Category: Taxicabs

Bragging: More Words by Me

5/13/2013

I have a few new publications to list and brag about….

“Baby Never Grew,” a short story at Chagrin River Review. It’s a story that was written for my West Virginia book-in-progress, and then got cut. Maybe I’ll put it back in—it’s worth reading!

“Something Else Finally Happened,” a short story at Amarillo Bay. A story about a writing class—yes, I’ve been in a few of those over the years….

“Beset by Demons,” is in the anthology/journal Tales from the Concrete Highway, published by Workers Write! A cab-driving story, with some bad behavior in it….

I also have a West Virginia story, “Guernsey Cows,” that has been accepted by Kestrel. It won’t come out until the fall, though, and so I’ll hold off bragging about it until then….

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Objects and Memory, Again

7/5/2012

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And so the packing for my impending move to Kansas continues, and I came across this t-shirt:

My psychic powers tell me, dear reader, that you have two questions about this object.

The first question is, How Did You Acquire the Shirt?

In October of 2000 I was driving the cab early one morning, and I got a call to the emergency room at St. David’s Hospital. When I pulled up, a guy and two young women came out and got into the car. The guy was wearing a jacket but no shirt, and was carrying this shirt and a plastic bag. One of the young women told me he’d been in the ER to be treated for alcohol poisoning. The plastic bag was a vomit bag. I told them that if he vomited in the cab, there would be a $100 cleaning fee. The girl said he was all vomited out and empty.

So I drove them all back to the frat house, while the young women cooed over “poor Steve.”

Poor Steve indeed. I told them that "Back in my day, we didn't get alcohol poisoning!"

They didn't say anything--either they were speechless, or unimpressed.

And when I cleaned out my cab at the end of shift, I found that the guy had left the shirt behind.

The second question is, Why Did You Hang Onto the Shirt for So Long?

It was a perfectly good shirt. I washed it and even wore it a few times. Then it went into a box the last time I moved. I think for me objects acquire a sort of flypaper-like stickiness that holds onto memories—in this case, a memory of the cab days, and a memory of a drunk-ass kid who couldn't hang. Though there is also no doubt some laziness involved, and a poor job of packing during my 2003 move.

At any rate, I'm pretty sure that I can retain the memory without the shirt.

And the shirt is now in the dumpster….

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Moving Finds

6/15/2012

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As I pack for my move to faraway Kansas, after 9 years in College Station, I’ve been going through boxes and drawers, and I’ve made some interesting discoveries…

As below: My University of Texas identification card from the time when I was Paisano Fellow, and my City of Austin hack license….

I’m kind of a thuggish-looking cab driver, eh? That was actually an advantage. Some customers—strippers and little old ladies, in particular—like a cab driver who can at least pretend to be a bodyguard….

Below is another find: Word for Windows 2.0

This whole package weighs about eight pounds. It was probably about five years old when I bought it used in 1996 or 1997. Still I was very glad to have it, for it seemed like a definite step up from the dos version I had been using.

They don't make 'em like that anymore. It's an antique! But do I want to lug it all the way to Kansas?

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Soundtrack Sunday: "Riff-Raff"

1/23/2011

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Driving a cab is a hard way to make a living. You work ten to twelve hours a day, driving, driving, fighting traffic and the elements, and the people you pick up often treat you very poorly indeed—a few measly dollars spent on the fare can be enough to bring out the inner despot and tyrant in many normally polite and well-behaved individuals.

When I was working on my MA I was in a cw class and wrote a cab driving story about a driver whose life is bad and gets worse. It was supposed to be…tragic, I guess. It was supposed to be sad! But when I first read it aloud, people—laughed. My audience thought it was funny! And every time I’ve performed this story since then, people laugh. I'm not really sure I want to understand the response—but of course at any rate it’s beyond my control. Once you write or tell a story, it’s not yours anymore: it belongs to the reader, the listener.

At any rate, “Riff-Raff” is set in a hard world….

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Ordinary Horrors

Bragging: More Words by Me

Objects and Memory, Again

Moving Finds

Soundtrack Sunday: "Riff-Raff"

Lowell Mick White

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