True Tales from a Tall Guy – Episode 1

It was the summer of 2001 which basically started when I turned 30 on June 5th. Two weeks later I got riffed from a dot.com that was at its 4th location using its 4th name. Ventured into online dating via nerve.com, did a pitch for creating John Grisham’s website with some friends, did the occasional court summons service for cash (including one at the projects by the United Center, on my bike!), and saw Radiohead in Grant Park. Good times and plenty of good stories. Somehow along the way I got the romantic notion that maybe I could be “my own boss” if I drove a cab. In between fares I perhaps could catch ordinary moments of Chicago with my digital camera and find happiness being professionally aloof.

How does one officially become a cab driver you ask? For me at the time, it started with attending a two week program at the Harold Washington Community College downtown. I’d ride my bike down from the Gold Coast and spend all day with folks who were there for real classes, not just going through some bureaucratic hoop. Think of a Food Handler’s permit type class but for two weeks along with mandatory bus tours on the Saturdays.

I was the only white guy in our class, which apparently was even more of a rarity than just this particular sample size, that it prompted one instructor to ask me why I was doing it. Because in her mind she wondered why I couldn’t get a job doing anything else other than this. Half were African, the other half Middle Eastern including one Israeli who suffered a few hisses from time to time. Yes, grown men hissing like school kids because of their affiliations. Not unlike the kid who dared to wear an Oklahoma shirt at my grade school in Nebraska. I ascertained this demographic breakdown when we went around the room and stated our name and where we were from. A Pakistani named Danish, an Iraqi with the surname Hussain (with an ‘a ‘ not an ‘e ‘ like Saddam), and a Nigerian named Owomoyela whose name I could pronounce with ease, thanks to having a film professor of the same name at UNL. A diverse group, but not really. When it was my turn to share I decided to ham it up a bit and say my name but changed my land of origin to Pakistan. Dead silence. I quickly fessed up that I was from Nebraska. Laughter. Later that day I asked Danish, who I became friends with, why nobody blinked when I said ‘Pakistan’. He explained that there are folks as light as me in Karachi. OK, fair enough, but why did ‘Nebraska’ get such a laugh. “Because it’s funny” he said, which provided me with no additional insight whatsoever. Worth noting but not really surprising is that there were no women. I know there are a handful of female cab drivers in Chicago but a far lower percentage than other cities I’ve visited, like say Las Vegas.

Topics varied from day to day so that kept things interesting. Guests included a blind advocate who spoke about dealing with service dogs and the handling of money. A former cop shared stories and discussed legal issues. For me the biggest takeaway from him was his advising against having a gun, or any weapon really, in the cab with you because you’ll only lose it to the attacker and things will end much worse than it otherwise would. Diversity training, dealing with variances of different cultures. How to work with cab companies and knowing the rules to protect yourself.  Learning the insanity that is picking up a fare from the airports. But the main topic that was covered was the streets themselves. The numbering, the quirks of vanity addresses, and anything else you could think about, like which streets are one way downtown and shortcuts on Lower Wacker. A majority of the questions on the license exam dealt with geography so this was a huge component to understand. I had an advantage because when I first moved to Chicago four years earlier, I studied the CTA maps and learned the main streets mostly from their connection with the subway stops. One thing I didn’t know was the trick “OddSE”– if the street number you’re looking for is an odd number, then it will either be on the south side or east side of the street; even numbers being on the north or west. (You’re welcome!)

The Saturday bus tours were just bizarre. Our class was combined with the night session to fill a large bus. Brilliant August afternoons being taken around by old white Southsiders, entertaining a full load of immigrants. The first Saturday we drove around downtown to show how best to navigate around the hotels, identify spots to avoid, and where some of the more popular tourist spots were. Again, it was a Southsider talking into the mic using colloquialisms that did not make any sense to my classmates. He would sprinkle in the Blue-eyed Devil comment from time to time for levity or disdain, I really could never tell. For the record, my eyes are brown. The second Saturday was a tour of the South Side to show how safe it was and not to fear going south. Mind you, we were traveling to Beverly, not Bronzeville. This time it was the former cop narrating the tour and continued the trend of using phrases that a person new to Chicago would never understand. I enjoyed seeing the city from a different perspective but I felt bad for my fellow passengers who I think only got 20% of the intended value out of the tour and that was just simply from seeing the area.

Course complete, now to take the exam. You could only get 4 or 5 wrong out of 50 and again, it was heavily focused on geography. I passed and got my picture taken right then and there. Yeah, look at me, I have a license to drive a cab in Chicago! I was later notified that I made the Honor Roll at Harold Washington for that session, so my academic record remained exemplary.

Obviously I wanted to work with a known cab company so I went to Yellow. Now, I’m not a morning person and figured I’d drive at night anyway, so I arrived at 11am asking about leasing a cab. There were none available and I was informed that I would have to get there earlier if you wanted a cab. Ugh, fine,whatever. Though unemployed, my schedule was filled with random acts of laziness and holidays and birthdays. After all it was summer in Chicago and I had the freedom that unemployment afforded me. This all ended after that second Tuesday in September.

To be continued…