‘Go left?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, make the left and make another left a few blocks up the avenue,’ he replied.
‘On which street?’
‘Whichever one you want.’
Now this was weird. I immediately began to wonder why a passenger wouldn’t care where I was going. The first thing I thought of was that he didn’t intend to pay me for the ride so he didn’t care how high the meter ran. But this guy didn’t appear to me to be a flight risk. He just wasn’t that type.
I looked at him again in the mirror. I noticed that I could see him but not her. There are only two explanations for this phenomenon: 1) they are cuddling with her head resting on his lap, facing upward, or 2) they are not cuddling and her head is facing downward… and you know what that means. Based on my prior observation that there was no particular love between them, I knew it was number two – this guy was getting a blowjob!
Well, at least I understood why he didn’t care where I drove. The girl, I now surmised, was a hooker. My taxi had been turned into a brothel and, although I might have had cause to be offended, the guy had shown manners by asking me how my night had been going, and that was enough for me not to take issue with his behavior. I drove up 8th Avenue and made a left on 53rd, not expecting to hear anything but some grunts and perhaps some squishy noises coming from the back seat. So it came as quite a surprise that he resumed our conversation when we stopped for a red light at 53rd and 9th.
‘Hey, you wanna hear something wild?’
‘Sure.’
He mentioned the name of a former US senator from the state of New York and asked if I was familiar with him.
‘Sure.’
‘Well, he’s gonna get indicted. It’ll happen in a few days.’
‘Really?’
He then dropped the name of a well-known Mafia celebrity who was in jail at the time and said he was ‘giving up’ the former senator in a deal to get out of the joint.
‘What did he do?’ I asked, meaning the former senator.
‘He’s been working for us for years.’
I paused for a moment while I processed this information. Here’s a guy getting a blowjob telling me he’s in the Mob and has inside information that a former US senator from New York is connected to the Mafia. Uh… okaaay…
‘No kidding,’ I said, ‘that is wild.’
‘Yeah, you’ll read about it in a few days.’
‘Wow.’
I buzzed down 9th Avenue and made a right on 43rd. We hit a red light at 10th Avenue. There had been a lull of about thirty seconds in our conversation but now that we were sitting still Mr Horny Mob Guy felt it was time to start chatting again.
‘You play the horses?’ he asked.
‘Once in a while.’
‘Write this down – Wilfredo Prieto.’ (Not the name he actually said.)
‘Who’s Wilfredo Prieto?’
‘A jockey. ’Bout a week before Christmas he’s gonna ride a horse at Belmont. Fifty to one, but he’s gonna win.’
‘No kidding?’ I wrote the name down on my trip sheet.
‘Yeah, he comes up from Puerto Rico every year and does this race for us, then we give the money to charity.’
‘Hey, thanks, man,’ I said, ‘I’m gonna use this.’
‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Thanks!’
I drove up 10th Avenue and made a right on 52nd. By the time we reached the end of the block the ride and the blowjob were over. He paid me $10 for a $6.10 fare and then he and the girl left the cab and disappeared in separate directions into the night.
Well, I was set. This fare, obviously a gift from the Supreme Being, was going to turn into my Christmas bonus. I started figuring out how much money I would be able to scrape together and even borrow and with a firm decision not to chicken out on this I began my hunt for Wilfredo Prieto. For the next three weeks I searched relentlessly through the sports sections of the papers for any sign of a race with a jockey with his name in it, but Christmas came and went with no mention of the guy.
And it may come as no surprise to you that no former senator from the state of New York has ever been indicted for anything.
So as it turned out I didn’t make a dime from the Mobbed-up, BJ conversationalist. It did, however, leave me with an important Life Lesson: never believe a damned word that is said to you by someone who is getting a blowjob.
For old times’ sake
It is lust that keeps the species reproducing itself. But it is love, respect and honesty that keep people staying together as partners throughout a lifetime. So it’s nice when you meet a couple who still enjoy each other’s company after dozens of years. It rehabilitates the idea that we, too, if we’re lucky (or skillful) enough may also have it so good. With that in mind, here’s a different kind of story about sex in a taxicab.
I picked up a man and a woman at a hotel near LaGuardia Airport on a lovely summer evening in 1987. They were seniors, near seventy years of age I guessed, and were en route to the Sloan– Kettering Hospital in Manhattan. Through the course of conversation I learned that their names were John and Barbara, that they were now retired – he had been a banker and she had been a teacher – and that the reason for their trip to the city was to begin cancer therapy for John.
They hadn’t been to New York in forty years, they said, not since they’d moved to California after World War II. But they had once lived and worked in the city and, in fact, they’d met each other here when they were both employed by the same company in an office near Herald Square. They wondered if it would be all right with me if, before we got to the hospital, we could take a brief tour around Manhattan for old times’ sake to see some of the sights which had been a part of their lives so many years ago.
Would it be all right with me? Were they kidding? Anything that keeps the meter running is just fine with me, and the truth is I always enjoy serving as a tour guide. It gives some contrast to the usual A to B fares and provides me a chance to show off my knowledge of the city, as well. I got on the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway and headed toward the Midtown Tunnel. Fifteen minutes later we were on 34th Street in Manhattan, heading west toward Herald Square.
The Empire State Building is on the corner of 34th Street and 5th Avenue, so I pointed it out as we approached it, thinking that surely this would be a sight they would want to see. But John and Barbara had little interest in the majestic skyscraper. What they were really interested in seeing in Herald Square was the Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee shop at the corner of 34th and 6th. It was there, they said, that they’d spent so many lunch hours gazing into each other’s eyes over chicken salad sandwiches.
As we got to the intersection both John and Barbara were straining their necks trying to get a glimpse of the place. But the Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee shop was gone. It had been replaced by a Gap clothing store.
It was obvious to me this was a major disappointment for them. That coffee shop had been an important landmark of their life together, and now it was just a memory. We continued driving west on 34th Street in a gloomy silence, but after about a minute John spoke up.
‘I know what,’ he said to both Barbara and me, ‘let’s go over to 31st and Broadway. If