Post by Sue on Jan 18, 2020 14:48:34 GMT -5
Memoirs of a Cab Driver: The Sullen Man in North Bronx
by Dominick A. Pavese
July 16, 1951
New York Post
"Memoirs of a Cab Driver: The Sullen Man in North Bronx"
Your taxicab driver gives his public more than ordinary scrutiny. Day after day he must, the law says, make out trip cards. He must write up each passenger --- where and when he picked him up, where and when he left him, what, if anything, happened. These cards must be held for a year and be made available to the cops at any time.
He has to hold in his memory a lot of things about his passenger until he has time to jot them down. Keen observation of his fellow man to him is a habit born of necessity.
So your cabbie carries a lot of personal details around with him. The remarkable thing about him is that he ever gets time to collect these and write them down, as did Dominick A. Pavese of 2275 Living Av., The Bronx, whose attentive ear the incidents in the series of which the tale told on this [page] is the first. It is related in straight and simple Bronx taxi English.
By Dominick A. Pavese
The money jingled in my hand as the sullen character bounded up the steps of the darkened house. I half yelled a "thank you" at him as I noticed that he had tipped me generously. The idling motor of my cab seemed louder, in the quietness of the surroundings, and it almost told me to "get the hell out of here quick."!
I needed no prompting from my idling motor to get moving. I was on a desolate street away up in the North Bronx, and I had just deposited my last fare of the night in front of his house. Although I knew the man as a customer I had driven before, it always made my heart pound faster to pick him up from the subway station and take him to his place in the sticks.
The man himself was cause for any cabby to go into deep meditation. His sullen manner caused you to dislike him at first contact. He was about five feet, eight inches in height, had neatly combed brown hair, and a pair of the darkest piercing eyes I ever saw. His clothes were on the conservative side, but by no means constituted what the well dressed man would wear.
This was the mysterious character I had just left, and as I turned my cab around, I made my way back to the stand to call it a night.
"Hya, Bill, through for the
night?"
"Yeah, how about you?"
"Me, yeah, I'm through; and glad of it. That guy, Bill, I don't like the looks of that guy."
"For crying out loud, you are
the scariest guy I ever did know,"
Bill replied.
"Good Lord. Bill, did you ever
take a good look at that guy?"
THE SCENE WAS A COFFEE
Pot inhabited by cab drivers who congregated at the conclusion of their nightly chores. I was at the foot of the subway steps in an obscure place in the Bronx. Bill and I were regulars who hacked the stand at the corner, and after each call we
would go into the coffee shop and discuss the topics of the day.
Right now we were discussing
the sullen character that came
off the station each morning
about 3 and asked to be driven
to his home quite a distance in
the sticks -- the call I had just returned from.
"I'm going to talk this guy, deaf, dumb, and blind, and perhaps I will get him to open up. Boy, a clam has nothing on that bozo."
The sullen, mysterious character that rode off the subway each morning was a man that had
very little to say. No amount of
probing by any of the hackmen
could determine what the man's
occupation was, or the reasons for his coming home so late.
Well, it was not long before
my friend Bill started to pull his
cab into the garage at a very
early hour of the morning. The period was in 1932, and the country had gone into a depression.
Business had slumped to the extent that it did not pay a man to stay out later than 2 a.m., but I needed the money I was making, and the result was that I was the only one left to take care of the little business that came off the subway after that hour.
by Dominick A. Pavese
July 16, 1951
New York Post
"Memoirs of a Cab Driver: The Sullen Man in North Bronx"
Your taxicab driver gives his public more than ordinary scrutiny. Day after day he must, the law says, make out trip cards. He must write up each passenger --- where and when he picked him up, where and when he left him, what, if anything, happened. These cards must be held for a year and be made available to the cops at any time.
He has to hold in his memory a lot of things about his passenger until he has time to jot them down. Keen observation of his fellow man to him is a habit born of necessity.
So your cabbie carries a lot of personal details around with him. The remarkable thing about him is that he ever gets time to collect these and write them down, as did Dominick A. Pavese of 2275 Living Av., The Bronx, whose attentive ear the incidents in the series of which the tale told on this [page] is the first. It is related in straight and simple Bronx taxi English.
By Dominick A. Pavese
The money jingled in my hand as the sullen character bounded up the steps of the darkened house. I half yelled a "thank you" at him as I noticed that he had tipped me generously. The idling motor of my cab seemed louder, in the quietness of the surroundings, and it almost told me to "get the hell out of here quick."!
I needed no prompting from my idling motor to get moving. I was on a desolate street away up in the North Bronx, and I had just deposited my last fare of the night in front of his house. Although I knew the man as a customer I had driven before, it always made my heart pound faster to pick him up from the subway station and take him to his place in the sticks.
The man himself was cause for any cabby to go into deep meditation. His sullen manner caused you to dislike him at first contact. He was about five feet, eight inches in height, had neatly combed brown hair, and a pair of the darkest piercing eyes I ever saw. His clothes were on the conservative side, but by no means constituted what the well dressed man would wear.
This was the mysterious character I had just left, and as I turned my cab around, I made my way back to the stand to call it a night.
"Hya, Bill, through for the
night?"
"Yeah, how about you?"
"Me, yeah, I'm through; and glad of it. That guy, Bill, I don't like the looks of that guy."
"For crying out loud, you are
the scariest guy I ever did know,"
Bill replied.
"Good Lord. Bill, did you ever
take a good look at that guy?"
THE SCENE WAS A COFFEE
Pot inhabited by cab drivers who congregated at the conclusion of their nightly chores. I was at the foot of the subway steps in an obscure place in the Bronx. Bill and I were regulars who hacked the stand at the corner, and after each call we
would go into the coffee shop and discuss the topics of the day.
Right now we were discussing
the sullen character that came
off the station each morning
about 3 and asked to be driven
to his home quite a distance in
the sticks -- the call I had just returned from.
"I'm going to talk this guy, deaf, dumb, and blind, and perhaps I will get him to open up. Boy, a clam has nothing on that bozo."
The sullen, mysterious character that rode off the subway each morning was a man that had
very little to say. No amount of
probing by any of the hackmen
could determine what the man's
occupation was, or the reasons for his coming home so late.
Well, it was not long before
my friend Bill started to pull his
cab into the garage at a very
early hour of the morning. The period was in 1932, and the country had gone into a depression.
Business had slumped to the extent that it did not pay a man to stay out later than 2 a.m., but I needed the money I was making, and the result was that I was the only one left to take care of the little business that came off the subway after that hour.