"They drive on the sidewalks destroying everything in their wicked path!" my grandfather told me once with a wild wave of the hand. "They take corners on two wheels, laying waste to entire families!" he continued. His wrinkled hand nursed a dented can of Genny Cream Ale. Leaning over to one side to help add effect to his tale, he nearly tipped his chair in the process. "Not to mention that they eat small children and worship the devil!" Indeed.
Like the stories of monsters under my bed and in my closet, I began to loathe cab drivers with the same adolescent intensity. How could I not? With wide eyes and frantic gesturing, an over-imaginative 10-year-old boy would find this drunk -- yarn-spinning -- old man completely believable. To hell with grounding or a bar of soap in your mouth -- the perfect punishment was to be strapped into the back of a giant yellow beast, hurtling down the street at the speed of light. Were you a bad seed growing up? Had a bit of an attitude problem? A New York City cab ride will straighten you right out. Still didn’t learn? Perhaps for an extra dollar or two, your friendly cabby could be convinced to tie you up with his fuzzy steering wheel cover and whip you with his beaded seat cozy.
Tucked away in the snug confines of upstate New York’s rural suburbia, I had indeed been afforded such a liberty. I learned that cab drivers were men from places I had only read about flipping through the National Geographic at the library. Well, not really read about, seeing as there was always some nudity to be found between those glossy pages. When given the choice between breasts and words at ten years old, the text didn’t really have a shot. However, much like the case with my dad’s "hidden" Playboys, sooner or later you got tired of looking at the same thing and you actually read the articles. Slowly, I formed my own opinion of the New York Livery’s finest.
My first real cab ride in New York City was everything my grandfather had warned me about. As I slid into the plastic-leather seats and looked at the man’s cab license, I knew then and there that I had entered the rotten core of the bruised apple. I could see that this man was from places that I could only refer to as the other. His name consisted mostly of consonants, and stretched for miles across the (I’m assuming) bulletproof glass that separated not only me from him, but thankfully, him from me. Speaking through a little trap door in the foggy glass that I later learned was used to pass money to these madmen, I requested to be taken to Penn Station.
The man carved through traffic with an unbelievable skill, avoiding car, cab, and truck alike with only inches to spare. I thought aloud, "What an incredible breed of men." My awe only grew as the cab nudged up onto the sidewalk at a red light and cut in front of another car immediately as the light flashed green. Not that the light had actually turned green when we shot off, but I had already accepted that these "devil men" had an innate, almost comedic sense of timing that could actually foresee the future. A turban doesn’t hurt either.
Surely, a cabby would not take chances with another man’s life. He would not face the overwhelming odds of moving into oncoming traffic without some sort of guarantee that he would emerge victorious. However, I didn’t care one way or the other. Sitting there in a plush couch seat with a Kool-Aid grin smeared across my face, all I could feel was joy, almost a pride in the fact that I was hand in hoof with one of Satan’s own henchmen, rocketing through the streets of Manhattan.
Time passed and the story of my first cab ride grew to monumental proportions over consecutive Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with my blissfully inebriated family. I had taken on the beast and had won, which is quite a rare feat in my family. With a new found respect from my grandfather, I moved from being dubbed the "idiot-boy," strictly regulated to beer-fetching duties, to the lofty title of "stupid," which added the increased responsibility of mixing and delivering the old man’s highballs.
The younger kids who had also heard the tales began to look up to me. I became Don Andrew of the children’s table. Cousins paid their homage in the form of half their ambrosia, second cousins forgoing entire deserts, and if the season called for it, an un-sportsman-like pelting during the family egg toss. My Aunt Lisa, who, before she got married, came within yards of not only hailing a cab but getting in it, began the yearly tradition of pulling my mom’s seat out for her and placing a napkin on her lap. My dad smiled a lot back then.
Then I moved to New York City. At first, I took cabs everywhere. I still do because my loathing for public transportation has grown into quite the past time. I was, and still continue to be, a cab junky. Like any good addict, I knew where I could get my next fix. Had a bad day at work? Perhaps a trip over the Williamsburg Bridge and onto the Long Island Expressway will mend what ails you. Got dumped by your girlfriend? That was easy, Midtown to Spring Street at rush hour. A trip for every occasion, not to mention an occasion to be invented for every needless trip.
With eyes bulged and hands contorted into fists a la a steering wheel, I became famous among my new city friends for laughing and talking to myself as we wove through traffic. At red lights, I began rocking back and forth looking around nervously, as if on the lookout for a cab driver possessing an even greater level of skill than the one that guided me to my destination. While I never actually changed cabs mid trip, I am not above it. For you see, transportation soon came to resemble an art form to me. Honking horns became a symphony, profanity hurled at my cab became an unforgettable dialogue, and near collisions became part of my ever-growing highlight reel that played repeatedly in my head until my next great cab adventure.
Your body is 90% water. If that’s true, I wonder how the 3 bottles of wine and bag of grass I had helped consume over the evening had changed that proportion. It was deathly cold as I turned up 22nd street to hail a cab home, and hopefully to my bed. Swiftly, a yellow car pulled up and I threw myself in. It was an evening that could only be described as crappy. As I looked at the driver’s picture and saw that he barely could see over the wheel, I questioned if I would make it home alive. We pulled away and I gave him the usual directions. The streets were covered with slush and ice, much as my mind was covered in phosphates and THC. I undid my tie and sat back as deep into my seat as it allowed, and simply thought. I thought about how I had told my parents that I wanted to live like Hemingway and was almost getting away with it. I didn’t hear the man speak to me.
"This music kind of fits the night, don’t you think?"
I looked up near the end of his sentence, recognizing the language from the front seat. For the first time, I realized that there was a soft, enchanting piece of piano music emanating from the speakers that normally vomited belly-dance music, National Public Radio, and lame talk shows. I replied before I really thought about it, that it was indeed perfect, and gently sat back into the seat.
My prospects for this trip were not looking good. The cabby not only spoke flawless English, he had exceeded forty miles an hour only once as we headed for the bridge into Queens. Around me cars spun, sputtered, and banged into one another. My driver never seemed to notice. Uncomfortable in my own shrine of worship in the sacred yellow cab cruiser, I leaned forward and asked if the man would turn up the radio. Wordlessly, he increased the volume and allowed me to rest in silence, or perhaps to stir within my own juices.
Outside, as I previously explained, it was crappy and getting crappier by the minute, yet the cab nor its driver ever faltered. I was within a few miles from home when I finally realized what I had stumbled upon. For the first time, I had my eyes ripped open. I was being nurtured in the loving hands of a guru. Suddenly, I became keenly aware that this man-boy was actually using his turning signal as he shifted from lane to lane as if to say, "I am going to move over here. Please take care, as I am carrying a load of very precious cargo." It was a welcomed change from the mentality of "Why use my blinker? Who’s god damn business is it where I am going anyway?"
Like watching a virtuoso paint or a stage actor perform his craft, I was witnessing a master at work. Like your first ball game, the first time you blow your paycheck just because its yours to blow, or when a lover’s lips leave yours and you become completely aware that your first kiss with that person has come and gone, so too was the ride over.
I sat in silence for a moment and began to gather my things. Be it unconsciously or by accident, I left my scarf in the backseat. Thinking back now, the gesture reminds me much of a pair of earrings or a ring left behind in the room of a lover whom you don’t know very well. Reaching forward I paid the man and included a substantial tip, not only for the ride, but also for the driving conditions that the man had to endure. Opening the door and stepping out, I instead ducked my head back into the car for some reason, not wanting it to end. The driver never took his eyes off the road, as I stood there, completely indecisive.
"Thank you mister," I stated and then looked at the man who remained quite stoic, with the exception of a smile that just barely broke through his concrete face. Satisfied, I turned and closed the door with the same care that would be so easy to overlook on any other night. A moment later, I ran to call my grandfather, hoping he would accept my drunken ramblings as readily as I had accepted his.