It doesn't shame me to tell you that my father was a New York City taxi driver. For a number of years. Some people laugh when I tell them my father was a taxi driver. These people I know immediately to be people who know nothing. Their laugh titters off awkwardly so when I look at them so.
Because if you know anything about the price of New York City taxi medallion and if I tell you my father bought one and held onto it and then sold it to put me through a very excellent university with no financial aid whatsoever, you know that my father is a very smart man. (Given what I know about NYC medallion prices today, I can only wish that he had held onto his a decade longer. We could have paid off any loans and bought a nice vacation home in The Bahamas too.)
But my economic point is not my point. It's more what I learned, indirectly, from my father during his time in the front of the car.
Firstly, women are cheap. My father could take a woman 30 blocks, and she'd tip him 10 cents. I try to avoid taking taxis with large groups of women because when we get to our final destination, someone will hand me a dollar to pay the meter that says $10. "That's all I have," they'll say. "I mean, I have a $20 but..." I pay the entire meter and turn down the buck. And I give every driver 20% for their daughter at home, waiting to go to college.
Secondly, never pass up the opportunity to go to the bathroom. My father had a Mott's Apple Juice jar. It rolled beneath the seat of his yellow Chevy Impala, stained white it places from frequent use and frequent temperature changes. "Didn't you just go?" people will say to me, upon leaving parties. "Why yes, I did," I respond. "But you should never pass up the opportunity to go to the bathroom." There is you. And there is the front door. Everything in between is not controllable. This one time, I was in McDonald's eating chicken McNuggets and before I knew it, I was on an inescapable bus somewhere on the outskirts of Heidelberg and I had to pee like a racehorse. So seriously, just go.
Thirdly, taxi drivers know the best places to eat, within certain parameters. They appreciate a good value. They appreciate a certain speediness of service. And free parking. (And a clean bathroom.) One summer when I had to have been around 12, my father picked me and my cousin up in Flatbush and on our way back to Long Island, we stopped at a Greek place somewhere up in Queens and he loaded us up with gyros. We had never had gyros before, and thought my father was a bit crazy, to take us to this restaurant with rotating meat in the window. I remember the white sauce dripping everywhere, and the foil wrapping, and feeling somehow all so worldly, eating Greek food in the back of a city cab, my father at the helm, all the way out to Long Island.
And then there is the traffic. Always the traffic. Distraction was key to traffic. Get a CB-radio. Get an airplane radio. Get a police scanner. The best of the taxi drivers have all three. Because they appreciate, above all, information.
But then there's the lying. Because everyone lies. "My wallet is inside" and "I'll be right back" and "I KNOW I gave you a $20."
And then it's midnight on a Tuesday or a Wednesday and you are 12 years old and wrapped tight in bed in your flannel pajamas when the phone rings--late, like it's never supposed to--and there are conversations and more conversations and more phone calls and more phone calls and in the morning, over your oatmeal, you learn that Mony, one of your father's nightime drivers who always called your dad Mr. Pat and introduced the family to pita bread, has been shot. In the head.
Because if you know anything about the price of New York City taxi medallion and if I tell you my father bought one and held onto it and then sold it to put me through a very excellent university with no financial aid whatsoever, you know that my father is a very smart man. (Given what I know about NYC medallion prices today, I can only wish that he had held onto his a decade longer. We could have paid off any loans and bought a nice vacation home in The Bahamas too.)
But my economic point is not my point. It's more what I learned, indirectly, from my father during his time in the front of the car.
Firstly, women are cheap. My father could take a woman 30 blocks, and she'd tip him 10 cents. I try to avoid taking taxis with large groups of women because when we get to our final destination, someone will hand me a dollar to pay the meter that says $10. "That's all I have," they'll say. "I mean, I have a $20 but..." I pay the entire meter and turn down the buck. And I give every driver 20% for their daughter at home, waiting to go to college.
Secondly, never pass up the opportunity to go to the bathroom. My father had a Mott's Apple Juice jar. It rolled beneath the seat of his yellow Chevy Impala, stained white it places from frequent use and frequent temperature changes. "Didn't you just go?" people will say to me, upon leaving parties. "Why yes, I did," I respond. "But you should never pass up the opportunity to go to the bathroom." There is you. And there is the front door. Everything in between is not controllable. This one time, I was in McDonald's eating chicken McNuggets and before I knew it, I was on an inescapable bus somewhere on the outskirts of Heidelberg and I had to pee like a racehorse. So seriously, just go.
Thirdly, taxi drivers know the best places to eat, within certain parameters. They appreciate a good value. They appreciate a certain speediness of service. And free parking. (And a clean bathroom.) One summer when I had to have been around 12, my father picked me and my cousin up in Flatbush and on our way back to Long Island, we stopped at a Greek place somewhere up in Queens and he loaded us up with gyros. We had never had gyros before, and thought my father was a bit crazy, to take us to this restaurant with rotating meat in the window. I remember the white sauce dripping everywhere, and the foil wrapping, and feeling somehow all so worldly, eating Greek food in the back of a city cab, my father at the helm, all the way out to Long Island.
And then there is the traffic. Always the traffic. Distraction was key to traffic. Get a CB-radio. Get an airplane radio. Get a police scanner. The best of the taxi drivers have all three. Because they appreciate, above all, information.
But then there's the lying. Because everyone lies. "My wallet is inside" and "I'll be right back" and "I KNOW I gave you a $20."
And then it's midnight on a Tuesday or a Wednesday and you are 12 years old and wrapped tight in bed in your flannel pajamas when the phone rings--late, like it's never supposed to--and there are conversations and more conversations and more phone calls and more phone calls and in the morning, over your oatmeal, you learn that Mony, one of your father's nightime drivers who always called your dad Mr. Pat and introduced the family to pita bread, has been shot. In the head.
