The Other Side of Midnight (21 page)

One morning, I went over to Hatcher House at the university, and two little Asian people came out, a girl and a guy. They put their luggage aboard, we're going out over the road, and I happened to hear her giggle. I looked in the rear-view mirror, and here she had nothing on. I said, “What's on the go?” Buddy never even had on a pair of socks. They were trying to get in a little dart before they went on the plane back home.

People are unreal. They get in your car and they figure they own it:
You do what I tell you
. But they forget that there are other people who got to sit in the car, too. Many times, I'm after turning around and saying, “You can't be doing that. What do you think you're doing?” Then they look at you like you're crazy, or something. To them, you're only a dumb taxi driver, and I got to listen to what they're telling me. To a certain extent, you do have to grin and bear it. What else can you really do? But you get kind of used to it after a while.

They sent me up to Chancellor Park one morning. It's a place for elderly people who got to be watched around the clock. I went up and waited and waited. I called up the dispatcher: “There's no one coming out of here.”

He said, “I'll keep you in mind. There's nothing doing, anyway.”

Next thing, out comes missus. She had on a three-quarter length mink coat. [
He uses a French accent.
] “Take me to the hotel down by the water.” That's what she said to me. Now there's a load of hotels down by the water.

“My darling,” I said, “which one?”

“Drive.”

I drove down and, sure enough, she was talking about the Newfoundland Hotel.

“Wait,” she said and went in.

Exactly a half an hour went by: “Take me to that other hotel.”

The Delta was what she was talking about.

The meter was still ticking away. I hauled up, and she went in. Another thirty minutes went by, and out she came and sat in the car: “Take me to the other one again.” I went out the road, and I was talking away to her. She was saying where she was from, that in Montreal things were a lot faster. Then the next thing I know, she opens up her coat, and here she got not a tack on—nothing. Not a tack, not a tack. She said, “Do you want this, or do you want to get paid?”

I said, “My darling, I can get as much of that as I want home. [
He points to the meter.
] Tick, tick, tick.”

She peeled off $400: “Thank you very much.”

Dealing With Drunken Women

Danny, driving for three years

While it is illegal to deny someone access to goods and services
based on gender, in a recent CBC article entitled “St. John's Taxis Leery
of Young Women,” one company spokesman indicated that because they
feared accusations of sexual impropriety some drivers were leery of picking up young women. There was an immediate backlash from women's
organizations. In a press release, the executive director of the Coalition
Against Violence stated: “Negative ideas about young women exposed
by this taxi company are incorrect and disrespectful.” Doug McCarthy,
president of Co-Op Taxi, was quick to point out that, in the past, drivers,
protecting their livelihood and their safety, had always picked up women
first, couples second and men last. “Now,” he said, “that's reversed.”

At first, my girlfriend was a little skeptical about me driving a cab. Her main concern was driving after four-thirty and having to deal with the drunken women, the Jabba the Huts. It's always the big, fat, nasty woman that'll say, “I'll show you my tits for a run home.”

I'm in the car alone: “Ah, no.” Maybe if it was Pamela Anderson, or something, I'd consider it.

I used to tell the girlfriend that she didn't have to worry about anything. “I'm out working. If I come home every Saturday night with $40, then you got a reason to worry. I'm gone for twelve hours, and I got next to nothing made. You can phone down to that stand to find out if I'm working, and they'll tell you.” I got to punch in and out when I'm gone on a call. If you're not going to take a call, you let them know. If you want a break, or a coffee, or tea, or whatever, you let the dispatcher know. If you're messing around, you got to take your name off. It's only easy for the girlfriend to know if I'm up to no good.

They Don't Know They're in the Car

Michael, driving and dispatching for thirty-seven years

If a bartender comes out and puts you in my car and I haul away, it's my responsibility that you get home. I just can't put you on your doorstep and say, “I'll get the money tomorrow.” Even if I get paid and drive off and leave you there you could tip over in the snowbank, or you could strike your head off the concrete. You could die right there on your doorstep.

When you pick up some of the younger crowd coming out of Liquid Ice at seven in the morning, they're gone—wrecked on ecstasy and cocaine. You name it, and they're on it. You might put them in the backseat, and they say they're going to Hayward Avenue. There's nobody going with them. They're in the car, but they don't know they're in the car. They don't know they're in the world. But they're going to Hayward Avenue. Once you put on that meter and drive away they're your responsibility. Once you get to Hayward Avenue, then what do you do?

You got to watch what you're doing, too. People come out: “Take so-and-so home.” They put her in the car. She's eighteen, or twenty years old. She's a university student. It's probably her first time in town. It's probably her first time downtown. She's got a little dress on. She's drunk; she's stoned. You get her back to campus, and she may trip when you let her out. She may scratch her leg, or tear her dress. She may tear her slacks. She wakes up the next morning and phones the police, and you got to go explain all this old stuff. Once your name goes in the paper for anything like that, sexual assault, the thought will always be in the back of people's minds:
Did
he do it? Was it him?
You may be innocent, but if your name ends up in the paper for sexual assault you got one hell of a job to try and clear yourself. You're the last one to have seen her. Between here and there you had no one else in that car but her. There was one driver who was charged and went to jail. It could easily happen out there now. When you bring them home, you just don't know.

You Get Fucked Over, and Nobody Gives a Fuck

Derrick, driving for eighteen years

Most crimes against taxicab drivers are petty theft. Sometimes
they are what the Criminal Code defines as “common assault,” which
includes the use of force, both directly and indirectly, or threats. It is
often the frequency and not the severity of these crimes that contributes to the perception that little is being done by the police to protect
the taxicab driver's safety and to catch perpetrators. Taxicab drivers
are left to swallow their fear and anxiety and get back behind the
wheel. But now they have a knife kept in their boot, or a sawed-off
hockey stick beneath their seat: “We got to protect what's ours.”

Think about it. You can go into Walmart and rob a $4 shirt and you're prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to the point of going to jail. If you rip off a taxi driver for $50, it takes the cops over an hour to get to your location, and then they have the gall to say, “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I want him arrested, and I wanted him prosecuted. That's your job. He didn't pay me. I want my money, or let's get him arrested.”

I had two kids arrested up in Foxtrap after taking me for a milk run. They owed me sixty bucks. I said to them, “I'm going to get you.” And I caught them. But this is what the goddamned courts did. Without giving me sufficient notice to show up and plead my case, they convicted one of them and told him to pay me. I never saw that money. With the other kid, at least they notified me in time. I went down to the court, and the prosecutor comes over: “Blah, blah, blah. He's in school. He's a nice kid.”

He paid me my thirty bucks, his half of the fare. I didn't get the second half of the fare. What's wrong with that picture? I get ripped off, and he gets a smack on the wrist.

Another night, I had two kids going to Kelligrews of all places, which was another $60 ride. The last kid gets out and gives me all these coins wrapped up in dollar bills. There's a $10 bill, and inside that $10 bill are two coupons. And they're supposed to be two $20 bills. Here I am with a $60 ride, and I all got for it was $18. My employer doesn't give two fucks about you ripping me off. He sees me with those kilometres, and I got to give him so much money. It's an industry where you get fucked over, and you get fucked over, and nobody gives a fuck. Do you understand?

Doing the Cops a Favour

Dave, driving for twenty-two years

Taxi drivers have a working relationship with the police. Come two o'clock in the morning cars are flying left, right and centre. Cab drivers don't drive slowly. Most times, if you're passing police they'll flick their lights for you to slow down. Some of the rookie cops will pull you over and give you a bunch of tickets. But they don't understand that we're actually doing them a favour. I've often pulled up on the back of Rob Roy on Duckworth Street, and there'll be a riot going on. I'll open my two doors and say, “Come on, boys. Get in. If you don't come with me you're going down to the drunk tank until Monday.”

I was only at it two months and a cop gave me a load of tickets on Adelaide Street, George Street and Church Hill. All in one shot— one whole load of tickets. Someone must've called and complained about some of us using Adelaide. I passed by twice that night and never thought anything of it. That's what I thought the cop pulled me over for. I had a customer in the car, too—a drunk.

The cop said, “I got you for a signal light and two rolling stops.”

The customer said everything to him. He called him a no-good bastard and a fucker. “This guy's out here trying to make a good living, and you're giving him a hard time.”

The cop listened for a little while and then threatened to put him down in the drunk tank. That shut him up.

I gave the customer a run home for free.

I took the ticket to court. I never bothered with my own representative because I couldn't afford one. The Crown attorney was like, “What do you want to do?”

“I just want the fine reduced, and I don't want any points.” The cop was a nice guy. I said, “I know you picked me up for those rolling stops and the signal light, but we do you guys a favour hauling the drunks away. Sometimes we can't come to a complete stop. We got to sneak around cars to get out from around George Street. If we stop, we hold up the lane.”

“I know,” he said. “But we had to do what we had to do.”

The Crown agreed to half the fines and no points. But it went on my record. I ended up paying $250.

Cab drivers are out all hours of the night, and we like to keep an eye out. Up off Stavanger Drive, I saw a guy on a pedal bike dressed all in black with a knapsack on his back. He was creeping around the neighbourhood. I phoned the police: “I just wanted to give you a heads-up, a tip.”

You know, they were more concerned about who I was and what I was doing than what that guy was up to. Can you believe that?

Another time, my kid's best friend's pedal bike got stolen. I was sat in the car and watched some guy ride right past me on it. I was looking straight at the bike—it's an $1,800 pedal bike. It's not cheap. I phoned the police and said, “My kid's best friend's bike was recently stolen. I don't know if it was reported stolen or not. But I just saw it go across the street right in front of me.”

They said, “Who are you? Where are you from? What's your name? We can't take you at your word that that bike was stolen, unless it is reported.”

“I'm telling you that bike is stolen. I know that bike. I did the brake lines on it myself, and there are tire wraps on it. I put them on. It had fluid brakes in it. I had to turn them off because they weren't working right.”

I gave them all the information so they could phone me back and let me know what they were going to do about it. I watched buddy go right by two cops. I thought,
What the hell is going on?

Finally, I called the police back. “The guy went right by two police officers.”

They ended up doing nothing.

I know they got their hands full, but when people are reaching out for help or asking for assistance they should help them. Don't ignore the call or investigate the person who is calling.

They got that guy on Craigmillar Avenue who was breaking into houses. He had over 12,000 material items. Who's to say it wasn't the same guy on the bike dressed all in black? I used to do a little bit of robbing when I was younger. That's how you do it. If someone goes out late at night wearing dark cloths, a knapsack and got no identifying marks, it's a dead giveaway. That person's not going to work four in the morning.

I was coming up Monkstown Road on a Thursday night. A girl jumped out onto Monkstown Road trying to run away from her boyfriend. I slammed on the brakes, and I just missed her heels. If it had been a Friday night I would be in jail now because I would've been going twenty kilometres faster, and I would have nailed her. She was screaming in the most frantic voice you could ever imagine: “Help me, help me! Call the police!” Meanwhile, her boyfriend stopped, and there was another guy with him.

I told her to get in the car. I hauled out my cellphone, and held it up so buddy could see it. “That's the police; they're on the way.”

I don't want to beat a guy up, or get beat up. I could get stabbed, or I could lose my life.