Taxicab Blues
There he sat in his orange and black taxicab. His big homely head, preceded by an enormous fist, was thrust though an open window. He was bellowing belligerently after a rival, who was carrying off a scared-looking fare in triumph.
“Here’s my man,” I said to myself. I walked over to the dented cab, opened the unattended door, and slipped unnoticed into the seat. When he heard the door slam, his expression turned from fierce anger to sheer delight. He looked at me as if I were his guardian angel suddenly arrived from heaven.
“Yes, maam!” he cried eagerly, “Where can I take you?”
“Sown to eleventh street,” I answered, “and take your time.” He assured me that he would have to in ‘this gGod-awful fraffic’. He started the cab, poked his head out of the window again, and to his sad-faced pals wahooed much in the manner of a fisherman who has just landed his first.
I amused myself by staring at his back. It was a useful-looking back — broad, muscular and straight. The skin on his neck was ruddy and showed evidence of much scrubbing. His wiry red hair had been clipped high, leaving a few straggling hairs. Jammed on his head was a wreck of a cap, which had been worn into an apparition of its former shape. His ears were striking. They stuck out sturdily, sailing along in the breeze.
I broke the silence by saying: “Look, how would you like to give me an interview?”
“A what?” he damanded.
“You know,” I answered. “An interview — some facts about yourself.”
His clear, blue eyes reflected in the mirror changed from friendliness into suspicion. “Hey,” he asked, “you’re not a spotter for the company, are you?”
“Heavens no!” iassured him. “I just want to write something about you.” His eyes widened. He twisted his head around and stared at me as if I had asked him if he wanted a yacht.
The cab rolled along aimlessly while we looked at each other in mutual admiration — he, admiring my very good taste, and I admiring his face. It was a face best described as a ‘mug’ — large, puffy, and with a nose that had met many blows in life. Disguising human emotions was not one of the accomplishments of this homely countenance. It beamed as he questioned: “Do you mean an interview for a newspaper?”
I did not have the heart or the courage to tell him the sad truth that this was a writing class assignment. So I simply replied, “What do you think?” and tried to look very important. I guess I made an impression, for there was a loud screech, a jamming of the brakes, and from my position in the cab I noticed that we had narrowly escaped smacking into a moving van. A volley of interesting words followed, an exchange of epithets by the two drivers.
After my deliverer had outyelled his opponent, we drove off indignantly. I opened my interview by asking him if he had driven long. I received a dirty look.
“Lady,” he admonished, “I’ve been driving a cab for twelve years. I could steer this baby with my eyes closed.” I suppressed a desire to remind him of our recent harrowing experience, and instead made myself sily by asking him whether he liked driving a taxi.
“Like it? I have to like it! Itis better than being on relief, although I misht make more money that way than riding this jalopy around. Last Monday night I had one call aftrer waiting three hours. Three hours for seventy-five cents! Out of that I had to five forty-five cents to the company. Then with my thirty cents I bought myself three beers to forget the dame — er, excuse me — the lady, who forgot to tip me.”
I agreed that the lady was a ‘dame’, and aggravated my friend’s temper to a sharper edge by asking him if he had ever thought of doing any other kind of work.
“Just where would I find it? You tell me/” I couldn’t, so he went on. “I never got past the seventh grade, so that licks me before I start. Nowadays it’s not how much brains you got, but how many years you spent in college. College! Bah! No sir, it’s not fair. They don’t give you a break.”
I had to admit that he was right. I dragged out the subject by getting whimsical and inquiring if he had the chance just what would he choose to do. He grinned, his white crooked teeth shining in the mirror.
“Well,” he mused, “I think I would like to be one of those guys that fall out of the Stork Club every night. Boy oh boy! I’d have a different doll on my arm every night. Yes, sir!” I was repaid for my whimsy when his imagination ran a little too far and we bumped into the rear of another cab.
Out jumped the driver of the attacked cab, screaming, “You big lug, what do you think you’re driving, a kiddie car?”
Out stepped by red-head. The language this time was rare. A crowd started to gather. It looked as if there was going to be a free-for-all. But the two glaring gladiators called each other a few more so-and-so’s and climbed each back into his cab and moved on. The spectators looked disgusted and struggled off in disappointment. “Why didn’t you sock him one?” I provoked.
“Aw,” he reasoned, “he doesn’t know he’s alive, the dope! I didn’t want to kill him altogether.”
We continued on our way. I had another brainstorm, and asked why taxi drivers try to knock down all the pedestrians they can find. I was repaid in kind when he replied, “Kicks who walk around as if they was on the prairie deserve to be taught a lesson. So we just give them a little scare.” I remembered a few scares I had received in my day, so I jumped to safer but not much more peaceful territory by asking if people tried to cheat him out of fares.
He grunted. “Yeah, the da—- women are the worst. You have to be careful with them when they want to be driven to a hotel. It’s a gag. They always got a boyfriend inside who is going to jpay the fare. Then we never see them again. They run in the front door and duck out the side.” He philosophixe, “I guess men are more honest. You can never tell what a woman’s going to do — they take you coming and going.”
I became personal and asked if he were married. “No, maam!” he insisted. He became vehement. “I play the field. Love ’em and leave ’em is my motto.”
Quickly changing the subject, I said, “You must have driven some very interesting people.”
“Interesting — sure. But let me tell you most of them are boring!” He turned around to look straight at me. But he went on. “The best passenger I ever had was Lindy. He gave me a ten dollar tip. Lucky Lindy! What a swell guy!”
“And the women?” I hinted.
“The women. Well, I remember one — a Hollywood star — she was done up like a light and left her diamond bracelet on the seat. When I returned it the next day I got fifty cents tip. I never went to see any more of her pictures after that.”
I saw my opportunity to ask just what does happen to things that are left in cabs. “Well, some of the fellows aren’t so honest,” he confessed. “They just keep what they find. There’s a few suckers like myself that turn the stuff over to the office. Then if the owner can remember what kind of a cab he was riding in he can call that company and maybe claim his stuff. But there’s about twenty different cab companies in the city besides the privately owned cars.
Trying in vain to think of some more questions to ask, I looked out of the window. My subject began to croon about his “Wild Irish Rose’, badly off-key. I was forced to interrupt him. “Don’t look now,” I warned, “but I think we’re on a one-way street the wrong way.”
My suspicions were verified when a uniformed figure appeared from behind a lamp-post and jerked his thumb at us. We pulled over to the curb to be greeted with, “What do ya think yer doin’? You need have yer eyes in front and not on yer passenger. You ain’t at a tea-party.”
“Officer,” unhappily interposed my partner in crime, “I was being interviewed by this lady. She’s a newspaper woman.” I almost choked.
The officer glared at me as if I were a Japanese Beetle and boomed at my gullible friend, “Listen buddy, I don’t care if she’s Hedy LaMarr! This is a one-way street and it’s not the street that’s going the wrong direction!”
The policeman produced a ticket pad and pencil, walked around the cab a few times making threats, waved the book in our faces, put it back in his pocket, and gave us one more chance. We took it, and made Eleventh Street in complete silence, I thinking it safer to keep my mouth closed, and he too busy with his private opinions about policemen in general to open his. I thanked him, paid my fare, defended by title as a lady with a generous tip, and dashed up the steps before he could ask any questions about the interview.
Then I remembered. I turned around and called, “Say, what’s your name, anyhow?”
“Callahan,” he answered. “Mike Callahan.”
October 30, 1939