Wednesday, September 22, 2010

IT'S GOING TO BE A GOOD NIGHT

I am ready to go to work right now (7:05pm). This is way too early, I normally come out around mid-night but there's too many things going on in the city I have a feeling that I am going to make shit load of cash. There are lot's of foreign speaking folks in town, I think we are getting invaded or something. So we will see what tonight has to offer! I am going to hit this Indian joint and have something to eat first, I am so hooked with Sushi, Indian, Ethiopian and Thai food! They got some good stuff man!

"Excuse me Mad Cabbie, what's a good night for a DC cabbie? $200? $300? $400? Do you know there are people who drop that kind of cash just to go out and dine! Don't you ever talk about making shit load of money driving a stupid cab you looser!"

Come on man! Why are you busting my balls? I am trying to live in my own little world! I don't care what other people make and spend! You believe this Jackass trying to ruin my night?

Please don't forget the homeless,

mad Cabbie.

Monday, September 20, 2010

THE BIKE MESSENGER WITH A GOLDEN DICK

From time to time we get these delivery runs in the middle of the night all over the city. Delivery run means when a customer wants something picked up like cigarettes, prescriptions, food, condoms or whatever legal item and have it delivered by one of us retards and don't mind paying $27 plus cost of goods for the service. I like doing that shit, it's the easiest $27 you can make without robbing someone.

This Russian dude was about five foot nothing, muscular build and was standing half naked in front of his townhouse to greet me and receive the cigarettes he wanted to be delivered. The door was was slightly open and I can see table full of alcohol drinks, two hot chics, one of them standing topless and the other barley clothed lying on the couch. I have done this job quit a few times before and each time I go to this place he's always partying with different girls.

Being a nosey person that I am, last night I had to say something and I asked, "Dude, either you have shit load of cash, or tone of coke in your basement man! What's up with all these naked chics every time I come here bro?" He gave me that devilish Vladimir Putin smile and with a thick Russian accent he said "My brother, I am just a poor bike messenger trying to enjoy life in America!" He handed me my cash and slammed the door on my face while I was trying to take a good look at the topless chic. JACKASS!!!

He has no money, no coke and that leads me to believe that his dick is made of gold.

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

HONEST OPINION.

This drunk kid got in to my cab last night and asked me how long I've been driving a cab and I told him almost twenty years! He replied by saying "No offense but you are such a looser dude!"

I took that clown extra long way to his destination in Alexandaria. I think I drove through PG county Maryland across the Wilson bridge in to Virginia, it's like going to Europe through South America. Who is the looser now motherfucker?

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

WHAT TO TIP A CABBIE.

Hi Mad Cabbie- I just discovered your blog and I love it! I am working my way through the archives, and you have some great stories.

I frequently take cabs in DC, and one thing I've always been curious about that I am wondering if you mind clarifying. Do drivers get a cut of the cab fare at all? Also what is considered an acceptable tip? I've been told rounding up the fare and adding a dollar is ok, also I have been told to tip 15-20% like you would in a restaurant.

Thanks for any input on the matter!

Meg


Thanks Meg for enjoying my work! My vocabulary adds up to be about fifty words, maybe sixty three on a good day. So when someone like yourself appreciates my third grade level writing, it makes me feel good.

Meg, I can only speak for DC cabs, so to answer your question: 100% of the cab fare goes to the driver! That doesn't mean the full fare adds up to be a take home income for us. Like any business we have expenses! We pay for gas, taxicab insurance, dispatch fees, car repairs, car washes, license fees, schedule C income tax, inspection station bribes, hookers and the list goes on and on. I say if we're lucky we take home about 60 cents for every dollar we collect from cab fares.

Tipping your cabbie is usually like you said, people round up the fare and add a dollar if the fare is $10 or less. 10-20% is pretty typical assuming that the driver is skilled and friendly, driving a clean cab. If a driver is a complete jerk off and smells like a pig or smells like a typical DC Yellow Cab driver, you should ask for a refund and an apology letter.

I make great tips most of the time because I know my craft well, I know how to bull-shit and I also give great foot rubs. I can take you to any shithole address in Washington DC and no GPS necessary. I can take you places where you can get the best weed east of the Mississippi that may get you stoned until the November elections.

In a nutshell, tipping is usually up to the passenger's wallet and up to an informed driver willing to put in that extra effort to make the customer happy. I hope I answered your question Meg!

Please don't forget the homeless like Fenty did,

Mad Cabbie.

Friday, September 10, 2010

THIS IS INSANE.

Over the years people leave all kind of crap in the back seat of my taxicab. Cell-phones, cameras, cash, credit cards, passports, umbrellas, jackets, books, divorce papers, vibrators, dildos, you name it and I have found all kind of scary shit that my passengers leave behind. I thought nothing will ever surprise me that I will discover in my cab because I have seen it all. But how the hell that an American University chick managed to forget her left flip-flop without realizing that she walked to her dorm wearing only one shoe? How fucked up could she be? I bet her parents are so proud some where in Minessota that their daughter is in the nations capital pursuing higher learning.

By the way I gave that flip-flop to big fat Paul, he is one of the drivers who is in to women feet and shoes. I know he's going to take that size 7 flip-flop to his basement and do some filthy shit to it.

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

SENIOR SITTING NIGHT.

A call girl I know called me last night while I was hacking and asked me to come to her apartment and be with her grandmother for a couple hours. I have known Steph for years and she is a great person, great friend and no benefits. I will do anything for her especially when she promised a hundred bill for my troubles.

Her grandmom is here in town for some kind of medical treatment at NIH and staying with Steph for few days. The old lady doesn't sleep well at night and Steph had to take care of well paying out of state client last night, so here comes Mad Cabbie for the rescue.

When Steph introduced me to her granny I saw fear in the poor old lady's eyes. It's like she have never seen a black dude before. She's from the woods outside Boston, I think the place is called "noblacksville" or some shit like that. Lucky for her I cut my hair, I used to look like a bad ass motherfucker who stab babies for a living, now I am just a tall retard.

Steph was gone for couple of hours, the first hour the old lady was scared to death she didn't say much but just kept asking me how I knew her granddaughter. By the time Steph came back that old bitch was so loose she was sitting on my lap and laughing.

Steph walked me to the lobby and mentioned that she haven't seen her grandma laugh like that in a long time and that made me feel real good. She thanked me, gave me a kiss and slipped some cash in my shirt pocket and I left. I didn't count the cash until I got in my cab, it was a cool $150 for two hours work!

God bless her because I was struggling to make some cash on the street. Believe me if Mad Cabbie is having a hard time making money, that means it's really bad out there. Besides that, our regular night dispatcher Robby wasn't on the deck, just hearing his voice makes me want to work. Instead, right-wing James the ultra conservative black man was dispatching. He is so boring and doesn't know how to dispatch. So I usually turn off the radio and look for drunks off the streets. I heard he was the only black dude who attended Glenn "the clown" Beck's white trash gathering at the Lincoln Memorial!

"Fuck you! Mad Cabbie, who you calling white trash, boy? I am a whip your ass nigger! Glenn Beck is our Moses and he is going to free us from being slaves for the lift-wing elites and take us in to the promise-land across the reflecting pool to our White House tea party in 2012! I know your cab number motherfucker, you better watch your back!"

What ever dude, isn't Glenn Beck supposed to go blind or something? What the fuck is he doing at the Lincoln Memorial? And how the fuck this blog entry go from baby sitting an old fossil to a word match with a Glenn Beck fan?

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Friday, August 27, 2010

GO VINCE GO!


Lets get that bald-head retard out of office on September 14th!

Who needs a mayor that rumored to bitch-slaps his wife every now and then? Who needs a mayor who gives no-bid contracts to his posses worth $84mill?

VOTE VINCE GRAY!

Fenty forgot the homeless but we didn't!

Mad Cabbie.

FEW STEPS TO THE OFFICE.

It used to take me about 35 minutes to come to work when I lived in Maryland, coming to work wasn't bad but going back home was painful sometimes, especially when I was tired. Now all I have to do is just go downstairs and pick up my first drunk from the bar across the street.

The other night I picked this dude just right around the corner from where I live. The very second he sat in my cab I smelt a combination of odor of vomit, fresh shit and a Tommy Hilfiger cologne.

MAD: "Dude, I hope you're going home, you smell like shit!"
GUY: "Sorry man I had too many to drink, I had to evacuate few pints!"
MAD: "Where to?"
GUY: "Take me to 3883 Connecticut Ave, that's my girl's apartment."
MAD: "I bet she can't wait to see you!"

After a couple of minutes I just couldn't take the smell anymore and I had to turn off the air-conditioner and roll up all the windows and let the hot and humid outside air circulate. My head was sticking outside the window like an excited dog while I was driving at the same time and the smelly jackass was on the phone telling his lucky sweetheart that he's only ten minutes away.

Right after I dropped the motherfucker, I drove up to the Exxon at Connecticut and Nebraska to buy an odor fighting spray. As soon as I pull up, the driver of Diamond 282 was coming out of the store and walking towards my cab to say hi. Cab 282 "Tom" is fast talking Jamaican who is a very good night hustler.

TOM: "What's up Mad...Oh Jesus you smell like SHIT!"
MAD: "But Tom...
TOM: "What's the matter with you MAAN?"
MAD: "Listen...
TOM: "Don't tell me to listen MAAN, you need to wipe your ass MOTHAFAKKA!"
MAD: "You don't understand....
TOM: "Yes I don't understand how you torture passengers with that funky smell!"

Tom ran to his cab without giving me a chance to explain myself and drove off. Next time I see that motherfucker I am going to bitch-slap his Jamaican ass! How dare he accuses me of shitting in my cab?

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

BACK TO MY ROOTS.

In 1996 I thought I was getting married so I rented out my apartment in DC and bought a crib in Maryland to start a family. That marriage didn't materialize and I lived in Columbia Maryland alone until the end of last month. I managed to sell it and moved back to my place in DC! It feels good to be back home on 17th street in Dupont!

I love my building man, we have faggots, dykes, chicks with dicks, guys with no dicks, niggers, crackers, crackheads, ragheads, politicians with no heads, spiks, kikes, chinks, greaseballs and you name it all, we have everyone represented in my building. It's like the true Americana, the melting crack-pipe!

"You coming back in nine months and what's up with all these hate words Mad Cabbie?"

Just chill dude! and don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

THE DECEMBER CURSE.

December has been a rough month her at Diamond Cab Company. Last December, four of our drivers passed away just in one month! Two heart attacks, one stroke and one driver decided to drop dead on the way to the airport, I think his passenger was wearing a bad perfume or something.

This month I heard one of our drivers is in a grave condition already! When I got back after being absent from work for a few month I was told that one of my mentors Mr Jumpin' Jack Jeffery died of a heart attack couple of month ago while waiting for his coffee at Starbucks. I think Jack was one of the last Jewish cabbies in Washington. The story is after he applied for a job at the Library of Congress during the early sixties,(Phil, correct me if I am wrong, didn't he graduate from Cornell?) he started driving a cab to cover his bills while waiting for the library's phone call that never happened. Every time I saw him I always asked if the library called yet, and he tells me to go fuck myself! Jumpin' Jack dead after over 40 years at Diamond Cab.

Only couple of these guys are older, the rest of the drivers were too young to die. Cab driving is a silent killer, you sit on your ass non stop for hours and eating junk food in between, that is a recipe for an early check out. Any cab driver reading this blog better think twice about your well being, stop playing those lotto numbers and join a gym instead. It's never too late to start working out, that includes you Phil, those couple Goodyear tires don't look on your waistline.

By the way I have Rush "To Eat" Limbaugh in my 2009 death pool but that fat motherfucker is still breathing heavy on the microphone! What's up with that? I still have 28 days left to win though.

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

MICROPHONE CHECK, ONE TWO, ONE TWO...

Is this thing working?


Sorry guys, I have been busy bribing the the Taxicab commissioner!!!

I hope you didn't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Friday, June 12, 2009

CABBIE, I NEED TO SHAVE MY PUBS

Julie is a hooker we have known for a number of years and I saw her last night crossing Independence avenue in Capitol Hill. She was professionally dressed and was carrying a bag. The way she carried herself suggests that she may not be in to the escort business anymore.

Julie is a real baby face, hot body about 5' 7" blond, blue eyes and amazing white teeth. The first time I met her about five years ago, I was shocked to see her hustling. I thought she was fourteen or something and I was afraid that I might get busted for transporting a minor. That night she wanted to be driven to a house in Woodley Park to take care of one of her clients who called her on short notice.

"Do you mind if we make a quick stop at the Marriott so I can shave my pubs?"

That's exactly what she asked me minutes before we got to the house. She was explaining to me that her man was in to completely shaven pussy and doesn't tolerate a single hair. So we made a quick detour at the Wardman Park Marriott and she ran inside to use the lobby bathroom. While waiting for her I kept asking myself on how a once a proud member of the United States Marine ended up as a cabbie, waiting for hooker, while she shaved her pussy clean in a hotel bathroom?

She came back fresh and smelling real good for her man of the night. I dropped her off around the corner after making arrangement to pick her up later that night. I ended up being her driver for the next three years.

By the way what's up with the guys in to bald pussies? Ladies if your man is in to that shit you better hide the little girls away from him! That's all I can say. I like my ladies bushy and natural, I want to go camping in that joint motherfucker!

Finally I want to say that I hope Julie is not hooking anymore, I know it is a business hard to get away from because it's addictive like cab driving. Don't go too far, just look at me! I thought I was done cab driving? Not a chance, my ass is back hacking but I don't want to see Julie back working the streets anymore.

Later,

Pastor Joe.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

I CAME BACK FOR THIS?

My fellow DC cab drivers, make sure you lube your asses real good every time you come to work because we are getting fucked by the current fare rates. I started to second guess myself on why I returned to cab driving on my first night back last night.

I made the stupid move to pull over for a girl holding a light bag standing at the corner of Wisconsin and Garrison around 4am. Normally, I avoid a potential airport job, I look the other way and drive off whenever I see people drag their suitcases and waive their hands. I am a hood hustler fuck the airport work, every now and then I get paid with a bag of weed but that's okay, that's how I roll motherfucker. I was on my way back to the city after dropping off a group of drunk people in Bethesda when I pulled over for a tall skinny girl. By the way she stiffed me on the tip because I don't support gay marriage like she does, I am not like those idiots who just agree with your bullshit just to be polite, fuck you!

To make this sorry ass story short, the metered fare ended up being $39. 50. What the fuck is going on? $39.50 to drive your ass all the way to Dulles Airport and listen to your bullshit on top of that? This same trip would cost her close to $60 when she catches back those Virginia airport cabs when she returns back to town. This will be the last Dulles Airport trip that I will be running, I am going to drop the old classic Pastor move that I use to avoid these slave jobs!

The head clown Uncle Tom, oops I am sorry I meant to say Mayor Fenty! He is going to be a one fucking hit wonder, he is not going to carry ward 7 & 8 like last time during the next election. I can't believe Uncle Tom Jr, ooops again! I meant to say Mad Cabbie, volunteered for this idiot's campaign last time. This motherfucker is completely destroying the working class in the District of Columbia as Ronald Reagan demolished the American middle class! He is setting up the individual DC cabbie to fail so he can hand it to big corporations on a silver platter.

The fares are slashed at least 15%-25% and on top of that the city has started issuing new licenses to thousands of new drivers. Washington DC has the highest number of cabs per capita in the nation already with out the new drivers! Pretty soon drivers will be drawing guns at each other for the right to pick up a fare. What does this tell you about Fenty's administration? What is the message? I think it is loud and clear! It's time to stack up those KY Jellies fellow cabbies, God help you are going to need it big time. The CVS on DuPont Circle has them on sale! This week only while supplies last!

Next time I just stick to my hood jobs, motherfuckers are not going to bother me to take them to the airports from the slums. Maybe to the Greyhound Station on their way to an exotic vacation at the Kings Dominion, and that's fine with me.

Later!

Pastor Joe.


Monday, May 25, 2009

HEEEEEEEEEES BAAAAAAACK!!!

I have known all along that this cracker would come back. The master hacker His Excellency Pastor Joe will be back in the cockpit of his cab some time this week. I can not tell you how excited I am, this motherfucker taught me everything I know. I do believe he is the best hacker in this city and Washingtonians are lucky to have him back on the streets.

I think Pastor Joe is the only cabbie who hangs out around DC jail to pick up his regular clients, even Mad Cabbie has his limits.

Welcome back Pastor!

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

MAD THE MENTOR

I was parked and chilling outside the Channel Inn in south west eating an apple until I was interrupted by this kid who was riding his bike. He sneaked up next to me and scared the shit out of me.

ME: What the fuck is wrong with you, you little fuck! Don't you ever sneak up on me like that!
CJ: Sorry Mad, I haven't seen you in a long time, I thought you quit driving a cab!
ME: No CJ I had to be with my dad for a while, he passed away a couple of month ago.
CJ: He got killed or something?
ME: NO! You dumb fuck! My dad died of cancer, you little piece of shit!


I really don't blame CJ for thinking that my dad may have been killed by someone. In his world every dead person he knows was shot and killed by gun violence.

CJ is a short 5 feet nothing 18 year old who dropped out of school three years ago. A classic ghetto tale, father doing time, mother on food stamps living in a section 8 development off Delaware avenue and all that good stuff. Quite a few times I tried to get him in to some programme so he could take his GED test but I never succeeded. CJ is a small time hustler with a "Scarface" dream, so education is not on top of his priority list.

ME: So what are you up to these days CJ? What are you doing up two in the morning?
CJ: You know the drill, trying to get paid! You know what I'm saying?
ME: You better get your shit straight CJ!
CJ: it's rough out here Mad, Niggers popped Skippy few months ago you know!
ME: Skippy? Is he that fat kid who walks funny?
CJ: Yes that's him! They smoked his ass in Baltimore.
ME: I am surprised he lived this long! What is he 22 or 23?
CJ: Some shit like that! Listen Mad, can you help on that GDE thing?
ME: First, It's GED you ass wipe! Second, I am done with you! Do your own shit!
CJ: I promise, I won't fuck up this time Mad!
ME: CJ, just go to a fucken library, they will give you all the information you need.
CJ: It's like that uh?
ME: I had it with you CJ, now leave me alone and let me eat this stupid apple.


Cj got irritated and took off with his bicycle but he came right back to deliver a piece of his mind.

"You're full of shit Mad! I don't need a fucken GED! You have a college degree, but look at you, you're a fucken sorry ass cab driver! PUNK!!!"

CJ disappeared in to the darkness and I didn't have any response to the torpedo he just fired my way, he wouldn't understand anyways.

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

RUSH "TO EAT" LIMBAUGH

Look at the new face of the Republican Party! A sexually confused fat man if you notice carefully the way he is sucking on that stupid cigar, He likes it big too!

I thought I was the only one who found the Wanda Sykes "I hope his kidney fails!" line very funny. Everyone is like "she went too far with that cheap shot!" Cheap shot my ass! I laughed my ass off! My friend Lizzie articulated the reasons very well why Rush "To Eat" Limbaugh don't deserve an ounce of sympathy for the beating he took that night. In fact Lizzie concluded her post by saying:

"I'm vehemently against torture. But I would happily waterboard Rush any day."


I hope he wakes up with a hemorrhoid a size of a basketball! How you like that one?

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

WHY CALL DIAMOND CAB?

Last night I picked up a petite young blond from a bar in DuPont Circle. She was trying to get home around Logan Circle after a bartending gig. She could have easily walked out to the street and flagged a cab off Connecticut avenue but instead she called Diamond Cab and paid the extra $2.00 charge for the service. But she was telling me that ever since she got robbed by a thug who was driving a stolen cab she was riding in, she stopped catching a cab off the street whenever she rides alone at night. Cabs get stolen all the time and who ever drives the stolen cab could have an open crime season to do what ever he wants if he decides to pick up people. I think she is lucky person that she is still living.

This is another reason why you should call Diamond Cab, especially if you are a chick riding alone at night. Don't call our only competition (Yellow Cab)! The drivers are ugly motherfuckers and they only take showers on holidays. Here at Diamond Cab, drivers are required by management to take a shower at least once every other week but most drivers I know are hygiene freaks and they do shower every Sunday.

Here is our call center number if you need it! (202)387-6200

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Monday, May 11, 2009

THIRD TIME IS A CHARM

I have been robbed at gunpoint couple of times. The first time I got robbed I almost pooped on my seat but I ended up just having a few brown skid marks in my pants. Just as a reminder on how my job dangerous it could be, I have that same messy pants nicely framed and hanged in my living room. Sometimes I have visitors to my house asking me, "Hey Mad, we didn't know that you're in to abstract arts! Is that a Picasso?"

"That's not a Picasso motherfucker! That's what night cabbies pants look like every time a gun is pointed at the back of their heads!"

The second time was a little different, there were no skid marks or anything like that. I was cool and calm and the jackass who robbed me was nice and polite as well, I think I gave him my card in case next time he needed a ride.

Lately I am kind of feeling my third one is past due, especially in my case who never cherry pick his passengers. You could be waving your gun with one hand and a crack pipe with the other to get my attention, and my dumb ass would stop for you to take you to where ever shit hole you belong to. This time I am hoping to have a drink afterwards with the next motherfucker who's going to rob my sorry ass.

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

BETTER THAN GETTING LAID

"It's much pleasurable than a good fuck!"

That's how a lady in her late fifty's described to me her love for sailing. I picked her up last week very early in the morning from Georgetown going to Union Station. She was traveling to New London, Connecticut to participate in some kind of sailing race.

What people say and do never shocks me. I have heard it all and seen it all but for some odd reason this old broad kind of stunned me.

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

LESSON FROM THE JERRY CURL TWINS

I am a very confidant individual, you can laugh all you want but I consider myself a successful person. You may ask, "Mad Cabbie, you drive a dumb ass cab for a living! How could you say some stupid ass shit like that nigger?"

You see, the media oriented society made us believe that success is only gauged by how much shit load of money you have, how big a mansion you live in, which Ivy League college you went to, how many important people you mingle around with, how expensive is the piece of metal you drive and so on and so on. That might be half true, I don't know because I never had either of those things. But what I have is a sense of freedom, the ability to simplify my life, the availability to participate in a cause I passionately care for, great family and friends (some of them shady) and the greatest of all, I DON'T own an alarm clock and a TV set!

I am not perfect by no means but I am confident enough that I will be smiling in my death bed looking back on how I lived my life. Let me tell you a little story about what could be one of the the building blocks that made Mad cabbie who he is today.

When I was 13 years old we lived at the 600 block of Peabody street in DC, right behind the 4th district police station. Nice working class black neighborhood, my mother was the only white person there, or maybe with exception of few white cops who cruised back and forth the streets on their way to the station. The house right across from us lived the "The Jerry Curl Family", the parents and the twin boys all wore Jerry curls which was fashionable in the black community at the time. The twins were the bullies of the street, those niggers had full beard at 13 man. They used to claim that my mother was a CIA agent spying on the black community, and they bitch slapped me all the time when I stood up for her. It came to a point that I was afraid to come out of my house, in fact I was so bored in my room I jerked off all day long.

It was one summer morning, I woke up from bed and looked out the window and there were the Jerry curl twins sitting by the porch and enjoying the sun. I don't know what happened, something snapped in my head telling me "THE JERRY CURL TWINS MUST DIE!!!". I walked straight out to their porch and called out one of the brothers, and he did not know what's coming! He said something like, "What the fuck you want? It better be something good!" The minute he got to a striking range I knocked his greasy ass out cold with two fast blows one to his right ear and one to his nose. While he was lying on the floor unconscious and bleeding, his brother ran toward me but I used his own force to throw him to the ground and I managed to be on top of him choking him and banging his head against the ground.

To make the long story short, my parents ended up with a huge medical bill but those motherfuckers never fucked with me again. Ever since that summer morning my life changed for the better, I stopped believing the hype, I started to look at myself and the world very differently, It was a confidence building moment! Confident enough to believe that I could be a cabbie and have a simple happy life.

My father did well as a private contractor after he left the military so the following summer we moved to a much better neighborhood in Maryland with good schools, and I had to learn how to speak English all over again. The only problem? We were the only blacks in the hood! And my mother was like, "It's pay back time motherfuckers!"

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie