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.

 

 



QWIKY

One sunday morning in Charleston, S.C. I picked up a woman on her way to church.  Somehow we got into a discussion about relationships.

 

Talking about her boyfriend she said,"...I used to like sex." 

 

I replied "...too bad I was gonna' ask if you wanted pull over for a qwicky before church."

FROGS

COPS WIN

CAPT FLASH

LAST MOVIE

JACK RABBITS

.....JACK RABBITS

Passengers that jump out and run without paying. Usually young males.  Imagin' that.

The call was for the "Pig".  Piggly Wiggly supermarket that is.  A young African-American male.  Had a dew rag on.  The kind with double flaps in the rear.  An obvious queen.  Said she wanted cab # 21.  He wasn't available so do you want to ride with me, yes or no?

She said she wanted to go to the Citadel Mall in W. Ashley, then back downtown to America St. in the hood.  A good run, maybe fifteen dollars.

She wasn't a talker.  She wanted to go to Dillard's in the lingerie dept.  Go figger.

We pull up in front.  I asked how long?  She sez, she's just gonna' pick up her check.

I looked at the door.  Cab driving had taught me, queen's are flakes, you can't trust what they say (but then who can you trust?)

I thought once she's around that corner and outta' sight I'll never see her or my money again, or wait twenty minutes then go inside to find her shopping.

I said, I'll go with you. So I did. She didn't go directly to the office for her check.  She wanders around then stops to look at something.  Then sez, are you going to follow me all over the store.  I reply, now that you said that, yea....!!

She stops to look at something else.  I ask, what are you doing?  Shopping she sez.  Do you have money to pay for the cab fare, yes or no?

No.

Got lucky, just then a cop walks in.  He was there to investigate a call of shots fired. I call him over and explain the situation to him.  She goes into motor mouth about the wrong cab.  We have to follow him till he and his partner investigates the shots fired.

Were told to sit and wait.  The queen goes into a store and calls the cab company.  The cops return.  She doesn't have the money.

A call is made to her sister who sez she was suppose to be there and pay the fare.  News to me.  When was this going to happen? If you were supposed to be here, what are you doing in N.Charleston? How long am I expected to wait?  Why wasn't I told about this right up front instead of a lie about a check?

When I got on the phone with the sister she was hostile to me so I hung up.  The cop said she was polite to him and that I was the rude one.  Of course she was polite to the cop.

Anyway he got back on the phone and it was arraigned for me to take her to N. Charleston to collect.

In N. Charleston I'm told to wait downstairs.  Sister comes down and makes some nasty remark then throws a twenty on the ground.  I pick it up and as I'm walking away say, "Na-nah na-nah, I got the money".

Two months before I had taken a woman to a beauty salon.  There was two dollars and seventy five cents on the meter.  The beautician came out and started hasseling me, saying I took the long way.

I threw fifty cents on the ground.  Guess who the beautician was?



DINNER

TOO CHEAP

The call was for Garret St. near Dorchester.  A young black girl got in.  When I threw the meter it showed a dollar fifty.  Some times called a flag drop.

She protested, a dollar fifty already?

A person who would say that is poor and is not familiar with riding cabs.  That raised the red flag of warning of potential problems.

I asked her destination.  It sounded like Sears which would mean go to the end of the block, left onto Remount, right onto Rivers.

No sooner do I pull off than she asks, why are you going the long way? (It's called the long way game)

There is a a certain group of people who are notorius

back seat drivers and complainers. So I do what I do, I pull over and stop to discuss it.

I asked her how much difference in the fare she thinks from here to the corner would make?

At the most a nickel, more like two cents and your hasseling me over that.  I'll tell you what if your that hard up I'll give you a quarter and you'll be that much ahead.

With that we took off my way.  At Remount and Rivers I give her a bit of advice, "If your watching the pennies you can't see the dollars".

Turns out she was going to a motel on Rivers so I had started in the right direction.

At the motel an older man comes out to pay.  The fare was six dollars and ten cents but I rounded it off to six even. He paid it.

Turns out she was a young hooker serviceing an older trick.  She wasn't even paying for it and was hasseling me about it.

Some people are just too cheap.

There's a saying on the streets, blacks are cheap, niggers are worse.

TOO BIG

One night I pick up this guy in town.  He wants a whore so I take him where I know they are.  A little private dance shack on the edge of town.

About a hour later I get a call for the bar across the street.  It's him.  He did not get layed.  The girl complained he was "too big" and was hurting her.  He got his money back and left.

So much for big dicks.  He was white.



SHERLOCK HOLMES

.....that's who he reminded me of

It was a foggy rainy night.  The call was for one of those bars on Sullivan's Island.

(Sullivan's Island is where they quarantined the slaves before taking them to Charleston for sale.  It's also where I was working on 9/11)

He was waiting out front.  Said he wanted to go to Snee Farm (an old plantation).

First thing he talks about is do I need a lawyer for things like a DUI.  Not now, thanx.

He drops a business card on the front seat.  He wants to stop at an ATM machine.  At the ATM he gives me his bank card and tells me the code.  No, no, don't do it, to much like a set up.

After he gets some money he has me drop him at a woman's house.  They were a pair once.  Hadn't seen each other in a long time.  The old spark was still there.

After he gets out I pick up the card.  He was a professor of pharmacology at the local university.

Go figger

CONFESSIONS

Jesus drives cab at night.  Tell him your sins, give him a big tip and he'll take them away into the night.  You'll feel better for a little while anyway.

Oh how cheaters love to confess.  I pick a guy up on a one way street.  He tells me that's not where he lives.

He was going to see a woman he was involved with before going into the military.

He had met and married the mother of his child in the service.  He got out on a disability.  The mother stayed in.  He moved to Charleston, to raise the child.

Mama was home on leave.  The other woman couldn't wait and paid the fare.

Here's the skinny from the streets on wimmen.

A woman doesn't want a man no other woman wants.  It's a bigger feather in her cap to take a man away from another woman.  More of a challenge to her feminity and ego.

The trick to getting another woman is put a wedding band on.  Tell the woman who bites, that your seperated and as soon as your divorced you expect to start collecting a big, fat alimony check.

THE LORD AND THE LADY

The call was for a hotel in the marina area.  A man and a woman going to the market.

He was older, impeccably dressed.  She was middle age.  A little on the Rubenesque side.  She had a sorta', Betty Boop look about her.

They were from Florida, in town on business.  She started by asking me if I knew of the famous guy in Tampa Bay who wieghed titties ?

No I didn't, so tell me about him. She said the heaviest he ever wieghed were twenty two pounds.  Her's looked like a couple of Big Mac's,  quarter pounders.

Took 'em down to a restaurant on E. Bay.  The lord gave me twenty dollars on a four dollar fare and told me to keep the change.  I gave them a card and told them to call me when they were done.  They did

They decided to go to a titty bar.  She was in a good mood but he was a sour puss and wouldn't even buy a girl a drink.  We left and went back to the hotel.

At the hotel we dumped him.  He was pissed. To this day I can still see him standing outside the cab with a scowl on his face. We went and scored some crack and headed to my boat to have a boy/girl party, which lasted about an hour plus.  Then I took her back to the hotel and went and got me some more candy.

Never did sleep much that night.



ZEKE

SUMMER

HOLLYWOOD CONFESSIONS

TAXI TIMES

IT HURTS

...here's the bad news

Bad things happen to good people.

I picked up a young woman on James Island.  I didn't notice it when she got in the cab because someone opened the door for her.

Both of her hands were like claws.  When she was in the military she had an accident.  Apparently got hit in the head.  She was angry with God over it. She couldn't understand why bad happens to good people.

I told her about a woman I took from the hospital to N.Charleston.  Her husband was in a truck, stopped at a light when he was hit by another truck.  Broke every bone in his body.  Ruined his life.

While he's in the hospital she discovers she has cancer.

Good and bad, right and wrong, you go figger.

The concept that good is rewarded and bad is punished

is a

FALSE CONCEPT

As often as not just the opposite occurs

That's how we know God luvs us (LOL)



NO GO ROLLS

The Rolls that Wouldn't Roll

Society folks think their better than the rest but they have their magic moments also.

The call was for an exclusive country club on James Island.  Seems there had been a wedding.  A Rolls Royce Limo had been hired.  Trouble was it wouldn't roll.

(How embarrasing, inconvient and prophetic to hire a Rolls to carry you away from your big event and then have it break down.  What a bummer.  Talk about raining our your parade) 

When I got there, the hood was up and people were hoping for a miracle.  My fare was a highly intoxicated society type, maybe in her 50's.

Seem's, Eddie an ex-highway patrolman and her husband of thirty two years got drunk and left her....stranded with the rolls that wouldn't.  So she called a cab, that's where I came into the scene.

She wanted to go clear across town, near where Highway 17 N. intersected with the Isle of Palms connector.  Some apartment complex.

All the way there I had to listen to, "How could he after thirty two years".

Well we get to her place and there is $12.50 showing on the meter.  When we get out of the cab she walks ahead of me.  On the back of her dress was a red spot, as if her period had started when she was sitting down and had seeped thru.

Descretion being the better part of valor I didn't mention it.

Bad News.  Eddie has the keys and he's not home.  Ms. Society begins to panic at the mere thought of having to spend a night...Gawd forbid...outside.

I feel my money slipping away.  A woman who is worried about spending a night in the bushes is not going to be overly concerned about paying a cab fare.

She decides to try a nieghbor who isn't home.

After some serious banging on the door and cursing she decides to try a nieghbor who is home.  Her voice is taking on a tone of panic.   I feel my money slipping further away.

Good news.  This guy is home and better yet produces twenty dollars.

Keep the change driver

Hallelujah, paid again



THUNDER N' LITEN'

Same place...

Charleston, S.C.

I had been driving cab for a couple of months. I had hooked up with a titty bar dancer.  An american indian, Cherokee I think.  I've always had a weakness for injun wimmen.

She was gorgeous.  She was half my age, had raven black hair and a great rack.  Trouble was she was a "rock star".  Luved her krak kandy.

Dind't phase me a bit.  I jumped in head first. I'd pick her up to take her to work.  We'd get a rock and do one first.

This particular night it was raining like hell so we decided to go get another rock.  On the way there we came to a place in the road that was so flooded a car had stalled in the middle.  Didn't stop me, I drove right in.  Just as I pulled around the stalled car another cab came from the other direction.

I swear to this, a wave washed over the cab.  I kept going.  We scored another rock and parked to do it.

She must have been a little horney cause she wanted me to eat her pussy.

I went down on her in the back seat.  Rain was coming down in buckets, Thunder and lighten, were cracking right over us.

She started moaning and groaning.  Then she started howling, "I'm gonna' cum"  KA-BOOM...!! Lighten' flashed and thunder cracked right over head

She came .....all over the cab.

I have been to the mountain.  I have seen the

promise land.  Now I can die in peace.