There are a few places where I don’t go late in the evening. Some nightclubs have a reputation for drunken violence, and while I appreciate that their patrons have a need to get home, I’ve had too many scares to go seeking them out.
I delivered a family to a late dinner at a Thai restaurant, and here, fresh out of the boisterous nightclub beside it, was a beefy chap in his mid thirties, staggering on his feet and slurred in his speech. I am not obliged to accept passengers under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and this chap looked to be a prime example of the distressed drinker at the far end of both sobriety and money.
But, frankly, on a Saturday night, if I confined myself to sober gentlefolk, I’d have a very thin time of it indeed.
Besides, there was something about this chap. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d already stumbled into the front seat, having some difficulty getting his limbs to do what he wanted.
I sighed. “Where to?”
With any luck, he’d be headed back into the city, where I would have no trouble finding a fresh passenger.
“Theodore,” he slurred.
Great. Another few suburbs further out. No chance of a fare back at this time of night.
At least I was driving a nice car. It’s a pleasure to drive in Canberra, an even greater pleasure in a limousine, leather seats and lots of goodies.
Yes, I’m back driving Silver Service again. I started off the night driving a standard Ford Falcon in Canberra Cabs livery temporarily wearing the plates of Taxi 58, my lovely Fairlane that I bent a couple of weeks back. The evening rush had died down, and I was waiting on Manuka rank sipping a takeaway cappuccino from Artoven.
Got a call from the owner, who asked me to bring the car into the workshop, a few minutes away. When I arrived, he asked me to log off, and resume my shift in my Fairlane, freshly repaired and repainted. “Not 100%,” said the mechanic, “and we’ll get you to bring it back tomorrow for some more work.”
I didn’t mind. Getting back into Silver Service uniform, driving a nicer car, being a chauffeur rather than a driver - I can put up with a lot for that privilege.
While I was swapping my kit over, Fred, another one of the owner’s regular drivers, wandered in. “Some galah just wiped off the side of my taxi,” he complained. “They didn’t give right of way. Look at the car!”
Taxi 8 was looking very sad, scrapes along the side, door bent, side mirror hanging off loose.
And here was the mechanic, unscrewing the plates from the cab I'd just vacated, moving them to my Fairlane, and then taking the plates off the damaged Taxi 8 to screw onto the unhurt Falcon. It was musical taxis!
The bottom line was that we were both back on the road and earning money again within a few minutes. That’s the taxi business for you - get the drivers out on the road, passengers in the seats, wheels turning, meter running. Sometimes it’s like a racetrack pits, with sets of tires swapped over in five minutes, brakes changed in the blink of an eye. It’s rare that a taxi engine gets cold.
I hurried home, changed my uniform from Canberra Cabs blue to the more upmarket grey and white of Silver Service, quickly ran the car through the carwash to get rid of the workshop’s dust, and was busy earning money again, a happy smile on my face.
So, some hours later I was keeping a wary eye on my very drunk passenger as we headed for the outer suburbs. He wanted to talk. Trouble was that he was having difficulty finding the words and getting them out. He was sozzled.
I’d had Dave Brubeck playing piano jazz on the iPhone video, but I sized up this chap, decided he wasn’t a jazz man, and selected Dire Straits “Sultans of Swing” instead. He was fascinated.
“Wozzat?”
I explained how I’d loaded music videos into my computer and then used iTunes to transfer them across to the iPhone.
“Whaffor? Ya watch it while yer drivin’?”
“No, I’ve seen them all before. I like the music, but the videos are for the passengers.”
He looked at me. And then back to the video. Mark Knopfler is a genius with the guitar.
“Why?”
“For people to watch and enjoy. Make them happy. I work on the basis that a happy passenger equals a happy cabbie.”
He pondered this for a while.
“But why?”
Why was I explaining my life philosophy to a drunken man, I wondered. In the morning he’d have a fuzzy head and maybe a dim memory of a mad cabbie who spruiked gibberish in the middle of the night.
“Life’s too short to be unhappy and uncomfortable. I like what I do, I like getting people home safely, and if we’re all happy, then it’s not a job, it’s a joy. I feel I’ve done something good in the world.”
He looked at me.
“I’ve been in seven countries, lived in five states, and ridden in hundreds of taxis, and you’re the only one to do something like that.” He gestured at the iPhone.
“I’m an officer in the army, and I’m just back from Afghanistan,” he continued, “and I’m the same. I do my best, I do a good job. And nobody cares.”
I looked at him. He might have been far gone in drink, but there was a light burning in his eyes that I generally don’t see in my passengers. It all came into focus in that moment.
Me, I’m a dilettante. My life isn’t dangerous or difficult. I aim for happiness all round, and I generally achieve it. Parking my bottom on soft leather seats, setting the climate control to comfortable, and driving on wide empty roads with romantic songs lazing in my ears, that’s no chore. My overseas holidays are spent strolling along picturesque boulevards, browsing through bookshops and art galleries, sampling the local wines.
This man beside me, his time abroad is spent in danger and dirt, hot sun and freezing rain, a set of camouflage fatigues his everyday wear. The best years of his life are spent in the service of his country, fighting unspeakable evil. He’s doing the best he can, and if he feels the need for a relaxing drink or two, then I’ll not begrudge him that.
I pulled up outside his suburban home, he opened the door and wobbled up the drive, and I saluted his departing form.
Maybe I was driving Silver Service, but this man was solid gold.
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