Nobody's Angel

by Jack Clark

  I sat there listening to it, waiting.

  After a while the clowns got out of my way.

  The dome light when lit, must be visible at 300 feet in normal sunlight. The dome light shall be installed and maintained in such manner that the dome light will automatically be lit when the taximeter is not activated and that the dome light will automatically be unlit when the taximeter is activated.

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

  I headed north into the heart of the bar rush. The early saloons were just closing. The smart drunks were heading home, and the not-so-smart ones were moving on to the late bars which would close in two hours at 4 a.m.

  But I didn't feel like ferrying drunks around. One guy gave me the finger when he realized I wasn't stopping. A girl jumped up and down and waved both arms in the air. There was a switch that turned the toplight off but I left it burning.

  I turned northwest up Lincoln Avenue. There wasn't a single cab in front of the Golden Batter Pancake House, the home of the Lincoln Avenue Roundtable. Everybody had gone home. I continued past to Cut-Rate Gas.

  There were several cabs at the pumps. A group of drivers was standing around watching another driver clean the windows of his cab. I didn't know any of them. I parked at the farthest pump. The drivers were all jabbering away in their native tongue.

  I started the pump then walked inside. I waved to the kid behind the counter--he was half hidden by dangling instant lottery tickets--then headed to the washroom.

  My hands were sticky with blood. I turned the water on and let it run awhile but it barely got lukewarm. I added some soap and washed the stains away.

  While I was waiting for my change, the early edition of the Sun-Times caught my eye. "SIX KILLED IN NIGHT OF VIOLENCE," the headline screamed. "12-Year-Old & Cabdriver Are Victims," a smaller headline read.

  I picked up a copy and skimmed straight to the cabdriver. "Abdul Patel, 41, a driver for North Suburban Taxi, was found stabbed to death in Garfield Park on the city's West Side. His abandoned taxi was found several hours later in an alley a few blocks west of the park. Investigators believe Patel was killed in his cab then his body dumped in the park.

  "Police are checking cab company records in an attempt to determine where Patel picked up his last passenger.

  "Three Chicago cabdrivers have been slain in the city so far this year. Patel is the first suburban driver to be killed. He is survived by his wife and two children."

  I dropped the paper back to the pile. "Anybody you know?" the kid behind the counter said.

  "Some suburban driver," I said. "What the hell was he doing on the West Side?"

  The kid shrugged. How would he know?

  I pushed through the door, popped the trunk, grabbed a handful of paper towels and a bottle of window cleaner. I cleaned the steering wheel and wiped the blood off the hood, then climbed into the back seat and started my usual end-of-shift cleanup.

  When I crawled out, one of the foreign drivers was waiting. He was about five foot two, dressed in a suit and tie, like he worked in an office somewhere. "Hello, sir," he said in a sing-song voice. "Would you be coming to the meeting?" He handed me a single sheet of paper.

  "CAB DRIVER SECURITY MEETING," it read in big bold print. "ALL DRIVERS PLEASE COME TO THE FOSTER AVENUE BEACH PARKING LOT AT 10 A.M. WEDNESDAY. WE MUST STOP THE KILLINGS!!!"

  I handed it back. "I haven't been up that early in years," I said, and I started washing the windows.

  The driver followed along. "It's important everyone come," he said.

  "It's important I sleep."

  Wherever used in these regulations, the term "cab stand" or "cab line" means a fixed area in the roadway alongside and parallel to the curb set aside by city ordinance for taxicabs to stand or wait for passengers, which stands are designated by metal signs or posts indicating stand capacity and bearing stand identification numbers; "chauffeur" means a Public Chauffeur as defined in Chapter 28.1 MCC; "commissioner" means the Commissioner of Consumer Services or his designee; "diving" means picking up or attempting to pick up passengers by by-passing a cab line or authorized airport staging area. Wherever used in these rules, the use of the masculine gender includes the feminine gender; the singular includes the plural and the plural the singular.

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

  I had an efficiency apartment off Montrose Avenue; a small living room, a tiny bedroom and a stand-up kitchen on the top floor of a large, brown-brick monstrosity named the Rosewood Arms. Most of the neighbors--those who spoke English--referred to it as the Armpit.

  I'd moved in seven years before, intending to stay a few months. Now I was one of the senior residents. It was a building of long, narrow hallways. One dark door after another, each with a numbered brass knocker.

  In the kitchen I poured a few ounces of Kentucky whiskey into a glass, cut it with a splash of tap water and added a single ice cube.

  Once upon a time, I'd spent too many nights with a drink in hand. Now I rarely thought of drinking, except as a waste of time and money. But then a night like this would come along and the lure of the whiskey would be irresistible. Just holding the glass in my hand, swirling the ice around the rim, seemed to relieve some tension.

  I carried the glass to the living room and sat in the dark, my feet resting on the window ledge. In a while the day people would start lining up at the corner bus stop. I

  would hear air brakes hiss, and then a Chicago Transit Authority bus would shriek to a stop and they would all climb aboard, and the day would officially begin.

  And then, full morning with the rest of the world wide awake, it would be time to pull down the shades and go to sleep.

  I'd been a day person once. I'd had a good job, a house on a quiet, tree-lined street, a family. Now I usually managed to sleep through those too-bright hours.

  At 5:15 the clock radio went off in Betty Cunningham's apartment. A while later, I could hear her on the other side of our common wall, getting ready for work.

  When she'd moved in, three years before, we'd spent about two months as full-time lovers. But we'd been doomed from the start. She worked days, as an assembler in an electronics factory, and I drove nights, and neither one of us thought the other worth changing shifts for.

  Betty was a few months older than I was, a Kentucky transplant who wore tons of makeup, chain-smoked Virginia Slims and still managed to be overweight. And, let's be honest, I wasn't any prize.

  She'd had a few boyfriends since my time but none had lasted even as long as I had, so I could always console myself that I wasn't the worst of the lot.

  Now, when Betty didn't have anything going on, we'd get together Sunday mornings after I got off work.

  We'd usually have breakfast, and then spend some time in her bedroom. Irv, my dayman, never worked Sundays, so I had the cab all day. If it was nice we'd take a ride along the lakefront, maybe up through the North Shore to gaze at the homes of the rich. Or we'd see a movie, or have an early dinner somewhere, or just lie around napping and watching TV.

  We seldom saw each other during the week. But Betty had the strange knack of knowing when I was awake in the morning. I could be sitting absolutely still at the

  window and she'd knock lightly at the door. But she never knocked once I was in the bedroom.

  Today, I stopped in the kitchen on the way to the door and added a splash of whiskey.

  Betty looked at the glass, took a whiff of the air, then a drag on her cigarette. She blew a long stream of smoke my way. I held the glass up in a toast.

  "Christ, what time did you get home?" She leaned against the hallway wall.

  "About three," I admitted.

  "Slow night?"

  I nodded.

  "You should have hollered." She smiled.

  I shrugged and she rewarded me with another stream of cigarette smoke.

  "I really wouldn't mind sometimes." She
fluttered her eyelashes and faked a blush and that was more than enough for me.

  "Come on," I said, and I tried to pull her inside, but she danced away and wagged a finger at me.

  "Time to catch my bus."

  It was the same old story. I always wanted her when she was right there in front of me. But I barely thought about her when she wasn't around.

  Betty waved and started away, then stopped and turned back. "Eddie, there was something on the radio. They said another cabdriver "

  "Some suburban driver." I nodded. "I saw it in the paper."

  "See you Sunday." She blew a final stream of smoke my way.

  "Sunday," I said, and I watched her walk down the hall. She always looked great in jeans.

  I went back to the window and watched her sprint for the bus. I sat there sipping the whiskey and then, hours after the bus had gone, I picked up the phone and dialed.

  The line echoed back two thousand miles, then the phone began to ring. This was a call I'd been making every few months for years. I never talked to anybody. Usually an answering machine picked up. It was just a small way of keeping in touch. I sat with my finger on the cradle, ready to hang up at the sound of my ex-wife's voice.

  "Hello?" a voice answered the phone. It was a younger voice, a gentle voice.

  I didn't say anything.

  "Hello," the voice said again, and then I was sure.

  "Cookie?"

  "I'm sorry," she said pleasantly. "You must have the wrong number." Cookie was a nickname I'd given her when she was two. It didn't surprise me to find that my ex-wife no longer used it.

  "Laura?"

  "Who's calling please?"

  "Laura, it's your dad," I said.

  "Daddy?" she said, and all my troubles were gone.

  "Oh, baby, you don't know how I've missed you."

  "Oh, Daddy, where have you been?"

  "Who is that?" a loud voice called from the background.

  "Daddy?" the girl said again.

  "Baby, I want you to know "

  "Who is this?" A familiar voice shouted straight into my ear. How had I ever loved that voice? "Who is this?" she shouted again.

  "Who do you think?"

  "We have a legal agreement, Mister Miles," she shouted. "If you ever call here again "

  "Mother!" my daughter shouted in the background.

  "Get her out of here!" the shrill voice commanded, and then switched back to the phone. "You son of a bitch, I thought you were dead for sure."

  "She's my daughter!"

  "Haven't you caused enough pain?"

  "I've got some money now," I said.

  "It's a little late for your money," she said, and the line went dead.

  Passengers shall only be solicited by a taxicab chauffeur while he is behind the wheel of his vehicle, and the chauffeur may only use the words: "Taxicab," Taxi" or "Cab."

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

  The neighborhood kids woke me on their way home from school. I lay there in bed listening to their laughter and fighting, and fragments of the night flickered through my mind. Relita. The cops. The sweetness of my daughter's voice followed by the nightmare voice of my ex: I thought you were dead for sure. And now she knew I wasn't. Was that good or bad?

  I looked out the window. Irv, my dayman, had quit early. The cab was parked at the curb.

  I showered and shaved, and went out to another grey day.

  My first load was a nurse on her way to Weiss Hospital. $2.80 on the meter; she gave me three and told me to keep the change.

  I went south, heading for the business down in the Loop. Two short hops and I was on Michigan Avenue where a woman with a tiny shopping bag waved.

  "Thank you so much," she said climbing in. "Union Station, the Adams entrance, please."

  I worked my way through the Loop, through early rush hour traffic. Thousands of trench coats were heading the same direction we were, to the commuter railroad stations just west of the river.

  There was $4.40 on the meter when I pulled up with a swarm of other cabs. The woman handed me five dollars. "Keep it," she said.

  A young black guy hurried over and opened the passenger door. He was clean and healthy looking, wearing a navy pea coat and sporting a thin goatee.

  The woman started out, then stopped. "Driver, I'm sorry. Could you let me have one quarter, please."

  I handed her a quarter and she dropped it into the guy's waiting hand. "Thank you," he said, and he closed the door behind her and held the same hand out to me. "Help the poor?"

  "Whose quarter you think that was?"

  I started away but then the black guy slapped the side of the car. "Got one for you," he shouted.

  "Do you go south?"

  It was an older black woman. She was lugging an old suitcase, one that looked like an oversized doctor's bag.

  I waved her towards the cab, and the guy grabbed her suitcase and started around for the trunk.

  "Put it in here." I reached back and opened the door.

  The woman slid into the back seat. The guy slid the suitcase in behind her. "Thank you so much," she said, and she handed him a dollar.

  She gave me an address on South Aberdeen and I pulled away trying to calculate what the guy might make on a good day. If you could make a buck and a quarter every thirty seconds for an hour

  "Where you coming from?" I asked, once we were on the highway heading south.

  "Mississippi," she said.

  "Good trip?"

  "A funeral."

  "Oh. Sorry."

  "Long time coming," she said.

  The address was in the heart of Englewood. But most of the neighborhood--like so many other neighborhoods on the South and West Sides--was pretty much gone. Half the buildings had disappeared. There were drug dealers and gangbangers on the corners. But the old woman lived in the middle of the block, in a well-kept six flat, with a sturdy looking gate out front.

  Ten dollars on the meter. She gave me thirteen.

  "Thanks very much," I said, and started to open my door. "Let me help with your bag."

  "No. No. You stay right there." She got out, then reached back for the bag. "Don't pick anybody up out here," she whispered. "Lock your doors. Go straight back to the highway."

  I locked the doors, waited until she was through the gate, then I followed the rest of her advice.

  I got stuck in a traffic jam on the way back to the Loop, then wandered around for a while, trying to stay away from the worst of the traffic.

  I made a short hop from LaSalle Street to Union Station. The black guy was nowhere around.

  An older guy in a suit and tie flagged me on Wacker Drive. As we headed for Lincoln Park, he opened a newspaper. "They ought to give you guys shields," he said.

  "This job isn't bad enough," I said. "Now you want us to drive around locked up in little cages all day."

  "Whatever you say," he decided. $6.20 on the meter, I got $7.00.

  On Lincoln Avenue, a familiar-looking guy was standing at a bus stop holding a small gym bag. As I stopped for the light, he stepped off the curb and looked up the street

  for a bus, then decided the-hell-with-the-CTA and pointed a finger my way. I waved him over.

  "The Three-Six," he said, sliding in.

  "You going to work?" I asked.

  "Goin' to pick up the fucking cab," he said and he didn't sound very happy about it.

  "Maybe I'll get something to eat," I said.

  The Three-Six was a restaurant and cabdriver hangout just north of the Loop. There was a big parking lot that was often busier than the restaurant itself. If the dayman lived south and the nightman north, it was the perfect spot to drop the cab.

  "You always do nights?" the guy asked.

  "Yeah. How about you?"

  "It's all fucked up, man. You know that?"

  "Sure," I said. If you listened to some drivers everything was fucked up. They never made any money. If it was sunny
they complained that people walked. If it rained they bitched that everybody stayed home.

  "I just can't do these nights anymore," the guy said.

  "I can't do the days." I knew how to bitch too. "I've tried but I can't deal with the traffic."

  "You'd rather get shot in the fucking head?"

  "I'm not sure," I joked.

  "I got kids, man," the guy said. "Ain't nothin' funny 'bout this shit. You got kids?"

  "Yeah."

  "Then you know what I'm talking about."

  "Sure," I lied. The truth was I didn't have a clue. I hadn't seen the afternoon edition of the morning paper yet.

  The meter was pushing five dollars when I pulled into the parking lot of the Three-Six and found an empty space between two Yellows. "Just give me a couple," I said.

  "Thanks, man," the guy said. He handed me three.

  Inside, I nodded my head at a few familiar faces then slid into a vacant booth. The waitress brought coffee. I ordered bacon and eggs.

  "It's all about body language," a loud voice behind me said. "The assholes always give themselves away."

  "But how?" a familiar voice asked. It was the rookie. He'd been on the streets for months but he was still a rookie.

  "Usually it's something about the way they wave," the loudmouth said. "Or the minute they open their mouth."

  "But they're already in the cab," the rook whined.

  "Don't pick up kids. That's the biggest thing. You see ghetto kids trying to flag a cab, you know something's wrong. You know they can't afford no ride. Let 'em take the CTA."

  "I hope you didn't order the special," a new voice said. I looked up as Ken Willis slipped into my booth.

  "Bacon and eggs," I said.

  "Keep your fingers crossed, boy. Keep your fingers crossed."

  Willis was a big, barrel-chested guy who still spoke with a West Virginia drawl after thirty years in Chicago. He'd driven a cab for several years back in the sixties, then switched to trucks. When the truck line had gone bankrupt during deregulation, Willis had come back to cabs while waiting for another decent trucking job to open up. Years had gone by and he was still waiting.