Bio

Who I have become

When I first started driving cabs, I was a real goody two shoes. People would drop things—money, dope, toiletries and I would say, “Hey you dropped something” or “Is this yours?”

“Thanks, man, thanks.”

And some would say, “Wow, you’re a really honest person. It’ll come back to you.”

The word honesty felt good to me. I had been raised Catholic… though our family was admittedly loose in our Catholicism, we weren’t there on Sundays for the full meal deal, no, we approached it like a buffet “Take what you want, leave the rest.” Still, I aspired to live a good, wholesome and honorable life. I believed in the “What comes around goes around” routine, not so much the “Original Sin” thing but definitely asked myself “What would Jesus do?” My inclination toward goodness wasn’t all from the church, because I remember from a very early age, an innate will moved in me to do right, tell the truth, be honest and treat others how I would want to be treated. Sure, I had my bouts with the devil, who didn’t? Overall, my character was virtuous.

Along the line, driving a cab changed me. I remember exactly when it started, too. It was a drunk up in Lynnwood. He was mumbling directions to me usually after the turn we were supposed to make. Then he would grumble insults. When we finally arrived at the destination, he pulled a messy handful of bills from his pocket unfolding one after another real slow like, deliberately handing them to me grumbling more about my “Bad driving, worst cabdriver ever, don’t know nothing, should learn the way around.”

I’m not one to take criticism from strangers, especially assholes. But, he was almost gone forever from my life, so long as I keep my mouth shut, we can both walk away from this unbloodied. I bit my lip knowing that he would leave behind a cloud that would rain on me in the way I let other people rain on me my whole life. I got that from being a Catholic too—martyrdom. He finally opened up the door, stumbled out and over his shoulder left one more, “Learn to drive,” in my direction. The response I had damned up in my mouth was about to burst with a few colorful words about shutting the door behind him when I saw a scattering of bills over the seat and floor that had slipped unknowingly from his stupid and drunk hands. I quickly reached back to pull the door closed and sped off. It was an extra fourteen dollars. Suddenly, his attitude left me. The dark clouds had lifted and I was fourteen ahead. I considered it a tip, a bit extra for dealing with an asshole.

I made another resolution on that trip: if someone drops something in the cab, it becomes mine. It’s then my choice to give it back or to keep it as my own. Toiletries are an easy choice—give it back. Money, on the other hand, has since been mine. With all of the time I spend in the cab thinking by myself, I have invented all kinds of justifications for this policy. Namely, the law of balances: it all evens out in the end. The good covers the bad, the bonuses cover the bites. I hold this over my head and it clears me of blame. The practice of this new tenant has been easy enough as most often it’s change that people leave behind or a few small bills. It’s when the denominations get larger that my conscience gets stuck.

Still, there are ways around it.

He fell into my cab as I sat reading a book in front of the J & M, the meat market of choice for Seattle’s young and lonely, where the men lift weights and wear lots of cologne and the women wear nothing at all. Already I don’t like him. I never like anyone I pick up here. To me, it’s a hopeless and vile place, all of America’s problems come to drink from the trough here. I don’t even know why I wait in front of the place except that it’s busy and I can make money off it.

He wants to go to West Seattle and talks to me the whole way. He talks and talks and talks. Some people just want to talk to me, they have no interest in what I have to say, they just want to talk, to me, to anybody, talk, talk, talk. I’ve been told that it’s nice to have a cabdriver who can speak English, “Someone you can talk to, ya know?” The irony is that there is no exchange, it’s completely one-sided, literally talking to, not talking with, which is the assumption when we say talk to.

But I don’t care. This happens. I’m used to it. I listen. I take notes. I learn about people, Americans, the lost and the lonely, the dreamers and the drunks, the crushed and the crushing. They come to me and I drive every single one of them at one time or another. Here he is, one of them. On a side street, he tells me to stop. He leans back digging a hand deep into the pocket of his designer jeans. It pops out holding a wad of hundred dollar bills. He pulls more from his pocket, all hundreds. He tries his leather jacket; still more hundreds.

“I can’t break that,” I tell him.

“I guess we’ll have to go to 7-11,” he says.

He leans over the seat to get closer to me. He tells me about his job, how he got it, “There’s not one good job available to anyone out there. It’s who you know. And I knew someone. That’s it, that’s all.”

As he talks, a hand flops back and forth under my nose; it’s holding a wad of hundreds. I wonder how aware he is of what he’s doing.

It’s a great job, he explains, an easy office job, that pays well but he won’t say how well, not that I ask.

“But I’m barely making it,” he adds, “I’m scraping by.”

He shoves his hands back into his leather jacket, “I’ll be right back.”

He goes off into the small store. I watch him through the glass. He buys milk and beer, a few snacks and banters with the clerk. They both smile but his smile is bigger, stretched wide form the alcohol; it’s smeared all over his face. His whole language is exaggerated, care free, a limber, happy drunk.
On the seat next to me is a roll of folded bills. I knew immediately that he had dropped it.

“Don’t touch it, don’t look at it,” I told myself, “It’s not really there. He’ll come back, knowing he dropped it. He knows. He knows now. Don’t touch it. It’s not mine, never will be…”

He’s still at the counter, thumbing through his bills, laughing.

“Don’t touch it, don’t touch it.”

I looked at it again.

Against better judgement, I counted it: three hundred and thirty one dollars. I put it back where I found it, “I shouldn’t have touched it.”

It was a lot of money. I didn’t want to know. Already, I didn’t want to give it back. I was attached. I slipped it from it’s spot in plain sight off to the side, harder to see, more for me.

He returned and I took him back to the side street. He talked more about his job, knowing the right people, the uncertainty of his future, the bonuses he receives when he does his job well, percentages, commissions, nothing about the money, not a word. I can’t look him in the eye.

“Right here,” he tells me, but I had remembered. I knew it every inch of the way.

“How much do I owe you?” he asks.

I can’t even look away from the meter.

“Ah!” he cracks, smacking my shoulder, “I already paid you.” It wasn’t entirely true; he had not paid me for the fare. But he had dropped a substantial amount of money.

“Isn’t that right?” he beamed, “Can’t get me paying twice!”

I couldn’t argue.

He opened the door, “Take it easy, man.” Just before he closed it, he stopped, “Wait.” He patted his pants pocket, then his shirt and jacket. He was looking for something. I knew it was coming. Over three hundred dollars. I would miss it, too.

“Here it is,” he held up his cell phone, “I’m not leaving this thing behind.”

He closed the door. I deliberately looked away as he walked to his house. I didn’t want to know any more about him. If I knew where he lived, I could return the money…

I kept it in a separate pocket the rest of the night. I was expecting that he would realize what he had done, call the cab company and they would send a fleet message asking the driver who found it to call in. I would deal with that when it happened. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t know who I was anymore.

No call came that night. Or any other night. When a week had passed, I knew it was over and the money mine. It was a difficult but easy decision, easier than I would have liked it to have been. I added the money to my savings. I would put it to some good use, like paying rent when I quit driving to work on this book. It was a shaky justification at best but it was the best I had.

Ryan had once found a large sum of money in his cab, much larger than my find. He didn’t know who dropped it. In fact, a passenger turned it in. It was an envelope filled with large bills. The money was never claimed. After a month, he used it to pay tuition and rent. I told him about my quandary. He answered with this practical wisdom, “Everybody knows that if you lose something in a cab, it’s as good as gone because it’s untraceable.”

Sad but true.

What’s done is done. I made up my mind without realizing it, long ago, when I first saw it there, before I knew what it was—I knew, I knew it then, I knew it after, I’ve known it all along. There was no going back, there was no denying the simple fact that I am how I am. I am a cabdriver. I am a writer. I make mistakes, some willingly, some accidentally.

Wherever you are, I’m sorry… but thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you. I hope you enjoy the book. Once it’s published.

By the way, know anyone interested in publishing a cab-driving memoir?