The Other Side of Midnight (19 page)

My buddy picked me up. “He started the fight,” I explained. “He hit me with a bag of beer. I was only defending myself. I gave him a few knocks and a whole slew of them came out of the house.”

“The tow truck is coming,” he said. “Where are you headed to now?”

“Take me back. I'm going to finish what they started.”

“No, you can't do that.”

“Yes, I can,” I said. “Watch me. Drop me off on the sidewalk, and I'll take care of it.”

“Think,” he said. “There could be some person across the street looking and see you showing up and cleaning house, and you're the one who's going to get arrested.”

And then I saw the logic of it.

But you'd be surprised what's out there: guns, knives and pepper spray. Gang beatings—that kind of stuff. At one point, there was a group of about twenty from Middle Cove going around. They had nearly beaten someone to death at the top of Solomon's Lane, just by The Ship.

I was driving east down Water Street heading towards George Street. It was about three o'clock, and a big fight had broken out. There were about thirty people trading punches. I had a little baton stick about that long [
He holds up his hands a foot apart.
] hidden under my leg. I could see a couple stood up in the doorway of Templeton's, the wallpaper and paint shop. The guy put his finger up to signal me. I stopped and buddy got in and slid across. His girlfriend was just about to get in, and this guy came over the bonnet, shoved her aside, reached in and grabbed buddy by the throat and hauled back to drill him. “Who do you think you're putting your finger up to?” he said.

He was one of these heroes. His buddies were into a fight, and he picked someone at random, a soft target, to look like a big shot. It's pretty easy when you got a guy in the back of a cab sitting down. I made a roar at him: “Get out, or I'll cave your skull in!”

He had his fists up and looked at me, saw the stick and just dropped the passenger and jumped out.

Missus was all shaking: “Who's that? Who's that?”

“I don't know—some nut,” her boyfriend said. “Thanks for taking care of that, cabbie.”

“No sweat. That happens every now and again.”

Guys Like You in Prison

Frank, driving for twenty-nine years

I picked up a guy at the King's Bridge Hotel at about four o'clock in the morning. This was twenty years ago. He looked really pale, and he was shaking like he was in shock. I said, “Where are you headed to?”

“We got to wait for somebody else.”

This other guy came out, and he had to be six-five. He was covered with tattoos. You could tell he just came from prison because he had that prison swagger about him. If you've ever been to prison, you'd know what I'm talking about. He treated the guy in front like dirt, and he had this girl with him. I kind of figured out that it was either buddy's sister or girlfriend or wife, and this guy was having his way with her in the back of the car. The guy was just too scared to say anything.

When she got in, she said, “Oh, we got a good-looking cab driver tonight.”

Buddy started running his fingers through my hair. “Oh, yes,” he said, “Isn't he sweet?”

I don't like guys like that. I had just seen this movie
Roadhouse
, and there was this line in the movie that I loved. I thought,
Now is
my opportunity
.

“Give it up!” I said. “I used to fuck guys like you in prison.”

Buddy's jaw dropped, and the colour drained out of his face. He couldn't believe I said it. It was just like I hit him with a shovel or something. I stunned him for about two minutes. The other guy, the little one, I thought he was going to have a stroke. He thought it was all over. And then buddy in back let out the big roar, the big belly laugh. He said, “You got some balls. No one gets away with saying stuff like that to me.”

“No man gets away with running their fingers through my hair, either.”

When he got out, he ended up giving me a $10 tip, plus the fare.

Level-Headed

Danny, driving for three years

I came down past the Sheridan Hotel, and there was a guy in a pile on the ground by this bar. His head was down, and I could see his body kind of jump trying to breathe. He was choking. Two big brutes were just stood there doing nothing. I stopped, and I said, “Why don't you roll him over so he can breathe?”

One guy said, “It's best for you to get the fuck out of here.”

I said, “Is it worth a man dying on the street when all it takes is for you to roll him over?”

“He passed out. He had a seizure.”

“I don't care what he had, man. Roll him over. He's going to choke.” I then recognized one of them as a guy I used to work for. “Man, he's going to die, and the two of you are going to go to jail for the rest of your lives.”

He knew I was a level-headed guy, and he rolled him over. You could see the body heaving up and down breathing. That poor guy was beat to fuck. His face was messed up like Quasimodo or some- thing. They did a number on him. I don't know what happened, and I didn't pick him up. I called an ambulance to go get him.

I'm Not a Tough Person

Janet, driving for six years

For many women, the workplace is the site of violence, harassment
and bullying. In 2004, over 350,000 work-related incidents of violence
were reported by women. While the vast majority were physical and
verbal abuse, 24 per cent were incidents of sexual assault. But this only
accounts for a fraction of the total number. Assaults against women
are consistently underreported. Statistics Canada has estimated that
only 20 per cent of women who are the victim of violence bring it to the
attention of police. While assaults by strangers account for only 15 per
cent of the total number, working with unstable or volatile persons and
having a mobile workplace are contributing risk factors.

I've always been a caregiver. Even growing up, I had a big family, and I helped take care of my brothers and sister. Then, of course, I had my own children, and I took care of them. I worked at the hospital and the CNIB. After I went through my divorce, I wanted to do something that didn't involve having to take care of somebody. I'd just had enough. I wanted freedom. You're in my car now. You could go to the corner store on Queen's Road. You're going to get out, and I don't have to worry about you anymore. That's the way I wanted things to be.

I always wanted to drive a taxi, but I didn't think I had enough knowledge of the city to do it. One morning, I just got up and said, “That's what I'm going to do.”

It was fast-paced—hectic. You sort of got to be Johnny-on-the-spot. For the first three days, I had a tremendous headache. Then I said, “You know what? You can do this.” I just relaxed, and then I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I come out here every morning, and I rarely miss a day. This year I missed two or three weeks because I ended up with pneumonia. That's rare for me. But I work six days a week, and I love it.

You got to realize, there's 180 or more guys working at this stand, and four women. I never wanted to become one of the guys. I didn't want that. I wanted to keep my identity. That's not to say that I don't want somebody to open a door, or to pull out a chair for me. I just didn't want to be standing around, telling dirty jokes and spitting on the sidewalk. That type of thing. A couple of the guys here said that I wouldn't make it because I wasn't tough enough. I'm not a tough person. I don't have a tough exterior. But men get in my car, and they'll try to say and do things. They'll say things to see if they can get me going. Sometimes they'll make a grab for you. My best defence against that is to just ignore them. Recently, there were a couple of guys talking in the back seat. One of them said to me, “What's your favourite food?”

“Pasta.”

“What's your favourite day of the week?”

“Probably Sunday.”

“What's your favourite colour?”

“Black.”

“I figured you'd go for black,” he said. “A big black cock.”

For the most part, the things they say are mostly sexual. It's really just dirty talk. The majority, I think, are in their early twenties. Some are university students. But I did have three Irishmen in the car who were with one of the oil companies, and they were saying they'd like to have a couple of women for the night. I didn't even listen to them. One started rubbing my shoulders and then he asked me if I had a daughter that they could rent. I found that very distasteful. I said, “I'm assuming you don't have daughters, or sisters.” That sat him right back on his ass.

I've only once had a problem with violence. I picked up this guy and took him to where he wanted to go. He said he had to run into his sister's house and get some money. I waited four or five minutes. I tooted the horn, but he didn't come out. I could see him chatting with someone in the kitchen, and I knocked on the door. I said, “I just want to get paid. Give me my ten bucks, and we're good. I'll be gone out of your hair.”

He got a little upset. He said, “I told you to wait in the car.”

I thought,
This is not going to be good
.

He threatened me. He was going to kick the guts out of me. He was going to beat the car up. It was pretty scary stuff.

I called into the dispatcher and told him what was on the go. He sent the police, and the other drivers kept checking on me while I waited. By that time, the meter was after running up to $52. The guy was arrested, and he had to pay me back the money in instalments, $5 a month, through the court. The court wanted me to go down and write a victim impact statement. I said, “No, I wasted about two hours on this guy. That's more time gone out of my life than I care to waste on the likes of him.” I heard later that he's very violent, and he was arrested just a couple of weeks ago and charged with beating up two women.

Going to War

Sandra, driving for four years

There's times when I'm going out and I feel like I should put on a helmet. There are times I feel like I'm going to war. There's been a few times when I've had to pull off to the side of the road. I think,
That's it. I'm not doing it no more
.

I had two guys in the car recently. One was sensible, supposedly.The other wasn't. He was absolutely loaded. Loaded or not, one of them could still manage to say, “Come into my house, and this is what I'll do to you. I'll do it to you better than anyone else has done it to you, and you don't have to do nothing.”

How I address it is I sort of shrug it off: “No, give it up. That's enough now. Go in the house; I got to work.”

The last going off, I just said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

You know that it's only going to be some kind of whacky deviant who is going to go out and rape some stranger. But you're down on George Street, or you're picking up at a house, and you don't know where you're going with them, or you don't know what's waiting on the other end of the trip. You just get them where they're going and hope that it isn't a tangly long run. If I got myself into a situation where I felt unsafe I wouldn't hesitate to stall out the car on some main road and say, “Listen, I got to get you another cab.”

It's mostly agitating, the sexual stuff. The other day, a guy and his three buddies used the word “pussy.” And then they apologized for using it. I said, “No, I'm fine with that.”

Then they went, “Oh, you're fine with that. So how's your landscaping going?”

And those were men coming from a big house. They were well educated and well dressed. There were no hoodies. There were no ball caps on sideways. They weren't old and drunk. Those are the most intimidating, the over-forty, educated, got a wife, a nice house and a good job. They'll look you right in the eye, and they're not drunk. That's the difference—they're not drunk.

One guy taught me a good lesson. It was Halloween, and he pointed to the meter and he said, “How much are you going to make in the next hour? Whatever it is, I'll double it. You just come into the house.”

I said, “You're kidding, right?”

He looked me straight in the face and said, “Seriously, this is your last chance. I will not make this offer to you again.”

I went, “You really should get out.”

Now that was intimidating. He wasn't loaded. I won't say he was sober, but he wasn't loaded, and he had the nerve to say that to me.

If someone touched me in some way I didn't like, I could slam on the brake. He'd have no legs. He'd go right up over the seat and probably hit his head on the console. You can do that; that's an option. If someone grabs you the wrong way, if you got your seatbelt on, or even if you don't, you know you're doing it, so you can brace yourself. Slam on the brakes, and they throw themselves up onto the front seat. I slammed on the brakes a couple of times and just watched them go. And they do, they just fly like they're in an accident. Then they'll say something right accusatory: “What did you do that for?”

“Okay, you just asked me if I could give you a blowjob, repeatedly. I asked you to stop, and then you touched my arm. That's why I did it.”

It happens, but it's not too common. Rarely do they touch your face. You don't get too many that touch your face, and you don't get too many that touch your neck. It's your shoulder, arms, and sometimes you'll get a hand on your leg. They rarely “accidentally” bump your boob.

I've heard things from men that I had to go home and look up on the Internet. These are things I don't want to know. It's so graphic, it's
porno
graphic.

You got to roll with the punches. What's the word I'm looking for? Maybe it's passive. How passive am I? What I thought was rolling with the punches, is that being passive?