by Jose Bello
It was near eight o'clock on a hot August evening. Thank God for air conditioning. Annoyingly I'd picked up a fare that took me straight into the mouth of the lion; the west side Port Authority. It was still daylight and I'd hoped to stay in the Bronx until sundown. Although the trip down along the Hudson River was pleasant enough, taking a neighborhood where I'd done a considerable amount of growing up in just a few years, it wasn't compensation enough to be stuck in the human soup at the Port Authority. I'd just dropped off a family trio of husband, wife and eight year old boy. They'd come to meet up with the kid's older brother on furlough from Fort Dix.
It was a mess, with everybody going everywhere; suitcases, packages, a conglomerate of odors, some fragrant, but mostly crass. I hurried to put my off duty sign on before dropping the family off to look for their bus from New Jersey. I hurried to fill in my trip sheet, hoping my next fare would take me uptown. Nothing but “yellows,” limos, vans and people, in the midst of Manhattan concrete, exhaust fumes and trains rumbling underground. A lovely variety 'soup' consisting of “broads” Sinatra sang about, the “Bo-jangles” Sammy Davis Jr. sang about and the endless hoards nobody sings about!
I figured someone would soon come yanking at one of the doors, anxious to get home after a day's work, to a tree lined street, way upstate somewhere and the hell away from here. I wondered about the deals I'd heard some older cabbies talking about back at the garage. It seems one could make deals with folks heading out to Connecticut or somewhere out of the city; usually somebody who'd missed a train and just wanted to be home at a negotiable price.
I could smell hot dogs soaking in a long day's hot water, just yards away, reminding me I should eat, before being consumed by a thumping headache. But hey, if I held off for a couple of fares I could with luck, be closer to a real meal of meat and potatoes at one of the Irish joints with the steam coming up from the warming pans. Just then I felt a jolt from a hit at the right rear bumper. I swung my head around to see a yellow cab backing up. He'd just dropped off some passengers and ran into my bumper as he tried to rush off. He too wanted to be elsewhere picking up his next fare.
We exited our cabs, meeting at the back of mine. The guy was older than me. His slick dark hair, tan chinos, white shirt opened at the top and shiny brown shoes, indicated he wasn't my contemporary. After assessing the potential damage, I could see that aside from the many old scratches and evidence of bygone damage, there was no new damage. It had been no more than “bumper knocks” and in the cabby experience, not enough to ruffle any feathers. We both agreed. But, as I was about to get back into my taxi, this guy looks at me, a serious face quickly fading into a big smile and said: “You're high, anyway man.” Then he turned and got back into his cab and drove off. I guess he mistook my tired, bleary eyes and disheveled appearance for being “High.”
I give great credit to my roaming attention span, born of my 'child like' curiosity, which is at least in part, the reason I never feel boredom. Instead, I take a periphery interest in nearly anything or everything. My mother used to say I was easily distracted. I must agree. I guess that's why my mother, an accomplished pianist, gave up trying to teach me to play piano. I imagine that my subconscious mind borders close to the surface, fortuitously helping me to develop insights otherwise lost. “Who thinks of that!?” - Indeed. And why? I find it fruitful. And I'm grateful for this process which I credit with my decision to becoming a cabby, among other critical decisions I've made. Although, I've always felt that had I admitted this to anyone, I'd be looked upon as a “kook” or a crazy person. Thanks to retirement, I don't have to care.
Well, I happened to like driving a cab. It was good and right for me. I liked not going to work mornings, dreading having to spend eight hours or more, laboring at something I had no interest in, while wishing I were somewhere else. Even those jobs that were of some interest, were spoiled knowing that I was treading water in a sea of workers focused on keeping their jobs. It seemed for a while that maybe I should listen to others who advised ways to deal with the back biting, politics, pretending and putting up with the usual bullshit as so many others did. “Everybody puts up with shit at the job, man! You think you're special?!” was a typical response.
For a long time, my answer was “no.” But, in time I began to feel that if “taking shit” was the answer then, I would leave a job as soon as I saw shit coming my way. I didn't care about the consequences. I would bear the pain. And I did. Until I found driving was my answer. And you can tell it was, because I'm still writing and talking about it.
New York City is divided in ways that in all the years I lived there, I couldn't be bothered trying to figure it out. “I'm going down to the “Village” man.” Oh, yeah, the “Village” huh? Well, have fun, see ya' later.” You say you'll be over at a party at “Hell's kitchen?” You know, lately I've been hearing a lot about “gerrymandering” and “redistricting.” I'd known all along about Richmond/Staten Island, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Peter Cooper Village, I learned about when I drove for a diaper delivery service in Queens. At about that time I began hearing about other designations assigned to other places unfamiliar to me.
Where did they come up with this? And who are 'they'!? I guess “we” and by that I mean everybody I'd ever known while living in New York City, seemed to have been left “out of the loop” when it came to “Hell's Kitchen” “Peter Cooper Village” “Stuyvesant Town” or whatever, when it came to these names we weren't familiar with. We never received any notice of these neighborhood names within the boroughs. Maybe ignorance was bliss? By the time I heard of them, (years into adulthood) who cared?
In those days there was no internet. If you wanted to look into things like these neighborhood names, about their boundaries, how they came about and just about any such information, one had to visit the library and do the work of consulting the proper directory. A librarian would help you find the proper directory to help you in your search. All you had to do then was find the information within the directory. As a general rule, one could not take a directory out of the library as you might most books for “lend” at the library.
These books could only be used at the library during their time of operation. So, it's not hard to see while much of the information that today seems obvious to all, was not as obvious to all back then. Finding the time and considering the effort of finding such information took some advance planning and interest in a particular subject. It isn't hard to understand the awe and amazement felt by those of us who lived back then, at the wonder of having access to so much information at one's fingertips, when considering what the alternative was in a bygone era.
I'd always heard about Chinatown, which I thought sounded like such a mysterious and fun place to explore. But I found all I needed to get around, was a simple street address. Those “sub names” only seemed to complicate finding a simple street address. No one seemed to agree upon borders, for one thing. Others found it more advantageous to live in “Washington Heights” for instance, than to say they lived in “Hell's Kitchen” or vice versa. And I was not the only one at a loss, when it came to knowing borders between these designations.
Not surprisingly, I never knew anyone certain of exactly where one ended and another began. I don't know. They already had a number. They had already been given zip codes! You need more? Really? My solution was to ignore all the names and follow the addresses and their numbers. Don't get me wrong. I like the ring of an exotic name. But, as a delivery driver, I found it faster to follow the street address. I never did find any advantage to those neighborhood names.
In New York City, a number of addresses can be pressed into several buildings; each building labeled east, west, north and south. That meant that if you made the mistake of being at the correct address, but the wrong building, you would suffer a significant loss of time. Rushing to the wrong door and having the wrong person explaining your mistake, is not only disappointing, but time consuming with cumulative time loss, since returning to the basement and starting over to find the right building was your only option. And in such buildings all deliveries were ruled to be made from the service area at the basement only. It took days or weeks to become proficient at the job. And there was a lot of running and sweating involved. A delivery person (which in those days were still mostly “Delivery Men”) had to be courteous. You also had to be responsible for the item being delivered. And parking in Manhattan was nearly impossible.
One incident stands out in my mind as though it had happened yesterday. I had a delivery to make in a high rise apartment on 57th Street in Manhattan: A very busy street that ran east to west. When I arrived there, cars and trucks of all types were double parked beside those parked curbside. I followed suit, parking behind the last double parked vehicle before me. Running into the building and onto the elevator, I went up to make my delivery (luckily, this building didn't have a service entrance). I delivered the package within minutes and ran back to the truck. When I reached the door, I glanced left behind my truck and quickly in front. Great! No vehicles vehicles ahead or behind.
My truck was glaringly parked a car width's from the curb with no other vehicles surrounding it! Then I noticed about eight feet in front of my truck stood a tall, large cop in dark blue uniform and white gloved fists pressed into either side of his waist. “You! You better move that *&%*%$ truck the &%*#@ outta' here, before I kick your &*%#$ ….! Looking back, I know how lucky I was to have been allowed to leave. The look on that cop's smoking red face is still burned into my memory after all of these years
So, while my driving skills had an early start (around seven years of age), maneuvering through city traffic and searching for addresses in differing conditions in varying parts of the city, were earned in differing vehicles for varied purposes. By the time I passed the test and acquired my hack license, I was better prepared than a complete novice. As a cabby one may encounter people, situations, or events that encompass similar features. And so, one occasion may easily blend into another. The same can be said for delivery work. And this one factor can make it difficult, if not impossible, to decipher these 'when', 'where', 'what' or 'why' of events within a particular time frame. And the more time passes, the more events begin to blur with the accumulation of all aspects of the similarities of each occurrence. Even what actually occurred may come into question. If someone had asked: “Where were you on the day or night in question? Were you alone? Or can someone vouch for your whereabouts?” Chances were good that in a court setting, I might have ended in jail.
I'm always annoyed that anyone is expected to have that fertile a memory. Remembering what I had for breakfast the day before can present a challenge! If I'm to depend on my memory at an actual hearing, I guess I'm more than likely to end up in prison. And by the way, who among us can recite the alphabet – backwards!? - without having to stop periodically to consider the letter that went before? I guess I'd be on my way to jail on this one too, according to some, so called, “TV Reality Shows.” “I suppose I'd be forced to take a breathalyzer test, and oops! Too late? I had already opted for the 'alphabet' test, and there are no 'Backsies'!? I guess it's off to jail on this one, too!”
Anyway, some jobs tend to become routine after a while. And no matter how unique or interesting the events or other features of the work may be, to recall when or where they occurred may prove challenging, if not impossible a task. I was happy to have become a cabby after years of labor intensive delivery driving, among a variety of other work. In the end, it was driving a taxi that would become the job I would never regret doing. Today I enjoy writing about my past experiences. I am grateful to have been able to retire at the first opportunity open to me. I've written a book about my life and some of my short stories are excerpts from that book, “Marine Tigers: A NewyoRican Story”.
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