Taxi Driver

by Richard Elman

  I had cut it that way to get down to business, really take care of business, but I didn’t like being seen by Betsy looking so very unattractive, you know, so I tried to vanish into the crowd and I almost bumped right into this S.S. guy. The usual sort, a gray suit, ever-roving eyes behind sunglasses. Talkative as the sphinx.

  Better I thought to brazen it out, if I could, hardware and all.

  “Oh say, pardon me,” very boyish, “are you a secret service man?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well I’ve seen a lot of suspicious-looking people around here.”

  The S.S. gives me this very chilly look for a moment and then he asks, “Who?”

  “Oh, lots. I don’t know where they all are now, there used to be one standing over there.” And I pointed over to where I’d been.

  He followed me with his look . . . actually followed the tip of my finger for a second and then he was staring at me very hard and I just had to improvise fast. “Is it hard to get to be a secret service man?”

  “Why?”

  “Well I kind of thought I might make a good one,” I said. “Because I’m very observant.”

  The S.S. was getting really interested in me now in his sly way. “Oh?” He was looking at me very, very hard and cold.

  I said, “I was in the army, you know.”

  I’d gone over the line on that one and was on his hit parade now of suspicious characters because he started asking me some questions, as it were, in his own way, of course.

  Said, “Listen Mister, if you just give me your name and address, I’ll make sure we send you the information on how to apply to the organization.”

  Thinking of what to do next. Said, “You would, uh?”

  He took out this little black pad and said, “Oh, sure.”

  Maybe I was being photographed by somebody too because I saw him motion in his little sly way once. I said, “The name is Harry Krinkle . . . that’s with a K. Krinkle. I live at thirteen and a half Hopper Avenue, Fairlawn, New Jersey. Zip code o-seven-four-one-o. Got that?” Really jabbering as he was taking it all down. Said, “Sure Henry, I got it all, we’ll send you all the stuff, all right?”

  “Hey, great,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

  There would be eight more rallies in six more days. My time was coming. One way or the other.

  Like I recalled how I used to say as a kid, someday I am going to do something and nobody is going to stop me. Ever. I honestly felt that I could, if only I dared to, because there was nobody who dared to stop me. You know. Well, once I came in contact with those S.S. I didn’t feel that way anymore. I thought they could stop me, if they wanted to. They could stop me, but I just might do it anyway.

  A Remembered Face

  Well, it was in the next couple of days that I started cruising again down off Tompkin Square. I thought I might see that girl again, that very young one. The chippy. Something about her look made me think she would help me if I could help her. Something about a friend in need.

  It didn’t take me too long to find her. I almost knocked her down with the cab. Don’t know that she recognized me at first but I recognized her. She was with a girlfriend, another hooker just like her. And they were hot-to-trot with anybody standing on the street corners.

  She was wearing this big floppy hat and thank God there was so much traffic that night because I was able to crawl along behind her and her girlfriend afterwards as they walked slowly down the sidewalk. Then I saw them stop and chat with a guy in a doorway, this shadowy figure. I couldn’t make out his face at first but I saw that fringe of suede jacket and the glow of a cigarette, and then she turned and looked at me in the cab and then walked on, her fat friend following her.

  There were also two dudes from college standing on the street corner in clean, faded jeans and bright shirts. Looked high on something or other. They seemed to have their eyes on all the girls.

  After a while these girls spotted the guys . . . these two guys and walked over to them. They exchanged some small talk together and then they walked off as couples. I saw them turn around the corner and I tried to follow but the traffic was heavy.

  At a forty-five-degree angle from the curb I noticed this other little girl has been watching me eye the chippie and her friends. She walks over to my cab, leans in the open front window, and with a face full of smoke says, “Hey, cabbie! you coming or going?”

  Well I felt like I’ve been caught with my hands inside the cookie jar. I knew what she wanted from me. So crass. Well I took off.

  Campaign Promises

  The next day was hot, even for June. In Harlem it felt like inside a potato baker, and all the little kids’ faces looked like baked spuds, charred. The streets stuck to the bottom of your shoes, tar, asphalt, bubble gum.

  “The time has come to put an end to the things that divide us: Racism, poverty, war,” said the voice of the Senator Charles Palantine over a PA from a block away from where I sat in my cab with the off-duty sign on, the only white man on that block aside from some cops, the S.S., press.

  “Never have I seen such a group of high officials from the President to Senate leaders to Cabinet members so openly cause disunity and racial hatred . . .”

  I sat behind the wheel with sweat tracing down along the old scars on my body, making channels across my brow and upper lip, inside those mirror sunglasses, my hair clipped up short just like a warrior. I had on that army jacket again with this big bulge on my left side, the .38 Smith and Wesson.

  Senator Palantine said, “These men pit black against white, young against old, sow anger, disunity, and suspicion—and all in the name of the good of the country. Well, their game is over . . .”

  The jigs applauded him because he was an excellent speaker, and they like oratory. Palantine could orate and somehow seem sincere. He drove hard toward his arguments, crashed down on all the main points. His voice sounded strange, but it rung with anger and sincerity: “All their games are over . . .”

  Well I was listening, but only half listening to that little white stick figure on the platform among that array of black dignitaries about three hundred yards away on this little bleacher outside his uptown campaign headquarters, and with the rest of myself, I was writing a letter home to mom and dad.

  “Now is the time to stand up against such foolishness, propaganda and demagoguery. Now is the time for one man to stand up and accept his neighbor for one man to give in order that all might receive. Is unity and love of common goods such a lost thing?” asked the Senator, with his shirt sleeves rolled up and the audience like a gospel chorus said, “You tell it Senator, you tell it.” And they clapped for him.

  “Dear Father and Mother,” I wrote, “June is the month I remember which brings not only your wedding anniversary but also Father’s Day and Mother’s birthday. I’m sorry I can’t remember the exact dates, but I hope this card will take care of all of them.”

  Senator Palantine said, “They say this is the election of the greedy that everybody wants to get something for nothing. Well, I don’t believe it. Of course we all want—demand—an end to the raw deals we’ve been getting year after year . . .”

  Again, applause distracting me as I write, “I’m sorry I again cannot send you my address like I promised to last year, but the sensitive nature of my work for the Army deserves utmost secrecy. I know you will understand.

  “I am healthy and well and making lots of money. I have been going with a girl for several months and I know you would be proud if you could see her. Her name is Betsy, but I can tell you no more than that.”

  More applause, a couple of black kids tapping on my windows and pointing behind the cab where a policeman walks up along the side . . . along side to my window.

  Senator Palantine says, “Most of all we desire a chance to become one again, to become a strong single solidified country . . .”

  The police says, “Hey, cabbie, you can’t park here.”

  I say, “Sorry officer.”

  The
police says, “Are you waiting for a fare?” He leans in through the window and my hand went into my jacket pocket to my revolver, but I say, “No officer.”

  “All right, move it.”

  Senator Palantine is saying, “Their game is over, all their games are over. Now is the era for the common man,” as I drive off.

  Later in my place I finished that letter home: “I hope this card finds you all well, as it does me. I hope no one has died. Don’t worry about me. One day there will be a knock on the door and it will be me. Love, Travis.”

  Well, I read that letter over and over until I was sure it was fool proof, just what I wanted to say, and then I copied it over on this twenty-five-cent anniversary card with a four color embossed cover. It was just the kind of card I knew they would like: Mr. and Mrs. All America standing before an outdoor barbeque grill clicking salt and pepper shakers and a toast:

  HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO A COUPLE WHO HAVE FOUND THE PERFECT COMBINATION FOR MARRIAGE . . .

  and when the card was opened up there was one big word:

  LOVE!

  I guess everybody wants a little of that. That’s really what it’s all about, I guess. The best hookers peddle nothing else in their ways, and their loneliness is unbearable. When I mailed the card, I bought myself a pint of peach brandy and drove down to the Lower East Side again to look for that girl.

  Sweet Iris

  Well I was pretty high on brandy by the time I got there and she wasn’t too hard to find: strutting some of her barbeque down the sidewalk with her girlfriend.

  I parked my cab, checked the seat, checked to see if I still had the .38 in place, turned up the collar of my army jacket, and slouched over towards her. Well, she kept on walking and I walked beside her. I was feeling a little shy. Said, “Hello.”

  She didn’t stop moving. Asked, “You looking for some action?”

  “Well,” I said, “I guess so.”

  She looked me over as if she recognized me at last, said, “All right, if you want a party . . .”

  She sighed a little wearily.

  “You see that guy over there?”

  I nodded at her even though I wasn’t looking.

  “Over there,” she said pointing to the same young dude with pockmarks in the fringed suede jacket standing in that doorway. She said, “Names Sport. You go talk to him. I’ll wait here.”

  I walked over to the dude. Asked, “Your name Sport?”

  “What of it?”

  Little greasy pimp looked like a scarecrow. Hair every which way. A rash on one hand. Definitely a case.

  The same guy definitely who threw that twenty-dollar bill at me a while back. Same mean greaser mother-fuck.

  Said, “I want some action.”

  “I saw,” heartless. Sport being very cool about it.

  Said, “Twenty dollars for fifteen minutes. Thirty for a half hour.”

  “Shit.”

  “Take it or leave it,” Sport said.

  “I’ll take it.”

  Start dipping in my pockets for the money.

  “Not me. Not here.” Sport says. “There’ll be an elderly gent to take the bread.”

  Said, “You give it to the old man. He’ll take. Don’t worry. Nothing’s for nothing.”

  The farthest things from my mind. Well I didn’t like his ways. The way he seemed to be sneering at me, as if he had my number or something. It’s something people do a lot in New York.

  I start on my way. Sport says, “Hey copper.”

  I froze.

  Well I just didn’t respond. Didn’t say anything. I knew he was being provocative.

  I had my piece, of course, but what good would that do? Kill a pimp and what have you got? A dead pimp.

  Or so I thought then. To that effect . . .

  Well when I turned around, I said, “I’m no fucking cop.”

  “Well even if you are,” Sport said, “it’s entrapment already . . .”

  Already. I just hadda laugh. Said, “I’m hip. Are you hip?”

  “Me, I could wade through shit I’m so hip,” Sport said. He laughed real mean at me. “Funny, though, you don’t look it.”

  Well she was watching us all the time the little kid and when I started back toward her again she sort of motioned to me like a dog with the fingers down along her side to follow her snapping fingers, and I did. We turned the corner and walked about a block: Snake eyes. We’re not saying anything to each other. Not one word. Then she turns into this darkened doorway and I followed her again.

  Well I suppose I should have approached her or fondled her broke the ice somehow or something. She seemed so little to be turning tricks, she couldn’t do me any harm. I repeat: she was like young. Hardly pissed through hair, I thought, and I thought like she wouldn’t do me any harm. At all. Cool it.

  We entered this dimly lit hallway. On either side was metal doors with apartment numbers, a payphone with its receiver dangling.

  She turned toward the first door, #2. Said, “This is my room.”

  “This is my room,” is what they always say in movies. Stuff like From Here To Eternity with Frank Sinatra. “This is my room.”

  What did I expect, fireworks? I waited for her to open the door but she was looking down the far end of the corridor toward a huge old hulk, big face all shadows. “Hey cowboy!” the old man said. He was coming my way. He’d gotten up out of his chair and was coming my way, pointing at my coat.

  “Give me the rod, cowboy,” the old man says.

  When he was right up next to me he didn’t hesitate, I could feel his warm breath on my face as he reaches inside my jacket and pulls out that .38 special. Then he says, “This ain’t Dodge City, cowboy. You don’t need no rod.” He glanced at this Timex watch he’s wearing with a gold band and sticks the rod into his pocket, my gun inside his pocket. Says, “I’m keeping time.”

  “Did you hear that, cowboy,” he says, “I’m keeping time.”

  The girl takes me by the hand and leads me into #2 room.

  Dimly lit, a bright orange shag rug on the floor, deep brown walls the color of chocolate that’s melted. And an old red velvet sofa. Posters of Jagger, Bob Dylan, Peter Fonda, peeling off all the walls. She goes to the small phonograph and puts an album on, I think it was Neil Young.

  There was a double bed in the far corner of the room covered with a dark red Italian print bedspread. Sort of Indian looking.

  I thought there was something kind of delicate and almost pretty about the place, a young girl’s room I thought. She is after all, just you know a young girl. Well I was moved to pity her. Said, “Why you hang around with them greasers?” She looked at me amused almost. Said, “Young girls do get beat up.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “By the likes of them.”

  She just shrugged and the flesh on her thin frame seemed to jiggle a little. Said, “It’s your time, Mister. Fifteen minutes ain’t long.”

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and took off that floppy hat. She really looked very puny and little now. Just a lad.

  I asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Easy,” she said.

  “That ain’t much of a name.”

  “It’s easier to remember,” she said. “Easy lay.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “I don’t like my real name,” she said.

  “What’s your real name?” I demanded.

  She stared at me as if to ask why was I being so insistent, then shrugged again. Said, “Iris.”

  I thought that was a nice name. Said, “That’s a nice name. Iris.”

  “That’s what you think,” she said.

  When she unbuttoned her shirt, her breasts were real small like pathetic. These two little birds maybe hiding from a wind. I didn’t like looking at her without her clothes on like that. It got me kind of jittery. She was being too forward. I said, “Don’t you remember me?”

  “Button your shirt,” I said, “don’t you remember me?”

  Iris buttoned the bott
om button of the shirt again. She seemed to have some dim recollection of me because she was staring at me again, examining me like I was a spot or something on the walls of the room. She asked after a while, “Who are you? Why? Why should I remember you?”

  “I drive a taxi,” I told her. “You tried to get away one night. Don’t you remember?”

  “No.”

  “You tried to run away in my taxi but your friend over there—Sport there—he wouldn’t let you.”

  “Well, I don’t remember,” Iris said.

  Well then I let the cat out of the bag. “It don’t matter anyway,” I said. “Because I’m going to get you out of here.” I was staring at that door.

  Iris warned, “We better make it, Mister, because Sport will get mad. How do you want to make it?”

  “I don’t want to make it. I came here to get you out.”

  She reached for my fly and started unzipping it. “You want to make it like this?” she asked with that little smile, like Sport’s, all nasty in the face, as if to give me Slurp-Slurp head.

  I pushed her hand away. She gave a little sob and then I let go of her hand gently and sat down next to her on the bed. I put my arms on her shoulders. “Iris, can’t you listen to me? Don’t you want to get out of here?”

  “Why should I want to get out of here?” As if real scared of me. “This is where I live.”

  I wanted to shake her. There was this sudden rag fluttering up in the sky, big black rag ball of a man. Said I wanted to shake it. Shake that rag. Said, “You’re the one who wanted to get away. You’re the one who came into my cab.”

  That rag started to float down real slow toward the ground as Iris said, “I must have been stoned.”

  What was she saying to my rag? To me? I asked, “Do they drug you?”

  “Oh, come off it, man.”

  Her hand lunged for my fly again and I felt tight all over. Backed away, said, “Get off that, you hear, listen, stop it.”

  Said, “Iris, listen . . .”