The Exorcist on 57th Street

New York has an insane party scene as anyone who lives here will attest to. So it was my 1st Saturday night out on the streets as a cabbie and it wasn't quite what I expected but as I saw I had a luckier night than some of my fellow cabbies. I'm not talking in terms of cash, it's Saturday night and there's cash everywhere on the street and I seem to be doing very well compared to the few people I've spoken to. I'm talking about the drunken masses spilling themselves into my car and then spilling the vile contents of their stomachs all over the car or just being obnoxious drunks. I can't begin to tell you how much I hate the smell of drunk breath, it is completely fucking gross.

The night starts off for me at around 4pm and I cruise into the city hoping to replay my Thursday luck of a fare going into Manhattan. No luck but once I'm in the city the race begins and I grab fare after fare it seems for a bit. Everyone is going out tonight and the theaters, bars, and restaurants are in the process of gearing up for the busiest night of the week.

I bounce around Manhattan landing wherever my fares want to go. I don't refuse any fares, considering it's illegal, though I'm finding out it is the norm for many other drivers, especially when it comes to destinations in Brooklyn. I pick up on the Lower East Side, a punky looking girl in her 20's. And she asks me if I'll take her to Bushwick in Brooklyn. She gets in and asks me if I'll take her waiting for me to say "No". I tell her "Of course! Not a problem." as it's not a bad fare and even though I most likely will come back empty it's my fucking job!! I hate hearing people talk about being refused by a taxi. But then again it helps me because the people are more appreciative of me taking them. So we get underway and I feel her out to see if she wants to chat, shes very receptive since and turned out to be a pretty cool passenger. She was on her way to a punk club to meet some friends and we started talking about the typical bullshit like the weather...blah blah blah. Then we get to the job market here in New York. We're in rough shape here, lots of financial jobs being lost and that trickles down to everyone.

It turned out that she just got her degree in journalism specializing in print media and is now realizing that she earned a degree in an industry that is dying not so slowly. She told me that finding a job has been near impossible and her student loans we're coming due. I felt bad for her as she was a sweet girl but she seemed to be taking it in stride. I gave her a few words of wisdom about student loans, one of which is whatever you do DON'T default on them. The federal government is fucking brutal in their efforts to collect. I've been there done that and it sucks.

I dropped the punky girl off and head back to Manhattan, normally I don't pick up when I'm deep in Bushwick because it's not the safest neighborhood despite the gentrification efforts and I don't know it that well. I will pick up near the Williamsburg Bridge because they are most likely going into Manhattan or at the very least I know all the major arteries from there to get somewhere else. I see a goth looking woman with tattoos hail me and I stop, she wants to go to a bar in Red Hook. I tell her I don't know exactly where her destination is but I can get her there. I started using the GPS in my cell if I get stuck, it's pretty decent. So I plug the address she gives me in and off I go. As we drive along we start chatting and I tell her about how I've lived in a a bunch of different places and Baton Rouge was one of them. She lit up when I said that, it turns out she was from Baton Rouge so we go off on how nice it was to live there and the adjustments we had to make when transplanting.

Then we moved onto the gun culture down there. Now I'm left leaning in my politics with some exceptions, one big one is gun control. I think every law abiding citizen should be allowed to easily own a firearm. She totally agreed and we started talking about guns. She really knew her shit too!! I found this very hot, but of course I'm married and always behave but I loved the spirited conversation. She was also into motorcycles but we differed there. I told her I'm a pussy and would never get on a bike, we laughed at my expense and continued chatting about life in the south and moving around from place to place. It was a nice ride with a very cool lady. I dropped her and found my way back into Manhattan.

My night moved right along after with no disasters just money rolling in. I don't really know what a great night should be but I'm happy with what I'm taking in on my nights so far. The traffic in some parts of Manhattan is insane on Saturday, especially in the Theater District. I fucking hated going near there but thank God I only had to once when it was the crazy time. At about 2am I discovered a 24 hour Starbucks...WOOT!! I was out of change and desperate so I went in to get an iced coffee and charmed the girl there into giving me 20 singles. I relaxed and stretched my legs a while then back into battle.

As the night wound down and the fares dried up a little and the time came for me to head back to Queens and drop the cab off. I proceeded up 3rd avenue to 57th street and made a right to go over the upper level of the Queensboro Bridge. As I sat at the light reflecting on the night, suddenly I see the rear door of the taxi in front of me fly wide open and a head pop out, well not pop but more bursting out. It was just in the nick of time too as the guy lets loose with a deluge of puke that Linda Blair would be proud of. I was waiting for his head to spin around, it never happened. :( I resist the urge to yak myself as I can be a sympathetic puker. Then I started to laugh my ass off. As I'm laughing an SUV full of guys to my right are laughing like crazy and rolling the windows down. They start cheering as if he guy scored the winning touchdown in the Superbowl which sparks more laughing from me and them. The puker lets fly again and then in his drunken, pukey state raises his arms in victory. Some fuckin' win, huh? The poor cabbie pulls over as the guy makes his way over to the curb to finish puking. I can't imagine it went on for long the guy puked a friggin river those 1st two times. I hope the guy didn't get it all over the cab because then the poor driver has to clean it up which I know would kill me to have to do.

Overall it was a good night, I was dead tired at the end of it but happy when I got home and kissed my wife and slept like the dead.