I stood in front of the door to the on-call room that would lead me up to the office where my supervisor Hogan would be waiting to speak to me about the cost of purchasing a new taxicab. I was still in shock of course, so I wasn’t thinking very clearly. This might explain why I turned and walked away from the door, clutching my briefcase to my chest.
I went to the end of the block and turned at the corner and kept walking. I walked all the way to a bus stop. Even though there was a bench, I stood as I waited for the bus. I felt that if I sat down I might never be able to make myself stand up again. I kept hearing the tires explode. I kept seeing the paint job passing through the car wash from Hell, and I thought to myself, Now I have become Murph, the destroyer of taxis.
After awhile a bus came along and I got on and rode it all the way to Colfax Avenue. From there I transferred to a bus that would take me to within the vicinity of my crow’s nest. It was only after I got on and made my way down the aisle that I began to come back to reality.
My Gawd! I was on a #15 bus!
Have you ever seen Fellini’s Satyricon? Actually just about any Fellini film will do, but the sight of the passengers on the bus shook me out of my trance. I immediately tried to retreat back into the trance because I realized that I was now one of them.
My taxicab had just burned up, but rather than face the music I had run away. I had descended into the subterranean world of Denver’s mobile underground. The faces of all the passengers looking at me would have become hideously distorted except that’s how they normally looked. But my knees did go weak. I found an empty seat and sat down hard. A young man was seated next to me, and I made the mistake of glancing at him.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m an intellectual. Don’t you think The Graduate is overrated?”
I frowned at him. “Do you mean the movie?” I said.
“Yes, don’t you think it’s overrated?”
I shrugged. “As a light romantic comedy, I think it’s okay.”
I was lying of course. I love that movie. I’m a Baby Boomer. But I was talking to an intellectual, and he had me scared.
“I much prefer Carnal Knowledge,” he said.
I began to feel dizzy. Was I discussing the seminal works of Mike Nichols with a film buff or with a master of the double entendre? I reached for the buzzer and yanked it. The bus buzzer I mean.
I got off near the capitol building. The sun was flashing off the golden dome. It made me think of money. It made me think of the cost of a brand new taxi. There was only one place to go: Sweeney’s Tavern. I wasn’t sure what I needed right then—a good talking to, a new life, a horsewhipping, take your pick—but whatever I needed, I knew I wouldn’t find it at Sweeney’s, thank God.
I walked down The Hill and across Broadway. I wended my way toward the fringes of the financial district where Sweeney’s is located. But then I realized that my route would take me past the Brown Palace Hotel. It would take me past the taxi stand. It might even take me past … Big Al.
It was then that I fully realized what I had done. I had left the scene of an accident! My God, what was I doing in the middle of downtown Denver when I was supposed to be reporting to my supervisor at Rocky Cab? I suddenly felt like I was living in some sort of twisted dream—not quite a nightmare, not yet anyway. I began to wonder if I had inhaled too much smoke. I did feel lightheaded. Was it the adrenaline? Was it the sight of my longtime taxi friend turning to ash? Was it the fact that I had to find another job? I decided to go with door number three. What would I do for a living now? There was no way that I was ever going to be allowed to drive a cab again.
I devised a circuitous route around the Brown Palace and continued on my way toward Sweeney’s, wondering how I was going to earn money now that the best of all possible jobs had been taken away from me through my recklessness and ineptitude. Most of the jobs I had lost in my lifetime were due merely to ineptitude—although one time I was suspended from Rocky Cab while being investigated for murdering an eighteen-year-old girl, but that’s a long story. Let’s drop it.
As I worked my way across town I began to wonder about my future. I don’t know why, since apparently I didn’t have one. I was a man on the run. God only knew, but the police had probably been informed that I was missing. I felt like a draft dodger. The Feds would be waiting for me if I ever made the foolish mistake of returning to my crow’s nest. I would be forced to flee to Canada, wear bell-bottoms, and smoke pot. These were the thoughts that tormented me as I wended my way toward Sweeney’s Tavern, clutching my plastic briefcase to my chest.
Sweeney wasn’t on duty. The place was empty of customers right then. The pre-lunch crowd would be served by Harold, a recent graduate of a bartending school. I had once toyed with the idea of going to bartending school, but I gave it a thumbs-down when I realized I would be spending all my time serving drinks to people like me.
“Top o’ the morning to ye, Murph me boy!” Harold said.
It’s not that I dislike Harold, I simply dislike his cheap imitation of Sweeney. Harold is twenty-two years old, and Sweeney is in his fifties. Harold is from the Denver suburb of Thornton, and Sweeney is from the Ol’ Sod—Chicago.
Harold is also a runner, which he will be glad to elaborate upon if he ever sees you coming. He runs laps on the indoor track at the YMCA every day. Why, I don’t know. When I first made the mistake of letting him know my name, he began telling me that I ought to accompany him to the “Y” for a run. “I really think you would enjoy running,” he said, in the same strangely enthusiastic monotone that people utilize when promoting Transcendental Meditation.
One evening I finally had it out with him. I looked him in the eye and said, “Don’t ever mention running to me again, Harold.” I even went so far as to use my “scary” voice.
“Why not?” he said.
“When I was in the army, my drill sergeants told us that back in the brown-boot army they were forced to run ten miles every morning. After I heard that horrifying story, I bled from the ears for a week.”
The letter “Y” never came from Harold’s mouth again. “Morning,” I said lethargically. I don’t know why I bothered.
Harold has never grasped the nuances of symbolism, allegory, or snub.
“Starting a wee bit early today, are we not?” Harold said as he filled a glass with draft.
“Actually no,” I said, as I handed him a sawbuck and picked up my beer. “It’s late for me. I just dropped a woman off at her apartment. We had a date that lasted three days.”
Harold’s youth betrayed him. His eyes almost popped out of his head. His cheeks turned pink. He nervously placed the ten-spot in the cash drawer, pulled out my change, and gave it to me with a trembling hand. It took all my willpower to refrain from asking if he was a Catholic.
I carried my beer over to a corner of the tavern. It was fairly dark in the room. Sweeney keeps the electric bulbs off in the daytime, so the light comes in through the picture windows, which are subtly tinted. The floor of Sweeney’s is naked wood, and most of the booths are unpadded, although there are a few padded booths for the ladies. I’ve never actually seen any ladies in Sweeney’s, but let’s not get into that.
I hid myself in a corner booth adjacent to an upright piano. There is no jukebox in Sweeney’s. Anybody who wants to hear music has to BYO. This includes singing, as well as playing musical instruments that often make their way into the bar—street musicians show up every now and then with guitars or fiddles or flutes.
Just for your info, Sweeney does not include “tambourine” in his lexicon of musical instruments.
It was not yet noon, and there I was sipping a beer. I was glad Sweeney wasn’t on duty. He doesn’t make it into the tavern until Happy Hour. Harold doesn’t have enough years under his belt to ride herd on the Happy Hour crowd. If I had entered Sweeney’s before noon on a Monday and Sweeney himself had been there, he might not have served me a beer. He might have been too busy calling my Maw in Wichita.
I set my briefcase in front of me on the tabletop, but then shoved it aside. I felt as if I was shoving aside the past fourteen years of my life. I started thinking about 127 and all the things we had been through together, all the fares I had driven around Denver, all the people whose personal lives I had gotten involved in, to my regret. I thought about the scorched body of 127 being carted away on the rear of the tow truck. I began to feel a bit blue.
“Pretzels?”
Harold was standing by my table holding a wicker basket. “Just set them there,” I said, pointing at the tabletop.
“Who do you think’s going to win the pennant this year?” he said.
I almost collapsed with boredom. Harold was trying so hard to be a bartender that it was painful to watch. Baseball season hadn’t even started yet.
“The Black Sox,” I said.
He stuck out his lower lip and nodded wisely.
“Could I have a napkin?” I said, before he could talk again.
He hurried away. I prayed to God that a customer would come into the tavern to distract him … and I’m not much of a praying man. But my prayer was answered. Two ladies came through the doorway and sat down on barstools. I assumed they were ladies, but I wasn’t interested in finding out. Not before noon, brother.
I took a few swallows of beer and tried to remember what I had been doing before Harold had set the pretzels in front of me. Ah yes, the death of 127 … or perhaps I should say the manslaughter! I assumed they were looking for me by now. The police were probably interrogating the tow truck driver. Hogan would be frantic and enraged. The execs at the insurance company would be hounding him to track me down. My life was an absolute mess. I took another sip of beer.
“What can I do for you ladies?” They began giggling.
I looked toward the bar. Harold had made the classic bartender blunder of saying “do” when he meant “get.” I pitied Harold. Those “ladies” were going to make mincemeat out of him before their bender came to an end, probably in the rear of a police van. And for all I knew, I would end up joining them on the ride downtown. The charge? Leaving the scene of an accident!!!
Then it occurred to me that I had not actually left the scene of an accident. The policeman had made his investigation and then had driven off. The incident was over by the time I had climbed into the tow truck. I frowned. What had I been thinking? The shock of seeing my taxi burn up, plus the adrenaline rush, must have clouded my mind. All I had done was flee in order to avoid being handed a bill for thousands of dollars. Hell, I’ve done that plenty of times.
I started thinking it over. Nobody knew where I was. Maybe Hogan was still waiting for me to show up. What would make him think I had fled anyway? Right at this moment he might be thinking I was holed up in the can or something. In fact, he might not be thinking about me at all.
But doesn’t everybody spend all their time thinking about you? my ego murmured.
I decided to order a shot of scotch. I pulled out the beer change that I had stuffed into my shirt pocket. Old habits die hard. But I was no longer a cab driver, so I also pulled out my billfold. I would use that from now on instead of my shirt pocket. I told myself that I might as well get used to living like everybody else on earth. It wouldn’t take long to achieve that goal, since I was unemployed and watched TV ninety hours a week.
I sorted through the bills—a fiver and some ones. The fiver was face down, so I turned it over out of money-handler habit—and my hair almost stood on end. Printed in tiny letters above Abraham Lincoln’s head were the words: “You must be prepared at any given moment to relinquish all semblance of dignity.”