103. Big Yellow Taxi

We’ve been in New York for the past few days visiting Caroline’s sister, Joanna, Matthias her husband, and their two boys, Oscar and Timo.  It has been an interesting time, especially as we were here for Halloween, an occasion that is celebrated with much more energy, enthusiasm and fervour than it is in Britain.

The most interesting, memorable and exciting part of our short visit was right at the start: the journey from Newark Liberty International Airport to Sullivan Street, New York City.  This is a trip of 14 miles that we had been told would cost $55 by cab.  We got into a yellow taxi at the airport and told, the driver, Shane our destination.

“Sixty-seven bucks,” he said, “and eighteen for the tolls.” 

It had been an eight-hour flight, I was tired and I was hungry and I didn’t argue.

We set off on a six-lane highway.  The speed limit in New Jersey and in New York State is 65 mph and unlike in the UK, most people abide by it.  Another difference from the UK is that overtaking on both sides is permitted and is usual.

Even though at three thirty on a Wednesday afternoon the traffic was by no means light, our driver quickly reached 85 mph.  He switched lanes like a downhill slalom skier, occasionally breaking sharply and then accelerating away in the vein of a Formula One driver.  Caroline and I were shaken about and bumped into each other in the back for more than five minutes. 

We reached the first toll and I handed Shane a $20 bill.  He received a wad of notes in change and off we went again but not at breakneck speed because now we were in heavy traffic.  Then came the Holland tunnel and another toll was paid.  Our driver handed me two dollars.

“This is yours,” he said.

I noticed that he still had a bundle of notes in his hand.

“What about that?” I asked, pointing to the bills.

“That’s for my journey back.”

“You won’t go back empty,” I said.  “Don’t people in New York City use yellow cabs?  They do in all the films I’ve seen.  Surely you’ll get a fare in the city.”

He ignored me.

Throughout the tunnel, lane changing was forbidden but immediately we were through, Shane started lane switching started again even though we were in heavy traffic.  After a few minutes we pulled up in the middle lane behind a stationary truck.  Shane hooted loudly and constantly for 20 seconds but nothing changed.

As the traffic to our right passed serenely by, he lost patience and with a screech of tyres, he yanked at the wheel and changed lane, but clipping the rear wing of a passing Lincoln as he did so.

The Lincoln driver stopped immediately, got out and advanced towards us, red faced with anger.  Shane also got out and the two of them stood in the middle of The Avenue of the Americas screaming and abusing each other, both accusing the other of causing the collision.  After five minutes a traffic cop arrived and tried to play the role of peacemaker but neither of them wanted peace.

Two of the three lanes were blocked.  It was four o’clock and the rush hour was starting.  Crowds of people gathered on both sidewalks, many of them taking photographs.  

Shane came back and said nothing but started the engine and turned the wheel to the left.  The other driver realised that he was about to leave and stood in front of the taxi to stop it with both arms outstretched, as if he were prepared to sacrifice himself.  Shane went right but so did the other man – stalemate.  Those in the crowd who were videoing things were getting good shots.

Shane got out and the shouting started again.  There must have been more than a hundred spectators when there was a tap on my window and I saw a young woman smiling at me.  I wound down the window.  

“Are you in a movie?”

Shane returned and sat there, fuming in angry silence.  I asked what was going on and he told us that we were waiting for the police.

“Look,” I said to him, a little apprehensively, “it was your fault, you know.  You pulled out and hit him.  He was driving straight and he did nothing wrong.  You hit the rear of his car and so he’d almost gone past and he couldn’t possibly have seen you coming across.”

That may have had an effect on him because a minute later Shane got out again and the two of them began to talk for the first time.  The other driver began to write things down and after another ten minutes, Shane came back and we set off at last. 

He had to steer to the right to avoid the truck that was still in front of us.  I suspect that he hadn’t checked his wing mirror because I was immediately startled by the noise of hammering on the roof of the taxi.  Shane had driven into a cyclist’s path and caused him to stop abruptly.

“Well?” I asked him a couple of minutes later when all was quiet at last.  “How did you leave it?”

“Three hundred dollars,” he said.

“I reckon you got a good deal,” I said, and then he seemed to cheer up.  But it soon became horribly obvious that he didn’t have a clue where Sullivan Street was.

“Haven’t you got sat nav?” Caroline asked him.

“No.”

“A map then?” she said.

“No.”

Caroline rummaged in her rucksack and got out The Lonely Planet guide to New York.  She opened it at the street map.

“Next left…….Straight on…….Straight on…….Left…….It should be the next road on the right.”

“She knows what she knows,” Shane shouted, getting excited, all his past troubles seemingly forgotten.

When we saw the green road sign saying, ‘Sullivan Street’, Shane let out a whoop of triumph and he banged on the steering wheel with both fists. 

“She knows!  She knows!  The girl knows.  The girl knows,” he yelled at the top of his voice, with the look of a man who has scored the winning goal in the last minute of a cup final.  I have never before seen a licensed taxi driver so excited at reaching the destination.

We pulled up outside Joanna’s house, the thirty-minute journey having taken more than two hours.  I handed Shane seventy dollars.

“Twenty per cent is usual,” he said.

And would you believe it?  He was serious.