Vampire Cabbie

by Fred Schepartz

  “Democracy is good,” I replied, immediately regretting the simplistic nature of that remark. “If people want to run their places of work, then they should have the opportunity to do so.” Yes, yet another lie, but once the first lie is told, the rest get shockingly easy.

  Heads nodded. I think they liked that answer, but did I believe it myself? What was I getting myself into?

  Maureen broke the short silence. “At Co-op Cab, we take pride in being a full-service cab company. No New York-style cabbies here. We’re courteous, polite, we open doors, and we don’t drive like maniacs. Many of our passengers are elderly or disabled. These customers require greater care and take more time than other customers. As a driver, you would be paid commission, not by the hour, and if you get too many elderly or disabled passengers, you might not make as much money. How do you feel about that?”

  “They are paying customers and therefore must be treated with the same degree of respect as all other customers.” Surely, this was what they wanted to hear, that is unless they were trying to determine if I was trying to tell them what they wanted to hear. “If customers receive poor service, they will call another cab company, and that would be a bad situation. I would treat all customers with the high degree of respect that I myself would expect to receive.”

  “You’re near two calls,” Carey abruptly interjected. “Remember, you only make money when your meter’s running. One call is going from one end of town to the other. You know this, but you get the other, and it’s some little old lady going about two blocks, and she moves real slow. How do you feel about that?”

  “Regardless of how I feel, I would keep my feelings to myself. This woman has done us the honor of calling our company and therefore should be treated accordingly. Besides, that is merely one call. Time, after all, is the great equalizer.”

  Dale and Maureen nodded. Kern smiled. Carey scowled. “You’re assigned a call,” Kern said. “You get there as fast as you can, but the person’s been waiting a real long time. They’re pissed off, and they’re being abusive to you, even if this isn’t your fault. How would you deal with that?”

  The Grand Inquisitor had been correct to brand me as in league with Satan and sentence me to the rack, for who but one in league with Satan could escape his shackles and disappear into thin air. Poor, sweet Julianne was unable to perform such magic. “First,” I began, “I would not take any of it personally. Human nature often dictates that people will lash out at the most convenient target, regardless of whether or not that person, place or thing had anything to do with their predicament. Therefore, I would exert great effort to not allow this person to get under my skin, as it were.

  “Second, I would do whatever possible to soothe this person, which of course, I would be best equipped to do if I maintain my composure. This person might be a frequent customer, and we would not want to lose their business. Or maybe it is their first time calling us. I would want to do whatever I could to let them know that this situation was an aberration.”

  “Then, you’d lie,” Kern said, laughing loudly.

  “Ignore him,” Maureen said, her eyes never leaving mine.

  “Hey, there’s times in the afternoon when calls rot,” Kern countered.

  “We’re working on it,” Maureen replied, shooting Kern an angry glance, then turning back toward me, waiting for my answer. Was this not my interview?

  Rot. Julianne’s sweet soul gone, her body rotting in a mass grave, for I was unable to rescue her, having arrived too late to stop them. Her screams echoed in my skull as I searched for her, knowing her torturers relished her anguished cries, marveling at how many turns she could take before even her spine finally snapped like so much kindling.

  “Perhaps,” I finally answered, “there are certain times of the day when the volume of business may result in less than optimal service. That being the case, I would attempt to explain it to the customer. Whenever possible, I would explain reasons why we were so late and offer viable suggestions as to how the customer might help rectify the situation.”

  “As you can tell,” Maureen said, nodding at my response, “cab driving can be pretty stressful. How do you deal with stress?”

  Ah ha! Do some applicants state that stress presents no problems, an obvious and transparent lie that would surely not go unnoticed by the committee? But what could I say? Run naked through the woods, stalking deer, bear and other large prey, relishing the hunt before drinking the steaming blood of my quarry? “Stress is a part of life,” I said. “One must accept that stress exists. One must yield to stress to overcome it.”

  “Lao Tsu!” Kern clapped his hands loudly.

  “I appreciate your time, Al,” Maureen said. “Only one question left.” She glanced at the others. “Okay, who wants to ask it this time?” Dale rolled his eyes. Carey rubbed her temples and stared at the ceiling. Kern leaned forward, rubbing his hands vigorously together.

  “I’ll ask it. I’ll ask it,” Kern said, squirming excitedly in his chair.

  “Go ahead,” Maureen replied.

  “Okay, Al. If they made a movie of your life, who would you want to play you?”

  Motherless spawn of Satan! What kind of question was that? My mind drew an irritated blank, then suddenly I heard my own voice blurt out: “Frank Langella.”

  Kern laughed out loud, as did the others, even Carey. “Why?” Kern asked.

  I was embarrassed and alarmed, then remembered there are no shadows in which to hide, only plain sight. “I admired his work in the nineteen seventy-nine version of Dracula. He brought an unprecedented sensitive sensuality to the role.”

  “There is no right answer to that question,” Maureen said. “It’s just something we ask, just because we’ve always asked it.”

  “Without tradition,” Dale added, “we would be like a fiddler on the roof.”

  Maureen ignored Dale’s remark. “Again, Al, thanks for your time. We’ll be in touch.”

  I rose and shook hands with all the committee members. The way Kern smiled, I firmly believed he would support me. The others were inscrutable, but studying Carey’s scowling countenance, I wondered if this had merely been an exercise in folly. Had others performed tasks in my behalf for so long that it would be impossible for me to secure even the most menial of employment?

  Immediately following the interview, I braved the sunlight, returned to my apartment and crawled into bed, awaiting the kindness of nightfall while considering the interview and wondering if the future would be a soft mattress and silk sheets or hard, sun-baked earth full of twigs, pebbles and rocks. Except my mattress was now a thin futon, laying atop an unforgiving oak floor, and my sheets were not silk, but itchy linen. Still, even this rather austere comfort was greater than that within hardscrabble earth.

  ———

  A few days of uncertainty later, the phone rang, awakening me from a deep slumber. It was my first phone call after Bob had arranged for installation.

  “I’m calling to offer you a job at Co-op Cab Cooperative,” Kevin said.

  “Excellent!” I replied, with as much excitement as I could muster at the ungodly hour of one in the afternoon. “I am pleased, Kevin. I do accept your generous offer of employment.”

  “Great,” he said. “Glad to have you aboard. On your application, you said you wanna work nights?”

  “That is correct. I am very much a night person. Also, I have a condition…my eyes are very sensitive to sunlight. I can drive during later day hours, but it is quite painful. I was hoping to drive late nights.”

  “We can accommodate you, Al. I’m always looking for late drivers.”

  “This is almost too good to be true.” Instantly, I regretted my remark.

  Kevin laughed. “Just what I like to see. Enthusiasm. When can you start?”

  “Ah, immediately.”

  “Well, first there’s training. Can you make Monday at one?”

  “Yes,” I replied, hoping Monday would be overcast. Maybe there would be a solar eclip
se.

  “Good. You’ll start with in-house training. That session lasts about three hours. Then, we’ll see about hooking you up with an on-the-road trainer.”

  By all the false gods of heaven! How much training would I need? How much training does it take to pick up passengers and take them to their destinations? “I will get on the road sometime, will I not?”

  Kevin laughed heartily. “Sure, Al. Our training is pretty extensive, but there’s no such thing as too much training. Our rookie drivers are a zillion times better prepared than their counterparts at any of the other companies in town. Don’t worry, the trainers’ll keep you pretty busy, at least busy enough to keep from getting bored.”

  I certainly hoped so.

  Chapter 4

  Training

  After the weekend, the day of training arrived. Having always been a paragon of punctuality, I found myself waiting in the same star chamber where my interview had taken place, ten minutes prior to the appointed hour, and was joined a few minutes later by a young woman of strong distinction in her appearance, who with her long, dark hair and eyes, swarthy complexion and sharp, angular features, reminded me of those many gypsies I had known over the centuries, sadly one in particular who I had not wanted to think about.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, seemingly surprised by my presence.

  “Hello,” I replied, finding myself staring at her, my eyes tracing the sweeping diagonal of her jaw. “Are you to be the one who trains me?”

  She laughed. “No, I’m here for training too. I’m Nicole.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” I said, rising and extending a hand. She shook my hand firmly, like a man. Another place, another time and I would have kissed her hand like a true gentleman, but alas, this is a different time and a very different place. “I am Al. Al Farkus.”

  “Nice to meet you.” We both sat. An awkward silence filled the room, myself unsure what to say next. Round of hips and bosom, firm and strong in the arms and legs, this young woman looked enough like Anya to be her granddaughter, but that, of course, was impossible. “Seems they got a long day of training set up for us,” Nicole said finally.

  “Yes. Kevin informed me that Co-op Cab has the most vigorous training program of any cab company in the city.”

  “Yeah, he told me the same thing.”

  “I cannot help but wonder how much training we actually need. How difficult can it be to drive a cab?”

  Nicole shook her head. “Don’t know. But, you know, the times I’ve been in a cab, I’ve tried to listen to the radio, and I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

  Shuffling footsteps drew our attention to the doorway as two young men entered the conference room and loudly plopped themselves into chairs. Resplendent as they were in torn, faded denim trousers and the tails of their flannel shirts trailing over their thighs, I reasoned that they were college students, their general slovenly appearance reminiscent of the legions of American students I have seen backpacking across Europe, trekking from one youth hostel to another. “Training?” one asked.

  “Yeah,” Nicole replied. “I’m Nicole. This is Al.”

  “Good afternoon,” I said.

  “Hey,” the first said. “I’m Gino, and this is Quinn.”

  “¿Que pasa?” Quinn asked, obviously not actually seeking an answer.

  Following the introductions, there was silence until Dale, from the Hiring Committee, appeared, cradling armfuls of materials, as dapper as before in a crisp Pierre Cardin dress shirt and charcoal gray wool slacks, a smart-looking, sleeveless, v-neck angora sweater and brown Guccis, identical to a pair I had recently owned. His ensemble must have required deep pockets, and that gave me cause for encouragement regarding my own financial prospects as a cab driver.

  “Hello all,” Dale began. “I’m not going to bother with introductions since I’ve already met all of you. And I’ll assume you’ve gotten acquainted over the last few minutes.”

  Dale gently placed the materials on the table, including four black binder notebooks which he slid to each of us. “There’s a training notebook here for each of you,” he said. “You can keep these. Each notebook includes various fact-sheets, several of which I’ll be referring to during this session. Also, you’ll find a Madison map, a street directory and our company manual. These are very valuable resources, so don’t lose them.”

  Dale congratulated us on being hired, then urged that we pay close attention in order to more easily pass probation. Indeed, certainly one would think this job would require more talent than that provided by a team of organ-grinder monkeys.

  “Right from the top,” Dale continued, “I want to stress that this is a cooperative, which means this is a different kind of a work-place because we own it. I cannot stress how important it is for you to understand what it means to work at a worker-owned-and-operated cooperative. As a means of illustration, I’ll tell you a story.”

  He may as well have used the word indoctrination. Has that not been the polite word for it, in much the same way as reeducation camps was the polite term for concentration camps?

  Dale seemed to drone on and on about the history of Co-op Cab, which, however, had some fascinating aspects. The yellow-painted predecessor had been the more standard sole-proprietorship. Disgruntled employees (along with, no doubt, several rabble-rousers) formed a labor union that ended up putting the company out of business. In response, the out-of-work drivers formed their own company. Thus, the serfs bought the estate, making each and every one of them lord and master. Or so they claim, but, as Orwell said, “Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.”

  As the indoctrination continued, I caught myself staring surreptitiously at Nicole, Anya’s features becoming superimposed on my fellow trainee’s face as the present faded from my sight.

  Though I certainly had traveled a great deal during much of the early 1930s, Prague had been my home. Yes, in retrospect, considering what was happening in Germany at that time, it would seem the height of foolishness to have stayed in the Czech capitol, but there were commodities to sell, and one tends for one reason or another to procrastinate.

  Anya and I became acquainted in Budapest in 1935 while I was there conducting business. Though it had been a chance meeting during an intermission of a Chekov play, it turned out that I had actually known her family for a number of generations.

  Yes, 1935 was a bad time to fall in love in that part of the world.

  Dale’s voice, speaking the words “patronage dividend,” pulled me back to the present. In profit-making years, a patronage dividend is distributed to the membership on a proportional basis, dependent on how many hours a member worked relative to the total number of hours worked. Each member receives a certain percentage of their share of the profit, the rest going back into the co-op as equity.

  Finally, Dale announced the conclusion of the first section of training and allowed us to take a ten-minute break. Gino and Quinn disappeared almost instantly, but Nicole lingered. I felt her gaze, but remained seated, opening the notebook and making a show of studying the pages held therein, feigning a sentiment that the information contained on those pages was actually important.

  The notebook did contain some useful information, however, including price lists for package deliveries, various maps, as well as names and addresses of bars and hotels. After all, there was a definite purpose here, and distractions had to be kept to a minimum. For my kind, intimate relationships with humans always present problems and must be approached with a high degree of circumspection, especially when dealing with American women who are so much freer and independent than their European counterparts.

  Also, the mere sight of Nicole shot daggers of pain deep into the core of my being. Fortunately, she left after a few long moments.

  About ten minutes later, Nicole, Gino and Quinn returned, quickly followed by Dale, who immediately placed a large piece of poster board covered with Mylar on a tripod stand at the front of the conference room.


  “Procedures,” he said, with a wide, vocal flourish. “There’s a lot to cover, so I’ll just jump right in.” He brandished a large marker and pointed it at the image of the cab radios used by Co-op Cab. Much to my surprise, the system was actually computerized, the simple pressing of buttons telling the dispatcher a driver’s approximate location and whether said driver is empty, on the way to pick up a call, in service or on break.

  “Much of what follows will be covered by your on-the-road trainers,” Dale continued, “but redundancy is good.” He touched the image of one of the buttons on the cab radio with the marker, and again I saw Anya’s face.

  She had moved to Prague , and together we lived in a charming garret in the theater district. We both had been following events in Germany with great interest and had decided to leave, but various obstacles delayed our departure. The sale of a 16th-century Russian icon failed to come to fruition, the buyer having been waylaid at the border. Traveling money was desperately needed, so we waited for another buyer, who did in fact arrive in Prague in time to make the sale, but the transfer of his funds was bundled up in too much red tape.

  German tanks crossed the Czech border. Soldiers patrolling the streets made it unsafe to leave our garret, but our exodus could be delayed no longer, for the Germans had already commenced house-to-house searches for Jews, Gypsies and other undesirables.

  Our survival was punctuated by the ticks of the clock on the wall of our garret where we spent our last night together, holding each other close, hearing coarse German shouts as the hours slowly passed before my agents would come for us.

  We had managed to book passage aboard a train, but would not depart until the next afternoon. Before daybreak, Anya would have to seal me inside a crate within which I would have to travel, at least until nightfall. Yes, again, the first rays of morning sun are deadly, and when the sun rises, even when safely sequestered, I become virtually catatonic.