Nobody's Angel

by Jack Clark

  NOBODY'S ANGEL

  By Jack Clark

  Copyright 1996, 2010 Jack Clark

  SKY BLUE TAXI

  INITIAL CHARGE $1.20

  FIRST 1/5th MILE .20

  EACH ADDITIONAL 1/6th MILE .20

  WAITING TIME (EACH MINUTE) .20

  ADDITIONAL PASSENGERS (EACH) .50

  TRUNKS .50

  HAND BAGGAGE CARRIED FREE

  (RATES IN EFFECT FROM MARCH 1990 TO JANUARY 1993)

  CITY OF CHICAGO

  INCORPORATED 4th MARCH 1837

  PUBLIC PASSENGER CHAUFFEUR'S

  LICENSE

  21609 EDWIN W

  MILES

  Department of Consumer Services

  It was a beautiful winter night but everybody was home hiding from a snowstorm that would never arrive. Everybody but the cabdrivers. We were sitting around the Lincoln Avenue roundtable--a group of rectangular tables and the surrounding booths in the back of the Golden Batter Pancake House--everybody bitching and moaning, which is the routine even on good nights.

  Escrow Jake was into a familiar rant about TV weathermen. "When they say, 'Whatever you do, don't go outside,' what they really mean is: 'Stay home, watch TV and see how fast my ratings and my paycheck go up.'"

  Jake had been a lawyer until he got disbarred for squandering escrow accounts at various racetracks. He was still a degenerate gambler but now he drove a cab to feed his habit. Only his very best friends called him Escrow to his face.

  In the booth behind Jake, Tony Golden and Roy Davidson were schooling a rookie in the art of survival. Golden had grown up on the black South Side. Davidson was white, from the hills of Kentucky. But they were the best of friends. And they both loved the rookie. Everybody did.

  There weren't many Americans entering the trade, and the kid was white to boot, which made him about as rare as a twenty dollar tip.

  "Don't go south," Davidson warned him.

  "Keep your doors locked," Golden advised. "Especially that left rear one. They love to slip in that left rear door."

  "Don't go west," Davidson added.

  "Then they can sit right behind you and when the time comes, bam, they're over the seat."

  "Don't go into the projects."

  "I don't even know where all the projects are." The rookie sounded shaky.

  "You know what Cabrini looks like?" Davidson asked.

  The rookie said he did. Everybody knew what the Cabrini-Green housing project looked like.

  "That's all you got to know. Don't go south. Don't go west. Don't go anywhere looks like Cabrini."

  "But I won't know till I get there," the rookie said.

  Good point, kid, I thought. Good point. And I remembered my own days as a rookie and my first trip to the pancake house.

  I'd cut off another taxi. The cab came around me at the next red light, pulled into the intersection, then backed right to my bumper.

  The guy who'd gotten out wasn't that big, but he walked back slowly, with plenty of confidence, ignoring the horns that started to blare as the light turned green.

  "Jesus, you're white," Polack Lenny said as cars squealed around us. "Why you driving like a fucking dot-head?" I was to discover that this was Lenny's harshest insult.

  "Sorry. I didn't see you," I lied. "Just trying to get back to O'Hare."

  "Oh, boy. How long you been driving?"

  "Couple months," I admitted.

  "Never go back," he said. "Haven't you learned that yet? You never go back."

  "It's really moving out there," I said.

  He shook his head sadly. "Stop by the Golden Batter on Lincoln some night. You can buy me a cup of coffee."

  He jogged back to his cab, jumped in, and made the light as it was changing. I waited for the next one, then wasted twenty minutes speeding to O'Hare to find the staging area full of empty cabs.

  Later that night I bought Lenny a cup of coffee. It was the first of a few thousand conversations we would have at the roundtable. It was easy to learn when Lenny was talking. "People don't want to hear how bad business is," he told me that first night. "They got problems of their own. So if they ask, just lie and say you're having a great time. You might even start to believe it."

  Tonight, drivers were remembering and concocting long trips. St. Louis, Louisville, Miami, Los Angeles, Anchorage. Lenny, sitting at the head of table number one, cut everybody off. "You want to talk about long trips, I'll tell you about a long trip."

  Ace, sitting across from me, winked.

  "Here we go," I whispered.

  But the whole place shut up. There must have been thirty drivers, and many had already heard Lenny's

  favorite story. I'd heard it several times myself. But this is the night I always remember.

  "This is years ago," Lenny said. "I'm on LaSalle Street in the Loop when this guy in a bowler hat flags me with his cane. 'Buckingham Palace, please.' Like it's right 'round the corner. 'Listen, pal,' I tell him. 'I can get you to the fountain for a couple of bucks but the palace is about four thousand miles.' 'The palace, please.' Well, I'm getting a little annoyed. 'You think I got wings?' "

  Lenny does the English guy with puckered lips: " 'I believe there's a ship leaving the Port of New York in seventeen hours, twelve minutes.' So, what the hell, I get on the horn and dispatch comes back with an even twelve grand. 'Get the money up front and save the receipts.' "

  "Twelve thousand dollars?" the rookie whispered as Lenny began to reel in the line.

  "The English guy opens his briefcase and counts out twelve thousand in hundred dollar bills. Then he says, 'Drive on, Leonard.' "

  Leonard. Half the room died. It was a brand new touch.

  "Six days later we pull up in front of Buckingham Palace and he says, 'Ta-ta, Leonard. Thank you very much.' And he hands me a ten pound tip."

  "Lenny, you are so full of shit," someone said, and someone else said, "You're just figuring that out?"

  Didn't faze Lenny. "Hear me out. You ain't heard the kicker. So I start back for the docks. Haven't gone two blocks when all a sudden I hear, 'Sky Blue! Sky Blue!' I stop and here's this guy lugging a couple of guitars and a suitcase. 'You're a Sky Blue Cab from Chicago, right?' 'What's it look like, pal?' 'Can you take me back there? I was just on the way to the airport but I hate to fly.' 'Well, sure. But, look, it's twelve grand and I gotta have it up front. Cash.' 'That's no problem,' he says. 'Can you get me there by Saturday night? I got to be at 43rd and King Drive by six o'clock.' "

  Lenny held up his hand like a cop stopping traffic. " 'Whoa. Look. Sorry, pal, nothing personal but ' " He gave it a long beat. " 'I don't go south.' "

  The place exploded in laughter. Even guys who'd heard it before were howling. I looked over and the rookie was laughing along with the crowd but you could tell he didn't really get it. He was probably thinking about driving a truck for a living or something sensible like that.

  Clair, my favorite waitress, came by with a coffee pot and a rag to clean up the spills. She caught my eye and flashed a smile.

  Ace winked. "She likes you, Eddie."

  "She's married."

  "And?"

  "And she's not that kind of girl," I said. But in my dreams she was.

  "The things you don't know about women," Ace said.

  All taxicabs shall have affixed to the exterior of the cowl or hood of the taxicab the metal plate issued by the Department of Consumer Services. No chauffeur shall operate any Public Passenger Vehicle without a medallion properly affixed.

  City of Chicago, Department of Consumer Services, Public Vehicle Operations Division

  It was another quiet night--the tail end of that same winter--the last time I saw Lenny.

  I was northbound on Lake Shore Drive, fifteen over the special winter speed limi
t, which was supposed to keep the road salt spray from killing the saplings shivering in the median.

  The lake was a vast darkness on the right. To the left lay the park and beyond that a string of high-rent highrises climbed straight into the clouds.

  A shiny Mercedes shot past in the left lane. A rusty Buick followed along. I flipped the wipers on to clear the mist that had risen off the road.

  A horn sounded. I looked over as a brand new cab slipped up the Belmont Avenue ramp. I slowed down a bit and the cab pulled alongside. The inside light went on and Polack Lenny pointed a long finger at his own forehead. I couldn't read his lips but I knew that he was once again calling me a dot-head. "Hey, Lenny." I turned my own light on and gave him the finger in return.

  For most of the years I'd known him, we'd both driven company cabs. I hadn't known his real name until he'd won a taxi medallion in a lottery and put his own cab on the street. I'd been one of the losers in that same lottery, and I was still driving for Sky Blue Cab.

  LEONARD SMIGELKOWSKI TAXI, Lenny's rear door proudly proclaimed. His last name took up the entire width of the door, which had some obvious advantages. He might never get another complaint. Everybody'd get too bogged down with the spelling.

  Lenny took both hands off the steering wheel and waved them around for me to see. I could almost hear his gravelly voice, "Look, Ma, no hands." He was obviously having a good time and he was probably rubbing it in a little. I was driving a three-year-old beater with 237,000 miles on it. If I took my hands off the wheel I'd end up bathing with the zebra mussels, and Lenny knew it.

  He put one hand back on the wheel and turned the other thumb down. I pointed a thumb in the same direction. It had been that kind of night. I held an imaginary cup of coffee to my lips and took a sip. Lenny shook his head, then laid his head on a pillow he made with one hand. He waved one last time, then his inside light went out and his cab dropped back.

  "What was all that?" my passenger asked as I sped back to 55.

  "Just your typical bitching and moaning," I explained.

  "It must be kind of scary."

  "What's that?"

  "All those drivers."

  "What drivers?"

  "The ones getting shot. It must be kind of weird."

  I'll bet, I thought, and I glanced in the mirror. He was slouched in the corner of the seat, looking towards the lake. His face had lost some battle years ago and was now dotted with scores of tiny craters. His hair was long and streaked with grey. He was too old to be dressed in trendy black, to be nightclubbing on a quiet Tuesday night. He was the kind of guy who would always go home alone.

  "What's your line?" I asked.

  "I don't follow you."

  "What sort of work you do?"

  "Graphic design."

  "Now that sounds scary."

  He laughed. "Yeah, but nobody shoots us."

  "Probably all shoot yourselves out of boredom," I said.

  "Hey, what's the problem, man?" The guy sat up straight and gave me a hard look.

  "Just making conversation," I said, the most easygoing guy in the world.

  I took the Drive until it ended, then followed Hollywood into Ridge. Past Clark Street, Ridge narrows and winds along, following some old trail. A few blocks later, parked cabs lined both curbs. Lenny wasn't the only one who'd given up early.

  A skinny guy with a beaded seat cushion under his arm was leaning against one of the taxis. He looked my way and drew a circle in the air. A nothing night, I deciphered the code. I waved and tapped the horn as I passed.

  The meter was at $12.80 when I stopped just shy of the Evanston line. The guy handed me a ten and three singles and got out without a word.

  "Thanks, pal. I'll buy the kid a shoelace."

  Everybody wants a driver who speaks English until you actually say something.

  A few years earlier I would have cruised Rogers Park looking for a load. It had been one of Chicago's great cab neighborhoods. There'd always been somebody heading downtown.

  There were still plenty of decent folks around, black and white, but just to be on the safe side, I turned my toplight off, flipped my NOT FOR HIRE sign down and double-checked the door locks.

  The sign didn't necessarily mean what it said, and the decent folks usually knew to wave anyway. But with the sign down, I could pass the riff-raff by without worrying about complaints.

  I drifted east, working my way to Sheridan Road, and then headed south back towards the city.

  On Broadway, I spotted Tony Golden locking up his Checker. I tapped the horn. He looked my way and pointed both thumbs straight down.

  A few minutes later, in the heart of Uptown, a couple staggered out from beneath the marquee of a boarded-up theater. I slowed to look them over, then stopped.

  The woman opened the door behind me. Her blouse was undone. Someone had been in a big hurry and popped all the buttons. She'd tucked the tail into her skirt, but when she leaned into the cab, I had a clear view of some very inviting cleavage.

  "Hello," I said.

  "You go Gary?" she asked. She didn't sound like she'd been in country too long. She was small and dark, with high cheekbones and probably more than a trace of Indian blood. One tiny brown hand rested on the back of my seat.

  "Indiana?" I asked.

  She nodded and her breath reached me and suddenly she wasn't pretty at all.

  "Sure," I said. Gary was thirty miles. I pushed a button to lower the driver's window and took a deep breath of city air.

  "How much dollars?" she wanted to know.

  "Say forty bucks." I gave her the slow-night discount. "But I gotta have the money up front." And I would have to keep the window cracked all the way.

  She turned to her partner and spoke in Spanish. He was a sawed-off guy wearing cowboy boots that still left him well below average height. He pushed her out of the way and leaned in the door. His breath wasn't any better. He could barely stand. "Fucking thief," he said, and slammed the door.

  I coasted a few feet then sat waiting for the light to change. In the mirror I watched the pair stumble up the block to a big, beat-up Oldsmobile, a gas guzzler if there ever was one. They were a couple of drunks left over from some after-work saloon and now little man was going to drive the lady all-the-way-the-hell to Indiana. When they got there, their breath would mix nicely with Gary's coke-furnace air.

  The light changed and I started to roll.

  "Cab!"

  Two guys in business suits bolted out of a nearby nightclub. I stopped halfway into the intersection. A car trapped behind me blasted its horn.

  The first one in the door was a kid of about thirty. He was lean and trim with short, sandy hair. He wore a pale pinstripe suit. Some sort of junior executive, I decided. The second guy looked more like the genuine article. He was ten or fifteen years older and somewhat heavier, with lines in his face and grey in his hair. His suit was a deep, dark blue with tight, gold stripes.

  "Jesus Christ, get us the fuck out of this neighborhood," Junior said.

  The trapped car finally got around me. "Asshole!" somebody shouted as it squealed past.

  "Hey, this is a good neighborhood," I said. I followed Broadway as it curved east and went under the elevated tracks. Off to the right a group of winos were passing a bottle around. They hadn't even bothered with the time-honored paper bag.

  "Looks like New York to me," Senior decided.

  "You want to see some bad neighborhoods," I offered. "I'll show you some bad neighborhoods."

  "I've seen enough," Senior said. "Take us back to the Hilton."

  I cut over Wilson Avenue and headed towards Lake Shore Drive, a few blocks away.

  "Sorry about tonight," Senior said. "Tomorrow we'll try Rush Street. Can't go wrong there."

  "I'll never trust you again."

  "Used to be everything north was nice. 'cept for Cabrini, of course."

  "What's Cabrini?" Junior wanted to know.

  "Worst housing projects in Chicago," Senior sai
d. "You know the first trip I ever made here I got some advice that served me well. Guy told me two things to remember about Chicago. Don't go too far south and keep away from Cabrini-Green."

  "Here's how it really goes," I chimed in. "Don't go too far south. Don't go anywhere west. Be careful when you go north."

  "What about east?" Junior wanted to know.

  We were southbound on the Drive by then. I gestured towards the lake where a light fog was rolling in. "Can you swim?"

  "It's still a great city," Senior said. "Too bad we can't see anything. Best skyline in the world."

  There was a wall of fog-shrouded residential highrises on our right, most of the windows dark for the night. The towers of downtown were concealed behind thick clouds.

  "Where you guys from?" I asked.

  "Indy."

  "Naptown," I said.

  "A nice place to raise a family," the senior man informed me.

  "We've got some of those around here someplace," I remembered.

  An empty Yellow shot past, its toplight blazing away.

  "I hear you guys been having some problems," Senior said as I flipped the wipers on in the taxi's wake.

  "What's that?"

  "Somebody killing cabdrivers."

  "Christ." That was all anybody wanted to talk about.

  "Seven guys killed, that's something."

  "Three," I corrected him.

  "Seven, three, whatever," Senior said. "It's gotta make you nervous."

  "I've been driving for twenty years," I lied, "I was born nervous."

  They both laughed.

  "You know what a taxi rolling through the ghetto is?" I asked.

  "What's that?"

  "An ATM on wheels."

  "You don't go there, do you?" Junior said.

  "Where?"

  "You know, those neighborhoods."

  "I don't have any choice."

  "Just pass 'em by," Senior advised.

  "It isn't that easy," I explained. "Say you're driving by some fancy highrise and the doorman steps out blowing his whistle. You pull in and out walks the maid going home. What you gonna do?"