Jack continues to drive his cab through the streets of Oakland and San Francisco.

The dispatcher is calling for cabs downtown. I check in, get a nine- thirty phone, and head for Franklin. Get a quick dog at Doggie Diner off Twelfth, tell myself. Inside, I silently hurry the counterman knowing that if I’m a minute late someone will steal my order.

There are still pickets in front of the telephone building, so I park in front of the dark and silent church on the next corner. Out of my cab, I put my coffee and hot dog on the roof. There’s a light breeze blowing off the bay. The June night feels really good as I unwrap my dog and take a big bite. The other nine-thirty cab pulls up behind me. Ralph climbs from his seat and walks toward me. “Hey, easy money! How’s it going?” I ask.

“Not bad, man. Not bad,” Ralph answers. “Everyone must be out to the ‘Port already. I took this order deep west.”

“Yea, I checked in downtown,” I say as I take the lid off my coffee.

“You know, man, I jus’ turn down a piece a’ ass. She an older chick. Must’a been close to fifty. But, she look good. She still look good. She’s really drunk… wasted. Got to help her out’a the cab. She start talking this shit about how lonesome she is. How she living all alone. Tell me some shit about how handsome I’m looking….”

I laugh to myself as I bit into my dog and nod that I’m listening. She must’a been really wasted, I tell myself looking at Ralph’s full face, his heavy set body, the sloppy way he carries himself.

“I have to help her up the stairs. She leaning all over me, holding on, you know. At the door she grab me. Starts kissing all over my face. You know, she starts rubbing that all over my leg. Start moving dat ass. I feel the old dick getting hard. Don’t let anybody fool you, man. Them old cunt, they know how to fuck. They know how to work dat .”

“She wanted to try some black cock, huh?” I interrupt.

“Yes,” Ralph continues. “She pays her fare, man. Unlocks the door. I know she jus’ waiting on me. Wants me to make a move. But, I figure the ‘Port’s moving. I need the bread. It’s already nine o’clock. If she said something, I don’t know, man. You hate to turn dat down….”

“Yea, I know what you mean when it’s right there for the asking,” I say in between munches.

“Lot’a dudes says that young is best. Shit, young stuff don’t know how to fuck. They jus’ lay there and you do all the work. They lay there and moan. An old cunt different, man. They know where it at. They know what they doing.”

“Yea, teaching school though, it’s kind’a got me spoiled. All day long seeing nothing but young chicks, beautiful, soft, and tender, with nothing but sex on their minds. It kind’a turns you off to the older chicks.”

“ You get a lot a dat young stuff, I bet.”

“No, I can’t touch it. Man, that’s all I’d need. Just once. In our school system you can’t breathe the word sex. That’s all the kids have on their minds. Remember when you were in school? You walk around with a hard on all day…. But, it’s absolutely taboo. We pretend that it doesn’t exist….”

“Yea, but the girls. They know you interested don’t they?”

“Well, some do. And, they flirt a little. And you know as a sub. I can flirt a little back. They don’t see me every day like a regular teacher. They can be a little more open some times. But, most have learned their lesson well. They pretend that they don’t know anything about sex. I pretend that I don’t know anything either.”

“Yea, that really gets me when some young chick walks by and she know you creaming your pants. She know she really sharp…. Then, she get all huffy if you say something. She pretend dat she ain’t got a , and you ain’t got a cock. There’s a young chick that stay near me. Jus’ a couple doors away. Man she is really built. Really built, man. But, she know it. She’s a fine chick, 'round fourteen or so. A fine chick, but she know it. I tol her dat the other day. I say,’ You a really fine looking chick, but you know it. And dat what make you ugly.’”

“What she say to that?”

“She jus’ throw her head back and keep on walking. She hear what I say, though. When they fine and they know it, they ugly.”

“It’s amazing kids that age, how much sex is on their minds. In some classes where I sub. you can breath it in the air. The room is stuffy with the odor of sex. Yet, as a teacher, I have to pretend that fucking is a dirty word.”

“Shit, man, fucking been on my mind ever since I can remember. I got my first piece a’ ass when I was eight. My cousin come over. Ask if I want to learn a new game. I say, ‘ Why hell, yes.’ I always want to learn a new game. Show it to my friends. She take me in the closet. Pull down my pants. I learn a new game all right. I learn the best game there is!”

“How old was your cousin, man?”

“That’s the funny part of it. She younger than me.”

I laugh and offer Ralph a sip of my coffee. He declines as we both look up the street for our girls. “Man, I learned all about fucking when I was young. I always hung around wid older dudes. I learned ‘bout fucking, fighting, drinking, doping, all dat shit. We had a class once when I was in school called family life or some shit like dat. Use to get all A’s in that class, man.”

I nod that I’m listening and wonder if this wouldn’t be the right time to try to score some weed from Ralp. He glances up the street again, then looks at his watch. “Shit, it’s twenty-five to ten, we both gonna get no goes?” he asks.

“Ahhh, the girls are probably jus’ slow getting out," I answer."Hey, you know, talking about doping. I been meaning to ask you. You know anyone who could turn me on to a little weed? The guy I usually score from lost his contact. Guy’s phone is disconnected.”

“Yea, I can score some for ya. I know dis old dude at work dat deals. My cousin keep some around. I always got a couple sticks myself. How much you want to score?”

“ ‘Bout a half lid, I guess. I hear it’s pretty tight right now. I picked up this guy at the army base the other night. Jus’ got out’a ‘Nam. We did a number together on the way to Berkeley. Had some ‘Nam grass in his duffle bag. Said he use to deal before he got shipped out. Told me he’d be back in business in a week or so. Gave me his phone number. I don’t know, though. I don’t like to score from someone I don’t know.”

“I can score a half lid for you. No problem,” Ralph tells me.

“Good,” I say and wonder how I’ m going to keep out the ten bucks or so without Anne missing it. The phone girls walk toward us. We open our back doors. I throw out my cold coffee, stuff my napkin, and wrapper in the cup, and push the cup under my seat. As the girls climb into our cabs, I ask Ralph what his nights off are.

“Friday and Saturday,” he tells me.

“Yea, see you before then,” I tell Ralph and head for my door.

My three phone girls are middle aged and tired after their Sunday night with Ma Bell. They make small talk among themselves as I head for the tube to Alameda. At the light on Atlantic I watch a couple yellows racing out from the navy base. I picture them racing all the way to the ‘Port and check out the last address on the phone voucher. It’s just a few blocks south of Webster. Should I take one Alameda order before deadheading to the ’Port? I ask myself.

The light changes. The first out girl gives me directions to her street just off Webster. In a couple blocks, she points out her house and says good night to the other girls.

I get directions for a few blocks north and drop off the second girl. As I make a U back to Webster, the last out girl is telling me about the lawlessness and crime on the streets. I drop her off and fill in the voucher. Dead head out or take one order? I ask myself.

The radio is calling for cabs in Alameda. Probably a Naval Air shoot down, I tell myself and press down on the gas pedal. I make the turn for Oakland International and keep one eye on the rear view mirror. When I pass High Street, the dispatcher is still calling for cabs in Alameda. Maybe it’s an airline crew from South Shore, I tell myself and picture a tough little stewardess waiting with her overnight bag. I picture a mini skirt that exposes her long shapely legs.

“Cabs at the ‘Port, “ breaks into the dispatcher’s call for cabs deep East. It’s the hoarse whisper of Traffic Seven. I forget about the stewardess, and press harder on the gas. The dark bay waters to my right give off a sparkle of moonlight as I picture myself double loading a trip to San Francisco and Half Moon Bay.

Traffic Seven is outside his car directing traffic when I speed into the stands. He opens my door and ushers in five sailors.

Shit, I tell myself, I should’a taken an order in Alameda…. I drop the flag and get into the flow of traffic. “How was your weekend?” I ask the guys up front.

“Man, L. A. is fantastic. Dark tanned big titted girls all over the place,” the guy by the window says.

“The weekend goes by too fucking fast. I should’a gone A.W.O.L. You should’a seen de fucking broad I had. Big fucking tits. Ass that ‘ll knock you eyes out. She even fucking went down on me. Loves sucking cock, but loves fucking even better,” his buddy tells me.

“You should’a seen the one I had,” from a guy in back. “She lay in the bath tub and begs me to piss all over her. I couldn’t fucking believe it. They call her the golden girl. Nice looking cunt, too.”

“Dem some fucking weirdoes I got tied up wid,” says another guy from the back. Dey fucking right out on the front room floor. Everybody fucking everybody, man. Nobody knows who’s fucking who. Dis fucking chick come up behind me. Reaches down and grabs my fucking dick. I couldn’t fucking believe it, man.”

When we get closer to the base, the cunt stories stop coming. The boys begin to talk about how much they hate their work. They bitch about how stupid their supervisors are. “It’s bad enough you got to do useless fucking work, but they make you do it in the most ignorant fucking way. That Jones, he is one hard ass mother fucker. It got to be by the book. Everything got to be by the book. The fucking moron that wrote the fucking book, he ought ‘a write one more fucking book. One more fucking book, and they ought ‘a hang the mother fucker.”

“That fucking Gorden. He don’t know shit, man. I sneak out every fucking day at ten o’clock. Tell him I got ‘a stop over at operations in building nineteen. The fucking dipshit, he thinks I got to hand deliver all the papers….”

I stop at the guardhouse and wave back at the uniformed marine who waves me through. Turning off Atlantic at Eighth Street, I head for Pier Three, and try to remember when I ever heard anyone say something good about the service. I think of George’s stories about the marines. He really loved the marines, I tell myself, and remember how he got really pissed off when someone called him a G.I. “I’m no government issue,” he told old Bill. He was ready to fight over it. I wonder if he ever got a good trip out of here.

I park at the yellow line in front of the Enterprise, and the boys dig into their pockets for a buck each. I pocket the forty-cent tip and watch them walk to their ship. Should I check in here, or dead head back? I ask myself as I roll down my window and listen to the water lapping the pier. Moonlight breaks through the fog and sparkles the water. Get out and have a smoke? I ask myself. A yellow pulls in behind me, drops off his fare, and burns rubber making a U out. I could’a been a couple blocks ahead ‘a him, I tell myself.

“One-Five-Eight at Naval Air,” I tell the dispatcher.

“Dale’s,” he answers.

“One- Five-Eight,” I return and tell myself, I should’a known better. I try to remember when I ever got a good trip out of Dale’s. All I can remember are no goes and Webster Street bars. I park outside the dark green building and get my windbreaker from the trunk. The place is near empty and quiet with less than a dozen people inside. I wave my hat and wait for a response. An aging bubble gummer nods at me from the bar. She pulls at the arm of her middle-aged companion and he staggers off his stool. “Come on,” she tells him. All the action must be down at the Locker Club!”

He downs his drink, and they follow me out to the cab. As they climb in to the back seat, I notice she still has her drink with her. On the way downtown, they argue over the drink. He thinks it should be his because she’s one up on him. She tells him he ain’t got no broken arm. He could’a got himself another. I’m figuring I’ll deadhead out as soon as I drop the pair off.

They get out at the bar and leave the glass on my back seat floor. The dispatcher is calling for a cab round 803. “One-Five-Eight at the Locker Club,” I tell him.

“Henry’s” he tells me.

“Son of a bitch,” I tell myself and make a U. The moon is behind a bank of fog when I pull in to the dirt lot across from the bar. My head lights add a little to the light that come from the liquor store next door. I swing around behind the cars at the curb and eye up the half dozen men in front of the bar. They talk and gesture among themselves. I glance at the dozen or so men in front of the liquor store. No one breaks from the group. I blow the horn a couple times and wonder if I got a no goe. No one comes. I tell myself I’ll wait a couple minutes and then dead head out’a here. I listen to the laughter from the storefront group. Do I got to walk through them? I ask myself. I blow the horn again and see a couple heads turn. Might as well go inside, I’ll only get another bar order when I call in the no goe, I tell myself.

Fuck it, I tell myself and leave the safety of my cab. Neck and shoulder muscles tighten as I walk by the boys out front. The inside is crowded with Naval Air blacks and their women. There’s a small loud group in front of the bandstand and a lot of people dancing. I wave my hat from the doorway and look for some response. No one even looks in my direction. I look around for a friendly face. Everyone is into the music dancing, laughing, rapping. No even notices me. The faces are all happy, and they’re all black. Guess I gotta walk up to the bar, I tell myself. I excuse myself through the three deep traffic and edge up to the bar. The bartender is busy. I look for some hostility from the half dozen men on both sides of me. They act like I’m not even here. Catching the bartender’s eye, I hold up my cap. “Anybody call for a cab,” I yell over the bar talk.

“Not over our phone. Check the booth outside,” he tells me and continues mixing drinks.

“Yea, thanks,” I say and make my way back outside. I didn’t see any booth, I tell myself gulping my way passed the boys outside. Back inside my cab, I breathe a sigh of relief, and reach for my mike to call in the no go. Before I can click the button, a tall thin black with mustache and goatee opens the passenger door.

“You the cab?” he asks.

I feel my heart beat quicken as I nod my head yes. What a perfect set up, I tell myself as he slides into the seat. Nobody saw him get in. No way to trace the call. He gives me an address in North Oakland. My hands are sweaty as I write it down on the waybill. I wait for a break in the radio and call in, “One-Five-Eight.”

“One-Five-Eight,” the dispatcher answers.

I give the North Oakland address in a louder voice than necessary. The dispatcher spots me going as I click the meter and glance at the man beside me. His eyes are searching the guys out front of the liquor store. I figure if he’s going to try a hold up, he’ll wait ‘til we hit North Oakland. I picture the broken streetlights, the darkness, the Bart construction, the broken bottles, on the streets near his address. If he jus’ wants my money, hand it over and stay cool, I tell myself. I shot another glance at him as I turn on to Webster. He’s younger than me, in his early twenties. I rub my mustache a couple times thinking of something to say.

“You stationed at Naval Air?” I ask.

“No, I ain’t in the service, man,” he answers.

We enter the tube. A minute or so goes by in dead silence. “Always that much action at Henry’s?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I don’t go over there that much. Looking for dis dude who owe me some bread. I heard he hanging there.”

He goes on to tell me how he ran into this old buddy who joined the navy, how they started partying together, how the dude borrowed some bread and then made himself scarce. As I listen to his tale, my fear eases off a little. By the time we reach downtown, he’s telling me about his job at Wards. How the money’s not too good, but you get the discount, and a chance for a promotion every couple years. We stop in front of a dark wooden house that he points out. He peels a five off a small roll. “Keep the change, man,” he tells me and disappears into the dark.

I get rolling and wonder if I should try my luck at the blood bank. Gotta take a piss, I tell myself and figure I can stop at the Hound. Just as I hit the Grove-Shafter Freeway, the eleven o’clock phones start going off. I call in on One-Two-Seven and get the last one. God damm it, how am I gonna take a piss now? I ask myself. I remember a bar just up from the phone building and figure I’ll stop in there. When I pull to the curb, I see a half dozen or so cabs already parked up the street by the church. A lone picket in front of the phone building reminds me that we’re parking at the next block to honor the union picket line. All the stools at the bar are filled. The jukebox is playing a quiet love song. A half dozen heads turn toward me as I sneak up the stairs to the restrooms. I should’ a brought my hat, I tell myself. On my way out I see a new driver downing a quick vodka and orange. I avoid the glance from a couple at a back table and wonder if I should stop at the cigarette machine.

Parking behind the line of cabs in front of the church, I get out and count five cabs. There’s a circle of drivers at the last cab. I join the circle and listen to an older driver. “The cock sucker reaches up front and grabs his glasses. Tells him not to move. Haines don’t know if he got a gun, or knife, or what. Hands him about twenty bucks out his shirt pocket. Fucker turns the rear view mirror up, throws his glasses on the ledge in back, and gets out’a the cab….”

“Where’d it happen?” I ask as a cab pulls up behind mine.

“Richmond. Haines was doing a midnight last night….”

The girls are coming down the street. We break from the circle and start for our cabs. The last guy is out of his cab and counting. “Some mother fucker is stealing my order. Only six orders went off,” he says as he walks down the line checking numbers.

The last four girls stop at my cab. I open the back door for three and the other one climbs in front. The last out driver walks back to his cab shaking his head and pounding a fist in his hand.

I drop the four girls off within a few blocks of each other and figure I’ll try to catch the 11:30 Berkeley phone before I call it a night. The dispatcher gives it off just before I spot on Five-0-Four. Might as well wait for the twelve o’clock. Maybe I’ll catch the girl who lives over in Fruitvale, I’m thinking as I try to remember what night it was when I picked her up a couple weeks ago. Traffic lights change back and forth in the empty streets. As I reach for the book on my dashboard, I listen to the footsteps of a hurrying couple. The door of the ice cream parlor across the street opens. Four people emerge and hurry to a waiting car. Get me a cone after I pull down the order, I tell myself, and roll down my window. I lean back my head and look up at the sky. Fog hides the stars from view. A pair of footsteps passes and turns the corner. A lone man approaches my cab.

“Can you take me to San Francisco?” he asks.

“Sure can,” I say as I feel the surge of excitement that enters my bones whenever I get a trip to the City. Should I take University or the freeway off Grove, I ask myself as my fare explains that he’s an accountant and can afford to take a cab home with the over time that he gets for a Sunday night. I turn toward University. At the light I eye up the empty black and white doorway of the live rock club. Everyone inside, I tell myself. My fare begins to describe his work at the Bank of New York. He delivers a detailed description of how he feeds raw data into the computer, and I glance at the health food store across from the rock club. I nod that I’m listening while I remember my six P.M. lunch there yesterday.

I remember the hot afternoon sun shining in my window. The kids unloading the van, carrying amps and a drum set into the club, several young dudes rapping in the doorway and looking hip. Dying for something cold to drink, I pull off Five-0-Seven and park in front of the health food store. I’m thinking how much the place looks like the old Trivia Coffee House as I enter. I sit down at a brown top kitchen table, and watch the hip looking girls serve the two or three paying costumers. A bearded boy behind the counter is washing dishes. He’s about the same age I was at the Triv, I think as I sip my drink and wonder how Henry Miller would see the place. I wonder how Vance would see it. And, it strikes me that at this moment I really belong here. I’m not an outsider. I’m a cab driver stopping in for a cold drink. When I finish my drink I’ll go back outside and park on the stand across the street.

At the toll both, I pay the half dollar toll, and my fare begins to tell me about his family. How they don’t get along the way they use to. I nod at his description of the way she treats him and think how great it is to be a cab driver. This is the place for me. This is the place where I ought to be at this exact moment. You need to be on the streets, I tell myself and laugh at my words. If anyone had told me that two years ago, I would have laughed in his face. My fare goes deeper into his family problems. I listen with one ear and with the other think about how much I dreaded the thought of being a cab driver two years ago.

When I come off the bridge a half-hour or so later, the dispatcher is calling for cabs deep West. ”One–Five-Eight at the Bay Bridge,” I tell him. He gives me an order at a trucking yard deep west. When I stop at the gate, the trucker climbs in front and tells “St. Mark Hotel.”

Good, I’ll be able to deadhead right to the garage from there, I tell myself.

“Does he say things are getting better or worse?” asks the truck driver nodding at Bergson’s book.

“Better. Things are growing constantly better,” I reply.

“Good. Glad to hear someone who isn’t prophesying immediate doom.”

“Well, when Bergson speaks of continual advancement he doesn’t necessarily include man. For him man is just a vehicle through which the life force travels on its way to…. I don’t really know what, or where. More complete consciousness, I guess. Through he speaks of the life force as being pure consciousness itself. So, it’s like consciousness trying to communicate with itself by creating an image of itself in the material world. Man, having reached the highest level of awareness, at least potential awareness, is the first being who can turn back upon himself and be in communication with his creator.”

“So man’ s high hog on the totem pole. That figures….”

“He could be. But, most men are so totally involved in the material world that they have no interest in the life force. Other living entities are much more aware, though in a non-conscious way, of an inner compulsion to do what they must do. Another animal, a tree, a blade of grass is intuitively sure of its function. It is fully involved in being what it is. Man, of all living creatures, is least dependent on intuition. In fact, at times he denies having any inner tendencies at all. In the past three thousand years especially, man has become almost entirely dependent on his intellectual capacities. Now, Bergson says that with the intellect alone, one can never… never fully know life. The realm in which the intellect functions is one of organizing matter. The intellect while capable of answering the question how, can never answer question of why. It can organize matter, put two and two together, create and build complicated structures, but it can never know reality. With the evolution of the intellect, man acquired the ability to manipulate and organize matter. In learning to manage the material world, man has become so proud of his managerial ability that he has forgotten his true function. Instead of living, instead of expanding his awareness, instead of reaching for communion with the vital impulse, man is content to push blocks of matter around.”

As I deliver my monologue, I glance to my side and see that my passenger is nodding his head in understanding. I’m surprised at the ease with which I have presented Bergson’s ideas.

“It sounds like kind of a religious book. What did you say his name is…the guy who wrote it?” my fare asks.

“Bergson, Henri Bergson.”

“Interesting, very interesting. Does
he say how man can get back in communion with… back in line with his real purpose?”

“Well, I guess that Bergson would say that first he has to know his true purpose. If man understands that his function is to expand his awareness, to become more and more wholly alive, then it becomes easier to get in touch with the life spirit….” We reach the hotel and I drop my fare off wondering if I’ll ever see him again.

“You getting in a little late tonight," old Stan tells me when I wheel into the gas pumps.

“Yea, I almost put in a full shift. I’d
better watch myself, pretty soon I’ll be working over time,” I tell Stan, and finish off my waybill. We exchange small talk about how hard we worked tonight and I pull out to look for a parking space. I find one at the far end of the lot. The one A.M. tired feeling tugs at my shoulders, but there’s a bounce to my step. I think about the writing table tomorrow. I think of myself as a writer walking through the dark empty parking lot. I look at my reflection in a cab window and laugh. I can’t believe how much I hated it back then, just the thought of being a cabbie, I tell myself.

I point my Buick toward Walnut Creek and think how time flies, how things go different, how driving cab and substituting gives me just the time I need for writing. I think how I have time to write, time to do a watercolor now and then, time to take it easy….