Cabbie! Taxi Please!
Taxi drivers are the same the world over; I say this from experience. There have been times when I’ve climbed into a cab in good mood to be met with frosty sullenness and, as a result, got out the other end feeling dejected. I have met pessimists with a dark and cynical opinion on almost every topic and tried, in vain, to paint the brighter side of the picture. And on the occasions I don’t want to talk because I’m down or sad or preoccupied, I have usually met the garrulous, cheerful type. I try to discourage conversation by staring out of the window or pretending to read, but the driver carries on regardless. Sometimes they manage to draw me out and I get out of the car feeling better than I did getting in.
Taxi drivers have frequently annoyed me, sometimes made me feel sad and on occasion, even scared. But many times they make laugh and they almost always made me think.
I’ll never forget the Dubliner who told me how he and his girlfriend had got ‘caught out’ at just seventeen and he’d struggled with the whole concept of becoming a father and been tempted to run. Now, twenty-three years later, his son is his best friend and, in his opinion, his children are his greatest achievement.
I met one big and very intimidating guy that boasted about how he’d dealt with difficult clients in the past. I commiserated, smiled nervously and gave him an extra-large tip.
Then there was the quiet but determined Londoner who had decided to change his life and worked gruelling hours so that he could afford to train as a pilot in the US.
The middle-aged cab driver in New York who excitedly told me about the property he was buying in Thailand, planning to relocate as soon as his pocket allowed; he made me smile.
And I still shiver at the memory of the skeletal, vacant-eyed boy who drove in a fast and reckless manner while telling me how his in-laws were trying to press him into the family business of drug-dealing. He ran out of petrol when we were still a mile from home. I helped him push his car off the road, pressed money into his hand and tottered off along the dark country lane feeling lucky to be alive.
I have met drivers who have chosen their occupation because the flexible hours allowed them to care of a child, a sick spouse or an elderly parent. I have met people who have abandoned careers in search of a more independent or less pressured lifestyle. I have met readers and writers, artists and intellects and, most of all I have met a plethora of comedians who study life and then recount their observations with style and humour.
My most recent experience of taxi drivers was on a family holiday in Spain. It hadn’t been our best day as we had gone exploring, hadn’t found what we were looking for and ended up a long way from home, feeling grumpy, hot and tired. When the taxi pulled over and I gave him our address he looked at me with incredulous delight. We had our seat belts on and he was pulling into traffic before I realised there was no air-conditioning. Could our day possibly get worse? Well, yes, as seconds later his hands-free phone rang and despite my limited pigeon Spanish, it was clear from his tone that our driver was telling someone of his good fortune in meeting some lost tourists who were either very rich, very dumb and possibly, both. But when he hung up he turned to us with a disarming smile and filled us in on the conversation. It turned out that his wife was furious as he was late for some important family occasion. When he told her, however, where he was going and how much he would earn, she was delighted and assured him that business came first and they would wait for him. His candour was refreshing and his obvious happiness, infectious. Soon the tension started to ease from my family as he told us about his home, his family, his brother’s taxi firm and his beloved wife. All the while he smiled, occasionally teasing the children and making them laugh - a feat that, given their mood when they got into the car, was nothing short of a miracle. As we neared home I asked this charismatic man if he was a full-time taxi driver.
‘No, no,’ he told us, ‘during the day I work as a clown, visiting children in hospitals and hospices.’
Taxi drivers are the same the world over; I say this from experience. Some are happy, some are sad; some are interesting and some boring; some are angry and pessimistic while others are determined to look on the brighter side of life. And, happily there are those who, like my Spanish friend, make the world a brighter and better place.
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