Let's see, $300 divided by 25 hours = twelve bucks an hour. I think I'll keep my day job.
StanB
This is true. The money I make is not very good. Worse yet, if I go to sleep on the job and conk out for a few hours, that cuts into my margin of profit and my hourly income goes way down.
I do this job only when I have to because I am broke. I never drove a taxi for nearly five months from January 3, 2000 until May 27, 2000. Then, discovering I had just barely enough money to take the subway from my house to the taxi garage, I decided that I had better drive my taxi again.
I drove for more than 25 hours from 4:06 AM on Sunday, June 4 until 5:22 AM on Monday June 5. My net profit was exactly $322.
I was lucky to get that. This past Sunday had the worst driving conditions I have ever experienced in Manhattan. Due to the enlightened leadership of our beloved Fascist dictator, a Filipino Day Parade was held on Sunday Afternoon down Madison Avenue, while at the same time a Israel Day Parade was being held on Fifth Avenue. The Beloved Fascist Dictator himself marched in the Israel Day Parade along with his heir designate Fazio and his arch-enemy Hillary, but for some unknown reason none of them chose to march in the Filipino Day Parade one block away.
I had a good opportunity to witness this wonderful event because my taxi was stuck in traffic and could not move. Twice during the day I had to tell my passenger that I would be happy to take her wherever she wanted to go, but it would take me an hour to get there because of the parades, so I advised her to take the subway instead. I dropped her off at the nearest subway station.
Of course, this was not entirely the fault of the dictator and his arch-enemy. Tito Fuentes, the Mambo King, had died and naturally they had to have a traffic-stopping memorial for him on Amsterdam Avenue and 76th Street on Sunday too, so when I tried to go up the West Side to escape the Fascist dictator and his enemy, I got into completely stopped traffic on Central Park West. One of my passengers just gave up and got out there, preferring to walk across Central Park.
They also scheduled a motorcycle drive-in this Sunday for Brooklyn and the Long Island Expressway, which took place at exactly the same time as the Israel Day Parade, the Filipino Day Parade and the Memorial for Tito Fuentes, so if you just wanted to get out of town to escape all this, you could not even do that.
Finally, I just gave up on Manhattan and went to JFK Airport. Usually, I do not do this because JFK is a losing proposition. The reason: I get a flat fare of $30 to take a passenger from JFK to Manhattan, but before picking up that fare I have to wait for an average of two hours in the taxi line at the "Central Taxi Hold" off the JFK Expressway. So I spend a half hour driving to JFK, wait for two hours and then spend a half hour driving back, so it takes me three hours to get $30 which is the same amount I pay to rent the taxi from the fleet. In short, I break even after working for three hours.
This Sunday, however, great mobs of people were arriving in New York City and there was no taxi line at JFK at all. As soon as I got to the Central Taxi Hold at JFK, I just picked up my pass and went to get my passenger.
I picked up passengers four times at JFK this Sunday. However, the last time I almost got trapped.
Before this, at 11:23 PM, I picked up three high school kids on 86th Street near Second Avenue. Two boys and a girl. I think they had just come from a prom. They were talking about you-know-what. The girl was kissing one of the boys in the back seat. There were three stops, all on the Upper East Side. She got out first. The last passenger got out at 11:37 PM on 92nd Street between First and Second Avenue. The meter fare was $7.90 and he gave me $8.00 for a generous tip of ten cents.
I decided to drive across the Queensboro Bridge and pull over and rest for a while. Big mistake. I should have kept driving, because I almost lost big because of this.
Shortly after 1:00 AM, I arrived in the Central Taxi Hold at JFK Airport. Soon, there was an announcement on the loudspeaker that only one more flight would be arriving that night and it was coming at 2:30 AM. I counted that there were 22 taxis in front of me in the line. I gambled and figured that this flight, wherever it was coming from, would need at least 22 taxis. So, I decided to sit and wait, knowing that if I was wrong, my evening would be shot because I had only made $231 so far that day and my taxi was due to be returned at 5:00 AM.
At 2:30 AM, I was given my pass and went to Terminal number 7. All the other taxis got their fares and left. I had been the last one to get a pass, so I was the only taxi still in line. There seemed to be nobody inside the terminal. Finally, the dispatcher went in and looked. He came out and said that there was one more passenger there waiting for his luggage.
Finally, the passenger came out. It was a man and his girlfriend, lugging a huge suitcase. They got in my cab and told me they were going to 50th Street and First Avenue.
On the way, I asked him where he was coming from. He said that he and his girl had gone to French Polynesia for their honeymoon. He said that he worked for AP. I asked if he was a reporter. He said that no, he just moved stories around to make sure they went to where they were supposed to go.
Naturally, I pitched my web site and, when we got to his destination, he gave me $37, which included a generous tip.
I went up First Avenue, following my usual route of turning west on 86th Street, coming down Second Avenue, slowing down past the lesbian bar to look for passengers there and finally turning east on 60th Street, slowing down past SCORES, a famous strip joint, still finding no customers.
Finally, I turned up First Avenue again, where I found, standing on the NW corner 61st and First Avenue, two girls.
As they got into my taxi at exactly 3:21 AM (I have kept the receipt) my first thought was that they were strippers from Scores. They certainly looked like strippers. They were tall and beautiful, in their early 20s, about 5 foot 10 or 5 foot 11 inches tall, although I could not be sure exactly, because they were wearing very high heels. One girl had blond hair and blue eyes. The other had black hair. They were Russian.
"How did you know we were Russian?", they asked. Such a stupid question! They obviously did not understand much about chess.
Anyway, they said they were not exactly Russian. Instead, they were from Kiev.
Usually, I would give my little speech about how I am this great Shakhmatist and I have been to Moscow and Kiev too, but somehow I did not think that these girls would be impressed with that, so I decided to just practice my Russian by trying to figure out what they were talking about, which turned out to be primarily about men.
They said they were going to the Bronx. I asked why they were going to the Bronx and not to Brighton Beach. One started to answer, but the other started talking on her cell phone.
A high percentage of sex club strippers in New York City are tall, blond haired, blue eyed Russian girls, so I had just about figured out what they were doing on the corner of First Avenue and 61st Street at 3:21 AM, when something happened which changed my mind. I never take the FDR Drive. I go straight up First Avenue through Harlem (always being careful not to tell my passengers where we are). However, just at the corner of First Avenue and 125th Street, just as I was about to cross the Willis Avenue Bridge into the South Bronx, the black haired girl, whose name was Natasha, leaned out the window. I stopped my cab. She opened the door and started vomiting onto the street.
My cab sat there for five minutes while she threw up on the street. This led me to conclude that they were not strippers after all, because I assume that strippers do not drink on the job.
Finally, we proceeded. I took them up the Bruckner Expressway, up the Bronx River Parkway, got off at the Bronx Zoo exit and dropped them off at their home near the Bronx Municipal Hospital (Who knows? Maybe they were nurses, not strippers.)
I got them there at 3:46 AM. The distance was 10.10 miles. The meter fare was $18.70. The blond haired girl gave me a $20 bill, for a $1.30 tip.
I crossed the Washington Bridge to get back to Manhattan
Coming down Broadway, I was hailed by some Latin kids at the corner of 145th Street and Broadway. I am always afraid about picking up passengers at that corner late at night. They are often drunk and rowdy, perhaps carrying guns. However, our beloved Fascist dictator in his enlightened leadership has decreed that we must pick up everybody or else face a court hearing where we tell the judge why we did not.
It turned out that there was no problem. They explained that there is a Mexican dance club called Studio 84 at the SE corner of 145th Street and Broadway, and all the mobs of people standing on this corner looking for a taxi were coming from there. Best yet, they were not going to the Bronx, as passengers usually are from there. Instead, they were going to 56th Street and Ninth Avenue, which was perfect for me because that is where I wanted to be anyway.
I picked them up at 4:09 AM and dropped them off at 4:23 AM. The meter fare was $10.60 but they gave me $14, which was good for a gang of Mexican kids, especially remembering that a car full of white Upper East Side high school kids earlier in the evening had only given me a tip of a dime.
I am required to return my taxi at 5:00 AM in Long Island City, Queens. The hour was nearing but I decided to take one last sweep around Port Authority. Two black ladies with large suitcases were standing in the corner NW corner of 40th Street and Eighth Avenue. They had just gotten off the bus from Chesterfield County, near Richmond Virginia of all places, and were going deep in the heart of Brooklyn.
I really should not have taken them. By law, I am allowed to refuse a passenger if I have been driving more than eight hours straight without a break and I am returning to my garage. I easily qualified because I had been driving for 24 hours straight without a break and I really was heading back to my garage where I was supposed to be by 5:00 AM and it was now 4:30 AM.
Nevertheless, I was aware that black ladies are victims of discrimination and nobody else was going to take them, so I told them to get in.
The destination was further than I had realized. I dropped the second lady at 4:55 AM on Martense Street near the corner of Rogers. She gave me $20.
I then turned right on Bedford Avenue, drove north through Bedford-Stuyvesant, got on Manhattan Avenue and then on McGuinnes and crossed the Pulaski Bridge to Long Island City, Queens.
I got to my garage at 5:22 AM, which was 22 minutes late. However, the dispatcher, who is from Kiev by the way, did not say anything, as he had a lot of taxis but no drivers.
Because of that last passenger at Kennedy Airport when I was the last taxi in the line, the AP guy who had just flown in from French Polynesia with his girl, I received $37 from him, $20 from the two Russian girls, $14 from the Mexican kids and $20 from the black ladies, for a total of $91, which I would not have gotten if I had been one taxi further back in the line.
Such an easy way to make a living.
Sam Sloan