A Halloween story

I have many Halloween story's. I've driven most of the last 20, at night. A couple of years ago, I missed seeing a guy in a little 2 seater Mercedes smoke a phone pole by less than 2 minutes. That he walked away from it, is a real tribute to German engineering. What happened was.....

It was about bar time (2:30 am, is mandatory out of the bar time here), and I had a load to pick up, Club 5 going to Seminole and the Belt. Nice short ride, pays nice, wonderful if they're ready to go. They were in fact, ready to go too! 4 lesbians, a load, as we say. I recall the costumes of one couple, a pirate with a princess. How could I tell they were lesbians? Well, the 2 couples were doing some pretty heavy necking, and pawing, and professing love, and all that sort of drunken stuff. And yeah, the Club is a gay bar.

It's a quick ride. Jump on the belt line, run about a mile and a half west, drop them off quick and head downtown. Shouldn't take more than 10 minutes total. All was going according to plan, until I got to the top of the ramp at Seminole Hwy. There's this guy who's a little unsteady on his feet, waving, he wants a ride. What's he doing here, more or less in the the middle of nowhere, at bar time trying to flag a cab? I rolled down the window and said, "Sorry, I'm full."
Looking past him, to the south side of the bridge, I saw why he was flagging a cab. There was a wooden phone pole, about 15" in diameter, splintered and listing over top of a little 2 seater sports car. The phone pole wasn't broken off, but it was definitely shot. The little sports car was definitely totalled. How could this guy have walked away from that, I wondered.

The thing that comes natural to a cab driver is to pick up the mike and say, "I need the cops at Seminole and the Belt. I need an ambulance. I'm not involved. Single car accident, I have the car and driver in sight." Dispatch told me to stand by.

The guy who'd been driving the car saw me using the radio. He was wearing a cheap Halloween costume, it looked kind of like a gunny sac with a picture of Yogi the Bear on it. He started trotting off down Seminole in the direction of downtown, which is also down a really long hill.

Dispatch came back and asked for details. They do this when they are on the phone with the cops. What does he look like? Which direction is he going? Can you keep him in sight. Try to keep him in sight. All that sort of stuff.

I told my passengers that this was only going to take a few minutes. Sorry ladies. Being a shared ride, zone cab, there is no meter to worry about turning off. The fare is based on where they got in, where they're going, and how many people in their party, not on the route taken, or little side adventures like Yogi Bear smoking a phone pole. One of them says, she bets she'll be out replacing that phone pole tomorrow, she works for Madison Gas & Electric. The phone pole was indeed replaced the next day.

As Yogi trots, we follow. He's in a bad neighborhood to try and hide in. Ahead of him, about 3 miles away, is downtown. To his right is the arboretum, a thick forest environment, really dark at night. To his left is a nice little neighborhood of small homes, but it's bounded by a limited access highway, and a major boulevard, so it's more or less a blind alley that will trap him. I'm behind him. He has no choice but to head down the hill. He heads up a small street that is a dead end, quickly realizes it's a trap, and starts doubling back, trying to get past us, using the back yards. He goes through a couple of peoples back yards and comes out behind us, but we see him and again are following him. The drunken condition isn't conducive to running, but he was doing a hell of a job, considering he had just been in a car accident that should have killed him.

The ladies are beginning to tire of this adventure. A couple of them had their blood up for some touch, and they'd put that on hold for 5 minutes, and who cares if Yogi gets away or not? The wanted to be home in a nice warm bed or hot tub or what ever they did. "Ah, maam you don't understand. Once the cops are called, I'm on the hook to hang around until they come." The cops were definitely coming too. It was Halloween night, so most of the cops were downtown, but a bent phone pole and a totaled car with the guy who did it in somebodies sight is definitely something they want to respond to quickly.

Yogi was doing a pretty good job of sneaking in and out of back yards, but it was really tough. He was drunk. Getting hit with all those air bags is like being in a fist fight, ask anybody who has been saved by them in an accident, you'll feel it for a few days, you'll see stars when they deploy. He wasn't dressed for the cold. It was chilly, low 40's, and all he had for a coat was a gunny sac, no hat, no gloves. A 3 mile walk to downtown will take an hour if he makes it, and it will be a very cold, miserable hour.

Finally, the first squad car found us, we were about 4 blocks from the exit ramp. We'd last seen Yogi about 90 seconds ago, and pointed to a couple of houses, where he'd ducked into the back yards. The cop said there were a couple of more units on the way, that they had what they needed, so we were free to go.

We got back up to the beltline, and crossed to the south side. One of the ladies asked if we could stop for a second and look at the car, I said sure. It still had steam rising from it. The splinted phone pole was broken at an angle of about 45 degrees. All the air bags were blown. The drivers door was hanging open. It was truly amazing that somebody could walk away from that. He'd hit that phone pole dead on.

The ladies went to a home about 5 blocks further on, got out and paid me. They even tipped generously, which considering the delay was mighty generous of them.

My bar rush was shot for that night. It was time to take the car back to the office and check it in.

Cat fight

It was a really slow night. When there's nothing to do, you can either sit or drive around. Since cab rent is paid by the mile, I usually prefer to find someplace to sit. On this night, I'd gotten a fare out of The Lodge, it looked like they were throwing a party, so I decided to sit in the alley facing their front door. It turned out to be a good decision. I'd gotten a few fares who saw the cab sitting right there, and asked for a ride. The rides all went a short distance, I'd get empty and hurry back to wait for another.

The Lodge is a frat house, Xsi Psi. It's located on Iota ct., which is the heart of fraternity row. It sits on about 100 feet of lakefront lot, which slopes steeply down to the water. It's about a block and a half walk from the house to campus. They say that all Xsi Psi houses, on what ever campus they exist, are called The Lodge, I wouldn't know. It's a nice looking building from the outside, inside, well it's a frat, so I'm sure it looks like one.

These 2 guys come out and ask for a ride. One is average size, one is a big man, about the right size to be a lineman on the football team. The big man sits in the front seat, the little man sits in back. From the time they sit down, the big man keeps saying, "God was she hot. God was she hot."

The little man just rode in the back seat. They wanted to go to Bradley Hall. Bradley Hall, is in the lakeshore dorms, it was the last "jock" dorm, and at the time was still all male. In the 90's, the university in it's infinite wisdom, converted all the dorms to co-ed. Back at the time of this night, there were still 2 non co-ed dorms, Bradley and Liz, Liz was all female, many called it The Virgin Vault. They got out at Bradley Hall, paid me, and I headed straight back to my spot in the alley opposite the front door to The Lodge.

I took a couple of other rides, that I have long since forgotten about, and was again waiting, when 4 girls came out of the door and asked for a ride. They wanted to go to Monona, which is way off campus. I told them to get in, and was just about to pull away, when the front door again opened, and a guy accompanied by 2 women walked out into the night air. The girl on the passenger side of the front seat, and the girl behind me, immediately had the car doors open, and were standing with their hands on the top's of the open doors, screaming obscenities at the trio that had just come out of the front door of The Lodge. They were screaming threats, and curses, things like, 'I ought to kick your ass bitch.'

These girls weren't acting much like college girls, to my thinking. I immediately told them that if they wanted a ride, they needed to get in the cab and shut the doors. If they didn't want a ride, they needed to get out. Ladies, do you want a ride or not? Make up your mind. If you don't make up your mind, I'll make it up for you and kick you out of the cab. One last time, if you want a ride, sit down and close the doors, otherwise, get out. They sat down and closed the doors. It took a minute to pin down where exactly they wanted to go. They wanted to go to Pflaum rd. pretty close to LaFollette HS. Once we had the destination pinned down, I put the cab in gear, and we were off.

I pulled around the corner on to Henry St. and up the steep hill to the stop sign at Langdon st. When I stopped at Henry and Langdon, the 2 girls and the guy they'd been yelling at were crossing the street, they were walking right in front of the cab. It was too much for the girls in the cab. The girl from the front seat, and the girl from the seat behind me were out the doors and attacking the girls crossing the street in an instant, as soon as the cab stopped. I looked at the open doors, and the fight going on in front of the cab in the middle of the street, and there was only one thing to do, I keyed the mike and asked the dispatcher for the police. The dispatcher asked why I wanted the police, and I calmly described the situation, he said ok and a minute later said the cops were on the way.

The 2 girls remaining in the cab, had listened to me call the police, and they sat there like nothing had happened. I was amazed! I told them that the police were coming, and they might want to go pull their friends off their 2 victims before the cops arrived. The fight going on in front of the cab was pretty amazing, one of the 2 girls had been throwing standing kicks to the chest of her opponent. They were pulling hair, and slugging their victims with closed fists, and it was obvious that these 2 girls who were going to Monona knew how to fight. It was equally obvious that the 2 girls they were attacking did not know how to fight. The poor guy was having no success pulling my passengers off his friends, and he was getting beat up pretty bad too. When I told the 2 girls in the cab that they might want to pull their friends off, they jumped out of the cab and did so.

After the the girls going to Monona were pulled off, to my great amazement, all four of them got back in the cab. The 2 girls who had gotten beat up, and their male companion, got up and quickly walked down Langdon st., in the direction of campus. I pulled the cab up in front of the building on the far side of the intersection and parked. One of the girls in the back seat asked why we weren't going any where. I told her that once the cops are called, I have to wait for the cops to come. She said ok, and they just sat there. Again, I was pretty amazed.

Around 10 minutes later, the cops got there. I recall my conversation with the officer pretty well, I told her exactly what had happened. She just shrugged and said, she didn't have a victim, without a victim she didn't have a crime, and that being the case, we were all free to go. So, we left. Off to Monona.

The girls in the cab forgot the whole incident pretty quick. You'd think they would have been livid about me calling the cops, but they acted as if nothing had happened. The girl in the front seat, the really tough one, started saying, "God, was he hot."

The girl in the front seat wasn't bad looking. She wasn't stunningly beautiful, but she was was certainly ok. She had short dark hair, was about 5' 5", had an average build, and was wearing average looking clothes. She kept repeating to herself, "God, was he hot." Monona was a long ride, so I listened to this for a while, and finally asked her, "What did he look like, anyway?"

She had this dreamy quality to the look on her face, and the tone of her voice. She said that he was a big man, about 6'5", with a really muscular build. He had short hair, and was wearing, what ever it was she said he was wearing, and that he was a really good dancer.

She was describing the guy who went to Bradley hall. She was describing the guy who'd said, "God, was she hot.", all the way back to his dorm. No question about it.

I told her, "You know, the guy you're talking about took a cab home a little while before you came out of that frat party, and all the way back to his dorm, he said exactly what you're saying, 'God, was she hot.'"

"Stop the cab! I want to go to Bradley hall. I want his baby!", she blurted out.

I told her that Bradley hall was security locked, and if I took them there she wouldn't be able to get in this late at night. Even if she did get in, this late at night, she wouldn't know what room he lived in, and she'd have no way of finding him. She sighed, and said nothing. Apparently, they'd danced the night away, without exchanging names.

When we got to their destination on Pflaum rd., they paid me and started walking off in 3 different directions. It was then obvious they had asked for the point where the walk to each ones home was about the same distance. I didn't care, I was paid. I even knew what the fight was over. These girls were obviously high school students. The girls who had gotten beat up, and took off walking in the direction of the dorms, they were pretty obviously college students. The college girls probably made a big deal out of the underage girls being at the party. It was kind of amusing, but I didn't care much, they were out of the cab. I went looking for my next ride.