Thank god, October is over.

October is a rough month. Home Big Ten games, Halloween, the start of cold days, it all adds up to more shifts. Sure, that means more money. More money, but you earn every penny.


I had a memorable passenger Saturday. I don't think I've ever had a more obnoxious kid in my cab. He started out by asking me to do a Tokyo Drift. A what? You know, slide the cab sideways around a corner, he said. Ah, no. Yes, it's happened before, but I don't do that kind of stuff to amuse passengers and it's never happened on purpose. Then he goes on to tell me he's out run the cops 6 times in high speed chases. He's basicly as full of bull shit as a Christmas goose.


Then when we hit some gridlock, he really lets his hair down. He starts talking about President McCain. Right. A kid who brags of running the cops while high on cocaine, who is a Rush Limbaugh level republican. Every time this kids lips move, it's like somebody dragging their nails down a chalk board. He has every answer, he slides back and forth, into and out of lies very gracefully. He doesn't want somebody giving his hard earned money away. I seriously doubt he's ever actually earned a cent. "Son, do you mean to tell me that if giving the lady in the red costume 10 bucks would put 50 bucks in your pocket, you in your self centered self interest wouldn't want to?" Nope, he wouldn't. I told him he was in for a rude awakening.

The Halloween people in general were the most obnoxious bunch I can ever remember. For some reason, people in this town really glory in directing traffic. There's a reason why only cops direct traffic as a rule. The frequency of traffic directing college students wearing costumes was about 6 an hour, no I'm not kidding. Imagine this at around 2 am when most of the cars on the road are being driven by drunks. And then there are the people who think that if they can dive into you cab, you have to take them, and no locking the doors until they tell you where they want to go does not work. Why? You have to open the doors to let passengers out, and that's a good time to dive in that cab before somebody else gets it, only the cab driver needs to go pick up some people who called for a cab over the phone. Then you get the 5 minute arguement over why that they expect to win out of persistance.

There was the bozo on Dayton street who was going to stop my cab! I try to go around him to the right, he moves to the right, I try to the left, he moves to the left, and finally, there he is with his hand on the hood. I did in fact have to stop. At that point he's racing to jump in the front seat, that door is locked. I throw open my door and start to stand up to tell him to get away from the cab, and I'm nose to nose with his 4 or 5 friends who are going to dive into the cab. The problem with this is, I've got 3 guys in the back seat, who are riding on a dispatched call. They couldn't understand why I was ordering them to get away from the cab.

And, biggest jerk of the night was the was the guy in the orange jumpsuit who was trying to flag me down in the 600 W. Johnson. I had to slow down to about 20, and I wondered if he'd do the stand in front of the cab routine, but Johnson is 4 lanes wide, and that could be pretty dangerous for him, somebody else might hit him. When it was plain that I wasn't going to stop, he ran up to the cab and kicked it. Yes I did stop, and he ran into the night.

The all time, scariest passenger, I ever had.

I don't recall if it was Halloween or New Years Eve, both nights are frequently out of control. It doesn't matter, I remember him, and I remember the ride.

He was standing near the corner of Lake and University, on Lake, waving for a cab. When I pulled over to pick him up, I saw that he was a mess. There was a lot of blood on him, it probably came from the cut on his face. It looked like someone had busted him in the chops and one of his canines cut through from the inside to the outside, the cut was perhaps 1/4" long. One of his hands, his right if memory serves, was swelled to twice it's normal size. He must have taken a swing at someone, missed, and hit a brick wall. His clothes had blood on them, he wasn't bleeding from his face or hand anymore, but it was pretty obvious that he had bled quite a bit.

He was a good sized man, around 6'2, perhaps 200 pounds. Other than the blood and being tore up from being in a fight, there wasn't anything memorable about the clothes he was wearing. He said he wanted to go to Post road, which is off Fish Hatchery.

I've never had anything particularly against people who have been in a fight. It happens. He was lucky about it, he wasn't in jail. There wasn't any reason to think there was anything weird about him. He wasn't still bleeding so it wasn't like he was going to bleed all over my cab. He wasn't swaying, he didn't slur badly when he talked. I was driving toward his destination, daydreaming as one often does when you're driving, when he got really weird. We were around Park and Emerald when he started muttering, in a low threatening voice, "You drove past my stop."

"Ah, no sir, Post road is out Fish Hatchery, we haven't even reached Fish Hatchery yet."

"You drove past my stop."

This was scary. The guys big, he's not inhibited about being in a fight, and he's sitting behind me. Other cab drivers will know without explanation, all the details of why this is so dangerous, but for the rest of you, allow me to explain. If this idiot were to grab me and try to drag me over the front seat, into the back, with the intent of beating me up, the cab might find an on coming car, or a phone pole, or who knows what. We went through a few iterations of him telling me I drove past his stop, there was no reasoning with him, he was completely out of it. AND, there are people out there who think every cab driver is a crook, who is out to rip them off, it was pretty obvious that this guy was one of them.

So, what do you do? Pull over and try to get the guy out? You might get beat up doing that, because if he doesn't see his house when he gets out, he could go psycho. Do you keep driving and try to keep him calm, and hope he doesn't get any weirder? That's about all you can do. Do you ask for the cops on the radio? No, for a few reasons which include, they won't be there in time to do you any good, and he may go psycho when he hears you ask for them. All I could do was hope that he wouldn't do anything weirder than keep mumbling, "You drove past my stop."

Post road, from Park and Emerald is around 4 minutes on an empty night time road. It was a VERY long 4 minutes. I was very scared. And there's absolutely nothing you can do, except sit there and drive, scared out of your mind.

We got to his destination and he got out and paid me.

Happy Halloween, boo!

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.