Voice in the Crowd, 820 words

My life, especially when it comes to money, has been like a yo-yo, going to the top and down to the bottom. At 21, I was publishing my first weekly newspaper. I’ve sold Encyclopaedia Britannica, built and sold a home a month for two years and developed a 400-lot subdivision. I also wrote a million seller book.

Driving a cab was something I had never considered until a newspaper I published some years ago went belly up. I wanted to earn a few dollars while I decided what to do. I had never done anything like that before. Taking the night shift, I felt I would be embarrassed if some of my friends and associates saw me. My wardrobe had no work clothes and I wore white shirt and tie and a sports coat.

No one told me any better, so I would go up and knock on a door even in the roughest neighborhoods. One woman said she was afraid to come out because she thought I was a detective. A police chastised me one night for walking through a housing project. "Please don’t do that again," he said.

A few weeks later a driver was shot knocking on a door in that area.

There was a camaraderie I enjoyed. Drivers came from all walks. One had been a schoolteacher. Another, a siding salesman who had a drinking problem. There were felons on probation and ministers whose churches couldn’t afford a pastor. There was a certain equality and acceptance of each other.

Especially at night, a driver is like a father confessor. People need a stranger they never expect to see again so they can unburden their troubles to someone. They don’t want advice so much as they just want someone to listen.

One night, though, a woman said she was looking for her husband who was off with another woman. She showed a gun and planned to kill him. As we drove we talked about their two children. I suggested she think about the good times she and her husband had, and how she would be taking a father and a mother from her children. He would be dead. She would be in prison.

She decided to go home and wait to talk to him.

Another time, about 3 AM, a pretty young nurse pulled into the parking lot where I was taking a break. She was near nervous exhaustion. Her husband had left her and she wanted . . .companionship. Being a somewhat cautious person, I called another more rambunctious driver to talk to her.

Once I carried a bank robber. I picked him up with his brief case at a phone booth. He looked like a businessman and directed me across town to a bank. He told me to wait in the lot near the bank while he went inside to "meet a friend." I read my paper and when he came back drove calmly away. He wanted to go to car dealer miles away.

As we drove off, police cars were flying around me, and I thought there must be a bad wreck. He paid me for the trip, added a modest trip and went inside the car showroom. That night I saw a picture that looked like my passenger and called an police officer I knew. "We already have him," he said. The passenger-robber had gone inside, peeled the wrappers off his stolen money and paid cash for a car. He also gave them his real name, driver’s license and phone number.

Behind the wheel of a cab you’re on your own. You must adjust to whoever is the passenger. A driver can make a lot of friends. He can make enemies. With no idea who is getting in the cab, the next passenger may be a doctor or lawyer, a drug dealer or a prostitute. He drives into a realm of dreams and nightmares he never knew existed.

Cab driving is said to be the second most dangerous job in the world, just behind a police officer. One driver friend was robbed, stuffed him in the cab trunk and shot twice through the trunk lid. He survived. Another friend--a friendly, quiet fellow didn't. He was discovered one morning behind the wheel of his cab with his throat cut.

A friend once asked me if I were afraid to drive. "If I were afraid," I said. "I wouldn’t do it." Maybe you could it being naïve, but I preferred to think I was trusting in God and the innate goodness of people

One thing I advised about driving a cab: you have to love driving and you must love people.

It was almost 30 years ago when I drove my first cab. I’ve done it off and on since. Whatever I do, I want to do the best I can. I enjoy it. It was fun--most of the time.

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