Greetings from M5.
Company policy is that if you work past 10 p.m., you get a shmancy ride home. My ride home on Friday was particularly shmancy, thanks to Loud, Loquacious Driver From St. Vincent, The Grenadines (LLDFSVTG).
I don’t mean to be unfriendly, but at midnight on a Friday after having the most hellacious week at work (seriously, it was all kinds of suck), I don’t want to talk to anybody. Even calling the car service to ask for a ride is sometimes more than I can bear. Usually I can hop into the back seat, hand over my voucher, tell the driver to take the Manhattan Bridge, argue with the driver when he tries to convince me that the Brooklyn Bridge is more direct (it’s not), put on my headphones and tune out until I turn off of Flatbush. It’s not that I’m not interested in having conversations with the drivers — on the contrary, they always have fascinating stories to tell, except for the pro-Reagan Russian driver who spent 20 minutes screaming about how Bill Clinton was the devil and “he let a Jew give him a blow job! A JEW!” I’m all, “Don’t knock it 'til you’ve tried it, dude.” (I said this in my head, because you never know who in this city is carrying a firearm. I frequently resent having to wuss out of standing up for myself, especially against commuters with bad subway etiquette, but I’d rather be alive and resentful than, you know, not alive.) The long and short of it is, if I’ve worked late enough to qualify for a car, I just want to crack open the window and sit in silence, watching 2nd Avenue go by. Most drivers respect the headphones: If they see you’re plugged in (or that you’ve opened a book), they know you’re not feeling chatty.
LLDFSVTG was perfectly amenable to taking the Manhattan Bridge. I put on my headphones, pressed “play,” and he immediately started talking. Every time there was a pause in conversation, I’d press “play” again, but he’d spark a new conversation. Here’s what I learned:
* He has six children with four different women.
* His oldest is 32.
* He is 49 years old.
* He was a police officer when he lived in the Grenadines. He had fun because there’s little crime there, which he says is why he has six kids.
* His youngest daughter, with whom he gets along now, was a huge bitch when she was younger, because getting The Menses makes girls bitchy.
* He has no boundaries (I learned this when he asked me when I got MY period, and if I was a bitch).
* There were only six murders in St. Vincent last year.
* He feels less safe in NYC, so he packs.
One of the most valuable things I learned is that most livery drivers own their cars. I knew some did, and I also knew that they are paid by distance (which is calculated by zones) rather than time, so if you want to kill time you have to ask to do so when you book the car and there is a two-hour minimum. (He told me this during an enthusiastic rant about a demanding client he had that day, and then he fessed up to anger issues. He illustrated his story by providing me with an exclusive look at the zone bible. My office is in M5.)
It became clear that no matter how much I insist on taking the most direct route home, I am still under a reluctant driver’s mercy because, being in his own car, he can overrule me. (Taxi drivers do not, by law, enjoy this freedom, which is why I was forced to go against all my personal morals and deep-held convictions and shaft one of a tip when he took me home to Brooklyn via a Bumblefuck, Queens, joy ride that got me home 20 minutes later than it should have. In his words as we were rumbling along the Jackie Robinson Freeway [!!!], “I don’t like that law. I go this way.”) There’s one driver from the Ukraine who hates me because I’ve given him shit for going more than a mile out of the way to take me home (fine! take the Brooklyn Bridge! but at least take Tillary! you’re seriously going down ATLANTIC?!?). I once got in his car and he looked at me, looked at my name on the voucher, and said, “Oh.” So while I appreciate the free ride, there’s something “Law & Order”ish about sitting in someone else’s car as you’re being physically carried in a direction other than where you’d planned.
In other news, today I feel crooked, like I’m walking on a rightward slant.
Happy New Year, Jews!
Happy Birthday, Sarah!
I don’t mean to be unfriendly, but at midnight on a Friday after having the most hellacious week at work (seriously, it was all kinds of suck), I don’t want to talk to anybody. Even calling the car service to ask for a ride is sometimes more than I can bear. Usually I can hop into the back seat, hand over my voucher, tell the driver to take the Manhattan Bridge, argue with the driver when he tries to convince me that the Brooklyn Bridge is more direct (it’s not), put on my headphones and tune out until I turn off of Flatbush. It’s not that I’m not interested in having conversations with the drivers — on the contrary, they always have fascinating stories to tell, except for the pro-Reagan Russian driver who spent 20 minutes screaming about how Bill Clinton was the devil and “he let a Jew give him a blow job! A JEW!” I’m all, “Don’t knock it 'til you’ve tried it, dude.” (I said this in my head, because you never know who in this city is carrying a firearm. I frequently resent having to wuss out of standing up for myself, especially against commuters with bad subway etiquette, but I’d rather be alive and resentful than, you know, not alive.) The long and short of it is, if I’ve worked late enough to qualify for a car, I just want to crack open the window and sit in silence, watching 2nd Avenue go by. Most drivers respect the headphones: If they see you’re plugged in (or that you’ve opened a book), they know you’re not feeling chatty.
LLDFSVTG was perfectly amenable to taking the Manhattan Bridge. I put on my headphones, pressed “play,” and he immediately started talking. Every time there was a pause in conversation, I’d press “play” again, but he’d spark a new conversation. Here’s what I learned:
* He has six children with four different women.
* His oldest is 32.
* He is 49 years old.
* He was a police officer when he lived in the Grenadines. He had fun because there’s little crime there, which he says is why he has six kids.
* His youngest daughter, with whom he gets along now, was a huge bitch when she was younger, because getting The Menses makes girls bitchy.
* He has no boundaries (I learned this when he asked me when I got MY period, and if I was a bitch).
* There were only six murders in St. Vincent last year.
* He feels less safe in NYC, so he packs.
One of the most valuable things I learned is that most livery drivers own their cars. I knew some did, and I also knew that they are paid by distance (which is calculated by zones) rather than time, so if you want to kill time you have to ask to do so when you book the car and there is a two-hour minimum. (He told me this during an enthusiastic rant about a demanding client he had that day, and then he fessed up to anger issues. He illustrated his story by providing me with an exclusive look at the zone bible. My office is in M5.)
It became clear that no matter how much I insist on taking the most direct route home, I am still under a reluctant driver’s mercy because, being in his own car, he can overrule me. (Taxi drivers do not, by law, enjoy this freedom, which is why I was forced to go against all my personal morals and deep-held convictions and shaft one of a tip when he took me home to Brooklyn via a Bumblefuck, Queens, joy ride that got me home 20 minutes later than it should have. In his words as we were rumbling along the Jackie Robinson Freeway [!!!], “I don’t like that law. I go this way.”) There’s one driver from the Ukraine who hates me because I’ve given him shit for going more than a mile out of the way to take me home (fine! take the Brooklyn Bridge! but at least take Tillary! you’re seriously going down ATLANTIC?!?). I once got in his car and he looked at me, looked at my name on the voucher, and said, “Oh.” So while I appreciate the free ride, there’s something “Law & Order”ish about sitting in someone else’s car as you’re being physically carried in a direction other than where you’d planned.
In other news, today I feel crooked, like I’m walking on a rightward slant.
Happy New Year, Jews!
Happy Birthday, Sarah!
posted by Marla at 11:17 PM
2 Comments:
There's really a zone bible?! I always wondered. Where can I get my hands on one? I guess now I've got to be chattier with the drivers...
The zone bible was blinding. It was page after page of teeny-tiny numbers in teeny-tiny charts. And then I wondered how drivers read the zone bible while they're driving, and then I realized that I should stop thinking of such things because it all of a sudden got really scary.
When the drivers veer three lanes at random? Probably reading the zone bible.
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