Taxi Driver Read Free Page B

he’s just extremely jealous and possessive of his right to know her. She calls all the men drivers pigs. Liked to have slapped her one sometime only Morny would get pretty mad at me if I did. He’s a married man, too, and he needed all his friends he can get. Not to say she was much.
    There was this one black guy Charley T. I used to see a lot with Wizard and Doughboy and everything he said was a big racist remark. It was never just a passenger he was taking someplace, but a Jewish passenger, an Italien passenger, a colored passenger. That’s what he called his own. Colored. We’re all hanging out at the Belmore and he has remarks galore for everybody who passes by or is in the place. Like he tries to show he knows who you are by speaking your own language.
    If he’s Spanish, Charley T. starts in with the Spanish to a person, man or woman. The same I’ve heard him with French, and Jewish, and Italien. Got a bullet head. Big pirate mustaches. A Marvin Gaye wooley cap on. Well, what he says always sounds right, though I don’t know. Are they the real words?
    He said Lindsay’s wife played around and everybody knew it. So did Happy Rockefeller.
    He says Jackie Kennedy gave head to all the limo drivers
    He knew he had a cousin did that in uniform
    No wonder I stuck to my movies Whatsa wife without a life a . . . well, you get the picture. I’m sure.
    I liked all those movies a whole lot better before I saw so many. I only liked it when the men did things to the women. Not the other way around. Well, you know, I only saw my first movie at eighteen, and that was Elvis and Annette Funicello, I believe.
    People in Kalamazoo were real strick. My folks no exception. I should write more about this probly, though I have no talent for it. I think sometimes I could be something like a writer if I had. In bits and pieces.
    A man who has not lived can’t pretend to write as if he had. Except in bits and pieces. To that effect. To write as if he had not is so dull. Writers must say life is worth living. Some people do grow up. Otherwise they’re simply talking bullshit.
    Despite all, I’d never known how to share my life with others. Shared only the worst of it. If at all. But human beings are not bullies. They enjoy experience.
    All my life I’d known that, it seems to me, and I still could not convince myself it was so. Seems like I was just living in this motel, couldn’t pay the rent, couldn’t leave. Waiting for that money order from home.
    Those near and dear to me.
    I began to think of myself as IT. Kinda. The days dwindling on forever did not end. A time bomb inside me.
    Why sure I would try talking to some people, even the straight ones. Once at the Belmore I was aware of loving feelings. A big blush on my face. These two very pretty young women were talking at the next table.
    They weren’t real beauties but they were talking about guys, and I couldn’t help overhearing.
    One said she liked blue-collar men.
    “Well,” said her friend, “Arty isn’t blue collar.”
    “Well actually no,” the first said. “It doesn’t matter what a man is, just so long as he is in good shape. I value tenderness and looks.”
    “You know me,” the second said. “They have to like to be touched. I’m a touch person.”
    Well I was measuring myself against all their requirements and so far so good. They knew I was listening to them, saw me I’m sure, and didn’t stop. Said, “Of course, penetration is also important.” Giggling a lot.
    Well I was burning up from my ears on down. I had to say something.
    Said, “Do you two know which end is up? Well you never will, you know, if you continue to talk like that?”
    “Oh,” says the blonde, with a sly wink, “there goes another, if you know what I mean.”
    The second is eating kadota figs. Stewed. With her spoon raised, she says, “Hey mister, why are you so afraid of us?”
    “I’m not afraid . . .”
    “He’s afraid you’ll bite him,” the first one said.