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?



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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?



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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!

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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.



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