Writing a taxi blog entry and copying it to two other places seems like too much fuss and effort nowadays. As I have to log out of my regular Skyring LJ and log back in as CanberraCabbie to make each post, and then reverse the process to get back to Skyring, I'm going to streamline it all, cutting back to two blog sites.
The bonus with Skyring.com.au is that you also get my travel blog, the "Ask Skyring" column, my taxi and travel photographs, and a whole lot more. I'm intending to expand and add more features.
Another change is that my blog entries will be shorter and more focussed. Instead of writing a long entry covering several days, I'm covering the same material in smaller chunks. Much better to dash off a few paragraphs as soon as possible than to rack the memory for details a few days later. I've been making posts from the cab, including photographs, in this new format, and they can be seen at Skyring.com.au.
My site incorporates RSS feeds, so my regular readers here may subscribe and not miss anything. So I won't say goodbye to my regular readers. I hope I'll see you (and read your always appreciated comments) on my main site.
Thanks for your interest and kind words over the past couple of years, and I look forward to entertaining you in future with more of the same!
A lady waiting outside. I pulled in, admiring the floodlit exterior. First time I've seen it lit up at night. Other than as a construction site, that is.
It's a handsome building. Post brutalist, maybe. Or New Age concrete. Not sure how you'd describe it, but it's a looker.
The lady got in, named a suburb in Woden, guided me on my first circuit of the access area across the forecourt of the High Court, and asked, "Have you seen the Smiley Face?"
She pointed off out my window, and I glanced that way, wondering what she was talking about. A sign? Graffiti? Some new piece of public artwork?
But no. It was a happy conjunction of moon and planets creating a smiling face, a happy omen for the opening of a building chiefly devoted to faces.
Later on, at the airport, I stopped and snapped the face of God, pointing it out to other drivers, my passengers, anybody who looked like they needed a smile.
For an old public service cafe, the place is grand. We were seated beside a window looking out onto a small Turkish style garden, water feature and tiled columns in the greenery. About half full of leisurely top feeders, senior public servants, lobbyists and the like. There were a couple of private rooms with heavy hitters. Security guys browsing up and down with tubes in their ears.
But it would take a lot to match the football team we had at the adjoining table in Rags in Brisbane, twenty-five years back, when we had a private dinner before our nuptials the next day. We sipped champagne and they swilled beer.
Friday night, I picked a passenger up at the airport. "Carwoola," he said. I looked blank. "It's about ten minutes past Queanbeyan," he informed me, and off we went.
Leaving the airport, I got a call from Ken, my regular wheelchair Friday passenger. He wanted an immediate pickup from Manuka, and though he's usually happy to wait ten or fifteen minutes for me, it would be the best part of an hour before I could pick him up and I regretfully advised him to take another cab.
Carwoola and back through kangaroo territory and the remnants of torrential rains that had put creeks over the road here and there. I swung back into the airport cabyard, joining the line.
Phone rings, and it's Ken. He needs a pickup from a motel in Narrabundah. I peel out, glad to avoid being tagged for a Silver Service job at the airport, narrowly missing my brother cabbie Dragan who is leaving the cabyard from the opposite side. He lives for these jobs, and I'm ever happy to let him have them.
Pulling up at the motel, I find Ken propping up the bar as best he can in his wheelchair. He's telling his story to the barman and the motel manager, and he orders me a Coke - "You can't drink, you're driving me home." - while he finishes his tale,
It seems that he got a taxi on Manuka rank, but the cabbie didn't want a disabled person in his cab. Ken's wheelchair folds up and the wheels come off, so it's only a matter of moments to pull it apart and stow it in the boot. Eventually Ken talked his way in - he's one of the most charming men I've ever met - and they set off for Narrabundah to collect his laundry from the motel. When they got there and Ken said that he wanted to continue on to his home in Queanbeyan, the cabbie jacked up and would go no further. There was a conversation with the base over the radio, but the end result was that Ken was left stranded at the motel.
Some cabbies must be idiots. Especially the Friday night driver in Taxi 481. But the bottom line was that I had the pleasure of Ken's company for another half hour or so.
I normally have weekends off, but the owner gave me the chance to drive a Sunday shift, which I jumpt at, and I cleaned up, as the night was full of Parliamentary staffers getting into Canberra early for the sitting week, and I shuttled people to and from the airport. Had more work than I could handle, despite a flat tyre, and was late getting the cab home after cleaning up.
Found him chatting to the Swiss ambassador, G'day, I said, and he smiled back.
I helped Ken into the car, dismantled his wheelchair, and we set off, to the sound of McCain's concession speech. I thought he was very gracious in defeat. I can't say that I've been paying much attention to what they have to say, but over the past few days, McCain was sounding very much like a loser, and this really just underlined the campaign.
But a good speech, nonetheless.
I dropped Ken off at The Canberra Times and he hurried inside to hear Obama's speech. You ever see a wheelchairman go through a revolving door? Ken did it with style and grace.
Which doesn't come close to summing up Obama's victory speech. Man, if he can govern the way he can orate, the USA is in for some good times!
It was electrifying. Even the parts that were pretty much mandatory were great. Thanks to my running mate, my wife etc.... That puppy's going to go down in history.
History was woven into the speech. You could almost see Lincoln looking on with an approving eye, the triumph of democracy manifest after two centuries of struggle and division, an example to the world.
I had a call to Parliament House, and my passenger was a little late. I sat outside and listened to the final minutes of the speech, and when it was over, my man came hurrying up. He'd been inside listening. Palaces and Parliaments.
We talked about Obama and his speech. "Everything changes, and everything stays the same," he said.
I thought about this. Really, all the USA has done is elect a young, articulate, charismatic President. Shades of John Kennedy. His racial background is as unimportant as Kennedy's Catholicism. The promise has long been that any American could be elected President, and the theory is proven to be reality. Big deal.
But I cannot help but think, what an inspiration! What a splendid example to set. How many young people, wondering at the unfairness and inequality of the world must now be rubbing out a part of the old way of seeing things? How many girls are dreaming of glories to come? And come they will.
Bless you, America. May fortune smile and may the present difficulties melt away. And may other nations, other cultures, other dreams take heart.
And may my American friends sleep well, dream of glories to come, and wake full of spirit and hope.
For me, I'm going to make sure that I have an hour of leisure to watch his inauguration in January. There will be a speech for the ages, something to remember.
After that, the rest of the day was an anticlimax. On the airport rank, two other cabbies discussed Obama's win. They were conscious of history being made.
The passengers talked of their affairs, of weather and travel and local politics. And I dreamed of my brief moments in the USA. Chicago, where Obama made his speech. Harlem in New York, where every face must be smiling today. And Washington DC, where the future face of the presidency in the National Portrait Gallery will surely be reflecting happy, hopeful, thoughtful and thankful Americans.
Melbourne Cup day in Canberra, and the racecourse is the place to see and be seen, to drink and get drunk.
Outfits were chosen and bought days, weeks, months ahead, to turn heads.
I barely knew where to look when waiting for a fare. It was full on all night, a pleasant change from the usual slow Tuesday PM shift. I ferried people from the races to clubs, I ferried them home, I took a break by picking up passengers at the airport, and towards the end I was counting the dickheads.
By midnight, the drunks who had been grogging on since noon were getting very ratty indeed. I had one young lady who commandeered my cab to collect her boyfriend from where he had been playing the pokies. She was upset that he'd stolen money from her handbag, mislaid her house keys, spent the holiday with his mates instead of her, failed to inform her of what he was doing, and asked her to buy him a meal and then not shown up for it. He appeared out of the darkness, very drunk, clutching a fresh Big Mac, which he proceeded to eat in my cab, whilst proclaiming he had done nothing wrong and was the perfect boyfriend.
"Just shut up and go to sleep," she ordered, but no, he kept on shoving his foot fair in his mouth.
And, when we reached home, he made her pay for the cab ride.
I gave her a few words of comfort when I wished her goodnight, before picking the scraps of lettuce off the backseat, and turfing the hamburger container.
From then on, every time I got near a rank, I looked to see if the next passengers were carrying a sack of fast food. If they were, they didn't get to ride with me.
A little later I picked up two footballers, well in their cups, who asked me to drive through McDonalds and were miffed when I refused. One chap was totally lost, though that didn't stop him giving me directions, and couldn't remember which of the women who had given him their phone numbers he was seeing. "She's got big bazongas," he said, "but I can't remember her name."
She was waiting for him when we reached the address, leapt into the back seat with him and gave every sign of not wanting to wait until she got to his house.
Thank goodness youthful hormones can overcome common sense, eh? Otherwise the planet would belong to the horses.
Me, I'd had two of the three dickheads that would end my night early, and I didn't bother trying too hard for the third. The main rank was full of young men, full of beer and empty of pocket, but too many of them were munching slices of pizza to interest me. So I called it a two dickhead night and spent some productive time polishing my wheels instead of carting ratty drunks home.
Some mixed blessings.
Paul, fellow Silver Service driver, has moved to the day shift. That means that I'll miss his company in the idle times. We'd climb into each other's cab at the airport or on a lonely city rank at two in the morning and just chatter away happily, swapping cabbie yarns, listening to Mark Knopfler.
There's nobody on the night shift half as entertaining. Maybe I shall concentrate on the job now.
The flip side is that I've got a new night driver. Paul.
It's been a long while since I had a really good day driver. One who was more than just driving the cab when I wasn't.
Of course, the down side of the flip side is that we'll be ships in the night from now on. When I start work at three in the arvo, I'm fresh and happy to chat. At three in the morning it's a different matter, and I'm ready for sleep. Often I'll fail to make the full twelve hours, especially when the last passenger of the shift is a bit "iffy".
I've had three of these. One night, I was second on the main rank, about two in the morning, keen for someone, anyone to walk up and get in my cab.
A chap leaned into the passenger window of the cab ahead and conversed with the driver. Obviously without satisfaction, as he gave up and came back to me. Now, while I'm always wary of the passengers other cabbies reject, sometimes I've had some positive experiences. They might not always have the money for the full fare, but they are rewarding in other ways.
This bloke didn't look too bad. The fact that he spoke through clenched teeth, making it hard to understand what he was saying, was a drawback. But he didn't look too bad, and I allowed him in.
"Where to?'
In the meantime another drunk had walked up to the cab in front, and he was pulling away.
"Where he's going."
This was a bit odd, but I figured maybe the other fellow was someone staying at the same hotel.
So we tailed the other cab until they pulled up at a private house, the passenger paid the cabbie and got out, and my passenger sat in the back seat and went to sleep.
I woke him up and asked for a destination, but I could get no sense out of him. A locality in Queensland was the most specific direction, and that was out of the question. Some of my passengers, I'll happily drive across the country with them, but not this guy.
I headed back into the city, aiming for the police station. I knew the police wouldn't be much immediate help, but my passenger didn't know that.
He "talked me into" dropping him back at the main cab rank, and I was happy to oblige. Of course he didn't pay me, but I was glad to gas up and go home without any further trouble.
Next night I got an earful from the other cabbie, who had been worried for both of us.
This was the Thursday night, what they call "Uni night" for all the university students coming in for the cheap drinks. Not my favorite night, because although students are generally fine and entertaining folk, uni night is always less predictable than other nights. Thursday night drunks might be ordinary people who have had twice as much to drink as they should, due to the half price drinks. Or they might be cheapskates who are drunk in the regular fashion.
I made my way to the head of the rank, and this chap leans in the window. Young fellow, he was.
"Can you take me around to Mooseheads, collect my friend, and take us to ANU?"
Mooseheads is a nearby bar, and ANU is the Australian National University, a ten dollar cab fare away. Now, we're not supposed to pick up or drop off outside Mooseheads, and occasionally the Gestapo rouse at us.
But if I had one passenger in the car and another ready to jump in, I figured that was good enough to flummox the nazis.
'Your mate's ready to go?" I asked.
"Standing outside," he agreed.
So we went around the block to Mooseheads. My passenger sees his friend on the pavement, we pull up, he gets out, opens the back door, and goes to get her, leaving me empty in the forbidden zone, two passenger side doors standing open. Great.
Three drunks approach. A vacant cab, ready to go - jut what they need. They climb in, and I have to shoo them out, "Sorry, I'm booked."
Then I see my passenger's friend. She's drunk to the point of needing to be supported, and arguing about leaving the party. It's a continuous entertainment outside Mooseheads after midnight, almost as much of an event as inside the bar.
Double great. An unwilling, staggering drunk throwing up on my back seat. But, I'm vacant, there's no traffic...
I hit the gas and pull out into the street, the speed of my departure snapping the doors shut to the sounds of outrage and dismay behind me.
Monday night was another interesting final fare. About two in the morning, and it was dead quiet. I’d actually given up and gassed up. Vacuumed out the car, moving my money bag from its position hanging from the indicator stalk into the centre console so I wouldn’t inadvertently vacuum up my earnings for the night.
Nice clean car, full of gas for Paul, and I headed home, taking one last swing through the main rank, just in case. No cabs waiting on this lonely night, but to my surprise a couple of middle aged gents flagged me down.
“Statesman Hotel in Curtin,” said the one who hopped into the front seat. There is the Statesman, the Embassy in Deakin and the Diplomat in Kingston, and I have to be careful not to get them confused in my mind.
He was a cabbie from Sydney, it turned out, and we chatted all the way to his hotel. “I drive the Eastern Suburbs,” he said, and I said that I was very sorry to hear it. I’d hate to be a cabbie in Sydney. No kangaroos, but rougher clients, heavier traffic and more competition.
We pulled into the hotel reception, and the fare was twenty-one dollars. “Can you make me a receipt for twenty-five? The boss is paying for this trip.” he said.
“Thanks!” I said “You’re as bad as I am - I always tip cabbies when I’m travelling.”
I put the notes in the empty beverage holder and bent down to print him up his receipt, then waved him off with a smile. I always like having a brother cabby for a passenger.
Got home and remembered that twenty-five dollars as I was tidying away my gear. Hmmm. Where did I put it? Not in my shirt pocket, not in my money bag because that was in the console, not in the side pocket...
And it wasn’t in the beverage holder. My chatty passenger must have lifted it when I wasn’t looking. Not only had he scored a free ride off me, he’d be reimbursed by “the boss”.
And last night, bloody bloody bloody. First time I've ever hit my panic button for real.
Sitting on the main rank, 0ne thirty in the morning, maybe a dozen cabs left on the road. Not much business that hour, but enough to keep me going. This bloke hops in and says "Gowrie".
That's all. Not a word out of him otherwise, no chat, no nothing. He's about my size, covered in tattoos, shaven head, shorts and t-shirt. I'm feeling very nervous. This is not my normal passenger. At one stage I glance over at him and he's looking directly at me. I return my eyes to the road, but I'm feeling grateful for the presence of my panic button, mounted in a convenient location.
If I press it, base gets an alert, the security camera and microphone go live broadcasting back to the control centre, and other taxis are steered to my location if base thinks the situation needs it.
I'm very nervous about my passenger. Every move he makes, I wonder if he's reaching for a weapon. His attitude is totally alien and I'm wondering if this is the one. By rights, I should be making excuses to stop the car in a well-lit area and get him out, but realistically, he's done nothing wrong. He doesn't even seem overly drunk.
We get to Gowrie, a suburb in the middle of Tuggeranong in Canberra's south, and he directs me into a cul de sac, just "left" and "right" in a whisper.
"I've just got to get out here," he says, getting out. I give him a look. I've heard this before. He'll be off and running.
But he gets out and walks to a nearby house, a darkened house, going into the backyard and poking about. I wait a few minutes on the off-chance he's going to come back with some money.
To my surprise, he comes back, but instead of pulling out some money, he sits down again, closes the door, and says "Chisholm", directing me a few suburbs further south, where we go through the same performance. This is just weird.
He then says, "home, now" and off we go, further south, right to the very bottom of Canberra. I'm sweating now, and when he directs me off into a side street and we go around in a circle, I jack up, stopping the car, pointing out that he's given me no final address, he obviously doesn't have a clue where he's going, he's racked up seventy odd dollars and I need some firm directions.
He directs me onwards, but by this stage, I'm ignoring him, and follow his directions to the point where they diverge from the best way to the all night police station in Tuggeranong.
He questions me when I go left instead of right, and says he needs to go to the hospital for an injection. By this stage I am completely freaked out, ready to leap out of the cab if he makes a quick move, and I've had enough of this rubbish.
We pull up outside the police station and I explain the situation again, saying that he's directed me all over Canberra, he's racked up eighty four dollars, and I'm not going any further without payment.
He slowly brings out a wallet, empty of everything except a couple of cards, and offers me a bank card, which is old and battered and rejected by the bank when the handset makes contact.
I tell him this, and there we are. I'm on the edge of my seat and his attitude seems threatening, so my finger finally pushes the panic button. Maybe I could have tried to gain the attention of the police inside, but I didn't want to leave the cab and its security cameras without a direct attack, and I was totally wound up from an hour of driving around with this guy.
There was no change in the cameras or computer, but I knew they were live and I explained the situation again for the benefit of base. They must have spread the alarm, because within a few minutes there were cabs all around me, and Dragan was looming in the window. Big beefy bald-headed Dragan! I was so glad to see him. I heard later that as soon as the message had gone out that I was in trouble, he'd gone flying down the parkway, lights on high beam, passing everything. If he got a ticket from that, I'd gladly pay it.
He fetched the police and they took us all inside, where it was all sorted out. My passenger was well known to them, and was a registered mental patient - the other card in his wallet explained this. They promised they'd get him to the hospital, and that he would pay the fare when he could. I wasn't really too fussed about the fare, just glad that it had ended happily.
I drove home, full of adrenaline, gassed the car up and passed it onto Paul, waiting patiently at three in the morning. I apologised for the delay, and then went to bed, sleep to follow.
Hard to describe my feelings in words, but it had been the most tense hour of my taxidriving career. Anger and threats wouldn't have rattled me as much. It was the tension, and the uncertainty as we drove around in the dark deserted hours, looking out of the corners of my eyes for the flash of a knife from a passenger who was really doing no more than acting weird.
Some mixed blessings.
Paul, fellow Silver Service driver, has moved to the day shift. That means that I'll miss his company in the idle times. We'd climb into each other's cab at the airport or on a lonely city rank at two in the morning and just chatter away happily, swapping cabbie yarns, listening to Mark Knopfler.
There's nobody on the night shift half as entertaining. Maybe I shall concentrate on the job now.
The flip side is that I've got a new night driver. Paul.
It's been a long while since I had a really good day driver. One who was more than just driving the cab when I wasn't.
Of course, the down side of the flip side is that we'll be ships in the night from now on. When I start work at three in the arvo, I'm fresh and happy to chat. At three in the morning it's a different matter, and I'm ready for sleep. Often I'll fail to make the full twelve hours, especially when the last passenger of the shift is a bit "iffy".
I've had three of these. One night, I was second on the main rank, about two in the morning, keen for someone, anyone to walk up and get in my cab.
A chap leaned into the passenger window of the cab ahead and conversed with the driver. Obviously without satisfaction, as he gave up and came back to me. Now, while I'm always wary of the passengers other cabbies reject, sometimes I've had some positive experiences. They might not always have the money for the full fare, but they are rewarding in other ways.
This bloke didn't look too bad. The fact that he spoke through clenched teeth, making it hard to understand what he was saying, was a drawback. But he didn't look too bad, and I allowed him in.
"Where to?'
In the meantime another drunk had walked up to the cab in front, and he was pulling away.
"Where he's going."
This was a bit odd, but I figured maybe the other fellow was someone staying at the same hotel.
So we tailed the other cab until they pulled up at a private house, the passenger paid the cabbie and got out, and my passenger sat in the back seat and went to sleep.
I woke him up and asked for a destination, but I could get no sense out of him. A locality in Queensland was the most specific direction, and that was out of the question. Some of my passengers, I'll happily drive across the country with them, but not this guy.
I headed back into the city, aiming for the police station. I knew the police wouldn't be much immediate help, but my passenger didn't know that.
He "talked me into" dropping him back at the main cab rank, and I was happy to oblige. Of course he didn't pay me, but I was glad to gas up and go home without any further trouble.
Next night I got an earful from the other cabbie, who had been worried for both of us.
This was the Thursday night, what they call "Uni night" for all the university students coming in for the cheap drinks. Not my favorite night, because although students are generally fine and entertaining folk, uni night is always less predictable than other nights. Thursday night drunks might be ordinary people who have had twice as much to drink as they should, due to the half price drinks. Or they might be cheapskates who are drunk in the regular fashion.
I made my way to the head of the rank, and this chap leans in the window. Young fellow, he was.
"Can you take me around to Mooseheads, collect my friend, and take us to ANU?"
Mooseheads is a nearby bar, and ANU is the Australian National University, a ten dollar cab fare away. Now, we're not supposed to pick up or drop off outside Mooseheads, and occasionally the Gestapo rouse at us.
But if I had one passenger in the car and another ready to jump in, I figured that was good enough to flummox the nazis.
'Your mate's ready to go?" I asked.
"Standing outside," he agreed.
So we went around the block to Mooseheads. My passenger sees his friend on the pavement, we pull up, he gets out, opens the back door, and goes to get her, leaving me empty in the forbidden zone, two passenger side doors standing open. Great.
Three drunks approach. A vacant cab, ready to go - jut what they need. They climb in, and I have to shoo them out, "Sorry, I'm booked."
Then I see my passenger's friend. She's drunk to the point of needing to be supported, and arguing about leaving the party. It's a continuous entertainment outside Mooseheads after midnight, almost as much of an event as inside the bar.
Double great. An unwilling, staggering drunk throwing up on my back seat. But, I'm vacant, there's no traffic...
I hit the gas and pull out into the street, the speed of my departure snapping the doors shut to the sounds of outrage and dismay behind me.
And last night, bloody bloody bloody. First time I've ever hit my panic button for real.
Sitting on the main rank, 0ne thirty in the morning, maybe a dozen cabs left on the road. Not much business that hour, but enough to keep me going. This bloke hops in and says "Gowrie".
That's all. Not a word out of him otherwise, no chat, no nothing. He's about my size, covered in tattoos, shaven head, shorts and t-shirt. I'm feeling very nervous. This is not my normal passenger. At one stage I glance over at him and he's looking directly at me. I return my eyes to the road, but I'm feeling grateful for the presence of my panic button, mounted in a convenient location.
If I press it, base gets an alert, the security camera and microphone go live broadcasting back to the control centre, and other taxis are steered to my location if base thinks the situation needs it.
I'm very nervous about my passenger. Every move he makes, I wonder if he's reaching for a weapon. His attitude is totally alien and I'm wondering if this is the one. By rights, I should be making excuses to stop the car in a well-lit area and get him out, but realistically, he's done nothing wrong. He doesn't even seem overly drunk.
We get to Gowrie, a suburb in the middle of Tuggeranong in Canberra's south, and he directs me into a cul de sac, just "left" and "right" in a whisper.
"I've just got to get out here," he says, getting out. I give him a look. I've heard this before. He'll be off and running.
But he gets out and walks to a nearby house, a darkened house, going into the backyard and poking about. I wait a few minutes on the off-chance he's going to come back with some money.
To my surprise, he comes back, but instead of pulling out some money, he sits down again, closes the door, and says "Chisholm", directing me a few suburbs further south, where we go through the same performance. This is just weird.
He then says, "home, now" and off we go, further south, right to the very bottom of Canberra. I'm sweating now, and when he directs me off into a side street and we go around in a circle, I jack up, stopping the car, pointing out that he's given me no final address, he obviously doesn't have a clue where he's going, he's racked up seventy odd dollars and I need some firm directions.
He directs me onwards, but by this stage, I'm ignoring him, and follow his directions to the point where they diverge from the best way to the all night police station in Tuggeranong.
He questions me when I go left instead of right, and says he needs to go to the hospital for an injection. By this stage I am completely freaked out, ready to leap out of the cab if he makes a quick move, and I've had enough of this rubbish.
We pull up outside the police station and I explain the situation again, saying that he's directed me all over Canberra, he's racked up eighty four dollars, and I'm not going any further without payment.
He slowly brings out a wallet, empty of everything except a couple of cards, and offers me a bank card, which is old and battered and rejected by the bank when the handset makes contact.
I tell him this, and there we are. I'm on the edge of my seat and his attitude seems threatening, so my finger finally pushes the panic button. Maybe I could have tried to gain the attention of the police inside, but I didn't want to leave the cab and its security cameras without a direct attack, and I was totally wound up from an hour of driving around with this guy.
There was no change in the cameras or computer, but I knew they were live and I explained the situation again for the benefit of base. They must have spread the alarm, because within a few minutes there were cabs all around me, and Dragan was looming in the window. Big beefy bald-headed Dragan! I was so glad to see him. I heard later that as soon as the message had gone out that I was in trouble, he'd gone flying down the parkway, lights on high beam, passing everything. If he got a ticket from that, I'd gladly pay it.
He fetched the police and they took us all inside, where it was all sorted out. My passenger was well known to them, and was a registered mental patient - the other card in his wallet explained this. They promised they'd get him to the hospital, and that he would pay the fare when he could. I wasn't really too fussed about the fare, just glad that it had ended happily.
I drove home, full of adrenaline, gassed the car up and passed it onto Paul, waiting patiently at three in the morning. I apologised for the delay, and then went to bed, sleep to follow.
Hard to describe my feelings in words, but it had been the most tense hour of my taxidriving career. Anger and threats wouldn't have rattled me as much. It was the tension, and the uncertainty as we drove around in the dark deserted hours, looking out of the corners of my eyes for the flash of a knife from a passenger who was really doing no more than acting weird.
Taxi 135 on Tuesday night, and Taxi 70 last night. Both Holden Statesmans (or should that be Statesmen?) which are roughly equivalent to my usual Ford Fairlane in size and fittings.
But the controls are laid out differently to my usual cab, and when the muscle memory for setting the cruise control, popping the boot, winding down the windows or adjusting the radio volume kicks in, i find myself fumbling. Things aren't where they should be.
In fact, compared to the Ford's reasonably efficient layout, the Holden is just a jungle of buttons, controls and displays. It's like stepping into an airliner cockpit.
Once upon a time, I used to be impressed by this sort of guff in a geeky way. The more controls, the more features, the more power, the more glory, right?
Nope. Nowadays I prefer a more elegant presentation. The Mercedes I drove a few weeks ago has far more features than anything I've ever driven before, but the controls are well labelled, laid out, and more efficient.
An added complexity is that with every unfamiliar cab, the locations of meter, despatch system display, EFTPOS terminals, printers, kill switches, gas gauge and so on is subtly different. And then you have the habits of the regular drivers in stowing stuff such as the gas card, the green docket book, the cleaning supplies etc. etc. in different positions to what I'm used to .
Oh well. With any luck I'll be back to my regular cab soon, and my fingers won't fumble. Not more than usual, anyway.
I signed on early, because I got a message that the cab would be available early. I had to fit in my after lunch nap before starting my shift, so that ate into work time a bit. I generally divide my sleep period into two: a long period after I return home in the early hours, waking up around nine or ten, and a nap in the early afternoon. Together they don't add up to as much as I'd like - there aren't enough hours in the day for me to sleep as much as I'd like - but I have enough sleep and I get time to get stuff done. Like writing blog entries.
Anyway, I woke up a bit before two PM, showered and shaved and dressed and hustled over to Belconnen to pick up the cab. Signed onto the despatch system, and as soon as I logged in, I got a message saying that the car was due for inspection today, and anythime between ten in the morning and three in the arvo would be fine, thank you very much driver.
Cripes. It was after two thirty, the base was twenty minutes away in Fyshwick, I was sitting in the car for the very first time, and I had no time for cleaning. Or for whizzing home and pulling the official uniform shirt out of the washing machine. Hopefully the cream shirt I'd bought in Hong Kong for a few hundred dollars would do. (That's Hong Kong dollars, a fraction of the value of an Aussie dollar, but I'm entitled to mislead people, I think.)
Luckily the day driver was a super-efficient chap, and I couldn't see anything amiss with the cab. I usually like to polish the windows and wipe down inside the door frams and stuff like that, but that would have to wait.
Raced down the parkway to the taxi base and got the cab inspected with seconds to spare. An easy pass.
Later, while waiting at the airport, I had a more thorough look around inside the cab. The clip on my pen had fallen off and I wanted to retrieve it, before some passenger stood on it or knocked it out onto the road or something. I hunted under the drivers seat and under the floor mats with no luck. Decided to take a peek under the rear seats and undid the catches holding the rear cushion in.
No clip, but gold and silver smiled back at me in the light of my pocket torch. There were coins everywhere!
Sixteen dollars and twenty-five cents, all told - a happy bonanza. And when I looked into the crevice between the drivers seat and the centre console, I found a twenty dollar note! And my pen clip.
I think I'll give up driving taxis and set to work cleaning them. The pay's better.
In fact, I was sitting second on the main city rank, and the way things were going, it could be another hour before someone walked up and got into that cab, let alone mine.
So when the call went out over the despatch system that there was work on the casino rank, I jumped at it. Peeled out onto the deserted streets, jumped every stop sign on the way, raced through the enclosed laneway opposite the youth hostel - (heaven help us both if I ever meet myself coming the other way on the blind corner) - and accelerated down Allara Street, the casino coming into sight.
And another cab just pulling out. He must have gone the short way.
Still, I figured I might as well be first cab on a deserted rank, better than being second car on a deserted rank, yeah?
So I hung a u-turn and slid in.
And to my extravagant pleasure, there was a passenger waiting for me. Maybe there had been two or three in a group, going in different directions, and they'd asked the cabbie to call up more cabs.
Anyway, here he was. Even if he just went around the corner, the flagfall alone would put me onto budget.
Kingston, he said, naming an apartment block. He said something else I didn't quite catch, but it didn't matter - I was on the way.
He liked my music video. Everyone likes Dire Straits, and he talked about how just having music playing in the background made people happier. Or at least it made him happier.
"I like you!" I told him.
Here was his apartment block. The driveway curved in past a big tree on the nature strip, and I made a mental note to avoid it on the way out.
"Just pull over here," he instructed, "I'll go get my money."
He got out and raced up a glass-walled staircase, disappearing from view near the top.
Hmmmmm. Would he be back? Had I just given a runner a free ride home? Blown all his money at the casino, not enough for a cab on a cold night.
I didn't think so. He didn't have that runner feel to him. Runners aren't usually chatty, charming people.
I waited a minute or two. I didn't have any option, really. My shift was about over, and there was no time left to go hunting another passenger, assuming I could find anyone other than idiot cabdrivers out and about at this time of night.
Movement on the stairs. My heart sang a little song of happy. Tuck the fare away, go off and gas up, vacuum out the floormats, drive my car home and curl up in bed.
But he didn't come to my wound-down window. He walked around and sat back down in the passenger seat. He looked at me.
"Back to the casino?"
There's a reason I don't go into casinos. Back in high school I learnt about probability and statistics. Losing your ready money late at night and taking a cab back home to get the cash reserves for another chance isn't my idea of responsible investment.
But I don't question the passengers. The longer the fare the better.
I was perfectly lined up in the driveway, and I reversed back, using my wing mirrors like a true professional. Pick a line and stick to it, and you can reverse down a long straight driveway with perfect confidence.
I kept a close look for that tree, aiming to use it in my right-hand mirror as a guide.
Crump! We stopped suddenly just as I passed the property line. I hadn't seen any obstacle in the driveway, and nothing had appeared in my mirrors. Puzzled, I got out and discovered that I'd backed fair into the tree. I'd forgotten about the curve in the driveway.
There's no justice. It's a driveway I've gone down a hundred times in the past, but I've always turned around outside the reception entrance. But this time, because I was expecting my passenger to come down and pay me through the driver's window, I hadn't turned the car.
I looked at the damage in the dark. Bad, with a bumper bent like a banana, and some panel damage, but it looked mostly cosmetic, rather than mechanical.
I cautiously backed onto the street and drove a way. The car felt solid, and there were no sounds of scraping or squealing, so I accelerated off to get my passenger delivered.
He couldn't stop apologising. Don't know why he thought he had anything to do with it. If an idiot cabbie reverses into a tree with a trunk the size of a wine barrel, it's definitely not the fault of the passenger sitting quietly beside him.
I reassured him on this point. Blame was entirely mine, and frankly I was relieved that it hadn't been another car, or a late night pedestrian, or one of those idiot cyclists you glimpse riding along without lights in the dark. Or a helmet for their fool head. The tree had survived the impact well, and although there'd be a price to pay, that's just money, and I'd proceed all the more carefully the next time I had to back out of a dimly lit driveway.
Me, I was working out what to do. I'd take a better look at the back end when I got to some light. Maybe the damage was minor enough that the day driver could work his shift. Maybe not. In any case, if I drove to the workshop, It would be six hours or so before anyone showed up. Better to get the car back to the day driver's place, and in the morning he could drive it to the workshop and pick up another cab for his shift.
We pulled up outside the casino, a little more sedately than last time, and my passenger paid me. The fare was twenty-seven dollars, but he handed me a hundred, telling me to just give him a fifty back.
I made a protest - such a big tip is far too much and I usually try to bargain people down to a more reasonable ten or twenty percent - but he was insistent. Somehow he thought the tree was his fault. Maybe he thought he should have shouted a warning or grabbed the wheel. Maybe he should have, but the responsibility is all mine.
Anyway, I'm not too insistent on refusing a big tip. This time I'd need every spare dollar to help pay for the damage.
"Good night," I called as he got out, ",,,and good luck."
I hope he made a million before dawn came around and closed the casino.
I got the car back to where it lived in a kind of cabbie group house. One of the other drivers came out while I was unsuccessfully trying to get the boot open to retrieve my bag and called the owner on my behalf, shining an industrial-sized flashlight all over the bent body of my beautiful Fairlane as he reported the damage.
It was all sorted out, and again I salute the owner, who must get his sleep regularly interrupted by cabbies reporting disasters, yet deals with each crisis calmly and competently. Maybe he then goes off and kicks the dog.
I thought I might be in the doghouse for my next night's shift, but no, a fresh limousine was found, and I did my best on another quiet night to earn a bit of money to pay the bills.
I had Dire Straits playing on the iPhone.
“Oooh, that’s so cool!” she chirped. A common reaction to seeing a music video playing in my taxi.
“Ahh, this is one of those iCabs”, I replied, making up a word and a business model on the moment.
“Awesome!”
She was in a chatty mood and we had a pleasant drive of it, speeding west along Barry Drive, empty at this hour, six busy lanes twice a day. She wanted to travel, and I guess I overwhelmed her a bit when I named the thirteen countries I’d visited just this year. Maybe she saw me as a fount of wisdom and general knowledge, a general characteristic of taxidrivers of a certain age.
“Tell me, Mister Taxidriver,” she said, “what would you say are the two most important things in life?”
I considered for a moment.
“The smile of a beautiful woman,” I responded, flashing a glance into the back seat.
She laughed. “And...”
“...And the first cry of a newborn baby.”
I guess that I’m just a hopeless romantic. Truth is that I’ve been sighing with happiness for an internet friend of mine. A year or so ago this young lady - a very beautiful, clever, artistic and funny young lady we’ll call Audrey - was very down. Her long-time boyfriend had left her, she was living in rickety rental accommodation in one of the dodgier areas of South London, her shaky job was barely paying expenses, and about all she had was the love of family and friends. Which only went so far towards putting bread on the table.
About the same time, Roy, another of my internet friends, an Irish professional man, was likewise low. He had broken up with his wife, he had moved out of the family home and was living by himself in a flat, he only got to see his three children every second week, and to cap it all off, when I ran into him at a community gathering in Charleston, his mother had just died. We kept Roy drunk for a day until a flight home to Dublin could be arranged, poured him onto the plane and followed up with emails.
You can see where this is heading, I guess. Maybe it was a matter of email love, or maybe they liked each other’s blogs, but Audrey and Roy got together. Roy was spending every second weekend flying to London to be with Audrey. They met each other’s families, they hit it off, they fell in love.
Audrey vacated her London home, helped Roy find a quaint farmhouse outside Dublin, they moved in together, she began working in his office, and I guess work mixed with pleasure, because their blogs turned from depression to elation, smiles appeared in photographs, and in due course Audrey announced that she was pregnant.
I saw the happy couple in London at another gathering. Audrey glowed with happiness. There was no shortage of smiles for her. Roy beamed with pleasure and pride.
And a day ago, the waiting was over. Roy’s blog exploded with happiness, and here was a picture of mother and freshly-hatched daughter, smiles all round.
I do love a romantic story. Sometimes real life is as good as a film or a novel. Better.
“Those are good ones”, my lady passenger said. “I picked travel and food!”
“Nothing wrong with those either,” I replied. I live for travel, and my waistline is a little too tubby to deny a fondness for food.
I pulled up at a nightclub, and looked into the back seat as they paid me and got out. She flashed me a smile, and I was happy.
And now I’m going to go badger my own children about offspring. It’s been far too long since I felt a pudgy little hand in mine, skipping together along the street to buy sweets. They’ve grown too old and dignified for such nonsense.
I’ve changed my week to Monday to Friday, so that I can get a whole weekend with my family. What am I working for, I used to wonder, if the end result was that I only had a few hours of quality time each week. My family shouldn’t have to tiptoe around the house on their own days off so that I can get my sleep.
I flew back from Queensland on Saturday, had the Sunday off - a productive day of shopping, housework and just enjoying the company of my wife and children - and then on Monday afternoon I got dressed and turned up for my shift. After an hour, I guessed that my regular cab had been reassigned, and I texted the owner for an alternative. Not that I mind having a night off if a cab isn’t available, of course.
I’d make no sort of manager. Administration, juggling drivers and cabs and shifts, sorting out money and paperwork and government regulations - these hold no charm for me. But the owner must thrive on such stuff.
After a while I was given an address, and the phone number of my new day driver. I drove out, waited, texted, and finally, an hour and a half after I should have commenced work, my cab arrived. I think that the driver had been enjoying a long shift, stretching his day out to cover the afternoon peak as well as the morning, not expecting a night driver.
Not a Silver Service cab, in fact it was a bit of a rattley old taxi, but reasonably clean, and all the important bits were working.
Trouble is that there wasn’t an afternoon peak today, or at least if there had been one, I’d missed it. Parliament is not sitting, not for another six weeks, and in school holiday time a lot of Canberrans are absent. The public service workshops and conferences aren’t being held, and consequently the large floating population of carless transients aren’t around to be shuttled between office, restaurant, hotel and airport.
By seven o’clock it was dark and quiet, and I was working my way along the main city rank. Very slowly.
Finally I was at the head of the queue, and a young man walked around the corner out of the gloom - our taxi rank is now adjacent to a building site, and it’s a picture of grey desolation - and sat down beside me.
“Camp Copper on the Coppins Crossing Road,” he said.
I goggled a little. This was right out in the sticks, and although the love of money is the root of all evil, you could almost hear the dollar coins chinking as I estimated the fare.
We had a pleasant ride out, the lights of the city and then the suburbs fading behind as we entered kangaroo country and I kept my eyes peeled for bounding shapes ready to leap out at me.
“What’s the best way to arrange a cab back?” he asked, “Do I ring for one when I’m ready, or can you have one waiting?”
“Ah, what time, would that be?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“Sure, I can be waiting for you. It’s kind of slow tonight and I should be free to drive you back in.”
We pulled off the main road, down a gravel track to a series of new buildings replacing the old Camp Copper destroyed in the 2003 bushfires, and he proffered a credit card.
“I’ll see if we have coverage out here,” I said, running it through the machine.
“Processing, processing, processing... DECLINED: NO NETWORK”
Ooops.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “When I pick you up and take you back to civilisation, we’ll have radio coverage.”
I made a note of the fare amount, and took down his details just in case I was tied up elsewhere at nine o’clock and had to call for another cab. Mind you, with over forty unpaid dollars riding on this passenger, and another similar fare to be had for the return trip, I was going to make damn sure I was there to pick him up at nine.
It was slow, but I got a few local jobs to fill in the time. Bought a bottle of window cleaner when I gassed up. The fuel gauge on this taxi was misbehaving, and I didn’t want to be stuck out in the bush with no fuel.
I headed back out with a nice cushion of time. If he was early, I could pick him up, and if he was late, the cab could use a bit of polishing.
The camp was buzzing. Teenagers running around, soft drinks in their hands, hanging out around the hut doors, talking in groups, just enjoying each others’ company. There were some flags hoisted near the admin building, and they didn’t look like the Boy Scout symbols. Heavy on crosses and Latin mottos.
The penny dropped then. This was one of the staging areas for World Youth Day, a periodical Catholic Church gathering. The Pope had landed in Sydney earlier that day, and huge open-air masses were planned. Young pilgrims from around the world were assembling, and doubtless tomorrow the buses would pull up at the camp, the young folk here would climb aboard, and in a few hours they would be praying with the Pontiff.
I polished up the windows while I waited. Normally the young people I see as a taxi driver revel in alcoholic spirits before rolling in carnal congress, but these teenagers weren’t following this well-worn path. Just good friends and orange fizz.
My passenger, just a few years older than his flock, appeared from the well-lit buildings, his short beard and steady walk marking him out from the youngsters swirling around.
“You know the Roman Catholic cathedral in Manuka? St Stephens? That’s where we are going.”
Perfect. Manuka on a Monday might be quiet, but it’s still a nice place on a winter evening. Maybe Artoven would still be serving cappuccino. And I would be eighty dollars and more up on a slow shift. certainly enough to put me over my target for the night if I worked until three.
He talked about the young people. Their songs and dances and t-shirts, friendships made in the cold mornings and warmed around the campfire. Years later they would remember these times fondly, and I felt him slipping back into the Nineties as he talked.
I was kind of sorry to set him down beside the red brick cathedral in Manuka. It’s pleasant to have an amiable companion to share a piece of Canberra’s night-time with, and I’d be lonely while I waited for my next fare.
It’ll be a busy time for taxidrivers in Sydney over the next few days, I reckon. They’ll make small fortunes while we Canberra cabbies ride out the cold, quiet nights.
Artoven was long closed. I put on St Germain, good chill-out music, and pulled out a book, wondering who would be my next passenger.
I delivered a family to a late dinner at a Thai restaurant, and here, fresh out of the boisterous nightclub beside it, was a beefy chap in his mid thirties, staggering on his feet and slurred in his speech. I am not obliged to accept passengers under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and this chap looked to be a prime example of the distressed drinker at the far end of both sobriety and money.
But, frankly, on a Saturday night, if I confined myself to sober gentlefolk, I’d have a very thin time of it indeed.
Besides, there was something about this chap. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d already stumbled into the front seat, having some difficulty getting his limbs to do what he wanted.
I sighed. “Where to?”
With any luck, he’d be headed back into the city, where I would have no trouble finding a fresh passenger.
“Theodore,” he slurred.
Great. Another few suburbs further out. No chance of a fare back at this time of night.
At least I was driving a nice car. It’s a pleasure to drive in Canberra, an even greater pleasure in a limousine, leather seats and lots of goodies.
Yes, I’m back driving Silver Service again. I started off the night driving a standard Ford Falcon in Canberra Cabs livery temporarily wearing the plates of Taxi 58, my lovely Fairlane that I bent a couple of weeks back. The evening rush had died down, and I was waiting on Manuka rank sipping a takeaway cappuccino from Artoven.
Got a call from the owner, who asked me to bring the car into the workshop, a few minutes away. When I arrived, he asked me to log off, and resume my shift in my Fairlane, freshly repaired and repainted. “Not 100%,” said the mechanic, “and we’ll get you to bring it back tomorrow for some more work.”
I didn’t mind. Getting back into Silver Service uniform, driving a nicer car, being a chauffeur rather than a driver - I can put up with a lot for that privilege.
While I was swapping my kit over, Fred, another one of the owner’s regular drivers, wandered in. “Some galah just wiped off the side of my taxi,” he complained. “They didn’t give right of way. Look at the car!”
Taxi 8 was looking very sad, scrapes along the side, door bent, side mirror hanging off loose.
And here was the mechanic, unscrewing the plates from the cab I'd just vacated, moving them to my Fairlane, and then taking the plates off the damaged Taxi 8 to screw onto the unhurt Falcon. It was musical taxis!
The bottom line was that we were both back on the road and earning money again within a few minutes. That’s the taxi business for you - get the drivers out on the road, passengers in the seats, wheels turning, meter running. Sometimes it’s like a racetrack pits, with sets of tires swapped over in five minutes, brakes changed in the blink of an eye. It’s rare that a taxi engine gets cold.
I hurried home, changed my uniform from Canberra Cabs blue to the more upmarket grey and white of Silver Service, quickly ran the car through the carwash to get rid of the workshop’s dust, and was busy earning money again, a happy smile on my face.
So, some hours later I was keeping a wary eye on my very drunk passenger as we headed for the outer suburbs. He wanted to talk. Trouble was that he was having difficulty finding the words and getting them out. He was sozzled.
I’d had Dave Brubeck playing piano jazz on the iPhone video, but I sized up this chap, decided he wasn’t a jazz man, and selected Dire Straits “Sultans of Swing” instead. He was fascinated.
“Wozzat?”
I explained how I’d loaded music videos into my computer and then used iTunes to transfer them across to the iPhone.
“Whaffor? Ya watch it while yer drivin’?”
“No, I’ve seen them all before. I like the music, but the videos are for the passengers.”
He looked at me. And then back to the video. Mark Knopfler is a genius with the guitar.
“Why?”
“For people to watch and enjoy. Make them happy. I work on the basis that a happy passenger equals a happy cabbie.”
He pondered this for a while.
“But why?”
Why was I explaining my life philosophy to a drunken man, I wondered. In the morning he’d have a fuzzy head and maybe a dim memory of a mad cabbie who spruiked gibberish in the middle of the night.
“Life’s too short to be unhappy and uncomfortable. I like what I do, I like getting people home safely, and if we’re all happy, then it’s not a job, it’s a joy. I feel I’ve done something good in the world.”
He looked at me.
“I’ve been in seven countries, lived in five states, and ridden in hundreds of taxis, and you’re the only one to do something like that.” He gestured at the iPhone.
“I’m an officer in the army, and I’m just back from Afghanistan,” he continued, “and I’m the same. I do my best, I do a good job. And nobody cares.”
I looked at him. He might have been far gone in drink, but there was a light burning in his eyes that I generally don’t see in my passengers. It all came into focus in that moment.
Me, I’m a dilettante. My life isn’t dangerous or difficult. I aim for happiness all round, and I generally achieve it. Parking my bottom on soft leather seats, setting the climate control to comfortable, and driving on wide empty roads with romantic songs lazing in my ears, that’s no chore. My overseas holidays are spent strolling along picturesque boulevards, browsing through bookshops and art galleries, sampling the local wines.
This man beside me, his time abroad is spent in danger and dirt, hot sun and freezing rain, a set of camouflage fatigues his everyday wear. The best years of his life are spent in the service of his country, fighting unspeakable evil. He’s doing the best he can, and if he feels the need for a relaxing drink or two, then I’ll not begrudge him that.
I pulled up outside his suburban home, he opened the door and wobbled up the drive, and I saluted his departing form.
Maybe I was driving Silver Service, but this man was solid gold.
A very pleasant outlook. I passed a chap sitting in the gloaming beside the road, just sitting on a bench, the glow of a laptop open on his lap. And a little white apple symbol shining out of the grey metal case. He was using a MacBook Air!
Maybe he was checking his email, maybe writing up some university homework, maybe composing a sonnet to his love. I was too far away to see more than a glow from the screen, but whatever it was, it looked so very romantic in the fading twilight, the land spreading out before him.
What a science fiction world we live in nowadays. Twenty years ago, the thought of a computer small and light enough enough to slip into an envelope was fantasy. Nowadays, the average mobile phone has about the same processing power as a Cray supercomputer. Teenagers buy a fresh one every year.
My cab is full of cameras that see in the dark, computers that link me with bank networks, little boxes that communicate with satellites to tell me exactly where I am. In another few years, I joke to my passengers, there won't be any need for a cabbie. Just a GPS system, a cruise control button, and a credit card slot.
I dropped my passenger off at a club - it was the big game on television tonight, the deciding match in the interstate football series - and found a quiet rank, where I had a few minutes to pull out my own MacBook Air from beside the seat, plug in the wireless modem, and upload a new program file to the FaceBook application I'm working on.
What a world we live in.
I transfer my kit over to the taxi, switch on and settle in. I hook up my iPhone and its Bluetooth box, sit RingBear on the dashboard, fill the centre console with torch, chewing gum, cologne, Leatherman, polishing cloth and camera, and tuck a novel under the seat. Sometimes I bring along my MacBook Air in its protective sleeve.
I do the paperwork, noting the odometer and taximeter readings, whether the car is clean, fill in the date, my name and so on, and then tuck the envelope into the console. During the shift I’ll stuff it with receipts and dockets, and twelve hours later I’ll write down the final totals.
I sign on to the various computers. Despatch system, two credit card terminals. They all want my license number and a code.
And then I plot into a radio zone, ready for work.
As I say, it’s a gamble. All over Canberra, night drivers are logging on, looking for their first job of the day. And passengers have been calling the taxi base, putting in requests for taxis. There will also be timed bookings, requests made days or hours before for pickups, usually to the airport.
If there are more drivers than jobs, then I’ll have to wait for my first work, or drive to a rank for someone to walk up to my cab.
On the other hand, if there are more passengers than cabs, I’ll be offered work immediately. This is where it gets chancy. When there are few cabs and many passengers, delays build up. Passengers get fed up with waiting for their booked cab and hail down one off the street, or from a rank. The cabbie who finally accepts the booking is going to go short, not to mention the lost time spent driving to the pick up address and waiting for a passenger.
So, when I sign on to the system to be offered an immediate job, I’m suspicious. This happened last shift. I logged into the O’Connor zone and immediately the computer warbled at me with a job. Chances were that the pickup point would be towards the centre of town, and I’d be heading that way anyway, so I hit the “Accept” button.
And groaned when I saw the details. The job was forty-five minutes old. In that time, my passenger would likely have found alternate transport, or be very unhappy when I finally arrived. Naturally, I’d be blamed for the delay.
The address was a medical centre that was a little out of the way of passing cabs, so I didn’t give up hope entirely on arrival when nobody was waiting for me in the declining winter afternoon. I slowly cruised around the centre, looking for anybody who might be looking for me. And when I returned to the main entrance, there was.
She was an old lady, white hair and walking stick. I stopped the cab and bounced out to give her a hand.
“Hold on to me, dearie,” she said. “I’m full of steroids and all wobbly.”
I did my best to be a rock for her, holding the door steady while she settled in. Always happy to tuck a lady into the front seat, reaching in to hold the seatbelt out, checking that her dress is clear of the door and then closing it firmly for her.
“You’ve been waiting a long time?”
“Yes, but that’s all right. I was sitting down inside out of the cold. I had to wait three hours for the car repair man last week.”
I looked at her.
“I’m 94, and still driving,” she said proudly. “Just down to the shops and back, but I’ve still got my license.”
I apologised for the delay on behalf of the company. It might not be my fault, but passengers like their inconvenience to be recognised officially. A sympathetic soul can amend hours of anxious waiting.
We chatted about the early days. My passenger had been born long before Canberra was the national capital, but she’d been born in the region. Back when she was a schoolgirl, there would have been just the Canberry church and a few lonely farms here. No Lake Burley Griffin, no Black Mountain Tower, no Parliamentary Triangle. And no three hundred and fifty thousand people living in sprawling suburbs.
Just bare sheep paddocks, scattered stands of gum trees, and the sleepy Molonglo River winding along.
I warmed to her. She liked talking, she had stories to tell, and her wit and intelligence was sparkling keen.
And she’d travelled the world. I love hearing traveller’s tales.
“I’ve been across to California twenty five times,” she told me.
I looked at her. That’s a long and tiring trip over the Pacific.
“My second husband was an American, and we lived just south of Los Angeles airport in a three level house overlooking the beach.”
She went on to tell of how she had fallen in love with the ex-soldier during a visit to the USA. He had been an officer in an armoured regiment with Patton’s Third Army during WW2, and one summer they had rented a caravan, and driven from Utah Beach all the way into Germany, retracing her husband’s wartime path through France, over the Rhine into the heavily defended Metz area, and into the ruins of the defeated land.
“He recognised everything, every little patch of woods, every village, and oh, he had such stories to tell!”
I wanted to drive on and on with this delightful lady, listening to her clear voice and romantic stories. Her childhood home, Californian beaches, the bocage country of Normandy, Paris and the Rhineland. We could do it off the meter. But instead we pulled up at her neat suburban house and she directed me where to park to avoid the steps.
She showed me her driver’s license when she paid the fare. Sure enough, there was a birthdate before the First World War, and her photograph smiling out. “Look at how the background hides my white hair!”
She was beautiful in person, white hair fully visible as a nimbus around her happy face in the late afternoon sun when I helped her out of the car, and gave her my arm to the front door.
As I pulled out of the drive, she stood at the window and waved to me. I blew her a kiss and smiled off down the hill for my next passenger.
With a start like that, a twelve hour shift is a breeze. I finish at three in the morning, scrape the ice off my windscreen and drive off, an inner glow lighting and warming me home as I think on the people I meet and the places we visit.
Belconnen's not my cup of coffee.
But I happened to get a job out to Belconnen, and instead of driving back to civilisation empty, I hung around on a slow night.
It was just me on the rank. Reading a programming manual and wondering if my despatch screen software had taken itself off to another planet.
Finally a "cover job" popped up. Not in my radio booking zone, but close enough that I could get there to collect the passenger before they froze solid waiting for a cab. I hit it without too much thought - anything to relieve the boredom and winch myself closer to my night's target by a few dollars.
Belconnen Soccer Club. Scene of one of my earliest taxi disasters from my first days of cabbing. Too painful to revisit now, but in my inexperience I inconvenienced passengers, made them pay more than they should, drove them around more than they needed, and ended up with a shopping bag full of what I hope was urine slowly leaking onto the floor in the back. Don’t ask.
I found the way in and curved smoothly into the pickup point outside the main doors. My passenger was waiting for me, a lone man, several years older than me.
He got into the front seat, nominated a Gungahlin address, and we moved off in that direction, a little guidance required when we almost missed a turn and headed off in the direction of Charnwood instead.
Back on track, I settled down to scrolling through the GPS display to find a street that might match the mumbled name I'd been given. Beep. Beep. Beep. It sounded each button push as I scrolled in and out and moved around, my eyes stealing seconds from the road.
"I can direct you," my passenger said.
I gave up trying to find the route, and relaxed. I generally find that passengers like this have given the exact same directions to hundreds of cabbies and know the precise best way home.
"Got to do something," my passenger said. "Can't sit at home all the time, getting bored."
"That's OK. Everyone's entitled to a few drinks at the club."
"Been doing this long?"
"Oh, about eighteen months," I replied. "Five nights a week, twelve hour shifts. Standard for a night cabbie."
I usually get a gasp at that. Usually another when I mention that I finish about three in the morning. Not from this chap.
"Still live with your parents?"
I chuckled. My parents are interstate, both retired. Still, it's nice to be mistaken for a young man. I must tell my barber he's a genius.
"I'm in my fifties," I replied.
We talked about children living at home for a while. His were in their thirties, long gone, mine within a year or so of twenty, still at home, though gaining more and more independence. One day they'll fly off for nests of their own, but in the meantime I'm enjoying their company.
I uncertainly approached an intersection, waiting for his direction, and after he pointed me right, he observed, "You're not from around here, are you?"
I named an inner suburb, one where house prices in excess of a million dollars are not unheard of.
"Why are you driving a cab? You must be pretty well off."
I'm not usually interrogated by my customers. People take cabbies for granted. Pick up the phone, call a number, someone appears with a taxi. Perception of another life beyond the steering wheel is a rarity.
I paused a moment. The morning papers had listed an amazing new high for an industrial stock in which I held a nice package of shares. Over the past year I'd probably made the equivalent of a moderate lottery prize. On paper, at any rate. Certainly far more than I'd made in a year of long night shifts.
"I like it," I replied.
And I do. It's not hard work, I get to talk to an amazing variety of people, I get to drive in bus lanes, I can sit on the Franklin Street rank in Manuka nibbling on one of Artoven's superior rock cakes while I listen to Harry Chapin, I can do any of hundreds of things that are streets ahead of watching television at home, or sozzling myself on cheap beer in a football club. And only the previous day I'd picked up a young lady for the Press Gallery's annual Midwinter Ball at Parliament House.
I'd gasped as she came out of the darkness, opened my door and sat down beside me. She was gorgeous in a few stylish wisps of black clothing. I sighed in delight. "Not every day I get to drive a princess," I told her.
She smiled in return. "Oooh, I like you. You can stay with me all night."
Sharing a few minutes with a princess as we cruise the Parliamentary Triangle. That’s priceless. I dropped her off at the Ministerial Entrance for her to collect her date for the night, some lucky prince of power.
It's the princesses, the brides, the happy singing students, the philosophers, the jazz fans, the tourists. They all entertain me. And vice versa. Maybe they admire the way I shimmy past a line of traffic and catch the bus lane light. Maybe they admire my offbeat taste in music. Maybe they like the photographs of Paris or Barcelona or Waikiki or Hong Kong that appear on my iPod screen. Maybe it's the way I laugh at their jokes. I certainly entertain them.
No. I was wrong. I don't like my job as a night cab driver.
I love it.
“Only a short ride,” he said, apologetically.
Possibly a cabbie’s worst possible passenger. Only two things could have been worse - a trolley load of groceries to load and unload, and a 50% disablity voucher entitling the bearer to half off the fare.
I’d been sitting on the Manuka rank, moving my way to the front of the line, and simultaneously moving up in the zone queue for radio work. Eventually someone would walk up to my cab, or base would tell me to go somewhere for a job.
This was a radio pick-up when I was already at the head of the rank, and I’d considered whether to reject the work in favour of staying where I was for a guaranteed customer, rather than drive off for a passenger who might have found alternate transport, or have given a wrong address, or just decided that they didn’t want a cab after all.
It was a slow part of the night, so I accepted the job, inwardly groaning when I saw the pick up address. A golf club right on the far edge of my radio zone. I’d have to drive five minutes just to get there to see if I had a passenger. This time of night, he’d likely have a few drinks inside him. Maybe there was more than one raucous drunk. maybe there was nobody - another cab could deliver a passenger and scoop mine up in the process in the time it would take me to arrive. Maybe the cabbie would pretend that he had been called to pick up the fare, more likely the uncaring passenger would just jump into the first cab to show up.
But when I arrived, my passenger was waiting for me, and he’d taken the trouble to walk out to the entrance.
“Only a short ride,” he said, “but I’ve got a crook leg, you see.”
“You don’t have to apologise for a short fare,” I told him. “Everybody has the exact same need to get to where they need to be. The cab industry isn’t set up to make cabbies rich, it’s so people can get home. Or to the airport. Or the doctor.”
And that’s the way it is. My standard response. It’s the gamble I take every day as a cabbie. A job might be a long forty, fifty, sixty dollar fare. Or it might be a six dollar fare around the corner. I’ve long since stopped caring much about it. On average, it all works out.
I was smiling at him. Ok, it was a short ride. That didn’t mean it was going to be a bitter experience. Regardless of the money, I aim for a smile at the end of the trip. that’s my real reward. Getting this gent home safely and comfortably would make us both happy.
He looked at me a little oddly. “Most cabbies don’t like a short trip.”
His eyes twinkled in recollection as I reversed out, turned onto the main road and headed off to the traffic lights.
“I used to get this one cabbie to pick me up, and I told him each time that I’d give him a couple of bucks extra, he’d still be grumpy. He’d say how long he had had to wait, and he wouldn’t get a fare back and he’d have to wait even longer for his next passenger. Grumble all the way home, he did.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but that’s not your fault. You ring for a cab, you don’t know what the driver’s been doing for the last half hour. He might have just dropped his last passenger around the corner. All you want is a cab and someone to drive it.”
“One day,” he went on, “one of my mates give me a bag of lemons off the tree in his back yard. He had more than he needed, you see. So when this cabbie drove me home, I give him the fare, and I give him a lemon as well. He said ‘what’s this for?’ and I said, ‘It’s because you’re always so bloody sour!’ And now we get on just fine.”
I chuckled. Through the lights, round a corner and home. Not a long trip, but too long to walk in the cold and the dark for an old man with a crook leg. We smiled at each other. He gave me the fare and a couple of dollars extra. No lemons.
My next job was a long one, all the way down to Gowrie. It all evens out.
My lovely silver limousine is still in the workshop. Instead I’ve got a car which is a bit of a lemon. It works fine, engine-wise, but some of the controls and dashboard lights are dodgy, the cruise control doesn’t function, the radio warbles, and to close the driver’s door I have to hold the handle just so and heave it shut. And, as you can see from the photograph, the door trim is held on by tape.
But I’m smiling. The taxi industry isn’t set up to make cabbies rich, but it makes this one very happy.
The idea is to have the wheels turning and someone in the passenger seat. If you are alone in the cab, you are losing money. I won’t say that any passenger is better than none, but I’m not in this game to sit idle on a rank, or driving around uselessly burning up gas.
I cruised up and down the street. It was number 1/9 that I was looking for, and as so often happens, none of the houses had visible street numbers. The roof-mounted sidelights were blazing away, but picking up nothing in the way of digits. I might have to stop the car and get out to look closely at the letterboxes with a torch.
At last I spotted a number in faded brown paint, but it was just a house, not a block of flats with separate numbered apartments. Maybe there was a granny flat down the back, but the house itself was dark.
I waited five minutes, but no passenger came out. I looked at the job screen again. The call had been taken by the idiot voice-recognition system, which meant that the passenger would have given the street address as “One of Nine Long Street”. Before I marked the job as a no-show, I decided to check out the other end of the street, just in case the passenger had said “One Oh Nine Long Street” and been misunderstood by the system.
Sure enough, there were four figures waiting for me. They had been sent a text message saying that I was on the way, and had come outside in the cold for the cab, supposedly only seconds away. The problem was that the auto-generated message depended on the car’s GPS position getting within a certain distance of the pick-up address, and if the pick-up address was wrong, the passengers would get a heads-up text message but no taxi.
But my passengers were wearing those magical alcohol overcoats and were feeling no pain.
“Civic,” one said.
“Kingston,” ordered another.
“Driver,” a third asked, “do you know any good nightspots?”
“Tuggeranong,” I replied confidently. Canberra’s southernmost town centre was a good thirty minute ride away.
There were snorts of amusement from the back seat.
“If nothing’s open down there,” I went on,”we can always drive back to Kingston. Kingston’s rocking.”
And it was. My previous job had been a couple of party animals from Kingston into Civic. I seem to spend a lot of my time as a taxi driver just shuttling people between the same two destinations.
“OK. Kingston. Direct.”
And off we went. This time, my slideshow of “happy holiday snaps” on the iPhone attracted no attention. My young passengers were cheerful and happy in their own company, poking each other in the ribs, exchanging jokes, just enjoying the ride as we passed over Commonwealth Avenue Bridge and the floodlit buildings lining Lake Burley-Griffin attracted eyes.
Suddenly there was a shriek from the back seat. “Oooooh, that’s gaudy!”
Dignified and impressive, I thought, rather than gaudy, but who am I to argue with passengers?
“It’s that house in Barcelona, isn’t it?”
Oh yeah. Right. My iPhone was displaying a photograph of one of the distinctive chimney pots of the Casa Milà, an apartment building in Spain, designed by the Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi.
Turned out that one of the passengers was a huge fan of Gaudi, and as soon as she could scrape together the money, she was going to visit Barcelona, where there are several buildings designed by Gaudi, not to mention the Park Guell containing some amazing landscaping features. Of course, his greatest work remains unfinished: the immense Sagrada Famiglia cathedral.
Even now his work is extraordinary in every sense of the word, but back at the turn of the last century in the days of Queen Victoria, nobody was sure if he was a nut or a genius.
His inspiration was the natural world, and his buildings are light on straight, and heavy on shapes reminiscent of seed pods, rippling dunes, lizard scales, twining vines and a thousand other patterns and forms from the rural landscape of his childhood. Nowadays, each of his buildings are surrounded and filled by winding lines of tourists, but in his day the Park Guell housing development was an expensive failure.
Even as I write these words, I’m drinking coffee from a mug bought in a souvenir shop opposite the incredible cathedral. It is patterned in the broken crockery mosaic that is a feature of much of Gaudi’s work, and stuck on tiles fractalise some of his designs. I’m a fan, and if I live another half-century, I would like to return to Barcelona to worship in the finished cathedral.
We enthused over Gaudi for the rest of the trip. I flipped to and fro on my iPhone, trying to find a photograph of RingBear sitting on one of the benches in Park Guell, a sinuous affair that is probably the longest piece of public seating in the world. Couldn’t find it before we arrived in Kingston, but here it is above, my furry co-driver sitting on a work of art.
I’m a lucky man. Here in Canberra, home to five universities, there are any number of extremely well educated people. Chances are that my passengers will share an enthusiasm of mine, or better yet, be able to teach me something I don’t already know.
I’ll pick up some dodgy looking folk in black turtlenecks late at night, and before I know it, we’re talking of jazz, or existentialism, or the pre-Raphaelites. Or maybe I’ll learn something about performance cars or football, bricklaying or cheerleading. I never know. But I do by the end of the trip.
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