The Other Side of Midnight (20 page)

One of my friends is completely traumatized by the raunchiness of it, the stuff we've all had said to us. But this person's background is so hardcore that I don't grasp why it's devastating her so much. She said, “What can I do? Can I use bear spray, or mace?”

I never carried anything in the car. I know people who have. I've gotten into taxis and there's a magnetized knife attached to the radio. I've heard of concrete being put into the bottoms of Pepsi bottles. One of the girls went to talk to the police about it. They said, “Use the mace and answer questions later.” But you still got to answer questions later, and God forbid you end up whacking someone whose daddy got lots of money and can get them out of a jam.

You can't always cry for help, either. You got to make sure that when you are hollering out you need it. Like I said to my friend, “Make sure that if you're in a situation you're going to be ready to start calling out for help, you let someone know where you're at.” Personally, I wouldn't call out unless I absolutely had to. But if she wants to spray people, maybe you should get another job.

Some drivers aren't much better than customers. I was single for a period of time. Every driver who will cheat on their wife will hit on you. Just like if you walked into a store every clerk who knows that you're single will hit on you. So they start crawling out of the woodwork. That's why when I go out to a club to have a few drinks or to a friend's house I don't want to be driven home by certain people. It just makes it uncomfortable the next day, especially when they think they can hit on you in the same dirtbag way that the customers do.

So, guess what? It's not just a customer thing, it's a male thing. I've had a few friends of mine who said, “We need a ride to a party. Come in and have a smoke.” And I've done that. I've walked into parties—and I don't know if it's common—but they'll have porn on at the party. It's like background music. And no one is supposed to notice what's going on? I walked in and one of the guys sat down was a friend of mine's son. I go in and here he is sat down watching porn. And they think it's normal. It's one thing if it's a Friday night and you and your boyfriend are watching a bit of porn. But it's totally something else if you and your buddies are sat around getting drunk watching it at a party with a houseful of people.

When I said to a few cab drivers about the stuff that's being said to us, one of them just looked at me: “Do people really say that shit to you?”

People don't quite grasp it. They're thinking of what might be said but until they hear it themselves they sort of skirt around the reality of it. When I talk to my boyfriend about it, I'll talk around it, too. Like, I don't say to him, “Last night, some buddy tried to grab me by the boob.”

With my boyfriend, I'm not verbally descriptive. He knows some of the stories because he's sat around when a bunch of us are all talking. But I don't think any of them get it. And with him it's weird. I don't see the same anger that I would project if it was my daughter, or if it was my wife, who came home after someone crowded her in a corner and said they were going to take her home and do this and that to them.

I can't help but think,
Why aren't you saying something? Why
aren't you more concerned?

One thing I refuse to do is deliveries after dark, and I won't bring in groceries after dark, either. We got a little old lady, and she gets so mad at me. But I don't care. She goes to the grocery store at three o'clock in the morning, and she wants the groceries brought in. We call her the “paper towel lady.” She's OCD, so she buys a load of paper towels, and I guess she wipes down her walls with them, or something. I get her to the door, and then I leave.

That's the part that makes me nervous: being in parking lots in the dark. No, you don't do that. If you were walking home, you'd never cut through the parking lot of an apartment building. I don't want to have to do deliveries where you got to walk into the building at night and walk out again. That's one of the areas I'm scared of—alone in a parking lot at night. There are parties in apartment buildings where you might be bringing in beer and cigarettes. But then on the way out you could have a bunch of guys watching you. Then there's the other issue of me having money in the car, or having money on me. I don't want to get caught up in that crossfire.

You Can't Leave the Scene of an Accident

Danny, driving for three years

Taxi drivers are not just the victims of assault. They are also the
victims of property damage both in and out of their cabs. They've been
rear-ended, side-swiped and T-boned, while some—foot-heavy and
frustrated—admitted to causing accidents. On any given Friday or
Saturday night, the majority of taxicabs are going to or coming from
the downtown area servicing hundreds of customers who are intoxicated.
Some cabs—like when a customer is passed out and incommunicative—
are put out of commission for hours. More than a few
customers are dead drunk and vomit up over the back seat. Those
cabs usually don't get back on the road until the next day.

I was coming down Torbay Road. There are four lanes, two lanes going south, and two lanes going north. I was in the left lane going south. Some guy was in the furthest lane going south with me, which is the northbound lane, doing eighty. I phoned into the police and reported him: “Buddy is loaded on the wrong side of the road.”

A half an hour later, they called me back: “He's in his house. We need your statement to arrest him.”

I said, “If he made it home, he made it home. What do you want me to do about it?”

“We need your statement to arrest him. You'll be the one pressing charges.”

“I'm not doing that. He made it home, and no one was hurt. But I guarantee you he is a repeat drunk driver, and he's still at it.”

It makes you not even want to phone in drunk drivers. Why phone them in when the police are doing nothing about it? I see them going up Hamilton Avenue all the time—that's one of the major arteries in the city. I'm doing sixty or sixty-five. I usually won't go twenty kilometres over the speed limit. That way the police don't bother with you. Then you got a drunk driver doing forty or fifty over the speed limit. It's the prime time of the night, and he's doing 100 kilometres an hour. He's obviously drunk. Drunks don't go nowhere near the speed limit, and they're swerving all over the road. What are you going to do, phone them in? Then you get interrogated by the police about who you are and what you're all about. Then that drunk will get into an accident or run someone down and you've got to deal with it. That shouldn't be.

Two years ago, my buddy, Danny, got into a bit of a fender-bender. The guy was driving an Acura sports car. It was one of the high-end models, like a Mercedes, not one of the ones you see around here. Buddy rear-ended Danny here in the Tim Horton's parking lot. I got out making sure Danny was okay, and I kind of positioned my car so buddy in the Acura couldn't take off. The guy had gone into Tim Horton's without even realizing he had rear-ended someone. He came out, got back in his car and blew the horn at me. “Move out of the way,” he said.

“No, I'm not getting out of the way, man. You just rear-ended someone. You can't leave the scene of an accident.”

He got out of his car and walked across to the Tim Horton's.

Me and Danny were talking. “Are you all right, or what?”

“Yes, but my neck is a little sore.”

I called the ambulance.

“The ambulance will be here in a minute,” I said. “They'll probably throw you on a stretcher.”

Buddy came out with a coffee in his hand, a big black coffee. I knew right off the bat he was drunk. He was like, “What are you harassing me for?”

“What do you mean, harassing you?”

He said, “You blocked me in. You wouldn't let me leave. Do you know you can be charged for that?”

I'm like, “Hold on now, bud. You just rear-ended a guy. How come you're not asking him if he's okay? You're more worried about getting away. That tells me you're drunk. Are you drunk?”

With that, he turned around and went back into Tim Horton's for the third time.

The cops came and then the ambulance took Danny off. He had whiplash.

I told the cops that I didn't know for sure if buddy was drunk. It turned out later that he was a lawyer, a high-end lawyer, and that he was drunk. It was his second offence. I guess he was trying to throw a coffee in himself to sober up. I couldn't believe that someone so highly educated could be so stupid. I wouldn't care what was going on, if I was drunk or not. My priority would be to find out if anyone was hurt. That guy was obviously a straight-up pig. Where are people's morals?

Getting Sick in the Back Seat

Paul, driving and dispatching for seventeen years

Physical violence? No, but I've had people fighting over a cab. Like if you got in on one side and someone else got in the other. Both doors are open, and you're arguing over who got in the cab first. I'll just drive down the road and whoever wants to get in can get in. I've had people throwing up. I would tell them, “If you get sick, you're cleaning my van. I'll haul into the gas station, and you're going to clean up the mess while the meter is running. If not, I'll get the cops, and they'll make you pay for it.” The cops will make you pay $80 to have the van detailed.

One fellow threw up on the side of the car. Another one I took to Paradise, and when I got out by Smith's Home Furnishing, he got sick. He threw up right on the mat. I took the mat and all and just heaved it out onto the side of the road and left it. No mess anywhere else—that was it. I had four nurses heading home from downtown. When I turned off of Adelaide and onto New Gower, one of them got sick. When I got to Mount Pearl, she got sick again. I parked at North Atlantic Petroleum on Commonwealth and Brookfield, shut off the motor, and they went in and bought Pine-Sol, Windex, paper towels—the whole shot. When they got it cleaned up, the van smelled better than ever. They were nurses see, and they were used to that kind of stuff.

I explained to the wife, when I get you in the van and it's January or February, and I know you're drunk, I'll put down the four windows. I'll freeze you. You're more likely to throw up when you're warm, but not if you're froze to death.

Zombies

Danny, driving for three years

There are two types of zombies. There are zombies, and then there are kamikaze zombies. It's all got to do with the late hours of the night. There are the kamikazes that jump right in front of you. They don't care if you're moving at thirty, forty or fifty. They're coming out, and they're coming after you. They'll kill themselves right on the bonnet of your car for a ride home. Then there are the zombies, like something out of
Night of the Living Dead
. You're coming down over the hill and their eyes and their mouths are hanging open. They're eating pizza, and they got it all down their shirt. Their eyes are crossed. They're screaming; their hands are reaching out.

I've often come in on Pitts Memorial Drive, and they're out the highway. When you're coming out on the highway you're about doing one-twenty. I've often come in doing 170, or 180. About two weeks ago, there was a kamikaze right on the fast lane walking out to Kilbride. I phoned the police: “There's no light there. He's going to get killed, and a cab driver is going to go to jail for it.”

“We'll send out a cruiser. If he's still there we'll have a chat and let him be on his way.”

As far as I know, you're not allowed to walk out a highway. You're not allowed to hitchhike, or anything. You got two cruisers sat there on George Street. Send one up, put him in the car and cart him off. Or call a cab and get him to pay for the run home. I know I'm not going to pick them up. That's a zombie right on the spot. That's the kind of crew we're picking up every weekend. You got to be careful. My son, you don't know what half of them are going to get on with when they get in the car.

I Never Heard Nothing Until I Got Into This

Fitz, driving for fifteen years

According to folklorist Hagar Salamon, when someone tells a
myth he or she enters into a kind of cultural dialogue with the listener.
Myths convey messages. They address and respond to the dilemmas
of human existence, and their repetition provides belief that solutions
exist. Myths are not just confined to “primitive” societies but are
threaded through modern social life. They use symbols, or signs, to
“enable their transmission in concentrated messages.” Taxicab drivers
often repeat “the myth of the naked women” as a means to mediate
and to challenge the strains they experience in dealing with the public.
The myth is defined by symbols—race, gender and social status—
which articulates their uneasy relationship with female customers.

I was a bartender for thirty years, but when they put the machines in I got fed up with it. I got fed up with it because there was no money to be made at it any more. Anyone could change tickets and ashtrays. Now they don't even need you to change ashtrays. I was getting kind of bored with it, anyhow. I thought,
Jesus, I got to
get something else
. My buddy spoke to me about taxiing. Right from high school he was in the industry. He said, “Go in and get a licence and drive the car for me in the daytime.”

I said, “Right on. It sounds like a plan.”

My brother-in-law owned a stand. I said, “Do you have a car to give me, or what?”

“Sure,” he said.

That's how I got at taxiing.

I've been working with people all my life. I thought I was after seeing it all and hearing it all at the bar racket. But I never heard nothing or seen nothing until I got at this.