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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
November 12, 2006
Published as Fiction
in a WIP dated January 29, 2002.
© 2002 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Cab Eighty-Four (Orange Sky), 1970
© 1970 by Bud Grossmann
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PULLING THE PINS
Tues, Jan 29, 2002, 12:57am
Dear Pauline,
Nice talking to you today (Monday, I mean) on the phone.
Steady rain tonight. I’ve been napping since maybe nine. Woke every hour or so, and the rain outside my window sounded the same each time, which is unusual here in Honolulu. No rush of wind, no rise or roar of a downpour. Just a heavy, relentless drizzle. Sounds like Indiana or, come to think of it, Wisconsin. Now, why did Ind. come first to my mind instead of Wisc.? Why not one of those rainy days when my sibs and I spent summers in Fjord, and we’d go out on the gravel road that bordered our grandparents’ farm and fill a gallon pail with nightcrawlers flooded from their burrows? Steady, steady rain. I remember going with Gwen Sorenson for a walk in rain like this on a warm night in May when we were in college in Fort Wayne. No raincoats, no shoes, no moon. Great grass on that campus, acres and acres of lawn. There was something not quite finished about that walk that night. Someday I’ll have to try it all over again.
In TNY Jan 7, 2002, p 36, I read, a few minutes ago, a little poem by a Linda Gregg. I’m tired, despite having had my nap, so the poem took me 3 tries before I comprehended it (or think I kind of comprehend it), and now, on my 4th try, I’m thinking “Huh?” and wish I could go over it word-by-word with you. “What the heck is ‘accurate beauty’?!” Is this about a house, probably unoccupied, or is it mainly metaphorical? Does “a door off its hinges” stand (or fall) for something? Does she mean a hinge has pulled loose from a rotted jamb, or has someone removed the hinge pins so the door is leaning upright against a wall near the doorway or lying flat on the floor or resting on one of its long edges with the other long edge leaning against the wall? Or...? Interesting (BORING!) concept: “off its hinges.” Interesting (BORING!), I say, because typically each set of door hinges comes in two parts, and when the pins are removed and the door is pulled free, half the hinges are still attached to the door. So why don’t we say “a door half off its hinges”? Why don’t we say “a door unpinned”?
When I drove for Arlington Yellow Cab, I had a regular fare, a Linda Gregg, a writer, age 26 (I was 21), a heavy smoker of cigarettes. (Did she smoke in my cab? I can’t recall. I think I asked passengers not to smoke, but maybe that was only later, when I had a brand-new cab, or maybe I didn’t ask at all. I wonder how I wld have asked; I don’t think “Thank You For Not Smoking” had been invented yet. Anyway, I don’t think I would have used that particular expression. ...And thank you ... for going Greyhound!). Linda Gregg wore lots of make-up, pale and smooth. She had darkened brows, mascara’ed lashes, red-red lips and nails. Her teeth were small and smoke-stained. Big smile. Smoker’s voice, a throaty laugh. Don’t know if I ever read what she wrote. Vaguely I recall that she and I “went out” somewhere, but I don’t remember where. Anyway, when, decades later, I started seeing Linda Gregg in print, I looked her up on the Internet and concluded it was not the Linda Gregg who had ridden in my cab.
Had another passenger once, who, when I inquired about her vocation, replied, “I am privileged to be on the staff of the President.” Nixon, that was.
This is awful: I can remember the biggest tip I ever got, can picture the man who gave it and can even hear his voice in my head (“Would you be so kind as to keep the change?”), but I cannot recall the amount. I think maybe he pressed into my palm a twenty-dollar bill for an eleven-dollar fare from south county to Dulles.
Boy, could I go on, drenching you with a steady drizzle of taxicab reminiscences. Loved that job. Big roll of cash in my pocket the end of each day (split the meter 50/50 with the company, kept the tips, paid for gas but got it at a discount). Met interesting people all day long, took breaks as I pleased, and worked into the night if I wanted the money. Long as I drove both rush hours, the bosses were content. When I’d been with them a month or two, they gave me my own cab to take home. No. 84, a dented Dodge that had seen some miles, and then, in the fall, they gave me a brand-new Plymouth, No. 34. Oh, please, Pauline, don’t get me started, talking about taxis.
1:42am. Time for bed. The sound of the rain has not changed since I began this note to you. Please, dear, let me sleep. Goodnight Pauline Pauline goodnight I’ll see you in my dreams.
Love, Dave
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