From: pez@manhattan.com (Gizmo) Newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard Subject: ASP50-The Passenger - Part 2 - Wanna Go For A Ride? Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 07:13:56 GMT THE ADVENTURES OF SMAKCS PAST, ASP50 THE PASSENGER - PART 2 - WANNA GO FOR A RIDE? Continued from ASP49 The next morning as agreed, I head down to Morrison Avenue to meet Joe at 9:45 A.M. I sit in the car waiting for a spell. Five minutes goes by and I'm starting to have my doubts about him showing up. I beep the horn a few times and continue to wait. Finally after about ten minutes he shows up! Like the day before, he's dressed fairly well. Creased slacks, shined shows, nice shirt, a ring, wristwatch etc. He says good morning to me and apologizes for not being right on time. He asks if I want to stop for coffee or something? I tell him that whatever he wants is fine with me. We decide to just head out. Just like the day before he gives me an idea of where we're going and what stops we're making. Also, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a $50 bill. He hands it to me and says, "here you go, this should be enough for now. I just want to make sure that you're not worried about me not paying you." We engage in some superficial chit chat on our way over to our first stop. All this chit chat is very non essential. It's just the usual, "nice weather today, how long have you been driving a taxi-cab etc.?" Now you have to understand my level of incredulity. My passenger has so far not said a word about the fact that I do not have what looks like a regular taxi-cab. Indeed it looks like anything put a cab. Not even a meter. I'm already wondering what's his game. Does he work? Is what we're doing part of his work? Maybe he's a drug dealer? Gee, wouldn't that be nice. I don't know what to make out of him. I start thinking that maybe he's a numbers man. This seemed to be the most likely based upon the two bodegas that we stopped at yesterday. But something still does not fit. He's dressed to well to be a numbers man. And why does he not have a car of his own.? He sure seems to have enough do re mi. I decide to be a bit nosy and ask him. "Joe" I ask, you don't have a car? "I had one" he tells me, "but there was an accident and it was wrecked. I ask him "how come he hasn't bought another one," but he just says he hasn't done it yet. "Okay" I think to myself, "okay." It does not seem like he's into talking too much about it so I figure I should drop that conversation. We come up to our first stop, another storefront type place and like yesterday he gets out and is once again greeted by a number of guys and one gal in their 30's or 40's. Like the day before, they laugh and joke with him, slap each other on the back and again he hands one or two of them a $5 or $10 bill. I can see that much from the car. He comes over to me and says he's going inside for a second. Again, like yesterday, that's what he does. When he comes out he motions to me and say's "Giz, we'll be going in a minute but come out for a second, I want to introduce you to some friends of mine." Well, this really has me wondering, but I'm curious so I agree to go along with it. Getting out of the car, we walk into the Bodega and he introduces me to a few of the people inside. Nothing special. Just, "and this is my friend Gizmo." There's the usual "hi, how's it going bro" and that's about it. In a minute we say our goodbyes and we're off again. Of course by now I'm dying to come right out and ask him what's up with all this? But I figure, "why kick a gift passenger in the head." "Leave it alone, " I tell myself. "Leave it alone and enjoy the ride." And that's what we do. On that day we make two other similar stops, one of them is to an apartment building and when he comes out we're heading back toward Morrison Avenue again. Keep in mind that this neighborhood he lives in has a fair amount of drugs that are sold just a block or two away. That also has me wondering who the fuck is this dude? Well the day ends just like the previous day and before I can wonder if we're ever going to do it again he says, "Giz, can I count on you tomorrow?" I of course tell him he can. He hands me another $50 bill and says, "is that enough?" Of course it's enough. Another $100 I earned for 3 hours driving. No problem. We say our goodbyes and agree to meet the next day at noon. At the end of our third meeting, which followed almost the same pattern, my passenger asks me if he can "hire me full time" as it were? Basically he wanted to know if I would be willing to do this on a regular basis? There was a further discussion about the days, hours and money but essentially we struck a deal that more than worked for me. We agreed that he would pay me about $20 per hour from now on. This was a bit less than what he had given me the first three days, but it was still more than alright with me. I figured that if I could count on making $60 to $80 with him plus a few other fares that I could do, then it would be easy for me to pick up a nice $100 per day and have all of it happen in less than six hours or so. Cab Driver Heaven I guess you could call it. I remember asking him to give me his phone number, but he said that he didn't have one! I did however give him mine. We left off with me agreeing to pick him up on Monday at around 10:00 A.M. As before, I copped some stuff and headed on home. Afterward me and the ex-wife talked about this lucky find some more and she agreed to come ride shotgun with me for a few hours to pick up a few more bucks before the day was over. We went back out and laughed about what a weird piece of luck all this was. She was as curious as I was and also wondered what his gig was. The next week I endeavored to try to find out. The following week I went and drove him around to make his rounds on four of the five work days. There was one day that he didn't need me. We did more or less the same things we did the previous week. Two or three, sometimes four stops, mostly throughout the South Bronx. A lot of people that seemed very happy to see him. Occasionally he gave money to some of these folks. And a few times he invited me to get out of the car and say hello. I noticed that Joe seemed to always be carrying a wad of bills big enough to choke the proverbial horse. Just a rough guess and I would have to say that he was carrying about one or two large. Again the questions hit me in the head. Who was this passenger of mine? What was his business? Where the hell did he get so much flash cash By this week I ruled out that he was a drug dealer. That just didn't seem right. He might have been a numbers runner, but even that didn't quite seem right. Cause usually with a number runner they're going to be picking up money and typically they had a sheet of paper with some names and amounts on them. I saw none of this. He never seemed to pick up any money. He just seemingly gave some away. He also did not seem like the type to be a loan shark or a pimp. During the middle of the week there was a break in the routine. He said that one of his stops was down into Manhattan's Garment District. Located within the area of 35th to 41st Street between 6th and 8th Avenue, New York City's Garment District, like it's Diamond District and other specialized areas of commerce was a huge crowded affair. Even back as far as the late 50's there was virtually nowhere you could park. There simply was no parking or standing allowed unless you were a delivery truck. "Well this is a bit different" I thought. "What the fuck is he doing going down to the Garment District" Another bunch of thoughts ran through my head. I tried to question him about this. "Joe," I said "What's up with the Garment District?" "Oh, it's just a stop I have to make. I won't be long. You don't mind going into Manhattan do you," he asked? "No" I said, "I was just being nosy and wondering why you were going there?" I had decided to up the stakes a bit and just out and out tell him that I was curious. He responded by telling me that he used to work there and that he was just going to visit a few old friends. He had a smile on his face and I could tell that he knew I was starting to burn with curiosity. That was about all he would tell me as he kept smiling. "Whatever," I thought to myself. "Whatever." We get down there and as predicted the street is wall to wall delivery trucks. He directs me to drop him off in front of some large building who's name I don't remember and says he won't be long. He suggests that I just circle around the block a few times if a cop asks me to move. And that's what I did. After about twenty minutes he comes back and we're heading back uptown into The Bronx again. This time he starts asking me some questions in a casual friendly way. He wants to know how long I've been driving a cab? What else do I do? If I'm married? Do I have any kids? Do I like driving a cab etc? I figure if I try to be more or less straight with him, perhaps I can learn more about what he's up to. After I tell him some of the typical pat answers that I've prepared for times when people engage you in idle chit chat, I again ask him how come he does not have a car? He tells me at first that he just does not like driving. He says that he likes being chauffeured around having a white driver as his "limo man!" He laughs about all this and makes a few jokes about it, I assume because he does not want me to take his comment too seriously. After all it is a paradoxical situation of sorts. A black guy, being picked up and being driven around by a white dude. By the end of the week I figure I'm starting to "know him" well enough to ask more questions and to venture more personal information. So I tell him that I used to work for the Post Office but that I got into some trouble and that's why I'm driving my car as a cab. I decide to tell him that I "had a bit of a drug problem" and that's how I got fired. He listens with interest and just says he's sorry to hear that but adds that it does not surprise him. He says he suspected something like that and admits that of course he noticed that my car was not really a taxi. I don't want to tell him to much of my current active drug use for fear of losing my new found easy money and I decide to ask him a question or two. I ask him again, what's he got against driving? This time he tells me that he was in a car accident a few years ago. Apparently he was a "passenger" in a cab when a truck slammed into the cab he was in! As he tells me the story, he says that he was pretty badly injured and that there was a settlement in a lawsuit. He also adds that this is the reason he won't drive! "Whoa" I think to myself. "Hmmmm, how convenient." But something does not jive with this story. For one thing, he does not look at all like he suffered that bad an accident. Another thing does not jive as to why he won't drive, seeing as how we was only a passenger. And one more thing. Earlier on he told me that HIS car was in a wreck, but now he's telling me that he was a passenger in a cab! Nahhhh, something did not seem quite right and that part of the conversation ended. Joe seems to be a very relaxed, very serene kind of guy. Almost too serene. After just about two weeks I started to notice it. It seemed as though nothing bothered him. He just seemed to be very much at peace internally. This was not lost on me and it also intrigued me. You just don't find too many folks out there living in The South Bronx, even 20 years ago, that would seem this content and relaxed. Not normal, that's for sure unless they were doped up. And shit, I was doped up all the time and I wasn't content. Hmmm, wonder why? Now next to me in the passenger seat I used to always have a book or two and a small chess set Well, I liked chess and my passenger noticed it and he said he played a little bit. On four or five occasions while killing a little time we played some chess. I was a pretty damn good chess player, having learned when I was seven or eight, playing through most of my pre-teen and teenage years. In fact I had managed to attain an expert rating from the Chess Federation when I did some local competition. Expert ratings are between 1,800 and 2,000. I had gotten a score of 1900 or so. Just a bit below the master level. In short I know the game well. I knew the openings, the mid game etc. But my passenger beat me every time! And he beat me cleanly and evenly and with a rhythm that after two games made me realize that he certainly knew how to play chess. But when I asked him where he learned and how he got so good, he just shrugged it all off saying something like, "Ohhhh I used to play with my dad when I was a kid. Besides all you have to really do is just look deeply enough, right?" And that's all he ever said about it. As to my books? Well as I said in some of my stories, even during the hellacious dope years, I still maintained more than a passing interest in consciousness and the mystical. The books I had with me were usually either something along those lines, or perhaps World War II, another favorite hobby of mine. Well having noticed the "mystical books" he asked about them. I told him that it was something I had a real passion for and I began to explain a bit about what I was reading and what was interesting to me about it. But I didn't have to explain much. Even as doped out as I was I could tell that my passenger knew something about this stuff too. This too was very weird. Very weird to find someone like this in The South Bronx. And I was afraid that like his chess playing ability, he might know a whole lot more! A few things that he said to me were really just general comments on the state of man in the 20th century. But as common and benign as these comments were, the way he said them indicated something more. He said things like, "only a few people have any real interest in this." He also said, "you can't learn it from any book no matter how well written." He also said that once a person embarked on a real personal inner journey to learn and master the workings that these books allude too all the worries and doubts most folks had in life, would simply evaporate like a fog being burned by the sun." Well if you thought I was confused before, this was way more than I had expected. I sort of changed the subject and told him a bit about my ex-wife. I told him that she was into this stuff as well, and then I dropped that part of the subject and said that I told her about you and she said she would like to meet you. I asked him how he felt about meeting her? I asked if he would mind if she came with me one day, perhaps the next time he needed me to drive? He suggested that, instead of mixing business with pleasure, "why don't you and her come down tomorrow on Saturday and you introduce her to me." He added, "maybe we could go have breakfast together?" The next day being Saturday, a time was set and we said goodbye to each other. By now, I was very confused, excited, plus a bunch of other shit I don't have words for. A little part of my brain started wondering if this dude was like some kind of angel or spirit or something. And remember, this was years before the current day angel and channeling obsession of today. Shit today people will tell you that they're channeling for Soupy Sales, or god forbid people who are not even dead yet! Well, not to disappoint my readers, but I doubt he was any "angel," but as Sherlock Holmes would have said, "something was afoot." ........concluded in ASP51 Copyright Gizmo 2001