‘There’s a Horn and Hardart over there on Broadway,’ John said. ‘That’s where I proposed to this lovely, young lady.’
I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the Horn and Hardarts were long gone. When we got to 31st Street we found a parking lot where the automat had once been.
The gloom returned. I drove down Broadway until we were approaching 25th Street, and then Barbara had an idea.
‘What about Schrafft’s?’ she asked. ‘There used to be one on Madison Avenue. We ate dinner there a million times.’
I told them I wasn’t sure if any Schrafft’s were still around, but it did seem to ring a bell in my mind that there had been one on Madison. It was worth a try, so I drove to 23rd Street, where Madison Avenue begins, and we headed uptown.
The traffic on the avenue was a mess, which actually was fortunate because it gave us a chance to examine every store and restaurant on each block as we crawled along. There was a sense of anxiety in the taxi as each new block failed to reveal a Schrafft’s and, by the time we were in the forties, the anxiety was taking on the feeling of despair. When we finally reached 60th Street, and still no Schrafft’s, the search was over.
‘Could you just drive us over to the hospital, then?’ John asked with a tone of resignation in his voice. I made a right on 68th Street and headed east toward Sloan-Kettering. I noticed in the mirror that Barbara was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. We drove a couple of blocks. Then suddenly John’s voice returned with a new vitality.
‘What about the Plaza?’ he asked. ‘That’s still there, isn’t it?’
‘Sure,’ I replied.
‘Well, let’s go!’
Instantly their spirits lifted. The Plaza Hotel was only a few blocks away. I made a couple of turns and in less than two minutes we were parked right in front of the beautiful, old landmark. Both John and Barbara seemed mesmerized by the sight of it, almost in a state of awe. I noticed that Barbara’s eyes were tearing again, but this time she made no attempt to dry them. John appeared to be getting a bit misty, too.
‘We spent our wedding night here,’ Barbara said softly, the tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
We just sat there for a couple of minutes in front of the Plaza and then John had another idea. ‘Do you think you could take us for a ride through Central Park?’ he asked me.
‘Well, I could,’ I said, ‘if it’s still open. They close the park to cars at seven o’clock.’ It was nearly seven already, so I drove as quickly as I could to the entrance at 6th Avenue, and we were in luck – it was still open.
‘Tell you what,’ John said as he handed me some money, ‘here’s ten bucks. That’s your tip above whatever the meter says when we get to the hospital. But the deal is, while we’re in the park here, keep your eyes off of that damned mirror!’
Barbara scolded him, but I had taken no offense.
‘It’s a deal,’ I replied. Some of the great events of history have been created by just such conspiracies.
We headed north on Park Drive, the road that runs the two and a half mile length of Central Park. The ride, with its scenes filled with trees, flowers, and people in each other’s arms, took about twelve minutes. I must admit that I cheated two or three times and looked in the mirror to see what could be going on between two septuagenarians.
What was going on was plenty! They were wrapped around each other like a couple of vines and I would rank them right up there near the top of my all-time list of back seat kissing fools.
As we were approaching the exit of the park at Central Park South they straightened themselves up into normal sitting positions.
‘I’m sorry,’ Barbara said a little awkwardly, ‘for using your taxi for a purpose other than the one for which it was intended.’
‘Hey, that’s all right,’ I replied, ‘cabs are for kissing.’
It was one of those brilliant utterances which come tumbling out of your mouth every once in a while, almost of their own volition, which are just the right thing to say for the moment. Any lingering feeling of embarrassment dissipated into the evening air and, as we came out of the park, there was a noticeable serenity in the taxi. I made a left on Central Park South and headed for the East Side. It took about five more minutes to get them to the hospital and, as we said goodbye, I sensed a kind of bonding with Barbara and John that I think was mutual.
I felt that I would see them again one day.
Well, I hope you’re happy. You wanted sleazy stories about sex in taxicabs and now you’ve gotten them – plus a nice, sentimental one I’ll bet you weren’t expecting. So now let’s get down to business and move along to another much-requested type of story: crime.
‘Have you ever been held up?’ is a question I am often asked by passengers. After all, driving a taxi in New York City is a job that’s more dangerous than being a cop and unfortunately we do often hear stories about taxi drivers who are victims of crimes. My answer to that question, which is, happily, ‘No’, seems to do little to cancel out the lingering suspicion in the minds of some that New York is an unsafe place. But this sense of unease is not really based on actuality. Statistically speaking, New York is one of the safest cities in the United States. What’s bothering these people, I believe, is the perception of the possibility of crime. With so many iffy-looking people walking around, so many dark, deserted streets, and a media that heightens our fears with an insatiable appetite for crime, crime, CRIME!, we may lose sight of the fact that, generally speaking, people are getting along quite well with one another. But not always…
Swallowed
I was cruising along on West 75th Street on a pleasant evening in October, 1984 when I spotted a young man emerging from a brownstone, waving his hands frantically in the air, and calling out for me to stop.
‘Please wait here a minute,’ he pleaded as he came running up to the side of my cab, ‘I’ve got to help my friend get down the stairs.’ And then he ran back up the steps to the brownstone and opened the door there.
When I saw his friend my jaw dropped. He was also a young guy, medium in build, but he was completely covered in blood, his white t-shirt a red rag. As the two of them carefully navigated the steps and approached my cab, I could see that his face had been severely beaten, with his mouth, nose, and maybe even his eyes bleeding. He was indeed a horrifying sight.
‘Please get us to Roosevelt Hospital as fast as you can,’ the first one begged as the two of them slumped into the back seat. I tore out of there like the ambulance driver I had become and headed for the hospital, a sixteen-block journey. Of course, I wanted to know what had happened, and it was the explanation of the event, even more than the blood, which made a lasting impression on me.
What had happened was this: the guy had been walking on the sidewalk on the park side of Central Park West just as the sun was setting. There is a four-foot-high stone wall there that runs the length of Central Park, separating it from the sidewalk. As the soon-to-be-victim walked along, he passed another, somewhat larger, man who was leaning against a parked car. Suddenly this larger man grabbed him from behind and shoved him up against the stone wall. Behind the wall – actually inside the park – was another man who grasped the guy and pulled him up over the wall, into the park.