Driving Cab: Chapter Twenty-Six

Driving Cab: Chapter Twenty-Six

 By the time I reach downtown, it’s almost eight thirty. If I spot on One-Three-Seven, I can run inside for a sandwich and get in line for the nine o’clock phone, I tell myself. The Hof Brau comes in sight and I see a cab on the stand. There are two cabs on the Trailways stand on Telegraph. I circle the block and decide to head for the ‘Hound.

On San Pablo, I see one cab on the stands. I pull in second out and shut off my engine. It’s beginning to get just a little chilly outside. I get my blue windbreaker out of the trunk and slip it on. Through the center of the tall tan building, I can see a bus unloading in back. I sit on my fender and watch for the fares. The first out driver stays in his cab. In a minute or so, passengers begin to file through the center doors. They’re greeted by a couple blacks that are hustling watches. An elderly woman with a brown paper shopping bag and a worn suitcase brushes by the hustlers and hurries to the first out cab. A young longhaired girl comes out of the doors, and races to a double-parked car behind me. A middle-aged heavyset book salesman shies away from the watch sales men and hotfoots it to another waiting car. A half dozen more Greyhound fares come out of the doors and disappear in different directions.

Then, there is just me and the two watch sales men on the street. I jump off my fender and climb behind the wheel. Might as well climb out and take a piss, I tell myself as I pull into the first out position and spot. I hurry toward the doors telling myself that I can hang around for the next bus, or maybe catch a phone order. Just as I reach the door, one of the hustlers steps in front of me. I’ve seen him a couple times from the cab, but have never been this close to him. He’s a mean looking mother, big, black, with a growth of brush like stubble on his chin. My eyes drift down to his open shirt collar and suit coat. I glance at his baggy trousers and brown and white summer shoes. His partner is at the restaurant door looking over the sparse crowd for any newcomers. 

“Hey, man,” the hustler says as he pulls a nice looking gold watch from his pocket. “I got to get up the fare for a bus ticket, man. I got this hundred dollar gold watch. I’ll let you have it for thirty, man,” he says turning the watch over and holding it up for my inspection.

“Man, I don’t have any thirty dollars for a watch,” I tell him thinking of my own watch safe at home on the dresser.

“How much you got, man? I can let you have it for twenty. I jus’ got a phone call. My old lady is in the hospital. I got to get home to L.A.”

I glance at the restaurant and see three or four white faces among the half dozen or so inside. “If I had twenty dollars, I wouldn’t be working tonight,” I tell the watch salesman and give a nervous laugh. I catch his eye and smile.

“Yea,” he says and gives me a look so mean that I have to turn my eyes away. “You’d be working mother F---er…You’d be working c--- sucker…. You’d be working….” he tells me.

What wrong wid me? I ask myself as break off, and head for the restroom. Why couldn’t I jus’ tell him I was on to his game? Tell him I’ve seen him working the bus crowd a dozen times? Inside the spacious dimly lit Men’s Room, the old black shoeshine man is working on a pair of shoes that a customer left him. I stand at the tile urinals on the wall across from his stand. There’s just the two of us. “How’s it going tonight,” I ask as I zip down my fly.

“Kind’a slow. Kind’a slow,” he answers and pauses his brushing of the pair of empty shoes. “How’s it going with you?”

“Ahhh… pretty slow. No long trip, yet.” As I wash my hands at the sink that he keeps clean, I ask him about the young girl I saw him with the other night.

“Oh, that young lady. That was my daughter,” he says and laughs. “You know I wouldn’t mess wid any young stuff like dat.” We exchange laughs and bid each other good night.

Back in my cab, I watch the two hustlers go back to work as the next bus empties. Two old timers pull in behind me. A skinny red-faced guy in kaki pants and long sleeved shirt ambles to my cab and opens the front door. “Can you take me to Treasure Island?” he asks.

“Sure can,” I answer and flick on the meter. At least a five-dollar trip, I tell myself and thank my good luck.

He throws a small over night bag over the seat and climbs in up front. “What a day,” he tells me stretching out long legs.

“Long trip,” I ask as I pull into the left hand lane and hang a U.

“Long, hot, and boring, all the way from San Diego. And would you believe it, I end up on a f---ing local.”

“You stationed at T. I.?” I ask.

“Yea… We must’a made a hundred stops. That’s not bad enough, but I have to get some old drunken smelly bitch sitting next to me. You wouldn’t believe it, man. She’s after my ass the whole trip. Old enough to be my grandmother, too. I actually have to push her away a couple times. She got her hand inside my leg. She’s pulling on my crank. Pushing her ass against me. She’s got to be over fifty. I tell her if you want to give me a blow job that’s all right. But, I tell her I don’ want none a’ her ass. It’s all dried up and dead by now. I tell you man, it’s disgusting. The whole way from San Diego to Stockton she keeps after me. Playing with my leg, grabbing my crank. I already had enough ass on this trip to last me a month. Hell, man, I got laid four times the night before. Two different broads. I don’t need no ass from this old bitch.”