Melissa Plaut - Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What to Do with My Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab

CONTENTS

To cabbies on the streets everywhere
but especially the New York hacks

And also
to
Ariel Schrag

Hack (hk)

Function: noun

Etymology: short for hackney

1. a horse hired for riding or driving.

2. an old or worn-out horse used in service.

3. a coach or carriage kept for hire; hackney.

4. one who performs unpleasant or distasteful tasks for money.

5. a writer who does routine or commercial work, primarily for money.

6. Informal .

a. a taxicab.

b. a cab driver.

CHAPTER 1

I was an hour into my shift when I picked them up. Two guys in their early twenties got in at Canal and Broadway wanting to go to the tow pound in Brooklyn Heights to pick up their car. It was 5:00 P.M. and I knew traffic would be bad, but I didnt really have a choice. When they flagged me down, one of them held the back door open as he waited for the other to get a slice of pizza in the store. I started the meter but was already annoyed. Its a shitty way to begin any ride when they hold you hostage like that.

It was only when they got settled in the backseat that I realized they had been drinking. They were loopy and happy, but maybe a little too relaxed.

Holy shit, look! Its a chick!

What? the other one answered.

Look! Our cab drivers a woman!

Oh, weird. They both gaped at me for a second, absorbing. Then, Hey, can we smoke pot in here?

I said no.

Can we smoke a cigarette in here?

Again, no.

Ive never really understood why people want to smoke cigarettes so badly when theyre in a cab. Its not like theyre gonna be in there for hours or anything. Most likely theyll be in the cab for about ten minutes, maybe a half hour if theres traffic. And at the end of the ride theyll be able to smoke.

In the cab, however, its illegal. Not like Im some stickler for the law or anything, but Im not gonna risk a $200 ticket, plus points on my license, for some shithead who cant stall his impulses until he gets out of my cab. The only reason to let people smoke is because you hope theyll show their appreciation by giving a bigger tip. But the few times Ive allowed it, it just wasnt worth it. So what? They gave me an extra two dollars? Big deal. It totally didnt make up for the stress I experienced the entire time they were smoking. Plus, the smell lingers in the back, and when you get upper-crust antismoking Park Avenue types back there after that, youre screwed. They get upset and pretend to cough, and leave an even shittier tip than the shitty tip theyd already planned on leaving. Its just not worth it.

Of course, I smoke in the cab. But only under special circumstances. Like when Im alone on my way back from far out in the boroughs or something, and I know the NYPD and the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) cops wont see me, nor will they give a shit if they do. They really only care about stuff like that in Manhattan. And my reasoning is, since Im stuck in the cab for twelve hours a night, Im entitled to a smoke every now and then.

Anyway, we were sitting in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, and I heard that signature sound of beer cans cracking open. I called back to them, Are you guys drinking beer back there?

A guilty No reached my ears.

No, seriously, are you? I heard the cans open and if you spill anything, youll be putting me out of business for the night. And if the cops see us, Ill get a huge ticket. Please, just dont spill it, okay? At that point, it was the most I could ask for since I couldnt really kick them out on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Actually, I probably couldve if I really wanted to. Paul the crazy Romanian dispatcher once told me a story about kicking a passenger out on the side of the Long Island Expressway. They were on their way to JFK airport and the passenger got mad because there was traffic, so he did what many other irrational assholic passengers have donehe blamed it on the driver. He started saying, Im not gonna pay for this. Youre running up the meter. This is preposterous. But all Paul was doing was sitting in traffic, trying to get to JFK as fast as possible.

Some people seem to think that going slow and sitting in traffic is good for a cabbie since the meter is running. This couldnt have been more wrong back when Paul had his run-in, or during my first two years behind the wheel. The meter ran when the taxi was idling, yes, but it clicked off at a much slower pace than it would have if the cab had been moving. Traffic had an inverse relationship to our income, and we would essentially be losing money for the amount of time we were stuck sitting still. It was called waiting time, but it should have been called wasting time, since back then the rate for it hadnt been raised since 1990.

In December 2006, the TLC finally agreed to an increase, doubling the waiting rate in order to almost catch up with the normal wage. But before this change took place, the meter used to tick off forty cents for every two minutes sitting still or in slow-moving traffic, which translated into $12 an hour. This was nothing compared to the forty cents we would get for every fifth of a mile driven while the cab was moving, which, if you were luckyand fastcould bring in between $30 and $40 an hour.

The worst thing about the preDecember 2006 waiting rate was that it didnt even come close to what we needed to cover our regular shift expenses. Each twelve-hour shift, cabbies pay whats called a lease fee to take the cab, which is between $111 and $132, depending on which night youre working. This is the money we have to make back, plus our gas expenses, in order to break even, and that takes up the first four or five hours of the shiftsometimes more, sometimes less. After that, everything we earn is ours to keep, but the stress of starting out at around $160 in the hole sucks. Before the TLC increased the waiting rate, if I sat still with the meter on for the full twelve hours of my shift, I wouldve ended up owing money to the garage at the end of the night.

So Paul kicked the guy out of the cab, luggage and all, right there on the shoulder of the highway in the middle of nowhere Queens.

But I wasnt gonna do that, as much as I wanted to. These guys were assholes, but they were nice assholes. I mean, they werent trying to be assholes. They started getting rowdy in the backseat, punching each other and play fighting, calling each other dickhead and cocksucker and bitch. Which was all fine, except the cab was shaking from the motion and I was afraid their beers were gonna spill, so I started throwing out empty threats. If you guys dont chill the fuck out, I will kick you out right here. Calm down, okay? If they forced me to, I would do it, but I really didnt want to.