Chapter 1. Salesmanship 101

It was the beginning of the end of an era for me the day my cab license was yanked by the City. I couldn’t remember why I was in jail that night and I don’t know how I got out. But I do know I walked all the way back to the hotel and slipped past the watchful eyes of the desk clerk to my room.

Cab driving always gave me the independence and pocket cash I needed to keep my bar tab paid and enough extra for a room at The Virginia Hotel. Driving at night, I could also stay invisible to a daylight world I wanted nothing to do with. I had been at a stand-still for several years anyway and hardly cared but for the easy money.

But now that was gone.

I didn’t necessarily want a drink but I most certainly did need one to calm my nerves. I saw that my knuckles were red and the mirror showed a slight bruise on my cheek. I dumped my coin jar on the dresser and, with a shaking hand, separated the pennies from the dimes and quarters. There was enough silver for a pack of generic smokes and a pint of Popov’s as soon as Jerry’s opened in five minutes at o-six-hundred.

I tried to slip back out through the lobby while Lucas sat on his ass behind the check-in counter reading a skin mag. He was like a spider waiting for its prey all day without moving, the lobby was his web. When anyone touched the carpet at the bottom of the stairs he must have sensed the vibration at the counter. He let me get all the way to the door before he put down his magazine and called out, “Crash!”

I froze, “Yeh, I know.”

“I’ve let you go a week already. The boss…”

“C’mon Lucas, I’ve always been good. I’m waiting for a shift to open up,” I lied. It wasn’t a big lie because there was always a chance the Professor would change his mind.

“You ever hear from the VA on that appeal?” he asked, rubbing the stub of what was left of his arm under his shirt.

“Not yet, but any time now. It’s been three years,” I felt embarrassed. He’d lost an arm and a leg in Nam and I’d only lost my mind. I went back to the counter, “How come you never wear your prosthetic, Lucas?”

“Not unless I have too. I like to air it. Irritates the skin, you know.”

“I’ll take you to Vegas when my ship comes in,” I promised. I meant it too but three years back-pay on my VA claim was but a dream. I had a better chance of winning the lottery.

“Don’t try to grease my butt Crazhinski.”

“Think of it, Lucas. The Chicken Ranch and...”

“Okay, okay, enough Crash. But I want good news from you by tomorrow or you’re out.”

Spiderman was actually a good guy. He was just doing his job. We were like brothers over the years. He’d covered me several times in the past but he had to answer to the boss. I apologized, “Lucas, you know how humiliating it is to beg another week’s reprieve.”

“Humiliating? Look at me. I sit here at a dead-end job putting the squeeze on losers like you. And you whine about humiliation? I probably have only a year or two left on this pile of shit.”

“Never looked at it that way, Spiderman. I’ll pay up soon enough, okay?”

“It’s Lucas, not Spiderman. Friday… no later than five, Crash,” he shook his head, “and that’s final.”

I was out the door before he finished. I got my smokes and pint. It occurred to me I ought to save it ‘til later... After being put on hold every time I’d called the past week, I knew what to expect. Okay, just one toke before I face the music. I needed a bit of liquid courage... enough to make the Professor squirm, mano y mano.

*****

The company’s offices were over on East Yananoli and South Salsipuedes, now Cesar Chavez, and not too far a walk if I took the tracks. I could see from a block away that Doc was in. His blood red Jaguar was parked in its reserved spot front of the building. I rehearsed what I would say as I crossed the lot. I’d be humble… ever so humble… kiss-up… agree to anything and admit everything I couldn’t remember anyhow… and, if that didn’t work, call on the good old times. I took a swig off the pint before opening the door.

It’s an uneasy feeling to enter a place where you’re no longer a part of the business. For several years it was like we were family but overnight I had become persona non grata. Bob sat in the dispatch office situated behind a crosshatched wire glass window where anyone entering the lobby could be seen. He swiveled around in his chair to check-out who’d come in. He lifted a hand hesitating with a brief parade wave. Next to the dispatch office, the door to the inner sanctum was open. It was an oversight. Dispatch would normally have to buzz me in and, as I passed through it, Bob stood as though I had breached the barricades. The speaker above the door crackled, “Hey, Crash, you can’t go...”

Once inside I took a seat across from Jenny’s reception desk guarding Professor’s office. While she was on the phone I could see why all the drivers used to stop by the receptionist desk just to be in the presence of her Dolly Parton’s. She was a freak of nature for sure. When Jenny became Professor’s plaything he installed the buzzer lock at the door and moved the drop-safe into dispatch office instead of behind her desk.

I already knew Dr. Lawrence Spawn was in and, besides, I could see his door ajar. The professor was one of us; an old cabby that hooked into a widow ten years before. He was once called driver #75, or Larry, but now he insists we use his formal name; title and all. He was a now PHD after all and we all knew that in his case it stood for Piled Higher and Deeper.

There are four basic characters who drive cab. Number one: There are innocent students, for whom cabbing is just another job to pay the rent while getting a sheepskin. Number two: There are others holding down a shift to make ends meet until they get that big break... a screenplay/novel that gets accepted or a real acting job. And Number Three: There were realists ...fishermen that can haul groceries and church ladies all day without losing sight that they are casting to reel in the big tuna... a widow with enough inheritance to put ‘em on easy street. Then there is Number Four. We are graveyard drivers whose ambitions are limited to simply getting through another shift. We try to pass through the dark night of the soul without the haunts of nightmares and sweats… and especially without getting noticed by, or dealing with, the front office.

Rachelle was in her late fifties when the Professor sank a hook in her. He was in his thirties and movie star handsome when she took his bait... empty promises of eternal love. He gave her a free ride to Vegas where they got hitched by an Elvis impersonator, and that was the last time he did anything for her that came from his own pocket.

Jenny pretended to be on the phone ignoring me. I got out of the chair and stood for several lifelong minutes before she acknowledged my presence.

“Hi, Crash, what can I do for you?” She was warmer towards me the last time I saw her.

It was everything I could do to keep my eyes focused on that silver cross hanging from her neck, “I need to talk to the Professor.”

“I’m sorry, Crash, Dr. Spawn’s not in…” Jenny held the phone receiver covering that silver cross between her ample breasts. She kept her dual assets locked up under a heavy duty bra and a puritan white, long-sleeved blouse. I wasn’t distracted enough to miss the door gently shutting.

“Don’t tell me he’s not in. Did a ghost just close his door?”

“You can come back when Dr. Spawn isn’t busy, Crash,” her tone sealed the conversation. “Or, I can tell Rachelle you were here when she comes in.”

I knew the Professor wasn’t busy. He didn’t run the company. Rachelle and Bob did that. Doc only owned it. He owned it along with Rachelle’s house in Montecito, a nice boat named A Doctor’s Dream, and the blood red Jaguar, all bought with the money we dropped in the safe guarded behind the locked door of the dispatch office and Rachelle’s inheritance.

Doc was in charge of PR, the hiring and firing, and that was about all. You just knew he loved hamming it up for spots on late night TV. He wore stripes behind bars for his pitch... “Leavin’ the bar? Don’t drive your car. Take a cab.” He followed these with Dr. Spawn’s Bail Bondsman ads, “Drop a dime and I’ll save you time.” Jenny would bounce in on cue, “You’ll be out before you can shout, Dr. Spawn Bail Bonds!”

Professor’s wife knew about Jenny but looked the other way. Divorce was not an option for other than religious reasons. Professor had a grip on the bank account she’d signed away when the romance was hot.

I’m really not a breast man but my eyes couldn’t help themselves. I alternatively gave Jenny the once-over before nailing her eye to eye. I planted both hands on her desk and demanded, “Jenny, don’t give me any shit.”

Bob came out of dispatch with one of those 18-inch cop flashlights in his hands.

“Get back in there, Bob.” I turned to face him, “The phone’s ringing.”

Bob stood a minute and considered whether there was anything he could do. We went back a few years. There was a time when he could have mopped the floor with me but he’d grown soft in the office and wasn’t about to take me on now.

I passed Jenny’s desk and opened Professor’s door. Doc was standing a few feet back. He reached out to shake hands. His gesture wasn’t reciprocated.

“Crash, good to see you. I was just going to tell Jenny to let you in,” Professor backed behind his desk and sat, “Have a seat, Crazhinski.”

“Cut the shit, Professor,” I was brief with him. Behind Doc, on the wall above his head, hung a certificate nicely framed. It was his Doctorate of Philosophy diploma. A few of us knew about how the Professor got his degree. It was a con like everything else in his life. He had somehow incorporated, formed his own college, and turned in a thesis. It was filed where doctorates are filed and amounted to little more than a list of stats about cab drivers: their gender, education, marital status, military service, race, and so on. He had a no more than a dozen drivers to fill out a survey form from which he expanded the numbers to hundreds for the sake of a thorough sampling.

“Doc, I need a break. I know you always need a graveyard dispatch.”

“Crash, you know I can’t re-hire you so soon after.”

“And you know damned well I wasn’t busted on the job...” my protest was weak and I knew it.

“It just doesn’t look right, Crash,” Doc pulled out a green sheet of a carbon copied police report from a folder, “Possession for sales.”

“Yeh, like I’m a big drug king-pin living in the flea-bag hotel.”

“The city still pulled your license and sent me this report: Drunk in public; creating a nuisance; possession of a controlled substance; assaulting a police officer...” Doc read from the list, checking off each item. When he finished he flipped a pencil in the air, missed the catch, it bounced off the desk and rolled to the floor.

“They dropped all the charges ‘cept drunk in public and misdemeanor possession,” I picked up the pencil and handed it to him, “Besides, I wasn’t in my cab!”

The professor started chewing on the pencil. I couldn’t take my eyes off it hoping he would choke on the eraser. The pencil caused him to talk through his teeth, “I can’t do anything right away. The town’s changing. You’re becoming a relic... things of the past. We can’t be cowboys out there now.”

“That’s an excuse Doc and you know it.” I approached his desk, “I’m not asking to be out there. Dispatch has always been where drivers go that get their licenses yanked. Who else would want the job?”

That was the truth too. Dispatchers get paid minimum wage. They supplement their income by milking tips and a taste of cola from drivers. No tip... no good fares.... all’s fair on the streets where money is concerned. Some, like Bob, make out real well that way. It isn’t a job for anyone with some humanity, principles, or dignity left. Years of driving cab does that to some of us.

“Look Crash, all the cab businesses have to clean up now. Times are changing and Sergeant Lopez is getting on all our asses. The City’s leaning on him too. Go to Schick/Shadel… to a rehab… or AA. Let ‘em know you got sober... get it on paper when you graduate... get your license reinstated and maybe we can get you back on...”

“A rehab, you’ll help me with that?”

“Our insurance doesn’t cover…”

“It’s all bullshit, Professor. You and I know damned well you ain’t so clean yourself,” I was so pissed I lost everything I’d rehearsed on the way over.

“That was my past, David. But since I found the Lord...”

“Don’t give me that Lord BS, Doc,” pointing to the wall I threw his crap back at him, “You found the Lord up Rachelle’s vagina. You can get widows and schoolgirls to wipe your ass with that paper but it won’t work with me!”

I was on a roll and knew I got his goat but had no idea the implications went beyond the obvious. Doc’s face turned from pasty white to beacon red. He screeched, “Crazhinski, if you don’t leave now, I’m calling nine-one-one!”

I’d never heard the smooth talkin’ con-man yell like that. Professor stood from his chair holding the receiver away from his ear with his fingers on the keys of the phone.

Bob must have had his ear to the door with the flashlight in hand. He opened the door, “You need help Professor?” He lifted the flashlight as though he was ready to use it.

I slammed my body against Bob and shoved him out the door so hard he landed on Jenny’s lap with one of her bullet breasts inches from his mouth. I was out of the building and never did see him rise from Jenny’s lap. I suppose I did him a favor landing him there.