Driving for Yellow Cab

Driving For Yellow Cab

After I quit my first teaching job to return to the Bay Area, I found that there were no teaching jobs to be had in the whole state of California. When we were down to our last fifty dollars or so in the bank, I went in for an interview with Yellow Cab figuring that I would work for them a couple weeks at the most as I was sure that a teaching job would materialize if I kept looking. My first day training run with an old timer, Casey, convinced me that I didn’t want the job.

In June when school was finished, we left Willows, put our furniture in storage, and returned to Philadelphia for what was a short visit with family and friends. At first I thought I would look for a teaching job back East. But, the weather was so hot, the city was so cramped that I never even attempted to find a job. We couldn’t wait to return to California.

I took a job at a cannery as a stopgap for the summer and spent at least one day a week interviewing for a teaching job. When someone asked my two–year- old daughter what kind of work her dad did, she said he goes on interviews. I must have interviewed for at least twenty jobs by summer’s end. Most jobs were in the Bay Area. But, I went to Riverside to interview for a junior college position, and all the way up north to Tule Lake to interview for a high school job.

I never really intended to work at Yellow. It was only after I was laid off at the cannery, and we were down to our last fifty bucks in the bank and what Anne earned at the credit union that I decided to answer the add that was running in the Oakland Tribune. “Our drivers average a hundred dollars a week!” it said, back in sixty-seven that was good money. You could get by on a hundred dollars a week.

To me, driving cab was the worse job on earth, even lower than selling encyclopedias or fuller brushes. You would only take it if you were desperate. I went in for the interview only for show, to keep Anne off my back while I waited for the history job in Palo Alto to come through. Driving passed American Rubber on my way to Yellow, I thought about stopping in and asking to get my old job back. But, I told myself, “No. I would only be working for a couple weeks or so. I would hate to quit them again with such short notice.”

The personnel manager was a guy, Tex, who had started out as a cab driver and made his way up through the ranks. He was full of self-importance and a little intimidating. He shouldn’t have been. I had been going on steady interviews for junior college and high school jobs for the whole summer. I was always very frightened when I went on an interview. One principal even noted that I ought to learn some interview skills. When Tex asked me if there was anything I left off my application that should have been on there, at first I started to lie. But I caught myself and admitted that I had lost my license back in fifty-eight on a DUI.

Tex jotted something on my application and told me that some old boys thought they could fool him, but they never could. He had been doing this job for twenty years and nothing got by him. He explained that the key to making money was using the radio, and following company rules. The rules were set up to make money for the driver. When the driver makes money the company makes money. We got fifty percent commission on all the fares we booked. The company paid for the cars, the up keep, the insurance, and the gas. We got to keep our tips.

I had to join the teamsters union, get clearance from the Oakland and Berkeley Police Departments, and get a physical from the company doctor in San Francisco. All that was fine with me. It would help be stall around a little bit until I heard from the Superintendent in Los Gatos.

I went out on my one-day training ride with a veteran driver, Casey. He explained that each driver was assigned a cab, and your cab number was the number that the radio called. Casey’s number was One-0-Five. Casey didn’t explain that if you got in with the dispatcher and he learned your number he would give off the prime orders to you. One night a couple years after I started driving my cab was in for a tune-up. I was assigned an old timer’s cab with a low number. I pulled down a railroad trip to Santa Rosa where I took a crew from Oakland and brought the crew in Santa Rosa home. I was allowed to run the meter while the crew had a half hour lunch break. The total fare was over a hundred dollars. I went in early that night booking over a hundred and twenty dollars my best night ever.

We stopped in front of the office and checked out on the wall phone there. Casey explained that if there were an order deep west, the dispatcher would send you. If not he would shoot you downtown. As we drove toward the center of Oakland, Casey explained that most who don’t get an order deep west head straight for the Greyhound. But, to make money you have to know where the fares are. He explained that the next bus didn’t come in until eleven A.M. and, when it did it was empty. At this time of morning, he explained the action was on Pill Hill.

As we raced to the Hill, I noticed that there were other cabs heading the same way on different streets. I realized that we were in a race for the best stand. When we were in sight of the stand, Casey spotted on Four-Six-Five. The dispatcher informed Casey that there was a cab already on the stand. We could see that it was empty. Casey explained that Harris spotted when he was blocks away and flipped the other driver off as he came racing around the corner and skidded into the stand.

We spotted on a near by stand and Casey began explaining how the radio worked. The dispatcher had a wall map of the whole city in front of him. The map was divided into four sections. Downtown was one, East was two, North and Berkeley were three, and West was four. The radio had two channels. Downtown, West, North, and Alameda were on one. Lake, Berkeley, Piedmont, and East were on channel two. Casey explained that had to switch channels, listen in, and go where the radio action was.

As we went through the day and began picking up fares one of the things that bothered me most is that I had to wear my yellow cap. Casey had taking his off for a minute as we were leaving the parking area. I took my off too and placed it on the dash. Casey explained that I would have to wear my hat all day. If I didn’t wear it they could stop him for high flagging, driving with a passenger in your cab while the meter is off. He also explained that driving without your cap on was a distress signal. If a police officer saw you without your hat he would pull you over and check things out.

As we raced from fare to fare, from one part of Oakland to another traveling on streets that I had never seen during my five years living there, Casey never stopped talking for a second. When there were no fares in the cab, he explained what I had to do to earn book. Book was something like thirty-eight dollars. As long as you made book the company would keep you. When there were fares in the cab he would talk to them some times continuing gossip that had began on their last trip.

Just a little past noon, Casey stopped his chattering for a moment and screamed into the mike, “One-O-Five going to Three-Seventeen.”

“One-O-Five inside for Mr. Sidney,” the dispatcher answered.

We raced the five or six blocks to Highland Hospital at full speed as Casey explained that he heard the dispatcher calling for cabs at Three-Seventeen. He figured it might be the psycho ward. He explained that you could pull down some good fares there some times to Napa.

Our fare was a big mean looking African American who was being transferred to Palo Alto. He sat in the back seat complaining that the shrinks that were treating him didn’t know what they were doing. That he’d probably have to waste some honky mother in order to get the help that he needed. Casey agreed that the bureaucracy was all messed up and tried to appease the guy offering him a smoke and explaining the no one in government knew what the F was going on. He asked the fare which bridge he wanted to take the San Mateo or the Dumbarton. “What I care what bridge you take, take the Dumbarton,” our fare told Casey. I sat staring straight ahead waiting for a black arm to come over the seat and grab me by the neck.

When we dropped off our fare Casey explained that the psycho had picked the long way round. We would have to run off the extra miles and add a couple small trips to the weigh bill before we checked in. He deadheaded straight to the Oakland Airport and passed up the cabs that were waiting on the back up stand. The drivers that were spotted back up rushed into the inner stands and left Casey ninth out on the four cab inner stand. One of the drivers told me that if I learned all of the stand jumping tricks that Casey used some driver would blow my brains out.

I remember the last fare we pick up was and old lady in Berkeley. I jumped out of the cab and opened the door for her. Inside the cab she told me that I would make a good cab driver. “You look honest and scared to death,” she told me.

I figured that it was the hat that made me look so. And anyhow, I’m not going to be out here long enough for it to matter, I told myself certain that a job offer would be waiting when I got home.