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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My FIRST Meme. I Mean, NOT My First Meme, But... Oh, Just Read It!

Professor, author of Babble From Babbler posted a meme that sent me off on quite a tangent (see previous post below). But now I'm doin' it!

1. Who was your FIRST prom date?
Linda

2. Do you still talk to your FIRST love?
No

3. What was your FIRST alcoholic drink?
Tastes allowed from my parents? Wine or beer. First real whole drink? Harvey Wallbanger.

4. What was your FIRST job?
United States Air Force

5. What was your FIRST car?
Red 1979 Jeep CJ-5

6. Who was the FIRST person to text you today?
N/A

7. Who is the FIRST person you thought of this morning?
Me (Hey! My mind was a blank until I looked in the mirror!)

8. Who was your FIRST grade teacher?
Mrs. Erickson

9. Where did you go on your FIRST ride on an airplane?
Back to where we started OR San Antonio, Texas

10. Who was your FIRST best friend, and are you still friends with him / her?
Patrick Powers. Technically, yes. We parted as friends when he moved away, but we've never spoken since.

11. Who was your FIRST kiss?
Just two little kids goofing around? Terri. In a relationship? Beth. With tongue and in a relationship? Linda.

12. Where was your FIRST sleep over?
Tim O.'s house down the street from me.

13. Who was the FIRST person you talked to today?
Editor

14. Whose wedding were you in the FIRST time?
My second cousin, Susan's, March 17, 1973 (I still have the gift Playboy beer mug — with the date painted on it — given to the wedding party). I was 8.5 years old. I had to wear a black tux and a lavender shirt with chest and cuff ruffles. I cringe to this day at the memory.

15. What was the FIRST thing you did this morning?
breathed

16. What was the FIRST concert you ever went to?
Van Halen. Or maybe it was ZZ Top. They were one week apart and I can't remember which one I went to first.

17. FIRST tattoo or piercing?
N/A

18. FIRST foreign country you went to?
Germany

19. First movie you remember seeing in the theater?
One of my sisters dragged me along to see Goodbye, Mr. Chips. I was all of 5 years old. She must have been babysitting. I remember I was bored out of my skull and ticked because no one in the movie looked like a potato chip.

20. When was your FIRST detention?
Some time in high school. Once, maybe twice. I was a good egg.

21. What was the FIRST state you lived in?
Illinois

22. Who was the FIRST person to really break your heart?
Linda

23. Who was your first roommate?
In basic training, 21 other guys...can't remember their names. After that, a guy named Vibyral (or Vybiral?), nicknamed "Vibrator," my first real, lone roommate, in tech school in the Air Force.

24. With whom was your FIRST date?
Beth

The First Time For Just About Everything

>>>>Edited to add a second photo at the end of the post.<<<<

Professor posted a meme over the weekend at Babble From Babbler, nudging her readers to reveal the many firsts in their lives. Now, for quite a while I had been batting around the idea to relate in my blog the first time I ever flew on a plane, seeing as how it's such a huge part of my life today, but when I think back to that day I remember so clearly, I'm drawn to the reason why I remember it so clearly. It was such a momentous day in my young life, filled with so many touches of comedy, that I can't brush the whole day away just to relate my first airplane ride!

I was nineteen years and three months old on December 7, 1983. Ten months earlier I had signed my name on several dotted lines and faced the biggest commitment I had ever faced, and the biggest I would face until my marriage — Uncle Sam had wooed me with promises to show me the world and to ease my financial burden through college, and I had accepted, as much for those reasons as it was an exciting way to get out of the crazy house where I had grown up and grown restless.

With my decision, I redefined the "bookends" tag my oldest brother and I had. He was the oldest sibling, I was the youngest — both boys. And now I was following in his footsteps into the Air Force 17 years later where none of our other siblings had. I didn't choose the Air Force because that's where my big brother went. No, I chose the Air Force because my big brother talked me out of joining the Army! In my case there was no angst surrounding my decision, as it was peacetime. My big brother joined up in 1968, right in the thick of the Vietnam War. I can't imagine the turns my mother's stomach made when he made that announcement! But having volunteered, he was able to choose his career field, and he chose wisely: he didn't go to Vietnam. Hell! He never even went overseas in his 21-year career!

My family threw a party. It wasn't a huge blowout, just all the siblings — except my big brother, who called that evening to wish me well — and a few of my aunts and uncles. I finally received the Sony Walkman I had wanted for about a year or so, which I later used (and still use!) as fodder for the joke that my family "gave it to me as a going away present. They said, 'We'll give you a Walkman if you'll go away!'"

Aside from the growing feeling of tremendous apprehension, the other noteworthy memory from that evening was when Uncle Chooch — who has dealt with a stutter all his life — reached out to shake my hand. I felt him press something into my palm as he pulled my ear close to his mouth and whispered, "G-Get a b-b-blowjob!"

Accustomed to this sort of comment from Uncle Chooch, I calmly looked at the ten-dollar bill in my hand, looked up at Chooch and said loudly, "That's all it costs?!" Few people in the room — namely my sisters — caught on, but Chooch was mortified until he realized again that he was Chooch, and Chooch often said that sort of thing.

Much of the night is a blur. Mom and/or Dad took me to the train station late that evening. Mom used her monthly commuter ticket to let me pass through the turnstile, and I rode the IC (Illinois Central) Electric Line up to downtown Chicago. Off the train at the Randolph Street station, I climbed the stairs to Michigan Avenue and walked alone for several blocks south to the Americana Congress hotel. I had done the same thing in February, when I went for the initial physical at the Military Enlistment Processing Station, or MEPS. The only difference now was that, unless the doctors found something terribly wrong in my physical condition, I wasn't going back home the next afternoon…or any time soon! Along the whole walk to the hotel, I had no offers for a ten-dollar blowjob.

My biggest immediate fear was that I would oversleep and be late for my first military assignment, which was Show Up On Time. I barely slept that night as I tried to imagine how The Rest Of My Life would be from that point forward.

The next morning, after a horrid breakfast, which was the strongest cause yet for serious doubt about my choice of future, I found myself walking in a gaggle of other young people toward the MEPS. Again, much of the day is a blur. I do remember that the doctors and the processing folks weren't as stern as I had expected them to be. They were as stern as they had to be in order to get several dozen young men and women through all the examinations they needed in that one brief day.

It seemed absurd: here we were, these gangly young men (we had been separated from the women almost from the moment we stepped into the clinic), all roughly the same age, all stripped to our underwear and walking in single file from one examination station to the next. At one point we were herded into a more private room where stood two men and one middle-aged Asian woman, all in medical scrubs and white coats. One of the men barked, "Turn around, face the wall, drop your shorts…"

Mildly panicked, I looked over at the Asian woman to make sure I had correctly assessed the gender. She was a woman, all right. WHY IS SHE IN HERE? I worried. Why are they subjecting her to this embarrassment?

The barking man finished barking: "…bend over and spread your cheeks!" This is one of life's absurd moments, where dozens of thoughts and images come rushing at you at once. I first stifled a laugh as the memory came to me of my best friend, Lu, who had processed into the Marine Corps one year earlier, and related to me his own MEPS experiences, and who had created laughs in this very same moment when, upon the order to "bend over and spread your cheeks," he bent over and grabbed his face and pulled the flesh there in opposing directions — on purpose. The guys on either side of him had cracked up, and they all got yelled at. Though choking back the laugh, I didn't have the balls to repeat Lu's actions.

The next thought that occurred to me was What must this look like? Did the doctors — or whatever those people behind us were — ever imagine in their wildest dreams that they'd be there in that room at that moment looking at a bunch of assholes?

Next thought: What could they possibly be looking for?

Next thought: Cripes! That poor woman! And where the hell is she? Whose ass is she looking at? MINE?

And then I felt fingers touch my butt cheek, way off to one side and, thankfully, up kinda high. "Okay, stand up," said the other man's voice quietly to me. Very soon we were ordered to pull up our shorts and file through the next door.

I am not a needle-phobe. I can withstand the thought of getting a shot or having blood taken with only a little bit of profuse sweating and brief threats of nausea. I am not a needle-phobe; I am a needle wimp. That's why, when we were told the next station was for blood samples, I squirmed my way to the back of the line. When you are facing the agony of confronting one of your least favorite things to do, any wait seems interminable. And so did mine. Finally I approached the phlebotomist. I was the absolute last person to be poked. She stuck me, drained what seemed an egregious amount of blood (or time, rather!) into the vial, placed a cotton ball over the catheter and removed it from my vein. She said, "Put your finger on this [the cotton ball], bend your arm and don't remove it until you're told."

She sent me into the next room where all the other guys were sitting, each with one arm bent and one finger from their other hand holding a cotton ball over the little hole made by the phlebotomists' catheters. There was one chair left to sit in. I stood in front of it, bent my knees and, no sooner had my ass had hit the chair than one of the barkier technicians came in and barked, "Stand up, file out this door and drop your cotton balls in this trash can on your way out!"

I did as I was told and stepped through the door, where we filed into another hallway and stood against a wall to wait to go into the next station. One of my fellow recruits looked at me and said, "Hey, man," and pointed at my arm.

I looked down to find a long stream of blood trickling down from the tiny needle hole in the crook of my arm and curling around my forearm, and threatening to drip on the floor. The barky tech stood near one of the other techs waiting for the next room to clear. I stepped out of the line and approached him. "Excuse me. Sir?"

"You got a problem, son?" he bellowed. I don't think he was used to people getting out of his line.

I presented my blood-streaked arm and looked down. "I'm not done bleeding."

"Oh, jeez," he griped. "Come on."

I followed him back into the blood-test after-poke waiting room. He got me a cotton ball and told me to put it on my hole, and to come through with the next group.

Later in the day we were filed into the hearing test. Six or eight at a time, we were placed in a soundproof booth and told to put on a pair of headphones. Then we were told to pick up the alarm button in front of us at each listening station. We were instructed to listen for the sound of aural tones in our headphones. As soon as we heard a tone, we were to press the button and hold it until the tone stopped. Simple enough.

I parked at a station, put on the headphones and grabbed the handle at the end of the cord with my thumb poised over the button. At the first tone I pressed the button and held it. The tone grew louder and louder right up to the point where it was almost painful to my ears. And then it stopped. I released the button. This went on for about five minutes, and I was getting a headache!

Finally the technician came into the booth, walked right up to me and shouted, "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

I must have given her quite the look. "I can hear you fine!"

With quite a bit of agitation, she grabbed my alarm button to demonstrate, and shouted, "When you hear the tone, you push the button! You hold the button until you hear the tone go away! THEN you release the button!"

"Yeah, that's what I did! It just kept getting louder."

She looked at the button. She looked at me with that "It can't be my equipment that's faulty" look. Then she said, "Go out there and get in with the last group. You have to take the test again.

When I returned to the booth for my test, she told everyone not to use the station I had used. The test commenced, and this time when I heard the tone and pressed the button, the tone faded away until it was gone, and I released the button. Afterward the tech came out and told me I had the best score of the day! She was actually quite nice. I was so glad I hadn't asked her for a ten-dollar blowjob when she was being pissy.

The end of the day was all paperwork and then we had to sit and wait until our ride arrived to take us to the airport. It was during this time of the day that I first heard the term "hurry up and wait." It would define the entire bulk of my brief Air Force career.

After what seemed like forever, we were transported to the airport where we were simply travelers. We were booked on a Delta Airlines flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth, and from there on another plane to San Antonio.

This wasn't the first time I had flown. My friend Sam's father was a one-fourth owner of a Cessna single propeller engine, four-seater plane, and had his pilot's license. One day he asked me if I wanted to go for a fly. He took Sam and me up, allowing me to fly briefly, showing me how to operate the rudder and the ailerons together in order to execute a turn. It was fun, but it was very brief.

It was the first time I had flown commercially. As I and my fellow Air Force recruits boarded the Delta Airlines plane, I was pretty excited. At day's end I found myself with people who not only had the same service entry date, but who were headed to the same place I was.

I like to believe I'm a pretty funny guy. I usually try to make people around me laugh, and sometimes I succeed. There are times, however, when I hit a groove and I can't miss. On the plane to Dallas, in the minutes before takeoff, while the plane was still boarding, I was hitting home run after home run. I had my peers rolling, as they were spread around me. I even had some of the "normal" passengers going. I can't for the life of me remember most of what I said. All I know is that my excitement was at a fever pitch. I was trembling and sweating, but energized, and every funny thought that came to my head translated into funny words.

The only thing I remember saying was when the plane had taxied to the runway. We sat there for a few seconds, and then the pilot locked the brakes and revved the engines for take-off. The whole body of the plane rocked as if in eager anticipation of flexing its muscles and hurtling us down the runway. The roar of the engines got louder and more insistent as the brakes held us fast. Then, really loudly, I said, "He's gonna pop the clutch!" All the people in the seats around me — recruits and "normal" travelers alike — erupted in laughter!

All of that came to a screeching halt when we got to San Antonio, where the real consequence of signing our names on those dotted lines waited for us.

As I travel now, I often see young people in groups with manila envelopes in hand, staying together in a cluster. I know from my own experience that these young people are retracing my very own footsteps of two decades ago. It always strikes me that these kids all seem to know each other really well. It took this reminiscence for me to see it clearly: friends are made quickly in such a situation. At MEPS — or whatever it's called today — young men and women headed for all the branches of service are huddled together for their exams, but go their separate ways to their respective services when that first day is done. Those headed to the same branch of service, to the same basic training schools, are together embarking on an adventure from the same starting point. They are sharing an identical experience, but through wildly divergent perceptions, and they come quickly to rely upon each other for reassurance and leadership in a shared, frightening, exciting new experience. Little do they know that, once they get to their destination, they may never speak to each other or see each other again for the rest of their lives, even though in those first few weeks they're sometimes in as close proximity as a few yards from each other.

And then I see it in my memory: the fast, close friendships we formed from the hurry-up-and-wait of MEPS to the what-the-hell-have-I-gotten-myself-into of the first few hours of basic training. I still remember some of their names: Brendan Ryan, Dan Colwell, a young black guy named McFadden (I think), and a girl named Tanya. All the guys were in my same basic training flight, and throughout that class there was a tighter bond between us than we had with any of the other guys from all over the country. Tanya wound up stationed at the same base I was — Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana. We went on a date there, saw Ghostbusters and no sparks flew. With a few exceptions in passing, we never saw each other again.

There were a lot of firsts in that my first day as a member of the United States armed services. It is often said that you always remember your first time.

So true.