Hey - you know what? It's been a long time since I've told you one of my "only in New York" stories.
And with all the talk about the Middle East these days, I had a flashback yesterday to one night in Manhattan, when I was living there in the early 1990's, and an absurd, politically incorrect event that rattled me as much as it rattled the taxi cab in which I was riding.
Back then, the stereotypical American jobs for many Middle Easterners ran the low-wage gamut, from counter clerk at convenience stores and gas stations to cabbies in cities large and small. Even today, these jobs tend to be comparatively risky, and wholly unglamorous. They're jobs many of us tend to marginalize, and although they're all around us, Middle Easterners working these lowly jobs rarely become anything more to white Americans like me than a means to an end - like paying for a quick snack of junk food, or being shuttled from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible.
So it was, then, very late one Manhattan evening, probably after I'd stood around longer than I thought was reasonable for a bus, that I hailed a cab for a ride down Second Avenue to my apartment on East 28th Street. Second Avenue is mostly residential, with no attractions for tourists, and no major office buildings, so long after the evening rush, traffic would be nil - by New York standards, anyway.
And my ride down Second Avenue began normally enough. The cab clattered and shook as it bounced over Gotham's ubiquitous potholes. I hadn't bothered to consider the ethnicity of my driver. What difference did it make? By the early 1990's, white cabbies had become extremely rare; most were from the Middle East, Africa, India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh. Many wore turbans, but I'd developed an admittedly ethnocentric system of sloppily differentiating between their styles - thicker, fuller and more circular shaped for Muslims; and slimmer, sleeker, oval folds for Sikhs.
It was at an ordinary red light that my cabbie, whatever his religion was, began introducing me to his personality. After all; religion is one thing. How one behaves can be quite another.
As we waited for the light to change, my driver - a young, stocky, olive-skinned Middle Eastern man - glanced over at another cabbie who'd pulled up alongside us. The other driver looked very much like mine. Suddenly, however, my cabbie began yelling derisive things at him (I'm assuming they were derisive) in a language I didn't understand. Both of our cabs' windows were rolled down, and the other cabbie returned the obviously acrimonious volley. And things got more ominous from there. Both men were loudly engaging with each other, and I remember both of them were wearing the same type of thick, round turban.
Okay, so yes; I reached my conclusions through crude stereotyping. But what I thought didn't matter to either of them.
Okay, so yes; I reached my conclusions through crude stereotyping. But what I thought didn't matter to either of them.
Our light turned green, and both cabbies were off - tearing down Second Avenue like there was no tomorrow. And the way they drove, I began to wonder if I literally had no tomorrow! David Letterman used to joke that riding in a New York taxi was "like watching your life flash before your eyes." I'd taken plenty of those types of rides; most Gotham cabbies believe speed limits, lane striping, turn signals, and brake pedals are for suburbanites.
Nevertheless, this ride had instantly become even more perilous. I quickly realized theirs wasn't simply disgruntlement - and this was back in the days before we had "road rage." Some major hatred existed between these two cabbies, and since Second Avenue was wide open - about four traffic lanes with hardly any traffic at all - our two cabs surged and dueled across the open blacktop; potholes, uneven manhole covers, and all.
If any pedestrians had been trying to jaywalk, they'd have been splattered all over Second Avenue.
We were flying. Well, flying as much as two full-sized American-made sedans can fly down a poorly-maintained big-city boulevard. I'm pretty sure we did get airborne a couple of times though, however briefly. And as we flew, the cabbies never stopped yelling insults at each other. At least, I figured they were insults. Or maybe threats. I didn't understand a word of it, except that their tones were mutually scalding from utter contempt.
Before too long, my cabbie reached down and brandished a big knife - a weapon he likely kept under his front seat in case he was ever robbed. He leaned across the front passenger seat to wave his flashy flesh-slicer at the other cabbie. The whole episode had crossed from the merely bizarre to full-blown lunacy! They wove their cars back and forth across the empty traffic lanes, and even bashed their vehicles into each other! I kid you not. I used to wonder how New York's taxi fleet could look so incredibly tattered, but if this is what cabbies do when the streets are sparsely-trafficked, now I know.
Twenty-Eighth Street came (and went), and I was bellowing at my cabbie to stop and let me out. He seemed to have forgotten that I was still in his back seat, having braced myself between the two rear doors, anticipating a horrendous collision, yet oddly fascinated enough by such raw drama to maintain my ringside perspective.
He slammed on his brakes, obviously agitated over the delay I was causing him, as his nemesis continued on full-throttle. I threw a couple of bucks into the front seat - not the full fare, and certainly without any tip - and hurriedly scooted myself out the passenger-side door. I didn't even get to close it completely before my cabbie was off again - his barely-latched back door rattling ajar as the yellow sedan tore down Second Avenue to continue the fight.
Alone at the curb on an empty sidewalk, I realized my driver had overshot 28th Street by a couple of blocks before he'd finally stopped to deposit me. It took the extra time walking back to my apartment before my heart rate had returned to normal.
Now, I'm not telling y'all this story to bash Middle Easterners. I have no idea whether the grievance between these two men wearing Muslim-looking headgear had anything to do with religion, Islam or otherwise.
If any pedestrians had been trying to jaywalk, they'd have been splattered all over Second Avenue.
We were flying. Well, flying as much as two full-sized American-made sedans can fly down a poorly-maintained big-city boulevard. I'm pretty sure we did get airborne a couple of times though, however briefly. And as we flew, the cabbies never stopped yelling insults at each other. At least, I figured they were insults. Or maybe threats. I didn't understand a word of it, except that their tones were mutually scalding from utter contempt.
Before too long, my cabbie reached down and brandished a big knife - a weapon he likely kept under his front seat in case he was ever robbed. He leaned across the front passenger seat to wave his flashy flesh-slicer at the other cabbie. The whole episode had crossed from the merely bizarre to full-blown lunacy! They wove their cars back and forth across the empty traffic lanes, and even bashed their vehicles into each other! I kid you not. I used to wonder how New York's taxi fleet could look so incredibly tattered, but if this is what cabbies do when the streets are sparsely-trafficked, now I know.
Twenty-Eighth Street came (and went), and I was bellowing at my cabbie to stop and let me out. He seemed to have forgotten that I was still in his back seat, having braced myself between the two rear doors, anticipating a horrendous collision, yet oddly fascinated enough by such raw drama to maintain my ringside perspective.
He slammed on his brakes, obviously agitated over the delay I was causing him, as his nemesis continued on full-throttle. I threw a couple of bucks into the front seat - not the full fare, and certainly without any tip - and hurriedly scooted myself out the passenger-side door. I didn't even get to close it completely before my cabbie was off again - his barely-latched back door rattling ajar as the yellow sedan tore down Second Avenue to continue the fight.
Alone at the curb on an empty sidewalk, I realized my driver had overshot 28th Street by a couple of blocks before he'd finally stopped to deposit me. It took the extra time walking back to my apartment before my heart rate had returned to normal.
Now, I'm not telling y'all this story to bash Middle Easterners. I have no idea whether the grievance between these two men wearing Muslim-looking headgear had anything to do with religion, Islam or otherwise.
Maybe they recognized each other as being rivals for the same romantic interest, since as I've written before, unlikely coincidences seem to play a big role in much of Gotham's perpetual drama.
Maybe they simply recognized the serial numbers on each other's cabs as meaning they were employees of rival cab companies, between which bad blood brewed.
Since they were both headed in the same direction on a long boulevard, maybe they'd already clipped each other's cars further uptown.
I don't know. But I did figure I should've simply walked those forty-odd blocks.
I don't know. But I did figure I should've simply walked those forty-odd blocks.
