Taxi
a short story
by Chip Kussmaul
I wonder how many dreams have ultimately condensed down into driving a taxi. A young suburban high school graduate hits the city, planning on making it big. Acting, writing, painting, musician, who knows what. The city is where their dreams will come true. Actors and singers audition. Writers and painters submit to galleries and contests. They all take classes, intending to make connections as much as to learn.
But in no time at all their savings are gone, spent much more quickly than they anticipated, so they drive a taxi between auditions and classes. Time goes by, and after a while it’s more like they’re auditioning and taking classes in between driving a taxi.
When they first came to San Francisco and people asked them what they do, they said they were an actor. Now people ask them what they do, and they tell them they drive a taxi. But the dream is always there.
I drive a taxi but that’s not me. I was going to be a jet pilot. I was going to go to college, qualify for the Air Force and literally rise above it all.
But things don’t always go according to plan.
Me and Sue. We met in high school, in Mill Valley, back in the nineties. That’s a great age, high school. They used to say, “Old enough to know better, too young to care.” That was us. We were all sure we had control of our future, that dreaming it would make it so. Sue was an actress, starred in every school play. When I think of it, she was always on stage, all the time. She lived with her mother and sister, her father having departed for points unknown.
Something about her. I suppose if you look at just the facts, Sue wasn’t so different from many of us. But she was gorgeous. OK, there are other gorgeous girls. It was just something about Sue, some unfathomable combination of natural born star and girl next door. She could wear her black hair down, all wavey, and wear the latest trendy clothes, and make you think she came from royalty, that you were not to speak to her unless spoken to. Or she could put her hair in a ponytail, wear jeans and a tee shirt, and make you think of her like a sister. She was whatever she wanted to be, whenever she felt like it.
There were about eight of us who hung together, smoking pot and shooting shit. Wherever adults were absent, that’s where we were. Parents’ basements, behind the bleachers. A lot of time at Buster’s Restaurant. Buster was cool. We could spend hours there and spend only a little money. We would discuss our futures, where we were headed. We couldn’t wait to blow out of this little town, go someplace, and make our mark in the world. The world was anxiously awaiting our arrival, helpless without the benefit of our intentions. If talk was all it takes, we’d have ruled the world before we graduated.
Dreams. We all had them. We all talked, reinforced each other, I guess. Blind leading the blind, really. What did any of us know?
We kind of took turns being each other’s boyfriends and girlfriends. It got tense at times, minor skirmishes among the boys, and the girls had their girl issues. We were all learning the ropes, and nobody took any of it too seriously. Sue was a prize worth seeking, but the other girls were just fine, too. We were all building our resumes, I guess, for when we invaded the real world.
But I felt like me and Sue were special. We were too young for a reliable perspective, but I felt it, anyway. I never tried to force it, but I always figured that, in the end, it would be her and me forever.
I said I was going to be a jet pilot. That was my dream. I took some classes at the local airport. I figured I’d be a licensed pilot even before I got to college, and be well on my way to the Air Force after college. But pot got in the way. I took two lessons at the airport, from Buddy Miller. I didn’t like him, and he didn’t like me. He was ex-military and couldn’t quite adjust to life in the real world. And, well, maybe I couldn’t, either. He smelled pot on me on my third time out and just sent me home and told me to not come back. What an asshole.
But I guess it’s on me. I was going to find somewhere else to train, but it never quite happened. After high school, when I went to college, I’d find a place to train.
We graduated. I look back now, with a little more perspective, and see that we were nothing more than the usual high school kids, doing more dreaming than preparing. Still, those were some great years. Sue moved to LA to hit the bigtime. She had no idea what she would face. Still, she was gorgeous and knew how to draw a crowd, and we figured she’d be a star soon enough. And when she became one, she promised us she’d have us all to her place in Beverly Hills for one hell of a party. I think we all believed it. I know she did.
Me, I went to City College to study applied science. I figured that would impress the Air Force. I was short on funds, and found a job driving a taxi in San Francisco. The trouble with college, and especially applied science, is that you have to study to do well. I never really gave up my party attitude, and I suppose that was the biggest problem. Same for flying lessons. Five more lessons, at a different airport. I was getting pretty good, but they invited me to not come back. Like Buddy, they had a problem with me being stoned.
So, I went to school less, flew less, drove a taxi more. After all these years I can’t pretend I’m a student driving a taxi to get through school. The Air Force is beyond even imagination. I’m a taxi driver. That’s it, that’s all. The funny thing is, my driving record is perfect. I really could fly a jet.
Life goes on, is all. They say that life is what happens while you’re busy making plans. I get it, but the plans slowly evaporated away and now it’s just life, with no plans. But listen to me. I like what I’ve got. I have good friends who know how to party. Various girlfriends who don’t demand too much. I’ve got a good life, even if things didn’t go according to plan.
Anyway one evening, a Saturday, about ten pm, I picked up a fare. It was raining, hard to see, but a middle aged woman flagged me down at the corner near the Hyatt. She got in, sort of water logged in spite of the umbrella. She backed in, bringing the umbrella in after she closed it. She gave me the address in Pacific Heights, and I pulled away from the curb. The light had just turned green, and I had to let a few cars get past me, and then I pulled into traffic.
There was a strange quiet inside the cab. Not noiseless, what with the rain and the sound of tires sloshing, but quiet. The cab interior seemed like a world removed from reality, outside distractions were meaningless in here. In the mirror I saw that the woman was in a rather poor state, makeup a little off, maybe because of the rain. She reached into her purse, pulled out a cigarette and lit it, in spite of the no smoking sign. It didn’t matter to me. I studied her face in the mirror, finding moments in between watching the road. She was staring blankly out the window.
“You look familiar,” I said. “Have I seen you before?” She could easily have been a star.
She continued to look out the window. “No, I don’t think you’ve seen me before.”
A few moments later, she turned her head and our eyes met in the mirror. We studied each other a moment. In that moment, we recognized each other. It was only a second, but so much passed between our eyes. Her expression changed.
“Sue?” I asked.
“Harry!” she responded. There was a twinge of sadness.
“How long’s it been?” I asked. “Every bit of twenty years.”
She exhaled a steady stream of smoke. “Twenty years...” Something caught her attention outside the window for a moment, then her eyes returned to the mirror. “Things happen in twenty years, don’t they?”
“They sure do.” She was no longer a close friend that I could say just anything to, but what the hell, “So, I was expecting to see your name in lights. I’ve looked for your name, haven’t seen it.”
“No, you haven’t,” she said wistfully. The smoke from her cigarette wafted in front of her face. “I came to LA full of hope. The trouble is, there’s thousands of us, full of hope. I got some parts, but was more of a waitress than an actress. I was sure my career would take off. Maybe it would have, but I got tired of it. I just couldn’t keep trying.”
“Well, you know you tried.”
“Yes, I guess…So, what about you?”
Why was I picking up fares in a cab instead of flying a jet, was what she was asking. “I don’t know. My life got in the way of being a pilot. It started off good. I went to City College to study applied science. And I took some flying lessons. I really can fly a plane, I just don’t have a license.”
She smiled and exhaled all at once. “That would be a problem, I imagine.”
“Turns out, it is. Turns out you have to jump thru a lot of hoops that I’m just not made to jump through. Ability is only part of it. The ability to play the game, go along. That’s the skill I don’t have. I guess I never will.”
She stubbed out the cigarette in something she had in her purse, and closed it up. Considerate. Others would have stubbed it on the floor of the cab. “Play the game,” she repeated absently, looking at nothing in the window. “I guess that’s a skill I didn’t have enough of. I played it, all right. Played and lost. I went to all the right parties, did all the right things, but others played it better. I guess I was never going to be more than a minor leaguer. Sooner or later, you just decide to quit the game.”
I glanced in the mirror. I saw sadness and resolution. She looked at me looking at her. She was exposed in a way she never had been in all the time I’d known her. And she looked better for it. “Life goes on,” is all I could think to say.
“Life goes on,” she confirmed.
We were silent for a moment as I negotiated my way around an accident.
“So, did you ever marry?” Sue asked.
“Yes. Twice. Divorced twice. Perfect record. What about you?”
“Oh, I’m married. Been married for ten years. To a surgeon.”
“That explains the Pacific Heights address.”
She laughed. A sad sort of laugh. “Sure does.”
I waited for more, but she didn’t offer it. So I asked. “How did you end up with a surgeon?”
“How do you think? I needed surgery. Gall bladder, of all things.”
“Most woman who get their gall bladder removed don’t marry the surgeon.” I grinned thru the mirror. “I think you’re leaving out a few things.”
“Less than you might think. I’m attractive, he has money. I wish I could make it sound better than that, but that’s what it is. Don’t get me wrong. We have a good relationship, but my looks and his money are the glue that hold us together.”
Sue said this, and I sensed that she’s said it to herself many times before. At any rate, she was comfortable with it. What more can you ask?
We rode quietly, digesting our discussion. Dreams. Can they come true? Or are they just some opiate that gets us thru a life we never thought of? In the end, we are who we are, all day, every day. Our dreams are not of who we are but of who we wish we were. Sue and I have learned a lot in twenty years. You can’t go wrong with knowing who you are, and living by that instead of by dreams.
The rain had finally stopped as I pulled into her driveway, thru the gate, drove perhaps 250 feet to where the drive circled around a large, tiered fountain. I stopped at the front double doors of the three story mansion.
“Thanks, Harry,” Sue said as she placed her card against the reader.
“If I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have started the meter.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She left me a fifty dollar tip. I should have declined it, but I could use it, and she doesn’t need it. “We should get together, talk about old times,” she said.
But she offered no number, and I knew that we wouldn’t. “Yes, let’s get together. Anyway, it’s been great talking with you. Looks like things worked out for you, even if not the way you planned.”
She was out of the cab, looking back in at me, then up at the mansion that dwarfed both of us, and then back in at me. “No, not the way I planned...Take care, Harry.” She closed the door and I pulled away. I could see her in my review. She stood motionless, except to give me a final wave. Some dreams never die.
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People with a certain number of miles on their odometer might recognize this story line. This story is my interpretation of Harry Chapin’s song, “Taxi,” from 1972.
What an absolutely well written story. So true for many of us. Please read you won't regret it. Enjoy!
Managed to capture that eternal fear of 'failure', really cool bit of writing fr!