SATURDAY NIGHT
TAXI

The following was an unpublished taxi column I wrote on July 5, 2005. I e-mailed it out last year to see if a any publications would be interested in the column.


Tuesday night, 4:00 p.m.
I'm going up Kearny Street, heading into North Beach, still searching for my first fare of the night. I've been on the streets for twenty minutes. If it takes any longer, I'm going to start stressing. Finally I get flagged down on the corner of Pacific at Colombus. A heavy set guy gets in, hands me a five-dollar bill and mumbles, "take me up to the corner for five bucks, I used to work for this company." Not understanding what he said, I ask "where did you want to go?" "Right here," he says and gets out on before we reach Broadway. Not even a whole block. I look at the meter. It never even clicked once. I thought to myself ‘strange way to start the night.' This is a Tuesday night. No San Francisco cabbie expects to make a fortune on a Tuesday night. If they are like me, they'll be happy to make gas fees and gates (the name for the driver's daily rental fee) in three or fours hours so they can start making money for themselves before business dies. On a Tuesday night business usually dies by 11:00 p.m. Even if there is a convention in town, the tourists are back in their hotels after dinner. San Francisco Giants night games at SBC Park help business, but they are usually over by 10:00 p.m. So the quicker I make gates, the quicker I can make my own money and hang it up for the night.

Saturday night, 7:00 p.m.
I pick up these two guys from Visela, California, at Fisherman's Wharf. We are heading downtown when one guy says to his friend, "this city is a trip, you can turn a corner and the neighborhood totally changes." That's what makes this job so interesting. It's the diverse neighborhoods and the different characters out there. I feel as if I'm in one of my improvisation classes I took in college. One minute I could be joking with tourists from Georgia about the number of Waffle House Restaurants in their state or how expensive it is to live in Norway with Norwegian tourists. A few minutes later I could be having discussions on investment banking from a customer I pick up on Montgomery Street. I'm thinking to myself that this is Saturday night - my favorite night to drive a taxi. The night that everyone goes out - all the different characters. Anything can happen. Anything can happen!

Saturday night, 8:40 p.m.
I'm cruising down Mason Street, the radio is playing Bruce Springsteen's "Devils and Angels," I look to my left and some guy on the corner of O'Farrell Street is standing on his head begging for money. No big deal to me, my concern is finding my next fare. A few minutes later I stop on the corner of Sutter and Leavonworth two young women and a twenty-something guy gets in and ask to go to the Haight. The young guy sits in the front with me. So I say, "nice night," to him and he says, "I love the weather here. I'm from Israel and it's so hot there." I don't pick up many guys from Israel I tell him. "I just finished serving in the Israel army and am doing some traveling," he says. "Army! Isn't that dangerous? Can't you guys just get along over there? I thought religion is about love and peace?" I probably opened a whole can of worms, but he appeared to be a mellow guy and was taking what I said in jest. "It's not as simply as that," he replied. "Besides, I worked in optics. I repaired binoculars and night vision glasses."

Same night, 11:20 p.m.
I take a radio call from a bar on Bush Street. I pull in front of the place and a middle-age guy comes out and says, "she'll be right out." I look to my right and see these two big guys carrying this drunk woman to my cab screaming, "I'm not ready to leave yet, put me down." Hell no, I think, and race across the intersection away from the bar before the light turns red. After driving twenty-seven years, I can honestly say, from experience, that drunk women cause problems. Big problems! There was a night a few years ago when I took a radio call from the St. Francis Place apartments on Folsom Street. A guy puts this young lady in the cab and tells me to take her to 46nd and Taraval. A few blocks away from the pick-up I try to start a conversation. "So, it's a long way out here. Do you like being near the ocean?" I look in the back seat. She is passed out. We get to her place, I wake her and she's about to get out without paying. I say, "excuse me, but there is $19.70 on the meter." She yells that she paid me already and tries to get out. I turn the cab around and tell her if she is not going to pay me I'm supposed to take her to Taraval Police Station. She screams, "you're kidnaping me, you're trying to rape me," and jumps out of the cab as we're moving. I call the police and go back to her house. She runs out of the house and yells at the cop that if he doesn't arrest me she would report him. The cop tells her that if she doesn't keep quiet she would be arrested for being drunk in public. He tells me that if I want my money I could press charges and have her arrested for failure to pay. I said, "forget it, I don't want to waste my time and go to court for twenty bucks. I already wasted an hour of my life."

Same night 1:50 a.m.
The night's almost over. I'm cruising up Larkin Street when I see the doorman at the Century Theater strip club flags me down. He puts this tall well-dressed man in the front seat. Take him to the Holiday Inn the doorman says. I asked the customer which Holiday Inn. He looks at me confused. I say, "which one, there's one in the Civic Center, one at Fisherman's Wharf, one in Chinatown." The doorman says something to him in French and says, "Chinatown" to me. I pull up to the Holiday Inn on Kearny Street, there is $6.45 on the meter and the guy hands me a $100 bill. I look in the visor and can't find my special pen that checks for counterfeit bills. I ask him, "don't you have anything smaller?" He looks at me and says, "just give me thirty." The fare is only $6.45 I tell him. He repeats the number thirty. Now there are three guys banging on my window, "hey, can we have the cab when he gets out?" So I hand the guy a piece of paper, "write it down. I want to make sure I understand you." He writes down the number thirty. I hand him $30 and he gets out. The three guys get in. I'm still thinking about what just happened with the Frenchman, but it's off to another adventure. Yes, it's Saturday night all right.

Here I am in my taxi from an early 1980s photo.