From: pez@manhattan.com (Gizmo) Newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard Subject: ASP49-The Passenger - Part 1 - The Meeting Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 07:12:00 GMT THE ADVENTURES OF SMAKCS PAST, ASP49 THE PASSENGER - PART 1 - THE MEETING Here's a story I realized that I had not written about. In part because it's hard to write about but also because I'm not sure what to make out of it anyway. It began like this: In the early 80's I had gotten fired from my second gig with the US Post Office. Actually busted and then fired. After running through the last of my money, I took up an old "profession" of mine, Taxi Driver. And no, this had nothing to do with Robert DeNiro. This time, I did not want to only earn the 40 to 50% that private car services would pay. I wanted to, need to, keep whatever I earned. My habit demanded it. And who was I to argue with a dope habit? So as I had done a few times in the past I took my car, threw a "car service" sign on the front of the passenger side sun flap and went to work. NYC had at least as many "Gipsy Cab" drivers as Yellow City Cabs and Private Car Services. The Gipsy Cabs as they were called, were in constant battle with the Yellow Cabs. The NYC traffic cops seemed to be on the side of the Yellow City Cabs and took delight in pulling over and ticketing the shit out of the Gypsies. No surprise there. Technically the fully outfitted Gipsy Cab was operating about as legally as any Yellow Cab. They both had meters. They both had "livery plates." They both had a TAX ID Stamp. They both carried livery insurance. As time went on they both had bullet proof dividers between the driver and the backseat passengers. But they did not have the medallion. The coveted medallion. Yellow cabs were the only ones that had them. A private owner person driving a yellow cab had one as well. These medallions which used to cost a few hundred bucks in the 50's and early 60's got to a point where they were selling for tens of thousands of dollars. Thus only the city cab companies could afford to buy them. And they did not like the idea of Gipsy Cabs "stealing their business!" Gee what else is new? Besides, most Gipsy Cab drivers were African or Hispanic. And even though a good bunch of the Yellow Cab Drivers were too, that was okay, cause they were "yellow." Weird enough? You bet. There were other differences as well. The Yellow cab drivers got to a point that they would not go to Harlem or The South Bronx, even if the driver was black or Hispanic! Afraid of getting ripped off or shot? The Gipsy cabs credo was "they would go anywhere." Thus the warlike atmosphere prevailing at that time. For all I know it may be like that today. Gizmo did not get involved in any of that shit. Nope, I transcended all of it in truly stupid but workable way. As I relayed before I just went to work with my "Car Service Sign." I knew NYC way better than I did the proverbial palm of my hand. Just as an aside, did you ever know anyone who really knew the details of the palm of their hand that well? I thought not. I had driven enough private and Gipsy cabs to know exactly how much fare to charge for a given distance. $15 to LaGuardia, $25 to Kennedy. A buck a mile if I had any doubts. Piece of cake. Besides, this was a relatively safe way to earn $75 to $100 per day to feed my habit. I of course got pulled over many times for not having all the right plates, stickers etc. as well as for routine traffic infractions. Who needs stop lights when you're out earning dope money? It seemed the coppers had no more love for Gizmo and his makeshift taxi-cab than they did for the Gypsy Cabs. I often wondered why? This added up to a shitload of money owed to the DMV years later. But at that time, I wall papered my bathroom with the nice yellow tickets. All of this I relayed in a previous adventure. Did I say safe? Well yes. Definitely safer than holding a gun to someone's head, or breaking & entering, or dealing. But slow. Hog slow. A typical day would go like this: I would get up and drag myself out of bed after doing whatever stuff I hopefully had from the night before. Then I would get into my car and hit the road. Living at the time near Pelham Parkway I would just start driving up and down White Plains Road between Pelham Parkway and Gun Hill Road. Usually in a matter of minutes I would see someone hailing a cab. Half the time, they would just get in, tell me where they were going and away we went. The other half of the time they would waive me on, having noticed that I had no meter or commonly labeled outside insignia. Sometimes they would hail me, take a look inside and then waive me on. "Well fuck you very much too." Perhaps it was my stunningly good looks. Sometimes they would ask me how much to go to such and such a place. Knowing the city as well as I did, I give them a price that they were used to hearing in a matter of seconds. After taking my first fare to their destination, they would pay me, sometimes tip me and leave. Sometimes I let them off in a place where another fare would be ready to get in. That was nice and I would keep moving. If not, I would flip my car service sign down and start looking again from wherever I was. A typical morning could go on like this for two or three hours, picking up about $10 to $15 an hour. When I had about $30 or so, I would aim myself toward the dope spot, cop and do my thing, either back home or in the car. Then it was back to work again. And so it went. A thoroughly intellectually challenging job. Rainy days were great. You could stay busy all day. During a good downpour almost anyone would get in because they didn't want to get wet. The winters were great because of the cold and if it snowed you could really stay busy and charge a few bucks extra. But that was about as good as got. It was nice to get a really long call, perhaps to an airport or from one end of the city to the other. These fares could run as high as $30 or so. One night I dropped someone off at Penn Station and found a guy who asked me if I could take him way up into Connecticut. But that was rare. So a fare like that might take 3 hours to drive but you could make $150 in one shot. Living large eh? You bet. But all in all the routine was slow and boring. Sometimes my ex-wife would go out and drive since she had driven for a few cab companies herself and she knew the ropes. Usually if that happened, she would work the day, and I would work the evening. Sometimes she rode shotgun with me. One thing we both had to be careful of was us getting stuck-up or shot. Starting in the early 70's there were usually reports of several taxicab driver holdups turned killings that made the news. It actually happened to a fellow cab driver at a company I worked for some years earlier. So you had to try to become adept at scoping out a perspective customer and try to figure out if there was anything about them that looked or felt wrong. Thank god nothing like this ever happened. But here's what did happen. One nice warm summer morning I was out driving. It was a Wednesday. I remember that because of the way the story unfolds. I had already done about 3 or 4 fares and I was in the South Bronx and this black guy hails me down and asks if I could take him to Morrison Avenue and 174th Street near Soundview. This should be right. I'm going to have to check those cross streets though, but it's close. So I said, sure let's go. He was nicely dressed and looked like a businessman. On the way he asked if I minded if we made a stop first. I told him sure and we stopped somewhere around Boston Post Road below Tremont Avenue. Well we stop at this Spanish Bodega and he starts to get out. I say to him, "Ahhhh I'm going to need the fare to here at least." Without missing a beat he hands me a twenty which was way too much and says "will that be enough, I'm only going to be a minute?" Of course I told him it was. He gets out of the car and when the folks outside the Bodega see him coming they all run up to him and pat him on the back and give him the high five sign and shit. It seems that he's very well liked. "Okay, " I say to myself, "cool, whatever." After stepping inside for a minute or two he comes back out and starts talking with the ones on the street again. He's about to leave and get back inside the car when I notice that he pulls out a huge roll of bills and peels off a few tens and twenties and stuffs them down the shirt of two or three of these cats. I made a mental note of it and in a second he's back in the car and we're off again. But before we've gone too far he asks if he can make one more stop before our final destination? Once again I say no problem and I go to hand him the $20 back. He says, no you hold on to it. He asks me how much is the entire fare going to be and I tell him about $30 or so. At that point he hands me another $20 bucks and says "drive on." A similar scene unfolds at another store and after it's over he's back in the car and we're on to Morrison Avenue. When we arrive he asks me how much he gave me so far. I tell him it's $40 and more than enough. Well he hands me another $20 and says, "here, thanks." Well he's about to leave when he says he wants to ask me a question. "Shoot," I tell him. He says, "well what's your name first of all?" I tell him my name and he introduces himself as "Joe." Next he says, "Giz, I have a proposition for you. Can I hire you tomorrow? You know, can you pick me up and take me to a few places and back again, just like today? Are you available? I'll make it worth your while." I ask him what he has in mind. I want to know how much time, what time and where do I pick him up etc.? He tells me to pick him up right here at about 9:45 A.M. I tell him that's fine, but I ask him how do I know that he's really going to show? Well he tells me, "Giz look. I've already given you a nice amount of money for the one or two hours today. How about if" And at that point he hands me a $50 bill. He adds, "look I know that you don't have to show up, but I'm betting you will. If you don't, well okay…..enjoy the money. But if you do I promise you that you'll make another $100 for less than half a days work." Seeing my face all screwed into a huge question he adds, "look, I know that this may seem a bit odd. But I'm a pretty good judge of people and you look like a good guy, so I'm betting that you do show up." I offer to exchange phone numbers with him, but he tells me that won't be needed. Well that's all this junky needed to hear. Work 3 or 4 hours tops on such a sweet gig and get paid a hundred bucks? Shit, you bet I'll be there. Well we chat for another minute or two and I'm gone. Of course I immediately go and buy some dope and stop at 138th and Cypress and pick up some great dimes of coke. They had some killer cocaine there back then. These dimes were packed so large it was like getting 1/3rd of gram for $10. Next I head home to the cooker. When I get there I tell my ex-wife about my "good fortune." She can't believe it and we both get high while talking about it. I can hardly wait to see if this guy is really going to do this again the next day. .......continued in ASP50 Copyright Gizmo 2001