Trumpland taxi.

                                       

The cab driver is holding on to the steering wheel as if it’s a life support system – which it is - for me. We’re rocketing up Madison Avenue one day last week in a summer storm so dramatic that I wouldn't have been surprised if frogs had fallen from the sky. I’m 'riding shotgun' next to the driver, feeling glad my life insurance is paid up. He’s telling me about the court case he’s just won.

“Yeah, I got sixty-five thousand dollars, after the lawyer got his. I was mad, you know, ‘cos I was hoping for a decent piece of change. But the system's rigged, like The Donald says. We all know that, right?” 

I eschew politics, deciding it's probably not a good idea to argue with Trump supporters of any size, let alone my huge driver, in the enclosed space of a rapidly moving vehicle. So I say I think his settlement seems a good one. He shakes his head.

“Nah, nah, nah. Listen, that landlord coulda killed me and my family with the carbon monoxide poison in that motel. But you know how long it took to bring my case to court? Guess.”

I say I have no idea.

“No, just guess.”

I look sideways, surveying his bulk. I estimate his weight as close to three hundred pounds, about one hundred thirty-six kilos. I can see no neck between his shoulders and his head and the lower rim of the steering wheel is tucked somewhere under his belly. He’s breathing heavily from the excitement of telling me about his battle with American jurisprudence. He seems neither healthy nor happy.  

I decide to guess how long his case takes to come to court. 

“I don't know; maybe a year?”

“A year? A year? Fugghedaboutit! Four years it took to get some crappy justice for me and my family.”

I say that seems a long time.

“So the judge coulda given us a million, maybe a million-five but my lawyer – a total sleaze ball, you unnerstan' - wants to settle, 'cos maybe the judge gives us nuttin’. Then the lawyer gets nuttin’ – you know what I’m sayin’?” 

He looks sideways for longer than feels safe. He has wispy hair and seen-it-all eyes. Above black eyebrows, his brow shines with sweat.

“I see,” I say, pointing ahead in a vain attempt to move his concentration back to the road, ”so you paid your lawyer a contingency fee?” He glances ahead  before turning his gaze back to me.

“Yeah, whatever. Contingency. That’s it.” He mulls this injustice for a moment as he races to beat a red light. He resumes: “So we’re standing outside the court, waitin’ to go in on the first day and the landlord’s lawyer – another sleaze ball – he comes over and says ‘A hundred thousand and we’re outta here.’ So my lawyer turns to me – he’s Sicilian by the way, Filippo Maniscalco - you know him? No? Anyway, this schmuck asks ‘Whaddya think?’ What am I supposed to think? He’s the friggin’ lawyer, right? So I says ‘you’re the lawyer’ and then my wife shoves me and she says ‘Take the money!’ Then the kids start yellin’ ‘Yeah Pop, take the money!’ I mean, what do they know? Darren’s five and Tiffany’s four. I mean: What. Do. They. Know? You tell me.” He swings his head sideways, staring at me until I realize that the cab will mount the sidewalk unless I give him an answer. 

“So what was your lawyer’s advice?”

He sneers before looking back at the  road “He told me to take the money ‘cos he could see a third of it for his wallet and he said he wasn’t sure the judge would rule for us and then we’d both end up with nuttin’.” He shakes his head. “For this he went to law school? A total pussy!”

He grimaces. “So I took the money. Like I said, it was sixty-five thousand after the lawyer took his. And that's before the IRS dips its beak." His shakes his head.  "I dunno; I was hopin’ for enough to quit, head for the Keys, you know what I’m sayin’?” He stops talking for five seconds to make a right on Ninety-Third Street. Then he gives me a questioning look. “You make much? Whacha do’?’

I sidestep this by asking him if his children were affected by the carbon monoxide.

“Hell, no. We was outta there as soon as I sniffed it. But they coulda, they coulda."

I say I understand that carbon monoxide is odorless.

He bangs the wheel. "Hey, listen, mister: I’ve been driving a cab since I was twenty. I know from carbon monoxide.”

Suddenly, and with a huge exhalation of air, he twists his great body and, for another alarmingly long time, looks into the back of the cab 

“Hey, youse in the back there, how're doin'? You wet?”

My two friends, who have been sitting silently in the back seat - struck dumb either by the cabby’s story or his insane speed – say, as if on cue, ‘A bit.’ 

“Yeah, sorry about that but I gotta keep the windows open on account of the fumes. I gotta leak somewhere. I’m still figurin’ it.”

Brian Clewly Johnson

Amagansett, NY

August 2016