Tuesday, October 2, 2012

BEVERLY HILLS TAXI

NOTE;
 
After going thru all my old cab driving stories I came across the following.  It's not exactly a story but more or less a running account of a typical evening, most of which will be absolutely meaningless if you don't know the L.A. area and may still be meaningless even if you do.  I've decided to include it here for no particular reason other than I'm short on material.
 
BEVERLY HILLS TAXI
 
Sometime in Nov. of 89 my money was running low and I needed some things for the boat.  Art sales
were slow so I decided to stoop as low as a real job.
I contacted someone I knew from Venice Beach.  He was a driver for Beverly Hills Cab Co.
 
I called him up then went and filled out an application.  I had to go into downtown L.A. and take a DOT test.  I made it on time but forgot my license and had to return the following week.

3301
 
I began driving cab 3301 on Nov. 14, 1989.  Primarily around the West side,Westwood, Santa Monica, etc. Even tho I was driving for Beverly Hills Cab Co I was not allowed to pick up fares in Beverly Hills.
 
This was a different, upscale class of people un-like my old cab driving days in the central city.

BLACK
 
One of my first loads was a black woman out of an expensive hotel next to the San Diego Freeway.
The rooms were a hundred dollars a day.  Her and her new husband had been there thirty days.
With the last thousand dollars she rented an apt in
the San Fernando Valley.
 
The day they were supposed to move he disappeared.  She said he was a gambler but she could beat him.  She didn't mind him being gone because they had spent so much time together.
She was heading for an area of L.A. known as the jungle to borrow a hundred dollars from a friend.  This driver predicts the relationship will not last long.

HOT CHICK
 
Then there was a super good looking chick out of the exclusive Beverly Hills hotel above UCLA.  She claimed to work for a record company.  My guess was she was on a drug run.  I was right.  On the way back we pulled around a corner and did a couple of lines.

KOREANS
 
How about the two Korean guys out of Westwood who said they wanted to go to Lexington Ave.  The one guy said he knew the way and would take us directly there.  Then he told me to turn right on Wilshire Blvd when I should have gone left.  I thought there might be a Lexington in Santa Monica that I didn't know about.
 
When we got to the ocean I asked him which way.  He said left on Virgil.  I told him there was no Virgil here just the ocean.  Well the shit hit the fan.  They said it was my fault.  Not so.  The meter said thirty three dollars when we got there.  I collected twenty.

SLIM BLONDE
 
Got a slim, good looking blonde way back in the hills and took her to Park La Brea.  After stopping at Barney's Beanery to change a hundred dollar bill and grab a bite to eat she gets back in the cab and tells me she has trouble sleeping.  Turns out her husband died at thirty six from a heart attack.  She looked awfully small and vunerable in the back seat.

TURN AROUND
 
A young girl out of Nordstroms going to Venice and Lincoln.  Halfway there the meter hits eleven dollars when she thinks she forgot her wallet with her money in it.
 
We turn around to head back.  I stop and suggest she make sure she forgot it before we return.
The fare would be thirty three dollars when we got back to where we were at.  After a quick search she locates it.
 
Imagine how bad she would have felt if we had returned and she discovered it was with her all along.
 
 


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