "ko-mehr-chee-AL-ay." That's Italian!

I asked him, "Are you speaking Español, or Italiano?"

He said, "Oh, no! Italiano!"

I smiled and blundered through the few words of Italian I know: "I'm Italiano! Mi nonno di Abbruzzo! Castel di Sangro." I'm Italian! My grandfather is from the Abruzzo region. The town of Castel di Sangro." At least I think that's what I said. Either that, or I told him I wanted to taste his underpants. I have to find my Italian phrase book.

He said, "Ah, Abbruzzo! L'Aquila; Pescara." (towns in the region). And then, in pretty good English, "I know Castel di Sangro."

By then it was time to drop him off. The meter read $5.40 — which, I believe, was the exact amount of my steak, egg, and cheese bagel and cup of coffee. It was the end of the ride for him, but the end of a really neat experience for me. I had the chance to mangle someone else's native language for him, and he got to meet the ascendant of century-old Italian expatriates. He gave me six dollars. He said he wanted something back, and I thought it was change, but he actually just wanted a receipt. So he left me with a sixty-cent tip.

Cheap dago bastard.



°

Behind the Wheel

A view of the back seat in a taxi cab

On Friday I completed my first full week working full-time as a cab driver. While I haven't met any truly interesting characters — yet — there have been some interesting people passing through nonetheless, brief visits, short conversations about a wide range of topics — or absolutely no conversation at all — and then the silence of an empty rear seat within the hum of the wheels rolling me toward the next fare.

It's unfare, I tell ya!
As I am still new to the job, I am at a distinct disadvantage to the other, more veteran drivers receiving dispatches from the same company. To keep the technical part brief, the company has divided our service area into zones that are marked off electronically by a radio-GPS system. The computer/radio in each car is constantly transmitting and receiving, and the central dispatch computer can inform the human dispatcher where any car is at any given time. If I'm in a zone where a customer lives who has called for a taxi, and if I have priority in that zone (no other cab arrived there before me), then the computer will automatically assign me the fare. If no cabs are in the zone where a customer needs a ride, the zone number goes up on the in-car computer screen, and any driver who wants that fare must press a request code and the number of the zone where the fare is waiting. When it's busy, the veteran drivers who know which zones are close enough to them to make it worth their while, and that of the customer, can enter the request into their computers very quickly, whereas I must still consult the book to see if the open fare is in a zone close enough for me to get to in a timely fashion. Quite often, before I have even grabbed the training book to find the town corresponding to the zone, the fare is snapped up by another driver.

It's the nature of the game in a pool full of sharks. What is more frustrating is that quite often these other drivers abandon the zones to the far west and northwest, and those fares will sit open for quite a long time. I have made some of my best money chasing those fares while the other drivers hold out for the longer rides to the airport.

The most frustrating, however, is chasing one of those fares a l o o o n g way, only to arrive at the customer's house and learn from his wife that he left "20 minutes ago... in another cab." GRRRR!


The cab driver diet
I have shared in these pages my efforts to lose some weight and get into shape. I had started in February, and through July I had managed to go from 210 lbs down to 190. That was five months and change, and I remained at the 190 lb. plateau through the rest of the summer.

In one week of working twelve-hour shifts I have dropped another five pounds. I have been acutely aware of how easy it is to eat poorly when there are so many poor options on practically every street corner. I have restricted myself to one or two sausage McMuffin with egg sandwiches from McDonalds each morning, and some variation of a balanced protein/carb, light meal in the evenings. I have not eaten lunch all week, and I have spent an average of $11 per day to eat.


"The best cab driver ever!"
One of the things I have noticed as a taxi cab customer is how often the cab driver does little more for the passenger than open the trunk to allow the passenger to put his or her own luggage in, drive the passenger to the destination, and collect the payment. In the training class the instructor emphasized the customer service aspect this company tries to push. I don't know if it's that emphasis, or if it's my experiences as the paying customer, but I have fully embraced the service aspect of this job. Granted, that may change when there's six inches of snow on the ground and 18 degrees on the thermometer, but we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.

I worked days my first week, with a brief taste of the action on Friday and Saturday nights. As the next weekend approached I decided to try working nights to see if it would be lucrative.

Within five minutes of firing up the computer and booking into the system Friday night at 10:00, I was running to pick up a fare to the airport. I didn't even get a chance to buy a cup of coffee! From the airport, on my way back to my designated work area, I received a fare in the zone through which I was passing: a pickup of two women at a motel. I arrived, went inside and asked the desk clerk to call their room and let them know their cab was there, and, when they came down, the cab was sitting at the lobby entrance with the rear doors open. I stood by the open door and closed it after they got in. They were two young women from Michigan in town to see Pink in concert the next night. But Friday night they wanted to go to a nightclub called Hunters, which I learned only a few days prior — from my cab driver trainer — is a gay bar. I asked the ladies why they wanted to go there, and one of them said, "Because there's nothing else to do in this crappy little town!"

At first I thought she meant Chicago, but before I opened my mouth I realized she meant that little suburb where they were staying. They were tired from driving all day, and they didn't want to go too far for some fun. The taller one seemed perhaps a little drunk, and she was flirting with me, saying that she thought bald heads were sexy. Then she said she thought guys with long, flowing hair were sexy, too. It then occurred to me that she was probably okay with most any guy as long as he had a head.

We arrived at Hunters, and suddenly the girls were nervous. Flirty girl (I think her name was Kimmy) asked me if I would come in with them...I could leave the meter running! I said, very politely, "Aw, HELL NO!" I gave them a business card with my name and mobile number handwritten on it, and told them they could call me if they wanted me, specifically, to drive them back, but I warned them that if I was busy, they might have to wait, or I might not be available at all. They went inside, and as I pulled away, I saw a transgendered man with butt implants out to HERE, huge boobs, puffy lips and wearing a short, red 'fuck me' dress heading toward the club entrance, and I thought out loud, "I'm SO glad I'm leaving!"

Twenty minutes later they called. By the sound of the woman's voice on the other phone, they were in WAY over their heads! Unfortunately, as I was leaving the parking lot at Hunters, I grabbed a fare that turned out to be a long ride from a comedy club at the local mega-mall to a hotel all the way down in the city!!

It was actually eight women in two cabs, and when the organizer of the group, and the caller of the cab company, saw me, she was thrilled that I was under the age of 60. Apparently their ride from their hotel to the suburbs had been helmed by an elderly limo (van) driver who had to stop along the way because he realized he was wearing the wrong glasses. These poor women had seriously feared for their lives. My four ladies were quite tickled by — and quite vocal about — the fact that I looked over my shoulder before changing lanes! $76 cab ride, $20 tip!

I was amazed at how busy I was Friday night. From 10:00 and the first ride, it was all pretty much non-stop until about 1:30 am. With about an hour afterward to try to catch a nap, I watched a fare sit open on the computer — another one in the far west zones — for at least 20 minutes, and no one grabbed it. Finally, and thinking it was some poor old lady trying to get home from work, I grabbed it only to discover it was a full-fare ride of about 15 miles! When I got the two young men and one young woman in the car, they pretty much ignored me for about 10 minutes until the young man snuggling with the young woman in the back seat suddenly spoke to me: "What's your name, brother?"

From there we engaged in light conversation about music, at which point I learned that the two men were in a rock band called Train Company. By the end of the ride I had learned that they had a CD out, they are enjoying some local celebrity with airplay on one of the Chicago progressive rock stations, and that if I would stick around for a couple minutes after I dropped them off, they would give me a free CD!

I haven't listened to it, yet.

Later in the morning I caught another airport ride. I grabbed it, and was a little too far away to make the scheduled pickup time. It was another fare that had sat on the computer too long. The woman was a little upset that I was five minutes late, and couldn't understand that, as she had made the call the night before. When I explained that the system calls the cab only about a half-hour before the pickup time, she calmed down a little. She was also impressed that I had gotten out of the cab and opened the door for her, and that I didn't drive like a maniac, and that I didn't smell like a week-old bath. She even said that, by the end of the ride, which she had started in a bad mood, she was in a good mood again!

The next evening my phone rang at 6:15, waking me from my fitful, daytime slumber. It was Kimmy and Krissy, the two Michigan girls, asking if I could come pick them up to take them to the concert. Of course I could!

After I picked them up, I told them the bad news that I wouldn't be able to pick them up after the concert because the village of Rosemont, where the concert venue is, has an exclusive contract with two taxicab companies, and mine isn't either of them. If I got caught picking them up, I could get a pretty hefty fine. I told them to just take one of the local, authorized taxis, and they should be just fine.

Around midnight I received another call from them. The taxi line was miles long, and could I please, PLEASE come pick them up? I asked them to walk away from the arena and the crowds and let me know where they were, and I would try to sneak around to get them. After a couple of more phone calls back and forth, I parked behind a hotel, out of sight of any of the Rosemont police officers on crowd- and traffic duty, and guided them to me.

They were very happy that I had worked so hard to get them into the cab and save them from waiting forever, and as we neared their hotel, one of them said that the next time they come to Chicago, they're calling me to be their cab driver! The other one said, "You're the best cab driver EVER!"

And I am.

Sunday night I didn't know what to expect. How much bar traffic could there be? Who was out that late on a Sunday night? Surprisingly, there was quite a bit early on, all short rides.

I received a fare that turned out to be at some bar in one of my home zones. As I arrived, the bar appeared to be closed, and I thought I had another no-show on my hands. I walked toward the doors, and they were locked. But seconds later a young man and a very attractive young woman came out and said that the other guy would be out in a few moments. That was fine with me, and as I headed toward the cab to wait, the young woman shouted, "You're the best-dressed cab driver I've ever seen!"

I turned back around, looked down at my khaki pants and my short-sleeve, button-front shirt — business casual at best — and said, "Thanks!"

She then proceeded to tell me of a worst-case scenario she had experienced in a cab, the driver of which had his small, pet dog with him that bit her and she was "bleeding all over the place." Then she said she would definitely want to ride in my cab! I was thinking that this could be a nice ride (wink, wink).

To my dismay, the other friend came out, and the two guys got in my cab, leaving the woman behind. Then I learned that the guy who had been with her and had been making out with her in the parking lot had only met her that evening. He was kicking himself and calling himself stupid because he felt he had neglected to say or do something for her. He asked me to turn around so he could go back to her, and I did. Back at the entrance, his friend talked him down, asking him, "Is it really going to make a difference?"

Tall boy got back in and said, "You're right."

And then I said, "You got her phone number, right?"

You would think I was Sherlock F. Holmes by their reaction!

And then I felt knees pressing against my kidneys through the seat foam at my back, so I slid my seat forward about an inch or two. Tall boy shouted, "Dude! This fuckin' guy is awesome!"

His friend shouted, "You're the best cab driver EVER!" I am not exaggerating. He said exactly the same thing Krissy had said a mere 24 hours earlier!

And then they both started quoting — I think — Wiseguys, and chanted, "This fucking guy! This fucking guy!"

Oh, yeah. They were both pretty drunk.

After that it quieted down for a couple of hours, during which I cat-napped. I caught a really short ride at 4:30, an old lady who needed to get to her dialysis appointment. When I left her at her destination, I got the first of three consecutive, $30-plus airport rides. cha-CHING!

I'm liking the night shift! And never have I worked ten 12-hour days in a row, and ENJOYED it! This is truly weird!



°

Strange Indeed

A tired mind goes to strange places.

I worked Sunday from around 11:30 in the morning with plans to knock off at 8:00. A couple of late calls to the far west suburbs kept me out, and then they were very difficult to find, or far to get to, and I wound up getting home around 11:00. I had planned to start Monday at 4:00 am.

Not one to be deterred, I delayed my wake-up by half an hour, started a half-hour later than I had intended, and worked 14 hours Monday on only 4 ½ hours of sleep.

After I called it a day I stopped at Rosebud of Schaumburg for their Monday all you can eat spaghetti and meatballs special. While I was waiting and watching my waiter who was also one of the bartenders, and waiting because he was really busy, the phrase "like a chicken with its head cut off" came to mind. I've never seen a chicken get its head cut off — and I don't EVER WANT to — so I've never seen if the body actually runs around, or if it just flops and flails. But then I got to wondering about the head. Does anything on the other side of the cut stay "alive" afterward?

And then my mind drifted to the poor humans who have met such a fate. I would venture to say that our bodies are a little more sophisticated than that of a chicken, but I don't recall ever hearing that the headless portion continues moving in any fashion after gravity (and that's quite a fitting word!) has had its way. And again, but what about the head? Is it like being hit with a blunt instrument, where the temporary interruption of nerve impulses cause a momentary lack of consciousness...? Only, in the case of a beheading it's permanent, of course.... Or would the sudden cessation of oxygen to the brain cause immediate lights out?

How awful that would be, no? If the last moments of cognizance were of the point of view of a window on a ball rolling around on the floor and seeing the rest of your body from a distance and perspective — and in a condition — you had never seen before!

My apologies. As I wrote above, a tired mind goes to some strange places, indeed. Time for bed!



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Life Is a (Taxi) Caberet

Times are tough. And when things get tough, the tough get going.

The rest of us take jobs as waiter or taxi driver...

I picked up my cab on Friday from a guy who owns a lot of cabs. Three million, I think. He's a big Russian guy — from Russia. People listen when he speaks, mainly because he has a great big foghorn of a voice that you can't help but listen to, as you cower in the corner protecting the glassware around you. I can't help but think "Russian mafia" when I see this guy, but I guess that's racist. We have a stereotype here for Italian mafia, what they look like, how they talk. I haven't a clue what cues Russian mob guys give out. All I know is that when I asked him, in the event of a missed weekly lease payment (mine) on the cab, if he broke fingers and toes as payment, he just smiled at me and chuckled.

So I drove around a bit on Friday, off-duty, getting a feel for the car, how it drives, how comfortable it is to me. I couldn't find the cigarette lighter outlet to save my life. I thought the car didn't have one. I even called Mario at the shop (where the big Russian guy told me to take the car for any problems). I pulled in and Mario's guy found it in two seconds, flat. See, the two-way radio is mounted to the underside of the ashtray door. I couldn't pull it down with any amount of reasonable pressure, and I didn't want to break my cab before even my first day on the job. But the really complicated trick, see, is that the ashtray pulls out, not down. I'm sure those Russian mechanics had a good smeyaatsa at my expense!

I decided to start slow. On Saturday I took care of some things for the car that I wanted to have at my disposal, like a center-console with cup holders. And then I hit the road.

The dispatch system is all computer controlled, so there's a terminal in my cab with buttons and a readout that I had to learn about in a class. I log in to the computer in the car, the central dispatch computer detects which zone I'm in by radio-GPS, and then sends information to me about how many other cabs are in my zone, how many cabs are in other zones, and any open fares where there are no other cabs.

I drove around through some of the zones in my area. In some of the zones are posts where cabs can sit and wait where there's a likelihood of people walking up and requesting a ride. I went to the huge shopping mall near me and waited for a little bit, but another cab from my company was already waiting there, so I left for another shopping center to the north.

Once there I sat for only a few minutes when my computer sent out its "you have a fare" tone, and I was on my way. My first job!! The address popped up on the computer, and I entered it into my personal GPS. They recommend that we use the GPS, but they also require us to have a 6-county atlas in the cab just in case the GPS can't find the address. Or Earth. I drove to the location, a corporate office park for Motorola.

And?

No one. I drove around that campus for 15 minutes looking for this person, and I couldn't even pique the interest of security...if there even was any. Finally, after contacting the dispatcher over the radio, and them telling me — repeatedly — that the person was at door 'D,' despite the fact that the only building at this Motorola campus that had lettered doors — from 'A' to 'S' — skipped 'B' and 'C', an Indian woman came bounding up a small hill — from another part of the office park that isn't Motorola — carrying what looked like lunch in a small plastic grocery bag. I apologized for being late (my first job!), and she politely told me where to go.

I mean, where she wanted me to take her. People tell cab drivers where to go all the time. HEY! My first cab-driver joke!

Since the train station where I took her isn't too far from where I picked her up, I returned to the office park to try to figure out where I went wrong. And I couldn't. At least, I don't think it was my mistake. The message from dispatch read "Motorola Main Entrance." I think the passenger must have referred to the main entrance as a landmark, as where she was is a smaller office complex closer to the road. And none of those buildings had a door 'D', whether apparent or obvious.

When I was doing my training/orientation with a seasoned driver (the guy was covered in salt, pepper and oregano. It was really annoying...and made me hungry), every time we approached a post at a particular Marriott hotel not too far from the big shopping mall, he would get a fare call. Nothing was happening in the zone I went to at another, smaller hotel, so I headed toward the Marriott of mention.

While I was still about ten minutes away, I got another call for a fare! This time it was a strange, funny woman I picked up at a grocery store who then wanted me to wait while she ran back inside to try to find her boyfriend's sunglasses she had accidentally left in a shopping cart.

After I dropped her off I again headed for the Marriott when I noticed an open fare in a zone that was really too far for me to chase. However, the fare had been open for at least fifteen minutes. So I "conditionally booked" it, which basically tells the dispatcher human that I'll accept the fare if he/she feels we can afford the customer waiting that much longer. He/she gave it to me, and I shot out about 20 miles west and a good bit south to pick up two fares at some sort of community college. I had done something wrong with the computer, and the dispatcher human called me to help me understand what to do next time and, oh! Hey! you have another fare in that same zone!

So I ran and picked up an apparently developmentally challenged man from his job at a grocery store.

On my way back to my "home" zones, I saw two open fares way south of where I had taken those three in the west. I figured that it wasn't worth my while, and someone would take them. Then the message came over the computer: "Zone 337, please help, anyone" which is a call to the drivers to think of the people, not the money. By that time I was already back in my home zone, but I "C-Booked" anyway, figuring the dispatcher would think me too far away. Nope. Booked.

Back all the way as far west as I had gone, and another twenty miles south, if not farther. Two different pickups, two women who, for whatever reasons, can't drive. They both seemed of sound body, so I assumed DUI. The dispatcher had told me earlier how to properly book two separate, simultaneous fares, but I think I did it wrong, anyway. And then I was definitely headed back to my home zone. I had been out on the road eight hours already, I was hungry, and I wanted to sit out at the airport for a while and maybe pick up a $30-40 fare.

Nope. Another fare in one of the far west zones, but this time only ten minutes away from where I was, to the north. I forgot to start the meter when they got in, so after the very short ride I estimated five dollars. The guy gave me eight, said thanks, and he and his wife left my cab. Since it was a short ride, I started the meter at the hotel where I dropped them and returned to the restaurant where I had picked them up. The fare came out to $6.40, so I undercharged him $1.40, but he gave me eight dollars. I was still ahead, and I hadn't overcharged him.

Okay, NOW back to the home zones, and I was STARVING!

I saw a Steak N Shake along the way and so I decided to stop there for a bite. I love their chili, so that was what I would have. However, as I tried to log out of the computer (if I don't log out when I'll be away from the car, and they send me a fare to which I don't respond, I will be suspended for 24 hours), it started having communications errors. The driver manager I tried to call wasn't answering his phone, so I decided to move to another location to try again. Nowhere around that damn Steak N Shake could I get a signal! So, about a mile and a half down the road my computer finally re-established communication, and I was still starving.

I got to the airport cab lot behind seven other cabs. The line hadn't moved, as I had observed on the computer, so I knew it was slow. By 10:00 at night on a Saturday (I had wanted to be there two hours earlier) I knew it would be. I sat there for about 20 minutes and my position in the queue hadn't changed, so I left and headed for my home zones again.

As a cab moves through all the zones, the central computer is constantly tracking it, and if that cab happens to be the only one in a particular zone when a fare in or near that zone comes up, the computer matches them and sends the cab the fare offer. A driver must accept the offer or be suspended!! So, not quite to my zones, and hoping to take some grateful drunk people home from some bars, my computer chirped to life... just as I entered a strip of road through a forest preserve with few places to turn off or turn around. About a mile down the road I was finally able to turn off and park.

I loaded the address info into my GPS and turned around. In the driveway of the pickup address I saw one very large, very drunk man in a Hawaiian shirt come weaving down toward me. He apologized(?) and asked if I could wait about five minutes. Hey, it's what I do.

A few minutes later a very drunk woman came staggering down the driveway and got in the car, followed by a plump girl of about 15. The big guy squeezed himself into the back seat with his wife and his daughter and gave me the address, saying the entire time that he would "take care of me" when I got them home.

I reached up to the meter, pressed the "extras" button — as there were two extras — and suddenly the readout on the meter showed a four-digit number!! I thought I had perhaps forgotten to shut it off, and now it was showing some outrageous amount, but then it flashed, and the numbers changed. I couldn't get the meter to show me its normal display, and in the meantime, while I fidgeted with it, a very large, very drunk man and his somewhat trim, very drunk wife were slowly asphyxiating their daughter wedged between them in the back seat of my cab.

Unsure of what to do, I called dispatch on the radio. They measured the distance to the destination address, estimated $13.00, and sent me on my way.

At their home, the big guy took care of me with a $20 bill. A 54% tip is nothing to sneeze at. I just wish I had taken them to the north suburbs instead of one town over.

It wasn't yet midnight. I had started around noon, and I wanted to put in 12 hours, so I though it was a good time to eat. I could park the cab, shut everything down, and maybe the meter would reset, or something. I knew there was a Steak N Shake on the way back to my zones, and I had been dreaming of their chili for the last three hours, so I headed there.

They were out of chili.

Thirty minutes and two BLTs later I was back in the car, learning that my night was over, because the meter was still phukked. When I got home I had $54 in my pocket that hadn't been there when I left, $10 shy of what I had pocketed since I paid for my dinner from the pile. There's another $80-100 coming to me for all the far west rides that I chased, as they were mass transit subsidized, and though each person paid me only three dollars, PACE transit will pay the difference to the cab company, who will pay me the full amount for the fares.

Maybe I don't know any better, but I say it's not bad for a Saturday.

Now to see what Sundays are like.



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40 Septembers

A strange thought occurred to me today as I headed home from an errand trip.

I know I have lamented on numerous occasions about my current jobless state, but this thought is a peculiar one, if not monumentally ...uh... trivial.

In the past 40 years, since I was 5 years old, I have never been "off" in September.

Kindergarten through senior year in high school things always started in the last days of August. In the fall after high school graduation, and after determining that I couldn't afford to go to school, I dug into my savings and started at a junior college in my home town. A year later I enrolled in my last fall semester before entering the Air Force.

Four years later I was home from military service, arriving in early November. After a few weeks I was working as a driver at a school bus company, as well as delivering for an Italian restaurant. The following September I was already in residence at Southern Illinois University, where I remained for another two and a half years, graduating mid-stream in December of 1990.

Despite the fact that it took me two years to find video production work, I did find a job not too long after graduation, again as a driver, but that time for a livery/limo service, carrying customers to and from O'Hare airport from the south suburbs. Then, in May of that year, I started as a security officer at a nuclear power plant.

Laid off a year and a half later, in January, I immediately found work at a TV station back in southern Illinois (I had applied down there amid rumors of the layoff, and interviewed immediately after I was cut loose).

In southern Illinois for two years from February that year until January of 1995, I moved down to south Georgia where I worked for four years at two different places. I did take a one week vacation in September of 1998, just a couple of months before I moved back home, but that doesn't count.

A week before Christmas, 1998, I made the move back to Chicago, where I was jobless for eight months until I got another video job at the same company — more or less — for whom I had worked in Georgia, but at a considerable cut in pay commensurate with the lower position I had accepted. That job started in August.

Little more than a year later I switched jobs again, in January of 2001, where I remained for the next eight years.

And now I'm experiencing my first September for as long as I can remember without something to do!

That may change soon, as another odd occurrence hits me as I write. My fall-back over my working years has seemed to be driving jobs. And once again, as the career prospects appear dim, I resort to the wheel. Barring any difficulties with licensing or my chosen company, I will most likely, within a week or so of this posting, begin driving a taxi cab for a living.

I sure hope there's no Louis DePalma to deal with....



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What I Didn't Do Last Summer

Five months have passed since I was laid off from the job I had longer than any other. I planned from about the second week of unemployment to chase a couple of dreams, see if I could make any headway in the new careers, and try to generate some income from them.

And?

Not so much. Admittedly, I haven't been chasing the video production work too hard, but that's the "old" career, anyway. I've been to probably a couple dozen auditions, now, mostly for short, no-budget films. My first audition, back in May, was a personal disaster, as my combined lack of physical coordination and rhythm doomed my chances for a role even as a piece of scenery!

There was a somewhat unnerving audition for a role in a film about about men with secret gay lives, in which, I was told, would be sex scenes with nudity and "simulated sex." It sounded like a fantastic challenge, but as I was interviewed by the production team, I realized in my own head and body that I was not ready for anything like that!

All of the other auditions seem to have passed into the blur of shallow memories.

I have responded to a couple of calls for extras in no-budget short films, and have gotten some camera time. The wait is still on to see if I ever get screen time.

I auditioned last week for a stage musical at Northeastern Illinois University. I performed a comedic monologue I had downloaded, and I sang "The Impossible Dream," the signature solo from "Man of La Mancha." I joked a bit with the director, received a nice compliment from the music director on my vocal range, and learned a little bit about the play, which is about a young man who, in order to receive the inheritance from his dead uncle, must perform a list of tasks lined out by his uncle...and he must do them with the dead uncle.

I landed a part in this musical, entitled, "Lucky Stiff." And, yes, you guessed it, I landed the role of the dead uncle! I joked again with the director, asking what she must have thought of my acting and singing if I got the part of the corpse! She laughed, but then she said that the role of the corpse is quite demanding, and is onstage almost the entire time! Now it sounds as though the role of the corpse might kill me!

Exciting as this all may sound, none of it is generating any income. So I have decided to seriously investigate employment possibilities as a cab driver. It appeals to me for the reason that, as an independent contractor, I can set my own schedule and still pursue freelance video production, writing, and acting opportunities.

Check in for further updates...



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OMFGravy!!

So Wednesday night I tried something new in the kitchen. I had a hankerin' for some pasta, so I thought I would heat up some canned chicken breast (from Costco) and boil up a box of elbows. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do about sauce for the pasta, but since I had a bit of bacon grease still in the pan from breakfast earlier in the day, I thought, "Gravy!"

One problem. I've never made gravy before. In just under 40 Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners that my mom and/or sisters made while I grew up in the family home, I had never quite gotten around to watching and learning exactly how one makes gravy. I knew it had something to do with pan drippings and flour...but that's about it.

So, thinking I can figure out just about anything, I boiled the water and got the pasta going, decanned the chicken chunks and got them warming gingerly in a pan, heated up the bacon grease, pulled out the bag of flour, and experimented.

I sprinkled some flour into the grease and was just a little uneasy as it bubbled up. It settled down fairly quickly, and so things were going smoothly. It didn't seem like quite enough, so I added some more flour. And then some more. It was coming along nicely, but still seemed a little loose. A little more flour and it seemed just about right.

I drained the water off the chicken chunks and slid them out of the pan and into the "gravy." Suddenly the "gravy" thickened into a paste, and glommed on to the pieces of chicken in a very ungravy-like manner.

I plated some elbows, dumped the chicken-chunk-paste on top and sat down to a nice freshly made dinner.

And it was awful. I'm no great cook, but aside from occasionally burning a few things beyond taste, I've never been unable to eat something I've made. I thought I was going to hurl!

I rolled the pasty chicken chunks off and ate just the pasta, and I threw the chicken away.

Only then did I go to the internet and look up "gravy for idiots," and I actually learned something!

Take two...
Thursday night I was contemplating my dinner choices again. I still had four-fifths of Wednesday night's pasta in the refrigerator. I felt cheated on the gravy idea that I botched. So...

Was I ready to try it again? Absolutely. The bacon grease was already there, waiting in the pan since this morning's breakfast. I threw a steak on the grill outside and actually finished cooking that before I started anything else. I put about a cup and a half of cooked pasta and a little bit of water in a small skillet and covered that over a very low flame. I got the grease warmed up and started adding flour and stirring. This time I knew to stop at two tablespoons of flour, and to let the mixture get a little pasty, and then I added just one cup of milk, stirring it in slowly, just a little bit at a time. It started to get a little too thick, so I added just another splash or two of milk.

In just a few minutes it looked perfect! But what about the taste? I sampled a bit, and determined it needed salt and pepper. As I was still sampling it, I thought I had added too much salt, so I decided it was gravy. I uncovered the meat, dumped the pasta onto the plate, poured all of the gravy (what, was I going to save some for later?) over the pasta, and sat down to eat.

And?

HOLY CRAP! Was it GOOD! It was another one of those moments in my nascent culinary journey that I couldn't believe I had made it, it tasted so damn good! And the fact that I sit here at the computer several hours later instead of doubled over a toilet proves that not only was it good, but it was edible!

So... Gravy? Check.



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Chunky Cheese Burgers

It's not often that I am inspired to cook something I've never cooked before, and even less often that I am inspired to create culinarily.

It's a word.

Sunday at my sister's house for a family gathering and pool party, we were poking light fun at my niece, #9, for the hamburgers she had made for the occasion. With a little bit of A-1 Sauce in the mix, along with some egg and diced onions, they were fairly typical of back yard cookout fare. Except for their size. She had factored too much for shrinkage on the grill and had made them huge. They wound up only slightly less huge. But give her a break; she has one year left toward her nursing degree...it's her younger sister who's the budding chef.

The diced onions were cut fairly large, too, and that gave me an idea, which I tried today. I saw the chunks of onion and thought, "What if that were cheese?" Imagine thick squares of cheddar embedded in your piping hot burger, oozing out when you bite into it!

So Tuesday I gave it a shot.

I had done some grocery shopping on Monday and picked up a block of medium cheddar cheese and about a pound of ground chuck. I had another pound of regular ground beef in the freezer, which I put into the refrigerator Tuesday afternoon to thaw.

Into a mixing bowl I threw both packages of ground beef, two eggs, one half of an onion, diced, and 8 ounces of cheddar cheese cut into roughly half-inch cubes. I mixed everything together, as one is wont to do when making hamburgers, and threw them on the grill.


Click on a photo to make it grow.

And they came out? Meh. The cheese that went onto the grill exposed melted out of the burger and onto the grill. It smelled bad while the burgers were cooking. I made three large burgers and three average sized to see if there was any difference in the taste or the melt of the cheese. There was not much difference at all.



I do think it's kind of a good idea...maybe something fun to do with kids, but next time I'll use smaller chunks of cheese...and learn how to cook.



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It's Not a Book About Underwater Naval Vessels

One thing about watching old TV shows — especially those for which I was around when they were new — is the glimpse back at how things were then. Granted, it was TV. It never quite captured or recreated life the way it really was, and some of the shows that were "edgy" then have seen their edge grown dull in reflection.

I'm still plugging away at Starsky & Hutch, and am now about one-fifth of the way through season three. Monday night I resumed my viewing and, in episode five, titled "Death in a Different Place," was witness to what I thought was a rather odd exchange between the two main characters:




As I am the master of double entendre, I absorbed the end of this exchange with the exuberance of an eighth grade boy who just learned a new use of the word "rubber."

But then the episode deals with a married police lieutenant who is murdered in a dive hotel where he has been seen frequently taking a different young man up to his room each night.

At first both Starsky and Hutch react with shock and disbelief that their friend and colleague was apparently living a secret life as a gay man.

I was mildly shocked that a weekly network TV action show did, in 1977, take on the topic so frankly. Starsky was portrayed as having a tough time dealing with this revelation about his friend, and having some prejudiced views about homosexuality — reflecting the general attitude of the nation at the time. Hutch was portrayed as being of the more progressive view, that it's not so strange or taboo, that homosexuals are human and deserve the respect of humans, regardless of their sexual preference.

An added wrinkle was the plot complication that their boss, Captain Dobey, was under pressure to make the murder investigation go away because the department was under pressure by certain entities of the public to allow gays on the police force, and now it had been revealed that one of "the city's finest was a homosexual." To me, the implication was clear that their fictional police department — not unlike real ones across the nation — was resisting that pressure.

By today's standards, the show's handling of the topic was certainly ham-fisted. But then, everything the show did was ham-fisted, so why complain? However, there seemed a raw honesty about it, and an enthusiasm about their message. I think they were breaking new ground — or at least making tracks on recently broken ground — in American television, and making a bold statement: homosexuals exist in society and are not awaiting your permission to function beside you; their private lives are none of your business, and shouldn't be a factor in their hiring or firing, or whether or not you'll share the sidewalk with them; denying their existence or their lifestyle won't make them straight, nor will it make them go away.

I recall reading recently that many people saw a homosexual undercurrent between the two characters in the program, perhaps when the show was on the air, but certainly when observed today. The program's epilogue, despite the message, still tweaked on a general sense of homophobia when Hutch asked Starsky if he thought two men spending 75% of their time together implied a certain preference. Starsky indicated his assent to the notion. But when Hutch laid down the correlation of his and Starsky's relationship, that the two spent about twelve hours a day together, sharing most of their meals together, and asked what that meant about them, Starsky was fairly disturbed by his partner's implication.

At the end of this episode I realized the unfortunate dialogue highlighted at the beginning of this post was probably not unintentional after all, and subtly, subliminally, introduced the episode's subject matter as subtext before coming out of the closet to hit the viewer over the head with it.

Perhaps the undercurrent wasn't so sublime after all.



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