Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab

by Dmitry Samarov

  Fourteen hours and fifteen cigarettes later, I finally get a cab. Rolling out, the sun stings my sleep-deprived eyes, despite which a tentative hopeful feeling attempts to gain purchase.

  Thanksgiving

  I’m on my way to a traditional Thanksgiving meal of pot stickers and spicy pan-fried pork at Lao Sze Chuan when he flags me down on Roosevelt. A young guy in a track suit and expensive basketball shoes. The first words out of his mouth are about how his car has broken down, which to anyone who’s lived in the city means a scam or just plain panhandling. In the spirit of the day, I don’t object and he directs me to an address on the South Side.

  He tells me about going to an event with Chicago Bulls players, proudly showing the autographs he’s collected. He’s excited like a kid would be, leading me to think that perhaps the broken-down car might actually exist. His innocence and lack of guile makes me doubt that I’m being played. He asks if I’d had my Thanksgiving meal.

  When we get to his house, he tells me that his mother will have the $25 for the cab. He has me honk a few times, then goes into the yard and hollers up at the second-floor window. Eventually a dark form appears and a complicated negotiation begins. I can only make out what my passenger is saying—it amounts to pleading and promising to pay back the amount in question. It goes on for close to fifteen minutes, with the figure in the window grudgingly tossing a crumpled bill out past the overgrown shrubbery of the yard. He comes up to the driver’s side, sheepishly offering a $20 bill. “It’s all she has.”

  He says his name is Dwayne and shakes my hand when I accept it.

  Christmas

  The abandoned streets that one’s accustomed to at 4 a.m. are odd, eerie, and lonesome at 4 p.m. on a Christmas Day. The few wandering souls who stand out are the kind who would fade into the scenery on a typical day. The absence of others brings them into higher relief, into sharper focus than they warrant or than anyone would ever want them to be in. The unkempt man talking to the brick wall to the side of a shuttered storefront might not catch the eye with a stream of pedestrians ignoring him, but today he’s the only show in town.

  The few who require transport seem more in their own worlds than on other days. Maybe it’s the long pauses between encountering anyone, but these rides feel like incursions into foreign lands; care must be taken not to antagonize the natives or break local customs while backtracking out and away from them.

  Two teenage girls preface every direction and request with sir, making me wonder whether it’s an ironic game or whether they were raised with some stilted out-of-date formality and this was the one day of the year that their families allowed them to go out among the commoners.

  A young, well-dressed Asian woman hefting a mountain of gifts hails me in a tony neighborhood. She asks to be taken to a black ghetto area. There’s no chatter during the trip, and upon arrival she hurries out, shielding her face as if she doesn’t want to be seen going where she’s going.

  Much of the day the rain beats down, making the streets appear even emptier than they do already with the dormant vehicles and unpeopled sidewalks, but toward evening it finally begins to form into flakes, to whiten the city and shrink visibility to but a few hundred feet in any direction. I head out to O’Hare in the hope of catching a stray weary traveler or two, to maybe find a hot meal as well.

  The little restaurant at the taxi staging area is miraculously open, so Christmas dinner is a fairly tough couple skewers of beef kebab over an ocean of rice with a side of wilted lettuce. The option to drown this last in ranch dressing proves too tempting to resist. The steam rising from the Styrofoam container fogs the car’s windows along with the visible breath in the cold, making the surrounding cabs and the airplanes beyond the fence, already being blanketed in snow, fade further and further from view . . . After several hours’ wait, kept company by a radio rendition of It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s time to head to the terminals.

  The little round-faced man stomps around, finishing his cigarette, near the head of the line at American Airlines. He crawls in and asks to be taken to Hoffman Estates. I look in the book for directions and an estimate on the fare. In an indeterminate Central European accent, he asks incredulously, “They no allow GPS? I trucker and without this I’m lost . . .” I explain of how little use that system is to a city driver, and we shove off westward. Turning into his cookie-cutter subdivision, I start clicking the Extras button on the meter, explaining that we charge the meter plus one half to go out to the suburbs. This prompts the following bit of Old World wisdom from my passenger: “Rules. Too much fucking rules this country. I from Europe . . . I go boating. No drinking, no make noise, go bed ten o’clock. Why I go out, then? Crazy living this country, everyone always chase money . . . Akhhh, glad be home anyway!” He pays $2 above the required $53 and bids me farewell.

  Back in the city, a woman stands shivering, clutching a white toy poodle close while trying to hold on to a bunch of sloppily overstuffed bags. She thanks me profusely for stopping despite the dog. “Most of you guys won’t stop when you see him,” she says, though how anyone could feel threatened or put off by that little puffball is beyond confounding. Seems her boyfriend chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus by getting lit and smacking her around. She points to the cop cars clustered down the street. “We were having a good time. All I asked him to do was to stop drinking.” She’s headed to her office to spend the night on the couch. “Luckily my business has one.” Still in shock, she thanks me profusely and overtips extravagantly as if to regain some control over a situation that’s knocked her on her ass with no warning whatsoever. Driving away, I think no apology for the human race would suffice to make this thing right.

  Many hours later, toward dawn, a woman in an oversize parka in the middle of the road is the last fare of the night. She asks about my Christmas, tells about eating way too much and getting most of what she’d asked for this year. We pull up to a house, and she says to wait while she runs in and grabs her kids before disappearing through the gate, down a gangway, and into the dark. Ten minutes later it’s time to cut losses. The $10 isn’t worth the bother. Maybe Santa had one last gift for her after all.

  The holidays magnify all that one lacks, forcing one to brood over deficiencies and failures. The best thing is that they end and everyday life resumes, giving the world back the scale and focus necessary to keep getting by. And me, I’m a stranger among strangers providing some small comfort missing when those others gather behind closed doors for their celebrations.

  New Year’s Eve

  No one threw up in the cab. In other words, my most fervent New Year’s wish had been granted. An indication of a fairly restrained evening. The hordes went about their celebrating with workman-like efficiency; collecting fares did not present any special challenge or above-and-beyond effort, every last rider remembering where he or she lived with a bit of encouragement, no unwelcome advances nor invitations to tussle.

  The first fare of the afternoon is a couple just approaching the precipice of their sunset years, who might’ve been the last two theatergoers in the United States not to have seen the Blue Man Group. He inquires as to what the Poncho Section refers to on their tickets; unfortunately their driver is of little help, speculating that something might be hurled their way off the stage. “WELL, we’ll be changing seats, then!” the outraged gent announces, remarking also that he didn’t realize the theater was “all the way on the North Side.” Out-of-towners that feign familiarity with the local geography are always a rare pleasure, but, as they tip generously, no more words should be spent tainting their memory.

  Gridlock makes much of the waning daylight a trial as the whole world seems intent on getting to where they are going all at once. The passengers do not complain, no doubt girding themselves for the festivities to come. Bartenders and waitresses on their way in exchange words of encouragement for the slog ahead. We know that many who would cross our paths tonight will be unaccustomed to being out in public, choosing this one night of
the year to grace the world with their presence, and thus will demand a special sort of patience of anyone lucky enough to be on the clock.

  Just as boredom is setting in, she shows up. Mincing steps on high heels to avoid the slick patches bring her to the cab. She introduces herself by name and also, to break the ice, says, “Not to brag on myself, but I just love to love, and the way the world is these days, they just take and take and take.” She’s thirty-five and on her way to meet a much younger man (this last part confided in a sort of stage whisper). A stop at the liquor store for champagne and then a cigarette lit just as we pull up to the spot. “Shit, can you go around the block? He doesn’t know I smoke, and I really need it to get through this.” We idle around the corner, where she puffs away, expounding on Obama, online dating, and God knows what else. She was the kind to use your name and make lots of eye contact, leaving the impression that said techniques are being employed to gain advantage. “I hope you get everything you ever wanted in life,” she wishes, then crosses the street.

  A loud white girl with two Middle Eastern guys in tow is next. “Can’t believe that bitch threw a drink at you!” she shrieks to one of her companions. “What kind of party is it when you can’t even have a drink? They were all lesbians; she had like a Mohawk and taped-up tits. Bet she’d’ve been happy if you’d mistaken her for a man.” The guys answer meekly, confessing that they just want to get something to eat. It is 11:45 p.m. and they make it to the bar just in time to toast the New Year.

  Soon the streets fill with marauding packs, arms raised, leaping into the road in search of transport and bellowing louder as cabs pass, as if their unique call might do the trick where others have failed. Doors locked, zigzagging maneuvers have to be implemented to avoid the enraged gallivanters. Parked outside a pub, many try the doors, walking away suspiciously when it is explained to them that the taxi is reserved. A big shot tries to outbid the rest, offering $20, then $40, to go mere blocks. He stalks away, incredulous that this tactic doesn’t produce results, likely reducing his standing in his date’s eyes.

  Two girls discuss their night: “He was sooo short. He plays tennis professionally; he’s, like, Sicilian. He totally wanted to, like, make me his wife!” Her friend counters, “That guy’s not Sicilian. He was adopted; he’s from Oklahoma. I saw his ID, and his name’s Michael Jackson . . . No, really, that’s what it said!”

  There are many others that blur together. Some sort of restraint pervaded over the whole night, as if they were all going through the motions, doing all this out of custom rather than any true feeling of elation. Grimly pushing through toward dawn.

  Outside a gated condo, a girl runs up, followed by a man. “You’re my savior! I just wanna go home and sleep. We have to wait for my friend though.” With increasing impatience, the two watch as another girl fumbles with the intercom, then goes inside the building. “I’d have been fine clearing out their hall closet and sleeping in it. They made us leave because they wanted to fuck, and now we have to sit out here and wait for HER!” he bitches. Eventually the wayward one returns, and we shove off. The quarreling dies down, replaced by yawns and gentle snores, a night of carousing reducing them all to a trusting childlike state. It’s time for bed. For drivers as well as passengers.

  The sky is just beginning to lighten when I open the mailbox. A letter from the AARP, complete with member’s card, awaits my attention. Had this night really lasted a decade? In any case, it is time to reset the calendar and start the whole damn thing over again . . .

  POSTSCRIPT

  Many of my cab stories started as short text messages to friends and, later, to acquaintances on Twitter. It became a good way to take notes about what was happening right after it happened.

  Some messages, however, didn’t warrant any elaboration. Here are the best of those.

  “Nobody wants to work, everybody wants money,” the old man tells the gas station clerk before reaching his arm into the trash can up to the shoulder to riffle through expired lottery tickets.

  A fat man with pants down to ankles urinates behind an open car door in the median of the Southbound Kennedy as rush-hour traffic rolls by.

  A shirtless, barefoot, potbellied gentleman is ambling eastbound on Chicago Avenue. Watch out River North, here he comes!

  A woman weaves wildly in and out of traffic. The cat on her lap has two paws on the wheel. Not certain who’s steering.

  Men wearing sandwich boards advertising “40% OFF MEN’S SUITS” patrol Michigan Avenue like medieval penitents in the town square.

  A drunk girl staggers across the street and asks to be taken to the Hotel Allegory.

  An angry man in a white van does a violent masturbation pantomime in order to encourage traffic to move faster, allowing him to make a turn.

  A crude handwritten sign on Archer tempts passersby with “50 YEARS OF QUALITY SAUSAGE.”

  Currently tailing a Chicago police cruiser with an “I ♥ SHEMALES” sticker proudly displayed.

  “That was brutal,” I say—the rain had made a $10 ride cost $16. “That’s all right,” she says. “I’m wearing sweatpants and high heels, so who am I to judge?”

  A little boy asks, “Isn’t Chinatown just a town in China?” and his dad is completely flummoxed.

  As we pass Oz Park, one oaf points and says, “Got a blow job on that slide seventeen years ago!” His buddy asks me, “Is this Taxicab Confections?”

  A man walks up Grand Avenue carrying a 24-pack of Keystone Light and a tire; some people just know how to party.

  “If you ever call me again, I will personally kill myself because of you, Richard,” she said, then went back to blowing smoke out the window.

  “We were only friends when she was into irony . . .”

  “Go to the flea market? It’s where I got my start, worth half a mil six months after I got here,” he said, then wandered away without paying for the cab.

  “That’s the thing, Kev. When I’m hammered, I can’t even tell if the girl is hot.”

  I’m arguing routes with a man who has missed his mouth with most of the nachos he is attempting to consume.

  Behind a Volvo with piece of paper taped to the windshield saying, “R.I.P. Dad 12/20/09,” in a child’s scrawl along with a sketch of the sun.

  A girl whacks her eye with the corner of the cab door but continues on to the bar despite a cut and swelling. “They have ice there,” she says.

  Now comes one of my favorite hours of the night—when drunks begin to discuss whether and to what extent they are indeed drunk.

  “I’m SO EXCITED, I wanted to fake-tan but I didn’t . . .”

  Past Western, an empty shopping cart crosses 95th Street seemingly under its own steam, narrowly missing my cab before continuing on.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not have been possible without two guys’ enthusiasm for my work: Levi Stahl of the University of Chicago Press and Whet Moser formerly of the Chicago Reader. Great thanks to both for making the initial push.

  Bill Savage took his red pen to several early drafts, and by the fall of 2010 we more or less had a book. I must also thank him for inviting me to ball games even if he is a Cubs fan.

  Robert Devens, Anne Goldberg, Erin DeWitt, Lindsay Dawson, Elizabeth Fischer, Isaac Tobin, and everyone else at University of Chicago Press who patiently guided this nonwriter through the publishing process.

  Shay DeGrandis read early chapters and made suggestions that changed the way I thought about how to organize this book. She also made many wonderful meals and gave me a place to sit quietly and put this book together.

  My parents, Alex and Nora Samarov, bought me a critical month of freedom from cab driving to finish this project. No one could wish for a more supportive family (even in times when I haven’t necessarily deserved it).

  I thank the publications that ran stories from Hack: the Chicago Reader, CellStories, Chicago Dispatcher, and the Printed Blog.

  Many in the Chicago media have been very gener
ous to me: Nick Digilio of WGN Radio 720 AM, Gapers Block, Windy Citizen, Chicagoist, as well as all the other newspapers, journals, blogs, websites, and e-zines that mentioned my work over the years.

  Lastly, a qualified thanks to the Yellow, Checker, American United, and Carriage Cab companies of Chicago, Illinois, for renting me the vehicles that provided the setting for these stories.