Taxi!

It bothers me when people berate cab drivers. In New York, the city would slam to a stop without these people who sit behind the wheel twelve hours a day and take you where you need to go. Critics say they drive like maniacs, they don’t know where they’re going, they’re always trying to scam passengers, and they don’t want to go to Brooklyn or Queens.

Back in the day, when I was devoid of both driver’s license and car, Butch would wait for me when I got off the commuter rail train in the bowels of Lawrence, Massachusetts. It was not a part of town where a young woman should be alone. Rarely did a cop bother to show up when the train came in. I was often asked if I was “selling” when attempting to cross the bridge over the Merrimack to the desolate downtown, where I could save two dollars on a taxi cab. That’s when I began hopping into Butch’s taxi.

Butch was scary looking. He always wore sunglasses, be it high noon or low midnight. Butch had a coal-black Yosemite Sam mustache, and hair that rose off his head, as if powered by his anger. Everyone was an idiot with Butch. If someone said hello the wrong way, Butch would stop his cab and throw him out. Butch liked to rant about politics and badly paved roads and dogs he didn’t like and what the cops should do about all this hooking and arson and what the hell was wrong with people. The car filled with his cigarette smoke. The trick to Butch, I learned, was to nod and say, “damn straight,” in response to any rant. I could only afford to tip him fifty cents, and was too young to realize that was a shitty tip. His whole attitude changed when I handed over that money. His voice softened. “Thanks honey,” he said. He handed me his business card. “If I’m not there, you call the company and ask for Butch,” he ordered, and added, “Don’t let anyone give you any shit.”

Aside from taxis here and there in Boston, I didn’t rely on cabbies again until got to New York, almost twenty years later. I find most of these guys fascinating. So many of them travel vast distances, arriving in a place that likes to call itself the greatest city in the world; they find their way to the cab companies that nestle in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge in Long Island City, and are told, “Here’s a car. You’ll drive for twelve hours a day. The airport’s over there.”

I talked to one man, who fled Afghanistan in the late 70s, ahead of the Soviet invasion. He told me Afghanistan was once a beautiful place. He spoke about his family’s farm, and about a spring that ran through that farm. “The water – you would not believe it. It was the most beautiful water I’ve ever tasted.” He held up a bottle of water, purchased somewhere in his overnight travels. “I drink this, and it is only fuel. It is not beauty. I have a dream to one day return to that farm, and drink from that spring again, and know that I am home.”

I have listened to men talk about the beauty that was Haiti before the earthquake, and how they didn’t know where their families were. I have listened to Muslim men talk about being frightened by being judged for something they didn’t do. I have been screamed at about what is and is not art from a driver who was born and bred in Brooklyn and didn’t like this shit.

There are a handful of guys who are regulars, who know when I’m getting out of work and swing by to take me home late at night. My favorite is Saul, who looks like Krusty the Clown took off his makeup and decided to make a living behind the wheel. Saul’s voice is voice is so crippled by years of chain-smoking all he can do is scream at you in a guttural bark. Saul tells stories of working in Vegas decades ago and shuttling half-naked showgirls around the strip. He tells stories of celebrities in his cab.  I don’t care if the stories are true. Saul says it’s great for him to pick me up, because he can get me home to my place in Queens, turns around to pick up the strippers at the clubs in Long Island City, and make a smooth circle across the bridge to the city.

I tip Saul way too much, and hope that somewhere, someplace, Butch finds a couple extra bucks in his wallet.

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