Kid Sniffles and the Unlucky Stiff

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

The snow came down in piles Thursday, and the cabbing was a non-stop affair. I had planned to work only until noon, but the longer I stayed logged onto the dispatch computer, the more fares came my way.

I picked up one guy at his home, and took him to his job at a hospital in Hoffman Estates. As he paid me, a man looking to be around age 30 made eye contact with me and asked, “Are you here for me?”

I shook my head. “Did you call for a cab?”

“Yeah.”

“This company?”

“I think so,” he said. “The receptionist at the E.R. called for me.”

If he had ordered from this company, I was reluctant to take him, as that would be stealing a fare from one of my company “brothers.” So I called our dispatcher, who checked for an order from that particular hospital and found none.

“Hop in,” I said to my new next fare, slightly dismayed since I was within a mile of my home and had planned to knock off for the day after the guy I dropped off at the hospital, though happy to put a few more dollars into my pocket. “Where to?”

“North Barrington.”

BONUS! That’s about a 12 mile trip across a couple different towns, so I could charge a higher rate!

He told me his address and we got underway, and began light conversation. He told me his name was Randy, and that he had spent two nights in the hospital due to what he said the doctors called alcohol poisoning, which Randy said was “Bullshit.”

With the weather falling down all around us and the traffic responding as traffic does around here, it took us nearly a half-hour to get to Miller Road, where he said he lived. Along the way Randy mentioned that so much snow had fallen, with more to come, but he hadn’t hired anyone to plow his driveway. When we finally turned on to Miller Road, Randy pointed to a street sign about 2 blocks ahead and said, “Turn in there.”

I nodded.

Then he blurted, “No, wait! It’s this one!” indicating the street which we had just passed.

I turned around in the gate area of a gated community, and he said, “I’m trying to sell my house. This economy is a bitch.” Then he warned me, “Don’t pull in the driveway or you might get stuck.”

I pulled up to his house, where the virgin snow in the driveway had been violated by one vehicle. The meter read $32.00

“Hey,” he said, “my keys and wallet are on top of my dresser in my bedroom. I’ll run in and get it, and I’ll be right back.”

I’ve done this several times over the three months that I’ve been driving a taxi. Pickups from hospital emergency rooms usually don’t have any cash or their credit cards on them, and I have no choice but to trust them to get their stuff and come back. And they usually do, no worries.

He trotted toward the house, but then, instead of going to the front door, he slipped around the side of the house. Three minutes later I started to get the feeling something was wrong. Another two minutes later and I was pretty sure.

“This guy stiffed me.”

I attempted to pull into the driveway against “Randy’s” warning, but I indeed almost got stuck in the six to eight inches of fresh snow. It struck me odd — if this guy was indeed not coming back — that he would have even that level of compassion. I aborted that attempt and instead drove down the narrow lane to a home where the driveway had been cleared of the deep snow, and I turned around there.

I returned to the house and again sat in front, thinking for a moment that maybe I was being a little hasty. But I looked at the place, and at the “For Sale” sign protruding from the snow, and then I recalled the address he had told me at the beginning of the trip: 611 Miller Road, North Barrington. This house wasn’t on Miller Road, but rather a street that intersects with Miller.

Son of a bitch.

I got out of the car and walked toward the house, tracing his footsteps around the side, ducking under the boughs of a snow-laden pine tree, the needles of which shed some of their burdensome flakes down the back of my jacket collar and onto my bare neck. Around to the back of the house I saw “Randy’s” footprints in the snow leading away from the house and across a field behind the house.

Bastard.

I returned to the car and entered 611 Miller Road into my GPS unit. My hope was that he hadn’t decided to stiff me until he saw how much the ride was going to cost, or until I let him leave the car with the trust that he would return, and that he assumed I wouldn’t remember his address. The GPS indicated that the address was very close, and estimated it would take me 17 seconds to get there!

I drove to the location as indicated by the GPS. The house was at the end of a line of houses, their mailboxes standing at the side of the road with their addresses affixed to the west sides of the boxes. Six-twenty-one, 615 and... At the house on the eastern end of the line of houses, the mailbox was missing from the steel signpost that stood beside the road. Was this 611?

The driveway there had indeed been plowed, so I pulled in and got out of the car. The front walk and porch had not been cleared. I walked around to the back of the house where I saw no cars (and three closed garage doors), and several thoughts occurred to me in the moment: he may have planned this from the start, and 611 may have been a bogus address. If it was, and I went pounding on the door at this place, and the innocent dweller was confronted by an irked cab driver, it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience for either of us. If it was the correct address, and “Randy” came to the door at all, it could get ugly, or even deadly. To me.

Asshole.

I returned to the cab and looked up the number to the local police. Fifteen minutes later, waiting at the same gate area where I had turned around earlier, a sheriff’s deputy arrived to take my statement. He said I would receive a call if they found the guy, or if they had any further questions.

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

On another hospital emergency room pick-up I retrieved a father and son from the hospital in Arlington Heights. The father, from Argentina, spoke English with a heavy accent, which was at times difficult to decipher. Conversation, therefore, was limited. And that turned out to be very unfortunate. For me.

Though I am pretty nosy by nature, taxi company rules are explicit for drivers waving the company flag about asking personal questions. It’s none of your business. Don’t ask.

It became apparent that it was the kid, about ten years of age, who was the reason for the trip to the E.R., as I picked them up around 4:30 am, when I overheard him say to his father, “My throat still itches,” in perfect American kid English.

With snow still falling and the roads a mess, the going was slow on the approximately seven-mile trip.

[sniff!]

[sniff!]

[sniff!] [sniff!]

Whatever the kid had was running out of his nose.

A customer a few weeks ago — a family, actually — inadvertently left a box of facial tissue on the rear shelf above the back seat in my car. I thought it an adequate addition to the amenities I offer my customers, which consist mainly of... well... that box of facial tissues. Anyway, I said to the father, “There’s a box of tissues behind you, if he needs some.”

“Ten cue!” he said, and I heard him turn and take a tissue from the box. He said something to the kid, who, so it sounded, refused!

[sniff!] [sniff!]

At least one per minute, it seemed, sometimes coming in flurries of three or more in a matter of seconds.

[sniff!] [sniff!] [sniff!]

After a few minutes, “Would you care to listen to the radio?” I asked the father.

“No. Ees okay. Ten cue.”

[sniff!] [sniff!]

[sniff!]

It became absurd. Absurd situations tend to give me the giggles. It was all I could do not to bust out laughing.

[sniff!]

[sniff!]

[sniff!]

I looked at the time display on the dispatch computer screen: 4:52.

[sniff!] One. I started counting.

[sniff!] [sniff!] Two. Three.

The drive dragged on through the fairly deserted streets upon which the snow fell so hard and fast that the village plows could not keep up to clear them.

[sniff!] [sniff!] [sniff!] [sniff!] [sniff!] [sniff!]

Finally, the adult in the back seat instructed me to turn into a cul-de-sac where he pointed out his house.

[sniff!]

He handed me his credit card.

[sniff!] [sniff!]

I filled out the information [sniff!] and handed the slip for him to sign. [sniff!]

I swiped his card through the slot in the car’s computer and waited for the authorization number. [sniff!] [sniff!]

[sniff!]

“Here you are!” I turned in my seat and handed back his receipt and his credit card.

The man and his boy exited my taxi and entered the flaky white fray outside. The computer’s clock read 5:02. Exactly ten minutes. That was easily only 1/3 of the entire duration of the ride!!

I had counted sixty sniffs! I don’t know how the kid didn’t pass out from hyperventilating!

Somehow I have the feeling that, were the adult in the back seat the boy’s mother, and after his refusal to use a tissue, she would have forcefully wrapped an arm around his head, jammed a tissue in his face and yelled, “BLOW!”

Of course, my fantasies do tend toward the weird....



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