Umzug Appendix I - The Cabbie's Story

So, as I was leaving Target in the hot humid Friday weather, I exited out the side intendind to pick up a cab for a short drive home. A guy in a hard hat approached me, "You need a Taxi?"

"Yeah," I said, figuring he would hook me up with his friend. Instead he took most of my bags and started walking. "You got a cab?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "I just got off work so I still have my hard hat on. No one wants to come with me." I shrug. Doesn't bother me. He leads me to a battered blue minivan: no meter, no medalion, no nothing.

"This don't look like a cab to me."

"I drive a Gypsy cab. That white car over there is a TLC cab. You can take that one if you want." (Note of clarification for people who don't live in NYC or watch Law and Order: TLC is the Taxi and Limousine Commission; a Gypsy Cab is like an Under the Table Cab). Deciding that the Gypsy Cab is fine for me, I climb in.

As we drive away my driver says to me, "See that guy in the black shirt? And that guy in the white shirt? They were both out here two years ago when I got stabbed and they didn't say nothing to the police."

"You got stabbed out here?"

"Yeah. Right there. Those two guys saw the whole thing."

"Man, who stabbed you?"

"Supermarket security."

"You got stabbed by Supermarket security? What happened?"

"Well, this new guy came muscling in on our territory. He was pretty jacked and everybody figured he just got out of prision, so no one wanted to fight him. But I didn't care. I have three kids to feed and this guy was taking my fares. So I invited him into the alley to have words.

Now just the day before, Supermarket Security had hauled me into their office and shown me video tapes of me fighting with five different guys. I didn't know I was such a nice guy! This is back when I had a medalion. They said they only reason they hadn't called the TLC on me was because I was always very respectful to their customers, the customers always like me. They tell me I need to stop brawling, but I need to protect my turf."

I sat in the back seat, nodding my head, like, sure, protecting my turf is a big part of my day as well.

So, I guess Security had been keeping an eye on this guy and they knew he was about to go at it again and that was one fight too many for them. "So, as I'm talking to this New Jack, the Security Guard comes flying out into the alley, and all I saw was knuckles, so he must have been concealing the knife." Now my Cabbie and Security have words and the disrespecting begins. My Cabbie says he doesn't want to fight this guy because he depends on the Supermarket's compliance to pick up fares and make his living, but of course, one thing leads to another ... Security stabs the Cabbie, but of course, he doesn't realize he's been stabbed.

("No one ever realizes they've been stabbed," confirms Princess of Darkness.) The Cabbie keeps throwing punches with the guns he's built up from working construction since he was 16. Then he starts to feel the wetness on his thigh. A woman sees the blood and starts screaming "He's been stabbed! He's been stabbed!"

The Cabbie and Security struggle for control of the knife. The Cabbie tells me, "Maybe it's a good thing I didn't get my hand on that knife. I've never killed no man before, but if I got that knife I was going to take care of my business."

"Right, right."

Someone calls 9-1-1. Security takes the knife and gives himself a small cut that would later require 3 stitches, to make it look like it was an actual altercation between the two. "Can you believe that?" asks my Cabbie. "What kind of person would cut hisown self to help him? I don't even like taking a needle from a doctor? You have to be really f*ed up for that."

I vigorously agree.

("About how much of this story do you believe?" asks POD. "About 50%," I answer. "But wait, it gets better.")

By now, we have passed my building. I tell my Cabbie he can turn around. "But you're gonna sue, right?"

"See, I got a plan. This guy still brags about it all the time. He works out at the Supermarket on Coney Island. Yeah, I know where he works now and where he lives. This dude messed with the wrong guy. See, I'm gonna go to a Stip Club and get me the flyest honey there."

I can't believe this story is getting better and I am actually unsure of what direction this story is taking.

"I'm gonna get a girl so hot only a homo could refuse her. I'm going to pay this girl real well. And send her to some place where this guy hangs out. She'll be all coming on to him like, 'Don't I know you?'. Then, she's take him back to a hotel room and rock his world. Then, she's gonna send him out for cigarettes or something, and while he's out, she'll press record on a tape recorder, cause I'll have the whole thing set up ahead of time. Then when he gets back she'll say, 'I know where I remember you from. Aren't you the dude who stabbed that Nigga at the Supermarket a few years back?' He's gonna sing like a bird and Imma have it all on tape!"

So, did the Gypsy Cab take me for a ride? "Ten dollars cool?" the Cabbie asked as he carried my stuff up my stoop. A little steep I thought, as I handed him twelve. "Sorry ma'am, you're my first customer today. Do you have change?"

"That's for the tip."

"But there's twelve dollars here! It's only seven dollars."

I took back the two singles and told him to take care. Yeah, we're cool.