Super Cabby

        My grandchildren came to my place one day and asked me, “Hey, Grandpa. Tell us some of the stories when you were a Super Cabby.” So, I sat in my rocking chair and started telling my stories.

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One time, a middle-aged white man came racing toward my cab with one kid on his arm, another kid grabbed by his shirt collar and he was holding two suitcases in his other hand. He screamed, “Taxi,” so I pulled over. He threw his kids in the back of the cab, got in, and put the suitcases on his lap. “Follow that bus.” Follow that bus? Follow that bus, follow that car? What's the difference? Man, this was going to be a long day. Thankfully, traffic was thin, so I got ahead of the bus and pulled over. The bus stopped at the bus stop and this guy got out of my cab and ran to the bus door with his two kids. The bus driver then slammed the door and the man came running back to my cab with his kids. He put the kids in and again said, “Follow that bus”. I got ahead of this bus again and this time he left his kids in my cab.  The man ran to the bus stop and again the driver slammed the door on this guy. Again, he came back to my cab, got in, shut the door and said, “Follow that bus.” So, I started driving to get ahead of this bus driver and I asked, “Why you having me follow this bus? What’s the idea? Why you doing this?” Then, this guy told me what happened. Apparently, there was an exit in the middle of the bus, and this guy was getting off the bus with one kid in his arm, one kid in his hand, and one kid following him. The guy got off of the bus with the two kids and then the bus driver slammed the door before his last kid could get out.  So, his kid’s stuck on this bus and he’s trying to get his kid. Now that I knew what was going on, I figured what I could do to help this guy get his kid. So, I pulled up in front of the bus, and backed up until I was right on the nose of the bus. Then, I got out of the cab and went up to the bus driver’s window and explained to the bus driver, who looked Irish, what was going on.  

        “This guy’s just trying to get his kid off of your bus.”    

        “Look, Bub, I’m on a schedule, and if you don’t move your cab in two minutes, I’m going to crush it with my bus,” said the bus driver.  

        And I tell him I’m not moving it until he lets this guy’s kid off his bus.  

        Then, me and this Irish Bus Driver, have a big argument. Finally, since the kid obviously wants to get off this damn bus, the people on the bus start screaming at the bus driver for not letting him off the bus.  So, finally, this Irish guy lets the kid off the bus, and the father hugs him. I wait, tell him what the cab fare is, and he gives it to me, plus a really nice tip.  

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One day I picked up this Caucasian guy, I picked him up at 61st and Madison. He wanted me to take him to Harlem, but, I don’t go to Harlem, too dangerous. Then, the guy begs. He says his brother had an accident and he didn’t have the registration for the car. Supposedly, the cops had taken the car to precinct. They had taken the car and his brother to the police station. So, I get him there and I tell him not to let anyone into my cab ‘cause it’s a bad neighborhood. So, he pays me, gets out and another guy gets into my cab. And I’m thinking, “Ah, shit.” Now, this guy tells me he wants to go to 115th and 2nd Avenue. So, I get him there and he gives me a twenty. Next, a young woman, probably 19 years old, gets in the cab and wants to go to 86th and Lexington. I’m happy about this. That’s a good neighborhood with subways. So, I get there and drop her off. But, I kept feeling the twenty dollar bill this last guy gave me and it felt wrong. I couldn’t figure it out, it just felt wrong. But, I got home, put my money away, and went to sleep. Next morning, I got up, had breakfast, and checked the twenty-dollar bill. Turns out there were two twenty-dollar pieces on each side and George Washington’s picture in the middle. He had cut off the ends of two different twenty dollar bills and spent these two twenties somewhere else and pasted them on this one dollar bill. So, I kept it and said to myself, “I’m going to get rid of this thing.”  

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        Then, one of my grandkids asked if I’d ever been robbed as a cab driver and I told them I was robbed five times. Three of them had knives and I was able to fight them off with my bare hands. The other two had guns though so I had to give them my money and the one guy stole my car. There was also, of course, that twenty with the Washington on it, but that wasn’t a stick up.  

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        But anyway, that morning , I decide to go to the airport and I’m standing in line at the airport waiting for a fare, then this black guy tries to cut me off so he wouldn’t have to wait in line, but I wouldn’t let him in. Then, he called me a racist, so I said to him, “I’m married to a black woman? How could I be a racist if I’m married to a black woman?” Of course, that wasn’t the truth, I just said that to make him feel bad. But that put him in his place.  

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So, I’m waiting at the airport for two hours in the line of cabs to pick someone up. Finally, the dispatcher gives me three guys. They were going to the Bronx so I had to take them, that’s the law. Now, it takes an hour to get to the Bronx from Kennedy Airport and three lights before I get to their destination, I stop at a light, and the doors swing open and each of them runs in a different direction. That means I just wasted four hours: Two hours at the airport, one hour to get to the Bronx, and another hour to get back to Manhattan. And I pay for everything: My own gas, the car insurance, the oil changes, tires, repairs, everything.  

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        Then, I picked up this guy and he told me where he wanted to go. So, I take him there and he pays me and then all these little girls are all over him and they ask me, “Oh, my God, do you know who that is?” Apparently, he was some big Pop star, but I’d never heard of him. I knew he wasn’t the Jackson who was supposed to be on my twenty-dollar bill. That’s for sure. But anyway, I closed his door and kept driving.  

***

        Then, my grandchild asks me some questions like what’s the T.L.C.  

The T.L.C.? That’s the Taxi, Limousine Commission. They control everything. If I refuse to pick anyone up,  I can be ticketed by them. If I break the law and they catch me, I’m in trouble. They also make sure my meter is on.  

A medallion?  That means a yellow cab. The medallion is a franchise given out by the city which permits people to pick up passengers. It’s controlled by the T.L.C.  New York City only issues a certain number of medallions. When I started, it was only $6,000-$7000 a medallion, then in 1957 it went up to $17,000 a medallion. Now, it’s $300,000 - $350,000 for a stinking medallion. The only other cab services in New York are Gypsies and car services. But, legally, we’re only allowed to pick up people in yellow cabs.  But, I owned my own medallion. Grandpa Leo was on a two-way radio. He was a block car. Leo was number 34 and I, when I did that for two days, was number 160. Another story? Okay.  

***

        I was coming home one night on Broadway and I stopped on 86th and Broadway at a light. Then, this fellow comes up and asks me where I’m going. That . . . is illegal. So, I ask him where he wants to go and he says, “142nd and Broadway.” So, since it’s on my way home, I say, “Okay, get in.” Then, he tells me he wants to go to the Bronx. Now, what you may not know is once someone’s in my cab, I gotta take them wherever they want to go. It’s the law. So, I say to this asshole, “Being a tough kid from Brooklyn, you may be going to the Bronx, but I’m going to 142 and Broadway.” Then, the light changed, so I drove uptown and he starts arguing with me. Then, this guy got his shirt out of his pants and he has a gun.  And this guy’s arguing with me and I’m cursing him right back because I don’t wanna go to the Bronx. We get to 90th and Broadway and I see a young cop and a call box and he could call into other cops from the call box. So, I pulled up to the curve, jumped out of my cab, ran over to the cop and told him about this passenger. Then I told him, “He’s abusing me, giving me a hard time, and I want him out of my cab.”

        Meanwhile, this guy has his gun out and he’s trying to put it back in his pants so the cop won’t see it. Then, the cop says, “Here, hold this,” and he tosses me his gun. So, this guy’s trying to get out of the left window of the back seat and the cop is trying to get in from the right side. And the cop looks young, like a rookie. So, finally, the cop gets the guy out on the curb side of my cab, and they’re fighting and I’m holding this cop’s gun. Now, I know about guns ‘cause I was a soldier in the U.S. Army in World War Two and this gun is cocked. It’s ready for use. Then, this guy tries to grab the cop’s gun and the cop swung him out and I shot him. Now, a lot of people would be worried about what would happen to them if they shot a cop’s gun, would there be legal consequences, but that’s a bunch of bull. I had to wait, though, ‘cause I didn’t want the bullet to go through this guy and then hit the cop. Then, the radio car came and they wrote up a report. Man, oh, man, this young cop was in shock. After that day, I took Saturday off and went swimming with my family.  

        But, a month later, I got a letter from city hall, inviting me to the steps of city hall to get accommodations. When I went, there were about twenty people there. Firemen, policemen, civilians, and even dogs were invited to the accommodation. I parked three blocks away to get to the accommodation and you know what happened? I got a parking ticket. So, I went to court, showed the judge the letter of accommodation, and the judge dismissed the ticket. The mayor at that time was Mayor Bob Wagner.  

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Another time I was going up 6th Avenue and I picked up this guy with five grocery bags. See, he was standing in front of a grocery store and I figured he had his groceries in the bag, so I picked him up. Says he’s going to 123rd Street and Lenox Avenue. So, I drive and I get him there. Then he says, “Wait here, I have to go upstairs to get the money.” Says he spent it all on the groceries.  So, I tell him to leave his groceries while he gets the money, which he does. So, I wait five minutes, he’s not back. I wait ten minutes, he’s still not back. I wait fifteen minutes, and I say to myself, This is a bad neighborhood, I’m getting out of here. At least I’ll have groceries. So, I drive to 97th and 5th, ‘cause that’s a better neighborhood. Then, I pull over to look at his groceries, to see what I’m bringing home to my family. Know what’s in the grocery bags? Garbage. He was carrying five bags of fucking garbage and that’s what I’m taking home to my family. That and a fake twenty-dollar bill. Oy veh.  

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        Here’s another story. One day, I was going across East 23rd Street (that’s in Manhattan), and I ain’t got no A/C. So, I’m driving and this guy comes running out of a bank with a big canvas bag in one hand and a crone-plated pistol in the other. He hails me and I pull over. He gets in and says, “Step on it”.  

        “Where do you want to go?” I asked.

        “Just step on it,” he said.

        So, I start driving and I’m two blocks from 23rd Street and I see these police sirens headed toward where we just came from. Then he tells me to make a right at 2nd Avenue. So, I turn on 2nd Avenue and again I ask him, “Where do you wanna go?” but he still won’t tell me. Then, I start thinking, this guy just robbed a bank, he’s got a gun, what’s he gonna do to me?  

        We get to alphabet city: Avenue D and 5th Street. We get to a corner and he says, “Pull over.” So, I pull over and he smacks me on the back and I jump out of my seat ‘cause I thought he’d shot me.  Then he says, “Good job,” and throws a twenty over the passenger seat. And, in those days, twenty-dollars was half a days pay. And I don’t feel guilty about it at all because one time I was robbed and I went to the police station, told them what happened and they said they were too busy for small time crooks. They just wanted big cases.  

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        One time I delivered a baby in my cab. It was winter, see, I was going up 8th Avenue, going to 32nd Street and I made a right turn. Now, there was a young girl on the west side of the street and she signaled me to go to 32nd Street. So, I made a right turn and she strutted across into my cab. So, I ask her where she’s going and she says she’s going to Bellevue Hospital. So, I’m driving and we get to 6th Avenue and I hear moaning and groaning in the back of the cab. So I ask her, “What’s wrong?” and she says, “I’m going to have a baby.” So, I proceed to blow my horn to get through traffic ‘cause going across town is very heavy, but they just thought I was a regular cab in a hurry so they didn’t let me through. But, finally, I got to the emergency entrance of the hospital and her feet were up in the back of my cab.  Then, I look back and the head of the baby’s coming up. So, I pull up to the E.R. door and jumped into the back of the cab and proceeded to deliver this baby since its head was practically out.  

        Now, while I was doing this, a security guard tapped on my window and said, “You’re not allowed to park here.”

        So I said, “Go inside and get me some help. I’m delivering a baby.”

        The man went inside and eventually came out with three medical people. By then, I’d delivered the baby. I gave it one spank and it cried. Now, this baby had hair and I found out later it was seven pounds and two ounces. Now, when these three medical men came, they told me to get out of the cab. Then, they came in, cut the umbilical cord, and put the mother and the baby into stretchers. Then, they took them into the hospital.  Now, I did not get paid for taking her to the hospital, but they ran a segment of me in the newspaper. Also, two guys from the hospital called and gave me stuff to clean the cab with. They were very nice people.  

        Now, I had dinner plans that night with three couples. So, I called my wife and told her to tell the other couples I’d be running late, but that I’d meet them at the restaurant. I got there fifteen minutes late and told them this story. One of the women jokingly asked, “If I have a baby, will you deliver it for me?” So I told her, “Only in my cab. No place else.”  

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