Islands In The Stream

There are three things that can happen between drivers and passengers during the course of a ride in a taxicab: 1) Nothing. The passenger looks out the window, talks on the cell phone, or (rarely) watches the canned programming on the cab's TV monitor. The driver drives. 2) The driver becomes a fly on the wall and either voluntarily or involuntarily eavesdrops on the voices coming toward him from the back seat, whether it be from multiple passengers talking to each other or from a single passenger on the phone. 3) A conversation takes place. 

In a huge metropolis like New York, where the flow of particles is so continuous, it's quite natural to think of the motion of the city as having a similarity to the current of a river. The river runs, ever onward, and the taxi driver is a ferryman of sorts, his cab a temporary haven on an endless journey to who knows where. People who may or may not ever meet again engage in conversation, as if to acknowledge that it's better to float down the river in the company of others than to brave the waters by oneself. 

If a taxi driver has an affinity for this unique situation he is in, it's this third possibility, the things that can happen through communication, that can make the job so interesting. Some of these conversations, like particularly intriguing islands in the stream, may startle, disturb, reassure, delight, or educate the intrepid explorer. I had three in the course of a single shift a few weeks ago. 

5:45 pm, Penn Station to North Moore in Tribeca 

It was the "survival of the fittest" time of the evening when the quickest and most alert are most likely to get the next available taxi. As I was assisting an elderly gentleman out of my cab at the Long Island Railroad entrance to Penn Station, an attractive young miss appeared on the cab's opposite side and waited with her hand on the door (as if to say, "It's mine!") until the old fellow's delicate extraction was completed. Getting in with a smile, she told me her destination and we pulled into the heavy traffic on 7th Avenue. 

Now, there are certain nuances that tell a driver that the newly arrived passenger is a candidate for a conversation. There's the smile, the return of the driver's "hello", along with, perhaps, an "how are you?"; there's the friendly tone of the voice; there's the position of the seating -- the passenger doesn't slump out of sight behind the partition but, rather, sits right in the middle of the seat, perhaps even leans forward a bit; and often there's eye contact in the mirror. The attractive young miss had all of these, helped, I felt, by some admiration on her part at seeing a taxi driver performing an act of kindness for the fragile passenger who had preceded her. 

Aware of all this, I started in with some common chit-chat - the traffic, the weather, the difficulty of getting a cab at this time of day in Midtown - and this rather magical process we humans are capable of went into gear. Back and forth, back and forth, and then - wham! - suddenly the person on the other end of the conversation is telling you something that's no longer in the realm of the chit-chat mundane - something personal, a bit surprising, perhaps.

Kind of out of nowhere, she tells me she's a boxer. A boxer! This friendly, rather petite-ish, altogether feminine-looking female gets in a ring and tries to punch the beejeebabs out of other women. Not professionally, but at the next level down, in organized matches in gyms, she says. Career-wise, she's in the related field of sports rehabilitation. One of her clients, she said, is the famous boxer Pacquiao. 

It's always kind of fascinating when the way a person is does not match one's own stereotype of what a person does and I will admit that I find the sight of women going at each other quite entertaining (what the world needs is more mud wrestling). So this particular conversation was really holding my interest. And then it did something that communication can do when people listen carefully to each other, acknowledge what is said, and create a space that is comfortable and safe: it led to a further, more insightful revelation about the other person, something that opens a window into their inner world. 

What was revealed was a situation that was eating away at her, something that was consuming her attention the whole day long, a problem that would not resolve. She told me what it was and, to her credit, it wasn't actually her own problem. It was a tangled mess that was endangering the future - perhaps even the life - of someone who was dear to her, her brother. 

Growing up in an environment where one's fists are at least as valuable as one's social graces, he, like his sister, had also become a boxer and a couple of months earlier, at the age of twenty, had turned professional. Shortly after that he had a "bad break-up" with his girlfriend who, to get revenge, did something quite evil - she enlisted the services of some thug she knew to beat the crap out of him. How do you beat the crap out of a professional boxer? You get a dozen of your thug friends to help you. In a modern version of tracking somebody down, the jilted girlfriend gave the thug his Twitter address. He and his gang read his tweet messages to locate him when he was alone, shooting hoops in a schoolyard. Then they ambushed him and battered him so badly that he had broken teeth, broken ribs, a concussion, and needed thirty stitches to close the wounds to his face and head. 

"Did he go to the police?" I asked. 

"No, he's got some goddamned Sicilian code of silence," she lamented. 

Now I understood why she felt a need to talk about this thing. It wasn't over and it wasn't likely to end well, either. Her brother is thick-headed and would handle it "in his own way", which would mean more violence. After that there would be further retaliation and he might be killed or spend the next twenty years of his life in jail. She had the wisdom to understand this, but she had no solution. So she was living each day with a helpless feeling of dread. It was like trying to hold onto someone who was dangling off the ledge of a mountain. 

If I'd thought of it at the time, I would have advised her to find someone to intervene in the conflict, someone whom all parties involved knew and respected, if such a person exists. Or I would have advised her to bring her brother and the ex-girlfriend together in some kind of counseling session to confess what they'd done to each other and to apologize for their actions. That might have handled it. But, as is often the case when someone says something startling, you don't think of the right thing to say until later. In my business people enter and exit rather quickly and I'm often left in the middle of the story. And that is one of the downsides of the taxicab conversation.

1:45 a.m., 47th and 6th to Astoria, Queens

He was a gaunt, middle-aged man -- long, black overcoat, no hat -- who hailed me with his right hand while taking one final drag on a cigarette with his left. Before even entering the taxi, he gave me the impression that he was a "serious" smoker. He was probably coming from a job where he couldn't smoke and since you're not allowed to smoke in a cab anymore in this NO SMOKING city, the time between the workplace and the taxi becomes the time to have that thing you've been craving for all night. 

My impression was confirmed when, just a minute into the ride, he asked me if he could light up a new one. Now, this is a situation I actually enjoy. The taxi driver in New York City is usually taken somewhat for granted and is not accorded the kind of respect that certain professionals enjoy. I mean, you'd never say to a pilot as you entered his aircraft, "I'm late, step on it," right? But a passenger who would ask his driver to break the the rules so he can stick that little white cylinder in his mouth is on the other end of the respect spectrum. This guy is an addict, someone who is living in the moment, and to him the taxi driver is the Gatekeeper Of Bliss, The Man With The Plan. Hey, how ya doin', dude? I mean, sir. If, after observing how the person seems to be, I think he or she has a sense of humor, I have been known to say something like this: 

"Well, I'll consider it, but only under two circumstances." 

"Sure, no problem." 

"I haven't told you what the circumstances are yet." 

"Oh, okay." 

"First, you've got to keep the cigarette inside the cab. Don't hold it out the window." (This is because the danger here is that the driver can be fined if a cop happens to see the passenger smoking in the back seat. I've never heard of this ticket actually being written but, who knows, it might be "Give Tickets To Cabbies Who Allow Passengers To Smoke Week" at the Police Department.) 

"Oh, yeah, man, no problem, no problem." 

"Good. And the second thing is... you've got to beg me." 

"Beg you?" 

"Yeah. You see, this is the only time I can ever get anyone to beg me for anything. It's good for my self-esteem. So if you wanna smoke, you gotta beg."

Now, as I said, I wouldn't say this to someone if they seemed too solid mentally. You've got to size them up before saying it. But so far I haven't missed and they jump right into it with a smile. "Oh, please, please, Mister Taxi Driver, can I smoke a cigarette? Please? Pretty please?" 

"Yes, you may." 

And it's off to Puffland. 

Looking at my current passenger in the mirror, I decided right away, nope, no begging joke with this guy, he looks like he hasn't laughed in two years. So I just told him about the no-holding-the-cigarette-out-the-window rule and not to light up until we got onto the 59th Street Bridge, about a minute away. He thanked me. 

Well, although he may or may not have appreciated my sense of humor, there was something in the way he was that made me curious about him. I wasn't sure what it was. He just seemed to be someone it might be interesting to talk to. So I decided to delve, as is my tendency. 

"You must be a serious smoker," I said, as we were approaching the bridge. Being that smoking was the subject at hand, it seemed like an easy way to get a conversation going. 

"Why?" 

"Well, I've noticed that when people ask me if they can smoke in the cab, it's because they want a cigarette really, really badly." 

"I just wanted to finish the one I started." 

"Yeah, you see, that's what I mean. You're a heavy smoker?" 

"Just three or four a day." 

"Packs?" 

"Cigarettes." 

This surprised me. I would have bet he went through a pack a day, at least. 

"Since I quit." 

Ah, so there it was. I was right. The thing about him that I was trying to put my finger on, I realized, was that it was impinging on me subconsciously that heavy smokers have a certain kind of demeanor. Something about the way they look, their body language, their voice, that has cigarette smoking as a component part of it. That's what was making me curious about him. 

"Oh, so you had been a heavy smoker?" 

"Yes," he replied, rather half-vacantly. Sometimes when people say something you have the feeling they're only half-speaking to you, the other half being diverted to another, invisible, entity. 

"What did you do, a pack a day?" 

"Two or three." 

Heavy smoker, indeed. 

"Wow... well, and now you're down to just a few cigarettes a day?" 

"Yes," he said flatly. There was no sign of pride in his voice at making progress toward an objective. You would have expected a bit of positive emotion here, but this guy was flat as a board. 

"Good for you." 

"Since the cancer," he said, the focus of his eyes extending no further than the partition which separates driver from passenger. 

I had stepped on a landmine and I knew it. 

What the hell do you say to a stranger who's just told you he has cancer? I could say nothing, pretend that I hadn't heard it. But I thought that would be cold-hearted, even cruel. I could acknowledge it -- just say, "I'm sorry" -- and leave it at that. But quite possibly he'd said it because he just felt a need to talk about it with another human being, another island in the stream. God knows the despair and loneliness this man might be enduring, and although listening to him would not be able to do anything to cure his disease, it might help him change the way he dealt with it. And that could be a good thing. I waited until we reached the Queens side of the bridge (so we might be better able to hear each other -- bridges and tunnels are tough on the acoustics inside a taxicab), and then attempted to resume the conversation. 

"What kind of cancer do you have?"  

There was silence. Not just any silence, a dreadful silence. Had I gone too far? Had I trivialized the seriousness of his situation by reducing it to taxicab chit-chat? Or had he just blurted it out and then regretted having said it? I looked at him in the mirror. He had that same solidity, what appeared to me now as a half-dead look, and gave no sign of having heard my question.

What should I do? Ask him again? Probably not, I thought. I mean, what could be more of an imposition on someone than to pry into his perhaps-terminal illness? But he'd brought it up. Wasn't it possible that he simply didn't hear me? What was I going to do, ignore him? I gritted my teeth and raised the volume of my question a quarter of a notch.

"What kind of cancer do you have?" I repeated. 

I watched him in the mirror, almost praying that he'd say something. But he was gone. He sat there silently, his gaze fixated on the parade of darkened buildings passing by on Northern Boulevard. Not only had my attempt at conversation been a failure, my attempt at offering him some comfort had nose-dived into an abyss. The remaining two minutes of the ride, not surprisingly, made my Top Ten List of Most Awkward Silences of All Time. He paid with a credit card, giving me a $1.90 tip on a $13.10 fare. Other than my "thank you", no other words between us were exchanged, and he disappeared into a shadow on Steinway Street. 

He never did light that cigarette. 

A fare like that can haunt you, and some cabbies may conclude that it's better not to attempt to communicate with their passengers at all. I have always resisted this. That's not to say that you have to communicate with everyone. You've got to respect a person's right not to communicate, too. It's just that the interplay with passengers is the essence of this job and to let the occasional disaster shut you down is to lose a lot. So I soldiered on. 

3:45 a.m., 79th and Columbus to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn 

Now here was a ride that from a driver's point of view was just about perfect. For one thing, it was the final hour of the shift and what you want at this point in the night is a good, long, money ride with just enough time to make it back to the garage by 5 a.m., the shift's end. And this ride was that. And for another thing, the passenger, an upbeat, intelligent, well-mannered thirty-something fellow, was as easy to talk to as you as your favorite drinking buddy, if you have such a thing. 

Now, this wasn't a drama ride or a pathos ride like the ones I've been telling you about. This was simply an educational ride, quite common in a taxicab, by which you learn something about life or the world that you didn't know before. Drive a cab for a few years and these conversations accumulate into an impressive reference file, making a cabbie a walking encyclopedia with an opinion about everything. 

I don't know how we got into it, but he started telling me about his wife and her job. He described her as an Armenian by birth ("How did you meet her?" "In a bar."), lovely to look at, highly organized, a go-getter, and she was now working for what he described as a "Russian oligarch". 

"And what is a 'Russian oligarch'?" 

He told me about what's been going on in Russia since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. Industries which had been owned and controlled by the state became privatized. This opened the door for big-time entrepreneurship and the accumulation of great wealth and power by a relatively few aggressive individuals in a short period of time. It was kind of like the "robber barons" in the United States a hundred and fifty years ago. And that's what a Russian oligarch is. 

My passenger's wife worked for one of these people. He'd made a fortune as an arms dealer and then legitimized his business by moving into the metal refining industry in a big way. Due to his nefarious background, he can't enter the United States because the State Department won't issue him a visa. But that doesn't stop him from doing business all over the world. His wealth is so great that he owns a private yacht, complete with a crew of five, that he has never set foot on. It's used to entertain clients. The wife's job is to manage the finances of the yacht. She does this primarily from their apartment in Brooklyn, but she does have to travel occasionally to Europe, where the yacht is located, to personally oversee matters. And that's where she was on this particular night, somewhere in France. 

As I said, there was no drama or pathos here. It was just a typical example of a taxi ride that includes a conversation between driver and passenger. As I entered the Belt Parkway and headed back to Manhattan with my off-duty light illuminated above me, I had gained not only an $11.50 tip on a $43.50 fare, but a bit more understanding of the world in which we live. 

Who would ever imagine that, walking down a street in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, you could walk by an apartment building and behind one of the windows of that building would be a woman sitting behind a computer who was managing a yacht anchored off the coast of France which was owned by a modern-day Jay Gatsby with a Russian accent? 

As is usually the case, the stopover at an island in the stream had left me better off for having been there, and happy to have made the visitation. 

********

Looking for a nice little island in the stream of your own? Click here. Plenty of 'em at Pictures From A Taxi.

Down Goes Frazier

Many people in New York assume that the taxicabs are busy all the time. It just ain't so. During any twenty-four hour period, there are hours that are extremely busy, it's true, but there are also hours that are only somewhat busy, and then there are hours that are extremely not-busy. During the night shift (5 p.m. to 5 a.m.) it goes like this from Sunday to Thursday: From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. it's extremely busy. One passenger gets out and the next one gets in within three minutes. From 8 p.m. to midnight it's somewhat busy. Perhaps ten minutes between passengers.

From midnight to 3 a.m. it's extremely not busy. You could go half an hour or more between passengers.

And then from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. it's so not busy that it turns out the phrase "the city that never sleeps" was just so much hype. There's a big-time catnap going on and you wish you could get on a foghorn and ride around screaming at people to get out of bed and do something! There's not much business at all, although you could be lucky and get an airport ride after 4:00.

On Fridays and Saturdays it's a different story. It's either extremely busy or somewhat busy throughout the whole shift, although it can get pretty slow on Fridays after 3 a.m.

However, there can be periods of time, like unexpected fluctuations in the weather, when these patterns can inexplicably change. It could be 7 p.m., for example, and half an hour goes by without a fare. Or at 2 a.m. from out of nowhere it's suddenly super-busy for a while. That phenomenon occurred recently on a Wednesday at 10:45 p.m. I had just dropped a passenger off at Madison and 24th and circled around onto 5th Avenue, heading downtown, to look for the next one. Pulling up to a red light at 23rd Street, I noticed something that cabbies love to see: there were perhaps six or seven people on both sides of the intersection, all looking for taxis. There's a certain rush that goes straight through to the core of a taxi driver's psyche when he sees this sight. It's an aesthetic thing, like a Mozart crescendo. How fortunate I am, the cabbie thinks, to be alive and to experience such beauty.

Since I was surrounded in the front, rear, and on both sides by other vehicles, the plan that instantly formed in my mind was to cross 23rd Street when the light turned green, veer over a couple lanes to the right, and pull up at the curb where there were several people who looked like they were in need of my services. I would place the cab kind of in the middle of them, without choosing anyone in particular, and let them work it out among themselves as to who would get possession of the coveted taxi. It's a tried and true method I use so as not to give the impression that I prefer one person over another.

But my plan suddenly became irrelevant as, coming toward me on foot, was a guy who did what many savvy New Yorkers do when demand exceeds supply: he walked directly into the middle of the street in order to gain possession of the cab before the light could turn green. It's a bold move that the more timid still standing on the sidewalk might construe as cheating, but it's certainly a part of the gamesmanship that is common in Manhattan when it comes to grabbing a cab. As he opened the rear door and sat down, I greeted him with a smile and, although I didn't say anything except hello, I was mentally admiring him for being a take-charge guy. He returned my greeting with a smile and an hello of his own and then surprised me by telling me that his destination was just across the street, at the far right corner of 23rd and 5th, the same spot I'd intended to drive to before he'd hopped in. He explained that a friend was waiting there and, I assumed, the friend would jump in the cab and the three of us would then be on our way to somewhere else.

Okay.

The light turned green and I put on my right-turn signal, skillfully maneuvered my way across two lanes of traffic, and came to a stop right where he wanted me to be. He opened his door on the curb side of 5th Avenue, as he should have, and then... the action began. A large man - about six-foot-one, 190 pounds, maybe thirty-five years old - moved forward on the sidewalk toward the cab. My passenger - who was something like five-foot-eight, 150 pounds, thirty years old - stepped out of the cab and, seeing that the other man wanted the cab, politely told him that it was not available because someone else was about to get in. Normally the other person would say, "Oh, okay," and step back. But not this guy. He stepped forward and, although I didn't catch exactly what he said, his body language and tone of voice were clearly saying, "Tough shit, jerk-off, this cab is mine!"

I knew immediately it was big trouble. Competition for possession of taxicabs - an indigenous sport in New York City - can be nasty, but it's extremely rare for it to be so in-your-face, especially between men.

The first guy fired back a sarcastic put-down of the other guy - "Oh, so you're owner of this cab, huh?" - and, realizing if he moved forward on the sidewalk that the other guy would get in, called out to the person who was waiting for him, a thirty-something woman, to come over to the taxi, which she did. This woman then stood in the space of the cab's opened door, thus securing possession of the taxi, at least for the moment, but she did not get in. She was apparently concerned for the safety of her friend who, although smiling, was in a heated jaw to jaw with the other guy.

After this went on for a very long thirty seconds, I decided I had to do something. There was no way I was going to let the other guy take the cab away from the first guy, so I thought if I told him this - politely, of course - I could be the face-saving interventionist who could end the conflict. So I got out of the cab and approached him.

"Listen," I said to the other guy, "he had the cab first. I started the meter already."

No response.

"I'm sure you'll get another cab in a minute. But I can't let you take this one, okay?" 

But I was talking to wall, a wailing wall at that, because he was so focused in on insulting and being insulted by the first guy that I don't think he could even see me. Really, it was like I wasn't there. Defeated as a referee, I walked over to the woman and suggested she get in the cab, but she wouldn't - "I want to make sure he's okay," she said.

"Why doesn't he just get in the taxi?" I asked her, figuring that she should know. If the two of them would just get in, I could drive away and that would be the end of it.

"He's not getting in," she replied. "He's got his bicycle chained to the pole over there," pointing to a sign post. 

Oh.

So there was more to this story than met the eye. The first guy must have been waiting with the woman there at that corner where the other guy was and, perhaps trying to impress her, had hustled across 23rd Street when he saw me - an empty cab! - pull up to the red light on the other side of the street. The other guy, who perhaps had been waiting at the corner longer and perhaps had put down a beer too many, was no doubt pissed off about what he perceived to have been a dirty rotten move and now, seeing that the first guy wasn't even getting into the cab himself, decided he was within his rights to be outraged at the injustice that had been perpetuated against him.

Of course, he wasn't within his rights. Hell, there are no rights when it comes to grabbing a cab, but you couldn't tell him that. He raged on at the first guy who at this point seemed to have had enough of the whole thing and simply turned his back and walked over a few steps to attend to his bicycle. He squatted down on bent knees to get to the lock, ignoring the other guy who, shadow-like, bent over, too, and continued to hurl invectives at the back of his head.

Suddenly the first guy stopped what he was doing and stood up, calmly.

He turned to the other guy.

And then... wham! He decked him with a right cross!

The other - much bigger - guy went down like a sack of potatoes. All right, like a sack of bagels - this is New York.

I was stunned, of course. But oddly enough, although this was real violence happening right in front of my eyes, it all seemed so comical to me. Seeing the other guy suddenly sprawled across the sidewalk, what came to mind immediately were the immortal words of legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell while broadcasting the heavyweight championship fight between George Foreman and Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1973. Foreman connected with an uppercut to Frazier's jaw in the first round and Cosell's voice boomed:

"Down goes Frazier!"

"Down goes Frazier!"

"Down goes Frazier!"

(Here's the link to the call: https://youtu.be/JZEIMQ42-oU)

Well, the corner of 23rd and 5th wasn't a boxing ring in Kingston, but it was certainly a theater of the absurd - and it wasn't over. The other guy rose to his feet, turned to the first guy, and hurled not a fist, but another derogatory comment at him. The first guy looked at him, smiled, and then... wham!...

Down went Frazier once again!

Suddenly a woman I hadn't noticed before came rushing over to him. She helped him to his feet and began fussing over him. He leaned down so she could see if any damage had been done to his face and made a gesture to her that looked like he was inviting sympathy, as if to say, "Did you see what that awful, awful man did to me?" She touched his cheek like a mother bestowing a healing hand on her poor child's wound.

Meanwhile, the first guy, in a display that should earn him immediate acceptance into the Nonchalance Hall of Fame, turned his back on a much bigger man whom he'd just slugged twice and went back to the task of unlocking his bicycle. This accomplished, he then mounted the bike, waved goodbye to his female friend still standing in the space of the cab's opened door (and now stunned by what she had just seen), and pedaled away in no particular rush.

The other guy, with his own woman still consoling him, slumped off in the opposite direction.

The first guy's lady-friend finally got into the back seat and closed the door. Her destination was 19th between 8th and 9th, a distance so short it could have been walked in six minutes, making the whole incident even more absurd than it already was. I stepped on the gas and began my interrogation.

"Who is that guy?" I asked.

"He's a colleague - we work in the same office," she replied.

"What kind of work is it?" 

"It's online marketing, like doing surveys of customer satisfaction. That kind of stuff."

"Have you ever seen him do anything like that before?"

"No! He's usually like really 'even-Steven', you know? Except maybe when he's in a stressful situation, he might explode. But not physically, you know, just yelling at somebody." 

"Wow, that was really wild," I said.

"Yeah, that was wild," she agreed. I wasn't sure if her tone of voice implied an admiration for the guy, like maybe she was discovering that the caveman type really turned her on, or if she was thinking, wow, the guy is really a psycho. 

She used a credit card to pay for the ride, giving me a 25 per cent tip on a $6.70 fare. Not bad.

As I drove off in search of my next passenger, I had some time to contemplate this incident in relation to the broader scheme of things. You know, taxi drivers are low on the social totem pole - we don't generally get much respect. You've heard me complain about this from time to time. But, hey, when was the last time you ever heard of two patients slugging it out in the waiting room of an orthodontist over who gets to go in next? And when did anyone ever deck somebody because there was only one attorney left in the office and the big guy wanted him all to himself?

Damned right. It never happens.

********

Clicking here for Pictures From A Taxi does happen, however. But, please, no fighting! Just clicking!

If A Tree Falls In A Forest...

It takes about twenty minutes of driving around the city without a passenger for a taxi driver to start getting edgy. It's at about the twenty-minute mark that you realize I am not making any money and things begin to look oh-so-serious. So I was delighted on a Thursday night at 2 a.m. a few weeks ago when I picked up a fare right at the twenty-minute mark - two men in tuxedos, bow ties removed, with an older woman in an evening gown - who wanted to go to Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Bingo!

The out of town ride is like hitting the jackpot. You usually wind up making double the money you normally would have made for the time spent it takes to get there and back. The fare is not done on the meter - it's a "let's make a deal" situation, the price being agreed upon by driver and passenger before the journey begins.

My three passengers climbed into the back seat. It took me five seconds to conclude that they were merrily sloshed. There are mean drunks and there are happy drunks and these were the latter, which of course is better than the former. The older lady, in her mid-60s I would guess, and one of the men took the middle and right-rear positions on the back seat, behind the cab's partition, and the other man sat down on the left side, which meant he was in a better position from which to have a conversation with me through the opened partition window. The other two wound up kind of slumping over each other, laughing and chattering away only between themselves. The charge for the ride was negotiated with the fellow more directly behind me and what we agreed on was $40, to be paid in cash at the end of the ride. It was actually a bit on the low end for the twenty-minute trip to Fort Lee, but it was still good money for thirty minutes of my time (twenty to Fort Lee and ten back to the Upper West Side of Manhattan), so I was happy. I drove straight across 57th Street to the Henry Hudson Parkway, and we were on our way.

Well, the first thing I wanted to know about was, why the tuxes? Obviously, there had to have been an event. The gentleman behind me, who turned out to be an able conversationalist, explained. They had been to a fund-raising event at Cipriani's for a charity that provides medical treatment to children in South America who were born with a cleft palate. Doctors are flown in and perform corrective surgery on indigent people free of charge. It's something he and his family had been involved in for many years. The woman to his right was his aunt and the man beside her was her son, his cousin.

When he told me that, it immediately struck me that his aunt and cousin were more physically engaged with each other than I was used to seeing between a mother and an adult son. Her head was nestled just beneath his shoulder and he was caressing her hair in a manner more commonly seen with lovers. The way they laughed and spoke softly to each other created a kind of bubble around them which would prevent an intrusion from unwelcome visitors, another thing that lovers tend to do. But I dismissed any suspicions of an incestuous relationship and attributed their behavior to having spent a bit too much time with Johnnie Walker and Margarita. Still, it was odd. Fortunately I had this other fellow to talk to.

I commended him on the good work his family was doing and for the remainder of the ride learned something about cleft palates, cleft lips, and how the condition, a birth defect, could be surgically repaired. It was really a wonderful thing the charity was doing, the kind of information that rehabilitates a belief in the goodness and generosity of people in general.

We crossed the George Washington Bridge and were instantly in Fort Lee, where I was directed around several darkened side streets until we arrived at their destination, a parking lot beside a church. Normally passengers pay me by handing money through the partition window, as they should, but instead of doing that, all three of them got out of the cab at the same time. I wasn't concerned. It was crowded back there and it could be difficult to reach into a pocket in a cramped space. I expected the passenger with whom I had been chatting to appear at my driver's side window with my forty bucks, but he did not. Instead, the other man, with whom I had not spoken during the ride, appeared beside me and just stood there without making any attempt to pay me. Ten... fifteen... twenty seconds went by without a word or a dollar coming forth, so finally I said:

"Uh, that's forty dollars, sir."

I thought I would see him reach into a pocket for the cash, but instead I heard this:

"I paid you."

I was stunned.

"You haven't paid me yet, sir," I said.

"I just paid you," he replied firmly, although through a drunken haze.

"Uh, sir, you have not paid me," I returned without raising my voice.

"Hey, I just paid you, you shit!"

It turned out the guy was not a "happy drunk" after all - he was the other kind. I was suddenly confronted with a situation which I had occasionally wondered about, but which had never occurred in all my years. What would happen if a passenger simply insisted that he'd paid you? How could you prove to a cop that he was lying? It would be your word against his, and as long as he didn't fear he'd be physically assaulted by the cab driver, it seemed to me he could get away without paying by just pretending that he'd paid.

But this fellow wasn't pretending. He'd probably stepped up to the side of the cab with the intention of paying, but once he got beside me an image in his boozed-up mind of having already paid the fare had become his reality. As far as he was concerned, there was no question about it: he'd already paid me and the transaction had been concluded. In fact, he may have been just standing there because he was expecting me to give him change!

And then the absurdity took a turn for the worse.

Keeping my cool even though he'd just referred to me as "you shit", I repeated in an even voice that I had not been paid. His response:

"You wanna get your ass kicked, shithead... huh? Come on, get out of the cab, you fuck!"

That "I am on the wrong planet" feeling came over me. A grown man in a tuxedo who was returning home from a completely worthwhile charity event is now preparing to duke it out with his taxi driver over a currency dispute caused by his inability to differentiate his own fantasy island from the physical universe. Beam me up, Scottie!

It was time to call for the cousin.

Fortunately I was able to get him to come over without having to step out of the cab and possibly getting slugged. After just a few seconds of explanation he realized what was happening, apologized, and handed me $60, keep-the-change style, and that was that. I pulled out of there and headed back toward the George Washington Bridge.

The incident got me thinking about the nature of reality. What is "reality", anyway? If you have the courage to look this word up in a dictionary, you will find ambiguity and contradiction. One definition has it as the state or quality of occurring as fact - that is, not imaginary or fictitious. Another definition includes a kind of existence or universe either connected with or independent of others, as in "alternative realities". Another calls it the totality of "real" things in the world, independent of people's knowledge or perception of them. But right there, the question could be asked how something could be assumed to be actual if we cannot perceive it. And, if we were to assume that there were things that were in existence that were beyond our perception, wouldn't that make them imaginary and therefore, by one definition of reality, not real?

You see how this can drive you crazy.

As far as my belligerent passenger was concerned, he had paid the fare in full (and perhaps had even given me a generous tip) and now I was trying to cheat him. And it made perfect sense to him that he shouldn't let a dishonest creep like me get away with it. This was quite real to him.

It brings to mind that most basic of philosophical questions: if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it as it hits the ground, did it make a sound?

I now have the answer to that question.

The answer is no.

********

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Good Morning, Have A Nice Night

A comment I often hear from passengers just after they learn how long I've been driving a cab is, "Wow, you must have seen it all!" My standard reply is, "Yeah, I have seen it all. Until I see the next thing."

As an example, let's take the crime of robbery. Many years ago two men jumped in my cab in a rush in front of the Hilton Hotel on 6th Avenue. They stayed in the taxi for only about three minutes before ordering me to pull over, then they paid the fare and disappeared into the street. A few moments later I discovered an opened briefcase and an opened piece of luggage lying on the floorboard back there with various items scattered around, which I suspected were the leftovers from a crime. I returned to the hotel, reported the incident, and had my suspicion confirmed - a guest waiting on the check-in line had placed his briefcase and luggage on the floor, had been distracted, and then discovered they were gone. My passengers had used my cab as a getaway car.

"Wow," I thought, "now I've seen it all!"

And that's what I continued to think until a few years later when I had a passenger actually mugged while sitting in the back seat by three slick thieves who approached the cab from the street while we were stopped at a red light in Chinatown.

"Wow," I thought, "now I have seen it all!"

And that's what I continued to think until a few years later when I had a passenger in my cab get robbed by the person sitting next to him in the cab! They were two men who'd emerged from a gay bar in Midtown and were en route to a residential address on the Upper West Side. Suddenly there was commotion in the back seat, the two of them wrestling around. I thought it was groping but what was actually going on was grabbing. The larger man was assaulting the other one and grabbed money from his pocket. He then opened his door, causing me to stop abruptly, and scurried off into the darkness. What had been thought by the victim to be a "pick up" had actually been a "set up".

"Wow," I thought, "now I really have seen it all!"

I'm mentioning this because now I can finally and definitively say that I have indeed seen it all. It wasn't a robbery, it was something else. But this is it, it's official, the book is closed. I have now seen it all...

It happened on the 6th of July of this year, a Tuesday, at exactly 7:55 p.m. I had just dropped off a passenger at the Marriott hotel on 92nd Street between 1st and York, a residential area on the Upper East Side, when I had a bit of good fortune in the form of a new passenger entering the cab as soon as the old one got out. Quick turnovers of passengers are the ingredients of a good money night.


My new passenger was a middle-aged woman, around fifty years old, neatly dressed, who told me she wanted to go uptown to 106th Street and 5th Avenue. I said okay, turned on the meter, and we were on our way. I made a couple of turns, waited at a couple of red lights, and was soon cruising up 1st Avenue. It was simple navigation - a left on 106th, across Spanish Harlem to 5th, and there we would be.

During the ride up to this point my passenger had been talking with someone on her cell phone, which is so common today. When that conversation ended she put aside her phone and spoke directly to me.

"Excuse me, driver," she asked, "do you know what time it is?"

I looked at the digital clock on the dashboard. It was visible from the back seat, so I wondered why she hadn't just looked at it herself. But, no matter, I was glad to accommodate.

"7:55," I said.

Instead of a "thank you", there was a silence. I looked at her in the mirror to see by her facial expression if she had heard me. She had, but she seemed confused. Then she spoke:

"A.M. or P.M.?" she asked.

"P.M., of course!" I replied, laughing.

I looked at her again in the mirror. To my surprise, she wasn't smiling. Her expression was rather grim, as if she'd just received some bad news.

"Are you sure?" she asked, almost pleading.

"Ma'am," I replied, "there are three things I'm certain of. Everything else is debatable , but these three things I am certain of - my name, my address, and whether it is night or day. Yes, I'm sure! It's P.M.!" I laughed again. Clearly, this was hysterical.

"You're really sure?" she asked again, this time with a touch of resignation and sadness in her voice, as if her fate had just been revealed to her.

"I'll tell you what," I said, "if the sun hasn't gone down by nine o'clock, I'll refund you the money for this ride. I'll give you my card, you can call me." This was funny!

"Oh, my god," she muttered, more to herself than to me.

"You thought it was 7:55 in the morning?"

"Yes," she replied, almost in a whisper, seemingly ashamed of herself and going into an introspective spin.

Interestingly, if one were to judge only by the brightness of the sky, it could have been either morning or evening. In July the sun rises at around 6 and sets at around 9. Still, since the invention of the sundial Man has had better ways of knowing what time it is than by just looking up. I realized she was in need of some taxi driver counseling, so I jumped into it.

"Why would you think it was the A.M.?" I asked, with considerable curiosity.

And she told me this story...

Her home and her company are in the midwestern state of Arkansas but she had been living and working in New York on a special project for the last six months as a "systems coordinator" at the Cardinal Spellman Hospital at 106th and 5th Avenue. The Marriott Hotel, where I picked her up, has been her home away from home all these months. At four o'clock, earlier that evening, she finished her day at the hospital, went back to her room in the Marriott, and decided to take a nap before waking at 7:00 to do a bit more on her project. She set her alarm and went to sleep.

When she awoke at 7, she had completely forgotten about the idea of doing more work in her hotel room and thought it was morning. She got out of bed, took a shower, dressed, did her face and her hair and went downstairs to get a cab. When she found one (mine) she was simply on her way to work to start a new day, having no idea it actually was not a new day.

Then her cell phone rang. It was her husband in Arkansas, calling to tell her he was sorry he hadn't called earlier, but he'd just gotten home. This confused her because she thought he should still be in bed asleep (it was 6:55 in Arkansas). He didn't usually get up until 7:30. He told her he'd had to work overtime at his job, that's why he was late getting home. She thought he meant he'd been working all night, and that never had happened before, so she asked him what in the world was so important that they expected him to stay at the job all night. He told her he hadn't been working all night, he'd only been working until 6:30.

"Then why didn't you call me last night?" she'd asked.

"I did call you last night," he'd replied.

"No, you didn't," she'd said, "I went to bed without hearing from you."

He reminded her of what they had talked about and she told him that that wasn't last night, it was two nights ago. Completely confused, it occurred to her that he might be putting her on. So she told her husband she'd call him back in a few minutes and ended the phone call. She knew of a way to find out the truth.

She would just ask her cab driver what time it was.

So there we were, on 106th and 2nd, in a reality free-fall zone.

"Should I take you back to the hotel?" I asked.

"Yes, I guess so," she replied from the haze.

I felt sympathetic toward her and tried to cheer her up. It was an understandable confusion, I said, and from the light of the sky it really could have been either A.M. or P.M. She didn't seem particularly consoled, so I tried to think of something else to tell her, something that would be worse, and I came up with this...

"Listen, if you think this is so terrible, not once, not twice. but three times I've had tourists in my cab who not only did not know the location of the hotel they were staying at, they didn't know the name of the hotel, either. Each time we had to wander around the city trying to locate their hotel by descriptions of landmarks only." (Oddly enough, all three times they were Englishmen. Go figure.)

That may have helped a bit. Looking at her in the mirror, I thought I saw a slight smile back there.

Her ride into the Twilight Zone and back came to $7.90. She paid with a corporate credit card and threw in a $1.50 tip. I thought it was appropriate that her company should pay. Strange city. Too many months away. Taking your work home with you to a place that's not even your home. In the military they have an expression for it:

"Shell shock".

********

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The Drunk Drop

In all team sports there are certain set plays that are used as part of a strategy in trying to win the game. In baseball, for example, there's a play called the "suicide squeeze". In American football there's the "down and out". In basketball they have one called the "pick and roll".

In taxi driving, there's the "drunk drop".

The drunk drop is when a patron of a bar or restaurant has become so drunk that he or she is semi-coherent and is bordering on becoming incoherent or even passing out completely. The patron is then escorted, hustled, or just carried from the establishment by bartenders or waiters and is deposited into a taxicab. If the taxi drives away, the strategy has been successful.

I had one a few days ago. It wasn't pretty.

I was cruising down 2nd Avenue on the Upper East Side at around 9 p.m. looking for my next fare, having just returned empty to Manhattan from the Bronx. As I crossed 89th Street someone with his hand in the air appeared from the left side of the avenue so I deftly cut over and pulled to a stop. There's great craft in being able to cut through traffic safely and swiftly, but there's also great craft in being able to instantly size a person up before you allow them access into your vehicle. And in this I was lacking.

As I stopped my cab what I saw approaching from the curb were three people - two men in waiter's attire flanking a middle-aged woman, a blonde, and kind of half-carrying her. In other words she was walking on her own volition, but just barely, and the men had their arms under her arms to catch her should she stumble or fall.

It was a drunk drop in progress.

I think it was because it had been about twenty minutes since I'd dropped off my last fare in the Bronx, plus the fact that it had been a slow night up until that point, that caused me to pause a moment longer than I normally would have in this situation. Normally if I see a drunk drop coming toward me I either just keep on driving or, if I'm already at a stop, I lock the doors. But due to these financial considerations I just froze for a moment. And in that moment one of the waiters got his hand on the door and opened it.

And in came the drunk.

The waiters turned around and walked back into their restaurant, a chic little Mediterranean joint. One of them said something to the other that made him laugh.

For the briefest of moments I let myself think that maybe she'd just turned her ankle or something and wasn't actually drunk at all. Maybe she just needed some help walking and I'd probably be driving her to the emergency room of a hospital. But one look at her as she plopped down on the seat with her head tilted to one side told me that was just wishful thinking.

I asked her where she wanted to go.

There was a long pause. I repeated the question. Finally she said, rather conclusively... "I don't know."

Yes, not only did she not know where she wanted to go, she was sure she didn't know where she wanted to go. But at least she could respond to a question, even if it took half a minute to do so. That was a plus. After another futile attempt to get a destination out of her, I realized I had to pull a play of my own...

The Reverse Drunk Drop.

It's a wise cabbie who realizes that he mustn't step on the gas pedal in a situation like this. There is potential trouble in all directions here, especially if the semi-coherent inebriate is a female. So the play is to reverse the drop that has given you the drunk. Or, to put it in postal terms, "Return To Sender".

I got out of my cab, leaving the woman in the back, and walked into the restaurant. The two waiters were nowhere in sight, but a fellow who looked like he was some kind of a maitre d' was standing there. I told him in a voice that was calm yet had an element of restrained anger in it that two waiters from his restaurant had just put a woman in my cab who was so drunk that she couldn't so much as tell me where she wanted to go. And that they'd better come back and get her out of my cab.

Or I would call the police.

And with that I turned around and walked out of the place.

I returned to my cab, opened the rear door, and confronted the unwanted cargo that was sitting there. She had opened her bag and was looking through the objects in it, apparently hoping to find a clue as to what her destination might be. I was searching for a way to tell her that she was too wasted to meet the minimum requirements for membership in my taxi club when I was confronted myself by one of the waiters who had dumped her there.

He wasn't too happy with the situation.

I was perfectly willing to handle the matter in a civil tone, but the guy, a slightly-built man in his forties who was a bit shorter than I, was in a non-negotiating attack mode. Immediately he was yelling at me, demanding to know who the hell I thought I was, walking into his restaurant like I was some kind of authority. The implication being that taxi drivers should be seen and not heard.

Well, I would say that the guy was clearly an asshole, except that I don't use language like that in this blog. Instead, I will just say that he was clearly an orifice that is found at the very end of the alimentary canal. What followed was one of those scenes that seem comical in retrospect, but in the moment are red-hot episodes of human idiocy.

The waiter got right in my face, giving me about an inch of space between us and also providing me with an opportunity to learn that he'd been sampling the garlic bread in the kitchen. With a "how dare you" this and a "the nerve of you" that, he flew into a self-righteous rage which would have given the passerby on the street the impression that I was the offending party.

Of course it was all pretense. It reminded me of an incident that happened about two and a half years ago in which a passenger in my cab had flown into a weird, out-of-context tirade that was so insulting that it brought me to the verge of a physical assault. (Go to Doctor Evil for that story.) People who have secrets that you're a bit too close to discovering have a definite tendency to become quite upset with you, and the neon sign that announces this is their self-righteous indignation.

This waiter's secret was, no doubt, that he's served the woman far too many drinks. This could be a big problem to the owner of the restaurant (and thus to the waiter) as it could lead to the revocation of their liquor license if harm should come to her as a result. And there may have been other things he didn't want revealed, as well. Perhaps he'd lifted money from her purse after she'd been reduced to a semi-conscious blob. Perhaps he'd overcharged her. Perhaps he'd decided to give himself a $50 tip when he ran her credit card through the system.

Of course I didn't know what it was, but I did know it was something. And what I also knew was that this guy's aggression toward me was about to become a shoving match. And that could lead to a punching match. And that could lead to - well, it could lead to a very bad night, indeed.

But then, as often happens in life -at least in my life - a sort of divine intervention occurred.

In a scene that seemed reminiscent of something that happens in a silent movie, the woman suddenly emerged from the back seat of the cab, took a couple of wobbly steps forward, and then fell straight down like a sack of blonde potatoes onto the pavement.

There was a sudden break in the action.

The waiter looked at the woman.

The waiter looked at me.

The waiter looked back at the woman.

It was decision time.

Fortunately, the waiter went with the woman. He dropped his "you wanna fight, taxi-schmuck?" demeanor and with a new demeanor of frustrated desperation began attending to his fallen customer, first propping her up and then guiding her into one of the outdoor seats on the sidewalk in front of his restaurant. I got back into my cab and called 911 on my cell phone, telling them there was a semi-coherent woman who needed assistance in front of this particular establishment.

They said they'd send an ambulance.

And that was good enough for me.

I took off down 2nd Avenue in search of my next fare with thoughts of drunk drops past and present racing through my mind. And wondering what in the hell my next out-of-nowhere adventure might be.

Which is the best part of being a taxi driver.

********

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Contact

Contact - some would say it's the most basic of human needs, perhaps even more important than food. As a taxi driver I am often witness to the permutations that arise from the attempt to obtain it...

Saturday, April 14th, 4:35 am - my last fare of a long, busy night is a 40ish white male with some kind of a European accent which I could not decipher. He enters my cab at 77th Street and Columbus Avenue with a plastic bag and a newspaper in his hands and tells me to drive him to 39th and 9th. I am immediately put off by his brusque manner and decide this is not someone I want to have a conversation with and, in fact, I want to be rid of as quickly as possible.

So when we get to his destination and he tells me to pull over while he finishes a conversation on his cell phone, I am not pleased. Several minutes go by and, after a couple of nudges from me - "excuse me, are you getting out here?" - he tells me to drive him to an ATM on 38th and 6th. It is late, I am tired, and I have become annoyed with the guy as his behavior has crossed the line into peculiar.

We drive to the ATM. He exits the cab but brings his plastic bag with him. I keep my eye on him all the while as he has been deemed a flight risk in my mind. But he returns and, in the same abrupt manner, orders me to drive to 33rd and 2nd without any explanation of what's going on. He gets back on his cell phone and, now that I am suspicious of the guy, I try to listen to his conversation and am able to pick up only pieces of it. With great seriousness he is describing his physical characteristics to someone on the other end. "I am white, I am thin... yes... yes..."

When we arrive at 33rd and 2nd he once again does not pay me and get out, but instead continues a conversation on his phone. This time he's getting an address and an apartment number from the person on the other end. He says this aloud a few times, the sound of his voice creating a memory of it in his mind. Then, finally, he decides to end the ride. The fare is $15.40. He gives me an additional 60 cent tip. I am so happy to be rid of him and the anxiety he carried with him that I'm not even upset about the cheapskate gratuity. In fact, I expected it.

My night is over, so I drive to the gas station to fill the tank for the next driver. As I clean up the cab, I find that The Village Voice has been left on the back seat and is opened to a large section they have at the end which is a listing ("body work") for prostitutes.

Now I understand.


Tuesday, April 17th, 11:37 pm - a 30ish guy, white skin, about 6 feet tall, jumps in at the intersection of 5th Avenue and 34th Street. Our destination is DeGraw Street in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn. As the ride begins I overhear him say to someone on his cell phone that he just punched someone on a subway platform. A minute later that conversation is over and, unable to resist asking him about it, I do. (Which turned out to be a good thing for him, as he needed to talk to someone.) He told me this story...

He'd been at Yankee Stadium and was on a subway filled with people coming from the game. The Yankees had just played the Indians. He grew up in Cleveland and, although he's lived in New York for ten years, he was wearing an Indians hat. A group of "white, suburban gangster wannabes", all teenagers, decided to harass him due to his hat as they exited the subway car and stepped out onto the platform. This led to an angry exchange of words and one of these kids in particular, showing off to his friends, got in his face.

And that's when my passenger slugged him.

He said they were all in shock and just stood there as he hastily went up the stairs and left the station. He then jogged a couple of blocks and jumped in my cab, thinking about stupid, teenaged punks and lawsuits. So actually it turned out I was his getaway driver.

Interestingly, as he told me about the incident, he was filled with regret and chided himself for losing his cool and hoped maybe it will have taught the kid a lesson. It reminded me of the time another person used my cab as a getaway car after being in a bar fight and thinking he may have just killed someone. (See "The Wrong Guy". )

But this one wasn't as serious. "Worst case scenario, the guy's got a broken nose."


2:42 am - two girls, both in their twenties, one a platinum blond and both of them wearing skimpy clothes, get in at 87th and York. Their appearance translates immediately to the male eye as a neon light flashing "sex" - not quite as obvious it would be if they were street hookers, but it's close. That they are standing on a street in a residential neighborhood where there are no bars around adds an element of curiosity about them to my expert eye.

Their destination is 7th Avenue around 24th Street, but they are not sure of the exact address. When they get on a cell phone and are then told the number of the building, added to the fact that they speak in strong Russian accents, I have no doubt that these are call girls en route to a client. It's something I sometimes suspect with certain female passengers, but it's not often I am so sure about it.

Well, they seem pleasant enough and the way they jabber away to each other in Russian is rather melodic to my ear, so I am thinking whoever is paying for them may be getting his money's worth. But halfway into the ride their phone rings and after a short conversation I am told to please turn around and take them back to where I picked them up. Which I do.

I am thinking about asking them why their customer cancelled out on them but decide that would be pushing it and I just keep my mouth shut. We return to 87th and York, they pay the fare, and disappear into a deli.

4:11 am - my final fare of the night is a dancer/stripper from Flashdancer's. The girls all leave the club at 4:00 and I'm told there are as many as 50 of them working each shift in the joint, so it's a good spot to get one last ride.

Since I work the place often, I've had many conversations with these girls. I find the ratio of conversational to non-conversational to be about 50 per cent. In other words, about half of them do not want to speak with their cab driver. This in itself is interesting to me because, if you think about it, here's someone who has just spent several hours dancing almost naked around a pole and then trying to lure guys into a back room so they can do twenty-dollar "lap dances" for them. It's a come-on dressed up in a heightened degree of "friendliness" (pardon my pun). But then, just minutes later, they are often quite out of communication.

This last passenger fell into that category. It was a long ride out to Queens during which she stared blankly out the window. She seemed to me to be a lonely and unhappy person. And if that's true there's some irony there considering the type of work she does.

One of the permutations of the attempt to make contact, if you will.