Chapter 11
Truly there is a madness that men dread and another
that they love, for to dance, laugh, love, and sing is a happy madness, but to
sit mumbling and whining with one’s face to the wall, or to rage with a drawn
sword calling oneself Medea is, according to human opinion, a dreadful fate.
Dialogues in Limbo. George Santayana
We
spent the rest of the week driving around in Florence’s new, yellow Volvo,
walking the streets of Oakland and Berkeley, and making love in the car, in
various parks, and in four different beds (when Tilly and Mary were at
work.) The next Saturday though, I had
to go to work because I was running low on cash and the end of the month was
coming up. But there was a Black Panther Conference on Poverty that I had
planned to attend.
I
was really surprised when
I
knew that Kidd wouldn’t go. He was pro
There
were only a few black faces in the very sparse crowd even though the meeting
was held in a large hall on
The
Panthers had occasionally carried around loaded rifles in the halls of
A
few years later, after he had attained world recognition, I had an opportunity
to talk to
But
those were revolutionary times and
A
middle aged, hairy, graying, Berkeley-professor-type was standing on the stage,
having an argument with a kid in the audience who looked like he was about
20. They were yelling at each other, and
just about the time I got myself seated, a Panther shut the kid up saying, “You wouldn’t recognize a worker if he came
up and peed on your leg.” I started to
laugh, but stopped myself because the middle class audience was taking it
completely seriously.
Another
Panther grabbed the microphone and started talking about “Pussy Power.” He said, “Power grows out of the lips of the
pussy,” and to a group of women in the front row, “If you’re laying with the problem then
you’re part of the problem.”
It
was obvious to me that they were mostly just having fun but the audience was
deadly serious. Some people were even
taking notes. But most of the women
looked uneasy. I noticed a very pretty
woman who was smiling but the rest looked nervous, or angry.
The
lecture went on for about 5 minutes and, I thought, got funnier. A guy in the front row, who looked like a
young Groucho Marx, with dark, kinky hair standing straight out at the sides,
was holding a microphone out like a large cigar, and, watching the crowd,
raised his eyebrows up and down with every Panther outrage and
exaggeration.
The
Professor got up again and started droning on about the classes uniting and a
young woman, who looked like an escapee from suburbia disguised in work
clothes, interrupted, complaining that she wasn’t getting a chance to speak, as
had been promised. A middle class black
man, wearing a tie, under a very expensive looking black leather jacket, told
her, in a ridiculous imitation of a ghetto accent, “Shut-the-fuck-up pig.”
He
accused her of being an agent, and said, with far too much pleasure, (and I
thought with a little embarrassment from the other Panthers on the stage,) “If you don’t know
how to act then we’re gonna have to put you in your place.” Then he indulged himself with a lot of phony
and embarrassing
nigger-talk, until a very big and frankly fat Panther, in the
only BROWN leather jacket on stage, a jacket that looked like a small condom
stretched over a fifth of Jack Daniel’s, told him to shut up and sit down. His eyes got very big, like a little kid who
is scared and trying not to cry, and he sat down.
When
the Professor started talking again, the group of women stopped listening and
began to talk among themselves. Suddenly, very dramatically, they got up in
unison, about twenty of them, and walked out with their noses in the air. The Professor droned on and the Panthers smirked
and tried to look like they didn’t care.
One
quite fat and large woman, who looked like a dike, remained behind. It seemed to me that the reason she didn’t
leave with the rest of them was that she had her eye on the fat Panther in the
brown leather jacket.
Out
of nowhere, a middle-aged Mexican who was obviously drunk,
started yelling that not enough Mexicans were on the panel like they said there
would be. Actually, I didn’t see any
Mexicans on the stage. Someone yelled to
him, “Talk to
Bobby Seale about it.” The Mexican said
that he “couldn’t
find the motherfucker.” He was so drunk
that I was surprised when he managed to hoist himself onto the stage. He was mumbling, mostly to himself, but I
heard him say again, very distinctly, “I can’t find the motherfucker.”
A
very tiny black man in a black leather jacket that was quite a bit too large
for him, got very angry and said in a very loud, deep voice that could be heard
all over the auditorium, “who you callin a muhh fuck uh?” The entire panel got out of their chairs and
started shoving the Mexican around the stage, slapping him and telling him to
stop calling Bobby Seale a motherfucker.
The guy could hardly stand up anyway and he kept falling down and
getting up again, saying over and over, “I know that, but I can’t find the
motherfucker.”
I
couldn’t tell if he fell off the stage or someone pushed him but he landed in
the front row and took out about five or six chairs. He seemed to be all right and he weaved
through the chairs towards the back of the hall and went out the door muttering
to himself, “But
I can’t FIND the motherfucker.” I don’t
think he ever figured out why they were yelling at him.
I
didn’t want to leave in the middle of that incident because I didn’t want it to
seem that I was leaving in protest. But
I decided that I had better leave and go to work because I needed the
money. I managed to slip out during the
commotion so that no one noticed me.
Right
out of the barn, I got an old woman from West Oakland who went out to Berkeley,
almost to
The
dispatcher said the people were in the house and I would just have to wait for
them to come down. He said another cab
had left but I should wait because they really were in there. So I banged on the door and waited. Someone yelled down to me and said they would
be right down. So I waited on the
porch. I heard some bastard yelling and
honking his horn and gunning his motor.
It sounded like it was coming from across the street. I banged on the door again. The same voice yelled again, “Just a minute.” I heard the honking and the engine whining
and the yelling. I started to look to
see where it was coming from, when a wild-eyed man opened the door.
“Nobody
ordered a cab.”
“Fine. The dispatcher
told me someone in there wants a cab.” I
was really just talking to myself, asking myself why these things happen to me.
“I
told you. No one wants a cab.”
Suddenly
it became clear to me that he was holding someone in there against his or her
will.
“Great. It doesn’t matter to me one way or
other. I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Yeah,
well do it some fucking-where-else.”
I
tipped my hat. “My
pleasure.”
I
walked towards my cab, cursing to myself.
To my right a horn blasted and the engine of the 54 Chevy truck
roared. The noise I had heard had echoed
off the large wall across the street but it was coming from my side of the
street. A man yelled, “Get that fucking piece of yellow shit
out of my driveway.”
“What
in the fuck do you think I’m doing?” I
stared at him malevolently. I was still
pissed off at the guy in the house. A
leer came across his face. He got out of
his truck slowly. “What did you
say?” He was about 6’4” and 250 pounds.
“I
said, I was moving my cab.”
No
response. I stood there looking at the
bastard.
He
said, “I can’t
believe I heard you right.”
I
continued walking towards the cab, opened the door and stood with one foot on
the ground and one foot in the cab. “Hey
look. I didn’t know you were there. When I saw you I came over to move the
cab. What the fuck more do you want?”
He
walked to within ten feet of me and stopped.
He said, “Maybe
I ought to teach you a lesson.”
“Look,
I don’t need to learn any lessons. I
didn’t see you. When I saw you I walked
to my cab to move it.”
“Yeah,
I really do. I think you need a lesson.”
I
looked up to the third story of the white wood frame house behind him. A man about sixty, who looked exactly like
Wallace Beery, peered out of the window.
He had a three day, white, Beery-stubble. He smiled at me menacingly.
I
said, “I think
you’re really arguing with someone else.
I don’t have anything to do with it.
I was moving my cab. I really
don’t see what the problem is.” I got
into the cab.
He
said, very softly, “I
was sitting in that truck honking the horn for five minutes and you want to
know what the goddammed-fucking-problem is?”
“I
told you I didn’t know where it was coming from... The noise must have been echoing off that
wall across the street. I’m just trying
to do my job. I’ve been driving for more
than a year and I haven’t had any problems yet.
I’m telling you I didn’t know that I was blocking your truck.”
“I
think you did know.” He walked over the
front door of the cab, which was still open.
I
said, “Look,
you think fighting someone who weighs a hundred pounds more than me is going to
teach me a lesson? A lot of cab drivers
carry guns. Maybe I ought to get one.”
I
looked at my radio. Out of habit, I was
going to call the dispatcher for the NOGO.
I looked back at him and his face had a look of horror on it and he was
backing up.
“You’re
trying to pull a gun on me?”
“No!
.... I said maybe I ought to BUY a
gun. If I can’t reason
with people. They all tell me I
should buy one but I didn’t think it was necessary.”
I
tried to make it clear that I didn’t have a gun. I looked at the shotgun hanging in the back
window of his truck and then back at him.
Just behind his head, Wallace Beery, who was framed in the window,
raised a 45 automatic up to his nose, and looked at me significantly. Then he looked over the top of the cab and
slowly lowered it. The big guy looked
over the cab too. I hoped beyond reason
that it was the cops. I turned
around. A Yellow Cab was stopped in the
middle of the street, about thirty feet behind me. The driver held up the microphone of his
radio and motioned that he would call the police if I wanted him to. I gambled that just the threat was enough.
“No
man. No problem,” I said out loud so the big guy could
hear me, and waived him on. The driver
looked surprised but drove on. The guy
just stood there. I said, “Look, I’m sorry
but I really didn’t know it was you. It
was stupid. The sound must have
reflected off the building. I thought it
was coming from across the street.”
He
was grateful that I hadn’t called the cops.
It was enough. Now he just had to
save face.
“All
right, but just don’t let it happen again.”
He said it like a man who had just flicked a spider off his sleeve with
his finger. I didn’t say anything. He turned and walked back to his truck. I drove off and meditated on Providence for
awhile and the thought came to me that if God talks to man, then he must sound
something like that but I didn’t have time to think much more because I had a
succession of four or five harmless but obnoxious drunks that took me on a
wandering path back to Oakland.
I
thought about deadheading to the airport but then I got a nice old lady who was
a retired elementary school teacher. We
had a civilized conversation and she invited me up for tea. I almost accepted but I hadn’t made much
money and I couldn’t spare the time.
After
dropping her off, I noticed Juanita sitting at a bus stop and I picked her up
and ended up taking her to dinner at the Doggy Diner on
She
looked quite fetching but when she gave me a smile that revealed her rotten
teeth, I just felt sorry for her again.
She called me Goody Two Shoes after I pretended, again, that I didn’t
know what she wanted to do. I left her
standing on the street, telling her not to do anything I wouldn’t do. She didn’t laugh.
“I wouldn’t do nothin if that was the case.”
“Hey,
you do too much already.” I was sorry I
said it after watching the expression on her face change.
It
was almost dark and I called the dispatcher pretending that I was at the stand
near the airport, hoping that no one was already checked in there.
“188,
get 1643 108 avenue.”
“Hey,
that’s in
“We
DO service
It
was about twenty minutes and ten miles away, but very close to the airport.
“Roger.”
“Get there real quick, 188.”
I
was convinced that the dispatcher could judge my real distance to any stand, to
within a couple of miles anyway, simply by the tone of my voice.
It was a quiet residential
neighborhood. I parked too far from the
address and had to walk up the hill. I
heard a commotion. When I got to the
house, a man about sixty, with white hair, was lying on his back and a man of
about thirty was sitting on him, bashing the older man’s head onto the cement
driveway.
I
ran up to them and pried the young man off.
A woman with chestnut hair and white skin was standing in the doorway,
in her housecoat. They started to go at
it again and I pushed the young guy away.
It wasn’t difficult: they were both drunk. I held them apart with outstretched
arms. The young guy had obviously made
his point and had the best of all possible worlds: he had demonstrated to the
white-haired man that he would have killed him if I had let him and yet he
wasn’t actually obliged to carry out the act.
After
a few minutes of glaring at each other, while the woman pleaded with them to go
home, the young guy gave in, went to his car and drove away. Then the older guy got into his car and drove
off.
“I
don’t know how I can thank you,” she said.
“You
have real helpful neighbors,”
I said, looking at the deserted street. I asked, “Who called the cab?”
“I
don’t know. I didn’t.”
I
looked appreciatively at her legs. She
said, “I don’t
know how to thank you.”
I
asked, “Who were they?”
She
looked ashamed. “He’s my
ex-husband. The older man is his
father.”
“I
thought the young guy was going to kill the older guy. I can’t believe it was his father.”
“I’m
so glad you came. I don’t know what I
would have done. It happened so
fast. Can I invite you in for a drink?”
“I
make it a rule not to drink when I’m driving.”
She
looked at me without saying anything.
Then she said again,
“I wish there was some way to thank you.”
She
was about thirty five, and pretty. I
thought of
“I
guess one beer wouldn’t hurt.”
A
little boy peeked out from the hall. She
said, gruffly, “Go
to bed.” He ran back to his bedroom. In
a soft voice, she told me to sit down while she got the drinks. When she returned from the kitchen, her
housecoat hung more loosely about her body and I could see magnificent thighs
outlined against the blue material of her night gown.
“What
were they arguing about?”
“My
ex accused his father of sleeping with me.”
I
didn’t say anything.
“Just because he lives here with me.”
She
was sitting next to me on the couch and I looked at her lap and was surprised
to see the dark triangle through her nightgown.
I thought that she looked like a woman who wouldn’t resist a stiff prick
very long and I didn’t believe her story about the old man.
“He
said I was hiding his father here but he was just staying here until he could
find something else.”
She
looked down and let her arms drop and I thought she looked guilty and that she
was feeling bad because she had seduced the old man. One of her breasts became visible and the
nipple slipped over the edge of her nightgown.
She raised her head slowly and looked into my eyes. I looked at her breast and thought, “I’ll bet the old
man was a real goat.” I looked back into
her eyes.
She
was waiting for me to make a move. I
thought, “I’ll have to pay for not accepting her offer, one way or another,”
and took a swig of beer. She gave a
disappointed grimace that turned into a smirk and when I lowered the can and
turned towards her again she was straightening her housecoat.
She
emptied her glass, got up, and went back to the kitchen. I took another swig of beer. She didn’t come back. I was ready to get up and leave without
waiting for her to return but after almost a minute, she came out of the
kitchen and said, “I really can’t thank you enough. He could have killed Jack.”
“Don’t
worry about it.” I got up.
I
said, “You’d better make sure the old man doesn’t come back.” She didn’t say anything. I moved towards the door. “Well, I shouldn’t finish this beer
anyway. I almost broke my rule. Thanks anyway.”
I
drove to the airport and it was completely dead. Turnbull was the only cab ahead of me and we
sat together for over an hour waiting for a plane to land. We agreed to have a beer after work. When a flight finally came in, I got a fare
all the way back to
“All
right 188, you be number 3.”
“Number
3,” I
echoed.” I was on
Once
on the freeway, I accelerated to about 85 miles an hour, and then, with the
27th street off ramp in sight I eased off the accelerator and coasted down the
off ramp towards the intersection doing about 60, seeing that I would make the
green light at the intersection with no problem.
“188,
where are you?”
“I’m sitting in front of the building.”
“Well, you’d better sit on your horn because
I’m getting another call. They say there
aren’t any more cabs left.”
“I’ll
go into the building and get them.”
I
replaced the microphone on its hook just before entering the intersection. A car ran the red light and passed in front
of me. I just barely heard and felt a
tick where my right bumper grazed his rear bumper. My rear license plate flew off, screaming
into the night sky like a lopsided, living Frisbee. He was already past me when my foot lifted
from the floorboard to hit the brakes. I
couldn’t even remember the color of the car.
I braked from sixty down to about twenty.
“Jesus H. Christ on a crutch.”
I
drove the rest of the way to the telephone company at twenty miles an hour
wondering where the license plate had landed.
It looked like it had flown up towards an old apartment building and I
wondered if I should go back there and see if it had caused any damage. I was worried that it might have entered an
open window and injured someone.
“188,
the Telephone company is calling again.”
“I’m
sitting right in front of the goddammed building man! Tell them to put on their bleeping glasses.”
I
pulled up to the building just as another cab was pulling away with a load of
telephone operators. I got out and went
into the building but it was empty. I
drove over to stand 105, in front of the
I
went into the hotel and headed for the bathroom, walking towards a drunk who
was about 40. He was talking to the
night clerk and a pretty blond girl, about 9, was hugging his back. He turned around and pushing her away said, “Get away from
me. I thought I told you I’ve had
enough.”
Her
face was flushed. She looked hurt, but
also looked as if she didn’t really believe him.
“Get
away from me. Go over there and sit on
the couch.”
He
pointed to four couches facing each other in a square in the lobby of the
hotel. I walked past him. He said, “Wait just a minute. I called a cab.”
“OK.” I knew there were no cabs in the area. They were all at the airport or talking
telephone operators home so I might as well take him.
He
took my arm and pulled me over to a dark corner, put his face close to mine,
and whispered, “Do
you see that girl?
I
moved back from the smell of alcohol.
The hotel clerk pretended not to notice us. “Yeah, what about her.”
She
was sitting on the couch. She looked
away from us, demurely. She was wearing
a summer dress that showed her chunky thighs pressed against the couch.
“I
can’t get rid of her man. You don’t know
what it’s like.”
I
thought that she might be his daughter and felt sorry for her.
“Who
is she?”
“She’s
my niece. I baby-sit
her. But she’s too much. All night last night, and
now tonight, again. I can’t take
it.” He looked desperate. “I can’t keep her off of me man. Do you know what I mean?”
I
looked at her and saw a very pretty preadolescent girl staring back at us. Her eyes caught me looking at her legs. It was late.
I thought I would probably miss Turnbull anyway and that I should just
leave and go back to the barn.
He
said, “You’ve
got to take her off my hands.”
I
didn’t know what to say.
He
said, “I’m too
drunk to drive. You’ve got to drive her
to my sister’s house for me.”
“Why
don’t you call your sister and have her pick her up?”
“She
ain’t home man. Anyway she don’t have no car.” He pulled
his wallet out and gave me five dollars.
“I
want you to take her home. She lives in
“Do
I know where
He
said, “
She
got in the front seat of the cab. I
could see that she was very pretty. She
noticed my appreciation and accepted it as if she were used to it. We started down
She
turned her torso and stretched her left arm over her body, pretending to try to
lock it. Her dress rose up high onto her
thighs.
I
said, “Yeah, if
you want to.”
She
turned around quickly and looked up at me with a lascivious smile. It was obvious that she had misinterpreted
what I said. I suddenly understood what
her uncle was trying to say. I
remembered Juanita’s daughter.
We
entered the tunnel. I looked at her
again. She stared back, boldly. She made a circle with her mouth and licked
the inside of her lips with a sweeping motion of her tongue. I pretended that I hadn’t noticed. Out of sheer curiosity I looked at her again,
this time with a flicker of encouragement.
She pulled her dress up quickly.
She wasn’t wearing panties.
I
said, “You
shouldn’t do that.”
She
lowered her dress.
I
said, “It’s all
right. I guess you’ve been drinking.”
She
was silent.
“Haven’t
you.”
“Yes.”
She
looked like she was about nine years old.
I felt ashamed of myself. We
drove in tense silence and when we got to her darkened house, I didn’t wait to
see if she had got in the door safely.
Two
and a half beers into the pitcher I said to Turnbull, “A nine year old tried to seduce me
tonight.”
He
stared at me.
“I’m
not kidding. She... it was incredible.”
He
said dryly, “Let
me tell you about it.” He looked at me
warily, sizing me up and reading my face to see what I was ready to hear. As a form of charity, I suppose, he usually
assumed that I lied as much as he did.
I
call it “charity,” because Turnbull thought that no self-respecting soul, that
is, no self-respecting soul that was only a cab driver, could allow itself to
actually live and experience life except through literature and fantasy. If my adventures were true, and they were
always just barely and exasperatingly believable, because nothing truly
outlandish ever happened to me, then I was an inferior soul who contented
itself with a B-movie life. If, on the
other hand, what I said was fantasy, well then I simply had an inferior imagination
and he could live with that.
I
said, “I wish
you would.”
“Well,
first, tell me what happened to you.”
I
related most of it, giving in to a little fantasy at the end, as my form of
charity towards him.
He
said, “A little
bitch like that can be incredibly seductive.
As I started to say, when I was a kid, I got my first piece of ass
before I entered puberty. We were both
ten at the time. We were together for
three years until her old man finally got transferred to
He
took a swig of beer and laughed.
“So
you were a fucking child molester at 11.”
“And 12 and 13. But
it didn’t bother either one of us too much until I discovered what a real cunt
could do. But that’s another story.”
He
cleared his throat rather too theatrically and I thought he was probably making
it all up.
“After
that, it seemed like we spent all our afternoons looking through a magnifying
glass for the first hair.” He took
another swig and cleared his throat again, “Well, I won’t tell you about her
mother’s friend. You probably wouldn’t
believe me anyway.” He poured his fourth
glass and added, “Remind
me to tell you about it sometime.”
“I
will.”
“Anyway,
what would probably interest you is that my next girl friend had a sister and
the little cunt begged me to fuck her, and I did, but she was another one of
those 11 year olds who resemble our national emblem, the bald eagle, in the
place where it counts.” He paused for my
smirk.
“Well,
to make a long story short, her mother found out, and called me a fucking child
molester. I mean I was fourteen years
old man and she called me a child molester.
She threatened to call the police if I ever showed up again. You can imagine what that does to your
ego. And I was trying to do the little
bitch a favor by fucking her.”
I
said, unguardedly, “That’s
really hard to believe.” I looked at him
skeptically through the glass of my upturned beer mug.
He
said, “I swear
to God, William, may the merciful father take me away and trample upon my soul
in the hot place if I’m not telling the truth.
I mean it was a traumatic experience.
I mean really traumatic.” He took
a long gulp of beer, like a man who wants to get drunk quick.
I
remembered that I had promised
I
took my leave and fifteen minutes later, found myself walking up the carpeted
stairs, towards her room, slightly drunk and wanting to make love.
When
I reached her room I heard loud snoring coming from her bed. I took off my clothes and just before I
lifted the covers I noticed that the hair on the pillow was dark brown. Mary was sleeping in
I
suddenly remembered that Mary had very graciously offered to change rooms with
I
heard
We
could hear Mary snoring loudly from behind the curtain. She shut the door behind us and said, “Already thinking of two timing me heh?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“How
was your night?”
“Oh, not too bad.
Well, remind me to tell you about it tomorrow.”
We
made love and it seemed like I had just dropped off to sleep when I heard a
scream coming through the wall. “There’s
a man on my roof!”
I
said, “Oh
shit.”
I
put on my pants and opened the door just as Mary was emerging from the
cubbyhole that had been
Tilly
came out into the hall, wild-eyed. She
screamed, “It’s
Julian. He’s standing on the roof. It’s not like him. He must be on something.”
“Yeah,” I thought, “Like the roof.” I asked, “Do you want me to go out there and
talk with him?”
Tilly
yelled, “Oh, God no. That would just
make it worse. Don’t let him see
you. Go back to your room.”
That
didn’t seem like the right thing to do.
“Maybe if he just sees my face, it will scare him and he’ll go away.”
“No,
please, go away. I’ll handle it. Oh, it’s my fault.” She ran back to her room
and talked to him through the open window.
“Julian, get off the roof and go home.
Please. I’ll talk to you tomorrow
morning. I promise.”
“Don’t
do anything.”
The
three of us stood in the hall while Tilly pleaded with Julian, “Please get down.”
A
loud yell came from the roof.
Tilly
shrieked, “Oh
my God, he’s going to break the window.”
She came running back into the hall and hid
behind me.
“I’d
better show myself now before it’s too late,” I muttered. I ducked my head into her room. He saw me, a look of terror came over his
face and he disappeared. I heard him
jump from the roof. We heard voices in
the driveway below and then we heard an engine start and a car driving
away.
I
said, “Well, it
looks like he’s gone. We can either go
down stairs and have a drink, or go back to bed.”
The
three women looked at me as if they would do whatever I said. I offered, “Well, why don’t we just go back to
sleep?”
I
don’t know about them, but I slept like a baby.