Now that I was committed, I began to comport myself as a professional. This is one of the drawbacks of commitment, and is the reason that I hate to get really good at anything.
I know what you’re thinking—how many things is he good at? And you’re right. But I am good at cab driving.
I cleared the decks, started the engine, pulled out onto Mississippi, and headed straight to Chambers Road. The road was wide and there was virtually no traffic. I’ll confess. I was going approximately 8 mph over the speed limit. I’m not going to play games with you, unless you’re a cop. I was making good time. I arrived at Chambers Road, which is way the hell east where farms still exist. I turned right and sped south. As I say, stoplights few and far between, and it’s a big wide road. It’s also hilly. The road goes up and down, up and down, like truly massive ocean waves in terms of breadth rather than height. You never seem to notice this where the landscape is full of condos, but out in the great wide open you can’t miss those tidal swells.
“One twenty-three, I got a call-back. How soon, Murph?”
Damn.
“Ten minutes,” I said.
This was an honest estimate. There are times in life when you have to be honest, which is often connected with the concept of being good at something. I feel like a fake when I wrestle that particular tag-team. Honesty and competence make my skin crawl. That’s why I prefer hotels and paperbacks.
I stepped on the gas. There was no other traffic, although I did see some girls riding horses in a field. A blink and they were gone.
“How soon, Murph?”
Fer the luvva Christ.
“Five minutes.”
I heaved a sigh of disgust. I had known since I passed Leetsdale Drive that I was eventually going to jump this bell. Why do I lie to myself when there are so many other people to lie to? If I had gone ahead and taken the bell when I knew I should have, I wouldn’t be having a race with the devil.
A cluster of suburban homes appeared on the horizon. In my mind’s eyes I was already there, a right turn, a left turn, and I would be pulling up at the house.
Then I was turning right a few blocks south of Arapahoe Road, and turning left into a cul-de-sac where a four-wheel drive vehicle was being loaded with suitcases. A group of people were standing around the jeepster tying down luggage on the roof with ropes. I slowed and pulled up alongside the group. A woman in her early sixties approached my window shaking her head no and saying, “We couldn’t wait for you any longer so we asked our neighbor to drive us to the airport.”
But I’m here.
I looked at the neighbor who was sitting in the driver’s seat of his vehicle. He returned my gaze with a blank stare.
But I’m here.
“Could you please call the taxi company and tell them that we don’t need you anymore?” the woman said.
But I’m here.
The passengers began climbing into their neighbor’s vehicle.
I didn’t answer the woman’s superfluous question. She had no way of knowing that the only person who needed to be informed was me, and I had just been informed.
I took my foot off the brake and guided my cab around the cul-de-sac. I rolled back to the intersection and stopped at the crosswalk. I looked at my odometer and wondered how many miles I had racked up. I looked at my wristwatch. I looked at the rolling hills in front of me, looked at the smudge of smog on the horizon indicative of the city of Denver.
Here I am.
It seemed to me that I had seen something like this in the movies, but I couldn’t remember which one. For some reason the image of the silent-film star Harry Langdon came to mind. He was staring at the camera and blinking. This was odd because on the inside I felt like Ben Turpin.
I drove back to Chambers and began heading north. There was no hurry now, but I still had to get back on the map before I could start playing the taxi game again. The ol’ taxi game where you never win and …
… and so on.
I glanced at my wristwatch, but I couldn’t seem to read the hands. They were blurred by the image of fourteen dollars and seventy cents. I passed a telephone pole and noticed that it didn’t have a shadow. This told me that it was high noon. I had learned in the Boy Scouts that when you’re lost in the woods and don’t know what time it is, just look at a telephone pole. It will tell you all you need to know about joining youth organizations.
Gas stations and suburban developments began to appear on the landscape. I had crossed the edge of the map and was back on the game board. If you don’t like mixed metaphors, you’re in the wrong taxi. So was I. The engine sputtered, and #123 began bucking strangely. I forgot all about my previous troubles and concentrated on this one. The last time I was in a taxi that began bucking strangely, I ended up standing by the side of the road watching the cab burn to a crisp. That was the same week I was hauled in by the police on suspicion of murder. Also kidnapping and robbery. The charges didn’t stick. The guy wasn’t even dead.
Then the engine died. It came back to life.
I quickly scanned the horizon for a gas station. I wasn’t going to risk another murder rap. I planned to pull off the road and park. I had learned my lesson, i.e., allowing your taxi to burn up can lead the police to think you’re hiding something, and since I’m always hiding something I’d rather not have the law nosing around.
Fortunately I spotted a gas station at a far intersection. The cab was still lurching and losing power like everything else in my life, so I made a quick algebra calculation.
I waited until the (speed + distance) felt right, then I shifted into neutral and let the momentum (x) carry the cab (y) into the entrance of the gas station where I pulled up parallel to the border of the concrete apron. I stopped where a tow truck could easily back in and hook me up. I had no illusions about where this was headed. I wished I was as good with godsends as I was with disasters, but I didn’t have as much experience.
I radioed the dispatcher and told him my cab had broken down. I gave him the address.
“The tow is on the way.”
“Check.”
I walked over to the gas station and entered the building. The decor was like that of a 7-11. Small compensation.
I used the restroom, then bought a soda and a Twinkie and walked back out to my lifeless pod. I got settled in the driver’s seat, picked up a paperback, and began reading. Time passed. The tow truck showed up. The driver was the same man who had towed away Rocky Mountain Taxicab #127 when it burned up near the viaducts. He didn’t recognize me. Small compensation.
The trip back to the motor took forever. I timed it. The driver dropped us both off in front of the garage. The mechanics came out wiping their greasy hands on rags, and popped the hood. I had a choice: stand around being useless, or go into the on-call room and tell Rollo I might need another taxi.
One of the mechanics walked over to the place in the parking lot where I had chosen to be useless. He held up the radiator cap.
“There wasn’t any water in the radiator,” he said.
“What?” I said. I wanted to say, “That’s impossible,” but like nuns, garage mechanics don’t like to be contradicted.
“The cap wasn’t screwed on tight. It almost fell off in my hand when I went to remove it. All the steam escaped. You’re lucky the engine block didn’t crack.”
Call me Mister Vegas.
“Will I still be able to drive it?” I said.
“Yeah, as soon as we fill it with water.”
He walked away.
I started to get nervous.
I rewound our conversation and played it back. By the time it ended I realized I was responsible for this minor calamity. It was confirmed when I went into the on-call room where Rollo informed me that I would have to pay the twenty-five dollar towing fee.
I didn’t fight it. I knew the rules. I had seen other drivers try to fight it in the past, and Rollo had given them his standard speech: “Either you pay the fee, or you don’t drive.” He had two styles of saying this: loud or soft, depending on how much the driver’s existence offended him.
I reached for my billfold just like a commonplace civilian. I dug into my “amateur” stash. The money I earn as a taxi driver is kept in a separate place, i.e., the pocket of my T-shirt. Even though I am no good at mathematics, I am quite capable of juggling abstract concepts that involve rectangles of paper. In high school I got A’s in geometry. I was always good at figuring angles.
I handed Rollo the two twenties, and he handed me back fifteen dollars. This was a difficult and troubling time for me. My civilian cash had slopped over into my professional cash. I stood there for a moment looking at the remaining amateur fifteen dollars, and it occurred to me that if the two old ladies from The Hobbit had tipped me just thirty more cents I would have ended up grossing fifteen professional dollars for the day instead of fourteen dollars and seventy cents. I decided to place the fifteen dollars change into my T-shirt along with my fourteen-seventy. It would be like a loan from myself to myself. I figured this would have the effect of making me feel like I was doing okay for the day. But instead, my brain began to grow fuzzy. I kept thinking I was either back to zero for the day, or up thirty cents.
I hate algebra.
When I got back out to the garage, #123 was watered and ready to go back on the road. I thanked the guys in the garage, then climbed into the driver’s seat and reached into my T-shirt and pulled out all of my money. I decided I either had twenty-nine dollars and seventy cents, or a minus thirty cents. I noticed that my hand was trembling. I quickly pulled out my billfold and put the amateur fifteen dollars back in. This had a calming effect. I now felt that I was mathematically on top of things. As a consequence I did something that I should not have done. I mentally tried to subtract fourteen dollars and seventy cents from twenty-five dollars.
Why I did it, I don’t know.
You can carve that on my tombstone.
I might have continued trying to think, but fortunately my stomach growled and broke my lack of concentration. I started the engine and drove out of the lot. I headed for a MacDonald’s. I normally buy my lunches at grocery store delicatessens, but I wasn’t feeling very posh right then. I didn’t even bother to turn on the radio and listen for calls. I decided I would just walk off the football field and wait for the brass ring to come around again. Sometimes a mixed metaphor is the only thing that keeps hope alive.
It was twelve-thirty in the afternoon when I popped the last French fry onto my tongue. I was parked in a slot at a MacDonald’s on south Colorado Boulevard with the hood facing the street so I could watch the traffic roll by. I like to watch people doing things that I’m not doing. It reminds me that I don’t have a foreman overseeing what I ought to be doing. For legal purposes, cab drivers are defined as “independent contractors.” This means that when a driver is on the road he is his own boss, his own foreman, his own supervisor. He is also his own accountant, i.e., he does not have a secretary to handle his paycheck, calculate withholding and Social Security, etc. On the surface this might make cabbies appear to be actual grownups, but it doesn’t always work out that way.
Instead of listening for calls on the radio, I just sat there chewing on fast food and watching the river of cars flow by.
… A river of caaaarrrs! …
I couldn’t find a decent rhyme for cars. I tried “Mars” then gave up. I don’t want to mislead you. Not all of the lyrics I compose are “finished products.” They’re like most of my novels.
I wadded up the wrappers and stuffed them into the hamburger sack. I grabbed the Twinkie wrappers and empty soda cans, then got out of my cab and walked across the parking lot to a trash barrel and tossed everything. This bit of policing-up gave me the delusion that I had things under control. On the way back to my cab it occurred to me that my Maw used to clean our house in Wichita all day long. I wondered if …
But no. Nobody would expend that much furious energy maintaining a delusion.
Would she?
I was my mother’s son though, and I had spent the past twenty-seven years living like I do now. On top of that, I had been hugging to my breast the delusion that someday I would write a best-selling novel. That’s a long time to hug anything. So I had at least two delusions that I knew of—my real life, and my dream life. That appeared to cover everything. But I wondered if there was a third “something” that lay between reality and fantasy that I could screw up. I mean I knew I could screw it up, but did it exist?
There must have been some magic in that ol’ fast food that day, because after I climbed into the driver’s seat an idea occurred to me. I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out thirty cents. It was change from the Whopper—excuse me—Big Mac. I reached up and tucked the three dimes into my T-shirt pocket. I now had exactly fifteen dollars in my professional stash. But this was not to be construed as a loan from myself to myself. It was a cry for help.