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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
November 5, 2006
Published as Family History
in a Gramma Letter dated October 15, 1996.
© 1996 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Cab Eighty-Four, 1970
© 1970 by Bud Grossmann
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TAXI DRIVER
Tuesday, October 15, 1996
Dear Gramma,
When I was twenty-one years old and close to flunking out of college, I attempted to enlist in the United States Army. But when I presented myself for my induction physical, a doctor, to my great disappointment, declared my feet unfit for military service. So I limped away in search of other work.
I answered an ad for taxicab drivers. I had a physical problem there, too. The manager of the Arlington (Va.) Yellow Cab Co. looked me in the face and asked, “How attached are you, son, to that goatee?”
“You don’t like it?” I replied. “It’s gone, sir.”
For my first few weeks with Arlington Yellow, I drove the oldest, most beat-up cabs in the fleet. But I proved reliable and efficient, and I was willing to drive both the morning and evening rush hours. So I was soon given a late-model Dodge, Cab 84. I got to take it home at night. A couple months passed, and the boss had me trade Eighty-Four in for a brand-new Plymouth—Number Thirty-Four it was. I kept that cab around the clock, too.
I enjoyed the work—seeing new places, chatting with interesting passengers. I loved the weight of a big roll of cash in my pocket at the end of each day. The company asked me to train new drivers while I carried fares, and then they made me an accident investigator, too. When a Yellow Cab was involved in a collision, if I didn’t have a paying passenger with me at the time, I was to rush to the scene and try to keep our driver from saying anything incriminating. I would begin writing a report while I waited for a company official to arrive.
I recall the very first accident I investigated. I can’t forget it because my own cab was involved. I was stopped at a light; I had a passenger in my back seat. In the rear-view mirror I noticed another Yellow Cab right behind me. The driver was a guy named Jim—I had trained him. I waved and Jim waved back.
The moment the light changed to green—WHAM!—I got rear-ended. A solid thump. I threw my shift lever into “park,” turned off my meter, and turned on my four-way flashers. My passenger said she was fine and added that she was in a hurry to get to an appointment.
I jumped out of my cab; Jim jumped out of his. “Anybody hurt?” I asked.
“Nah, we’re okay,” he said sheepishly. The cabs looked all right, I thought. “Man, Bud, I am sorry,” said Jim.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve got this fare, see, and he’s old as the hills. I’m taking him to G. W. Hospital—that’s where we’re going, to his heart doctor. We’re sittin’ here behind you, and suddenly the guy lets out this scream: Aaaaaagh! and I’m thinkin’ ‘Heart attack! My God, the old man’s gonna croak on me!’ I turn around to look, and my foot slips off the brake and onto the gas. Bang, I hit you!”
“Jim,” I said, “you’re sure your guy is okay? Why’d he go Aaaaaagh!?”
“Oh, well, see, he was sittin’ there holdin’ a stack of papers on his lap—medical records, you know? He’s got this big rubber band around ’em. The rubber band snaps, the papers fly, and he goes, Aaaaaagh!”
“Well,” I said, “Let’s go ahead and get these people to where they’re going. We’ll skip my report. No sense adding more paperwork to what that old man is already carrying.”
♦
And I do believe, Gramma, these two pages you have just read will be all the paperwork with which I shall burden your life this day. But I shall write again.
Love,
Buddy
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