Shift #34
FRIDAY, APRIL 2/ -- Sixteenth/Valencia to Northpoint/Mason -- $11.65
IT’S 5:50 A.M., STILL DARK OUTSIDE, AND QUIET. The only moving vehicles are police cars and delivery trucks and other cabs. Just two blocks from the yard, my first fare of April steps from the bus shelter at Sixteenth and Valencia and raises his arm. He’s headed to Il Pescatore, the Italian restaurant at the Tuscan Inn at Fisherman’s Wharf, where he has worked for the past five years. He was born in La Paz, Baja California, Mexico, just north of Cabo San Lucas, but he grew up all over the place. During his youth, his parents moved the family around Mexico and then around California and then around some other states, too.
Six months ago he went back to La Paz to visit friends and family, and he was shocked. Never before in Mexico had he seen people so scared and upset -- “excited” was his word. It used to be that Mexicans who were in trouble could go to the police, he says, but now the drug cartels have given money to everyone -- the police, the army, the politicians, maybe even to your neighbor. Who can you trust? As we climb up Franklin, clear the crest of Pacific Heights, and catch sight of the Bay down below us, his words come softly out of the backseat darkness, like the voice of a horror film narrator. Everyone either works for the cartels or has been threatened by the cartels or has become terrified of or paralyzed by the cartels, he says. There is no one to turn to. It was scary enough in La Paz, but he also went to Mexico City for a couple of weeks, and it was much worse there. Walking on the streets, he could see it in people’s faces: the fear. Who is with the cartels? What’s going to happen? Soon, says my fare, something bad is going to happen in Mexico. I could feel it, he tells me. The time to deal with it -- to confront the cartels and root them out -- was twenty years ago. Now it’s too late, he says. Fear has started to change the mentality of the people. Something bad, something big, is soon going to happen in Mexico.
I tell him that I spent the year 1990 in San Miguel de Allende, a sleepy town four hours north of Mexico City by bus. The place was corrupt, with policemen casually stopping motorists and squeezing money from them on the spot, and a clique of rich business and political operators controlling everything, but day-to-day life seemed peaceful, tranquilo. The masses were obviously poor, but to me they seemed content, accepting, friendly, happy. Or maybe they were simply defeated, and I lacked the proper cultural filter through which to see reality… Nonetheless, I never thought people on the street seemed afraid.
They are all afraid now, my fare says.
I ask if he thinks the cartels would collapse if we legalized certain drugs here in the States.
Maybe, he says. Who knows? Certainly the States are part of the problem. After all, he says, every single one of the guns used by the cartels come from the States.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, April 1, 2010
* * My mouth gets into the act * *
Shift #35
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7 – Bush/Polk to SFO -- $34.60
I DON’T KNOW WHY I wake up two hours before my alarm is set to go off. It’s 3 A.M. and the house is silent, but I soon have an awareness that my mind is inventorying all the problems and situations in my life. I roll onto my back, focus on my breaths, scan my body toes-to-tip-of-head, and then ask, “So, are we awake now, or should we try to get some more sleep?”
Body says, Watch this, dude...! and then slowly rolls us off “our” side of the bed and plants his feet on the floor…
By 4:20 I’m cruising up Van Ness, wondering if I can make it without coffee for another hour-plus. My favorite Noah’s Bagels store at Mission and Fremont doesn’t open until 5:30. Maybe I should head toward the twenty-four-hour Starbucks out at Laurel Village? I’ve got my ear on the radio, wondering if I’m going to score an early airport ride or is this going to be one of those demoralizing mornings where I drive around empty for two or three hours? Many veteran cab drivers claim they’ve developed a sixth sense about where to find business, and while experience does count for a lot, simple coincidence plays a role, too. I have no conscious thought about what, if anything, causes me, this morning, to turn the steering wheel away from Laurel Village, away from coffee, and down Bush Street instead, but after a quick block and a half, just past Polk Street, I see a young man with a world-travelers’ backpack. He’s standing between two parked cars, hand in the air, and behind him, in the sidewalk shadows, I see a young blond woman with her own backpack...
At the back of the cab, I take the weight of the woman’s backpack in my arms and wait for her to slip its straps, a maneuver that became second-nature to me thirty years ago during a six-month, round-the-world journey with my then-wife. These two folks are from England, can’t be more than 25 years old -- well, maybe 30 -- and are in the fourth month of their own six-month, round-the-world trip. They spent the first three months in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, their first visit to southeast Asia. Highlights? The woman mentions the tranquil Vietnamese beach town of Nha Trang. The man mentions an attraction in northern Thailand that allows willing humans to spend time in a pen with non-drugged, fully-clawed, full-sized adult tigers -- these particular kings of the jungle were raised in captivity and are docile enough that you can lie down with them. So far, San Francisco has been the highlight of the American portion of their trip, “But,” says the man, “the only other place we’ve seen is Los Angeles.” The woman says they were warned not to leave their hotel room in downtown LA at night, and so they spent several evenings in a windowless room listening to sirens, distant and up-close, and thinking that LA was probably not a place they would want to live.
Things were much better here in San Francisco -- they enjoyed the four or five nights they spent at the Encore Express hostel on Bush Street. Now they’re off to SFO and Florida via a cheap US Air flight (so cheap that they added Florida to their itinerary just yesterday), and later they’ll be visiting the Pacific Northwest and Canada, and then it’s back to England. They both recently completed the years-long coursework necessary to “qualify” in their respective professions -- she’s a child care provider, he’s a plumber -- and back home they both have positions they believe are rather loosely being “held” for them. They started dreaming about this trip a year ago, and bought their air tickets last July. The economy in England has been horrible, and this seems a convenient time to be out seeing the world. In Southeast Asia, their money seemed to last forever. The woman: “In Cambodia, air conditioned rooms cost four dollars...”
My “traveling self” easily remembers the alarm one experiences when moving from a poor country to a rich one and suddenly saying money fly from one’s pocket. A part of me is dying to make this my free ride. Another part of me doesn’t want to give up such a big fare. My ego wants these two kids to grow old and someday fondly remember magical San Francisco and the cab driver who drove them to the airport long before the sun came up -- for free! And the loudest part of me says, “You are such an ignorant fool!”
On the approach ramp to the airport, I have no idea how it’s all going to go down. I tell Body and my mind to sort it out and let me know, but I don’t think they actually do reach an agreement. They are both still yapping at each other when -- surprise! -- my mouth steps in and takes control. We’re at the terminal now. I pull to the curb and stop the meter, and the deed unfolds right under my nose. My lips part, my voicebox rumbles to life, my ears register the sound waves, and my brain interprets them: “Every day, I give away one free ride, and today…”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7 – Bush/Polk to SFO -- $34.60
I DON’T KNOW WHY I wake up two hours before my alarm is set to go off. It’s 3 A.M. and the house is silent, but I soon have an awareness that my mind is inventorying all the problems and situations in my life. I roll onto my back, focus on my breaths, scan my body toes-to-tip-of-head, and then ask, “So, are we awake now, or should we try to get some more sleep?”
Body says, Watch this, dude...! and then slowly rolls us off “our” side of the bed and plants his feet on the floor…
By 4:20 I’m cruising up Van Ness, wondering if I can make it without coffee for another hour-plus. My favorite Noah’s Bagels store at Mission and Fremont doesn’t open until 5:30. Maybe I should head toward the twenty-four-hour Starbucks out at Laurel Village? I’ve got my ear on the radio, wondering if I’m going to score an early airport ride or is this going to be one of those demoralizing mornings where I drive around empty for two or three hours? Many veteran cab drivers claim they’ve developed a sixth sense about where to find business, and while experience does count for a lot, simple coincidence plays a role, too. I have no conscious thought about what, if anything, causes me, this morning, to turn the steering wheel away from Laurel Village, away from coffee, and down Bush Street instead, but after a quick block and a half, just past Polk Street, I see a young man with a world-travelers’ backpack. He’s standing between two parked cars, hand in the air, and behind him, in the sidewalk shadows, I see a young blond woman with her own backpack...
At the back of the cab, I take the weight of the woman’s backpack in my arms and wait for her to slip its straps, a maneuver that became second-nature to me thirty years ago during a six-month, round-the-world journey with my then-wife. These two folks are from England, can’t be more than 25 years old -- well, maybe 30 -- and are in the fourth month of their own six-month, round-the-world trip. They spent the first three months in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, their first visit to southeast Asia. Highlights? The woman mentions the tranquil Vietnamese beach town of Nha Trang. The man mentions an attraction in northern Thailand that allows willing humans to spend time in a pen with non-drugged, fully-clawed, full-sized adult tigers -- these particular kings of the jungle were raised in captivity and are docile enough that you can lie down with them. So far, San Francisco has been the highlight of the American portion of their trip, “But,” says the man, “the only other place we’ve seen is Los Angeles.” The woman says they were warned not to leave their hotel room in downtown LA at night, and so they spent several evenings in a windowless room listening to sirens, distant and up-close, and thinking that LA was probably not a place they would want to live.
Things were much better here in San Francisco -- they enjoyed the four or five nights they spent at the Encore Express hostel on Bush Street. Now they’re off to SFO and Florida via a cheap US Air flight (so cheap that they added Florida to their itinerary just yesterday), and later they’ll be visiting the Pacific Northwest and Canada, and then it’s back to England. They both recently completed the years-long coursework necessary to “qualify” in their respective professions -- she’s a child care provider, he’s a plumber -- and back home they both have positions they believe are rather loosely being “held” for them. They started dreaming about this trip a year ago, and bought their air tickets last July. The economy in England has been horrible, and this seems a convenient time to be out seeing the world. In Southeast Asia, their money seemed to last forever. The woman: “In Cambodia, air conditioned rooms cost four dollars...”
My “traveling self” easily remembers the alarm one experiences when moving from a poor country to a rich one and suddenly saying money fly from one’s pocket. A part of me is dying to make this my free ride. Another part of me doesn’t want to give up such a big fare. My ego wants these two kids to grow old and someday fondly remember magical San Francisco and the cab driver who drove them to the airport long before the sun came up -- for free! And the loudest part of me says, “You are such an ignorant fool!”
On the approach ramp to the airport, I have no idea how it’s all going to go down. I tell Body and my mind to sort it out and let me know, but I don’t think they actually do reach an agreement. They are both still yapping at each other when -- surprise! -- my mouth steps in and takes control. We’re at the terminal now. I pull to the curb and stop the meter, and the deed unfolds right under my nose. My lips part, my voicebox rumbles to life, my ears register the sound waves, and my brain interprets them: “Every day, I give away one free ride, and today…”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OPENING DAY
Shift #36
FRIDAY, APRIL 9 – Sacramento/Battery to Lombard/Battery -- $5.80
TODAY I’M JUST HOPING TO BREAK EVEN.
On Fridays I pay $102 to rent my cab (from 4 A.M. until 4 P.M. it’s mine to do with as I please), and gas costs me another $5-10, so I’ve got to clear about $110 before I start making money “for myself.” But today -- a windless, cloudless, beautiful spring day, expected high around seventy degrees -- I’m knocking off at noon. The San Francisco Giants play their first home baseball game today (the Giants are 3-0, the only undefeated team in the majors in this young season), and my old friend Larry Habegger and I are going to inaugurate my new season tickets.
Larry is in his late 50s, like me, and a few years ago had the special geezer thrill of seeing a Minneapolis newspaper columnist remember him as maybe “the best high school shortstop ever to play in the Twin Cities” or maybe it was “God’s gift to baseball” or something else kind of like that, but whatever it was, for the past decade Larry and I have enjoyed watching baseball together and polishing up our glory days.
My two seats constitute the “last row” in the stadium -- to reach them you go to the upper deck, walk down the right field section as far as you can walk, climb the last row of steps as high as you can climb, and voila, there you are. I have sat in seats all over the stadium and in my opinion there are many views worse than, but none better than, the view from my seats. You’re up so high that you actually look down on the flat top edge of the right field foul pole. One hundred feet straight below your right elbow you see kayakers and pleasure boaters puttering just beyond the right field fence, in McCovey Cove, waiting for a “splash hit” home run to come sailing out of the park.
The long elegant arm of the Bay Bridge stretches across miles of blue water and seems to point, like Babe Ruth calling his shot, toward the cross-bay cities of Berkeley and Oakland. Thirty miles in the distance, beyond the green East Bay hills, you see the tip of the Bay Area’s highest mountain, Mt. Diablo (3,849 feet), at the base of which my daughter is in school this morning.
To me, it’s worth sacrificing a little income to sit in my seats on Opening Day. But in fact, it looks like I’ll be sacrificing all my income today -- by noon I’ll be lucky to have earned even one dollar of profit. After hitting the streets at 4:21 AM this morning I was empty for more than two hours, and since then I’ve had just four “local” rides (no airports) and grossed just $46. And now, at 8:55 A.M., I’m flagged in the Financial District by three thirty-something guys wearing business suits. I move all my stuff (notebook, computer, jacket) off the front seat and into the trunk so that one of them can, more comfortably, ride up front with me.
The three of them are from Atlanta, and as businessmen go, they are kind of rowdy, talking smack about which of them will do the speaking during their upcoming meeting. Eventually, each of them volunteers tongue-in-cheek to not say a friggin word, but to just sit there and shut up and let the other two do all the talking. The one in the front seat suggests that if they get this thing over with by noon, maybe they can go catch the Giants-Braves game. One of his colleagues in the backseat says, “The game isn’t even in San Francisco, doofus -- it’s in Atlanta.”
I butt in “No… They’re playing in San Francisco at 1:35 pm.”
The guy in the backseat: “No, I heard it on the tv in my hotel room this morning -- it’s in Atlanta.”
Me: “Now don’t make me stop this cab, get my jacket out of the back, and pull my game ticket out of the pocket for you...”
The man up front turns toward the backseat: “You know, James, it’s entirely possible that this fellow who actually lives here and actually has a ticket to the game, he might just know what he’s talking about. Not highly likely, but still, entirely possible…” And everyone laughs.
It’s a very short ride. I love the dumbfounded looks on their faces, especially the one in the back, when I tell them this is my free ride for the day. They recover, however, and seem to warm to the idea pretty quickly.
Two rides later: Oakland airport -- fifty bucks.
At noon I turn in with $28 in my pocket.
Play ball!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FRIDAY, APRIL 9 – Sacramento/Battery to Lombard/Battery -- $5.80
TODAY I’M JUST HOPING TO BREAK EVEN.
On Fridays I pay $102 to rent my cab (from 4 A.M. until 4 P.M. it’s mine to do with as I please), and gas costs me another $5-10, so I’ve got to clear about $110 before I start making money “for myself.” But today -- a windless, cloudless, beautiful spring day, expected high around seventy degrees -- I’m knocking off at noon. The San Francisco Giants play their first home baseball game today (the Giants are 3-0, the only undefeated team in the majors in this young season), and my old friend Larry Habegger and I are going to inaugurate my new season tickets.
Larry is in his late 50s, like me, and a few years ago had the special geezer thrill of seeing a Minneapolis newspaper columnist remember him as maybe “the best high school shortstop ever to play in the Twin Cities” or maybe it was “God’s gift to baseball” or something else kind of like that, but whatever it was, for the past decade Larry and I have enjoyed watching baseball together and polishing up our glory days.
My two seats constitute the “last row” in the stadium -- to reach them you go to the upper deck, walk down the right field section as far as you can walk, climb the last row of steps as high as you can climb, and voila, there you are. I have sat in seats all over the stadium and in my opinion there are many views worse than, but none better than, the view from my seats. You’re up so high that you actually look down on the flat top edge of the right field foul pole. One hundred feet straight below your right elbow you see kayakers and pleasure boaters puttering just beyond the right field fence, in McCovey Cove, waiting for a “splash hit” home run to come sailing out of the park.
The long elegant arm of the Bay Bridge stretches across miles of blue water and seems to point, like Babe Ruth calling his shot, toward the cross-bay cities of Berkeley and Oakland. Thirty miles in the distance, beyond the green East Bay hills, you see the tip of the Bay Area’s highest mountain, Mt. Diablo (3,849 feet), at the base of which my daughter is in school this morning.To me, it’s worth sacrificing a little income to sit in my seats on Opening Day. But in fact, it looks like I’ll be sacrificing all my income today -- by noon I’ll be lucky to have earned even one dollar of profit. After hitting the streets at 4:21 AM this morning I was empty for more than two hours, and since then I’ve had just four “local” rides (no airports) and grossed just $46. And now, at 8:55 A.M., I’m flagged in the Financial District by three thirty-something guys wearing business suits. I move all my stuff (notebook, computer, jacket) off the front seat and into the trunk so that one of them can, more comfortably, ride up front with me.
The three of them are from Atlanta, and as businessmen go, they are kind of rowdy, talking smack about which of them will do the speaking during their upcoming meeting. Eventually, each of them volunteers tongue-in-cheek to not say a friggin word, but to just sit there and shut up and let the other two do all the talking. The one in the front seat suggests that if they get this thing over with by noon, maybe they can go catch the Giants-Braves game. One of his colleagues in the backseat says, “The game isn’t even in San Francisco, doofus -- it’s in Atlanta.”
I butt in “No… They’re playing in San Francisco at 1:35 pm.”
The guy in the backseat: “No, I heard it on the tv in my hotel room this morning -- it’s in Atlanta.”
Me: “Now don’t make me stop this cab, get my jacket out of the back, and pull my game ticket out of the pocket for you...”
The man up front turns toward the backseat: “You know, James, it’s entirely possible that this fellow who actually lives here and actually has a ticket to the game, he might just know what he’s talking about. Not highly likely, but still, entirely possible…” And everyone laughs.
It’s a very short ride. I love the dumbfounded looks on their faces, especially the one in the back, when I tell them this is my free ride for the day. They recover, however, and seem to warm to the idea pretty quickly.
Two rides later: Oakland airport -- fifty bucks.
At noon I turn in with $28 in my pocket.
Play ball!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* * The Secret to Wealth * *
Shift #37
SUNDAY, APRIL 11 – Caltrain Station to Union Square -- $7.60
A FEW NIGHTS AGO my fare was giving a presentation on the laws of probability at the Exploratorium, over by the Golden Gate Bridge, and while shuffling his deck of cards at the beginning of a demonstration, he accidentally dropped several of them onto the floor.
A member of the audience, a young woman, stepped forward to help retrieve them, and one thing led to another, and now, several days later, after an exchange of emails, my fare has just stepped off the train from Palo Alto, where he’s spent a couple of years studying the laws of probability at Stanford. In a matter of weeks he will be have earned a Ph. D, but right now he’s headed to the Westin-St. Francis on Union Square to meet the young woman for a cup of coffee.
Most of the people on the train, he says, were coming up to San Francisco for today’s Giants vs. Braves baseball game, and he feels bad for them, as there is a high, and obvious, probability that the game’s going to be cancelled. It’s been raining hard all morning, and right now a steady downpour is drumming onto the roof of the cab. Tiny explosions of water are hopping from the asphalt along Fifth Street like mid-birth popcorn.
We chit-chat about baseball, and about women, and about what sort of career options are available to a soon-to-be Stanford probability Ph. D, and then, as we’re crossing Mission Street, I ask him to outline the presentation he gives.
He says it’s designed for a general audience, and he begins to describe a trick he performs as part of the evening: he says you can toss a coin in the air so that it looks like it’s flipping end-over-end, when in reality it’s not -- it’s simply wobbling very energetically, like a dinner plate you’ve clumsily placed on a table; it flutters and wobbles and flutters and wobbles until it finally settles down. An observer watching my fare’s demonstration would -- probably -- think he or she had seen a completely legitimate, end-over-end flip of the coin, but in fact my fare knows for certain whether it’s going to come up heads or come up tails….
We’re just two blocks from Union Square now, and nearing the end of the ride, and I suddenly realize the enormous opportunity I’m squandering... “Please,” I say, “if you don't mind, I just gotta tell you this story…”
He: “OK…”
Fortunately I know this story pretty well, as I’ve told it quite a few times, but never to anyone with the unique expertise of my fare. Me: “I’ll be as fast as I can.”
He: “OK.”
Me: “Thirty-five years ago, when I was twenty-three years old, I lived in a cabin in the mountains of Colorado and worked in an underground mine. I soon came to the conclusion that there must be some preferable way to make a living, and I decided to investigate the world of gambling. I read every book on gambling and the laws of probability that I could find in the Boulder, Colorado, library, and I came up with a Theory. I’d been a history major in college, and my Theory was built around the old maxim about history always repeating itself…”
We’re following the wet, slick, cable car tracks up Powell Street now. Union Square is just half a block away. I glance over the back seat. My fare nods. He’s listening. He’s quite familiar with scenarios in which things repeat themselves.
Me: “So I figure that if history repeats itself, if it is in fact true that something that has happened before is likely -- is almost guaranteed -- to happen again, well, does this have any ramifications for the present moment? Specifically, was there some application I could take into a casino and use to make money?”
At Geary Street, we stop for a red traffic signal. On the side of a Muni bus passing through the intersection is a billboard featuring a quotation in large letters, part of some new advertising or public service campaign: Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education -- Mark Twain. I make a mental note to investigate -- later, but not now! I glance over the seatback again. My fare says, “Uh-huh…” He’s still with me -- he’s in Absorb mode, it seems.
Me: “So I zero in on the game of roulette -- the red and the black. Fifty-fifty. If the past is likely to repeat itself, does-it-or-does-it-not follow that when the ball has landed on black on the previous spin of the wheel, that there is then -- if history repeats itself -- an increased chance, even an infinitesimally increased chance, that it will land on black on the next spin?” I don't wait for any feedback, but plow ahead. “I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but that winter I spent hours and hours, week after week, month after month, tossing coins in the air, one hundred tosses in a row each time, and keeping careful track of the results. And I became convinced that there in fact IS an increased likelihood -- maybe one and a half a percent, but in a casino that’s all you need. And yes, I am aware of the theories about how my own participation -- all my hopes and expectations -- might be skewing the results of my experiment...” -- I peek back at him -- he nods, Yep, could be... -- “but those were my results. About one and a half percent. Pretty significant, really...”
The traffic signal turns green. I pull through the intersection, glide to a stop at the curb opposite the St. Francis (I note the long line of cabs parked in front), freeze the meter -- $7.60 -- and without looking back I just keep talking.
“So I decide that I’m willing to lose two hundred and fifty dollars to prove or disprove my theory, and I devise a system that tries to minimize my risk. I set it up so that I’ll either win twenty-five dollars each time I run my system, or I’ll lose two hundred and fifty and I’ll just call it quits.” My fair murmurs; I interpret this as a sound of interested engagement, but it’s possible that he’s simply dozing off.
“When summer comes around, some friends and I make a road trip to California and as we’re heading back to Colorado I convince them to stop in Reno. I run my system in a casino, just once, and bam, right off I win twenty-five dollars. But my friends don’t want to stay and they drag me out of the casino, and the whole way back to Colorado I’m thinking, It worked -- it friggin worked! I’ve got the Secret to Wealth!"
I pause and look back. My fare’s not asleep -- he’s leaning forward now, his right hand resting on the seatback, a bill pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He might be dying to escape me, but then again he might be entranced by my story, impressed by my Theory... For all I can tell, he might right now be recalculating the options available to a newly-minted Stanford probability Ph. D...
“So when I get back to Colorado, it’s making me nuts. I spend three days explaining my theory to everyone I know, telling them about the twenty-five dollars I won in Reno, asking them to point out any flaw they can see. No one sees a flaw. And after three days I wake up in the middle of the night -- not just the proverbial bolt upright in bed, but an actual bolt upright -- and I realize I gotta get this over with. In the morning I hitchhike three hours to the Denver airport, there’s a plane just leaving, I have to sprint through the terminal. In Las Vegas I take a cab to a cheap motel where the desk clerk asks me, ‘How long are you staying?’ I say, ‘I’m not sure.’ She says, ‘I’ll-put-you-down-for-three-days…’ She’s seen a million people like me …”
I peek back again -- my fare is smiling. He’s seen a million people like me. We’ve all seen a million people like me. There’s a sucker born every minute. But he says nothing.
“I head for the nearest casino and right away…” -- I snap my fingers – “Right away I win twenty-five dollars. I run it again…twenty-five more. And twenty-five more…twenty-five more…twenty-five more…twenty-five more…twenty-five more… Ten times in a row it works, and I’m just freaking out. I’m twenty-four years old, I have the Secret to Wealth, I will never work again…
“And then the eleventh time: I sit there for three straight hours -- and I can’t think of Anything more boring than that -- but I can’t win twenty-five dollars, and I never lose my two-hundred-and-fifty. And while I’m sitting there I notice at least one flaw I hadn’t thought of, something I’d completely overlooked -- that little green slot on the wheel, the house’s take -- three percent! Finally I leave the table -- I’m a-hundred-and-fifty ahead for the night, nice, but hardly the great wealth I’d imagined -- and I go back to my room and get out pencil and paper and do the math and realize that even if my theory is right -- and to this day I’m still convinced that it is -- I’m never going to prove it at the roulette wheel. Even if you’ve got a one and a half percent edge from history repeating itself, you’re not going to beat the house’s three percent edge. I still believe in my theory, but… Whaddyathink?”
He’s right there behind me, just over over my shoulder, smiling a bit more broadly now, but still saying nothing. What’s there to say, really? He just shrugs.
“So there it is,” I tell him. “You find a game where the odds are a true fifty-fifty, and I’ve just given you the Secret to Wealth. All yours. Free.”
He snorts -- kind of softly. He extends his hand with the money in it. I turn forward, away from him, and punch the button that makes the figures on the meter disappear. “Every day I give away one free ride,” I tell him, “and today this is my free ride. I’ve never had the chance to tell that story to a Stanford probability Ph. D before. And you’ve been very kind to listen. So you get a free ride… What are the odds of that?”
I don’t know what he’s thinking, but finally he speaks. “Yes,” he says, and he's laughing. “What are the odds of that?”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUNDAY, APRIL 11 – Caltrain Station to Union Square -- $7.60
A FEW NIGHTS AGO my fare was giving a presentation on the laws of probability at the Exploratorium, over by the Golden Gate Bridge, and while shuffling his deck of cards at the beginning of a demonstration, he accidentally dropped several of them onto the floor.
A member of the audience, a young woman, stepped forward to help retrieve them, and one thing led to another, and now, several days later, after an exchange of emails, my fare has just stepped off the train from Palo Alto, where he’s spent a couple of years studying the laws of probability at Stanford. In a matter of weeks he will be have earned a Ph. D, but right now he’s headed to the Westin-St. Francis on Union Square to meet the young woman for a cup of coffee.
Most of the people on the train, he says, were coming up to San Francisco for today’s Giants vs. Braves baseball game, and he feels bad for them, as there is a high, and obvious, probability that the game’s going to be cancelled. It’s been raining hard all morning, and right now a steady downpour is drumming onto the roof of the cab. Tiny explosions of water are hopping from the asphalt along Fifth Street like mid-birth popcorn.
We chit-chat about baseball, and about women, and about what sort of career options are available to a soon-to-be Stanford probability Ph. D, and then, as we’re crossing Mission Street, I ask him to outline the presentation he gives.
He says it’s designed for a general audience, and he begins to describe a trick he performs as part of the evening: he says you can toss a coin in the air so that it looks like it’s flipping end-over-end, when in reality it’s not -- it’s simply wobbling very energetically, like a dinner plate you’ve clumsily placed on a table; it flutters and wobbles and flutters and wobbles until it finally settles down. An observer watching my fare’s demonstration would -- probably -- think he or she had seen a completely legitimate, end-over-end flip of the coin, but in fact my fare knows for certain whether it’s going to come up heads or come up tails….
We’re just two blocks from Union Square now, and nearing the end of the ride, and I suddenly realize the enormous opportunity I’m squandering... “Please,” I say, “if you don't mind, I just gotta tell you this story…”
He: “OK…”
Fortunately I know this story pretty well, as I’ve told it quite a few times, but never to anyone with the unique expertise of my fare. Me: “I’ll be as fast as I can.”
He: “OK.”
Me: “Thirty-five years ago, when I was twenty-three years old, I lived in a cabin in the mountains of Colorado and worked in an underground mine. I soon came to the conclusion that there must be some preferable way to make a living, and I decided to investigate the world of gambling. I read every book on gambling and the laws of probability that I could find in the Boulder, Colorado, library, and I came up with a Theory. I’d been a history major in college, and my Theory was built around the old maxim about history always repeating itself…”
We’re following the wet, slick, cable car tracks up Powell Street now. Union Square is just half a block away. I glance over the back seat. My fare nods. He’s listening. He’s quite familiar with scenarios in which things repeat themselves.
Me: “So I figure that if history repeats itself, if it is in fact true that something that has happened before is likely -- is almost guaranteed -- to happen again, well, does this have any ramifications for the present moment? Specifically, was there some application I could take into a casino and use to make money?”
At Geary Street, we stop for a red traffic signal. On the side of a Muni bus passing through the intersection is a billboard featuring a quotation in large letters, part of some new advertising or public service campaign: Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education -- Mark Twain. I make a mental note to investigate -- later, but not now! I glance over the seatback again. My fare says, “Uh-huh…” He’s still with me -- he’s in Absorb mode, it seems.
Me: “So I zero in on the game of roulette -- the red and the black. Fifty-fifty. If the past is likely to repeat itself, does-it-or-does-it-not follow that when the ball has landed on black on the previous spin of the wheel, that there is then -- if history repeats itself -- an increased chance, even an infinitesimally increased chance, that it will land on black on the next spin?” I don't wait for any feedback, but plow ahead. “I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but that winter I spent hours and hours, week after week, month after month, tossing coins in the air, one hundred tosses in a row each time, and keeping careful track of the results. And I became convinced that there in fact IS an increased likelihood -- maybe one and a half a percent, but in a casino that’s all you need. And yes, I am aware of the theories about how my own participation -- all my hopes and expectations -- might be skewing the results of my experiment...” -- I peek back at him -- he nods, Yep, could be... -- “but those were my results. About one and a half percent. Pretty significant, really...”
The traffic signal turns green. I pull through the intersection, glide to a stop at the curb opposite the St. Francis (I note the long line of cabs parked in front), freeze the meter -- $7.60 -- and without looking back I just keep talking.
“So I decide that I’m willing to lose two hundred and fifty dollars to prove or disprove my theory, and I devise a system that tries to minimize my risk. I set it up so that I’ll either win twenty-five dollars each time I run my system, or I’ll lose two hundred and fifty and I’ll just call it quits.” My fair murmurs; I interpret this as a sound of interested engagement, but it’s possible that he’s simply dozing off.
“When summer comes around, some friends and I make a road trip to California and as we’re heading back to Colorado I convince them to stop in Reno. I run my system in a casino, just once, and bam, right off I win twenty-five dollars. But my friends don’t want to stay and they drag me out of the casino, and the whole way back to Colorado I’m thinking, It worked -- it friggin worked! I’ve got the Secret to Wealth!"
I pause and look back. My fare’s not asleep -- he’s leaning forward now, his right hand resting on the seatback, a bill pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He might be dying to escape me, but then again he might be entranced by my story, impressed by my Theory... For all I can tell, he might right now be recalculating the options available to a newly-minted Stanford probability Ph. D...
“So when I get back to Colorado, it’s making me nuts. I spend three days explaining my theory to everyone I know, telling them about the twenty-five dollars I won in Reno, asking them to point out any flaw they can see. No one sees a flaw. And after three days I wake up in the middle of the night -- not just the proverbial bolt upright in bed, but an actual bolt upright -- and I realize I gotta get this over with. In the morning I hitchhike three hours to the Denver airport, there’s a plane just leaving, I have to sprint through the terminal. In Las Vegas I take a cab to a cheap motel where the desk clerk asks me, ‘How long are you staying?’ I say, ‘I’m not sure.’ She says, ‘I’ll-put-you-down-for-three-days…’ She’s seen a million people like me …”
I peek back again -- my fare is smiling. He’s seen a million people like me. We’ve all seen a million people like me. There’s a sucker born every minute. But he says nothing.
“I head for the nearest casino and right away…” -- I snap my fingers – “Right away I win twenty-five dollars. I run it again…twenty-five more. And twenty-five more…twenty-five more…twenty-five more…twenty-five more…twenty-five more… Ten times in a row it works, and I’m just freaking out. I’m twenty-four years old, I have the Secret to Wealth, I will never work again…
“And then the eleventh time: I sit there for three straight hours -- and I can’t think of Anything more boring than that -- but I can’t win twenty-five dollars, and I never lose my two-hundred-and-fifty. And while I’m sitting there I notice at least one flaw I hadn’t thought of, something I’d completely overlooked -- that little green slot on the wheel, the house’s take -- three percent! Finally I leave the table -- I’m a-hundred-and-fifty ahead for the night, nice, but hardly the great wealth I’d imagined -- and I go back to my room and get out pencil and paper and do the math and realize that even if my theory is right -- and to this day I’m still convinced that it is -- I’m never going to prove it at the roulette wheel. Even if you’ve got a one and a half percent edge from history repeating itself, you’re not going to beat the house’s three percent edge. I still believe in my theory, but… Whaddyathink?”
He’s right there behind me, just over over my shoulder, smiling a bit more broadly now, but still saying nothing. What’s there to say, really? He just shrugs.
“So there it is,” I tell him. “You find a game where the odds are a true fifty-fifty, and I’ve just given you the Secret to Wealth. All yours. Free.”
He snorts -- kind of softly. He extends his hand with the money in it. I turn forward, away from him, and punch the button that makes the figures on the meter disappear. “Every day I give away one free ride,” I tell him, “and today this is my free ride. I’ve never had the chance to tell that story to a Stanford probability Ph. D before. And you’ve been very kind to listen. So you get a free ride… What are the odds of that?”
I don’t know what he’s thinking, but finally he speaks. “Yes,” he says, and he's laughing. “What are the odds of that?”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOT LYLE LOVETT
Above: Lyle Lovett (not my fare)
Shift #38
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14 -- Hyatt Regency to South of Market -- $4.90
HE IS TALL AND LEAN -- a sort of Lyle Lovett lookalike wearing a snappy dark blue suit (were those pinstripes?) that I’m guessing cost about as much as my entire wardrobe. He folds himself into the back of my cab and in a slow, laconic voice tells me he is headed to an address four blocks away “to visit one of those incorrigible financial institutions that have been giving everyone so much trouble recently.” Then, as though recognizing and disapproving of his own jaded tone, he upgrades toward simple sarcasm: “My firm doesn’t actually take sides, we just ‘supply the weapons.’”
Me: “What weapons?”
“I work for Bloomberg News in New York. Our corporate mission is to supply all these folks all the access to all the information they need to do all the battles they want with each other.”
I mention the name of a friend, a Bloomberg reporter.
“I don't recognize that name, but I do sympathize with anyone writing for Bloomberg... Why? Because they wipe out all traces of creativity. No adjectives, no colorful prose. Show any flair and they’ll beat it out of you.”
For a short, short while my fare and I discuss adjectives and adverbs, and then our short, short $4.90 ride is over and he extends a green American Express credit card toward me. My regular cab was in an accident a few weeks ago, and while it’s being repaired I’ve been driving “spares” that lack swipe terminals, forcing me to resort to that Stone Age backup technology, the “knucklebuster.” Twice this morning I’ve already wrestled the big old clunky thing out of the glove box; employing it requires an awkward process during which I must ask for and write down the customer’s phone number and zip code -- and when I see this man’s credit card, and for such a small fare… Free ride.
“Nah!”
I say, “Yeah!”
“Hey, this isn’t me. This is corporate…” He’s a big personality who, I’m sure, draws people in quite easily, makes them feel comfortable, amused -- the perfect executive salesman.
“I don’t care. Free ride.”
We’re looking at each other over the backseat now, both smiling broadly. He’s got a large head that matches his outsize personality, a face that’s both wide and tall, and (Warning: two adjectives dead ahead) a completely disarming smile.
He: “Bloomberg -- the richest man in New York? The rich get richer… you want that?”
“Free ride.”
He: “I’m going to tell him.”
“Please do!”
He: “I will!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* * Win-Win-Win * *
SHIFT #39
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21 – Palace Hotel to Moscone Center -- $4.00
TODAY IS DEFINITELY A DIFFERENT SORT OF DAY. And it’s not just the odd, low sky, stretched tight overhead like a big beige sheet, without a wrinkle or a seam showing anywhere. Two nights ago, while I was on my way back from an all-day hike at Point Reyes, my cell phone rang with a call from my old cab driver friend Dennis Korkos who said he’d just seen me on TV during the Giants game, on a Toyota commercial about which I had completely forgotten during the past couple of weeks, and in whose reality I never had any faith, anyway. By the time I reached home there were already a couple of emails in my inbox, commenting on the ad. And now, some 36 hours after the ad started running, well, I think I’m either having, or am about to have, 15 minutes of fame. Maybe a whole half-hour. I haven’t seen the ad yet -- we don’t have cable at home, and I rarely watch TV -- but this morning my neighbor Mae told me that she saw the ad three times last night. This morning I received e-mails or phone calls from several friends who said they were astounded to see me suddenly appear in their living rooms during broadcasts of the Giants game, the A’s game, the Denver Nuggets game, the History Channel, Jeopardy, the 10 o’clock news… At the end of a ride to Oakland this morning, as I was climbing back into my cab, I heard a voice above and behind me bark, “Hey!” When I turned around, a dump truck driver called down to me, “It was you -- I was watching the Channel 5 news this morning -- Green Cab, Toyota Prius, Brad -- right? -- and now there you are, right in front of me! What’re the odds of that?” When I dropped a fare at the Fairmont Hotel this morning, the doorman greeted me, “Movie star!” The doorman at the Mark Hopkins said, I think, “Rock star!” (I’ve never spoken to either of them before, as far as I recall.) Shazam! I may have to hang on tight for this ride…
THE DOORMAN at the Palace Hotel has no special greeting, but he does have a fare for me. “She’s going to Moscone North,” he tells me.
She's a tall, pretty, young business-person with long, straight brown hair and a stressed look on her face. “How are you today?” I ask her.
She sighs. “I’m fine."
Me: “You sound…unconvinced.”
She laughs. “I don’t really like to travel for business... I’m from Nashville, and I would love your city if I were here on my own, but this is work… I’m in marketing… We have the capability to get a coupon loaded right onto your debit card... If your bank and the merchant are part of our program, you automatically get a discount...”
Me: “So, it’s a selling point for… the bank?”
She: “For the bank, for the merchant, and for the consumer. We say it’s a win-win-win. If the consumer doesn’t benefit, well, really, there’s no point.”
The timing is perfect -- we've already reached the end of her three-block ride, and now I mention the special consumer benefit that I deliver once a day. Although she seems delighted, she tussles with me a bit, but in the end we both win. As I set her wheeled suitcase on the sidewalk in front of Moscone North, she smiles broadly at me and says, “You’ve put a little sunshine in my San Francisco trip.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21 – Palace Hotel to Moscone Center -- $4.00
TODAY IS DEFINITELY A DIFFERENT SORT OF DAY. And it’s not just the odd, low sky, stretched tight overhead like a big beige sheet, without a wrinkle or a seam showing anywhere. Two nights ago, while I was on my way back from an all-day hike at Point Reyes, my cell phone rang with a call from my old cab driver friend Dennis Korkos who said he’d just seen me on TV during the Giants game, on a Toyota commercial about which I had completely forgotten during the past couple of weeks, and in whose reality I never had any faith, anyway. By the time I reached home there were already a couple of emails in my inbox, commenting on the ad. And now, some 36 hours after the ad started running, well, I think I’m either having, or am about to have, 15 minutes of fame. Maybe a whole half-hour. I haven’t seen the ad yet -- we don’t have cable at home, and I rarely watch TV -- but this morning my neighbor Mae told me that she saw the ad three times last night. This morning I received e-mails or phone calls from several friends who said they were astounded to see me suddenly appear in their living rooms during broadcasts of the Giants game, the A’s game, the Denver Nuggets game, the History Channel, Jeopardy, the 10 o’clock news… At the end of a ride to Oakland this morning, as I was climbing back into my cab, I heard a voice above and behind me bark, “Hey!” When I turned around, a dump truck driver called down to me, “It was you -- I was watching the Channel 5 news this morning -- Green Cab, Toyota Prius, Brad -- right? -- and now there you are, right in front of me! What’re the odds of that?” When I dropped a fare at the Fairmont Hotel this morning, the doorman greeted me, “Movie star!” The doorman at the Mark Hopkins said, I think, “Rock star!” (I’ve never spoken to either of them before, as far as I recall.) Shazam! I may have to hang on tight for this ride…
THE DOORMAN at the Palace Hotel has no special greeting, but he does have a fare for me. “She’s going to Moscone North,” he tells me.
She's a tall, pretty, young business-person with long, straight brown hair and a stressed look on her face. “How are you today?” I ask her.
She sighs. “I’m fine."
Me: “You sound…unconvinced.”
She laughs. “I don’t really like to travel for business... I’m from Nashville, and I would love your city if I were here on my own, but this is work… I’m in marketing… We have the capability to get a coupon loaded right onto your debit card... If your bank and the merchant are part of our program, you automatically get a discount...”
Me: “So, it’s a selling point for… the bank?”
She: “For the bank, for the merchant, and for the consumer. We say it’s a win-win-win. If the consumer doesn’t benefit, well, really, there’s no point.”
The timing is perfect -- we've already reached the end of her three-block ride, and now I mention the special consumer benefit that I deliver once a day. Although she seems delighted, she tussles with me a bit, but in the end we both win. As I set her wheeled suitcase on the sidewalk in front of Moscone North, she smiles broadly at me and says, “You’ve put a little sunshine in my San Francisco trip.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CABULOUS!
Shift #40
FRIDAY, APRIL 23 --16th/Mission to the Exploratorium -- $19.75
THIS IS ALMOST UNDOUBTEDLY the first time you are seeing, hearing, or even imagining the word “cabulous” -- but it won’t be the last. I predict that within a year the good folks at cabulous.com will have transformed the entire landscape of taxicab dispatching in San Francisco -- and then in the world.
Most of us will soon be able, at any time of day or night, to stand on any street corner in San Francisco (or at the top of Telegraph Hill or with our toes in the surf out at Ocean Beach or…?) and be able to see, on the phone in our hands, a map showing the real-time location of all the empty and available taxicabs anywhere in the entire city. To summon one of these cabs you will simply touch a finger to the screen. And to speak directly to the driver you will simply touch again. (I think that’s how it works -- but it’s so new I’m not 100% familiar just yet).
This wizardry was conceived and incubated by three “kids” (they each look younger than thirty, but they're really 44, 31, and 22) who last year were members of the Best Buy “Geek Squad” and who now seem to be “on their way.” The number of Cabulous users in San Francisco grows day-by-day (earlier this week, a Green Cab colleague of mine had eleven Cabulous orders in one shift), and if the former Geeks are able to implement their broader vision, Cabulous will soon be available around the world. (If you have an iPhone, right this minute you can download, in less time than you have spent reading this post, a free application from cabulous.com and peruse an on-screen map showing every available, Cabulous-aligned cab in San Francisco. If you’re reading this online, just click here to see the same map.) The implications are staggering.
TODAY I’M FEELING A LITTLE STAGGERED MYSELF. A few weeks ago someone ran a red light and totalled my cab (I wasn’t driving it that day), and this morning I am behind the wheel of its replacement, a beautiful, brand new, green-and-white, 2010 Toyota Prius -- Green Cab #914. The dashboard region is a shuffled, updated, slightly confusing version of my previous (2008) Prius’s dashboard. Plus, Cabulous has installed a Cabulous-ready smart phone in ten of our thirteen Green cabs, including my own. (Cabulous has chosen Green Cab as its proving ground, and we are the first cab company in the world to be thus equipped.) I study all the guages and dials and knobs and cables in front of me and think, “Space shuttle.” Fortunately, this is not rocketry but cab driving, and I think I’ll be able to make it all work somehow.
Half a block from the yard I see my first fare standing outside the Sixteenth and Mission BART station. His name is Alex (or was it Alexis?) and he’s headed to his job managing a social network program for the Exploratorium, over in the Marina District. He’s twenty-six, grew up in a small town in central Pennsylvania, lived for a while in New York City and then New Orleans, and has been in San Francisco for a couple of years now and is liking it very much. I tell him about my new cab (“Still has the smell,” he says), I tell him about Cabulous, and then my phone rings with a call from Yusuf, who drove my cab last night. “Brad, the meter is hot. Last night I had a $55 SFO (usually a $35-40 ride).” The shop that calibrates cab meters is closed until Monday, but I know that Yusuf and all the other drivers at Green do the right thing -- as do I. I tell Alex what’s up and estimate his ride at $15 (we're not yet halfway there, and already the meter reads $10.75), and Alex says that $15 is indeed his usual fare. At ride’s end the meter reads $19.75, but it's irrelevant. My body informs me that this ride across Pacific Heights with this nice young man on this warm, windows-down April morning -- my first ride in my brand new cab -- well, this is today’s free ride. Alex seems to be quite o.k. with that.
MY NEXT FARE is a twenty-three year-old young woman going from the Marina up to Pacific Heights -- she is delighted to hear about Cabulous -- clearly, she says, this is a fantastic idea. In Pack Heights an elderly Russian couple flags me for a ride to the Maritime Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf, and then, in North Beach another flag tells me he is late to his job at Second and Market. “Point taken,” I tell him, and we’re there in no time. It’s just a couple of blocks to the W Hotel, where I find a spot in the cab line and then duck inside to the lobby men’s room. As I’m stepping off the sidewalk to climb back into my cab, a horn beeps from just a few feet away. For the past...oh, maybe it’s been an entire forty-five minutes, I have not consciously reflected on the astounding new development in my life, but now this horn reminds me. I don’t know exactly what’s coming, but in general terms I do know. This time -- and my god is all of this great fun! -- it’s a young man behind the wheel of a battered white van with “Mike’s Locksmith” on the side. He's rolling with the slow traffic in the nearest lane of Howard Street. His passenger-side window is down. He’s wearing shades and the original electric grin. As he slides past, our eyes locksmith ever so briefly. He extends his arm and index finger right toward me -- “Hey! Saw you on tv!” -- and then he hangs a quick right onto Third Street and disappears in the direction of the Museum of Modern Art...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FRIDAY, APRIL 23 --16th/Mission to the Exploratorium -- $19.75
THIS IS ALMOST UNDOUBTEDLY the first time you are seeing, hearing, or even imagining the word “cabulous” -- but it won’t be the last. I predict that within a year the good folks at cabulous.com will have transformed the entire landscape of taxicab dispatching in San Francisco -- and then in the world.
Most of us will soon be able, at any time of day or night, to stand on any street corner in San Francisco (or at the top of Telegraph Hill or with our toes in the surf out at Ocean Beach or…?) and be able to see, on the phone in our hands, a map showing the real-time location of all the empty and available taxicabs anywhere in the entire city. To summon one of these cabs you will simply touch a finger to the screen. And to speak directly to the driver you will simply touch again. (I think that’s how it works -- but it’s so new I’m not 100% familiar just yet).
This wizardry was conceived and incubated by three “kids” (they each look younger than thirty, but they're really 44, 31, and 22) who last year were members of the Best Buy “Geek Squad” and who now seem to be “on their way.” The number of Cabulous users in San Francisco grows day-by-day (earlier this week, a Green Cab colleague of mine had eleven Cabulous orders in one shift), and if the former Geeks are able to implement their broader vision, Cabulous will soon be available around the world. (If you have an iPhone, right this minute you can download, in less time than you have spent reading this post, a free application from cabulous.com and peruse an on-screen map showing every available, Cabulous-aligned cab in San Francisco. If you’re reading this online, just click here to see the same map.) The implications are staggering.
TODAY I’M FEELING A LITTLE STAGGERED MYSELF. A few weeks ago someone ran a red light and totalled my cab (I wasn’t driving it that day), and this morning I am behind the wheel of its replacement, a beautiful, brand new, green-and-white, 2010 Toyota Prius -- Green Cab #914. The dashboard region is a shuffled, updated, slightly confusing version of my previous (2008) Prius’s dashboard. Plus, Cabulous has installed a Cabulous-ready smart phone in ten of our thirteen Green cabs, including my own. (Cabulous has chosen Green Cab as its proving ground, and we are the first cab company in the world to be thus equipped.) I study all the guages and dials and knobs and cables in front of me and think, “Space shuttle.” Fortunately, this is not rocketry but cab driving, and I think I’ll be able to make it all work somehow.
Half a block from the yard I see my first fare standing outside the Sixteenth and Mission BART station. His name is Alex (or was it Alexis?) and he’s headed to his job managing a social network program for the Exploratorium, over in the Marina District. He’s twenty-six, grew up in a small town in central Pennsylvania, lived for a while in New York City and then New Orleans, and has been in San Francisco for a couple of years now and is liking it very much. I tell him about my new cab (“Still has the smell,” he says), I tell him about Cabulous, and then my phone rings with a call from Yusuf, who drove my cab last night. “Brad, the meter is hot. Last night I had a $55 SFO (usually a $35-40 ride).” The shop that calibrates cab meters is closed until Monday, but I know that Yusuf and all the other drivers at Green do the right thing -- as do I. I tell Alex what’s up and estimate his ride at $15 (we're not yet halfway there, and already the meter reads $10.75), and Alex says that $15 is indeed his usual fare. At ride’s end the meter reads $19.75, but it's irrelevant. My body informs me that this ride across Pacific Heights with this nice young man on this warm, windows-down April morning -- my first ride in my brand new cab -- well, this is today’s free ride. Alex seems to be quite o.k. with that.
MY NEXT FARE is a twenty-three year-old young woman going from the Marina up to Pacific Heights -- she is delighted to hear about Cabulous -- clearly, she says, this is a fantastic idea. In Pack Heights an elderly Russian couple flags me for a ride to the Maritime Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf, and then, in North Beach another flag tells me he is late to his job at Second and Market. “Point taken,” I tell him, and we’re there in no time. It’s just a couple of blocks to the W Hotel, where I find a spot in the cab line and then duck inside to the lobby men’s room. As I’m stepping off the sidewalk to climb back into my cab, a horn beeps from just a few feet away. For the past...oh, maybe it’s been an entire forty-five minutes, I have not consciously reflected on the astounding new development in my life, but now this horn reminds me. I don’t know exactly what’s coming, but in general terms I do know. This time -- and my god is all of this great fun! -- it’s a young man behind the wheel of a battered white van with “Mike’s Locksmith” on the side. He's rolling with the slow traffic in the nearest lane of Howard Street. His passenger-side window is down. He’s wearing shades and the original electric grin. As he slides past, our eyes locksmith ever so briefly. He extends his arm and index finger right toward me -- “Hey! Saw you on tv!” -- and then he hangs a quick right onto Third Street and disappears in the direction of the Museum of Modern Art...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
