What's Not to Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer

by Jonathan Ames

  Taxi Stand

  I USED TO BE A TAXI DRIVER, but not here in New York City, which would be a romantic claim of sorts; rather, I was a cabbie in suburban Princeton, New Jersey. As a taxi driver there, you didn’t roam the streets looking for fares, you waited on line at this taxi stand in the center of town. And people would either walk up to your cab or they would call this one phone that all of us drivers shared. The phone was in this gray metal box, and over the phone was a lightbulb that would flash with each call. It was exciting when the light would flash.

  And if I was sitting in my cab, first in line, and the bulb would flicker, I’d hop out fast, like a fireman responding to an alert. Some taxi drivers strolled to the phone, feigning indifference, as if they were above it all, but I always ran. What if the caller hung up? And I never knew who would be on the other end of the line. Could be a job to Newark Airport, $65! Or it could be some Princeton matron wanting a lift to the supermarket, $3.50. But that was one of the thrills of taxi driving—the element of chance and luck. Would it be a day of little money or big money? But regardless, and this was the other great thing about taxi driving, you’d have cash in your pocket at the end of your shift—your labors were immediately rewarded; no waiting two weeks for some computerized pay-check that you felt no connection to. I only made about sixty dollars for twelve hours of driving, but I loved having the money in hand—the day had meaning.

  I drove a taxi for two years, from 1990 to 1992, and it was something of a humbling experience. In ’87, I had graduated from Princeton. In ’89, I was living in the town for purposes of writerly solitude and quiet when my first book came out. I became a local celebrity; the town paper ran a front-page story. But by ’90, I was broke and couldn’t get a job. No one would hire a novelist. They all thought I’d be taking off at some point. And I would have; by this time I wanted to get the hell out of Princeton, the solitude hadn’t done me any good—I had written half of a failed second novel called The Jewish Duke of Windsor. But I couldn’t get out of town. I’m terrible with money and I just didn’t have enough cash to stage a move. So I needed work, but I couldn’t even get a clerking job in the library. Only the taxi owners would take me on.

  The taxi stand was right by the gates of the university, and I’d sit on this one bench with my fellow drivers. They were a ragged crew of recent immigrants from the West Indies and Haiti—the new guard—along with a bunch of ancient white and black men—the old guard. The drivers who had been around for a while, to my eyes, looked like their cabs. There was Campbell, an elegant Southern black man who had worked in the post office most of his life but for the last fifteen years had driven a taxi. He always wore clean, pressed pants and a nice shirt and beautiful hats. The hats almost never came off, such that when they did, it was a revelation to see his brown, bald head. He liked to sit in his car and smoke cigars and read newspapers while waiting on line. When the phone light went on, and it was his turn, he took his time answering the call. He preferred to read his paper. His cab was a powder-blue Ford with a white top, and the body was shiny and on the front seat he kept a beautiful old cigar box filled with hard candies and coins and pictures of his grandchildren. Everything about him was elegant and smart. He told me that if he had been born in a different time, he might have ended up being a doctor, or at least a pharmacist, but as a black man born in the twenties, he went right into the army during the war and from there went to work for the post office. So Campbell looked like his cab—shiny and old-fashioned, with character inside and the white roof like his hats.

  Smiley was an older Italian man, in his mid-sixties or so, who had been driving in Princeton for more than thirty years, but he knew he would never set the Princeton record—which is also the world record—for taxi-driving longevity, which was achieved by this man called Irish. All the drivers had nicknames or went by one name, usually their last, and Irish (his nickname) drove for sixty years, from the twenties to the eighties—from his twenties to his eighties. So Smiley had put in long years, but he never would beat Irish, which he often acknowledged. (On the nickname front: One driver was called London because he had been a taxi driver in London and had learned from the book there. In London, there’s some kind of taxi-driving book you have to study, and London in Princeton, who was born in Spain, was proud of his knowledge, and if he got into an argument with some other taxi driver, he would dismiss him by saying, “You don’t know anything. I know the book.” So everybody called him London. And sometimes Jack London because his first name was actually Jack. For a little while I worked for London, drove his car while he was suspended by the police for supposedly pulling a knife on a Princeton student, but then he got his license back and I was employed by this very nice West Indian man named Henry, who worked for the university in Building Services and on the side had a fleet of two cabs.)

  So Smiley was distinctive for two things: He chain-smoked Parliaments and had a lifelong limp from polio. One leg was shorter than the other and he was always shaking out the bad one, the short one, like he was trying to get something to slide out of his pocket and down his leg. Nobody made fun of him for that leg-jiggling, but they called him Smiley because no matter what, and he was pretty cantankerous, his face was creased permanently into a smile, maybe from all the smoking. And his car was a simple dull blue, just like the windbreaker he always wore, and his back tires were raised up—he liked them that way—and it seemed like the right one was higher, kind of off the way his body was.

  Then there was Jimmy, this ex-cop, and he never spoke to anyone—he was trying to hold on to his cop pride. He drove a station wagon that had a square rear, which looked like Jimmy’s big square rear in his khaki pants.

  And so it went, everybody looked like their cab, and I wondered over time if I was starting to look like mine—a big, dusty brown ten-year-old Chevy Caprice. Something was wrong with the fuel line and I had to really put my foot down on the pedal to get it to move, so I often thought to myself that for twelve hours I was pushing that heavy car, and I wondered if like the car I was just becoming old and dirty and dying. Mostly I thought that at the end of the day, but by morning, by six A.M. when I’d be back out there, with some coffee in me, I’d be hopeful all over again for a good day, a trip to the airport if I was lucky.

  So every day I’d be sitting on the bench by the taxi stand, usually drinking yet another coffee and complaining with my cohorts about the slowness of business, and my former professors would go strolling past me. At first they said hello, but then because it was embarrassing for me and them—I was on that bench for two years, after all; it looked like I was becoming a taxi lifer—they would simply ignore me, which was the most reasonable thing to do.

  Since Princeton is trapped in some kind of Winesburg, Ohio time warp, it is the ideal setting for an old-fashioned American short story—the town is populated with gin-drinking alcoholics, horny, neglected housewives, gimps, crazed professors, lunatic children of professors, and rich snobs with secret weaknesses. So one day the town gimp, Charlie, ambled up to my cab. Charlie was in his forties and had been hit by a truck as a child. He dragged his right leg around and his right arm was spastic. He was thin and wiry and had a thick brown beard. His voice was oddly high-pitched. He spent his days sweeping (with his good arm) the sidewalks in front of stores. He demanded money for this task and the merchants took pity on him, even though Charlie’s personality was grating. He was mildly retarded (either from the truck or before) but in an annoying way—he harangued people. He was always after me to give him free rides, which I sometimes did. And he’d fill my whole cab with a terrible sweaty smell, like a salty mudflat, and I’d drive him to the outskirts of town, where he lived in a small subsidized apartment. But on this one day in September of ’90, early in the morning, he got into my backseat and said, “Take me to Atlantic City. I’m on a roll!”

  I turned and looked at him with annoyance. With his good hand he yanked out of his pocket a thick wad of bills. “I’ll give you one-fifty,” he said
. It was a deal. Of that one-fifty, I’d make seventy-five— everything was split with the boss. I could make the round-trip in three hours. I’d have a day’s pay before noon.

  It was a beautiful ride to Trumpville—we took the old two-lane highways through the endless trees of the Pine Barrens. The sun was perfect, the sky was a clean, infinite blue. Charlie smelled, but I was willing to tolerate it for the money. He was quiet back there, but every time we passed a sign announcing the miles to Atlantic City, he’d gleefully shout out, “Sixty-eight miles to go! . . . Forty-seven miles to go!” and so on. Between these outbursts, I did procure from him an explanation for this voyage. At the end of every month he got his check from the government and so he’d take a bus to the casinos and play blackjack. He usually lost most of the money, but this time he had won big and he wanted to get back there right away to keep his roll going. Over the next two years, Charlie had a few good rolls and I was always his personal driver to A.C. Sometimes I’d stop and play a few hands myself, but that first time I watched him limp into Caesar’s and then I turned right around. I wanted to have a big day on the taxi stand.

  But on my way back that first time through the Pine Barrens— New Jersey’s equivalent of Deliverance country—I stopped at a small, white, aluminum-sided porno shack. Why I had to do this, I don’t know. It must be my constant need to sully the sacred with the profane. Amidst all these beautiful endless miles of pine trees (the Barrens is one of the largest virgin forests in America), I was compelled to look at the garish boxes of porn videos. The store was tiny and had a limited selection, and there were no magazines. A rugged, Hell’s Angel type was the padrone behind the cash register. I was about to leave, but then I noticed that there was a door in the far corner. Above it was a sign that read, MISTRESS SUPERIOR, DOMINANCE SESSIONS. A dominatrix in the Pine Barrens? Like a child in a C. S. Lewis story reaching slowly for what should not be reached, I walked over and knocked at the door. It opened immediately. A woman in her late forties, all got up in black bra, garters, heels, eerie blood-red lipstick, spooky blue eyeshadow, and with dyed yellow hair, stood before me. Her large breasts were covered with frightening dark-brown sunspots.

  “You want a session?”

  “Yes.”

  She took my arm and pulled me in. She closed the door. I was in a large crimson closet. It was lit by red bulbs. At the end of the closet was a cushioned bench. Above my head was a shelf that went along all the walls, and it was lined with hundreds of oddly shaped candles. Wait, not candles, butt plugs! An incredible collection, so diverse. And hanging on the walls below the shelves were whips and riding crops and handcuffs.

  “Eighty-five for the hour,” she said. Her breath smelled of cigarettes. We were in close quarters. Eighty-five was too much money; it would negate the whole trip to A.C.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t afford you,” I said.

  “How much can you afford?”

  I had to get out of there. I was going to get cancer from the proximity to the sun blemishes on her breasts and from the cigarette breath. I stated a price that I thought would have her kick me out. Fifteen dollars.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll give you ten minutes for that.”

  Next thing I knew I was giving her the fifteen bucks. Even my green money looked red in that closet.

  “What do you like to do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  So she took over. She had me put my hands against the wall above the bench. “Spread ’em,” she said, referring to my legs. I did. Then the pants were down. Then a foreign object was up my ass. One of the butt plugs!

  “Did you wash that thing?” I asked meekly over my shoulder. “Shut up,” she said, but then she added, “I’m very clean. I scald my plugs and soak ’em in rubbing alcohol.”

  Then she reached her arm around my neck, choked me for a second, and then slapped me. After the slap, she lowered her arm and began a coarse, pumping handjob. Her cancerous tits were on my back. Her cigarette breath was warm on my neck. She whispered, “You’re a little shit.” She pumped. “Mama’s boy,” she said, and that struck a nerve—it was true, or something. I came on the floor. She yanked out the butt plug. Handed me a paper towel to clean up my mess. My poor wasted sperm—little glowing red droplets on the floor, my life force. She handed me a garbage can for the towel.

  Then I was out of there, in my taxi, driving back to Princeton. To the town and the gown. I thought of Mistress Superior whispering, “Mama’s boy.” I got a post-perverted-sex hard-on. I took stock. The day wasn’t entirely lost. I was still ahead sixty dollars.

  III

  Difficulties

  Father Smells Best

  MY SON CAME UP FOR his summer visit. He’s a big kid now. Twelve years old. Hair under the armpits. Pimples on the chin. He’s five-foot-seven, one hundred forty pounds. I have only five pounds on my little Oedipal challenger. He’s not fat, just incredibly solid. One of his ankles is as thick as both of mine. He’s going to be well over six feet. In the ring, I’ll have to rely on quickness and parental authority to take him out.

  He looks just like me, has my features: bent nose, albino eyebrows, no lips, blue eyes. His hair is a dark red. My hair used to be that color, but as I’ve gotten older, it’s fallen out and the red has turned yellow like my eyes (my eyes are yellow because of my relatively benign liver condition—Gilbert’s Syndrome).

  My son’s not a precocious New York City kid; he lives on his farm in Georgia. He spent a couple of years in a trailer. I’d visit him in the trailer. Trailers aren’t bad. More room in them than you’d think because things are miniaturized—the shower, the kitchen table. It’s like being in an airplane toilet. You appreciate the efficiency of the design; you feel like a giant.

  So he’s not one of these Manhattan youngsters with a depraved, sophisticated vocabulary, but somewhere he picked up the word doppelgänger. From a comic book, I think. He says to me, “I’m your doppelgänger.” We look like a big brother and a little brother, and because I’m immature, that’s more the style of our relationship, though he calls me Dad. And this, when I reflect a moment, is sometimes still strange for me. I didn’t meet my son until he was over two years old, and ten years later, it can still feel like a shock, a revelation—I’m someone’s father. I see him about every two months. It’s a schizophrenic lifestyle. With his arrival, I go from perverted bachelorhood to responsible single parenthood in an instant.

  This visit he was with me for three weeks. We started out in New Jersey at my parents’ house. That’s where I usually spend time with him. Sometimes we camp out in my apartment in New York—I have a futon for him—but this time we stayed out of the hot city. So we fished on the lake where I grew up. Last summer I caught a five-pound bass; this summer they weren’t biting as well. Still, we caught a few. Naturally, I got a hook stuck in the gullet of one fish and had to cut the line. I’m lousy at getting hooks out. That poor beautiful fish probably died, though my son and I always hold on to the fishermen’s myth that the hook rusts out. But you never know if this is true. I wonder if my bad karma with the fish will affect the sales of my book; it comes out very soon.

  After a couple of days in Jersey, my parents, my son, and I all went to L.A. to see my sister and her three-month-old twins, a boy and a girl. My résumé is growing: son, brother, father, uncle. It was my first time seeing the babies, and I held my little niece and nephew, one at a time, against my chest. Sometimes they farted and I would gush for my son’s pleasure: “It’s an Ames!” We do a lot of our bonding around fart jokes.

  I loved holding the little babies. And they held on to me, their miniature hands grabbing hold of my manly chest hairs. They are extremely tiny—premature like most twins—and I was able to support their little diapered buttocks with the palm of my hand, and with my other hand I cradled their heads, since their necks are too weak to provide support. I never held my son as a newborn, though I did get a chance to change his diapers. He’d cry a lot, lying there
nude and soiled, so I’d put the fresh diaper on my head, and this always amused him.

  When I was holding my sister’s babies, I worried about the soft spot on the top of their heads. I’ve never liked hearing about that soft spot. I wish such things didn’t exist. You touch that soft spot in the wrong way and the child is retarded for life. You have to wait years for that soft spot to harden. I find it nerve-racking. Children should wear bicycle helmets twenty-four hours a day. So I was very gentle with these precious twins, and my father saw how careful I was being and he said, “You know, babies can withstand a lot. You fell off a dresser and you’re relatively normal.”

  “What happened to my dad?” asked my son, excitedly. He always loves tales of my injuries and defeats and humiliations. Takes great pleasure in them. I can’t tell you how many times he’s asked me to retell the story of how I shit in my pants in the South of France after eating a poisonous tuna-fish sandwich.

  “Well, we left him with a baby-sitter one night,” said my dad, regaling my son. “And when we came home, the poor girl was crying, hysterical. She had put your father on a dresser to change him. Then she turned around for a second to get a diaper and he fell off. On his head. A good four feet. To linoleum. We took him to the doctor the next day, but the doctor said he was fine. So then I was more concerned with the baby-sitter; she was having a nervous breakdown until we told her that your father was all right. But that fall could explain a lot of things.”

  My father laughed and so did my son. I hadn’t heard this story for years and had managed to forget about it, to repress it. But now I envisioned myself falling off a dresser. It was an unpleasant image, especially since my sister’s babies had sensitized me as to the fragility of infants. “This is upsetting,” I said. “I can’t believe I was dropped on my head. I’m lucky I didn’t land on my soft spot.”