Cab driving is a strange
amalgam, at once financial peonage and a stronghold of
independence.  Like the ad
says: "Drive today, cash today." And,
"Make your own hours."
True enough, but how much
cash today is a factor not so well publicized. With
good reason: Subject to wide fluctuation, the rewards are
often meager indeed. And the alleged choice of hours
is always dictated by considerations of money, in effect
limiting driving to the times that one would vastly
prefer other activities, such as weekends, holidays and
heavy traffic hours.
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On and on they go, those scenes of lovers
groping in the back seat and squalid blocks of houses with
unlit hallways and canted mailboxes with scrawled names, the
punks and the wealthy, matrons at exclusive shops and
sailors going drunkenly and wearily to back to Great Lakes
Naval Base [in Illinois]. The stranded tourists from
the fogged-in flight at Mitchell Field who return to Niles,
Ill., on the excruciatingly fog-layered highway, low beams
and blindly following a truck at a crawl all the way to make
$70 clear for a six-hour shift, with tip.
Or the 14-hour stint with a
three-hour wait working through the line at Mitchell Field
and a dozen Hogans ("Nobody here called a cab.
Sorry.") to end up with $6.89 take-home. Taxes to
be paid by yours truly, with no Social Security credit,
insurance, pension, vacation, holiday or sick pay. You
are, you see, self-employed. So keep track of those
tips for tax time; as with waitresses, the IRS assumes
optimum tips for tax purposes unless you can document the
contrary with daily records. . . .
All this started for me, as a
penniless college student, through a friend, who told me
about the conversation he'd had with Barry Goldwater's
campaign manager driving to the Knickerbocker Hotel, or KB
in two-way radio parlance. A chance to make money and
meet celebrities -- why not? Well, I can report the
Golden State Warriors (not all, of course), [WTMJ sports
announcer] Jim Irwin and [public TV's] Otto Schlaak as
fares. Narrowly missed was Dwayne Hickman at the old
Pabst Theatre; and I saw Phyllis Newman walking and Eugene
McCarthy in a hotel doorway. So much for the stars.
But, at an idealistic young age I
was exposed to corruption which continues to this day,
though I am no longer outraged by it. The drama goes
like this:
Experienced drivers tell me to
leave a quarter or two extra when I pay the cab dispatcher
at the end of my shift, if I want a good cab in the
future. I recoil from this, and after a week of
mediocre vehicles, they get steadily worse. Old
Studebaker Larks with feeble heaters in the middle of
winter, mufflers that fall off, necessitating money-losing
trips back to the garage for another cab to be washed and
vacuumed. Expiring batteries and missing lights and stuck
speedometers.
After months of this I am unusually
outraged one freezing night and demand a decent cab or I
will go to the boss with my grievance. The dispatcher
raises an eyebrow -- he is reputed to own acres of apartment
buildings but has worked like a pale, scabrous fiend since
prehistoric times -- and enigmatically hands over a key to a
decent number. I know he must take in $50 in quarters
for his 12-hour shift, and I am smug with
satisfaction. But on my return I leave the tribute,
the 50¢, and did so ever since.
For all in all, it is not a bad
system. Tipping, of course, is a recognized part of cabbing,
and if cabs were given out by seniority, I'd be damn far
down on the list. Those who are too cheap to tip can can
work their way into favor in other ways or take their
chances. Buckets, the very worst cabs, are reserved
for punishment for drivers who have been in accidents or
otherwise transgressed. That this also punishes the
public seems to escape management's notice.
So what is the financial bottom
line of all this? I hoped for $30 for 11½ hours, $12
for six hours (to simplify, part-timers work 5½- or 11-hour
shifts shifts for a total of 22 hours a week minimum, as
much as you want maximum, with a free half hour to get back
to the garage.) I had $50 days and $5 days -- it is
easily possible to lose money -- averaging better in harsh
weather and painfully little in summer. I suffered
financially by not working the hill, or Inner City, leaving
that to the black drivers and more intrepid whites, who were
regularly held up with guns and knives and locked in
trunks. I am speaking of friends, and am not
exaggerating.
As for working conditions, you can
be fired at the whim of Francis X. Beck, personnel manager
and white-shirted, choke-tied martinet. I was fired
for reasons that no longer apply under the new contract --
the Independent Taxicab Employees Union has made inroads for
humaneness -- and taken back.
Cab washing and cleaning is done at
the expense of your drive time, as well as minor
repairs. Dispatcher Fred Menke will treat you like
shit if he feels like it, as will Democratic party biggie
John Cupertino [brother of a county supervisor; both
were former wrestlers].
Suffer in silence, because for many
-- blacks and students and dropouts and the generally
near-criminal -- this is the employer of last resort.
But no wonder turnover of drivers approaches one hundred per
month.
Because the reality of it is,
Yellow Cab has long ago abandoned serving the public with
taxis. They are in the business of renting cabs to men
(and now a handful of women) who have few other hopes of
making a living. So what if 150 cabs are scrabbling
for business at 5 p.m. when the stampede to get home from
the office or plant is on? Keep advertising that
"drive today, cash today" stuff. For that
brief crack at the rush those drivers will pay 'til
midnight, and Yellow Cab will prosper, and the otherwise
unemployable will make some few dollars to be sucked up
before starting over.
And still, a Milwaukee
Journal reporter will come along to complain in Insight
that we need more cabs, that he can't hail a cab by walking
down Wisconsin Ave. Instead, he has to dial Yellow Cab
and wait the time it takes to drink a beer in a cozy pub.
Well, the government made them stop
discriminating against beards and long hair and women (World
War II saw the last previous influx of of women drivers),
and lack of formal education is no hindrance -- though, as
everywhere these days, the higher degrees abound.
So welcome aboard as the affluent
Boynton family, owners of Yellow Cab, work towards their
ultimate goal: owning nothing but the telephone and garage
services, selling franchises to drivers desperate and
accumulative enough to buy and insure their own cabs.
The marginally self-sufficient workers are kept in their
places while fares go up -- though not enough to cover
gasoline prices or the cost of living -- while the public,
rightfully, cavils at the cost of taxi transportation.
Does anyone think this is an
elitist form of people-moving -- gallons of gas squandered
at Lexington and North in the small hours of the frigid
morning to keep a stranded driver warm -- except in
well-defined, high-density population zones at predictable
times?
Does this point toward the need for
cheap, efficient mass transit systems and to hell with the
Boyntons, except for those patrons who can afford limousine
prices and drivers, with more of our taxes going for some
realistic job training or merely humanitarian support of the
now-expendable and their families?
It's a question to ponder the next
time you see yet another newly yellow-painted cab slide past
the East Side high rise apartment buildings, with an
undeniably independent freak at the wheel. S/he has
chosen that life, after all, and may even be getting off on
its sociological complexities and lack of time-clocks.
Maybe it's not worth thinking
about. What does TV's Baretta say? "I'll take a
cab." or something similar, to indicate, "I'll
pass," or "Leave me alone." In other
words, taxis are symbolic -- not to be too arcane about it
-- of aloof passage through the muck of existence.
Unfortunately, real life cabbies
are inherently mired in the gritty muck of existence and
romanticized at your own peril. Ask my friend Carl who
took a psychopath who had just murdered a car salesman to
some vacant country acreage and then talked his way out of
jeopardy. Or Jimmy, who had his throat slashed -- not
fatally -- or Pooch who was faked out by
youngsters and held up at gunpoint -- or Sam, now a
bartender at Century Hall, who went through the same thing
before giving it all up. All this excitement for maybe
$2.50 an hour. If this appeals to you, just look in
the daily want ads for details. For some reason, it's
an ad that's always there.
The exploitation of humans a step
up from welfare by the subterfuge of calling them
self-employed (thus evading minimum wage laws and other
protections), a ploy that seems to be the subject of recent
legal decisions by the state of Wisconsin, is but one of the
Boynton Yellow Cab Co.-- to use its correct firm name --
abuses of responsibility. (The precedent to correct
this situation has been set by the Unemployment Compensation
Division's ruling that drivers are entitled to UC benefits
when they become unemployed, a finding that seems not very
well known.)
Similarly callous is its abuse of
the environment. About 10 years ago, the company
converted from using tanks of propane in the trunk, known to
be less poisonous in combustion than gasoline just as the
ecological awareness movement and gasoline shortages made
this precisely the wrong thing to do. And though
drivers can buy their gas where they wish, the procedure is
more complicated than simply paying jacked-up prices at the
company pumps. Then, too, the advertising signs
sported atop each cab are a distinct handicap to fuel
economy with their high wind resistance. Perhaps most
invidious is the self-serving legislation supported by the
taxi firms that made sharing of cabs, by persons not already
acting as one group, illegal. How much gas is wasted
by cabs streaming from Mitchell Field to the heart of the
city, each with one or a few passengers in roomy splendor?
Finally, Yellow has a firm policy
of anti-civic mindedness unless drivers themselves are
directly threatened or injured. In other words, a
driver won't bother to report crimes or dangerous situations
for relay to the police or other authorities because he
knows it's futile.
For just one example, this writer
was parked in front of the Ambassador Hotel on Wisconsin
Ave. in the early morning when an obviously deranged woman
in ragbag clothes and carrying a shopping bag began climbing
around on parked cars and darting in and out of the street,
trying to stop traffic and causing cars to swerve
dangerously, at an obvious risk to herself and others.
The dispatcher -- and it was a slow
morning -- was informed, and a squad was requested. As
usual, the dispatcher asked the stock question: "Are
you involved?" When I said no, he said, "We have
nothing to do with that, then." I replied to the
effect that "I'm just trying to be a good
citizen," but it was ignored.
Of course, a driver can look for a
pay phone at the risk of losing his rightful order, which he
may have been waiting an hour for, but the point is that in
some cities cabs are seen as a useful adjunct in the
mounting tide of street crime against the defenseless
elderly and such. They have, naturally, instant
communication with their radios, and are likely to be in the
most unusual spots when almost nothing else is moving,
silently waiting and observing the scene out of sheer
boredom. Why not tap this resource?
Aftermath: Following a standoff
with the Taxicab Union, Boynton Cab Co. shut down & the
employees formed a cooperative operating out of a storefront
on Farwell Ave., later moving to N. King Drive, today with
about 50 full-time owner-operators & their own
driver/partners. By that time I was covering the North
Shore -- a heavy user of cabs -- for the Post Publications
& was there at midnight the night Boynton shut the
doors, to get the story. Oddly enough, my father's
second wife, Dorothy Zetteler,
who become a driver in World War II, was a radio dispatcher
there, & I had grown used to hearing her voice nights
when I worked, though I never knew if she knew who I was
when I posted. Her daughter, my half-sister Christine,
found this anonymous cab memoir in her effects, though we
can't know whether it was because I wrote it or
because it involved her career as one of the first women
drivers, or both.
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There are the congenial evening drinking hours, with the
conflict of either catching a few drinks yourself after a
12-hour shift, or waiting for the spurt of trade after the
bars close that might yield an eight dollar ride from the
Crown Room to Fox Point, or whatever. Especially in
heavy rain and snow and the cold that knocks out car
batteries all over the area.
That's what fills up the
trip sheet.
Pleasant afternoons find you hauling a fat lady and her
snot-nosed kid and nine bursting sacks of groceries 11
blocks from Kohl's to a basement apartment for a quarter
tip. You're lucky to get it. Or, substitute a
Laundromat on National Ave. and a cab load of almost
exclusively Spanish-speaking people directing you with the
laundry on their laps.
The tribulations of the cab driver
-- as for most service occupations -- are endless, and these
confessions, to be somewhat useful, should follow a more
rigid progression. I'll begin with Helpful Hints for
the riding public, to ease the lot of both cabbie and
customer.
For one, it is always disconcerting
to hear someone say s/he has waited an hour or two for a
cab, perhaps calling back after an hour has passed. On
the East Side or Downtown, you should never -- even at four
in the morning -- have to wait more than 20 minutes for a
cab. More than that (except in extreme weather
conditions that have every pedestrian, bus rider and auto
owner suddenly demanding service) generally means the order
has somehow gone astray in the boardroom, or a driver has
violated the rules by accepting an order while en route to
another.
On the South Side, or any outlying
area (or the Inner City), it's another matter. In
those areas, the older an order gets, after 15 or so
minutes, the less likely it is to be filled. What most
people don't realize is that, unless a driver volunteers, a
cab will not be sent more than a short distance from where
it is posted with the dispatcher.
So except for busy times -- the
rush hours -- there are vast areas where no cab is nearby
and none is likely to be for some time, until a load from
the area that generates the bulk of the business -- Downtown
and the East Side -- takes a driver into that region.
And, since he is there to make money, he is logically not
going to hang around on the off chance a call will
eventually come in. Instead, he'll grab the first
thing over the radio that's reasonably close and work his
way down to the prime area again, or even deadhead
back. He knows that a cab is called to some
neighborhoods on the South Side maybe once in each
householder's frugal lifetime.
So the Yellow Cab system of renting
to drivers, instead of paying them a commission, which
ensures that the company gets its money even if the driver
makes nothing, is a system that provides efficient coverage
of the city only when things are reasonably busy.
As a result, in either case -- the
prime area (which is well supplied with cabs because it is
near the garage), or the boondocks -- the moral is:
Don't wait more than 15 or 20 minutes. Then call
again. And again. Because, although the company
doesn't like it known, when an order becomes an hour
old it is thrown away.
The cabbies instinctively avoid the
older, distant orders anyway, on the valid grounds that the
party has probably left by some other means. But a
callback is announced as such by the dispatcher ("A
three-time callback, the party has been waiting four hours,
can I please have a volunteer. . . .") and is taken as
a sign of sincerity. After all, the driver pays 10
cents a mile, rental and gas costs whether he makes a dime
or not, and time wasted is a lost opportunity to make money
on a surer thing elsewhere. A good driver soon learns
to recognize sure things, the regular riders and
business-based orders, for example, like telephone company
operators and Blood Bank calls, and grabs them.
Because the fares do leave by other
means. Maybe the fare called Veteran's and Yellow at
the same time and hopped in the first to arrive. Or
took a ride from someone else leaving a bar without
canceling the order. Or much worse, a prankster has
called a cab to a neighbor's home miles from any reasonable
hope of another order just to imagine somebody's annoyance
when the cab arrives and wakes up everybody in the darkened
house. This, of course, costs the company not a whit
-- it even makes money for it -- but bleeds money from the
driver's pocket.
It is also no benefit to the driver
(except possibly for the handful of commission drivers left
from another era) to suggest that the meter be turned off,
with a certain flat amount to be paid for the trip.
Besides being illegal -- the meter must be running to
prevent overcharging, though undercharging is not a
violation -- the cost to the driver is exactly the same, and
therefore his profit. I have, though, made deals --
for less than the metered fare -- for the use of the cab for
an extended period.
This has happened in the case of
drunks or more unusual sorts who want to drive around and
look at things and talk, often with a bottle to accompany
them in back-seat comfort. Some lonely people consider
hackies rent-a-friends, with dinners, afternoons of pool and
refreshments provided in exchange for companionship, all
while the meter is running. Oddly enough, for the same
price as a cab (assuming the driver charges the full meter
rate), Cadillac limousine service with a uniformed chauffeur
is available. As of last spring this was six dollars
an hour or 50¢ a mile, whichever is greater.
Another kind of instant friendship
sought after is the sexual kind, 99% of which consists of
offers by men (at least in my case), very likely as a last
resort as they make their way home from a gay bar. A
few women have made vague references to being lonely and not
knowing where to meet people, but nothing that I've found
tempting. The occasional attractive women who flash thigh
under the dome light and encourage friendly banter are
nevertheless in and out in a cloud of perfume all too soon,
leaving only fantasies behind.
But a type of intimacy does take
place in a cab, uninvited though it may be, with the fares
feeling free to ask anything personal. One learns to deal
with people and develop a repertoire of replies for common
situations, as in the title of this piece. [Pause now & look.] After responding with
everything from macho bluntness to evasiveness on such
queries as "Do you eat pussy?" I learned that
"I take it any way I can get it" usually sufficed.
Dealings with people, all varieties
of people, form the memories that are at the core of cab
driving: bloodied people walking away from wrecks or fights
or muggings, dripping on the dollars they give you at the
Emergency Hospital. Kids ditching a wrecked car,
finding you -- the sympathetic driver after others at the
cab stand have turned them down -- and going back to the
scene for the case of beer in the car. The drunk
waitress from Frenchy's, picked up at Pizza Man on Oakland,
going home to the Fashionable Suburb in the early morning
and leaving a pool of vomit in the back to be dealt
with. (Sand from the city's box will have to do).
More vignettes: The (again) drunk
Native American woman on 27th and Wells streets who refuses
to pay and refuses to get out. (A squad is called,
wasting everybody's time, and she pays but is taken
away.) The burglar who calls from a pay phone on
Wisconsin Ave. to make his getaway. Being pulled over
by the trailing squad on Capitol Drive; they make him pay,
and he tips, too. Fortunately, he didn't pull a gun
when the red light started flashing.
And the holdup man who uses cabs to
go from bar to bar. The cops traced his movements with the
aid of the trip sheet -- points of pickup, destinations and
times -- that every driver keeps. The hulking tower of
potential hillbilly violence who decides I'm all right,
anyway, after baiting me for my long hair and beard.
The slicker who runs up the meter and tries to beat me out
of it at the fifth stop (sure I'll wait for you while you go
in that apartment building, as long as you pay me what's on
the meter now.)
And the flashy nervous young black
woman who wants to disappear into the night shadows near a
house vaguely indicated with the wave of a hand, to bring
back the money. (Sure, but better yet I'll walk you to
the door so you won't have to walk back to the cab.)
And the poorly dressed skinny old white woman at the tavern
on Burnham St. ("Watch out, she's not wearing any
pants," a guy tells me inside) who tries the same
trick, jumps out on the opposite side of the street, and is
flattened by a truck. The 10-10 for an emergency is
called and the ambulance comes. No fare this time.
As I'm parked by the Greyhound Bus
Station [the 'Hound], a youngish fellow with a
trim moustache who smells like a Vice Squad decoy saunters
to the driver's window and asks if I want a blowjob.
In front of the Pfister Hotel a flush businessman arriving
with baggage assumes I can send some women up to his
room. Try the Downtown lounges, pal.
And the old ladies on Prospect Ave.
who never walk more than 10 feet and tip miserably; the
office cleaning-women woman Downtown who tips generously;
the fumbling blind, the halting disabled; the pets being
taken by their owners to be groomed; the school kids in
braces; the sullen white man emerging from the police
station on Lincoln Ave.; and the dazed black kid at the cop
shop in Fox Point.
And the shaking elderly woman on
her liquor run, and the diabetic ducking out of the house
for a trip to Axel's [bar] and a couple quick vodkas and
back to Lake Drive. The mod young man and wrinkled
woman who who leave The Factory and scream about money
(hers) and his other girlfriend all the way to his
house. He rushes the cab to re-enter and strangle her,
perhaps, seconds after I lock the door, and spits as the cab
pulls away. It runs thick and whitish down my window.
. . .
But closest to the bone is the stab
of fear when a potential holdup is sensed. A tall,
young clean-shaven black male, as in all the latest police
reports, gets in my cab Downtown and gives a destination in
the Core, changing addresses several times on the
ride. Nothing to do but let him know he's being
scrutinized: Turn on the interior light, write down
each address after looking at him, invent a reason to talk
to the dispatcher. Tell myself that in this, the worst
waves of holdups in some time, the police are shadowing
suspicious orders like phantoms. This time it's
suddenly over when he has me let him out a busy corner, on
an impulse, it seems.
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