Last Taxi Comments Of The Year 2024---A Taxi Dream

 There isn't much too report.  Uber and Lyft dominated, with taxi filling in the gaps.  It has been almost a year since I've provided any kind of transportation services, December 2023 being the last month, that being my Uber experiment and not taxi.  This being my birthday, I would have worked it as I always did.  Christmas too was always too good of a day not to work, my positive sentiments concerning that holiday long vanished since my divorce in 1987.  As many might remember, I took a number of cab rides last year in Europe and Asia Minor, and in January of this year in Mexico, a total of three rides.  Taxi will always remain part of my essential soul and self, the experience tattooed upon my brain and psyche, which probably explains last night's dream, amusing because it starts off in Seattle and ends up in New Mexico.  No, I didn't dream of the kind of magical ride I always hoped for though missed having in my 35 plus years beneath the toplight.  This dream started in downtown Seattle, taking a group of elderly tourists up to a museum located on a desert mountain pass.  It was my favorite kind of fare, asked to keep the meter running while they strolled through the museum.  Though telling my passengers a little about taxi reality, that was it, the dream ended, having I suppose left my fare stranded on the mountain. Hopefully they found their way back down.  I could say more but for today I will go with less, only saying hello to damn taxi in my dreams. 

I Promise: Taxi And Nothing But Taxi. Two NY City Taxi Tales From The NY Times "Metropolitan Diary" & A Real Life Taxi Novel: "Relita's Angel" ("Nobody's Angel") By Jack Clark, Chicago Cabbie & Have You Ever Wondered How Many Murderers You've Driven In Your Taxi?

Back to Taxicab, the Favorite Topic of Kings and of course Drag Queens 

Hell with politics, to hell with most everything but on the menu today its all "taxi specials," half-cooked or digestible I leave it up to you to decide.  Serving up first as your appetizer are two taxi stories taken from the December 1st, 2024 edition of the New York Times "Metropolitan Diary."  Both entertaining and both "real taxi," no goddamn Uber or Lyft sniffing around here.  No foolin' around. 

Ride Share

Dear Diary:

I had been living in the city for about a year and was slowly shedding my pleasant Midwestern manners in favor of some much-needed New York chutzpah.  It was raining, and I was trying to hail a cab to the Lower East Side during rush hour.  I knew it was a long shot.

Suddenly, one pulled up.  Just as I was about to get in, a man appeared out of nowhere and opened the passenger door on the opposite side.

I was in a classic New York City conflict I had seen in movies and TV shows.

We immediately started to bicker whose cab it was.  The cabby was getting increasingly annoyed, as were the people trying to use the crosswalk we were blocking.

Exasperated, I finally let my guard down.

"Where are you going?" I asked my enemy.

"East Village," he said.

"I'm going to the Lower East Side," I said.  "Get in."

I climbed in and sat down.  Slowly and reluctantly, he got in on the other side.

We sat in silence for the first block but eventually called a truce and shook hands when we parted ways.

Dave Quantic

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Yes, I too have had folks battle for the elusive cab but given who I am, instead of allowing fisticuffs I became a referee.  When a crowd of eager beavers are approaching, I lock the doors, taking the first raised hand.  I don't argue, I don't take bids or ask where they are going.  I see you first, you're in.  Someone else might be going to San Francisco.  I don't care, instead making it simple.  You're in and everyone else, you gotta wait.

That Was Quick

Dear Diary:

In May 1978, I and several other Cornell students traveled to Manhattan for interviews with prospective employers.  After the interviews we needed to get back to Port Authority to catch a bus back upstate.

I decided to show off my worldliness by confidently hailing a cab.  We piled in and I directed the driver to take us to Port Authority.

"Port Authority?" he asked.

"Please," I replied.

He stared at me for a moment, drove the cab for about 20 yards and pulled over.

"Here you go!" he announced.

I was thoroughly embarrassed.

"What's the charge?" I asked meekly.

"Nothing" he said.  It was worth the entertainment." 

George Lutz

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Yes, sometimes people don't know where they are, and a bunch of years ago, a drunk couple certainly didn't.  I am belled into a DT motel, and the couple are going to a concert.  They jump in and I drive maybe 30 feet to the concert hall across the street.  Yes, they didn't know and I got a big tip.  Nothing like being disoriented.  They were stumble down drunk, harmless, only dangerous to themselves. 

Real Taxi! Brothers and Sisters! Real Taxi expressed by Chicago cabbie Jack Clark

I'll call this the main course.  Down here in New Mexico I've  just put up my Ikea bookcases, and unloading my many, too many boxes of books.  In one box was a paperback my friend Marty gave me 20 years ago, "Relita's Angel," a hard-boiled crime/taxi novel by someone who knows the trade inside and out, having driven cab for over 30 years.  It was refreshing and highly entertaining reading about the real-life crap all us cabbies know too well. The copy I read was self-published, one of 500.  Eventually it was reissued by a mainline publisher under the new title of "Nobody's Angel."  Search it out.  It is bloody great.  Having read hundreds of novels if not a thousand, Clark's book is damn good, the characters walk right out of the pages, grabbing you.  For anyone whose driven a cab, you're gonna like this book. 

God! the People we have Transported in the Back Seat!

During my off and on 35 plus years beneath the toplight, often I have wondered just what percentage were downright murderers.  Not that they necessarily wanted to murder me but how many of the untold thousands in my cab actually accomplished the foul deed I'm glad I never knew.   There was the "secret agent" who, before falling asleep, warned me not to use my cell phone because he would have to kill me.  He was going to Tacoma to meet the bride that Putin, yes that Putin, was delivering to him.  As any cabbie will tell you, they could not make this stuff up if they tried.  He gave me a hundred dollar bill for the ride  No complaints.  I hope they made for a happy couple.

I say all this because the New York Times reported that the guy who murdered the UnitedHealthcare executive, Brian Thompson in Manhattan, jumped off his getaway bicycle in Central park and hailed a cab, taking him to an interstate bus station.  I wonder if he tipped the driver?  

As I always said, and do say, cabbies carry everyone, every type of person residing on our planet.  There ain't no waiver.  We get everybody, good and bad, happy or sad or on the run, having just killed someone with their silent gun.  Bang! Bang! you're dead!  Nothing more left to be said.  Amen.