an honest living

We can all imagine that driving a cab is not the most desirable profession in the world; cab drivers deal with daily annoyances like traffic signals and bad drivers. In Washington D.C. the daily annoyances are compounded by the "I want it now!" and the "stuck in a meeting" mentalities of the city. I was surprised by how much horn honking takes place ... that just doesn't happen in Texas. The "I want it now" factor is readily apparent - the city runs on the ability of people to get things done correctly and to get things done quickly. Nobody in Washington sits around and waits for things to happen; if that's your mentality you best pack up and go home. This behavior spills over into driving habits, people don't wait for openings in traffic, they create them. Being cut off in traffic is par for the course in D.C. I remarked to a cab drive how often drivers honk at one another in Washington, he said "you gotta let 'em know you're not gonna stop". I love it! The other reason to use the horn is to wake people up that are "stuck in a meeting". D.C. revolves around relationships, not friendships mind you, but relationships. A common saying I heard repeatedly over the past 3 days is "if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog". So relationships are the oil that keeps the machinery running and in order to maintain relationships, you have to have meetings. I discovered all to well that an entire day of work in D.C. can consist of nothing but hopping from meeting to meeting. Especially for out of towners, we are here to work as many relationships in the short time that we will be here. So we have to meet. Given the meeting mentality in D.C., it's no wonder that D.C. drivers are constantly either mentally reviewing the meeting they just got out of, or are mentally preparing for the meeting they're about to go into. In this cerebral fog it can be fairly easy to not pay attention to traffic signals and thus require a wake up call at a green light by the gentle tap of a DC cabbie's horn.

But these are the minor pitfalls of driving a cab in D.C. - what really made me thankful that I had chosen another occupation were the horror stories. The man that took me to the airport, we'll call him "Cabbie", was telling me "you can't trust anybody anymore". And after I heard his rationale, I beleived him. Cabbie talked about the time he picked up a fare from DC to Germantown, MD. The total fare came out to around $68.00. The fella he was transporting seemed respectable, he was nicely dressed and he asked to go to a decent high-rise apartment complex in MD. However, upon arriving. the man told Cabbie that he needed to go upstairs to get cash - he never returned. I asked Cabbie why he didn't ask the jerk to leave his wallet or ID, cabbie responded "I'm a gentleman, and a man of my word. I don't try to cheat the people. I expect the same from others". Cabbie's story is duplicated hundreds of times a week. People hop in a cab, with no intention of paying tell the driver to wait while they go to the ATM, and never return. Cabbie is an immigrant. He came to the United States the right way. He applied for permanant residency and when he got a visa he came here, and he got a job. He pays taxes and has a family. He doesn't make much, but the money that he makes is honest. He doesn't deserve to be ripped off.

If you think Cabbie's story isn't that bad, that it's just the cost of doing business, listen to this: A few weeks ago Cabbie was at a local gas station filling up. As he always does when fills up, Cabbie pulled, from his cab's sunvisor, a laminated card printed with the words "OFF DUTY" and places it face up on his dashboard. A young African American man suddenly comes up to Cabbie's open window and proceeds to punch him repeatedly - it seems that Cabbie's simple act of notifying any would be passengers that he was not available incensed this young man so much that he was moved to violence. When the police arrived to help Cabbie tend to his swollen bloody face, they theorized that the young man thought that the "off duty" sign was directed at him, and he wasn't going to have it.

Is that a cost of doing business too?!? What about this: It was around four in the afternoon and Cabbie picks up a fare. The young African American lady woman requests to go to Martin Luther King blvd. Cabbie is already uneasy as this is a sketch part of town, but being a gentlman, and having a trust in people, Cabbie proceeds and does his job. Right away, when the young lady is unable to produce and address of where she wants to go, only trun by turn directions, Cabbie senses that something's wrong. Cabbie tells the woman that he needs an address for his passentger manifest but the woman just directs him, left here turn right there ... Cabbie say "I cannot put left turn right turn on my manifest!!!" The woman directs cabbie into a dead-end alley and 3 accomplices come out of the shadows and rob cabbie at gun point. It was 4pm, these people are professional pieces of shit, they know that it's pointless to rob a cab driver in the morning, they don't have any money on them yet, so they wait until the afternoon. Cabbie's honest work doesn't deserve to be tarnished with the filth of lazy assholes that aren't man enough to do the work that Cabbie does day in and day out often with out recognition and defintely without thanks. Cabbie's not the type of guy they put on a postage stamp, and no one will ever write a folk song about him. The stories of the robberies and the beatings will never make it to the mainstream media. But I think, at the very least, someone, someone, should recognize what this man has to deal with. This man that takes us safely to our destination, gives us advice on how to survive in a strange city and makes sure we eat at a decent restaurant. This man that just wants to earn an honest living.