From Taxi Night
You seem like a neat driver.
Do you mind taking me to Remsen Avenue in Canarsie?
Know how to get there?
How long you been driving cab?
I like the music you got on.
Blues on WKCR?
All right!
Are you married? Got a girlfriend?
A guy like you is alone? I don’t believe it!
But I know what’s it’s like.
After a while I felt like, yo, I can’t do this forever.
You know what I’m saying?
So that’s how you got to feel.
Do you want me to help you find a girl?
(Silence)
I know a lot of women in New York City.
Ok. I’m listening.
Where do I meet them?
Everywhere!
I go out.
I go to bars.
I go to hookah lounges.
I go to libraries.
I go to art shows.
I even go to poetry contests!
I was up to two girls a day for a while there.
I’m 23, and I’m out all the time, man.
I meet girls everywhere.
What do you have to lose?
We could do a photo shoot of you, right?
Clean you up.
Then what I’ll do: I’ll match you.
We’ll find you ten dates, right?
And then we see what type of women
want to go out with you.
With one you’ll do coffee.
With another one you’re going to walk
in the um—what’s it called?—
in-the-park.
Out of those ten
even if nine are bad
I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to find one.
You would think so.
Yessss, man.
And I’m not going to charge you that much.
Of course, I got to make a little money
because I got to get you, like, a nice suit.
Yeah—but I’m not—why can’t—
I’m not that kind of way. I’m not so formal.
You got to get formal
if you want to find a good woman!
All right?
Turn right on 4th Avenue.
Left on Atlantic.
So this is how we’re going to do it.
I’m going to get you a good haircut
and then
off with those grandpa glasses
for the photo shoot.
Put them back on now because you’re driving.
All right, king?
I’m going to clean you up.
But first you got to go to boot camp with me.
I got to get you prepared for the date.
You know what I’m saying?
I’m going to bring you back to your old days,
to your ten years ago days, fifteen years ago days,
back when you was a smooth hot shot,
back when you was a top dog player
in the party.
I know you used to go to those parties.
Didn’t you, champ?
Sure.
Did you ever do weed?
Lots of it.
Exactly!
You ever did weed with a hot ++ young thing?
Sure.
Exactly!
You want me to bring you back to those days?
Yo, you should take this opportunity.
Be optimistic.
What could go—how could it go—
how could it be any worse at this point?
Let’s be honest.
You know what I’m saying?
It can’t get much worse.
Exactly!
Maybe a young feller who came in your car
came in your car for a reason
because guess what?
I could probably—I could probably—
turn this into a tv show!
You know what I’m saying?
I can see the t.v. show now: starring Chris Kingsley!
The Young Guy Who Helps the Older Guys Out.
It’s usually the other way around
but I’ll keep doing it.
And bigger guys with bigger budgets
is gonna help me out!
You know what I’m saying?
More people will hire me!
Yo, man!
Everybody needs somebody
to help him get back in shape.
If you have some success with me
the word’ll spread.
Exactly!
Yo, man.
I think we should do this.
At this point, bro, you seem very cool
but I got to be honest with you.
You look like you hit rock bottom
in the love section.
How old are you?
Fifty-eight.
You don’t look that.
You know how you look? 40!
Thank you.
You look young, man!
Especially since you shave your beard.
See, imagine you with a haircut
and a nice tailored suit.
You know what I’m saying?
You’re talkin’ wisdom.
I am talkin’ wisdom
because I know what I’m talkin’ about!
Check out these photos
on my phone.
This ((bare-breasted)) girl
is the daughter of the
vice-president of Con Edison!
Worse comes to worse
you go on a few dates
with ten great women.
Oh, wow. That’s so bad?
A lot of young girls
are into old men right now.
If you want to get them you need swag.
Do you still get up?
Yo, I’m going to help you
get your swag back.
You know why you lost your swag?
Because you’re driving this cab, man.
Is this job stressing you out?
Don’t lie.
Tell me the truth.
I won’t judge you.
I promise.
*
I turned left at 39th and Park
a man hailed me
standing long blue overcoat
—Ron Padgett—
poet I’ve revered for years!
Soon as he said, ‘Tenth Street and Second Avenue,’
I announced myself in the dark.
‘Hi, Ron. This is Cliff Fyman!’
He cried out surprised as I was.
I reached my hand through the open
partition
shook his hand
declaring, ‘This ride is free!’
Ron braked, ‘Oh, no, it isn’t!
You put that meter on right now
or I’m getting out of this damn cab!’
He went for the door.
I flipped the meter on.
I didn’t want him running out.
He asked how I was doing.
Practically suicidal seconds ago
now I could say, ‘GREAT!’
We chatted the whole way.
‘Poet Dick Gallup—
he’s my oldest friend,’
Ron said sadly
probably thinking of older friends now gone,
‘drove cab 40 years
for the same San Francisco company.
Got promoted to dispatcher.’
Tremendous! I shouted,
adrenalin soaring.
‘They had to know him well,’ Ron figured,
‘after working there 40 years.’
We touched on a variety of subjects:
Uber’s cutting into 30%
of yellow cab business,
recent readings we’d been to.
I felt transported to a state
where all complaints fell away.
He recalled a painter he admired
who lived on my block
till she passed on, Jane Wilson,
exhibited at the Parrish Art Museum.
Friend to Jane Freilicher.
Her husband was art critic John Gruen.
Weaving the wide Sienna van
through a log-jammed intersection
I remarked, ‘I don’t want any accidents
with Ron Padgett in my cab.’
He returned my jest with his own beam—
‘It would be in the NY Times.’
When I pulled up he asked me to sign
the receipt—seriously?—yes!
He’d sell it he said
to the Yale Library special collection
and get paid more for it
than the cost of the ride.
He shook my hand goodbye.
Wow!
What a ride!
Mariano Rivera Dream
The day after the Yankees’ season ended in a loss I was sent as a messenger to the home of relief pitcher Mariano Rivera to check his mailbox. The letter I was told to look for was there but it was too bulky to slide beneath the door as instructed so I tore it from the envelope and squeezed it under the threshold. Suddenly I was in the kitchen, a small ordinary working class kitchen with an old wood table and pale yellow walls. In the foyer was a couch made of wicker like you see in tropical climates, and a white sheet was tossed across it. It wasn’t the kind of furniture I expected in the home of a millionaire. There was an elevator in the room where I waited to leave.
Just then several Yankees and team representatives entered the foyer and said Mariano’s home had been burglarized and they’d come to see if everything was ok. Then Rivera entered from a private quarter. He had the quiet confident stride of a champion but when he stood in the light I saw he was a three-foot tall midget. On television he looked much taller, as tall as I was, even taller. During the game they gave him shoes to wear to make him look tall. The Yankees players told me that I wasn’t allowed to let anyone else know in real life Rivera was a midget.
Sabbath Table Dream
I wear a white shirt on the Sabbath eating lunch at a wood table, and I’m surrounded by followers of the faith. I feel I’m failing their scrutiny. When the host, a learned rabbi, asks a question I don’t know, he suggests I answer a separate question related to the week’s portion of the Torah reading, adding, “That’s if you read it.”
I haven’t read it, feel low, take offense, lose my temper and erupt flipping the table of food, plates and cups onto the rabbi, a gentle, frail, aged Kabbalist who always feeds me lunch whenever I need a place to go. I feel immediate remorse then great relief to wake and realize it’s a dream.
Cougar
There’s a tool with a spinning, circular blade in the jungle that changes into a weapon when placed in my hands.
A cougar is slinking low across the ground toward me. It’s kill or be killed. The attacking animal must be cut precisely on the back of the neck in order to kill it, and it’s a difficult weapon to wield with skill.
I’ve never done it before. I aim the blade at the cougar, ready to defend myself. Even if I kill the cougar, an animal slightly larger than it will eat the cougar corpse and attack me, and if I kill the second animal an animal slightly larger than it will eat that corpse and attack me until at last the lion, the largest animal in the jungle, will attack the human being who killed the previous animals.
The task is daunting, overwhelming, and I don’t know if I’ll have the stamina to last. Yet there’s no choice but to try.
Starving Dogs
I’m walking along a sidewalk in a small city carrying a shopping bag packed with chopped meat. An emaciated, ribs-out, stray dog comes near to sniff, and I force it to walk away from the food. The dog obeys my order because it’s feeble and frightened. On second thought, there’s no dog or human being who needs to be fed more than this starving animal. As I open a plastic zip-lock bag with an individual beef portion, pandemonium breaks out among many stray dogs who come out of nowhere barking at my heals to be fed. I break off a small chunk and chuck it to a muscular dog—that’ll serve to distract him. The rest of the ten-ounce portion I pull apart in halves and throw it to that emaciated dog who grabs both halves aggressively with its teeth with more strength than I think it has and runs fifty feet away to eat it quickly before other dogs steal it from him.
I realize I’ll be short the meat Peter Marti has asked me to deliver, and he’ll be annoyed with me, but we’ll figure out a way of replacing it.