Greetings From Reykjavik & Two Murdered Cabbies 25 Years Apart---How Nothing Truly Changes

Two themes this week, the first concerning my ongoing visit to Iceland; and the second discussing the past and current dangers of driving a cab, this prompted by a November 21st, 1993 NY Times article I found tucked away in my desk, "When a $75.00 Holdup Equals the Life of a Cabdriver," written by Douglas Martin.  An unfortunate parallel was the recent 2017 Christmas Eve murder of Chicago cabbie Ismail Abdulle, someone who once drove a Yellow Cab in Seattle during a ten-year long stint.  I have yet to talk to any of my Icelandic taxi colleagues but given the opportunity I certainly will.  As I always say, taxi is the same everywhere, and we cabbies all soldiers engaging in the same war.  I wish it wasn't true but it is.

As for my time so far in Iceland, it is just as I envisioned: lots of sleep and and many soaks in the local thermal spas. Luckily my airb&b room is located directly across the street from Laugardalslaug, a very large geothermal pool, hot pot, swimming pool and steam room facility.  Arriving in Iceland Friday morning, I have been three times, including early this morning.  Later this evening I will return, continuing to soak my taxi aches and pains and woes away.

Do I miss slogging away in the cab?  No, not at all, because how does one miss a living hell unless you are some version of sadomasochistic, which I make no claim to be.  My taxi Buddy Bill says that like all other longtime cabbies, I am addicted, somehow embracing the ongoing misery.  But as I keep saying, I'm stupid but I'm not dumb! No Bill, I have just one response: screw taxi!

Yesterday, and also today, I will checking out old Reykjavik, which today is coated with snow and ice, appropriate for a country bearing the name of Iceland.  If the weather ever lets up, I hope to get a clear view of the mountains directly to the north.   It is a pretty country and I hope to see some of it before flying on to Paris Thursday morning.

But if you are planning on visiting sometime be forewarned that it is both expensive, and during the winter, dark, with real daylight not appearing until about 1:00 PM.  One real positive is that everyone is for the most part both literate and friendly, education considered essential to this country of 300,00.  Yesterday I went to a local Apple computer store to buy a power cord adapter and instead I was just given a new European-style power cord free-of-charge!  I was amazed.  Could you imagine this happening back in the good, old USA?  I can't, that's for sure.

Cabbie Murders

At one point, in the 1980s and 90s, 50 cabbies a year died in NYC, making it, I think at the time, the most dangerous place to drive cab in the USA.  Rene Rodriguez was killed behind the wheel of his livery cab in central Harlem on March 5th, 1992, one of 186 drivers murdered in what is called a five-year period.  The article begins describing how his 7 year old son continues to look for him at their apartment window though clearly knowing his father is dead and not returning.

While the son, also named Rene, denies this is what he is doing, his older sister Anna Marie, age 10, says "Yes you do, I hear you sometimes." meaning she hears her brother talking to himself about their father.   It is a grim introduction to to an article talking about taxi reality in NYC, focusing upon others who had been either killed or wounded.  While not a fun subject, I am sure it was educational for many who read it, with the example of the grieving boy slamming the point home: it is highly dangerous driving a cab in NYC.

The Christmas Eve death of the former Seattle cabbie in Chicago says much about taxi, including who should be, or not, driving beneath the top-light, working at what is perhaps the most mortally hazardous  occupation in the USA.  Going simply from the news report generated by the local Chicago ABC news affiliate, it says that Ismail Abdulle, while he was being struck from behind by the suspect, Francisco Ojeda with a whiskey bottle, had time to call a friend and report he was under attack.

What is odd is that the first thing Abdulle should have done, upon the first blow, was slam on the brakes  and get the hell out of the taxi.  That the blows continued and ultimately killed him is an unspeakable tragedy.  But another part of this is that it seems he didn't respond quickly or appropriately to the situation, and his delay in part resulted in his death.

What is true about driving cab, and will remain true, is that you are going to encounter all kinds of trouble, so you better be ready for it because it is coming your way whether you like it or not.  And how you respond will hold consequences one way or the other.

As I reported about my own Christmas Eve incident, with 1092 losing it on the icy road, I too could have easily died in that dire moment but years of rehearsal resulted in a positive result, with no one getting either killed or injured.  Call it luck, call it skill, or finally calling it a grim determination to just not wanting to die in a taxi.  Driving taxi is insult enough but to be killed by the experience would be too much, stupidity compounding stupidity embracing a completely negative equation, my ghost forever haunting Issaquah-Hobart Road.

As said, taxi driving is a serious business, and not everybody should be doing it as an occupation, which is why the Uber concept of "anyone can do this" is insane.  But does anyone truly care that they are putting unwitting people into positions to fail, and when "push comes to shove," fail they will?

I care but I am only one voice.  It is also clear that 25 years ago the reporter Douglas Martin also cared but did it save any future cabbies from not being murdered?  Probably not but regardless, his reporting was important and remains important, and now you too have been informed by his reporting.

And that is what I really like about good writing, because it lives forever, having a life and purpose all its own, Rene Rodriguez, in his small way, will now never be forgotten, as Abdulle will also never be forgotten.  I ask then, of all my fellow cabbies, to collectively never to forget those who have lost their lives driving a cab, that being our final benediction to the fallen who died just trying to support their families.  Abdulle left 5 children and a wife back in Kenya to grieve.  It is a sad story.