Jack continues to describe his training run as a cab driver in Oakland.

One-Five-Eight inside for Mr. Sidney, the dispatcher says.

Thank ye, Casey screams and pushes harder on the gas pedal. Did ye hear de radio calling cabs going to Seven-Fourteen? Casey asks.

Yea, Seven-Fourteen, I answer. To me the radio is just a steady static. I don’t understand a word it is saying.

Seven-Fourteen’s a good stand at certain times of day. I had a hunch it was de psycho ward. Some times ye get a trip to Napa out’a dere. Ye gotta watch it though. Lot’a drivers T.C. around Seven-Fourteen. Dey hear inside, and dey try to steal yer fare, he says and whips up a back street toward Highland County Hospital. I hang on to my seat as the speedometer creeps toward seventy.

We wheel into the hospital driveway and Casey slams to a stop in front of the locked iron gate. He tells the gate radio who we are and the gate opens. We park in a narrow brick alley beside a door marked Mental Health Services. Inside, a nurse gives Casey a voucher and a patient for Stanford Mental Health. I see right away that he is black and mean looking. I wonder what he’s being treated for. Could he be dangerous? I ask myself as Casey hustles him out to the back seat of our cab. I get a closer look as he slams the door shut. He’s wearing a wrinkled sports jacket and a crumpled white shirt. Casey is off down the brick driveway like it’s us that’s stealing the fare. When we stop at the iron gate, I shot another look at our fare. He has rough black stubble on his face and a glint of hard anger in his eyes. Damm, I’ll be glad when we get rid’a this guy, I tell myself. Casey doesn’t ease up on the pedal until we hit the freeway.

Which bridge ye wanna take, Casey asks our passenger.

Which bridge? What the fuck I care? Any fucking bridge.

I always like to give the passenger de chance te pick de way. Some think San Mateo faster. Others think Dumbarton.

Dumbarton. Go the Dumbarton, our fare tells Casey.

Got ya, Casey answers and turns to watch traffic. He has stopped telling his life story. He’s explaining that it’s always better to take the freeway on long trips, that the meter runs on both time and mileage

Dem mother fuckers back there is fucking wid me, man. The cocksuckers don’t know what the fuck they doing. Next thing you know, I’m gonna lose my fucking job. I can’t be fucking taking off work all the time like this, the man tells us.

I slouch down in my seat and look straight ahead at traffic. I can’t bring myself to say a word. Dis guy is from the mental ward. Maybe they let him out too soon. Maybe he’s still violent. He may think that Casey and me are a couple of white devils that are fucking wid him, I tell myself.

Dat’s the trouble wid our governmental institutions. Dey don’t think ‘a people as anything but a bunch ‘a numbers. Dey don’t think ye got ‘a job or nothing like dat. It’s de God dammed bureaucracy. Government putting its nose into everybody’s business.

No, you don’t understand, man, they fucking wid my fucking life. The mother fuckers are talking ‘bout putting me away for a couple years. Institutionalize me. All I need is a little medication, man. Something for my nerves. There ain’t nothing wrong wid me. My old lady might be right. She say I got to waste some honky mother fucker before they listen to me. I need some fucking help, man. But, who the fuck gonna lisen? Who gonna lisen?

The hum of our tires on the road, the sound of the freeway traffic, the click of the meter hits our ears while our fare waits for an answer. I’m too scared to turn around and face him. I stare straight ahead, and tell myself he’s Casey’s problem. I don’t even want to be here. Casey takes out his pack of Pall Malls and offers one to the man in back. When they both light up, I curse myself again for telling Casey I quit smoking. You’re right, Casey tells our fare. Nobody in government is gonna listen to ye. Dat’s de whole trouble. De government is too big. It’s all rules and regulations. One agency interferes wid de other….

No, you don’t understand, man. I’m under a lot of fucking pressure. You know, man. You try to get the fuck ahead. Going to school. Working two jobs. I got car payments, house payments. There’s family hassles, personal hang-ups. All I need is something to mellow me out a little. A little time to think. They’re supposed to know what they doing. They got the degrees. The mother fuckers don’t know shit, man. They’re a bunch a’ mother fucking butchers. Talk about aggressiveness and violent overtones. I’ll show them some violent overtones. Break a mother fucking honky head….

You’re right, Casey tells him. I’m wondering if he doesn’t have a knife or something as I picture a muscular black arm coming over the backseat and wrapping around my neck. It’s daylight. We’re on the freeway. What the fuck could he do? I ask myself. I think of the hot cigarette in his hand. I want to turn my head and check him out but the white lines on the road hold my eyes fast. Casey continues to talk about government interference in our lives.

Our fare says, No, man, you don’t fucking know, and clamps his mouth shut. Casey switches to giving me instructions about how to check out when leaving Oakland City limits.

When we get off the bridge, Casey stops at a liquor store. He asks out mental patient what brand he smokes, and gets out of the cab. I stare straight ahead racking my brain for something to say. I feel stupid as hell staring straight ahead. What the fuck’s wrong wid you? I ask myself. The seconds tick by like hours. I watch for Casey and breath a deep sigh of relief when he comes hustling out of the store. Casey hands two packs of smokes to the guy in back. I listen to him light up while Casey explains the best way to get from here to our fare’s destination.

We’re all going to the same place. Don’t matter what you doing. We all on a dead end street. Don’t nobody know what’s happening. I seen it coming a long time ago, man. The end is in sight. We gonna be tearing each other apart instead ‘a putting shit together. It’s all lies… all lies… all lies…. our fare whispers from the backseat.

I realize from Casey’s directions that our destination is not Stanford University as I thought it would be. Instead, we stop at a small storefront building not far from the bridge. Our fare gets out and slams the door shut. I breathe a sigh of relief as Casey hotfoots it from the curb and heads back for the main road. Casey beams a big smile as he tells me, You don’t know how lucky we are! I figure he means about getting our fare out of the cab.

Not only do we get a long trip, but we’re here jus’ in time for lunch. We pull up to an off the road diner and park. Casey explains that we don’t have to check out for lunch since we are out of radio range. Some drivers think dey can make more if dey eat on de run. Not me. A man deserves to sit down for his lunch, ta have a second cup a’ coffee. Besides, sometimes a little break sets ye up for a long one. Ye can never tell, Casey explains as we sit down at the counter. He tells the waitress that he’ll have a hamburger deluxe wid fries. I order the same. We wolf down our food, and gulp down our second cup of coffee. I fee a little sense of guilt when it comes time to pay. Maybe I should make at least a gesture to pay, I tell myself. But I answer, No, he might take you up on it, and you only three bucks and some change in your pocket.

On our way back, Casey tells me that we’ll save four or five miles taking the San Mateo Bridge. It ain’t my fault de nigger picked de longest way, he says with a hearty laugh, and explains that we can run off the miles that we’re saving later tonight. Dat’s de way ye get back de cigarette money, Might as well keep ‘em happy. Dere paying for it, he tells me.

And, I try to remember where we went from the San Mateo Bridge. Didn’t we deadhead straight to the airport? I ask myself. That’s right, I answer. And we turned right into the Port without waiting for the cabs on the back up stand. The first out rushes in to let Casey know that there are two other cabs on the back up. They come screaming in and put Casey eighth out on the four-cab airport stand. One of the drivers tells me that if I learn all of Casey’s stand jumping tricks someone will put a bullet through my mother fucking head.

And, I remember that we got a Berkeley from the Port, a trip to the Hotel Claremont. We took the Macarthur Freeway. I would have taken the Nimitz. At one point going through Berkeley, Casey drove up over the sidewalk and apologized to the passenger. And, I remember, one of our last fares of the night an old lady that we picked up down on Telegraph and Alcatraz. It was just getting dark outside. I got out to open the door for her. Took her bag of groceries and, slid them into the seat beside her. Casey explained that he was breaking me in right. The old lady told me she thought I’d make an excellent cab driver. You look both honest and scared to death, she told me.

It must be de fucking hat dat makes me look scared. I ain’t scared lady. Jus’ indifferent. I ain’t gonna be no cab driver. I know I got dat history job, I told myself. I remember the old lady gave me two quarters when she got out of the cab.

Give this to your little boy and girl, she told. We must have been talking about the kids. That was my first tip. I remember the weight that pulled down on me when it was dark outside and we still weren’t off the streets. Even when Casey told me we were heading for the garage we didn’t go straight in. We had to hit the Berkeley Freeway to run off the extra miles we saved by taking the San Mateo Bridge. There were fifteen cabs ahead of us when we pulled into the gas pumps. Casey showed me how to add a couple short trips to the waybill. Ye gotta cover all yer miles, he explained. He showed me how to count your bills all face up and stacked in numerical order. In any other business ye train a guy right and ye make more money for everybody. In dis job ye train a guy right and ye only make more competition for yerself. But, yer not like a lot a guys I’ve trained. I kind’a like ye. Ye can answer more than dis yea a no, he told me. Because he liked me, Casey marked all the best stands in each district in black ink. He circled the so so stands in blue, and underlined the worst stands in orange. (I carried the stand sheer with me for over a year before I realized that he judged the stands by day time standards. The whole flow of traffic is different during the night.) By seven-thirty we still hadn’t turned in our waybill. We stood in the little three-walled concrete booth where the slower drivers count their money and chat about how much they booked today and all their good trips. I thought about home, and a late dinner, while Casey showed me this and that. I remember the hurt look in his eye when I left him making a final count of his money telling him that I had to get home.